2 Weeks Already?!?!

{I originally started writing this post last Thursday and I'm just now getting around to finishing it...}
Time sure has flown!  A mere 2 weeks ago, Stephen and I were still in our wonderful apartment in Chicago preparing for our both dreaded and anticipated moving day.  Not only did we have to make sure that we had everything packed up and ready to be moved the following morning, but we also had to make sure that we painted back some parts of our apartment that the following tenants didn't want.  When Stephen and I first moved into our apartment, we decided to paint to make it feel homey-er.  We made this decision, even though we knew there would be a good chance we'd have to paint back.

If you click here, you can see pictures of our apartment from before we moved in.  If you click here you can see some pictures from after we painted.  And, if you click here you can go to the actual rental listing that is still active, even though our apartment has successfully been rented out.

So Stephen and I were faced with the big challenge of painting back our family room, bedroom and kitchen...we were so not looking forward to it!  Thankfully, God blessed us with some ah-mazing Chicago friends (you can read more about them here) and they so sweetly came over and helped us totally repaint in a matter of hours.  What had taken us days to do, only took us hours to undo.

Sweet Debbie painting our family room...what was once burnt orange is now oatmeal...

Stephen captured this great photo of me painting the family room.

A serious crowd getting that kitchen transformed from chocolate to oatmeal!

4/5ths of my amazing small group came - did you know I love these gals???

Check out this progress:

 

What was once our brown kitchen turned into an oatmeal oasis...

Chocolate turned to oatmeal.  The chocolate definitely made those dingy cabinets appear whiter!

Our green bedroom, a now a unique shade of oatmeal.

Our warm, orange family room, now...you guessed it!  Oatmeal!

 

The new tenants wanted the golden color but not the orange...I kept on asking them if they wanted my can of golden paint to paint the whole room the same color, although they didn't.  I'm wondering if they wished they would've taken it after they saw the final results?

It was really sad to leave this home that we loved...however, the new paint color made it easier because it we just didn't think it looked good and it didn't seem like home anymore.  While Stephen and I are still living with my parents, waiting for our new home to officially be ours, we're looking forward to all the new memories that will be made and looking back on our already made memories with a warm heart.  

Goodbye 421 W St James Place, thanks for being so great to us!

"Exciting" News!

I sure did wait a long time to come back and share my "exciting" news with you!  You might notice that I put quotation marks around the word exciting; I did this because a lot of people were guessing that the news contained some sort of information regarding a bun being in the oven.  That's when I realized that this exciting news was probably not going to be as big of news to everyone else as it was to me :).

Part of my exciting news is that I got a teaching position here in Louisville!  Woo-Hoo!  It's now been two full years since I have been in the classroom, and I must admit that with each passing month I have missed it more and more.  It was a huge blessing to be able to go to grad school without the pressures of teaching at the same time, however, throughout all my classes, I was itching to get back in the classroom and put into practice my newly learned methods/techniques.  

I'm also really excited about my teaching position because I firmly believe that it is exactly where God wants me to be.  Let me tell you about my experience trying to get a job in Louisville.  I finished my online application in April (yes, I was really eager), and began emailing HR in May.  I never received a response, and then heard of a hiring freeze they were having in the county due to a newly appointed Superintendent. The summer came and went, as did the hiring freeze, and still, regardless of all my calls and emails, I was still hearing crickets.  The way that the school system operates here is that new applicants must be screened by the board BEFORE they are put on a list given to principals.  This list is what principals use to choose who they want to interview.  Due to my lack of response from the board, I was sweating bullets!  I knew I wasn't on "the list" because I hadn't been screened, and I also knew that school started soon (mid-August - this upcoming Monday to be exact).  

