This is what my dog does when I leave home.

My heart aches haha. She is getting so old.

Meet my future roommates!

These are the lovely women I will be living with come August. I am so stoked God worked this out. I may not have a real job yet, but this was a huge stress factor in my life as I had to make a decision by May about where I was going to live. One of my greatest friends from school, Chelsea, will be moving in to take my roommates spot here in Long Beach for June and July. Then, we will all be getting a place in August (probably back near Biola area, but we'll see). We are all so excited because this is a place of semi permanence, at least until we all have real jobs. I hate moving in to temporary places, so to not have an ending date on this plan yet is very comforting. Anyways, here they are:

This is Chels. She is the best. I met her my sophomore year at Biola through our other 2 greatest friends, Jess and Abby, who live in Minnesota now. We have related to a lot of things together through our time at Biola and she was a great friend, listener, and confidant. She also didn't move after graduation and is one of the few friends I have left in the area that is not married, so we got to hang out a lot more because of that. She is super funny (one of my favorite twitter friends) and I am super stoked to share the summer with her before getting a place in August. I just know we will have a blast.

THIS is Blakeslee, one of my only friends from my major at Biola. We shared a mutual love for disliking everyone else in our major (elementary ed...so just a lot of uptight girls that will drive you nuts...we were more laid back/apathetic haha). We also started realizing that we were in every. single. class together SOMEHOW, and were always next to each other on the roll sheet. So we started working together on group projects whenever possible, taking our state tests together, and our friendship began. We started hanging out outside of school and she is one of the most loving, genuine people I know. We got through our degrees together, got through student teaching together, and have met for coffee NUMEROUS times since finishing our credentials. God blessed me with this friendship because we are both in the same position....trying to get by without real jobs. When you have someone to go through it with, it's 100x better. She will be a joy to live with and she will also be my roommate when we get a place!

This is Lindsey! I definitely had to get this photo from her facebook, so I hope she doesn't think I'm weird now! I do not know her that well yet, but she is SUPER sweet and fun. She lives with Chelsea now and will be Chelsea's roommate. I have had a few very pleasant conversations with her at their house AND she is a fellow teacher, who will be student teaching in the fall. There will be 3 of us education majors living together and I think that's great. I am sooo excited to get to know this girl and have a feeling we will all be great friends :)

This seriously came together all of the sudden, both Blakeslee and I were flipping out about housing, with about 2 weeks left to make a decision. We met for coffee and it all fell into place. THEN, Chels and Linds ran into Blakeslee the NEXT DAY (those 3 didn't really know each other) and hit it off and talked for so long! Is that not God's confirmation or what?

I am just super stoked for what's to come, especially since I don't have to move this month. The last thing I wanted to do was move without knowing where I would be working. I want to make a wise decision for my commute, but first I need the job. It's so great to know I can be comforted in this, even if I still don't have a job.

Rusty violin skills.

For those of you who wanted to hear how the wedding I did went, this is a horrible quality sampler of the songs. You can only see my legs and shoes the whole time haha...but you can hear us!

The one. The only.

How it goes down at home.

See that post below?

Forget about it and everything it says because my uncle called and took back the job offer this morning. Said he had had a panic attack last night and knew this wasn't meant to be again.

My life is just something to mess with apparently. I just keep looking like an idiot and I was already depressed.

This isn't an april fool's joke either. I hate april fool's day and unfortunately I am living what just happened.

God just rocking my world.

This week at home has been for my mental health and to just be refreshed from my stupid routine of being worthless and trying to figure out my life. I also needed to look for jobs and start contacting people I met at the Biola career fair and all that fun stuff. Today is the first time all week I have been ready to conquer my to do list. As I sit down to follow up/research/look for jobs, my uncle calls. First he makes small talk, and I didn’t think anything of it, I know he was curious as to what I have been up to and all that (NOTHING UNCLE, BECAUSE I STILL DON’T HAVE A JOB). Anyways, I tell him what’s up and he says “well, we’ve been talking and praying and we still have no viable candidates for the position and definitely none that came close to you. I realized I have been going about it the wrong way…I can’t just have someone try it out and then go into the full time position…I need to have them start off as part time, get their feet wet a little, learn things along the way, and gradually take over the role…I was trying to throw you in there and no one would have passed that test and pleased everyone right off the bat like that. We are doing well financially as a church and are able to accommodate your circumstances and this position as a part time thing. So it’s totally up to you, but we would love to bring you on part time, full medical benefits, and work around your schedule, whatever else you have going on, whatever you need to do, just let us know, but we would love to give it another shot.”

My response was something like: “uh…wow…uh….”

him: “I know, it’s a lot to take in and I don’t want an answer right now, but pray about it and let me know whenever. There is no time frame and I believe this is the right way to do it this time, but only if you feel God wants you to as well.”

then I hung up and my mom and I sat there silently, in shock. (she could hear the conversation as she was sitting right next to me and my phone is loud). I think her first words were “part time with benefits? that’s non existent!” she had also been reading a book (I need to get the name of it from her) and had put it down when she realized what was happening in the phone conversation. But she reopened it and started reading where she left off…the paragraph she had left off on went something like this:

“when you receive criticism or bad news, you don’t completely trust in God’s assurance, instead you let it devastate you. you beat yourself up over it and you let it rule your life. you wonder what you could’ve done better and you let the failure surround you. this is not a result of your competence, but instead of your dry prayer life.”

bingo. I have never been good at daily devotions (I do pray for friends, family, decisions, etc) and that is something my uncle wanted me to have in my routine before he hired me. I started doing it while trying to get hired there, but that was to get the job, not because it was part of my routine. I stopped doing them after it fell through because I was letting the devastation rule my life, my thoughts, my actions.

my aunt had taken me out to breakfast the day after I did not get the job with them, and said that there was no one else to fill the position and it may end up that they ask me to reconsider in a few months. I was a little offended that they thought I would just be waiting around for them to ask me back. I told her that it was pretty much a closed door for me after that decision and that I was going to move on with my life. during that tough time afterwards, I talked a lot with my mom and neither one of us could come up with reasons as to why I would work towards that position for 2 months to have it end like it did. we could not figure out what I was to learn from that or why I had to endure that. I stuck with my decision that this would be a closed door…but that was for the full time position. It never even crossed my mind that part time would be an option and that I would gradually be able to work into this.

let’s look at the signs:

-Sunday-Pastor spoke on meditating on scripture and being rooted in the word, as people will be tempted to walk away from Christ if they are not doing this. This is something I have always struggled with doing and it definitely hit me that day. I made every intention to better myself in this area.
-I have a life crisis like 2 hours later.
-I go home for the week to try and “figure out my life.”
-my uncle calls right when I sit down and start looking online for new jobs.
-he admits they went about it the wrong way and offers it to me part time, with the ability to work around my schedule and any other circumstances.
-my mom is reading a paragraph DURING THE PHONE CALL that directly applied to what I went through.
-driving home tonight I hear this song, just crying and driving, the usual:

“I’m not holding onto You
But You’re holding onto me.”

I don’t deserve anything from God for hardly making an effort, but He STILL blesses me. Such a hard concept for me to get.

dang. talk about God rocking your world in a few hours.