Ho Ho Ho

It's CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!
I am so very excited that Christmas time has finally arrived.
Joe and I have been buying and wrapping gifts, and cannot wait to visit Alabama to give them to our families!

...there's just one thing...we are still in Kentucky. bleh.
Saturday morning we will have our "christmas morning" together, I can hardly wait! there is a package under the tree for me that is wrapped in a long box. I cannot figure out what in the world could be in there. So excited!

I have one more paper left to do befor eI am finished with my first semester of grad school. This should be an easy paper, but I am having a hard time with it. It is supposed to be my philosophy/theology of discipleship. It's due tomorrow and I have one page done. (I just spelled "done" as "dun". WOW)

Anyway, I noticed that I hadn't updated in a while.
So that's that.

Ok, so after multiple conversations, prayer, your great input Al Jones, prayer, and careful consideration, I have decided to stick with Christian Ed. I looked over the degree requirements for CE and CL and realized that there are a lot more classes in CE that I want to take, and really only 3 or 4 classes in CL that I want to take. So, I'll be able to continue on with CE and still take the few leadership classes that I want to take. I have heard many times that people with a CE degree get treated as if they got a degree for Sunday School. Hopefully that will not be the case for me. I have also come to find (though conversations with different professors) that I really don't even have to decide for another year. All of the classes that I have to take this semester and next can go towards either degree.
That's the update for now.

Leadership? Education? Leadership? Education? Leadership? Education?

I've been going back and forth all week between the two. I am trying to decide whether or not to continue with Christian Education or to go with Christian Leadership. I can't decide. I have asked different professors their opinion about which would better equip me for what I want to do and it seems I have a 50 50 response for everyone. actually, that is not true, it has been suggested more often that I continue with CE. One professor simply responded "Pray about it". Thanks. I am praying about it, but as of now feel no particular direction. In fact, I wonder if this is even what I should be doing. I have struggled a lot with the question of why I am doing what I am doing.

Hmmm. I have more thinking and praying to do...

Christian Education:
The Master of Arts in Christian Education is designed to prepare students for a vocation of nurture, formation, and life-span discipleship in parish, institutional, or cross-cultural settings. They will be equipped to provide leadership for educational ministries that effectively seek to present everyone mature in Christ.

Christian Leadership:
The Master of Arts in Christian Leadership program equips persons to function effectively in a variety of leadership positions. The program serves future leaders who are called to local church settings, parachurch organizations, college student development or in the marketplace.

No updates lately because I have given my time over to reading and writing for classes. I get my first two papers back tomorrow and wednesday, yikes! one of my friends didn't do well, so that makes me a little worried.

It's getting really cold up here. I wasn't fully prepared for "fall" (more like winter) to hit so quickly. At least in Alabama when it gets cold, it will get warm for a few days...but not here! it's been in the low 40's....coooolllldddd.

I am looking forward to spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in Alabama. Mostly I'm just looking forward to being with everyone!

Joe and I am doing great. We are enjoying our time together more and more. He has been trying to teach me how to play football on the wii (that was given to us by Nathan). It usually ends in frustration followed by tons of laughter. I am not good at all.

This week I will be making candied apples and caramel apples, just because I've been craving them.

Required Laughter

I have been experiencing a strange situation where the man who is head of the IT department says something not so funny and everyone, as if on cue, bursts out in laughter. He stomps through the office every morning with his little sweater vests of bright colors and complains for about five minutes straight, all the while the other workers laugh with him at his misfortune and complaints. It just feeds the fire I believe. He is not a funny man...in fact he is a little immature for having a doctorate. I guess it is a required thing to laugh when your boss laughs, or is making a joke. I refuse to laugh though. It's not funny. I just pretend to not be listening as I continue to work on audio files and then he eventually moves on to other places and more work. I wonder if the other workers ever wonder why they laugh with him.

I don't know.

uh...come again??

I had my first days of class, and they all went well.
I have Foundations of Discipleship for 2 hours and 45 minutes on Tuesdays,
Foundations of Leadership on Wednesday and Fridays for a little over an hour (with Joe!!!)
Vocation of Ministry on Wednesdays for 2 hours and 45 minutes.

My discipleship class is going to be interesting, and I feel will have a lot of busy work. The professor is a very nice woman though. And I met a girl from Enterprise who knew about me and Joe from a friend of hers at Troy.

Leadership will be awesome. Mostly because Joe is in there :0) but the man who teaches that is interesting and I think will keep things exciting.

Oh man- and the VoM class just may be difficult. It was one of those things where I had to sit there with dictionary.com open so I knew what in the world the man was talking about! there were also quiet a few argumentative folks in there as well.

