God is good

So I spent Last night and this morning at the women's retreat at church. It was amazing! It started with a wonderful dinner prepared by some of the men at church (several of which are great cooks/chefs). There was this cream sauce on the pasta that was delectable to the nth degree. For desert there was a flourless chocolate cake that was positively incredible. It was so nice to relax with friends and enjoy a meal that I didn't have to prepare. On that note, I have to say that I love how our church doesn't have age specific ministries. As a result I have met some women who are amazing at all different ages and backgrounds. It makes for some wonderful conversation.

Our speaker was Ellie Lofaro and she was amazing! She speaks nationally, so if anybody ever gets the chance to hear her talk I would recommend it. First of all, I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time. Maybe it's because she is an Italian from Brooklyn and all the wonderful things that come with that heritage. Who knows. But I have to say that her message was so refreshing and uplifting. The whole theme of the weekend was imagining. Imagine what God can and wants to do for you and through you. There was of course a lot more than that, and I still need to devote some time to looking more closely and some of the scriptures that we touched on, but in short it was just what I needed.

This morning we resumed our gathering over a wonderful spread of breakfast items. Ellie talked again for most of the morning, followed by some worship music and prayer. It was a short, but very powerful retreat. I ended up buying two of her books, which I hope will be as engaging as she was. I have high hopes (the woman taught English in NY public schools for 10 years..she must have captivated her students to have thrived in that environment as she did).

Kyle volunteered to help clean up and I ended up staying as well and helped dry dishes (gotta love the industrial dishwashers). I ended up coming home with some of the wonderful cream sauce that was left over from dinner and some very pretty flowers. I'm going to try to get the greens (Acuba) to root. Supposedly it's fairly easy to do with this plant. So with any luck, I'll get some more plants out the deal for our apartment.

So all that is left now is to enjoy the rest of the evening. I think we might rent a movie. Star Wars maybe. Last weekend we went to see the informant! and really enjoyed it. The two teens behind us certainly didn't appreciate the humor....stinks for them. So anyhow, as soon as my dorky husband finished up his computer game it's off to the video store.

This and That

So, today Kyle and I drove forty minutes to a baby shower that we thought was today, only to arrive there and have Kyle remember that it actually was yesterday. Oops! How lame to get the date mixed up. Even more of a bummer because Kyle has to go into work again tonight. School has started, but I still haven't gotten any calls to sub. So I've just been hanging out and using my time "wisely".... Seriously though, having a second car makes a huge difference. I've been able to go to youth group for the past two Sunday's even though Kyle has had to go into work. I've also been able to join a Friday morning Bible study, which has been great so far.

One upside of all my free time is that I have been motivated to work on a lot of my ongoing knitting projects that I had going on and have finished quite a few of them. I'll try to post some pictures of them next time. My camera has been out of batteries and I haven't had a chance to replace them yet....must get rechargeable batteries. But like I said, it has been nice to have the time to knit enough to see the progress almost immediately. It makes for the motivation to keep it up.

Well, I think I'm going to get some ice cream and watch some more of the Emmys.

Enough already!

So last week was very stressful, but thankfully it ended on a good note. As I wrote earlier, I had things pretty much figured out as far as work stuff goes. Well, Wednesday night I got a call asking if I would be willing to be considered for a FT long term sub job, as a growth and human development teacher until the position could be filled. I agreed that I would like to be considered. Well, the school called me Thursday to offer me the position. I told them yes, that sounded great. Two hours later I got a call from another high school in the area asking if I wanted to interview for a full time English position. Yes! So I schedule the interview for Friday, but realize I need to tell the school I agreed to sub for. So I call them to let them know. I go in Friday morning to meet with the principal and she says that she is nervous about not finding a backup sub in case I get the job (which she is sure will happen), but to let her know just in case. Well, the interview goes well, but not well enough. I don't get the job, and when I call the other school they have already found another sub. Bummer. So I am right back where I started, which is okay with me. What was the most stressful is that I had all these anxieties about how I would prepare for the school week that starts tomorrow without knowing what classes I was going to teach or having any clue about the materials. So I didn't sleep well, and then I was just nervous about the interview and such.

As I said, the weekend ended well. Kyle and I took our first step towards helping out with the youth group at church and joined them for a LOTR marathon. We watched the first two films and played a game of ultimate Frisbee in between. It was a lot of fun, but we were exhausted after our long week, so we didn't stay for the last movie. Saturday we finally bought a car for me. It's a 2007 Chevy Aveo. It looks like a toy. Anyhow, it was a good deal for us and it is really all I need. It will get me where I want to go without any crazy frills, plus it has pretty good gas mileage. So that was exciting.

Other exciting news was finding out this morning that a good friend from college is engaged. It is really exciting news, but it also just reminds me of how far away and out of touch we are with people back home. I mean, we aren't across the ocean, but it feels that way sometimes.