Dancing With Myself

Have you ever heard someone say "let's dance" before starting a fight? I'm pretty sure I have, in a movie or two. Well there has been a lot of "dancing" with myself lately! A war of words has been going on in my head. Well, more emotions than words... I try not to let the feelings last long enough to take on word form. But it all kind of spilled over today.

I'll say it one more time: I don't hate my job. There are lots of things that I like about it. For instance, Ruby, one of our part-timers who is AMAZING, gave me a giant bag of cough drops when we were leaving today because she knows that Brett and I have been fighting coughs for a while. This is the second bag she has brought me. And they aren't the Luden's sugar pills I loved when I was a youngster! These are the good stuff! I had no idea Ricola taste like chai tea, but they totally do!

But I can't fight the truth, as much as I sometimes want to. I don't love my job either. There are lots of positives, but if I could choose, it's not the job I would pick for me. Driving to work today I found myself imagining that I was driving to a different school, preferably to teach. Here's the thing about working for a private school: it's for profit. Meaning it's a business. Meaning someone owns it. And I work for a small private school, so I work with the owners on a daily basis. I realized today that this fact is a huge downer that I shared with my last job. There is an element of pressure and a level of expectations, sometimes imagined but sometimes totally legit, that goes along with working side by side with the owners of a business. It ain't easy!

But despite the fact that I have been here for 5 months now, and schools will start interviewing for teaching positions in a little over month, I am no more prepared for an interview than I was 5 months ago. And I obviously wasn't prepared enough then... I didn't get a teaching job! I wanted to use my time here to prepare for a teaching job, but the "new job" transition was WAAAAY more topsy turvy than I expected. And now the holidays are here, and the million things that go along with that have kept me occupied. So I'm not feeling good about interviews starting in January.

It shouldn't matter. I remind myself each time that I feel my sense of peace slipping away, that God's plan is the ONLY one that I want to follow. He is not worried about my portfolio. His plan is perfect, and it does not require my earthly references to be fulfilled.

So my goal for December is to stay calm and enjoy the season. This is my favorite time of year! By MILES! I love Christmas. December 1st starts in 13 minutes, and I am stating right now that I am going to bathe this month in prayer, and live each day intentionally, striving to glorify God.

Deep breath.

And if I'm going to dance with anyone, I want it to be my husband. The musical dancing, not the sparing dancing.

The end.

Shifting

I just spent the last two hours doing a little cleaning on my blog. The list of blogs that I follow was a lot longer than the list of blogs that I actually read, so I decided to make them a little more even! I also changed the list of blogs that I show on my blog. The changing of the lists was VERY interesting! It confirmed something that I have been slowly realizing over the last few months.

Food is not the center of my life right now.

It's hard to believe, but things are beginning to balance out. For years I spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about food... mostly what I was going to eat next. Sometimes for healthy reasons, sometimes for dangerous reasons. I am very much still at a point where I need to put thought into my food, but I am happy (almost happy enough to be moved to tears) to say that I think about other things too. And even happier to say that a lot of those thoughts lean towards creative outlets.

I'm turning 30, ya know. I'm 6 months from it. I am in the midst of a career shift. The school is not a new destination... just a stop along the way. It doesn't feel permanent in any way. Not yet anyhow. It is totally possible that the Lord will keep me there while I explore other creative outlets from home, but right now, I'm not sure.

I am having trouble putting into words what I want to say here... maybe because my husband is awake now so he is talking to me about a Star Wars game while I blog. Deep Thoughts Interrupted... good name for a blog. Ha! (Love you, honey =-)

I just see shifting in my life. I have a lot more shifting to do. I need to permanently shift towards healthier food. We are eager to shift our living situation. Blending styles is going to be a whole nother ball game when we are in a house rather than an apartment. I was not fussy about the apartment, because there is so little we can do. But I am ready for a house! With walls we can paint. And space for artwork. And cooking! SO ready for a bigger kitchen. I want to cook more. I really enjoy it.

I have lots of crafting to do today, so I should get moving. We are getting a late start to our day, which is glorious =-) But the craft fair is a week from tomorrow. I have gotten a lot done, but there is a lot of work left to do. I will be so disappointed if no one comes to this thing. I may not do it again if there isn't a good turn out this year. But my hope is that the crafting will continue so that next year, I will be able to do other shows. I am really ready to more forward with a small business. Well, mentally anyway. I still need to learn how...

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday weekend. I REALLY needed this 4 day weekend and time with my husband. I will give you a weekend recap tomorrow night. If I can unglue my hands after all the crafting, that is.

Peace out playas!

SO Thankful For...

1. My husband. Who loves me every day. Even on days when I am REALLY hard to love.

2. My family. Who I am ridiculously blessed to be a part of. If they weren't my family, I would wish they were. I admire them all.

3. My job. That is sometimes harder than it is rewarding. But is inundated with amazing people.

4. My friends. Who laugh with me, coffee with me, call to check on me, FB friendliness to me, text sweet words to me. Turn thirty with me. Sheesh!

5. God's provisions. Everything that we need, and even some things that we want. WAAAAY more than we deserve.

I am thankful for so many things. My God is so constant. Some days, I am anything but. But my days have been so full lately, and I am SO thankful that they have contained creativity in the past few weeks. I want to keep this going when the craft fair is over. Christmas will always be my favorite reason to craft, but I want 2011 to be the year that I get serious about it all.

I hope everyone has a day full of family, fun and food =-) I am off to enjoy mine.

