Amber and Matt in NRG

Last post

2007-12-31T11:46:00.000-05:00

This will be my last post here. I am now located at http://amberella148.vox.com/

That is all.

Oh, my job.

2007-06-08T12:33:00.000-05:00

Well, AOK is officially over and I find myself searching desperately around the office for things to do on days like today. I finally gave up and decided to write a blog update. Right now I'm waiting for a call from a client so that I can go pick her and her kids up from her appointment and take her to another one. That's mostly what I've been doing the past few weeks, transporting clients around. Oh, and there have been a few moments of delivering verbal and written warnings to the rule breakers. It's not that exciting, but sometimes I get an eye roll or a flat out denial. Sometimes I feel like a mother of teenagers. Some of the women who come here are teenagers, most of them have small children too. It's sad to see these women who can barely take care of themselves trying to take care of their kids. They're so stressed out and going through huge life changes (leaving boyfriends/husbands, looking for new housing, going to counseling, paying debts, etc...). It's really not that surprising when a child gets neglected or abused. I'm not saying that I don't think it's awful and that I don't try to stop it or confront mom's about it, I just think that if I were in their situation I'm not sure I'd be much different. These women need support and lots of it. I'm glad that I can provide some of what they need, but I can't be there for them after their 45 days are up. Happily most women continue to come to support group after they move out so we can still provide them with support. And there are just enough success stories to make what I do feel worth while.

On to other things: I found out yesterday that 1) Amy who runs Northside Middle School's AOK program will be leaving and 2) that I will be taking over for her! Yikes, middle schoolers! I'm a little disapointed that I won't be going back to the same school I was at before. I felt like I was just getting to know the principle and teachers. And I looooove my kids! It'll be sad not to see them anymore. The middle school programs have twice as many kids and goes all week (elementary doesn't meet on fridays). Which means that I'll not longer have a catch-up day for paperwork. And I'll be planning Dad's Night Out, which is a program for kids and their Dad's that meets once a month in the evening. On top of all that I'll be in charge of EZ Reports which is our computer program that we use to keep track of kids, their grades and attendence. Which also means that I will be in charge of communicating with 21st Century (the people who give us our grant for the program) and making sure the we're doing everything we need to. And I'll be in charge of making sure that all of the other AOK Coordinators have all their paper work done correctly and turned in at the end of the year. AHHH! It sounds like I'm getting a promotion, which I kind of am, but I work for a non-profit shelter so there will most likely not be a raise involved. So over the next two weeks I'll be working with Amy to learn how to do all of those things and meet all of the people I need to know.

More later, right now I have to pick up my client!

Birthday post!

2007-05-28T20:57:00.000-05:00

Yup that's right today's my birthday! I've had a pretty low key day though. I worked from 8a-4:30p so that I could get Friday off and be in Goshen for Jezra's graduation. I'm looking forward to being home agian and seeing the kitchen that I helped paint over mother's day weekend finished.

It's been a really long time since I've last posted so I'll just try to hit the highlights (or lowlights as the case may be).

My job has been going alright. After three months I am no longer in the honeymoon phase and the real work of getting up every morning and going to work is setting in. I still like my job most of the time, but there tends to be a lot of last minute work/planning/ect...that makes it a little stressful. AOK (my after school program) is over as of last week. I still have a few end of the year things to finish up, mostly entering grades and ISTEP scores and cleaning out my cabnet at my school and bring all the stuff back to the shelter. I still don't know if I'll be going back to the same school next year or not. We are starting 3 more AOK sites and will be hiring on new people over the summer. My boss hasn't decided yet if she'd rather keep me at my school or have me start up a new program. I would much rather stay at my school. I know the school and the staff there and my kids have already switched teachers this year I don't want them to have to get used to someone else, plus I really like them all! Most days anyway :-).

In other news I was diagnosed about a month ago with fibromyalgia. What the heck is that you ask? Ahh, that is the question. The dictionary definition is: A chronic disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and multiple tender points that occurs in precise, localized areas, particularly in the neck, spine, shoulders, and hips; also may cause sleep disturbances, morning stiffness, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and other symptoms. Yeah, it's quite the syndrome. For those of you who don't know I have been having a lot of problems with anxiety, fatigue and muscle pain for a few years now and in talking with my counselor about my anxiety problems he told me that it sounded like I might have more going on then just anxiety. So I went to the doctor and sure enough I have a bunch of symptoms of fibromyalgia and nothing else is wrong with me which means that that's what I have! Fibro is a pretty new diagnosis and not a lot is known about it and there isn't a cure. I really just have to figure out what I can do to make myself more comfortable. Things like buying a memory foam pad for our bed so that I sleep better (which has been AMAZING!), slowing down when my body hurts instead of pushing through the pain because I felt like a wuss all the time and learning how to relax. There are medications that I can take for it, but I'd like to try and go all natural if I possibly can. If you're interested in learning more about the fibromyalgia this website is pretty helpful: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fibromyalgia/DS00079 if you want to know what it's doing to me and how I'm dealing you can just ask.

Matt is doing well. He finished his semester of English classes with flying colors and is work at Olive Garden for the summer. He has been accepted into the teaching program at Anderson Univerity and will be starting the 2nd week of August. Next year at this time he will be a bonafide teacher and will hopefully be employed! He's excited about getting started.

I'll try post more regularly, but our summer is pretty full this far so no promises. That's all for now...

One Month

2007-03-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

I've offically been at my job for one month. Wow. Times flies when most of your day is filled. I've really been enjoying myself here at A Better Way. I've almost completely taken over AOK (the after school program) at my school. That has been a challange, but it's been fun also. Last week I had 2 days of having all 25 kids by myself for an hour. The first day was amazing, the kids were so good I couldn't believe it. And after the second day I wanted to quit! They were crazy bad. I am slowly but surely learning to role with the punches and how not to expect anything because you never know with kids.

