Technology...It's Great When It Works!

Ah, computers. I don't have any idea what I would do without one. How did people survive before they were invented? I'll never know. I don't know a lot about technology, but I do know this: it's great when it does what it's supposed to do. My first computer was a hand-me-down from Grandma Iseminger. She passed on into a place where computers don't really matter, so I, a recent college entrant, inherited her computer. It was great to have my own!! And it worked...for a couple of years. It had had a good run, but wasn't about to last very much longer. It was time to replace it.

I bought my very own computer in 2004. It was a refurbished Dell Inspiron 600m laptop. It weighed only 5 lbs. and I carried it everywhere in my backpack made especially for that purpose. I was a rockin' college student...with a wireless network card, I could surf the 'net anywhere wireless was available (in a college town, that meant practically everywhere). That refurbished beauty lasted me for 4 years...until someone stepped on it, cracking the motherboard and damaging the screen. Ug.

2007. I'm married now, and we are computer shopping together. We need a computer that works efficiently. We're looking ahead to seminary and grad school and think that two computers might be better than one. We had the hook-up with a local electric company who was getting rid of their old laptops. We scored two IBM ThinkPads (paying only a fraction of what they would have cost). These both worked for about 1 year. True, Jeremy's still can't download the right driver to hook up to our printer, but mine worked really well until one day that it wouldn't anymore.

2008.We're not sure exactly what happened, but all of a sudden my computer just stopped working...started shutting down randomly, freezing, and generally not letting us do ANYTHING. Ok, at this point we're all settled in our new place. Online classes would be starting in a week and a half and my computer isn't working...we've tried just about everything we can think of and realize that its time to sink some money into a brand new computer. Back to my old favorite company, we ordered a Dell Inspiron 1525 (mainly because they were having a great back-to-school sale). Today we got it in the mail!!!! It is a beautiful computer. I am so happy to finally have a computer that works efficiently (or at all). And you know what's funny? We paid about 1/2 the cost of the first Dell laptop I bought all those years ago. Technology has certainly come a long way.

Anyway, I don't want you to get the idea that I didn't like each of my computers when I had them. I did--and was very thankful for each. The only problem is that when a computer stops working, its completely worthless (kind of like our t.v.s will be if we don't get those digital converter boxes by February 2009). Every time a computer of mine stops working, I wonder how I could have let myself become so dependent on technology--I feel completely lost without it. Recipes, reference materials, classes, e-mail, documents, picture storage, and so much more.

So what is the solution for my computer dependency? The only thing I can come up with is to have a reliable computer. All the time. Not much of a solution, huh? :)

The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow

As you read in my last blog, my husband and I recently moved to Deerfield, IL so he can go to seminary. We are excited to be going back to the college life...working, going to school, sleeping, etc. Jeremy had wanted to get a part-time job while he was in school to supplement our income. A week after we moved, we went job-hunting. The first stop on our trip was Panera Bread. Unbeknownst to us, a location had just opened the prior week. All we knew was that they were hiring. As Jeremy was filling out the application, I did a little shopping at the local grocery store. By the time I returned, he had already been hired! :) I was super-excited because I didn't realize that it was quite that easy to get a p/t job. The benefits are great--percentages off food all the time and free bread when we want to go pick it up! :) It is also great that he is beginning to really enjoy working with the people. Other benefits are that it is only a mile or so away, so he can walk (if I need the car).

My job search hasn't gone as smoothly. I was intending to get a somewhat professional job working on Trinity's campus. I did the filling out of the application and actually had 3 different job interviews on-campus. The frustrating thing is that none of those three possibilities worked out for me. Even though I didn't want to, I started looking into teaching positions. I found one in the area, and even though I submitted my application, I was not contacted for an interview. I am working on getting my Illinois teaching license, but that is quite a process that involves taking 4 proficiency tests. It will be a long process, I can tell already.

So here I am--with an undergraduate degree and going to start a master's this fall--jobless with no prospects. It is getting to the time where I just need something to do. I'm kind of tired of spending my endless days (What day is it again? They are all starting to blend together.) at home. Jeremy has been working 40+ hours/week, which leaves me with very little human contact during the day. Finally, I realized that I just need to bite the bullet and find anything that will help contribute to the paying of our bills.

Last Saturday, August 16, Jeremy and I went out job hunting for me. I decided that Barnes & Noble and Starbucks were the two places I wouldn't mind working, so we Googled them and took off. The first stop was the Starbucks near the Panera where Jeremy works. I filled out an application, but, unfortunately, they were not hiring...so, the next stop was Deerfield. There are at least 3 Starbucks locations on Deerfield Rd., all within about 1 mile of each other, and one of which is located in a Barnes & Noble. It seemed like a good place to continue my job search. By the time I got to the third location on Deerfield Rd., I was getting pretty discouraged. I realized that yes, indeed, it was a Saturday and the managers probably weren't in, so I would have to wait until Monday to hear back about any of them.

