Oh looky here. My favourite weekly series is making another appearance!

One.

That? That right up above there is a chai tea latte(ish) with egg nog. I say “ish” because I attempted to make it myself by boiling the egg nog on the stove but it didn’t get very foamy or latte-ish. Still super yummy, though!

Two.

I know I told you we were only casually looking at real estate. But you all know what happens when you start casually looking right? You eventually find something you really like. Really-really-like. Start-picturing-yourself-living-there-like. Start-telling-everyone-about-how-perfect-this-place-is-for-you-like. Start-getting-all-your-ducks-in-a-row-so-you-can-make-an-offer-like.

And then? Well then, of course someone else beats you to it and puts an offer in before you. And, of course that offer gets accepted. Bye-bye perfect townhouse I’m pretty disappointed about it and I really hope another “perfect” place comes along soon!

Three.

In the last couple days Kamloops has had SO MUCH SNOW. Like, 10+ cm worth. It’s kind of beautiful and kind of making me really excited for Christmas. But, you know what’s not beautiful? Winter driving. That’s what. Also, the fact that I live in a cul-de-sac, which means the snow plow pushes all of the snow into our cul-de-sac blocking my car in OR blocking me out from my parking spot. That’s not beautiful either.

I bet the arm muscles I get from all the shovelling will be beautiful though, right?

Four.

How is it December next week? I can distinctly remember thinking “holy crap, September flew by faster than any month yet this year.” And then “holy crap, October flew by even faster than September”. Well, you guessed it; I am now thinking “where the hell did November even go??”

Five.

I am loving Hot Yoga soo much lately. I feel like it really is making me a calmer person. I recently cancelled my membership at the YMCA and plan on getting a (much cheaper) membership at the indoor track for the winter. I think I’m going to focus on running + hot yoga this winter. I have some big race plans for the spring, but you’ll just have to wait awhile to find out what they are

What are your Five on Friday this week?

I was busy all morning getting ready for my trip next week – finishing up last minute freelance articles, starting to pack my suitcase, moving money around my bank accounts etc.

Then I took a look outside and knew that I had to get out of the house!

Sadly, Eric couldn’t be pulled away from his homework so I was on my own. I had been meaning to go to the local organic store to pick up some vitamin B-12 anyways, and since it’s only about 1/2 mile away I decided to walk there.

It got me thinking, why don’t I walk more often? I’m literally a 10-minute walk (tops) from grocery stores, shopping and lots of restaurants.

I spent about an hour walking around. Bought my vitamins and a piece of organic carrot cake which so wasn’t healthy but I didn’t care because it was SO GOOD.

I loved the feel and the sound of the leaves crunching under my feet!

I then went into Zellers (they have really cute workout stuff this fall!) and ended up doing some shopping (so not planned).

Look familiar?

Except I got it for $30 and not $110. Sure, it’s definitely not as good of quality as a Lulu hoodie, but I don’t wear hoodies that often anyways, and I cannot justify spending that much money on a sweater! That’s probably why the only thing that I own from Lulu Lemon is a headband! I have been eyeing up their groovy run shorts, though and will likely buy a pair next week while in the States!

I then meandered my way back home.

This is my favourite view that I get to see every morning when I run on this street:

I’m so glad I decided to go for a walk, it was such a perfect way to spend the afternoon! I need to start walking more on the weekends instead of driving everywhere. If the gorgeous weather keeps up for the rest of October I think I’ll start taking a long walk like that every weekend.

I’m off to Hot Yoga now and then going over to a friends for drinks (water for this runner!) and girl talk.

Hope everyone is having a great Saturday!

Do you walk to do your errands a lot or drive? And are you one of those people who owns tons of lulu lemon stuff or are you like me and think its too expensive?

I’ve been putting off telling you guys more about what’s going on with Eric moving back because I didn’t really know what was going on. Everything was so up-in-the-air for awhile there and dates were really fuzzy.

But, yesterday morning, Eric gave his notice at work for the beginning of August (with the promise that if they needed him he would stay longer – so dates are still a bit fuzzy). As in, he’s moving back down here and in with me and Webster at the beginning-ish of August.

Does he have a job here?

No.

No matter how excited, anxious and ready I am for him to be back. The no job thing bothers me. I mean, we made that mistake once already. Why are we doing it again?

At the same time, so many factors are different this time around. Since Eric has plans of returning to school and making a career change next Fall, he’s not as picky about the type of job he gets. We know that finding a job is going to take a heck-of-a lot-longer than 1-2 weeks and we’re preparing for it financially. Since we had no intentions of him moving back this soon the rent on the place we live + all the bills is an amount that I can easily cover on just my income.

So the circumstances have definitely shifted from when we were two naive, young people moving 1,000 km away from home and expecting everything to fall into place for us.

But I’m still nervous.

The making-the-same-mistake-twice thing is still nagging at the back of my mind.  The 2.5 months that Eric was unemployed when we first moved to Kamloops were 2.5 of the hardest months we’ve ever had in our relationship. Ever.

Why doesn’t he just stay up there and not move down until he finds a job?

It’s really, really, REALLY hard to find a job in an already competitive job market when you are living so far away. Even though he puts my (our) address on his resume – it’s hard to really put a lot of energy into the job search without being here. I mean, there’s only so much you can do from that distance. You can’t go into a company in person, you can’t visit employment offices, you can’t put your full energy into the job search because you’re busy working 50+ hour weeks as it is.

It was just too hard, and we both got tired of waiting. After 5.5 years of being together – with 3.5 of those years being a long-distance relationship, we are sick and tired of waiting. We are ready to permanently live together.

So he’s moving back at some point in August and will be searching for some type of full-time employment, hopefully in a field where he has experience. And, hopefully, it won’t be as stressful or hard on our relationship as the last time because even though we’re making the same mistake again, at least we learned from the first time. And that’s what’s most important, right?!

Anybody else ever have to deal with unemployment – either for yourself or a spouse? How do you deal with that?