Harry, Holidays and Nissan Sentras

Has it been two weeks since I've posted? My goodness! Life has been crazy, but not all bad... I had a rough few weeks, but after a surprise visit from friends last Friday and a gentle but firm talking to from Brett, I finally snapped out of my bad attitude. I don't know what started it, but I had a couple of weeks where I was just very irritable. Actually, I do know what started it. My crazy self, of course. I just was full to the max. Overloaded with thoughts and questions that I needed some time to process, and time never came. But I let a few things out when Brett confronted me on my attitude and just the brief mentioning of all of the things that had been bogging me down released enough pressure to keep me from exploding.

So last week was better. Work was crazy, of course. Lots of teachers out sick. And I got chewed out by a couple of parents, which is always fun. This week we are only open Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but I don't know what to expect. We will have some kids out for the holiday, but our after school kids will be there all day since public school is off all week. So I don't know if enough of our full time students will be off to balance out the twenty or so extra kids we will have, and I KNOW that a lot of teachers are off this week. Don't ask me how we are going to get through Wednesday, because I have no idea! I am hoping Michelle will work that out before she leaves on Tuesday.

I did a little crafting last week and had a very productive shopping trip yesterday that has me prepared for LOTS of crafting this week! The holiday open house is only a few weeks away, so I have lots to do! My glue gun got away from me tonight and I burned a big blister onto my left thumb! Man, it hurt! Feeling better now, but I need to pay more attention with that glue! It's called "hot glue" for a reason!

I have made 30 or so ornaments, and a few other decorations. I have quite a few other things that I would like to make but some of them will be quick and easy! I will try to post some pictures, but my camera doesn't take great pictures of close up objects, so...

In other news, we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I on Friday. I am happy to say that I enjoyed it very much =-) Even being split into two parts, there was still a lot of things left out that I would have liked to see in the film, but overall, I was very pleased. I LOVE these movies. I love the books more, but I am thrilled that the series is coming to its completion on the screen. I hope I get a chance to see this one in theaters again. I had an invitation to do so today, but that just wasn't happening.

Last night I went to The Melting Pot in Addison for Jenn's (one of my college roommates) birthday party. She turned 30 today. We were there for 4.5 hours and I actually got a little frustrated because the waitress didn't understand the question that I asked when we first got there, so I didn't get to order what I had hoped to. 4.5 hours is a long time to sit at a restaurant and just drink water. But it was good to see my friends and I am glad that I went.

After a day of shopping with my mom and a long dinner that kept me out until 11:00 last night, I barely saw Brett yesterday. He had a different birthday party to go to last night and yesterday he spent the day with his mom... SHE FINALLY BOUGHT A CAR!!! Have I mentioned that we have been taking her car shopping for several weeks? Probably not, because I have been such a bad blogger lately. But this has been a very long process, and I am THRILLED to say that she is now a happy owner of a 2010 Nissan Sentra. It only had 4,000 miles on it, and she didn't have any trouble getting approved for a loan at Car Max. It was a huge blessing for all of us, and we are thankful that the car shopping is done.

I am SO happy that this week is Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I am excited about seeing my family, I am excited about shopping on Friday and I am super excited about putting up the tree and wrapping presents! WOOHOO for the holidays!

I am off to find Jenina's blog (I can't believe I had to hear from Krista that you started a blog!!!) and then do some crafting.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Pray for safe hot glue gunning!

Time Changes and Change of Plans

It wasn't a bad weekend, but once again, it wasn't what I was hoping for.

This season has been full of sickness for me. Sometimes minor, sometimes major. My allergies have been the worst I have dealt with for many a year. And then I guess it's true what they say: the first year you work in a school, you are going to get sick more than usual. It's just a high concentration of germs every day!

Last Wednesday though, after some unexpected dental work, I ended up being on antibiotics on the same day that I switched allergy medicine. First, let me say thank you Zyrtec! Or Kroger brand knock-off. I am breathing clearly for the first time in WEEKS! Still dealing with the occasional fountain of snot pouring from my nose, but it's nothing compared to the Niagara Falls I've been sporting for a while. That being said, the antibiotics could have had something to do with it as well... the point is, I'm feeling better. My husband on the other hand... oh my.

Brett hates being sick. He responds to it with anger and frustration. So anytime he is under the weather, his attitude is unfortunately going to turn it into something miserable when the same thing, for someone else, could be merely inconvenient. Poor guy. But this time around, he is actually dealing with symptoms that fall into the miserable category! He has had a fever, off and on, since Friday morning. Friday night was ROUGH! He is having major trouble breathing, and all of the drainage is keeping him in the bathroom more than he would like. It's also throwing off his balance, which is scary. So I am feeling better, but my sweet husband is feeling icky, so the weekend was still not all we had hoped.

I got some crafting done though. And I managed to make it to the first two hours of the women's conference at my church on Saturday where God gave me some peace and reassurance on an issue that I will share with you soon.

And who can forget the time change!!! I love love LOVE that extra hour! It really makes a difference for me. I have always been the type whose tiredness depends on the hour I wake up as much as the hour I went to bed the night before. So thank you time change for letting me feel like I'm waking up later!

And my family got together for dinner last night and drew names for Christmas. I'm SO excited that the holiday season is upon us. I'm itching to get out my Christmas decorations... oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

Pray for my husband! I hope everyone has a great week. I hope to post again tonight... I want to share what the Lord showed me while it is still on my heart.