I filled out the application at the third location, turned it in, and asked for the manager (not expecting that there would be one there). The worker promptly took my application to the Assistant Store Manager(ASM), got me a coffee and asked me to wait for a moment while the ASM reviewed it. That was promising, right? When the ASM came out of the back area, he was all set for an interview. We got through interviewing and he offered me a job on the spot. The one downer was that the pay was a little less than I was hoping to earn. He then mentioned that he thought I would be a good candidate for a supervisory position and I would have a chance to advance in both status and pay after the initial training period (1-2 months). The benefits are good--Starbucks certainly takes care of their employees. Not only are the health benefits good, the perks are great. I get free drinks during my shift, a percentage off products at any Starbucks store, and 1 lb. of coffee (or a box of tea) free each week I work over 20 hours.

As I was sitting in Starbucks, waiting for the ASM to finalize paperwork, I couldn't help but think to myself, "I knew we were going back to a college lifestyle, but I didn't realize that it meant working retail again. Is this really what God has for me?" And I guess that's what I'm struggling with now. I am a college-educated person! I have successfully held a job (in the same place) for 3 consecutive years. How is it that I am unable to get a professional job?

And then I started talking to other Trinity students and it seems that, unknowingly, I have taken the same path that many of them have taken. They nod sympathetically and identify with the fact that Starbucks is where many students start out. So I guess it isn't that bad after all. My long tenure with Fareway prepared me for life in ways I didn't even know at the time and its really paying off now. Besides, I think Jeremy's right in that it will be a fun job for me, even though its not what I expected I'd get.

I'm not giving up on looking for professional jobs, but I am putting it on hold for right now. I will continue to look for teaching positions and jobs on Trinity's campus, but for right now, I'm going to enjoy the college lifestyle. Our families can expect coffee (or coffee related products) and bread for Christmas...its all we'll be able to afford. :) Who knows what God's plan is? I can only see right now, but He sees the entire time continuum--AND, He has a plan! :) So I guess I'll just wait and see what comes down the pike.

A New Home

Almost 3 weeks ago, we moved from York, Nebraska to Deerfield, Illinois. Jeremy, my husband, is starting school at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) to get his Masters of Divinity (MDiv) and it required a locale change. So here we are.

We were blessed to be able to get campus housing. I was reminded today that there is only a 1 in 3 chance of married students getting on-campus housing. I thank God that He saw fit to put us in that small percentile. :) Anyway, after the prodding of my sister Joy, I have finally decided to post some of our pictures online and write about our new lodging arrangement. We are living in the "D" building. This first picture is the front of our building. There are 5 other buildings similar to ours. Buildings "A", "B", and "C" have one-bedroom apartments and buildings "D", "E", and "F" have two-bedroom apartments. Each building has 8 apartments total, 4 on the bottom and 4 on the upper level, and a basement for storage and laundry. We are fortunate to have a lower level apartment.

The next picture here on the right is one of our apartment. You can see the "D", making it clear that we are, in fact, in the "D" building. Our window is in the left of the picture and our door is on the right hand side of the picture. The little black rectangle on our door indicates that it is Unit D-1.

There are many positives about this apartment. The carpet is brand new, as are the refridgerator and the stove. Since there are two bedrooms, we have one as a guest room/study room (it contains a bed and our desks and storage) and the other is of course used as the master bedroom. The guest room has two clothes closets (yeah!) and the master bedroom has one. The living room is spacious, the dining room is great, and the kitchen is, of course, smaller than I would like. But, there is a walk-in pantry. We also have a coat closet, a linen closet at the end of the hall, and a linen closet in the bathroom. There is plenty of storage, especially considering that there is another bedroom-sized storage room downstairs.

These things are all nice, and we are very appreciative of them, but we are especially thankful for our parking space. In the picture to the left, you can see Celia, our Hyundai Elantra, parked in our very own front-row parking spot. We feel very fortunate to have this particular space because it is several feet wider than the other spaces. I knew you wouldn't believe me if I just told you, so I took photo documentation to prove what I am saying. Take note of our space and the one next to it. We could almost parallel park in our spot. It would be tight, but we just might do it sometime. :)

So we like our apartment and our parking space, but there is just one more benefit of which I think you should be aware. Our apartment is the closest to the laundry room! Here on the right, you can see that our front door is only a few feet away from the stairs that lead to the basement. This makes it very convenient to do laundry.

