Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Update after day one

Here's the update after day one of the new job. It went pretty well I think (I tend towards cautious optimism on these types of things rather than being overly effusive but I am getting pretty psyched). I'm very fortunate in that I'm being trained by the woman I'm replacing, Debbie, who has a weath of knowledge about this position. She took me on a tour of the Forestry school & introduced me to almost all the professors and staff. Everyone was really nice and the school is really cool. I think the job is definitely what I've had in mind to transition to and I'm really going to enjoy it, but there are just a lot of details to learn. Being back in Nac working was a bit surreal but nice. I was able to stop by and have lunch with my mom, which was great. And once I'm on full time, I hope to start working out during lunch at the school's facilities with my sisters.

Still looking on the housing front. I think we need a weekend where we're not already booked. I was busy this past weekend with my little sis's bridal shower and John was tied up with a fishing-bachelor party for his cousin. We also had to book it back to BCS Saturday night because John had a Sunday morning breakfast to help out with.

We had our first Crown financial class on Sunday evening and I think it's going to be really great. Realizing everything you think you own really belongs to God is difficult sometimes but is also very liberating. After the class was over I had to drive back to Nac to spend the night at my mom's for my first day of work. I thought about it on the drive back to Bryan Monday evening - for the next 3 months (til John graduates in May) I'll be doing that drive at least once per weekend. That's a lot of driving. But at least after May, I probably won't be driving like that for a while unless it's for something fun. :)

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Current Events

I was trying to wait til I got the Christmas & New Years photos edited but so much has happened that I’m going to skip right past that and on to current news. For those of you who don’t know, John is scheduled to graduate this May (prayers for his Math 142 & Accounting classes are appreciated). So this spring, we’re moving back to Nacogdoches, our hometown. We’re really excited to be moving back close to our families (we’ll both have been gone approx. 10 yrs). And it certainly seems like this is the direction the Lord is leading us towards.

I recently got a job at SFA in Nac and they’re being really great and letting me work Mondays there until (probably) April. This is a huge blessing as it lets me work 4 days a week in Bryan (so I don’t leave my current firm in a lurch during tax season), and it gives John & I more time to find a place to stay in Nac. Just finding out about the job was certainly divine intervention. The Sunday after Thanksgiving we always buy our Christmas tree from a farm run by my high school yearbook teacher and her husband (a prof at SFA). He’d heard there was an accounting job opening up and thought I might be interested. Otherwise, I’d never have looked into applying for jobs so early. Two of my sisters already work at SFA so that’s pretty cool too.

John & I have some leads on two rent houses that we’re hopefully checking out this coming weekend. We’re trying to find a little house like we’ve got now to be in til we can build. Our current plan is to build what we’re calling the ‘shop-house’ which would be a metal building with a second story apartment. We don’t have the means to build our ‘dream house’ right now so this would be great to live in for 5-10yrs until we’re a little more established plus will give us the storage for tools & equipment we need now & in the future. We’re going to see how that goes.

John’s starting to apply for poultry / agriculture jobs in Nac so we’re prayful about that right now. I don’t want to get too preachy on ya’ll but can I just say that after over a year of struggling with some pretty big issues, wondering how we were gonna make it, it has been a peaceful and freeing experience to just leave it up to God. And He’s provided in ways we couldn’t have imagined. I do still have to remind myself often to chill out & wait for His ways to be revealed but when I remember that, I just relax and it feels awesome!

So this has been a wordy post but there’s a lot of news and more to come. We’ve got a busy semester ahead of us as I’ll be traveling back & forth a lot and learning a new job. John’s cousin Matt is marrying a lovely girl named Kelli on March 3rd and my sister Sabrina is marrying her long-time sweetheart, Michael on April 14th, so we’ve got a whirl of showers & wedding preparations. John has his schoolwork, job search plus he’s starting a bowfishing guide service called, Twilight Bowfishing (I have to take credit for the name - hee). He’s really excited about this new venture.

I’ll try to keep things more current (whether I get my slow old computer to work with my pictures or not) and let ya’ll know when we’re moving, etc.