Lord, where am I going?

The title of this blog is the story of my life. Well only since age 18 so not even half. The amazing thing is I was brought home from the hospital to the same house my parents lived in for the first 20 years of my life so unexpected plans and not knowing where I was going... not really a part of my growing up years. Then we hit senior year of high school. I had my heart set on attending Hutch CC, my brother and sis in law lived there it was still close to home and I didn't really know what I wanted to do so I wanted to figure that out cheaply. Well mom and I took a visit there and I HATED IT. I don't remember if I visited the criminal justice guy or the music guy but I was led down like three flights of stairs to the very back corner to this cluttered dark scary office and "talked" to that guy. I never wanted to look back I knew I was in the wrong place. So now the question was WHERE DO I GO? In late April our band director invited a friend of hers to come direct us for a day. He was from Seward County Community College he was quirky and funny and I liked his style I happened to go to the office after band and he was sitting in there and he asked me to come play for him. He'd give me a scholarship (french horn players are few and far between) I figured well I might as well do this for a year because I want to get out of Meade and I like band and it's free money so I went. I ended up staying two years and not only playing my french horn for this guy but also after first semester joined his tennis team he was the tennis coach as well. I got very involved in those activities as well as choir and show choir and my sophomore year I was an RA loved that and got out of two years of college an associates degree, and NO DEBT. But that still left where do I go next?

Somehow (I have no idea how this happened had to be a God thing) I got selected from my Jr. College's youth group to attend a leadership conference in Topeka KS. There were probably 300 kids there but God placed me in the one group I needed to be in. All these groups of ten got to spend a day visiting a different organization in Topeka. My group, we went to the women's penitentiary and I was in heaven. (I know sounds weird huh) but I knew what I wanted to go "into" and I knew Washburn had a great CJ program. The leaders of my group were great friends with a guy who happened to be the head of the whole criminal justice program. He then wrote me a letter urging me to come to his school and he would try to get me as many scholarship as possible. I figured anyone who was willing to type (with a type writer) a three page letter to me, I should take him up on his offer so I did. And I ended up not owing anything for my 3rd year of college.

The summer before my senior year I went on a "missions trip" and worked at an inner city youth camp near San Jose CA. I found this amazing organization... doing an Internet search. It was the best three months of my life and the closest I have ever felt to my Heavenly Savior. This is where I also learned about a group called Young Life (but I'm getting ahead of myself) I had planned to live with a girl and another guy in a house my senior year (yeah mom was thrilled with the whole living with a guy idea) anyways about a week before school (these two both lived in Topeka) started she called me to tell me she couldn't afford to move out her parents house so I needed to find someone else to live with. The dorms were full (or else I had to pay double since I hadn't signed up on time it was something totally crazy) so dad and I loaded all my belongs in my car and his and headed up to Topeka to move me in....... we didn't know somewhere. We looked at three places all too expensive for me to afford on my own and we drove to one place and dad refused to stop because it was in a VERY SCARY neighborhood. So here we were all my bags and stuff packed with no where to put them. I put a call into my youth leader and asked if she could think of anyone. That night I ended up moving in to a two bedroom apartment with two girls from youth group and I stayed the whole year.

Then came the next step what was I going to do with my life. Here I have a diploma but no where to go? So I called the lady who's young life kids I had fallen in love with and asked if she had any openings in CA for me to come work for her. She didn't but she had a friend in Kansas City and she called him. Long story short the region decided to hire me even though there wasn't much money in urban ministry but they liked me :) so I got a job. One of the ways young life works with their interns is to give them a "small amount of pay" and try to find a family who will allow them to live with them. This began the worst two months of my life. I moved in with a very wealthy family and a wife who was a total control freak (it's ok I'm not bad mouthing her some people just shouldn't open their houses up to people.) I survived for two months on chocolate because I didn't feel I was allowed in their kitchen to eat food. And she HATED Kjell. I really do believe it was the duct tape sandals. Well it all came to a head when I had gone out of town and they knew I would be gone and they were supposed to leave me a key. Only they just didn't. I had no where to go. So I called my trainer and told her I needed a place to stay so I stayed the night at her house and it ended up being a couple months worth of staying. (At least I was eating again) They were awesome and fun to live with a younger couple and they even bought my favorite cereal. I loved living with them, but I had to move out because they had already promised another girl she could live with them before my whole situation came up... whew I'm tired of writing wonder if anyone is even reading this still. I'll stop here and later tell about the 6 months before Kjell and I got married and all of the "fun" questionable places we ended up!

update #2

Forgot to mention the newbie. Baby is doing good went to the dr last week. I've gained 14 lbs total not really sure where that weight IS because I really am not showing like I'm in the third trimester but that's ok. My doctor was pleased that I'd "acutally gained some weight finally" I don't go back until May 28th when I do the glucose test. She has been kicking like crazy and has found the ribs which isn't too bad I just can't sit straight up for long periods of time. The next blog was the real update....

