Transitions

Featured Image: sunset in the Maryland countryside near my in-laws’ house.

Searching for our next place to live, changing jobs, and electing a new president—all in the same month!

I wasn’t expecting our stay at our rental home to be so brief. To make a long story short, there were a lot of problems with the place that were making it difficult for us to live there comfortably. Luckily, we were paying by the month, and when yet another problem presented itself at the end of October, we decided it was time to move on.

We are spending November living at Tom’s parents’ house. This means a decrease in privacy for a little while, but his family is great. I certainly can’t complain about my mother-in-law’s gourmet cooking and the peaceful country setting. Tom admitted that he felt like a bad husband for having us move into a place and then have to go through another move shortly thereafter. I don’t see it that way at all! I’m glad for the time we had to ourselves as we started our marriage. We’ll get that time again. I’m looking at it as a little adventure, and with my man at my side, even a challenge like this can be fun.

We’re starting to seriously look at houses now, but if that doesn’t happen right away, we have a lovely apartment lined up to rent next month.

Meanwhile, work has been particularly grueling the past few weeks. Working overtime when your job requires so much physical pipetting gets downright painful. I am maintaining hundreds of plates of adult stem cells and heart muscle cells right now, and simply keeping track of them all and noting the health and density of the cells is daunting. Things are going to continue to be rough as we wind down our current project.

The light at the end of the tunnel is the start of my new job the Monday after next.

Through these less-than-ideal times, I have to remind myself that this is all temporary. Although there will be a learning curve at the new job, I’m anticipating that I’ll at least be able to leave at a decent and predictable hour each day and bring my work home with me if need be. This isn’t possible when you have to physically be present in the lab to work on hungry cells that are demanding to be fed.

Alas, I must get some sleep now so that I’m not a zombie on the last day of my tough work week. Thank goodness I’ll have a full weekend off this week!

I leave you with a couple of photos from Halloween weekend. Unfortunately, Tom’s eyes are closed in our only photo together that night!!! Can you guess what we are?