Soooooo, Stephen and I moved back to Louisville on Thursday (July 28) and then on Sunday, I received a phone call from my new principal asking me to come in and interview on Monday (August 1).  She said she had received my information from HR and wanted to interview me.  Needless to say I was in shock...I hadn't been screened by HR before, how did she get my information from them?!  She told me that she thought that with experienced teachers, they probably relied heavily on references as opposed to being screened.  I was cool, calm and collective the entire time I was on the phone with her, and then as soon as I got off I was like a small child at Christmastime.  

I went in for my interview on Monday at 10:15 and by 2pm I accepted the position!  PAR-TAY!  I'm the new 4th grade teacher at Klondike Elementary here in Louisville and I couldn't be more excited!  We had Open House last night and the first day of school is this upcoming Monday.  I've been busy, busy, busy, but I couldn't be happier about getting back into the classroom!

The other part of my exciting news is that Stephen and I are in the final stages of buying a house!  We're currently going back and forth negotiating repairs with the sellers and are looking forward to (hopefully) being in our new house by the end of the month/beginning of September.  I would LOVE prayers regarding a clean close to this, and for my classroom and sanity...it's going to be a crazy month!

New Day, New Goal

So my goal yesterday morning was to come and show my blog some loving.  I failed miserably at that goal.  But, I'm here to redeem myself and do this morning what I wanted to do yesterday afternoon!  Also, just to keep people from being in the suspense for too long, no, I'm not pregnant :).  I guess exciting news is a relative term, and while it may be exciting to me, it's probably not that exciting to everyone :).

So last week was the last week Stephen and I could officially call Chicago "home", although I think a little piece of us will live there forever.  It was where Stephen and I lived right after being married, figuring out the other person and what married life for us looked like.  It is the home of our rock-solid church, The Moody Church, where on any given Sunday, you can walk into the breathtaking sanctuary and hear the truth of God being spoken.  It's also the home of a lot of our friends, friends that I didn't necessarily have 2 years ago, but in a short time became dear family to me.  I kicked and screamed (figuratively, not literally) when Stephen first told me that he didn't think Lexington was where we were supposed to live right after we were married.  I wanted nothing to do with the conversation.  Didn't he know how amazing Lexington was?!?  Didn't he understand that God had blessed my life over and over again in Lexington and that we had such amazing friends in Lexington?!?  Didn't he know that I was serving in a ministry I loved, had a job I loved and had zero complaints about my city?!  The real question is, didn't I know that God had an amazing journey planned for me?  Silly, Kari, always forgetting how big God is!

Now I'm going on and on and on and on and on about how much I love Chicago and how much I miss it, but don't get me wrong - while there are MANY things that I miss desperately about Chicago, there are just some things that I won't miss about that city.  I will share my misses and my easily forgets list :) below:

Things that I will most definitely miss.....

My Small (or teeny) group

great friends

Sad doesn't even describe the way I felt when I moved away from all of my dear friends in Lexington in the fall of 2009.  I had many teary moments following that move, some even happened a year to a year and a half later.  I missed my friends, I wanted to be with my friends and I wanted to continue to serve in ministry with them.  As soon as I was able to let go of my sadness of missing my friends, and understand that just because I lived in Chicago didn't mean that they were no longer my friends, something strange happened.  I was able to finally see what God had been trying to show me since I moved to Chicago: I could make friends there (very elementary-ish revelation, but unfortunately, I still have them)!  God blessed me with amazing Chicago friends that I hold very dear to my heart.  These friends love the Lord with all their heart and I know my relationship with God is stronger because of them.  I know that is why God blessed me with them!  Stephen and I both loved to spend time in fellowship with our friends, our small groups and church family and we will most definitely miss that!

Our 1st Home

I absolutely loved almost everything about our apartment.  It was a great first home for us to share, and it served a great purpose of hosting many-a fellowship gatherings, small groups, small group parties, sewing dates, intimate dinners, game nights, etc. with our friends.  Stephen and I made memories in that apartment that we will never forget and those memories, and the people in them are memories that I thank our amazing Father for and will hold close to my heart forever.  