All in all, we are very happy with our new home. Granted, we will pay more for rent than we even want to know, but God has certainly brought us here and given us great lodging. We are looking forward to how God is going to use and bless this time at Trinity. He has already blessed Jeremy with a job at Panera Bread (but that is a blog for another time) and I'm sure He is going to bring the right job around for me. Praise God for His blessings! :)

A Glutton for Punishment?

I have been cross-stitching for years. I really don't know exactly when or why I started, but I really picked up the habit during high school. I made a few for gifts, but it wasn't until college that I started keeping the finished products. Currently, I have four on display in my home; another will probably be completed by Christmas.

As I was working on this latest project today, I started to wonder why I cross-stitch--particularly what-in-the-world-was-I-thinking when I started this pattern? Its kind of a funny story actually. Since the second bedroom is where we will store our books and movies, I decided to decorate it in a fantasy theme and thought it would be fun to make the decorations myself. After researching many different patterns, I purchased "The Best of Teresa Wentzler Fantasy Collection Volume I" and started working. After only 3 months, a castle encircled by a dragon found it's way onto our wall. (Incidentally, I was so proud of it, I hung it in the living room, not the second bedroom...but that is neither nere nor there.)

Fully intending to complete most of the patterns in the book, I promptly started the one entitled "Stroke of Midnight" (features a prince standing in a lighted doorway gazing after a fleeing Cinderella, who is the focus of the piece). Now, I am a hobby cross-stitcher and am learning as I go...learning the hard way, as it were. See, the first pattern in this book was the easiest pattern out of the whole book, though I didn't know it at the time I was doing it. It called for 14-count Aida fabric, pretty standard as far as I was concerned (14 crosses to every inch). This new pattern I started did not have the dimensions for 14 pt., only 25, 28, and 32 count (the higher the count, the smaller the crosses). I thought, 'no problem! I'll just use 25 count. it won't be that bad...' I went to Hobby Lobby and started examining the Aida fabric, only to find that 22 count was about as small as I could handle without making myself prematurely blind. Again, I thought, 'no problem! the end product will just be a bit bigger.'

I went home and started working. My plan was to do the whole background and leave Cinderella and the prince for last.

After I got a few hundred stitches into it (too far to start over), I was getting frustrated with how hard it was to see and how difficult it was to make the 1/2 stitches even. It was then that I noticed the directions at the top of the page. "Our model was stitched over two fabric threads on 25 count Antique White Lugana fabric.....Because of the Cross Stitches worked over one fabric thread, this design is not suitable for stitching on Aida fabric." What?! What is Lugana fabric?!

Unbeknownst to me at that point, there are other types of fabric used for cross stitching. Lugana happens to be what they call a type of "even-weave" fabric. It's very useful for all those little 1/2 and 1/4 stitches. Oh yeah, and after reading more of the little type, I find out that this pattern is meant to be cross stitched over two threads instead of just one. To put it in non-cross stitch terms, it is the same as dividing the count by two. So for instance, if I decided to cross stitch with the 25 count, it would have the same effect as if I had decided to use 12.5 count material.

When I realized this, I was taken aback. So much work I had already put into this project and I would have to finish it now, as is, on 22 count Aida fabric.

That was about 10 months ago. I have continued to work on it and, as I said at the beginning of this post, it is almost done. I started to work on the prince and Cinderella today, which made me realize that although I still have a lot to do, I am nearing the end of the project. So I laid it flat on the coffee table and looked at it. The dimensions are 185 stitches x 234 stitches, which translates into 43,290 individual crosses, or only 8in.x10in. It has the smallest area of any cross stitch in my house right now. And yet I am pouring more work into it than I have in any other cross stitch. Ever.

So what is it about cross stitching that makes me keep coming back for more--even though I got the fabric and the count completely wrong? What makes me undo and redo stitches to make it as perfect as I am able? Am I crazy? No, I delight in knowing that someday the project will be finished. The process is enjoyable because at any time I get to take a step back and see how the total picture is coming along.

The thing is, when I look at the completed projects in my home, I only vaguely remember the frustrations I felt when I had to redo a complete section because I was off by one stitch. I am amazed as I look at each individual picture because I realize that I did it! Its something that I can be proud of because it is a work of my hand.

And I think sometimes that's how God views us. There are a lot of times that I feel pricked by God's metaphoric cross stitching needle. It's not always pleasant, but I know it is for the glory of God. He is continually molding us into the likeness of the perfect person--Jesus. Even though we can't always see the big picture, God does. He continues to delight in us because He made us for that very purpose.

The parallel obviously breaks down in some respects because God doesn't make mistakes (and cross stitchers do), but I think that the initial parallel is still true. God will continue to work out our imperfections because He loves us. We can be sure of that.