Excitement

1. Kory is taking the youth group to a camp next week and I have to stay here to work, so I’m bummed to be missing out on that. I am excited to watch a lot of chick flicks and have some good 'me' time though.

2. I will be traveling to Salem for new employer orientation next Tuesday and I think that will be cool. I’ll be taking the company Taurus! Woohoo!

3. It has been crazy hot for Oregon this past week! It was 107 degrees yesterday!! Now I know some of you TX/NM people are thinking, “That’s nothing! We have that every day.” Well, the problem is that a lot of people don’t have air conditioners so that kind of heat is really dangerous here! Luckily, I have a great air conditioner in my apartment and at work.

4. I am very excited to have our first visitors next month! Kory’s parents will be here in a few weeks and I can’t wait to show them around this beautiful place. The rest of you should start planning your trip here!

5. Another fun thing coming up soon—I’ll be flying back to Lubbock in two and a half weeks for Jeff & Rynn’s wedding. I am pumped to see everyone and have an awesome weekend together!

6. I use too many exclamation marks! I just went back through and took out a ton of them because I realized I use them after almost every sentence. I will try to calm down—I just have a lot to be excited about! :)

Ocean

Kory and I decided to go to the coast today. It was really fun and such a pretty place! Though it was overcast, it never really got too cold. It was just perfect. I love that we live close enough to just run over to the coast for the afternoon.

When we climbed up these rocks, there was a forest at the top that looked a lot like the island in the TV show Lost. I was explaining to Kory how the smoke monster would come from this direction to attack us!

First few days at work

I don't have internet access at my apt anymore and I can't do this at work, so my blogging will probably be few and far between for a while now. I'll do a mega post now to try to catch you up on my life and hopefully I can find some time to do this more often.

I started my new job Wednesday at the Oregon Employment Department. My official title is a Business and Employment Specialist. I really like it so far! I am just shadowing people and learning for the first week and then next Wed. a guy will come down from the central office in Salem and work with me all day training me in the software, confidentiality agreement, policies and procedures, etc. The people I work with are awesome and I think I'll really enjoy getting to know them.

This job is definitely a God-send. I would have never pictured myself in this position, but I love it and it's just a great fit for me. There are some really sad situations that I hear about every day, but it's great to be able to offer them some hope and be able to help them begin or continue their job search. Oregon currently has the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 12.4% (Michigan is 1st). Douglas County, where we live, has an unemployment rate of 18.3% as of May 2009. Our office has been pretty busy in just the few days I've been working there.

So I don't know if this is just an Oregon thing, or if it is all over, but I'm loving the Sonic free route 44 upgrade with a combo meal. Not that anyone ever needs that much coke, (and yes I still call it coke...not soda or pop) but it sure is delicious! Apparently Sonic is kind of a new thing up here and some people still don't even know about it. It's a tragedy really. There is one in Roseburg so I will be frequenting it quite a bit during lunch or after I get off work.

I have a TV set, but no converter or cable or anything so I can't watch TV at all. That really stinks when I get home from work in the evenings and have no TV or internet and am in my apt by myself. I am getting a lot of reading done, so that is good. I'm definitely going to check into getting a basic cable package once I get paid though. I at least need some background noise going or something...it's kind of eerie when the apartment is just silent.

We're getting into the swing of things with the youth group here and still really enjoying that. I don't have as much time to hang out with them since I'm working 40 hours a week, but I will still be doing as much as possible with them. Wed night was kind of rough because I got home from work about 5:30 and then went up to the church to help Kory get ready. We got home about 9:30 and I was exhausted and then had to get to bed. I'm not used to this working world! haha I've been living the lazy life for far too long! I'll get used to it soon I'm sure.

Speaking of me being lazy and not having a job, I've been thinking about something for a while now. I keep hearing LOTS of adults (baby boomer age) telling people my age that it's about time they have to face the real world or something to the effect of calling them lazy and demeaning them for not working since age 16. Didn't those parents work hard to give their kids a better life? Wasn't that their goal? Now they are angry/jealous/upset that these kids have a fun life and had the opportunity to focus on school and not work full-time. I know this is a generalization, but I have just been realizing lately that maybe parents are starting to see that my generation is this way because...this is how they raised us!