I've also been getting more aclimated to the shelter part of my job. I didn't have AOK this week and next because of half days and spring break. So I've been at the shelter this week all day and the same next week. It's interesting. I wasn't sure I was going to like it as much as AOK and I don't, but it's nice for a change of pace. I can now opperate the front desk on my own. Which entitles answering the phone (we answer 6 different lines), transfering calls, taking crisis calls (we answer a crisis hotline, taking calls from women wanting to enter shelter and answering a red cross hotline. I also moniter all the exterior cameras and have to push the buttons that unlock the doors when they ring. The front desk is also where the clients sign in and out, take their meds and come to chat. Plus I have to make Telecare calls (we call elderly people in the area who live alone, but might fall and hurt themselves. We call everyday to make sure they're alright and chat with them because a lot of people are lonely). So all in all it can be pretty stressful. But right now I am sitting at the front desk writting on my blog so it's not so bad all the time ;-).

I've also been getting more comfortable helping the clients out. I'm getting to know what kinds of resources are around and the rules of the shelter and all that so I can actually answer questions now. I enjoy feeling helpful.

Matt is doing very well in school. He's pretty much gotten A's on everything he's turned in and all his profs love him. One even strongly encoraged him to go to grad school because otherwise he would be wasted. I'm glad that he's getting all this affirmation, I always new he'd be an amazing English teacher, but I'm his wife so it doesn't count as much when I say it :-).

That's about it for the Blooms at the moment and I have to make a telecare call!

The end.

Please Pray

2007-02-15T23:00:00.000-05:00

Today a Kim, friend of our family and the mother of Dustin (the teenager who lived with my parents for a while), died in a house fire along with her two young children (1 and 3). Please remember the surviving 4 children in your prayers. Kim was a single mom so the children are on their own now. They are staying with a family from my parents church for a few days, but more perminate arrangements will have to be made soon. Please pray for everyone invovled it's a really sad situation.

The is the link to the news story: http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/5851156.html

Updates

2007-02-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

Well we have gotten snow, snow and more snow is coming this weekend (only it shouldn't very much). I was supposed to have my last two days at the Library's after school program this week, but school was canceled yesterday and today so I don't have to work there. I also didn't have to go to A Better Way yesterday because the roads were so bad. I will be there this evening though. I won't normally work evenings, but they wanted me to work one evening in case I ever fill in for anyone.

The two days that I've worked at A Better Way have been interesting. I was excited about a more hands on training before I went, but now I wish that it was a little more structured. I spend most of my time trying to find people who have time to show me anything! People are really busy and no one is really in charge of making sure that I get trained so if I don't make a fuss I don't get trained. So far I've been able to get trained on a few things, but I still don't have a time card or know how to use one or really even know if I need one. I need to figure that out tonight!

The women that I'm going to work with seem really nice and there are even some people more my age so that's fun too. On Tuesday I spent a lot of time making Valentine gifts for the residents and their children. I worked on it with 3 ladies who were really nice and a lot of fun. I was glad that I had the opportunity to get to know people.

Monday I found out what school I will be working at. I will be the AOK Coordinator at Sutton Elementary. Tracy, the lady who works there now, is going to finish out the school year with me (we think anyway, but things can always change). Which would be awesome because that would give me plenty of time to get to know the position and the teachers I'll work with and all the jazz. I was so overwhelmed Monday morning after staff meeting I was wondering what the heck I was thinking! We had staff meeting for two and a half hours! It was a little crazy and it was my first introduction to how things work at the shelter. I was scared out of my mind. But that afternoon I went to Sutton to check out AOK and that was a blast. The program has a really relaxed atmosphere and the kids have issues, but for the most part they were really sweet and I bonded with some of the right away. Being there made me feel more relaxed and like I'll be able to do my job! Most of what I'll be doing will be at the school until the summer. I'll take on more responsibilities at the shelter then. Some of those responsibilities will carry over to the next school year, but mostly I will be working on AOK.

AOK is a character and social skill building program. We try to teach the kids how to effectively interact with each other and adults. We also spend time working on homework each day and journaling. Their journals don't get graded they journal to learn to express themselves through writing. We do read the journals, but they are not graded. There are teachers each day that help the kids with their homework I met two of them on Monday and they were really nice and very supportive of the program. I think I am really going to enjoy working at AOK, but the shelter part might be very overwhelming for about 6 months! There is so much to know!

In other news, we found out what was wrong with the Tempo. The fire was caused by the fact that the aghast pipe was broken off back past the catalitic converter and almost none existant. So oils were spewing out onto the engine block and got so hot that they started on fire. So all we had to do was to get a new aghast pipe and muffler put on. So now our car works and it's quiet (and it cost less then $200 to fix). That was a very nice surprise because we thought we were going to be stuck with one car for a few months.

Matt is still very much enjoying school, especially now that he no longer has to work most evenings. It has been nice to be able to spend some of our evenings with friends and each other.

Next week is my first full week working 9-5:30, wish me luck!

New job and burning cars

2007-02-07T10:59:00.000-05:00

That's right I have a new job and this time it's a real one. I just became employed at A Better Way which is an emergency shelter for women who are leaving abusive partners. It all happened very quickly! One week ago I had an interview and I start there part time on Monday, crazy! The reason I start there part time is because I have to do my last two weeks at the Library before I can go full-time. It is nice that I am able to start part time right away partly because we need the money and partly because I'm too impatient to wait for things to happen.

My position there will consist of half case management for women at the shelter and half coordinating their after school program which is under the prevention part of what the shelter does. I don't know more then that yet, but I should have a better idea of my duties next week. I am really excited about finally using my degree and being able to support Matt while he's in school. But I"m also freaked out!! I haven't work more then a few hours a week since May of last year and it's a little intimidating to think of having a full-time job. Maybe I'll feel more like an adult once I start.

