Ups and Downs...

This is my favorite of our engagement pictures. I think that this is the one that best shows our personalities and many of the qualities of our relationship. This day was a perfect day for us. The weather was grey (that's good for picture taking), we went to the Children's garden on HC's campus, we had Miss Lucy with us (what you can't see is that she is darting around behind the photographer randomly getting into things and barking at us), and Brad's parent's were there with us (Brad's dad was on Lucy duty, thank goodness!). It was a very enjoyable day.

There have been some very difficult days and weeks recently for me. I'm not sure that I'm really happy with my job, I have a bachelor's degree and feel the need for something in which I can use my education. I'm simply not challenged in my current position and thus get bored a great deal of the time. I have had a lot of money issues lately. My spending habits and debt from college are now catching up to me and making it difficult to afford to live daily life. Today for example, I had to round up all of the bottles and cans in my apartment and take them to Meijer in order to get $5 to buy something to take to work for lunch tomorrow. And so this has me thinking, how do others do it? And, if I'm in this bad of shape, how bad are other's out there who make less than I do and have a family to support? How on earth do they do it?

So, though times have been tough, I am so very lucky to have the support and love that I have surrounding me from my fiancee, family and friends. And, I have realized that going through these difficult times makes the good times seem so much better.