Three months can pass in the blink of an eye, and along with it a lot of things can happen. I read back through my last blog post and see that I was quite full of hope and ambition. Actually, I'm quite jealous of that post, what with the feelings and all. A lot has come to pass within the past few months, and now I find myself on the fast track to getting back to normal. Well, at least I'm praying it's towards normal anyway.
Through this post I'll try to sum up what's been going on, what's currently happening, and what I've got planned for the future. To start I'll give a little back story. Almost a year ago my wife and I made an important decision that would change our lives forever. We decided we would have another child enter our family. Long story short, I planned to adopt my niece and raise her as my own. We made the decision together and started planning on how things would change. We set up a timeline and decided to move back to Indiana with this being a big reason why, among other things. Fast forward to February and we're states away. We decided to travel to my hometown and stay a while to set up the acclimation. Things were going great for a while and we were happy to be a family of four.
A few weeks down the road and we hit a huge speed bump. It turns out that my niece decided that she didn't, in fact, want to become a part of our family. She wanted to stay where she was and just like that, the adoption was off. We found ourselves in a place we very much didn't want to be in. Things were quite difficult for some time until we patched up our bruises and decided to carry on. With focus on our immediate family we put a lot of effort into the move back to Bloomington and my wife's work at the new tattoo shop.
It's good that I can share something with my wife, especially when it's a dream of hers. This is big item number two that brought us back to Indiana from Texas. I'm finding myself falling more in love with tattooing and the shop each time I walk in there. Currently we're working to help spread the word about the place and get it nice and organized. There's plenty of work to do!
Finally, let's focus on our plans for the future. When it comes down to it, my wife and I really desire getting things back to normal. Normal, for us, basically means that we're back on our own, budgeting, focusing on Initiative : Tabletop, and playing games. The good news is that we've been looking at and have decided on a house, which we're currently in the process of getting. Things are looking really good on that front. The second thing is a stable work environment, which I've also got in the works. I'm going to need a day job, and I'm waiting to hear back on a promising position. If everything falls into place we'll hopefully be moved within no more than 3-4 weeks. I can't wait to get back to reviewing and playing games.
Honestly I just want to play some games. We're already planning the layout of the new house, and the first thing I'm focused on is the office/game room. There's a lot for us to get reviewing, and with us returning to our friends and family in Bloomington we'll be able to get the player numbers we need to allow us to review those games. More than that, however, is the fact that we'll be able to play games again with more than just each other (which, by the way, I don't mind, dear). We've been able to still write a post here and there for I:T, and I'm still quite hopeful and happy for the site. In fact, we're still planning for Gen Con this year. It's going to be one hell of a ramp to get us financially set for the convention, but damn it, we're going.
To be totally honest, I'm just happy I'm excited about gaming again. For the first time in a long time I backed a game on Kickstarter that I'm super pumped about. It's called Rail Raiders Infinite from Soda Pop Miniatures. I finally got a copy of Super Dungeon Explore (Thanks Bryan!) and boy, do I enjoy that game! Soda Pop is doing a great job handling their Kickstarters, and their stretch goals are fantastic on this campaign. I think I feel an addiction coming...
Aside from all this, we're continuing to set plans in motion to get our finances under control so we can move and plan for Gen Con. It's all coming along, even if it's not in the way we imagined. You have to take the bad with the good and play the hand you're dealt. There's no mulliganing on this one.
I'm quite hopeful of the coming weeks. I can't wait to get back to doing what I love and I can't wait to continue working in my newfound loves.