The other big news is that on Monday when Matt went out to start the Tempo on Monday to go to class it wouldn't start. So he got a neighbor to help him jump it and then went to buy a new battery at Wal-Mart (we've been having lots of problems with the battery lately). When he got to Wal-Mart he needed to check under the hood for what type of battery was in the car and when he looked under the hood much to his surprise there was a fire!! First he tired to blow it out, but soon rational thought kicked in and he ran inside the auto place and got someone to put it out with a fire extinguisher! So he was ok, but he obviously wasn't able to drive the car home. He was able to get the car towed to a car place, but we haven't heard yet what the problem was or how much it will cost to fix. My dad thinks that most likely the fire was electrical and that it will cost a lot to fix. So needless to say we only have one car now. Which is workable at the moment, we just drop each other off places and share, but when I start at A Better Way next week Matt is going to have to take the city bus to school. We're hoping that will work out since the buses are rarely on time.

Other than that there haven't been any serious issues at the Bloom house. I'll write more next week about my new job.

2007-01-12T14:18:00.000-05:00

Amber and Stance just chillin'

2007-01-12T14:16:00.000-05:00

Our lovely niece Constance and her lovely mother Amanda!

DSL!!!

2007-01-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

Matt and I finally got DSL, hurray! So now hopefully it won't take so long to post my blogs and I will be able to post pictures.

My new job at the after school thing is going well. Last week the kids were not back in school yet so I spent my time creating fun bulliten boards and learning the ropes. So this week was a lot crazier because it was my first time with the kids. I was a little overwelmed. They're a great bunch of kids, but they have a lot of energy and most are pretty stubborn. They were also having a good time testing their boundaries with me. On Wednesday one of the kids said "you're mean!" and I said "I wouldn't have to be mean if you were behaving" and to that he said "how do you know I'm not behaving?" I thought it was pretty funny. Did he think that no one told me that rules? Adrianne, the lead teacher, is great. She is really amazing with the kids and Adam, the other aid, is also really good with the kids, so it's been a pretty smooth transition in. I'm just waiting for the kids to adjust to me being an authority figure.

I just found out today that there is another job opening at the library so hopefully they'll hire me for that one so that I can quit baby-sitting (which is getting crazier) and work full time.

Matt started classes at Ball State this week. He's a little overwelmed with all the reading he'll have to do this semester, but he's looking forward to discussing them. He set up his classes so he only has one Mon, Wed, Fri, so those days he works at the Olive Garden in the evening. On Tues, Thurs he has class all. I have a hard time not bugging him while he's going homework, but I'm getting used to that too. Next year at this time Matt will hopefully be starting his student teaching. We're both looking forward to that.

Well, I think that's all for now. I'm going to try and post some pictures again (I know I've said that before, but I'm hoping that will DSL it will actually work this time!)

Apparently I'm a Quacker!

2006-12-21T09:58:00.000-05:00

I stumbled onto the Belief-O-Matic Test and I took it. Here are my results:

1.
Orthodox Quaker (100%)
2.
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (94%)
3.
Liberal Quakers (78%)
4.
Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (77%)
5.
Seventh Day Adventist (75%)
6.
Eastern Orthodox (72%)
7.
Roman Catholic (72%)
8.
Reform Judaism (66%)
9.
Bahá'í Faith (65%)
10.
Unitarian Universalism (64%)

Interesting that Quacker is the first one. Other than that it's not really that surprising I guess. I mostly find it interesting that Conservative Christianity is so high! Maybe I'm not a liberal as everyone tells me I am.

Anyway, I have good news (no, it's better then that fact that I'm a Quacker!) I FINALLY got a job! Woohoo! The bad news is that it's only 9 and a half hours a week so I have to keep baby-sitting. I am just happy that I wasn't rejected again! This job was a big surprise because when I interviewed they told me they would be making a decision before Thanksgiving. I"m not complaining though!! I start on January 3rd. I'm going to be a teachers aid at an afterschool program through the library. So it's a possibility that I can get more hours at the library if anything opens up. The important thing is that this job, plus baby sitting brings in enough money that Matt can go back to school in January (Yeah!) which is what we were really hoping for.

For those of you who don't know, Matt is taking some English classes at Ball State this coming semester so that he can go back to Anderson University and get his teaching licence in two semesters. Those of you who know Matt well know that he would make an amazing teacher. And through this program, in 5 years he could be teaching at the college level which is great.

Matt and I are getting ready to host Christmas for his family on Monday. This is my first offical Christmas meal and I am excited and a little nervous. I think it will be fun. The challage will be fitting everyone in our house! Luckily the Bloom side is not massive like the Brenneman side so we should be ok.

Now, I have to get ready to for baby-sitting. TTFN (ta ta for now)

Long time no blog!

2006-12-09T10:10:00.000-05:00

Well, things are moving right along at the Bloom house.

Unfortunately, I am still unemployed (but I don't want to talk about it! :). I have some options, but still nothing for sure.

Matt is preparing to go to Ball State next semester to take some English classes so that he is prepared to get his teachers licence in the fall. Whether or not he actually takes classes next semester are all based on whether or not I get a job. No pressure. I would really like to get a job so that Matt can move on with the whole teaching thing. So that's something to pray about.

We had a great Thanksgiving with my family. I very much enjoyed hanging out with the fam and seeing my cousins Lindsey and Anthony and their mom, Chris who I haven't seen in a long time. And the food was amazing! The Saturday after we spent some time with the Bloom side and got to see beautiful Constance Briggs. I will post a piture of her today because we have them now!

