Anticipating April

Well it's the last day of March, so it seemed fitting to write a blog post. March has been a crazy, exciting, joyful, and BUSY month!! I was so excited to start this job for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones was that I would get my weekends off. Yay for Friday actually meaning something for once! I've loved being able to see concerts,  hang out with friends, attend baby showers, and go on trips that I wouldn't normally have been able to do, but man am I tired!!

Molly and me hanging out.

We've been really blessed this month with getting to see friends from home. Our first visitor was my dear friend Molly, who I've known since right before I came to Christ. She was a great mentor for me and we became pretty good friends while I went to ISU. She was visiting her grandparents in Florida and came to see us for a night. We had a great chance to catch up and eat dinner together before Erik came home, and then the three of us went to a really great Italian ice place and had a good time. She spent the night on our couch. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable, Molly! We were also super excited to spend the evening with Dan and Amy, a married couple who was in our wedding. Dan's family was vacationing at Disney, so we drove down there Sunday night to have dinner and hang out with Dan and Amy. We had a lot of fun, and it was fabulous seeing our friends! It was like no time had passed. =)

Dan, Amy, me, and Erik at Downtown Disney!

April begins tomorrow, and I feel so unprepared. I turn 24 seven days in, and we celebrate one year of marriage just ten days later. In addition to that, Easter falls at the end of April this year. We're kicking off the month by going on a trip with our life group to Jupiter, Florida. I'm looking forward to being close to the beach and having a big sleepover with my closest Floridian friends, but I'm a little nervous that instead of having a relaxing weekend, being around all those people will make me even more tired. Hopefully it will be just the weekend away I've been needing though. I'm also really excited about Sunday. Sometimes Erik and I get really sad that UCF's counseling program is three years (as opposed to the two years that most grad programs are), but it definitely offers some perks. For instance, we got two FREE tickets to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure for Sunday. You know what that means? WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER, HERE WE COME!!! Oh yes, I am a bit excited to finally get to see this attraction. I've pretty much been waiting for it until we moved here, and it's even better that we can both get in for freeve! The park doesn't open until 4 for us, but that is actually perfect because it leaves time for traveling back from Jupiter (that sounds funny, doesn't it?)

I hope March has been as great for you as it has for me, and that your April is even better! As always, thanks for reading!

Ending One Chapter, Beginning Another

Hi everyone. I really wish I was better at updating this. The last time I posted on here, I had just found out that I would be the new editorial assistant at Charisma Media. It's been almost three weeks since that post, and a lot has happened since then. I realize that if I kept up on this I could write shorter posts, but it's becoming my style now I guess.

I did give Applebee's my notice, and they were not as grateful as I thought they would be. When I turned in my notice, my general manager wasn't there. He never once mentioned me leaving. He didn't ask about my job opportunity, congratulate me, say he would miss me, or anything like that. He is a nice and personable guy, so this felt uncharacteristic. For my last week, I worked Friday through Friday. That is eight days in a row with no day off. I also had a double on two of those days. It was completely awful, but I did make a good amount of cash. I was just SO exhausted by the middle, let alone at the end. I think I used all of last weekend to recover.

It was so nice to know, though, that there was a light at the end of the tunnel! I put in my time at Applebee's (in June it will be two years since I started at the one in Bloomington) and I finally started a full-time job related to my degree. My first day was Monday, March 14. Let me start by saying that I work for a great company. I have not met one person I haven't liked. Everyone has been so nice and welcoming to me, some even coming up just to meet me! I was even greeted by a wonderful sign on my office door, and candy and flowers sitting on my desk. I have never felt so special. :)

For those who are curious, the editorial department puts out three magazines and two e-mags. These pictures are the covers of the latest issues of our print magazines, Charisma, Ministry Today, and Christian Retailing. As I mentioned, I am in an administrative position. The editor hopes to give me some editorial tasks as well, but not right away. So far I have mostly been doing administrative things, but I still like it. There is a lot to learn and I haven't felt too overwhelmed yet. I've been working things like budgets, author agreements, and copyrights. I go through all of the e-mails for each publication (there are A LOT, so that takes up a good chunk of time) and I even worked on one of the e-mags. We put out one called SpiritLed Woman, and I got to put that together last week. If you'd like to see it, let me know and I can e-mail it to you.

