2 Interviews

Well, Erik has had two interviews that really mean anything. The hedge fund put us up in a hotel at the Galleria and he interviewed for 5 hours with 5 different people....yeesh! I shopped and ate and was generally antsy because I was supposed to be meeting up with Casey. We had just enough time to make it to Rockwall for his interview with a builder! They all went well...just anxiously waiting to hear something. See, as far as moving on goes, Erik needs the job, so we'll know where to live (somewhere in the middle), and then we can find a place and set a date to move. It will set the ball rolling. I'm also anxiously waiting for my financial aid package from Baylor which may or may not come this month...maybe next. Everyone else has theirs, though, so I'm jealous and fidgety. We go camping with Bret and Lisa in 10 days, for California in 16, and Erik quits his job at Dell in 37. School starts in 72 days. Lots to happen in 2 1/2 months. I know it will all come soon enough....

Waiting....Really?

The past month has been unique and I'm sure the next 2 will be even better. Lago is amazing. We love taking walks by the lake and kayaking. We'll even take picnics down to the beach and eat dinner there in the middle of the week. I've worked, probably 3 days a week on average, which is what I would have been working at Mandy's. On my days off, I've discovered the fitness center in our neighborhood and I've finished Nanna's quilt. Living in Lago and traveling to Houston and Dallas all the time (ok, mainly Dallas) have practically excluded us from church. I made my last baby shower cakes this month and that's pretty much the only time we've seen church people. We've spent more time with the Roeders which is good. It's a pretty isolated and slow time which is good and hard. Now that I'm finished with school, I think it'll slow down even more. In-between times are hard, especially when you're not really sure when it will be over and where you'll end up. I'm so glad to get to work on the projects and activities that are important to me. I'm also glad that I get some time to really focus and grow and work through some things emotionally and spiritually.

I've been wrestling with some issues and it's been neat to see God bring me - not necessarily answers, but clues; reminders of His glory and mystery. I think we so eagerly assume that God has just laid it all out for us. I think a lot of Christians make that leap in just about every area of life. It makes us feel so much better about it. We classify things as "God's will" and pray for revelation to explain what He's doing at different times in our lives and we're satisfied. I think we simplify Scripture based on childish explanations we've heard all our lives and deny that there is more than we could ever understand on our own - on this Earth. At least our denial is revealed in our prideful insistance that there's a simple answer for every spiritual problem this world encounters and that our answer is the only right one. Every aspect from salvation to sacrament to social reform. Everything gets so boxed-in and leaves absolutely no room for God to be who He really is in our little worlds. Of course He's always doing His thing no matter what, but we sure block a lot out everyday. Kinda like sunscreen. Like too much of Who He really could be for us would burn us like harmful UV rays, when in reality it would just make us shine brighter. And...maybe some of those "deadly" rays could actually break through and cause permanent changes in our genetic makeup from which we could never return. Wouldn't that be amazing? And it would spread all throughout our bodies...unstoppable...until we were completely changed to be like Him. My analogy is a little nerdy, but it holds. I just think that our attempts to make God more "accessible" to the masses by describing His ways in human words and analogies has taken away the mistique, the audacity, and the unexplainable that makes God, well, God. How dare we demand simple answers. I know our language is all we have to tell others about Him, but sometimes we rely too much on it when we should just be absorbing His rays so that He can do all the talking. So I guess this summer I'll be working on my "tan". As long as we're here, it will never be easy. It's like laying out in a forest. And I think we too often resort to the spray on tan or "subtle self-tanners" or bronzers...you know, the fake stuff that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy about God but doesn't really do the trick. It's just not the same. And it comes off too easily. I need to go to bed before my analogies get too bizarre.

A New Plan

Erik came home last Thursday and asked if he could quit his job. He's been miserable, really miserable. He's the only one doing the work of a team and he's had so many late night launches, they gave him time off. So, he went in today, gave his boss 4 weeks notice, and she countered with 8 weeks. So that's what he's doing. That means we might have to up our move date if Erik gets a job in Dallas by June. We'll go to California/PNW and probably come back and move. Our last day of our lease is July 31 anyway. There are 5 weeks left of school. No job today. I'm just glad that Erik is heading where he wants to go. He's excited. The building industry is in the toilet right now, so it'll be hard to find a building job, but we've found a couple and he's persuing. If that doesn't work, there are a million IT jobs in Dallas and he's gotten a million calls and emails today. I think he'll be fine. There are always loans...loans...loans...