We had a little bit of an adventure this week. Matt and I went to Purdue with our friend Scott for a basketball game (Scott works for Fox and got free tickets) which was pretty entertaining. But when we got home all of our clocks where flashing and the house was really cold. We just figured that the power was off for a while (which it was, about 2 hours we found out later) and we just needed to wait for it to warm up again. So Matt went to bed and I sat down at the computer next to the vent in the office. About an hour went by before I realized that it was colder! Not exactly what we were hoping for. So I woke Matt and that put him in a put a bad mood instead of letting me help him he in essence told me to leave him alone! He checked the pilot light which was out, but it's an automatic start thing so he couldn't just light it. Well, to make a long story short...we froze our butts off that night! And most of the next day. Matt stayed home to try to get someone to come out and fix it. We have no money so we were really hesitent about bring someone out we'd have to pay. We were pretty stressed on Wednesday! But living in community is awesome and we called around the group and Mike (we just moved to the neighborhood with his family) came over and cleaned the furnace with an air compressor and it lit!! Hurray!!! So we got it fixed for free which was a huge huge blessing. But not before I started having flash backs to my Nepal experience, it was really cold in here!!

Well, that's it ya'll.

2006-10-19T17:35:00.000-05:00

Well, I still do not have a job. Suck. I still have some applications out there so hopefully someone will hire me soon!! Matt however is now subbing for 2 schools. He's worked 3 days this week at one school and hopefully he'll start at the other school soon because it pays $30 more a day! He's still working at Olive Garden too. Some days he's doing both he's a busy busy man. I really hope I get a job soon so that he can stop working so much.

In other news our niece, Constance Meredith Briggs, was born on September 26 and she is beautiful. I very much enjoy being an Aunt. I wish I had some pictures to post, but we don't have a digital camera. :(

We also have a new addition in our own home. Today we rescued another cat, her name is Zeda and she's gray and cute and has a very sweet disposition.

Well, that's all for now!

JOBS!!

2006-09-21T10:06:00.000-05:00

Matt has recently been employed by the Olive Garden! Hurray for income. Tonight is his first night that he gets to collect tips. He finished up his training last night. So far he's enjoying himself. He also turned in his application for substitute teaching and now we're just waiting for them to get done with the background check. He should be hearing back from Muncie Community Schools any day now.

I just applied for two jobs. One at the Center for Mental Health that I don't really want and one at Muncie Community Schools as a Special Education Aid that I really want. I am also beginning to seriously consider going to Grad school for School Psychology. For those of you who don't know school psychology is different than guidance counseling. For one thing you need a master's degree to do SP. SP also involved testing children for learning disability, developmental delays, mental retardation and other issues surrounding learning. I would test children in schools and then work with the parents and teachers to create a plan that will help the child to get the best and most effective education that he/she can get. Guidance counseling is more about helping kids figure out what they want to be when they grow up and other things, but there's not a lot of testing. An SP is more like a consultant in a lot of ways.

All that to say that that is what I am considering doing. It takes 2 years of classes and one of a paid full-time intership. So it's not too much more school. It is a big commitment though so I am trying to decide if I really want to do it. A huge draw for me is how much those skills could help the kids in the neighborhood. So next fall Matt and I could both be heading back to school.

Oh, which reminds me. Matt has decided to go back to school next fall to Anderson University. They have a two semester program to get your teaching licence (if you already have a bachlor's degree). I personally think that he will make an amazing teacher. He wants to teach English. That is one of the reasons that he is trying to substitute teach, so that he can get his foot in the door and get to know some principles before he has his license so that they will be more likely to higher him when he does get it.

We also joined a new small group recently. Our Thursday night NRG group split up because we don't like each other...just kidding! Actually the group is getting much to big to facilitate any more grow or close relationships. If everyone came we had almost 30 people. So Matt and I are now in a group with two other couples. One couple (Pat and Lezlie)is our age and the other one (Tony and Barb) is in their 50s. It has been really amazing. Every week we meet in Parker City (at Tony and Barb's) about 25 min from Muncie. It has been amazing. Tony and Barb are both very parent like. Going to their house (even though I've only been there three times) is like going home. I love it. It's nice to have a home away from home so close! So every Tuesday night we get a nice break from the neighborhood and get to relax and fellowship with four of the greatest people. We have already had really great prayer and sharing times and I am very much enjoying getting to know everyone better. It's not that I didn't feel like part of the NRG group, but it was harder to get to know people since it was so big. I'm looking forward to being more intimate with this group of people.

I never know how to end these things. It's not like a letter or an email, but I don't want to just stop abruptly. Maybe this will work...

THE END

The end of Aqua Gold

2006-08-25T08:54:00.000-05:00

Matt had his last day at Aqua Gold yesterday and it's both good and bad. It's good because Matt hated hated hated! that job and now he doesn't have to do it anymore, but it's bad because he doesn't have any job to do anymore (and neither do I!). He does have an interview today at the Indiana Business College. He's interviewing for a teaching position. Teaching is something he's been thinking recently that he might be interested in so we're hoping that he gets this chance to try it out. If he finds that he really enjoys it then he'll most likely start back at AU in the spring. They have a one year program to get your teaching licence (If you already have a bachlors). So we're hoping that this interview goes well.

I've applied for a few more jobs, but I have not heard back from anyone yet. I'll keep you posted on that.

Things in the neighborhood have been a little crazy lately. There is a house two doors down from us that has become a place for a lot of action. We're not sure if there are drugs involved or what, but there are often big groups of teenagers and young adults hanging around. That isn't bad in and of itself, but they are really really loud and there are fights a lot and other problems. So we're trying to decide what we want to do about it. We don't want to just chase these kids away because if they're not in our neighborhood they'll just go to another and we what to work with who God has placed here, but it's hard to know how to approach the situation. Some of the people in our group want to go introduce themselves so that they can start building relationships.

