Well, after all my complaining yesterday, today things are working out. First of all, they figured out our pay issue with the church, a secretary made the deposit and got the charges reversed (since it wasn't our fault). I was greatly relieved. Rob and I had some pretty intense phone conversations - no frustration with each other, just with the situation. But it's resolved and we are no worse for the wear. We also talked with our supervisor and secured a washing machine that had been donated to the church to replace our broken one. Rob will be picking it up tonight and I'm so thankful that I won't have to haul our six loads to a laundrymat. I also called on our digital camera this morning and they said they will be repairing it, but I recieved an email this afternoon saying it would just be replaced. Woohoo!

Right now I am watching CNN and the coverage on Katrina. It's devastating. I cannot immagine what those people are going through. It makes you truly thankful for what you have. I'm saddened to hear about the chaos, with the looting and the lawlessness. It's so frightening. It makes me think about end times and wonder. I'm so thankful that I'm assured of my salvation, it gives me peace in times like these. I wish we were in a position where we could do something to help, but all they are asking for at this point is financial aid and we just can't do anything at this point.

I know it sounds trite, but the gas shortage is heavy on my mind. We are so dependant on gasoline to get Rob to school each day. The expense is crazy, but if we reach a rationing point, I'm not sure what we will do. This semester is certainly our hardest yet but we are so focused on getting through it.

We recieved an exciting phone call from a pastor in St. Louis today. He is very interested in us as potential youth pastor candidates. It was a huge revelation to me, to be wanted and appreciated after 3 years of being a liability... It's complicated, but we've struggled so hard to connect for as long as we've been in Springfield/Ozark.

So, I guess things are looking up. I was happy to scrap a couple layouts for our Breckenridge album today, nearly done with it at this point. I'm finally being inspired to finish it up.

Nothing terribly deep tonight. Just glad to be surviving at this point. Good to focus on the hope of a new job. As overwhelmed as we are in our current situation, that end-of-the-tunnel light is getting brighter every day. Just keep swimming!

Deep breaths. It will all be alright. No panicking. You are an adult, God is big, and He promised He won't give you anything you can't handle. Breath in, breath out.

Can you tell I'm trying to keep it together? The kids are great today. It's not that. I'm not even stir-crazy. In fact, I scoured my house top to bottom today, even the kitchen floor (ACK!) and the bathroom (double ACK!). I was being all productive and whatnot, trying to pass this first crazy long day without Rob - 6:30am to 10pm. Then I checked on our checking account, today is payday, Rob's check usually appears the day before payday (yesterday) but it hadn't so I was certain it would be there first thing this morning... And no. It's not. Deep breaths. Don't think about the fact that I wrote an absolutely necessary check for diapers and gas yesterday to the tune of $70. (geez) Don't think about overdraft charges. (double geez!)

So I'm oh-so-carefully processing that information when the appliance repair guy comes. The verdict on our washing machine? Bad transimission. I nearly laugh at the irony. Transmissions. Rob and I have no luck with transmissions. 3 cars we've gone through with crappy transmissions since March. And now a washing machine. Any laughing I considered halted abrubtly when he handed me the bill for $59.95 for the two minutes he took to look at my 20-year-old almond Maytag. (deep breaths, Anna, in and out, deep cleansing breaths).

Half my job as a SAHM is laundry. What do I do?? My dear hubby says "plunge and scrub dearie, plunge and scrub". But I'm reminded that he's no Tom Cruise and if I looked like Nicole Kidman we wouldn't be in this predicament. No, no panic here. I'm just interested to see how God works this one out. Trying not to tally the damages. Ah, what the heck... The past few months have claimed three cars, starting with The Lemon Caddy, then the so-sad story of the Chrysler mini-van (which I'm still sulking about)and the Ford LTD. Now the Cougar is limping home on it's last leg, can it make it four months??? Not with our luck I'm sure. Then our desktop massively goes down in a blaze of glory. Not just a bug, but totally toasted, irrepairably damaged after an electrical storm. Next we have the digital camera, which suddenly stopped working, randomly lost power. I can't even get the repair place to answer my emails at this point. And now the washer. What's next? I'm past throwing in the towel, now I'm just in it to see how this all ends! It's like some wierd greek tragedy and I can't look away!