Waiting for my Toenails to Dry

It's almost 11:30 and I can't go to bed because I painted my toes and they have to dry. I can't get impatient, because when I do, I always end up with sheet marks in the paint no matter how hard I try to keep meet feet out from under the covers. So I wait with a headache (yes, I took Tylenol) and drink my water like a good girl and go through every website I've already been through today. I was reading our friends' blog about their latest move cross-country and how well everything went and he used the word "favored" by God. It's hard in the midst of all this to not think that God is not favoring us, but when you really get down to it, we're still coming out ahead in all of this. Just because things are crazy doesn't mean that this move is the wrong thing, or dental school is the wrong thing - it's just a thing. I was pondering in bed last night about some of this and thought about how with each turn we take, God must, in His guiding love, make sure that we're ready for what we're going to face. He prepares us, even in little ways we may not notice, but He does. Before all this, I'd never worked for someone completely unreasonable, I'd never had a job where I had to learn something totally new and foreign, I'd never had to work through anything so emotionally draining. Erik and I had never dealt with major plumbing or structural problems in a home, never had to work through so much uncertainty and keep each other focused and positive. We've learned a lot about crazy real estate problems and what are good and bad ways to handle them. For two people facing dental school and the possibility of working in real estate - I think we should be thankful for the short courses we've endured these past few months.

I still don't think my toenails are dry, but they're better than when I started this post!

Spring Break

My week off is here and I need to get out of this house. It's so beautiful today after the rain and I will go run and enjoy it! The house situation has brought new bad news almost every day. Today we got the first good news and next, I should get some more and hopefully we'll hear that we'll be closing on Friday. Hallelujah! I realized that we'll be starting to look for a new place in like a month and a half or so. Erik hasn't worked on his real estate stuff in a while though, so we'll se how that goes. I get my physical in a couple of weeks and I'll be ready to go to orientation. I'm starving for more info about classes. We get our book list in mid-June along with our orientation schedule. Maybe at that point we'll have a place and we'll be going up regularly to work on it so we'll be ready to at least live/camp there in August. So now I'm just chilling. Did some quilting this morning, I'll do some more tonight. Maybe again tomorrow. Then I'll mix it up with some scrapbooking and reading in the park. Always with running and tai chi thrown in.

Yesterday, Luke was dedicated at church. First I saw Matt, then Mandy, then Amy. I told Erik and he said to just avoid eye contact. As I played my horn, I got really nervous thinking, "If I mess up, then they'll really think I can't do anything right." I was really ashamed of my thinking, but still found my hand shaking as I finished the special that had a major horn part in it. I played fine, not perfect, but great for as tense as I was. After the service, we went to get my horn, avoiding them, of course. But while we were visiting about going to the park for lunch, Erik said later that he saw her head towards me and turn around a couple of times, before she came over, poked me on the shoulder, and the pleasantries began. She said she just wanted me to see Luke. So I cooed at him and laughed and she said she'd see me later. I don't know why she felt compelled to do that because it sure didn't make me feel good or better or anything. If it eased her conscience in any way, that's fine. I was on the verge of tears when we finally got in the car. But Erik did his best to steer me away from it and put it all behind me again. I can't let her condescending disapproval and dissatisfaction plague me. All I can ever do is "work at [whatever I do] with all [my] heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." Colossians 3:23 Not for her. Not for me. Just Him.

So, on I go...balancing expecation and satisfaction with now.

That's what you thought!

Well, that sad but exciting moment of leaving our house didn't exactly happen. The waters came and we fought like crazy to save our house and we did a pretty good job. The drama is now over and the workers are coming everday to fix the dry wall. The Stultzes are camping out there and we'll probably close this week. In the meantime....I got my new student packet from Baylor!! I got it yesterday and I've already completed everything except the physical form, which I'll call to make an appointment for tomorrow. What a blessing that I've already got my shots up to date, I already have my healthcare provider CPR certification, and (thanks to our honeymoon fiasco) I even have a copy of my birth certificate! I just copied off everything, stuck it in the appropriately addressed envelopes, slapped a stamp on it, and in the mail it goes tomorrow! So in the midst of what could be very stressful and life consuming, we've managed to push on and enjoy our beautiful new home in Lago. The golf course is closed, but still beautiful and a great place for hills training. The views on the way to work in the morning are amazing and it's just as nice to go home. At this point, the time here feels like it's slipping away and even though I'm super excited and so ready to start school, I know I will regret it if I don't use it right.