Welp, that's all for now I guess.

We will not be overcome!

2006-08-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

We finally got the frontline a few days ago and it is doing an amazing job. There are already noticibly fewer fleas! Our cat seems happier and she isn't itching as much so that's a good sign. We are continuing to vacuum often, we're hoping to speed the process along. We're looking forward to being able to have people over agian and not being afraid of taking fleas to our friends houses.

Last weekend we had a fabulous time with Cal and Jean (Matt's parents) in Michigan. We drove up to Grand Rapids Thursday night and left on Friday morning for South Haven where we ate out, spent time on the beach, went swimming, relaxed and all that. We spend the night there and on Saturday we drove up the coast and stopped off a few places. We all had a really good time and I found some throw pillows that match perfectly in our living room so that was fun. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post soon.

Matt and I are both still unemployed. Matt's job at Aqua Gold is over on the 24th so it's crunch time. We have a few prospects, but nothing for sure yet. We're a little daunted by the thought of us both being unemployed by the end of this month. We should be ok for a little while, but it would be really great if one of us had a job lined up.

Next week is the last week for my class. It's been pretty interesting, but I am not sad that it's almost over. I'm working on a paper right now, I have one last test and then it's over and I'm an official graduate (hopefully!).

Fighting the good fight (or at least the necessary one)

2006-08-03T08:17:00.000-05:00

Our cat is infested with fleas! Yuck. Right now she is banished to the office so she can't get fleas all over our house again. We have done everything we know to do. We've bathed her...twice! We've used a spray and a spot treatment. Vacuumed everything in our house numorous times and she still has them. The next thing we're trying is Frontline, if that doesn't work then I don't know what in the world we will do.

The interesting thing about our cat being banished is that she is really, really friendly anytime anyone goes into the office. That may seem like a no brainer, but that is really strange when it comes to our cat. She usually hates people and doesn't like to be held, but now that she is covered in fleas she wants to roll all over you. Not so good.

If anyone had any maricle cures for fleas let us know we could really use the help. As for now I need to leave the flea room because I feel really itchy.

I'm not a very consistant blogger

2006-07-30T16:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I have lots of updates since it's been a while since I blogged. So here I go...

Jobs: Both Matt and I are looking for jobs...still. Matt now had an end date at his other job (Aug 24th) which is a good and a bad thing. It's good because Matt hates it and now he's got a light at the end of the tunnel and it's bad because neither of us have other jobsyet. I didn't get the job at Big Brother's Big Sisters, but I had two interviews at the Dunn Center in Winchester (about 30 min east of Muncie), but I'm not sure that the job is one that I want so I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do if they offer it to me. Matt is also going to apply there and I think he it might be a better fit for him than me. So we'll see how that goes. We're both apply for a student advicate job at an elementary school in Muncie and I really want it because not only does it sound like something I'd enjoy it pays well and you get summers off (oh yeah! :).

Neighborhood: The Block Party was a HUGE success. We all had a blast and we had about 400 people show up. We had a really good response to everything and the bands we had were perfect. The only down side was that some people from our group and from the neighborhood got food poisoning from some of the pulled pork. So some people didn't have such a great night or next day. That really was the only down side to the whole thing. A lot of people were really curious about when we're going to throw another party. We're planning on making it an annual thing. We're enjoying the summer and having kids over. Kids are getting to know us well enough that the just show up at our house wanting snacks and attention. Sometimes, since it's a surprise, I feel overwelmed by some of the needier kids, but most of the time we enjoy them. Matt and I have been working to be consistant in the rules we make, it's hard since I am home when Matt's not so usually I have to make decisions on my own about what I do and don't allow. It's been a little crazy for a few weeks, but it's gotten a lot better and now when the kids are over we're more prepared!

Our house: We are still enjoying our house. Yesterday we rearranged our office and two closets in order to fit our futon matress in the office so now it's an office/guest room so we're all ready for people to come spend the night with us! Yeah! I'm really enjoying making our house feel like our home. Someday I'm hoping to have money to buy decorations for the walls and other fun things. It could be a while though because we've really had to prioritize things we need since we don't have extra money very often. Before pretty things we need to buy practical things, which aren't as fun, but (as Matt reminds me often) more necessary.

Future plans: This coming weekend we're heading up to Michigan for a mini vacation with Matt's parents. We're looking forward to it. And I am definately ready for a vacation from the grooling world of unemployment :-D.

Peace out.

Life

2006-06-19T07:45:00.000-05:00

Well, life is moving right along.

We're both still job hunting. Matt has an interview tomorrow!! We're both kind of excited about it because it's the first either of us have had. So it's a hopeful thing. The potential problem with this job is that it doesn't require a college degree so it may not pay enough. We really can't afford for Matt to take a pay cut, especially when I'm not working much.

I'm still house cleaning one day a week. No interview's yet, but I did send in a resume to Big Brothers Big Sisters and I'm very excited and hopeful about that job. I think it's a job that I could do and do well. I would be a program coordinator for an elementary school. Working with the mentors, the kids, the school, BB & BS. I'm not exactly sure what I would be doing, but I'm still excited about it. I'm going to call them this week and see what's up.

We still very much love our new home! If you want to see some pictures you can visit my mom's blog at musingmarla.blogspot.com, there are some pics in her archives.

In other news, our church is planning a neighborhood block party on July 7th. Anyone in the area who wants to come or volunteer is welcome. It should be really, really fun. We're going to have live music and booths and barbaque (yum!). We're really looking forward to it.

Welp, I think that's everything I can think of at the moment.

Adios.

All moved and settled

2006-06-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

We're all moved into our new place as of Memorial day and are now unpacked and settled in. It's a fabulous feeling to know that we won't have to move for a long time and it's also wonderful to live in a clean beautiful home!!