I am looking forward to getting into even more editorial things and not having to ask Leigh what I should do every time I have finished a task. Leigh is a copy editor in the department and she has been training me. My predecessor left a few weeks ago, but Leigh did this job a while back and has been helping me with everything. She is so wonderful and I am sad that she is leaving soon. She's getting transferred downstairs to the book group, and I'm afraid that I'll be lost without her. I'm grateful that we still have two more weeks with her on our team though. Our team is pretty small right now, but everyone seems to be making it work. They are all really hard workers, and I am really going to enjoy working with them.

I am excited to possibly write for some future issues and to be involved in their publication. I will mostly be working on Charisma, but will also be helping with Ministry Today. I may do a few things for Christian Retailing, which is an industry publication, but not as much as the others. My background is in newspapers, but I am loving working with magazines so far. I'm praying that I will continue to love it and that this job will open some wonderful doors for me

I am not used to an 8:30-5:30 schedule, so I felt pretty tired a lot of the week, but I know my body just needs some time to adjust. My wonderful husband has been trying his best to wake up with me, even though he doesn't need to start his day for a few more hours. He gets up anyway though and helps me pack my lunch and makes my breakfast for me. Bless his heart!

I am definitely loving having the weekends off. It is still kind of weird not having to work. We were supposed to volunteer for Give Kids the World this weekend with our life group, but that fell through last minute. =( We're still going to hang out with friends from our life group though, which we're excited for. Tomorrow we're going to see Anberlin at the UCF Arena, woot woot! Well I hope you all have a great weekend, and thanks for reading! :)

Two Week Notice

Hi everyone! Please welcome me back from my hiatus. I don't know why, I just haven't been feeling the blogging lately. For a while there I was slacking on writing but still staying faithful with reading the few blogs I follow. Lately, though, I haven't been doing either. However, I got some great news today and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to jump back into the blogosphere.

I GOT A JOB TODAY!!!!

I will officially be putting my two weeks in at Applebee's tomorrow, and it feels GREAT! It has been a bit of a process, but I did not want to get my hopes up (like last time) so I waited to post it online until it was official. At the beginning of the month I interviewed for an assistant editor position for a couple of the magazines produced by Charisma Media, which just went through a re-branding (up until Feb. 1 they were known as Strang Communications). I went in for testing and an interview and I thought it went well, but the person who interviewed me, Marcus, was very up front about the fact that they weren't exactly sure what they were looking for and that it could be a while before I heard anything back.

I found out last Monday (Feb. 21) that Marcus did not think I was right for the job. I was really sad, but tried to remain positive and keep in mind that God has a plan for me and will provide for me. Just two days later, the HR person I have been in touch with called me and said Marcus did not think I was ready for that particular position, but was impressed with me and had another role in mind. They let their administrative assistant go on Friday and need to fill the position immediately. He thought of me and wanted me for the job. Although I did not go to four years of college to become an administrative assistant, this role is great because it will also include some editorial responsibilities as well, including copy editing and writing.

This is the perfect role for me to start in, and is what I have been praying for! I went in today for the final step in the hiring process. I met with the woman who is the assistant to Joyce Strang, the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and co-owner. She asked me a bunch of formal questions and it went really well. The interview was not over until 3 p.m., so in no way was I expecting to hear back before the end of the day. Best case scenario I was hoping to get a call tomorrow morning before work. Imagine my surprise and delight when my phone rang at 4:57 p.m. and I got offered the job!!

Thanks to everyone who has been encouraging me and supporting me through working at Applebee's, being unemployed, and working at Applebee's again. This has been a tough year and a half, but also so rewarding and full of blessings. God is so great, and I am really happy and encouraged about this opportunity he has provided me with. I am hoping to start as soon as March 14, so I will (try to) keep you all updated!