On we go!

The days are passing very slowly, now, although they have sped up considerably as we approach the closing date on our house and we have to be out of here. Lots of craziness has been going on: our house sold in 10 days, Erik's jeep sold in 3 days and we had to rush to Dallas to buy his new truck. We found a great duplex in Lago Vista on the golf course with a front yard peek at the lake and we're starting the process of moving this weekend. It should be a lot of fun, especially once school is out and I won't have to drive to Georgetown for work. We'll have all the Lago ammenities: lake, parks, fitness center, walking trail...it's really great. It will be sad to see this house empty, but it will make this whole adventure a lot more real as we step out on the first leg of our journey. I hope to finish my financial aid application and packet for Baylor tonight so I can get that out. With all of this moving and buying a car we are quite depleted and we are now living the life of poverty that will come with dental school. :) Work is a daily reminder that I'm making a very wise decision. So, one more week until move-out and 2 until 605 Rock Face Court is no longer our home.

New Year, New Countdown

Upon the creation of the facebook group for the Baylor College of Dentistry Class of 2011 and the subsequent snooping that ensued, I have discovered that I am beyond ready to start classes and meet my fellow classmates. Looking at about 1/10 of the class, almost all are Ags, lots of Christians, and at least two people know people that I know. It seems like a lot of nice people and I'm just ready to sell, move, and get started. I know, however, that there are a lot of goodbyes and good times still to be had here in Austin and I'm also really looking forward to that. The possibility of living out by the lake for a few months is intoxicating and I'm almost as obsessed with that as I am with starting school. Mmmm...boat.... We'll see. For now, I enjoy my day off on this icy MLKJr Day. And the new countdown to August 6 begins.

Received

I got my receipt yesterday from Baylor and they said I won't hear anything until February/March. Here we go. Lots of nothing for a while. Surely having a house on the market and subbing a lot will fill the emptiness. December will fly, January will be super slow but I need to be pushing Erik to do our taxes so I can fill out my FASFA. 5 months of subbing (maybe?) then 2 months of summer moving and dental school begins. Really wierd, huh?

Flossing

There are a few things in life that are very simple to do, good for you, and in the long run, cost effective, but for some reason SOOO hard to actually do. Flossing is one. Spending time with God, at least where I am right now, is another. It's strangely so hard to get back on the wagon (?) but once you're on, it's fun and you look forward to the ride. I've hopped on and off for a while now, but there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be in for the long haul. Don't get me wrong, I really do think about God a lot during the day and sing to Him and pray, but really, during the life changing moments it's stupid not to really be studying and reveling in every drop of the Word that I can. I want the skills I gain in dental school to be used for His kingdom and to keep that focus, I, well, need to focus. I have this routine of putting my nightguard in denture cleaner to soak and then hopping on the computer to update my blog, for example, and check the 5 or so other sites I routinely go to throughout the day. At least 20 minutes. There is no reason I should be doing this and then lament the fact that I'm just not in the Word. So. Nightguard cleaning time is now sacred...set apart...holy. I have plenty of time to update this stuff later.

I Accept!

I sent in my acceptance letter to Baylor today with my first tuition payment...a deposit of $200. Small beans. I also mailed my rejection to Houston...but I held on to my SA letter per Erik's request and, well, just a feeling that it's a good idea to always have a back-up. Maybe I should send in the deposit. I'd have to cross out the check on the "decline" box and recheck the "accept" box. That would be kinda tacky. Eh, who cares? :)

I took my 3rd and final biochemistry test tonight after cramming alllllllll day. Glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle really stink. Good thing I get to do it again next year!

I spent some time tonight perusing through Facebook looking for fellow members of BCD class of 2011. There were actually a few out there with me who have claimed it so very early and posted it for all to see on their Facebook page. Kinda fun. So exciting to think about all the new faces and personalities I'll be spending 4 years with!