I'm seriously not usually this cynical, this is just a very strange time in my life. Speaking of transition though, we are waiting to hear about the interview Rob had last Friday. I'm very excited about the possibility, it sounds like an incredible church. Great location too, central IL. Sounds homey. I wish we were moving tomorrow, but packing is helping my frame of mind.

Guess that's enough whining for now. It will be interesting to see how this all works out in the wash! (no pun intended!)

It's official. I'm surviving.
Rob's been back in school a week now and I haven't drowned my sorrows in spic and span yet. I think that means I'll make it.

Hard to believe it, I know. I've been dreading these past few weeks for so long I'm not even sure what to do with my spare time now!! It's not great, but it's do-able and it's only 4 more months of my life. That's nothing, right? I can so do this.

Today has been a good day so far. I say so far cause it's three pm and a lot could go wrong or right between now and bed, so let's go with so far. I was up stinking late with Rob watching Scream 3, a pathetic excuse for a horror flick, but I jumped just the same. It was on TBS so all the icky words and scenes were deleted or censored, just the way I like to watch those kinds of things. Then we talked in bed for a while till Rob told me how tired he was and that I needed to let him go to sleep. So I laid there and listened to him breath, all the while thanking God for him and the kids. I feel so blessed on the important things. The little things suck, (car/house/social) but the big eternal things are all in line.

I got a little depressed earlier reading one of my favorite scrapping artist's blogs. She's an enigma for me, I love her cause she's brilliant, but I hate her because she's living my life. An overnight scrapbooking sensation, right here in Springfield. She's a christian, young thing, newlywed. Has a real job too. I can't help but think why can it happen for her and nothing happens for me? Listen to me!! Oh the whining! I'm pathetic. The phones ringing. I'll try to get back to this later.

Well, now that I've dropped off the face of the earth... I'll recover myself and start over. What a rough week. It always is, that first week of school, readjusting to Rob being gone, no car, no life. I struggle with it. I am taking solace this year that it's Rob's last semester. Plus, we are actively interviewing for youth pastor positions now, so that's exciting, definitely a light at the end of the tunnel, if you know what I mean.

Haven't scrapbooked since Tuesday. It's a priority today. That always makes me feel better when I'm down, which I definitely have been down lately. My sister came this week, and I enjoyed her company. Being around her makes me realize how much we've sacrificed though, and where we could be if we hadn't sold our house and furniture, etc in Sioux City 3 years ago. Normally I just don't think about it, but when your kid sister has an instant husband, house and career it's hard to ignore. She's doing good though, she's happy as I've ever seen her. We had a lot of heart to hearts. I just always struggle with what people think and I know she feels sorry for us, in a pitying 'they could make better choices' kind of way. And I agree, from the world's perspective we could make better choices, but that's not what God asked us to do. He wants us to see life from His perspective and going back to school was the priority...

I get excited when I think about December. I fantacize about it all happening really fast; we get a job, find a house, pack up and move and wham, suddenly our life is different. We can finally do exactly what we were created to do, which is youth ministry. I know Rob is going to be so happy doing ministry full-time. Just being in school working towards that goal he's been so much happier than he was ever in Sioux City.

So today, my goals. Cleaning house. (ack) Spending time with the kiddos. Scrapbooking. Prepping for tomorrow. We have church in the am, normal, but we have a big long meeting in the pm for small group leadership. I'm concerned for Sarah, she usually doesn't do well with evening church.

Real deep stuff today. :) Just wading through. My job this semester is going to be to keep my chin up. I can tell that already!

17 layouts later... Well, I think I'll call it a weekend. I cannot believe my stamina this weekend. I'm in awe of myself. (so humble, aren't we???) I have never scrapped 17 lo's in a week even, let alone a weekend! Usually I do about 11 and then take a week's sabbatical because I feel so badly about neglecting my family. But no neglect too place here. I still did dishes, fed people, washed 4 loads of laundry, spent quality time with the kids, and even went to church this morning. I was just extremely productive for a change. Now I don't want to stop. But I'm tired, and tomorrow's Eli's first day of pre-school. (gasp!!!) Both kids need baths in the morning and Sarah's got a well-baby/shot appt in the am. (ergh) My sister is coming tomorrow too, which I'm excited about, but that means I need to clean up at some point. I'd like to make Eli some chocolate chip cookies too, as a first day of school treat. We'll see how it all goes. Can't believe my baby is headed to pre-school. I feel so old!!! He's so excited. I'll talk more about it tomorrow.

