I’m on vacation!!!!

I haven’t really had time to “celebrate” yet, but I am off from August 4th until the 21st. Nice. I don’t know what I want to accomplish during that time; all I’ve thought about so far is taking care of Aidan, but so far that has been a breeze compared to last time.

I know what I’d like to do, so I need to sit down and figure out how much money we have and if there’s enough to do those things. I’m saving $35 next week since I don’t have to drive to work, so that can go towards funding.

Most of what I want to do is house stuff.

Earlier, I was talking to Katrina – my husband’s ex before me; yes I’m crazy….maybe I’ll post about that one day – and we brought up her move and I asked if she ever thought of moving back here. She said no way. It got me to thinking about our move in 2012. Gahd, that sounds so far away. We are planning on moving from here (Cleveland, TN) to Bradenton, Florida. I have done lots of research on this city and it looks very nice. A lady I work with, Siren the beautiful muse, has an aunt who lives there and says it’s lovely. Jess (who lived here until recently moving to Florida) says it is nice as well. They have a Village of The Arts where a bunch of artists live and sell their work. How awesome is that?!?! It’s not a very big city and it’s right outisde of Tampa. I’ve been watching and jotting down treatment centers in Tampa whenever Intervention sends people there. So far, I found a nice one: Turning Point of Tampa. Hopefully I don’t have to work at a treatment center, but we’ll see. If I could stick it out at my current job for the next 3 years, it would be a smooth transition, but I don’t know if I can do that.

I plan to specialize in baby photography once I’m there, but I may do weddings as well just because they are such a fun celebration and it brings out the Documentary Photographer in me.

I just can’t wait to get away from all of this mess up here. Mostly it’s just old reminders that linger around. The biggest thing is that my house is the house my husband bought with Katrina and they lived here for a while. Since she left, we have made it our own according to our likes and nothing that was theirs is here (except one old crappy dresser). Not even a bobby pin. I went through and cleaned everything out, and even disposed of pictures that had Katrina in them (which I regret because a lot of them were with the kids and they shouldn’t do without their memories because of me). Mike didn’t mind this, but after that I came to realize how silly it was to do such a thing, mostly out of contempt. I still have some of my pictures of Frank and he told me that was cool.

Anyways. Off track.

So the house is a representation of what we love and it is home. We are still doing some updates and changes, but in the end, I want to have a house that Mike and I picked out together. We need something bigger, that’s for sure!! I don’t mind if it needs some TLC and is a fixer-upper. I love remodeling!!!

We’ve already been looking at houses and we have both found several that we love. It’s just too bad that we’re not moving right now. I’m ready to get my life started.

When we move, we will no longer have a $562 a month child support payment, his car will be paid off and we should have both credit cards paid off. That will be nearly $1000 a month to go towards a new house payment. I’m not stupid enough to max us out on a house payment, but I also don’t want to settle for a small house. This will probably be the house that we settle in for good.

Anyways. I’m just really hopeful and looking forward to our family goals.