Ok I have been working on this post for hours now--this is ridiculous. I keep getting distracted. Here are some pictures from recent fun times!

Swimming at the trestle in Myrtle Creek

my work; drive-by picture so the quality isn't great

my cubicle pre-decorations and personalizing

Won by One: group from Pepperdine that sang for our church

New Bed

Blogger is being annoying and not letting me do things the way I want, so I have to put these pictures in a different post. I still need to buy bedding, but this will do for now. The creatures you see on my bed are my bed-buddies, Nemo and Guinness. I sleep with both of them at night, which is a habit I picked up in college. Don't judge me! :) I can start putting curtains up and actually working on my bedroom now that I'll actually get to sleep in here.

VBS, Mattresses, Weekend Plans

Kory and I both bought new mattresses last week and they finally came in today. I am excited to sleep in my own bed tonight! The couch was getting pretty old. We are in the middle of VBS this week, so we're at the church from 8:30-12:30 for that every day. Since the youth room is all decorated for VBS, we had to have youth group at the park tonight. It feels so good outside in the evenings though--I love it!

I am excited for this weekend's activities also! Friday we'll have our last day of VBS; Saturday we'll go white water rafting with a group from church; and Sunday night we have an all-girls sleepover for the high school girls at the church building. Should be lots of fun! I am SO grateful to get to do all these fun things before I have to start working every day.

Here are a few pictures from the past week:

Kory grilling our hot dogs when we cooked out in the park on

the 4th of July

this park is just a few blocks from our apartments

our picnic in the park; Kory also tried to teach me to throw a frisbee but i am AWFUL at it

these clouds looked really cool when we walked outside of Walmart--they don't look as good in this picture though. i hate that! it's always so disappointing!

Kory's cocoon he's been sleeping in while we waited for mattresses to arrive

Weekend Update

I had a fun, yet not too eventful weekend. Saturday Kory and I spent the morning playing video games and messing around on the computer. We had to run to the church to pick something up and on the way home, realized we hadn't eaten lunch yet. Since it was the 4th and all, we decided to stop by the store, pick up some food and go to the park and cook out! We had hot dogs and threw the frisbee while they were cooking. It was great! Kory had the sad realization that the reason the park was so empty was because everyone else was with family and friends at their homes...but we still had fun with just us two.

Dan Jocoy, Tri City's preacher, is out of town for 2 weeks so Kory preached today. We spent all afternoon Saturday working on church stuff. Kory was preparing his sermon and I was working on class material. Since Kory had to preach and do VBS this week and prepare youth group and lots of other things, I taught the high school class for him this morning. Saturday evening we had supper and watched a movie before heading out to the fireworks in Riddle, a small town about 10 minutes away. The fireworks were really good, especially for such a small town. I was very impressed. This year is Oregon's 150th Birthday so there are events going on all year to celebrate that occasion.

I had prepared well to teach class today and had all my notes ready. I got to Kory's office at the church building this morning to print off my notes and his office computer wouldn't recognize my USB drive. I wrote down some notes from what I could remember and then just had to wing the rest. We had 4 kids in class this morning--1 of them is Autistic and 2 of them are currently in Rehab. They are all great kids, but it definitely made for an interesting dynamic in the class! Kory did a great job preaching today. His sermon was titled "Christianity Isn't Boring!" and it was very well received. One of the amazing things about this church is that his lesson wasn't needed to guilt or convict people; he was merely affirming what so many of these people are already involved in. TCCC is a family of movers and doers and passionate Christians! It's so awesome to be involved with all the good that is going on here.

VBS is this next week, so Kory and I both will spend our mornings at the church building helping with that. I am the assistant to the craft lady and Kory is a crew leader, which means he is in charge of a group of 3-5 kids and will stay with them all morning ushering them between stations and such.

