LeahAndMark.com

One of the nice things about having a job again is that we don’t stress out as much over ’surprise’ outings – or rather, we can actually go out on last minute outings or get togethers. It’s a much different feeling compared to just two weeks ago when… the unemployment checks really weren’t going to be enough to make all the bills.

Of course, I am aware that I was only out of work for two months – which is relatively nothing. This unemployment thing is widespread and off the top of my head I can count 8 or 9 people we know that don’t have jobs right now. That’s really crazy.

Last night we celebrated the birthday of our friend KatieW! (She’s an original Twelper) See that scarf? That’s our gift to her and it was Leah’s idea – actually, it’s one of the scarves we got while we were in Lijiang, China. (Actually, what’s funny is that she’s the 3rd Twelper that we’ve given one of these scarves… but at least they’re all different!) Leah wasn’t able to attend since she had to go to a neighborhood association meeting for her community project and um, other social worky type things.

The new job is quite awesome. I can’t wait until we finally get our new phones. After some struggling and odd difficulties, our new phones should arrive on Saturday (AT&T phone reps apparently are quite… lacking.) This means that I can once again keep up with the Twelpers and other Twitter friends during the day. Oh you think this isn’t a big deal, but it really is – because it’s my connection with these friends. And with our circle we say many more things than simple spam/blast/announcements for our blogs. The thoughts that come from nowhere that usually stay in our heads, make it to twitter for all of us to read, or ask for help – and actually get responses – but more importantly for me… and they may or may not know it, but they were a big help in keeping my mood up when I was unemployed and there were no prospects on the horizon.

Because when you’ve been let go from a job, it’s easy to go down that depression route – and it becomes much more of a downward slope the longer you’re out of work.

So we got this email last night:

Dear Mark,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 7.5 score out of (10) in the Personal Blogs category of Blogged.com.

This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/blogs/leah-and-mark.html

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.

After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 7.5 score.

Ha. 7.5? Whatever.

Leah’s almost done with this 1st semester of grad school and it looks like I won’t have any problem with the time off I need from work between Christmas and New Years. We’re flying out to Phoenix to see my family and our friends there. So… 85 degrees of Christmas this year. It’ll be kind of weird, especially after being here in Atlanta where it’s been in the mid 20’s overnight and around the 40’s during the day. Still, it’ll be nice to see everyone, especially the people who live in Phoenix and are coming to our Wedding in a few months.

Hey! It’s almost the Weekend.