top 7 stressful things

have you ever heard of the top 7 stressful things a person can do in their life? i hadn't until back in 2000 when one of mitch's co-workers pointed out to him that we were doing almost all of these things, at the time we were not yet pregnant. according to him they are (in no particular order):

1. graduate from college
2. start a new job/change jobs or careers
3. get married
4. move
5. buy/sell a house
6. have a baby
7. death of a loved one

well, in the year from 1999-2000 mitch and i experienced all of those top 7 most stressful things.

1. august 1999 i graduated from byu with my bachelors degree and went on my first date with mitch the same week.
2. december 1999, 4 months to the day from our first date mitch and i got married
3. february 2000 mitch's grandmother passed away
4. march 2000 mitch graduated from byu with a masters in chemical engineering and that same week we moved to oregon
5. march 2000 the week we moved to oregon, mitch started his first "real job" as an engineer at intel while i worked as a personal trainer
6. july 2000 we found out that we were pregnant with our first daughter, noelani
7. september 2000 we moved into our newly built and purchased home (the home we are currently trying to sell)

maybe, because we didn't know that these were on the top 7 most stressful things you could do list, we survived with very little stress. we were excited to graduate and move on from that stage in our lives. we were excited to get married. we were excited for a new adventure in a new place. we were excited and grateful that we had jobs. we were excited to be new homeowners. and we were most excited to be starting our family. maybe we were just to naive to really know what we were getting ourselves into. nevertheless, we survived!

 

the other day i was thinking about this exchange that mitch had with his co-worker. as i thought about it, i realized that we are back in the same boat that we were in 8 years ago. while we won't be experiencing all 7 of the above list, during the year 2008-2009 we will have experienced the following:

1. september 14, 2008 my uncle ned passed away
2. october 2008 mitch will start a new job
3. october 2008 we will move several states away to new mexico
4. sometime soon (we hope) 2008 our house will sell and we will purchase the beautiful 1 acre lot we found while in albuquerque and begin designing our new home
5. october 2008 nani and lala will both start school in a new place with new friends
6. early february 2009 we will welcome baby #4 into our family
7. we already got married, so we won't be doing that again

let's hope that we can survive it this time around as easily as we did the first time around!

 

hah! that's wishful thinking! already we are way more stressed out than we were the first time around, but that really wouldn't be hard to do!

 

i can think of three things that we didn't have last time that might make things a bit more difficult...namely, nani, lala, and kawena! they'll just make the ride more enjoyable....right??