Our Church home

(picture was stolen borrowed from Wickepedia)

From Sunday services, to our Covenant Sunday school class, to Christmas festivals and Fall festivals, to just about anything, Moody Church was definitely beginning to feel like home to me, and I know that it was home to Stephen.  We will miss hearing Pastor Lutzer teaching on how to live a Biblical life from the pulpit every Sunday morning.  We will miss going to our Covenant Sunday school class and sitting with friends and learning how to be more like Christ to our spouse and to others.  We will miss everything about Moody church and look forward to visiting it soon!

While I won't miss my night grad-classes, I will definitely miss the great friends I made at UIC and all of our fun times together.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of these great friends, but I'm confident that we will keep in touch!

Now, onto a short list of the things I won't miss (no pictures for these, sorry):

-Traffic; it seriously takes a long time to get anywhere. period.

-Parking; I'm over driving around our apartment for 20-30 minutes looking for a spot because it's the wrong time of day.  WA-HOO for driveways!  Double WA-HOOS for garages!

-Honking; seriously people, chill out.

-A long winter; where I grew up winter was from late December to mid March...not in Chicago!  Winter is from early November to late April.  Ugh!  But I will miss Chicago summers!  (I got confused, this is the "not-missing" section, why am I talking about what I'll miss?!?)

-No laundry room; my parents water bill will most definitely lower now that we won't be bringing our laundry home from Chicago all the time!

-Free nights!; okay, so technically this wasn't Chicago's fault, but I was in grad-school 95% of the time we lived in Chicago and was taking night classes.  Now that I have my nights back, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself!

When I first moved to Chicago and was so sad about not being in Lexington with all my sweet friends, my amazing Bible Study leader, Frankie said some hard truth to me.  In her words exactly:

Kari, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen, is Jesus enough for you; if Chicago is to be your home for the rest of your earthly life, could you live with that, is Jesus enough for you?" Once we've settled on that issue what else do we need? What else could we possibly need?

Jesus was enough and IS enough.  As soon as I got that through my thick skull, I was freed up to see the blessings that He had planned from the beginning.  I learned a lot of lessons while living in Chicago, and I have stories upon stories where God's mighty hand prepared our ways and placed us where we were.  Because of that I have a renewed since of hope, joy, faith and gratitude.  

"The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy;  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

-John 10:10

When God calls your life to begin taking a different path, fight the urges to kick and scream.  Cling to Him and trust that His blessings are abundant and that only He can give you life to the full.  Even though Frankie doesn't live in Chicago, I'm so thankful for her in my life.  Find someone who can love you enough to speak truth that you don't want to hear, but need to!  They will definitely be part of God's blessing.

Whelp.  This is a long post and I still have so much to say.  What about the exciting news?!  I'm going to be ANNOYING and hold off.  I feel as though I've typed all I can for now.  Don't get too annoyed with me that you don't come back!  I want someone to share in the exciting (no, I'm not pregnant) news with!!!

Wait for it...

Hello dear blog!  I did NOT forget about you!  How could I?!?  I have essentially lost my mind and have been looking for it.  That explains why I wasn't able to attend to you.  How could I attend to you mindless?  But that's beside the point.  The point is that I have such exciting news to share with you, along with some closing feelings about my recent move.  Unfortunately, I'm still a little batty (and probably will be for awhile) but I am making it my personal goal to come back on here later in the day and purge all my thoughts, feelings and news.

Hopefully you can find the strength you need to make it through the day despite all the eager anxiety you feel to hear about my news.  I know that my life makes your life complete (do you sense the heavily laid sarcasm here.  If you don't, shame on you.  It's dripping, and oozing off every word)!

See you back here later on in the day...maybe then I'll feel like I have more wits about me :)

Happy Tuesday!!!! <---you see that?  I genuinely thought it was Tuesday.  And then I had to stop and think about it.  I thought for a few seconds - a few long seconds.  It's not Tuesday, it's Wednesday.
That should explain why I'm not writing my post at this very second.

Top of the morning to 'ya!