Update

I don't think I've done a very good job of keeping up with my blog I had been hoping I could do it once a week but that just never seems to happen. On the other hand I've done a great job on keeping up with the house work (minus the living room I used to have a pile that would never get cleaned up now all of a sudden I have room) but I just need to buckle down and do it! Kiah and I almost consistent with doing her "preschool pages" which is one page out of four books she has. And we have read the First of the Laura Ingalls books together one chapter before each nap and started the second. I am caught up on my Bible study, it helps I'm only doing one well I'm still doing two but the new "second one" is a short page and then I journal pray for about ten minutes so it doesn't take as long as the lesson books I had been doing.

I think I've been able to keep the house clean becasue we are still living in that what does our future hold mode? In less than two weeks the school board will finally let us know if Kjell has a job here next year. Which according to all we have heard so far is about a 1 to 2 % chance he does. He's the easy fire since he's not tenured and they would have to tenure him this year if they kept him and they "have to cut at least one more teacher" (when this all started they said they needed to lose 4 and they actually lost 5 already so I'm not understanding their math but whatever!) Kjell is looking at all openings throughout the whole state of Kansas and has heard from one school they had 80 people apply for one job. So it's going to be really hard for him to get hired anywhere else. We are already watching ads in the paper and have settled to the fact we may have to work part time waiter jobs while we wait, what a waste for a guy who is getting his masters this weekend. But I am not a school board member nor do I have a say. but to get rid of a teacher with a masters (we aren't sure how many more are in the district but not many) and someone as passionate about his subject as Kjell is.....well it's just not the choice I would make. But like i said he's the easy out, he's not from atwood and he isn't tenured. Makes life hard to plan. I looked through baby clothes yesterday but I don't know what to do with them, put them in our bedroom in the dresser.... or leave them because the baby will be born and then we head somewhere else.... now from this you probably think Kjell and I are totally stressing but we are actually quite calm I just take one day at a time and they are still moving so extremly fast, and Kjell has lost himself in a couple books by his favorite author so we are doing good.

Last month's surveys were not too profitable, I made 6 whole dollars.... but the end of the month kind of helped I got two tubs of baby wipes to use on Justus to try out and two tubes of toothpasate to try for one week each. Usually I'm super excited about trying things, but this toothpaste is horrible I really can't wait. I will feel totally unfrugal if I don't finish the tube but it seriously looks and smells like diaper rash ointment. and as soon as I'm done brushing my teeth I want to rebrush them there is no minty clean feeling in this toothpaste!

Couple of highlights from my free samples this month was a pack of 5 gum, a coupon for a free bag of sunchips (oh how I have hoarded those away from my family, why oh why is there no off brand of them I can't afford to buy them but i LOOOOOOOOOOOve them), a glade plugin warmer and refill , several magazines and I started getting OK weekly which is like the cheaper version of People so I'm happy I love this magazine but it doesn't take as long to read as people I get a year of that free. another Uniball pen and those are amazing! Ritz munchables, pretzel m&ms (not very good either one would have liked to try the ritz cheedar rather than original. Those were the highlights today was a great day getting three things of shampoo in the same day! I should never have to buy shampoo again at this rate.

Justus is growing like a weed. He has several new words in his vocabulary and one of the kids' favorite things to do is dance all the time... they are so cute and no matter what mood I'm in just watching them dance makes everything better! Kiah has her trike-a-thon this week and had to raise money she shot her goal high 100 dollars we have asked everyone we plan to ask and gotten 85 bucks so dad and mom will pitch in the rest so she can get this backpack! I'm sure it's not worth that much but she did great asking people and getting money. She is super excited. She only has four preschool days left. Mommy is almost more sad about this ending then when it started, only because we LOVE Kiah's preschool and don't really know if she will be back next year. She says we can't move because she'd miss her best friend Clair but she's been talking about a new/different house before Kjell and i were even aware we may have to move.

Kjell get's his masters this weekend. I'm ready for it to be over! I know he's excited and I am too he's worked really hard for this but I'm NOT looking foward to sitting through his hooding and his graduation with two kids on my own one who will not sit and be quiet for anything. Then we head to Topeka for Kjell's brother's grad on Sunday..... let's just say Justus doesn't last ten minutes in church so this weekend (at least the ceremony parts, don't sound like any fun to me!)

I am continuing to workout. I had to take out the cardio workouts I was doing, causing some weird pains and I didn't want to hurt the baby just because I wanted to work out. So I've started using several of the preggo videos I have I got them on ebay for like 5 bucks when I was preggo with Justus and the newest one is like 1994 i hate them with a passion but it's only two days a week and I have enough I should only have to do the same videos a couple of times before the baby comes. I'm serious they are bad, spandex, belts, legwarmers, and smiles the whole workout. I don't care if you are supposed to be "glowing" durning pregnancy NO ONE smiles the whole time for a 45 minute workout! ! anyways that's my update.