Well, it's a new day. I keep thinking of random things to post on here, but unfortunately I actually have to find time to sit at the computer and type things down, there's no instant link from my brain to the net. Maybe that's a good thing?? (ha ha)

Strange mood today. Have a plumber here, dealing with a backed up tub - ew!! Glad it's him and not me. Not that I don't deal with a good amount of %*&* on any given day, but at least mine is usually in convienient diaper form, easily disposable and whatnot.

Have to laugh that I used the word whatnot. Rob always teases me that I use it too much, but that's inconceivable, it's a convienient blanket statement, covers a lot without saying too much. Now I'm really just rambling, but hey, it's my blog...

I did scrapbook this morning, finished two in progress pages and started and finished a third. That felt good. I'd be scrapping right now, but I'm ashamed to take out my buckets and buckets of stuff in front of the plumber. He'd probably make some comment and I'd obsess about it for a week, he'd forget it by the time he drove away. Oh why do I care so much what other people think? It's a disease of mine.

I'm feeling very creative today, which is probably why I'm so wordy. I sketched about ten page ideas the other night so I'm stoked to play. That's my new thing, pre-planning my pages. It unlocks my creativity right away when I sit down to create. No more scrapper's block for me, not that I usually suffer, but definately struggle with the occasional 'starting-the-page jitters".

Scrapping is an enigma to me. I love it so much, it's empowering. But I want to do more with it, (ie - for hire, getting published, designing) and that isn't going anywhere, so that is frustrating. I just have to decide that doing it for me is enough and enjoy it for what it is, a break and some well deserved time off from the monotony of motherhood. Plus I really enjoy creating our family's history books. I've always been a fan of history, it's fun to contribute.

Note to self - I need to remember to post about Seinfield and just how much I love that show! Another day, another post. Man this is addictive.

I'm trying to post this to my profile, but it's late and I'm tired and it's not working.  Here it is none the less.  I love black and white photography, it's so forgiving.  My dear hubby took this great picture.  He's got quite the eye...

this is me. Taken last week. I like it cause I look thin. It's an illusion, but a good one at least.

Hello World

I'm leaping into the 21st century with both feet. Having my own blog and all. I laugh because I'm sure no one will read it. But it's there. And I'm sure it's good for me to get all these crazy thoughts out of my head and on to paper. (electronic paper - I can hear Rob laughing)

It's been a super hard weird day. Not unusual for time in my life. We've just been through so much lately. I really feel like we are being tested with Rob being so close to being done with school. It's just so much harder than I anticipated. Four months. That gets me through the days. Sometimes the moments even.

I'm so unknowing about our future. I'm excited about the possibilities... launching into full-time ministry. Finally realizing our calling. Being the pastor's wife. (even the title seems unreal) I've earned the position, not married in by any means. Spent time in the trenches, putting Hubby through. I'm scared about our future too. Petrified really. A whole new state, town, life, friends. Everything starting over except for our family. I worry about money, jobs, housing, every aspect. Why can't I just give all this stuff to God?

I get frustrated with our life now. Our tiny house. Our lack of independence after almost eight years of marriage. I hate that we still rely on parents for help and grace. I love who we are though. All the outside stuff stinks (the temporal, the reality that people see) but the inside stuff (the important stuff) is fantastic. I'm totally in love with my husband. He thrills me. We are best friends. We share secrets and inside jokes. We are a team, battling the world, watching each other's backs. I am never afraid to be open and honest, and I expect the same vunerability in him - he has never failed to be an open book. I love our kids. They are fantastic. Funny, adorable, well-behaved (ACK! I babysat tonight and had a taste of what tough kids are like, we are so stinking blessed!) respectful, loving.

Well, I could go on for hours. I've always been a writer, so this is just as natural as breathing for me. And knowing that no one will ever read it is surprisingly refreshing. I guess that's been my major epiphany for this season in my life. I'm really no one. It kind of hurts to say, but I'll feel better if I can realize it, come to terms with it. Sure I'm someone in my own little world, my kids and hubby love me, my best friend calls me daily (gotta love her) but beyond that... Well. That's the ultimate sacrifice of a stay at home mom, isn't it? Someday.... Well, that's another day's journaling.