Where will we be two years from now?

So an indirect topic of discussion came up earlier this weekend that I thought might be worth musing about here – long story short, Sara’s younger sister is wondering if she can come live with us for a while after she gets back from her deployment overseas next year. Sara and I talked about it and we’re happy to help because she wants to go to school when she gets back, but the interesting part about the entire thing for me was that in making such a decision, we really had to take a step back and look at just where we think we might be in life in 2011…

I mean, here we are now, almost halfway through 2009, and I’ve pretty much accepted that this year is kind of a “maintenance year” for us – prep work to get us ready for the next stage of our lives together, if you will. So it’s a lot of dirty work – she’s focusing on school and I’m focusing on resurrecting my writing career, and we’re not really seeing a whole lot of each other. We’re trying our best to pay off credit card debts so that we can eventually start saving for a house. I’m trying to taking losing weight and getting healthy a little more seriously, and she’ll be jumping onboard as soon as the nursing crazy train ends, too. Two years ago we had gotten engaged and Sara changed careers, last year we got married and I started taking writing seriously again, and this year we’re just trying to straighten things out in preparation for our next big changes in life.

So what exactly will those be???

It seems so far off at this point that it’s hard for me to even think about at this point, but I can throw out what I’d like to see happen by then. I’d like to have a house of our own, if we can make the right financial decisions and find enough luck to get our dream house without breaking the bank. I’d love to be writing full-time for a living, even if it means not making quite as much as I’m bringing home today … as long as between our two salaries, we can still live comfortably. I’d like to have a dog, and more likely than not also our first child … which albeit is still a bit tough for me to admit, it is two years away! And with any luck, we’ll also have a stronger marriage, closer friends, and all of that other stuff that time gives us over the years.

In 2011, Sara and I will have been married for a couple of years by then, and I’ll be 30 years old. Hmmmm…