Flashback Friday-Big Girl Job

Sorry that I haven't updated since last weeks Flashback Friday.  I promise I will actually start talking about that sweet baby of mine soon!

This weeks flashback is actually like 5 flashbacks all in one!

This is one of my good college friends.  I went to school in New York, and moved to Cincinnati right after I graduated.  I moved to Cinci for my first "big girl" job.  A few months later, my college friend also landed a job at the same place as me!  She still lives here, and has 2 kids of her own now, and is actually who exposed me to cloth diapers.  We haven't gotten together since Noelle arrived, but I just sent her a message on FB to get that going.  Anyway, this is us at a fancy schmancey fundraiser for the job.  I'm about 23 in this pic.  I am embarrased to say that I drank a tad bit too much on this night.  I didn't make a fool out of myself or anything, but I would not drink like that at a work related function today. 

This is also a little bit of a sad picture for me.  Working there was a dream for me, a few months after this picture I was promoted to a different position.  It was my dream job.  9 months after that, I lost the job (nothing to do with my over-intake of alcohol at that fundraiser-I promise.)  I was beyond devastated.  My whole life basically fell apart.  I am still very good friends with a lot of people I met there.  I thought I would need to relocate and start life all over. All that I had worked for was....gone.  It was seriously one of the worst things that ever happened to me.

Two days after my last day there, this guy from church called me.  This guy who I had been driving to church with.  I actually had told him about some of the troubles I was having at the job in the weeks prior to this phone call.  He asked me out to lunch, and I agreed.  I showed up in jeans, a fleece, and my hair raggedly pulled in a pony tail....I was in fairly rough shape and really didn't care.  We went to lunch and chatted....and then I realized that I was actually on a date with this guy.....ooops! I ended up staying in Cincinnati.  About 20 months after this date, I married this truly wonderful man.  I had no idea in those early days that he would be the man of my dreams.  And then, 3 years TO THE DAY of losing that job, the job I thought was everything.....I peed on a stick and learned that I was going to be having a baby.  It's been a pretty remarkable few years.  It sure is amazing how things change!

Flashback Friday-Adolescence

One of the bloggers I follow does a "Flashback Friday" for her blog.  I thought this was a great idea as a way to spark some inspiration for a blog topic.  So this week I'll talk a little about my long time friends, all of whom I met in junior high.

These girls are my best friends.  I am one of those rare people who had a fabulous adolescence....I'd go back in a heartbeat.  Not that I don't love my life now, I truly do, but I loved it then too.  I'm not exactly sure how old we were when this picture was taken.  I think it's possible that it was summer '02 after we graduated high school.  This brings back happy memories because we used to just drive around and hang out at "castle" playgrounds, swing on swings, and do whatever else we felt like. 

4 of the 5 of us (I'm not in the picture) are married now.  Two are pregnant, before I had Noelle 3 of us were pregnant at the same time! One already has a 1 year old.  I never would have thought back when I was 13 horsing around throwing food at each other at Friendly's after a school dance, that these would be the same girls that I had a few drinks with(not till I was 20, I wasn't a teen drinker), that I'd watch them get married, have babies, lose babies, still talk to on the phone for hours, get a tattoo with, and just experience so, so many significant life events with.  I can't wait to meet the new babies in May and July!

They have helped shape me as a person.  I hope that Noelle has the same experience as me as a teenager.  It's probably a long shot, but that is what I will pray for.