Over all I think I will be learning a lot of great things about ministry, myself, and other goodies, as well as growing with Christ. And for that I am super excited!

first

I'm sitting in my first grad class. I haven't been so nervous walking to a class since the wallace days...which was...a long time ago.

I found the place ok though.

It smells weird in here. A mixture of old chinese food and B.O. YUM!

looking forward

For the fifth of sixth time I have written out mine and Joe's weekly schedule of work and classes. It is going to be a full semester, that is for sure. At first I was slightly disappointed at how our schedules didn't perfectly line up, but then I realized that if we weren't going to school right now we would both have to work full time and would be seeing each other everyday at 5. so we are in a better position than that because we will be able to spend more of a day together than not seeing each other from 8-5 (although some days it is the case that we miss each other and don't see each other until 4:30 or 5). Anyway, Classes begin tomorrow and I am nervous about it all. I have been reading to get a head start on some classes and I don't get what the books are supposed to be about. that is not such a good way to start out I guess. Joe and I are taking a class together and that really excites me. I can't wait.

I work tomorrow from 8-12, then have class from 1-3:45.

I have stomach pains right now, and want to go to sleep.

the end.

Hello Sunshine!

It was 52 degrees this morning when I woke up. and it is only September!
I look forward to cold mornings of bundling up and going to classes or work.

The sun is shining so brightly outside, and the fall breeze is beginning to come in.
It feels great to lay in the sun!



Still nervous about classes starting next Tuesday. Don't know what to expect. Can I do it?

My eyes are still sleepy because I just woke up. I enjoy saturdays so much!

My stomach is growling and I'm trying to decide if I should make waffles or muffins. such a tough decision.

Joe is almost finished with his 20-something paper, hooray! we are going to celebrate by going into lexington, watching movies...and I'll probably mop the floor at some point.

Life is good. Even though Joe and I have our moments of arguing and misunderstandings I still absolutely love being married to him, he is wonderful!

Sarah and PK are in Ireland. I'm jealous.

My web page is ALMOST done!!!

Another Thought...

While I wait for the cassettes to finish copying, I will update again.
I just checked our family blog and had a thought.
I just thought to myself "I never imagined it would be this way..." I was looking at the pictures of us four girls. Three of us with our husbands. I never imagined that when we got married that we would still be close to each other. For some reason I had always thought that once we grew up and got married we would all marry strange straight laced men who only wanted to work and would not care to get to know the family.
It's all so different than that though. I so look forward to talking with each of my sisters, and my mom, dad, and gradmothers. I love receiving random texts from summer at 2:45 A.M. Well, I don't like the fact that they are at that time, but I love having a sister who wants to show me her bedroom with new pictures on the wall. I love my brothers-in-law. They are tons of fun, and both have wonderful personalities that I greatly appreciate! I look forward to seeing my family beyond what I could have ever imagined!
I love them all so much, I love the guys they married, I love my almost 18 year old sister, I love the talks with the grandmothers...I love it all..I love how life has turned out. . . and, I can't wait to meet the guy summer will marry, because I know he will be wonderful!

I updated a while back about what people at the limited to when they don't want to work, and now I will proceed to update with what people do in IT when the don't want to work.

There are 4 student workers, and over the past two weeks we have really had close to no work requests. I have been working on transferring all of the old President's chapel archives over into a digital format and putting them on the internet, there are a couple hundred total. That keeps me very busy while I wait for something to update on the web site or whatever someone asks me to do. So, there are only 4 computers for the student workers and each computer does a specific task. The one I work on does the cassette archives, the other prints cds, and the other does the media stuff...and the other is just there. If there is only one job for student workers to do now (which is archives stuff) and I am working on the only computer that does that...then what do they do all day???
Good question!
When there is nothing to do, and you don't want to do anything. We usually do what I am doing now...But I am actually putting archives into the computer as I type, I just pause and flip the tape when necessary.
I always wondered what they did and I found out yesterday.
I was printing out CD labels and uploading information into the computer and I had to lean over my desk to reach the CD duplicator, which was on Stephens desk. I reached over, and without him noticing looked at what was on his computer. It was definitely a YouTube video. all he did for the 4 hours I was at work was play on YouTube. But...every time someone would walk by he would pull up the work request forms and make it look like he was doing something. I don't have the guts to sit at work and watch videos. I find it daring just to check the weather...and writing a blog is....well.... something. (this is my first time)
Anyway, I thought is was interesting that he did nothing for 4 hours and got paid for it.

Joe and I are doing great.
I have a web site for photography now! when I'm done I'll post the web address.

boredom.

I'm getting into seeing how much food I can make for the least amount of money. So far, Poppy Seed Chicken has been the best, it lasted us somewhere are 14 plates and ended up costing about 60 cents a plate. 

Any ideas for recipes to look up??