Matt and I are both still job hunting and both getting discouraged. It's beginning to feel impossible to actually get an interview. I have cleaned our new house more in the last week and a half then I ever cleaned our old appartment. Mostly because I'm bored. I'm still cleaning houses one day a week, but that's only one day.

Well, I guess that's all for this little update. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the inside of our house soon!

2006-05-26T11:29:00.000-05:00

This is our lovely new house! I'll take some pics of the inside once we're settled.

2006-05-26T11:25:00.000-05:00

With Matt after the ceremony trying to feel optimistic!

2006-05-26T11:18:00.000-05:00

This is me clulessly thinking I'm about to receive my diploma. Can you find me? I'm the tallest one.

Best Month Ever (with a few exceptions)

2006-05-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

May is turning out to be a very exciting month.

First I had my graduation which actually turned out to be a bit of a downer. The actually graduation was a good until I walked across the stage to receive my diploma. Low and behold when I returned to my seat I had received not a diploma but a letter stating that I had an "academic deficency". That's all it said. I remained optimistic throughout my rest of the day thinking that it might be a mistake or something easily fixed. The open house I had turned out to be a blast. Thanks to everyone who came. It was so much fun to have all my family and friends around.

It wasn't until Monday that I discovered to my dismay that I was 3 credits short. I had no idea that their was an overall number of credits you had to have to graduate. I'm not sure how this information slipped by me, but it did. So I had enough credits for my pscyh credits and I had all of my liberal arts credits too, but some how after almost 5 years in school I didn't manage to get enough overall credits, ugh!

So this summer I am enrolled in Women in History from 1800 to Present. It doesn't start until July which is a bummer, but it's the only class that meets in the evening and only meets twice a week. This way I'm hoping I'll be able to get a job and take the class. The good news is that it sounds very interesting and that I like the prof that is teaching it. It shouldn't be too challanging. The bad news, well, is obvious.

Another very exciting thing that happened this month is that I spent a week in Fort Collins, Colorado with Abby H. one of my favorite people and my former roommate. We had a great time together! We went on two hikes, one of which took 6 hours not that it was supposed to take that long, but we got very very lost near the top and couldn't find the trail. That was probably the most fun part about the hike. We boldered (meaning free climbed over large rocks) and hike all around the summit (we could see it, but couldn't get to it) only to find ourselves coming to a cliff which meant we had been hiking in the wrong directions for about 45min. Oops! Once we were headed in the right direction we were able to find the trail only to lose it again a little ways up. We finally found a place where it was safe to bolder up to the summit. The top was beautiful! It had a "lake" (which was actually smaller then the pond in my grandparents yard, but is referred to as a lake anyway, silly Colorado!) at the top which though it was small was really pretty and clear. The view was magnificent, even though it was only a foot hill we had a great view of Fort Collins and the mountains. I sadly don't have any pictures of this because my camera is broken and Abby hasn't emailed me the ones she took yet, but hopefully soon I will have some.

As fun as the hike up was the hike down was not so fun. It was getting pretty late by the time we left the summit and we were both really tired and a little cranky. I had blisters on my heels too that had broken open which made the hike down much less enjoyable. We also encountered a rattle snake lying across the middle of the trail. We threw a rock at it to see if it was alive and to also see if it would move. It was alive and it didn't move. It didn't rattle though which we thought was strange. So to be safe we had to bolder around it which was much more work then I wanted to put in at that point. Later on we found out that since it didn't rattle it was probably not a rattler but a non-poinsonous poser, oh well better safe the bitten by a snake on a mountain side!

On days that we didn't hike we mostly walked around down town Fort Collins and at in resturants and other such things. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad that I went (and I'm pretty sure Abby is too ;-).

Two days after I got back Matt and I had a wedding. He was the Best Man so we had to do the rehersal dinner and all that. It was fun, but required a lot of driving around.

This week has been packing mania. We're moving sometime this weekend/early next week. We're still not totally sure on the day, but we will be into our new home by the 1st of June. I am very, very excited about getting of this slug infested crap whole and living in a home of our own. It'll be nice to not have to worry about moving for quite a few years!! We both having lived anywhere for longer than a year since we started college 5 years ago.

Neighborhood things are also going well. Matt and I do children's church together once a month. It's a lot of fun, but it can also be very challanging. It depends on the week. Sometimes only a few kids show up and other times it's a very large group. This Sunday is our turn again.

The first weekend in June we're headed to Goshen for Kyle's high school graduation. I'm excited for him and am excited to see family although a little sad to spend our first weekend in our new house away. But we'll have plenty of time to spend their in the future.

Well, that's all for now.

Lovely Weather!

2006-04-16T08:48:00.000-05:00

Things are going great here.

Yesterday Matt and I spent all moring (and part of the afternoon) working on the community garden. We worked with Jen, Pat and Lezlie and a whole bunch of kids. We planted everything we could, carrots, potatoes, onions, a few herbs, peas, beets and some lettuce. It was a blast and it was such a nice day! The kids were a great help (when they weren't walking across freshly planted rows!). I may have some pictures to post of the garden later. We also had a cookout and a bonfire. It's great to have a family away from family!

Things are moving well for the Blocks (the people we're buying the house from) and their new house. We went and walked through it yesterday. So far everything has been on schedule and they don't have a lot left to do. Mostly painting and cleaning up the yard, carpeting and other last minute touches. So it looks like we're right on track and should be moving around May 20th. I'll make sure to take some pictures when we move.

I am on the home stretch of college. Only two weeks and two finals left! I only have on more big project due on Tuesday then it's smooth saling.

I also really excited for graduation because last week I bought a plane ticket to Denver so that I can visit Abby (my roommate 1st and 2nd year of college). I had wanted to visit her, but didn't think we'd have the money since we had to buy the car, but things worked out and now I'm on my way there on May 10th!! Hurray!! I'm calling this a happy graduation present to myself.

