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It has been barely a month since I blabbered at you last, however, hardly anything is quite the same. Well, that sounded sort of High Drama Queen; Mark, my family, etc., are fine, thankfully, but the last five-ish weeks have been absolutely INSANE, in the very best of ways. Quite often terrifying, for sure, but it's like years of shitty luck are being made up for overnight. Let me explain, bullet-style:

1. Sometime in October, I was having a day where I was really frustrated by life as a work-at-home freelancer. I felt like I had destroyed my career by leaving the law firm. I hated selling/promoting myself, I hated billable hours, I hated the unpredictable schedule of my little part-time gig that was so important to my sanity (pays almost nothing, but guarantees I can make my student loan payment every month AND it gets me out of the house and around people regularly). When I get into these funks, it usually prompts a flurry of resume sending. What I did not expect was to receive a call regarding one of the jobs I had applied for, let alone to end up with a job that I am pretty excited about. It is with the loss control department of an insurance company, which is somewhat unusual for me, however, the company insures clients that are regulated by the federal agency I worked for. I have spent the last six years specializing in this particular flavor of compliance, so it seems to be a good match. I am thrilled because it is a real salary in my field with no billable hours and a bunch of colleagues who are also law firm refugees, working for a company with a firm belief in work/life balance. I am absolutely gobsmacked, but utterly grateful. I'm only four days in, but I really I hope it actually is as good as it seems.
2. Also, in October, I was chatting with a friend of mine about her new (adorable, smooshy) son. We had chatted previously about my firm belief that I have undiagnosed PCOS, and she has had her own challenges (oh lordy, the degree of understatement there...) in that area. Anyway, in her new mom delight, she basically forced her RE's telephone number into my hands and made me swear to call. I was high on the smell of new baby noggin and therefore powerless to resist, so I called. Aaaand we're off -- so began a long, long month of testing. And by "testing," obviously I mean the withdrawal of my entire blood volume, some good ol' wanding, and a bit of invasive spelunking. We met with the doctor (my friend was right; the doctor is indeed awesome) again this morning for a final wrap up of all of the testing, and hey! I was right! PCOS it is. The good news for the moment is that I have treatment options. The test results were clean, other than the expected PCOS markers. Mark's analysis results were great. Ovarian reserve looks good. I am somewhat youngish (33). The condition I have has a medical course of action. Obviously there are no guarantees that any of this will work, and even if I do manage to get myself knocked up, there is a higher risk of miscarriage. However, for now? I am choosing to be optimistic. I like having a plan, and I intend to deal with the plan failing if and when that happens.*
3. As if jobs and babies weren't enough for one month, we decided to buy a new house, just to throw some crazy, out of control anxiety into the mix. Here's how THAT went down. Mark is a defense contractor (oh, engineers...), and his government client has been trying to recruit him to the government side for ages. He finally decided that this would be a good career move (although it's probably going to take the government another 6 months to come up with funding for him, moving at their glacial pace), I agreed, and we made the call to postpone our move to Massachusetts and stay in the DC area for another 6+ years. My one caveat, however, was that if we were to stay, I did not want to stay in our current house. I hate the three level living thing, and I cannot imagine how much more (like, exponentially more) it would suck if we also had small children and all of these stairs. Mark agreed and so I started looking at houses in our area. By chance, I happened upon a new development going in just off of the major highway we both use for commuting. It's walkable to the metro, closer than we currently are to Old Town Alexandria, and being built by a really reputable area builder. I loved the floorplan online and fell head over heels in love after walking through the model. However, I just didn't think the timing would work out for us. I didn't have a real job at that point and Mark would have needed the pay bump from going to the government in order to make this house feasible. The lots were selling out SO quickly (new construction does not exist this close to DC unless you're planning a tear down), so I figured it was just not meant to be and that this would just be the house no other could ever live up to in my mind. And then! I got my job and Mark ran a bunch of numbers and we realized it was so completely doable. My parents flew in for Thanksgiving and they loved it and thought it was a good investment. Mark's parents did a lot of long-distance picture reviewing and thought it was a good investment. Everyone I expected to crush my dreams kept saying we should go for it. Suddenly it was real, and WHOA. TERROR. But! We did it! We signed the purchase agreement the day before Thanksgiving, and now we're waiting on the financing people for final approval. We've chosen the masonry, the kitchen, the tiling, the carpeting, the hardwoods. If all goes to plan (I am knocking on every available wood surface), they should be breaking ground in late February/early March and we should be moving in June. I cannot believe this is happening, that we got so lucky. I want to move in tomorrow and am fully aware that this is going to be the most agonizing six months of waaaaiting ever.

So I think we're caught up now, yes? I think I need to sit down. (Seriously, my old ass was out until 3 am last night. TIRED.) However, today is my last day at the store, so I have to get a move on. Six hours of dealing with last minute holiday shoppers in an insanely crowded store are all that stand between me and a normal 8-5 schedule. I am the embodiment of glamour. 

*Another blog post for another day: Fertility clinic waiting rooms and the palpable awkwardness therein. Holy moly; it's comical, really. I kept wondering, as we were waiting for our first appointment, whether we looked as naive as I'm sure we are. Was our shiny happiness, our lack of battle scars as visible as it felt? Would we end up looking as resigned as that one woman? As silent as that couple? That room is always a subtle reminder not to rely too heavily on the doctor's determined optimism.