We found Sonic in Roseburg (20 min north of us and the town I'll work in) and have been there twice in 3 days now! I didn't realize how much I missed it until I had a Vanilla DP there Friday. Oh it was heaven! We went to Roseburg this afternoon for a Sonic and Wal-mart run. I have a feeling I will be making a lot of those while here. We also went to Home Depot and Kory was smiling ear to ear when we left. When I asked him why, he told me that "being in that store just makes you feel like a REAL MAN!" He then proceeded to grunt like Tim Allen! haha I also found out they have Hobby Lobby in Roseburg, so I am pumped to visit there soon!

Summer Fun

I took several girls from the youth group swimming at South Umpqua Falls today and it was SO fun! It is only about an hour drive from Myrtle Creek and it is beautiful up there! The really cool thing is that you can sit down and slide off the waterfall into a pool. There are also a lot of rocks to jump off of and lots of fun to be had. Kory came to join us later in the afternoon and we all had a blast!

I just love summer time so much! I'm sure we'll all be sunburned and exhausted tomorrow, but it was great fun today anyway. I hope we will get to do lots more fun outdoor things this summer. Oh how I love living in Oregon! :)

This picture makes the waterfall look tiny, but it is much bigger in real life!

JOB JOB JOB JOB!!

I got a job!! God continues to bless me in amazing ways! Yesterday was my first day of actual job searching. I went into the employment office in Roseburg (about 25 min. north of Myrtle Creek) to register with them and begin my job search. When I walked in, the lady I talked to at the front desk pulled me aside right after finding out I have a college degree. They were about to have a staff meeting so I filled out my registration on the computer to wait for them. The manager came and got me and took me back to his office for an informal interview on the spot. In about 5 minutes, he offered me the job and had me start filling out paperwork!

My position is in the Welcome and Assessment Center (WAC). When people walk into the OED (Oregon Employment Department) I will talk to them and basically help them get a job. I will help them get registered and take the computer skills test or refer them for jobs or whatever they need. I am excited because I will get to interact with a lot of people and I won't be sitting in a cubicle bored all day. I am a little nervous though because they all kept warning me that I need to learn to not take it personally when someone is rude to me. They are probably really stressed and having a hard time because they don't have a job and need to feed their family and are really in a tough spot. I am NOT good at this sort of thing. I'm too sensitive and I take everything personally...SO I will either come home crying every night or I'll learn to toughen up and let things go.

The job is a 6 month temp job for now. The manager, Shawn, told me he thinks that is the best way to begin a job (of course he was trying to convince me to take it...) because it's job security for half a year but if you don't like it, it's an easy out at the end of 6 months. I like that because I am a very non-confrontational person and it would be really hard for me to quit a job just because I didn't like it. Anyways, another benefit of starting as a temp is that the hiring process (because it's with the govt) is really rigorous and it's really hard to get hired because they have to make sure it is fair to people with disabilities or minorities, etc. BUT if you get hired as a temp, then you can make the transition into full-time pretty easily. Several people told me there would be some full-time jobs opening up in the next few months, so I could stay with them if I like what I'm doing.

I don't start until July 15, so that means I have two weeks to finish getting settled in here and hang out with the teens! I'm really excited about that! We have several swimming trips planned already. I also have a few things I need to do here like set up a bank account and get my license plate changed, etc. I hope to get all that done before I start work since I won't have any time in the day after that. This job is 8-5 Monday to Friday. One thing I really like is that the workers in the WAC all rotate jobs every couple hours so no one gets burnt out or bored doing the same thing all day long. I am SO excited to enjoy these next couple weeks and not feel guilty because I'm relaxing instead of looking for a job or apartment. Yay!

Here are a couple more pictures of my apartment as it slowly starts to look like home. I don't have much decoration stuff, but that will have to wait until I start getting a paycheck!

Upstairs bathroom

Dishes drying in the kitchen; i like that there are so many windows in this apt

I got this desk at the youth group garage sale last weekend

My little brother got this for me at Christmas one year and he thought it was the greatest gift ever! It hangs above my kitchen sink.

Dining room--The couple I stayed with right when I got here gave me this table

Living room--my mattress doesn't come in until next Wed. so I have been sleeping on the couch for the past week