Jul 31, 2009

Gutsy

Tonight at work a young woman and her mom came in to shop. She mentioned her mom mailing some thing to her, so I naturally assumed that she was leaving for college.

I was dead wrong.

She's 15. And she's headed to Kenya.

For five months!!

She told me a little bit about what she would be doing. She'll be going to high school there as well as working different missions jobs with Compassion, World Vision, and UNICEF. She is goign to add me to her e-mail list of updates, so I'll keep you all posted if I feel like passing it on. Please pray for this young woman, though. Shes going so far from her family for so long and she can't even drive! That takes a lot of passion and a lot of guts.

It impresses me that in this day and age when so many teens are so self-involved and full of a sense of entitlement that she can be so selfless, traveling halfway around the world to help children less fortunate than her. What a blessing from God.

Jul 25, 2009

GOOD NEWS!

The job fair on Wednesday wasn't a TOTAL bust... I got a phone call from Pattonville the other day wanting to set up a preliminary interview. !!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I'm not wanting to put all my eggs in one basket and not get too excited about this. After all, it's only a SCREENING interview. But I have been praying so hard for God to bring me a job at the right time and I've felt like He was ignoring me/not listening (don't wee all feel like that at times?) and I feel like He's waited this long for a reason. What if this IS the job??? I'm actually really excited and already visualizing my classroom and lessons to do to start the year and form a positive learning community. But then I'm like -- HOLD UP. This is NOT a sure thing and I don't want to be disappointed.

But it's something, you know? Maybe this is the beginning of a slew of interviews. It's almost August and I'm freaked that I won't find anything and I'll be stuck working 8 jobs for another year. But you never know what will happen once the school year starts and they, like, realize "Oh crap, we have too many X graders. We need another classroom. Hey, let's call that Jessica girl." LOL. We'll see.

Jul 22, 2009

Kind of a depressing day...

I had a job fair at UMSL today and I felt like it was a bust. Only one district there was even interested in hiring elementary teachers. I did get a screening interview in for SSD for TAs/paras, so hopefully something pops up there. I just kind of felt like it was a waste of time.

Also, it would be David's 22nd birthday today. J asked for PTO today so that he'd be off, even though he usually has Wednesdays off (but he didn't realize this would fall on a Wed.). He's doing okay, but he's a tad bit down. (For those of you unfamiliar with the last year and a half or so, David is J's cousin who killed himself the March before our wedding.)

I'm making it all better with a How I Met Your Mother marathon. :-) but please remember him and his family in your thoughts and prayers today.

Jul 18, 2009

It's my friend's birthday

Happy 23rd Katie!

I really want to apologize for the lack of updates recently. My life has been BUSY. While it's nice for the money to be coming in, I've constantly been going from job to job to job. It's hectic. I can't wait to have a full time job, which will hopefully be M-F, and 9-5(ish). It will be so nice to have my and J's schedules more in sync.

My dad gave us his old BBQ grill and I can't wait to use it. I have most of next week's evenings off so we may fire it up for some chicken or something. Anyone know of a good grilled chicken recipe?? All we need now is a nice (or, well... any) set of patio furniture.

J and I and some friends went to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter on Tuesday (Wed...?) I loved it. I'm actually surprised at how many people I know who didn't really like it... And I'm interested to hear the differing opinions about the 5th and the 6th movies. I was disappointed w/ the 5th movie (although upon rewatching it on Tuesday afternoon, it wasn't AS bad as I remembered) but loved the 6th... I wonder if people who loved the 5th were disappointed w/ the 6th??

Hey, will you all please keep a young woman I know in your prayers? I've been blessed to get to know so many wonderful teenagers in my different capacities as youth leader and camp counselor, and they are all amazing girls. One of those girls is facing a personal detour in life that is going to change everything, and I just hope that those in her life can be pillars of support for her now.

Jul 14, 2009

I'm Here

I swear, these past few weeks have been incredibly jam packed. I've often gone from one job to another to another and I would be lying if I said it wasn't getting old. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for having money coming in. It would just be nice to have one steady job instead of a whole bunch of little jobs.

J and I are going to see Half Blood Prince tonight at 12:01 and I'm excited! I just finished rereading books 6 and 7 and I'm watching movie 4 now. =)

I should have time for a full update on Thrusday. I'll get back to you then!

Jul 7, 2009

Oh, Life...

...I have 2 good friends who are having upheavals of sorts in their lives. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Our high school youth is in ECUADOR right now. I'm jealous, and I know that they're having an awesome time. I can't wait for them to come back so I can hear all about it and see pictures!

This year was my first FULL Fourth of July at home since 2001. Yes, you read that right: 2001. I've been at camp every summer since then. and the 4th had fallen in the middle of a session every year till last year when they started a week earlier. Last year, you may remember, the 4th was on a Friday, which meant that it fell on the last day of a session. So I was home that night, but not all day. That was weird, too, though. Every year prior, I would shoot off fireworks the weekend before the Fourth with the hubs (who wasn't the hubs yet) and an assortment of international staff members from camp.

A family in my church owns a firework stand in St. Pete and we always bought from them. on the 4th, the hubby and I went to his step-sister's and shot off a whole bunch of stuff, even in the rain and the lightning (I know, we're bright...). then last night, we went to the family that owns the stand and watched them shoot off a bunch of leftover inventory. (They have to buy all of their product, so what they don't sell they save for next year as well as shoot it off at this annual show.) It was pretty cool. They were exploding all these cool fireworks and we were having a pretty good time. No fatalities, though a shell did fly over and hit my friend's boyfriend's chest and burned him a little bit. Here are some photos I got on my little Canon digital point and shoot. (Not too bad, if I say so myself!)

**You'll have to click on the photos to see all of it... even when I make them "small," Blogspot doesn't seem to want to make them blog-friendly!**

I'm pretty sure we shot off just about all of these:


B and J setting up the Grand Finale:





Oh, by the way, the shop put in new grounding wires on my car's starter and it's working now. hopefully it stays that way! LOL. (knock wood!!