Well, I think that's all for now. I need to get ready for church!

Happy Easter!

Hello hello

2006-03-26T16:45:00.000-05:00

Well, things are moving right along here. I have 5 weeks until my finals (I only have 2) and then I am FINISHED!! I'm on the home stretch, yay! I could not be more excited. And we ahve about two months until we're moving into our new house. It's going to be a great spring.

Today Matt and I were in charge of children's church. It was really fun. We only had 4 kids and they were all very well behaved. We had a blast. Two of the kids were Collin and Christopher. We hadn't seen them for a while so it was really fun to hang out with them again. Those boys are a lot of fun. We're signed up for every 4th Sunday of the month and I'm not expecting every time to be this low key, but I'm still looking forward to it.

The house stuff is going well. I think we finally got everything straightened out with our loan. We kept having to change the price and the type of loan because things just weren't working out. But we think we have everything under control now, so we're feeling good about it.

I feel like I should have more to say, but I think that's all for now. I need to clean before our meeting tonight anyway.

On with it...

Long overdue update

2006-03-09T11:36:00.000-05:00

Hello! Sorry I have been neglecting my blog! I'll do my best to be fabulous to make up for it.

Future house: Things are going really well for our friends the Blocks and fixing up their new home. It's looking like May 20th will be their moving day, so we'll probably be moving the next day. I am excited about being out of our slug and mouse infected appartment and am obsessively flipping through home decorating magazines and books (even though we won't have any money to put into the house right away). We'll probably have a house warming/birthday party for us/me sometime in late May or early June, so keep your calanders open!! I'll keep everyone posted.

Urban Light Community Church: Last weekend was our official launch, we met in the morning (which we're going to do from now on) and invited our neighbors. It was a great time. Our church is turning out to be quite diverse. We had a carry-in meal afterward, which will be an every Sunday thing because we want to feed our neighbors and have time to get to know each other. The meal was awesome! We had fun gorging ourselves and mingling. Matt and I are on a rotation for children's church on the 4th Sunday of every month. I'm a little nervous seeing as we have yet to attempt anything like that in our married life. We're talking about have God made families this unit so we have to be careful not to get into a big fight! ;-) Not that I think that would really happen, but it would be quite ironic!

School: I have officially started my spring break (I just had my last class of the week) and it has been a phenominal 20 minutes so far. I am down to the home stretch here, 6 more weeks after break until finals. HECK YEAH!!! I am starting to look for jobs and submit resume's and such, I don't really know what I'm looking for though, so it could be interesting.

Matt: is doing well, we're still waiting for word about if he's accepted to Grad school. He called the school this week to see how the process was going and they told him they hadn't received his GRE scores yet. He took the test in early January so he was a little worried, but it's all been taken care of and hopefully we'll hear soon. Matt's doing fine, but the suspence is starting to get to me! Matt is still working at Aqua Gold and is up and down about whether he can tolerate 6 more months there. He's a trouper though and he's pushing through.

Well I think that about sums it all up for now. I'll try to be a little better about posting, but no promises!

Have a fablous March.

2006-02-23T12:01:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick update. I just wanted to let everyone know that Mat and I were forced to buy a new car this weekend (the Honda finally decided to die). It's a little stressful on our budget, but I am happy, happy, happy to be driving a lovely reliable car!! Here are a few pics...

2006-02-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

Before! If you've never seen our hunk of junk here it is. Those of you in Goshen may see Jezra driving it around, dad did some fancy hillbillying to it to get it to keep running. I'm so glad to be rid of it! (notice the stylish rust patches on the side and the silver thing holding the bumper on...yikes!)

2006-02-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

After!!! It's a 2000 Dodge Intrepid and it has affectionately been deemed "the torpedo" by Sarah. It runs great and gosh is she pretty!!

Feeling better...

2006-01-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

This week has been much better healthwise. Although my throat hasn't really stopped hurting yet. I'm not coughing anymore though so that helps. It's mostly just dry and a little scrachty and my glands are a little swollen...maybe it's the wonderful Tonsilitis that I inherited from the Brenneman family. At least it's not contageous!

Even though I have been felling better physically, I still have had very little motivation to do my school work. The worst part about it is that I have taken 3 quizes/tests and have managed to do quite will without reading or studying. So my laziness is being reinforced and I still don't want to do any work. I guess as long as my grades are ok it's not a big deal, right?!?

There has been some good news around our neighborhood. The Red Slipper (a strip club/brothel/drug dealer haven/run down building) closed a few weeks ago after the police raided it. The owners now in jail and the building needs a lot of work before it will be up to code again, so we're hoping the will be a deturant for people wanting to open it up again. There are still a few strip clubs in the neighborhood, but none of them are as netorious as the Red Slipper was. Most of the have minimal drug dealers and stuff like that. Not to say that we want them in our neighborhoods, but we can tolerate them for a little while longer.

Our new church building is great, it's so nice to come to church and be able to take my coat off and focus on what's going on around me! I love it. We've decided to launch as a neighborhood church the first Sunday in March (so far we've just been meeting as core members, mostly because of space issues). We'll then start meeting at 11am (now we meet at 6p) and we'll also have lunch afterward, so that should be tasty. We're going to start inviting people from the neighborhood then and we'll have sunday school too. It's exciting to think about. Although I am a little sad, I've enjoyed having a small church and getting to know everyone, but our goal is to be a neighborhood church and that's hard to do without inviting your neighbors!

Our house stuff is moving right a long. Sometime in the next few weeks Matt and I are going to be seeing about getting a morgage with the bank and we're hoping to move in sometime between the end of April and the first of June. We should have a better idea next week after Josh and Lacy (the people we're buying the house from) talk to contracters about time frames and all that. On Tuesday night we had dinner with them and talked about what they're going to leave there for us or sell us and I'm getting really excited!