Please Pray for my Mom

So I was hoping to have the post about our trip home done by now, but for whatever reason it isn't. Anyway, this is just a quick post updating everyone on my mom. On Wednesday, December 22, we woke up early to get ready for our flight to Chicago. At about 8:30 AM (EST) my Uncle Steve called me to let me know my mom was in the hospital with a brain aneurysm. I didn't know much about aneurysms, but I knew they weren't good. I was flooded with a mix of emotions, mostly anxiety and sadness. My Aunt Tammy picked us up from O'Hare at around 1:30 and drove us to see my mom in the hospital. This was my first time seeing her since our wedding day. She was in the ICU, but she seemed to be doing pretty well. The doctors explained to us that her aneurysm was too small to do a method called coiling (where they go in from an artery and stop the bleeding) and in too much of an awkward place to clip it (brain surgery). They were transferring her to Northwestern though, and seemed fairly confident that those doctors would be able to fix her. Once she got to Northwestern, they did plenty of tests and decided that the aneurysm was inoperable...there was nothing they could do and they said she would die within a week. However, Northwestern is not only an excellent hospital, it is also a teaching hospital. Apparently one of the young doctors there came up with an experimental procedure they wanted to try on mom. When I say experimental, I mean it has never been done before (to their knowledge at least). The aneurysm is on her carotid artery and is not your run-of-the-mill aneurysm. It has split the vein vertically, which is very hard to repair. Since the aneurysm was too small to operate on, their plan was to put her on blood clotting medicine (risky since she had already had a stroke) and grow the aneurysm to a size where they could. While we were in Illinois, Erik and I were able to go spend a day with my mom at Northwestern and all things considered, she was doing pretty well. She was totally alert and coherent, eating regularly, and even looked pretty good.

My floating head (hehe) and my mom the day
we visited her at Northwestern.

She stayed there for about two weeks and they released her to go home on Thursday, Jan. 6. They wanted her to keep coming back to the hospital every week so they could monitor her, and the plan was to do surgery in four to six weeks. It has been about two weeks, and when she went to the hospital this Monday (Jan. 24) they decided to admit her and operate on her today, Jan. 27. My mom has been fairly calm about everything, and according to her husband she gets confused sometimes. Now because of this I didn't realize how serious this surgery actually was. She went in this morning at 6 AM CST and is still in surgery 10 hours later. Her husband, Ralph, said the doctors told them the surgery could be 12-16 (or maybe he said 14, I can't remember) hours. I am not totally clear, but it sounds like what they are doing is moving her brain (particularly the frontal lobe I think) so they can access her carotid artery, which is located under the brain. That is where the aneurysm is, as well as a tear in one of the veins. Their plan was to either coil the aneurysm and stop it that way, or do a by-pass, which means they would take an artery from somewhere else in her body (for her it would be the neck or wrist.)

This is all I know right now. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers, I really appreciate it. Even if she makes it out of the surgery there are still lots of things that can go wrong afterward, so it will be a while before we know how she's doing, but I will update when I know more. Love to you all!! <3

Finding Solace in Busy Orlando

Last Thursday Erik and I had the pleasure of visiting Harry P. Leu Gardens for free! It normally costs $7 a person, but our generous friend Jessica gave us a pair of free tickets. I do like nature, but I'm not into it as much as some people. My Uncle Bill and Erik's mom, for instance, could probably spend an entire day at this place looking at each individual flower and plant. We went through it an hour and a half, which included a half-hour tour at a museum on the grounds. That being said, it really was a beautiful place and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. We woke up to a rainy, cloudy morning feeling a little sick and our day wasn't shaping out to be too great. However, we went back to sleep and woke up feeling much better. The weather had also cleared up, making it a good day to go to the gardens. It is 49 acres and right on a lake...really a beautiful place! It was originally farmlands back in the 1800s when Orlando wasn't much of a city. The fourth and final owners remodeled the home and made it absolutely amazing. That is where we took the tour, and it was so cool to see some genuine antiques. They developed the property into a scenic oasis, and donated it to the city of Orlando in the 1960s. If you're ever in the Orlando area, you should check it out! It's not an exciting attraction like Universal Studios or Disney World, but it is definitely cheaper and offers a great place to view some lovely nature and just take a break from life. :)

PS- I'm working on a post recapping our trip home, but it's going to take me a while so please bear with me! In the meantime, enjoy some of these pictures from the lovely Leu Gardens!

Enjoying the January sun!

Erik fighting a cactus.

The beautiful Leu home, decorated for Christmas!



We walked under this tree upon entering and exiting the gardens. It was HUGE and beautiful. I  loved it!