He Loves Me

Joe has a wonderful way of remembering little things I say I like. A few weeks back I mentioned something about having candles at the dinner table.  Then another day I mentioned something about background music during dinner. Each of these things were said different days, different weeks. 

Yesterday I worked until 5 and he only worked until 12. When I got home I was greeted with the smell of taco seasoned hamburger meat and Joe waiting at the door to kiss me. When I walked into the kitchen he had the table set, a candle lit in a nice candle holder, flowers in a vase on the table, and all of the things for taco salad lined up neatly on the counter. He even took the time to put all of the toppings in individual prep bowls. I was blown away! He just stood there grinning from ear to ear. I walked into the office and he had cleaned the whole desk top off so it could fit my computer as well as his. 

He is so wonderful and full of surprises! 

I'm finished with my first half week of work. It hasn't been so bad, I've been learning TONS of stuff. Today I uploaded videos to itunesU, I finished turning some tapes into digital files and cds, then put them on itunesU, that in itself took somewhere about six hours. of course I was learning it all, but it takes a lot of work. 

Anyway. I am getting used to it all. and it's not that bad.

Joe and I are attempting to win free chick-fil-a for a year this coming wednesday in Richmond. Should be interesting!

Firsts

Joe and I started our new jobs today.

I am in IT for production assistant and Joe is over in Admissions for an assistant for admissions. He is working all day today, so I'm home alone. 

I only worked for half a day, and that was more than enough for me! I think I'm going to really enjoy the job once I understand better what is going on. It's just that today there was A LOT of information I had to hear and remember. I basically just messed with a program for recording cassettes into a digital format.... there was also a lot of codes and what not to put into the computer for different reasons. I think I'll get the hang of it sometime.

Joe and I are both working 20 hours a week right now. Actually he is working a little more. 

He still has a youth pastor interview on monday night, so that could lead to something good.

I need to go rest my brain.

interviews

I'm about to head out to my second interview. This one is for the Hospitality Assistant staff position that I wrote about before (I think).

The man who is interviewing me is Mr. Ralph Siglers cousin, so this should be interesting. I'm not sure how he is related though, maybe through Mr. Ralphs mom's side...it was an interesting fact though.

I have to call the people at IT today and let them know if I want to accept their job offer. This is a new kind of pressure I haven't felt before. 

It's all going to work out. and in the end, I think I will have a job.

Joe has an interview tomorrow for an admissions work study, and then an interview next Monday for a youth pastor position (at a church an hour away).

just waiting now...

Lovely Ride

This afternoon Joe told me "I've got to get out of the house...let's have date night"

I was completely fine with this seeing as how we ate poppy seed chicken for a week straight and how we have been eating roast for the past two meals. 

While I finished getting ready to leave J researched italian places to eat (for relatively inexpensive), he ended up find a play called Theresa's Pizza. It was SUPER good! it had crust like Pizza hut and toppings like...heaven. While we were eating he said "I looked at the reviews and didn't see anything for this place" I thought it was so cute how he looked at the reviews. I love how he researches things. Right now he is looking up new phone plans. We aren't changing until October probably, but if he starts looking now...then we may find something by then.

I am just going to watch and wait and then do whatever he says is best. 

As we were riding home we rolled the windows down to get some fresh air. that didn't last long though. it is 66 out side and feels cold. "This is NOT summer time!" J said. "This is like ... october in alabama..." He's right. It is very cool outside, especially without the humidity.

I need real winter clothes. I feel like the winter is going to be a shock to my body.

on a regular basis

I'm ready to start work. 

Joe and I have been talking about this past month together and both agree that it has been wonderful not to work because this has been the first time we've been able to spend consistent time together without having to travel, get ready for graduation/weddings, pack...things like that.

I have been offered a job at the seminary for Production Assistant, but am still considering wether I want to accept it or not. I have also applied for a staff position as a Hospitality Assistant, which I think would be getting students connected with the seminary and other students. It's only 20 hours a week but pays 9.00 an hour. the other is only 7.25 an hour and 15-20 hours a week. the IT people have been kind enough to give me some time to accept the work offer in order to check out this other job. The production assistant job would be nice because they promote from within, I would have more opportunities to shoot events, I would be able to use my bachelors some, and I would be learning a lot about programming/ just getting to work in an office environment. BUT...it is minimum wage and not as many hours. so....I don't know.

Since Joe and I have been married I have had the joy of discovering more about his characteristics. I have learned that if he is left alone any more than 20 minutes he will start singing something, anything. I believe he is a walking ipod. I love it.

He is also hungry all the time, I'm still trying to get used to that.

I'm loving being married. I'm learning more and more how to serve and be served (which is actually hard when I want to do everything myself).

God has been providing for us in this down time without jobs. We are so thankful for that.