We have come a long way....

On Friday night Bryan and I went out to the track for the opening night of drags for the season. This is something we have probably been doing together for at least six years. While we were there we ran into some younger kids who were just getting started in the auto/racing/building world and they were asking Bryan A LOT of questions. It is really amazing how much Bryan has learned and how well respected he is for what he knows about engine swapping and Honda parts (we also got stopped in Winco earlier in the week so Bryan could diagnose someone's car while in the soup aisle). He is building up quite the reputation...

But while we were at the track, and I got bored listening to all this talk, I started thinking back to the time when he left for school in California. It was a very stressful time, and when I think about how stressfull, it is amazing to me that we even made it through that. I was finishing school and starting grad school and planning a wedding, while he had just lost his drivers license AGAIN (based on his high number of speeding tickets), had a car that barely ran, was moving to a new state to live with someone he didn't know, with no money and no job, for nine months to attend school. Comparing that lifestyle to where we are now it is really awesome to see how our lives have changed and how blessed we are. While we still don't have as much money as we would like, he has a good job, has kept his license so that he could keep his job (his last ticket was four years ago...knock on wood), and everything is pretty stable. And we have more than $15 in our bank account!

Now unfortunately the biggest stress in our lives is just the economy, though we haven't been as affected as some people. Bryan's shop is running dangerously slow, and though I like the school I am at I still aspire to work in a public school and escape some of the private school ridiculousness. However, the job market for public schools here sucks. We both feel like we are at a crossroads now where we would like to make a life change but we are unsure what. We still don't know when a good time to start a family would be, or if we even should stay in this area. Though our family is here, so are hundreds of thousands of other people and it would be nice to get away. Bryan also really would like to start his own shop and feels like soon would be a good time but then again maybe not.

So that is where we are right now. Still a major, major step up from where we started, as we are rounding out our fourth year of marriage and heading into five. We will see where this road takes us...