A Little Life Update

Thanks to our current lifestyle I like to call ✨unemployment,✨ we were able to take a week off of not working :) and get some insanely Breeze airlines cheap flights to go visit Dallin's sister in California! 

At first it felt a little like salt to the wound, as Dallin had recently applied and interviewed
for a job at the same company as his brother in law in California, but was sadly rejected due to “family relations." We had spent weeks reimagining our lives living in California, and finally felt ready to make such a big move when he got the rejecting phone call. 

But nonetheless, we were excited to spend a week away from home in the California sun (which magically disappeared every time we drove to the beach). 

My sister in law has an almost two year old son, so our days were scheduled around his afternoon nap, and keeping him occupied. For a pregnant woman— this was perfect. It meant easy hikes, relaxing on the beach, movies and naps in the afternoon, and meandering around the farmers market. Besides my debilitating heartburn that kept me up every night, it was the perfect trip. Oh yeah— and I had to fit five days of clothes and toiletries in a single backpack (courtesy of our extremely cheap tickets). Dallin says it was good practice for when we backpack across Europe at some point… 

In other news, my life was basically completely ruined when my semiannual cold sore struck up one morning last month. The all too familiar tingling feeling sends me into a downward spiral every time because I know exactly what is coming. 

No need to send medicinal recommendations

— I’ve used it all. Also. I guarantee you’ve never seen a cold sore get as bad as mine do. 

You know that one large-lipped character from Monsters Inc?

My doppelgänger for a solid 3 weeks.

I know giving birth will be painful, but there is nothing quite like your lip swelling to four times the size and breaking out into blisters. I can’t count how many times I said something like “I am going to be the most pleasant person ever once my cold sore is gone.” Because it actually felt impossible to be happy while being in so much pain. I did say many prayers of thanks, however, because I did not throw up a single time while my cold sore was present, which is the biggest blessing. 

As for projects we’ve been working on… our shed it FULL. We really need to stop bringing in new furniture pieces before our others are done. 

So the first one was pretty much my dream changing table/dresser for the nursery. It was just so cute and the most perfect size. $50 on marketplace. It was advertised as solid oak wood, and even after some light research, we felt confident was real oak throughout! I hated the color, so Dallin suggested we try a new method of stripping the color (besides sanding it all)— Citristrip. Basically you coat this super goopy stuff on the surface, let it sit for a bit, then scrape it off. And for the first little bit, it worked wonders! We thought we had hacked the code to furniture flipping. Never sanding again.

But then the scraping started to get really tedious, and we realized we’d have to do multiple coats to get the dark stain off. So we skipped ahead a few steps and starting sanding it a bit. Lo and behold— the ads were wrong. It wasn’t real oak :( instead, it was a thin layer of oak veneer, but it was actually made of particle board. So basically this means it looks really crappy when you sand it. After this incident, we both felt really discouraged about the dresser and let us sit for a solid month in the shed. 

Then I saw a tiktok that used a pressure washer to clean off the Citristrip. In her video, it looked like the easiest thing in the world! A couple minutes in, we realized the water pressure was way too strong, and we were just tearing the wood apart haha. So back into the shed it went. All the meanwhile I was refusing to look for a new dresser because I had so much hope we could still restore it to the beauty I could see in my mind. 

But then. 

I found an even more beautiful dresser on marketplace. A little more pricey, but I already loved the color, so it would only need minor modifications. So I drove an hour and a half to pick it up, and into the shed it went. Right next to our botched project. 

The happy ending? Dallin has a paint sprayer he’s been dying to try out, so we’re going to forget about the natural wood look of the initial dresser, and just paint the dang thing. We’ll see how it sells! 

Next update: we’ve taken up a new hobby of fishing. I never went much as a kid, and honestly didn’t see the joy in it until doing it with the man I love! We have a couple of friends, and my brother Tyler, who also enjoy fishing, so we have been able to make it a social hobby. Although Dallin will gate keep every location we catch more than 2 fish at, let me just say that I have seen Utah with a fresh set of eyes! There’s nothing quite like a relaxing morning on the lake, and feeling a nibble on your line. Or on the contrary, wading through freezing cold rivers and catching fish where it seems impossible any could be! Long have I judged people’s dating profile pictures of their fresh water catches— but I get it now. 

On the surface, our life is good. Dallin and I spend the majority of the day together, we have projects and hobbies to keep us fulfilled, family to visit when we get lonely, and the excitement of our daughter's pending arrival always on the forefront of our minds. 

But it’s really hard to give a life update without sharing the dark cloud of gloom that haunts us in moments of stillness. 

It’s been seven months of unemployment. 

Seven months of uncertainty. 

Seven months of our emotions being thrown into a rollercoaster that we’re strapped into blindly. 

And I just want everyone to know that this position we’re in is not at the fault of a lack of effort or diligence on Dallin's part. He has applied for hundreds of jobs, been ghosted by hundreds of companies, interviewed with several promising opportunities, told he did great in the interview but they just "need someone with more years of experience," sent his resume to be edited to dozens of professionals, and had phone calls with numerous business men who all just tell him “it’s tough out there.” 

Anyone who is familiar with the tech industry these days is also familiar with the rapid decline in jobs for junior developers. And we just happen to be on the butt-cheek end of it.

So while I am grateful for these slow days of preparing for our baby, fishing, woodworking, and going on lots of walks... its hard to not think about where we thought we'd be in life by October. I know God has a plan for us. There is a company out there that will see the immense value Dallin can bring to their team, and everything will work out.