I am especially excited because matt and I have now killed two MICE!! And our move out date could not come too soon!! I really hate this appartment. But with an end in sight hopefully it won't be too bad. I'll keep you posted on the mouse situation.

Colin and Christopher can over Tuesday afternoon. They are quite the handful. I like them, but some days I'm not sure what to do with them. Their mom was really excited to have some time away from them. They'd be fighting a lot with each other. We had to make another rule for my house yesterday, no jumping on the bed!! I wasn't paying attention to what they were doing until I heard a thump in the next room. Christopher had fell and bumped his head...luckily there was not perminant damage and a few kisses to the forehead cured him right up. We too some silly pictures so I should have some to post soon.

Well, I gotta run...

whoops!

2006-01-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

Not sure how I managed to write a title and then post it, but I did, oh well.

I am sick. I have recently been infected with a very irritating sore throat. The worst of it was on Thursday when I had a fever, I realised while driving on my way to school that I probably shouldn't have been driving when I had a somewhat life threatening interaction with a fast driving man in a large truck. When I may or may not have cut him off he got me back by giving me the finger, I didn't care...he was driving too fast anyway.

I managed to make it through my first to classes, but I skipped chapel, because I though that the cushoned seats and low lighting might be a little too tempting for me to resist falling asleep. I tried to study for my quiz, but my head hurt a lot and so I drank my tea. I did horribly on the quiz (the joys of computer tests...knowing how bad you did immediately after taking it), but I didn't really care that much. I had to skip my meeting that day, which was the reason I was making myself go to school in the first place, but by the time I was done with my second class I was pretty sure that I should get home ASAP and sleep. So I did.

I also had to miss our NRG meeting which was sad, but I guess I'll survive.

Today I have no fever, but I still don't feel great. I'm stuck in the too sick to be motivated, but not sick enough to have a good enough excuse to not do my homework, bleh.

Well, I'm going to go make myself some more tea (my life juice these days) to soothe my aching throat. Hopefully my sinuses will clear up soon so that my head feels less like it's going to explode when I cough.

I guess this is the end of the pity party...

Sick :(

2006-01-21T09:50:00.000-05:00

My favorite semester?

2006-01-17T23:16:00.000-05:00

This weekend I decided to drop my counseling psychology class, because I already didn't like it and I felt overwelmed, and I don't need it to graduate. So I said good-bye to it and because I needed one more credit hour to be full time I added a tennis class. I am really, really pumped about it. It doesn't start until after spring break (when it's warm enough, I hope, to play outside) so right now I can really get into my other three classes and think fondly on the coming of tennis. I've always thought tennis was really fun, but I've never really known how to play so I am looking forward to learning more about it. Matt and I tried to play together two summers ago, but our lack of skill made it slightly less enjoyable (runny after the ball constantly isn't as fun as hitting it back and forth). So I am looking forward to that.

Also, last semester one of my professors mention that she wanted to start working on some sort of a program for teachers about child abuse, how to tell when a child is being abuse (emotional, physical signs) and how to deal with it. So I volunteered to help her get started, so we're going to make it an independed study of sorts so I will be getting a few credits, which is nice. I am really, really excited about this though. I'm starting out by researching studies that have been done on abuse (prevention/# of incidences, etc...) and finding out if there are programs out there like this that exist and how they worked and all that. And then we're going to create a program out of that information and info that we get from the education profs. I honestly feel like this could be the most productive and fulfilling thing I will do in college. My professor wants to create something that can continue on, that students can get involved in and get credit for learning to teach and teaching it in area schools. She's also excited about including a section on the culture of lower classes, how to approach people from the lower class without offending them and how the lower classes view abuse and how teachers can present themselves to parents as a resource instead of an enimy.

Thats my concise, possible inaccurate, picture of what we want to do. It honestly blows my mind. I think if I could find a job doing stuff like this that I would really love it.

Speaking of a job, I'm now leaning more towards not working for NRG house cleaning. After talking to one of the girls whose worked there about how her back, wrists and knees hurt after working I'm thinking it may not be for me and my old lady joints. I'm hopefully going to be able to see a Dr. soon (my insurance card should be coming in the mail at any time now) and so once I figure out what's going on with my body I will hopefully have an idea of what I should and should not be doing. And starting this child abuse project I'm thinking that it may be possible for me to have a job that I would like most days (that would be a new experience for me!). So I'm going to at least look around and see what I can find. Even though job hunting is probably the least fun activity ever (well, it may not be quite as bad as listening to Dad tell jokes, but it's pretty close ;-)

Well, on that note I should get back to my homework so that I can go to bed soon.

Good-night and good luck.

My last semester...

2006-01-15T09:41:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how it's possible after only 2 days of classes, but I already feel behind. I am swamped with chapters and chapters of reading and to top it all off not all of my books have gotten here yet (I ordered them online). I"m doing my best to get a good start on the reading, but it's hard to just jump right into school work. I really don't want to be behind all semester though.

I am excited about my classes this semester. I am taking abnormal psych, counseling, personality theory (yeah Freud!) and organizational behavior theory. They should all be interesting and hard!

I wasn't able to get a job on campus this semester so as of now I'm unemployed and I'll most likely stay that way. I'm going to be looking for jobs for after graduation. I may still work for NRG House Cleaning, but I want to at least look around for something else.

We haven't seen Colin and Christopher for a while. They spend their Christmas break with their Dad in Ohio and we've been really busy. I would definately like to see them this week sometime though. I'm not sure when that will work, but hopefully I can fit them in. I really miss them a lot.

Our church found a new building to meet in. We didn't buy it, it's a cabin at a park. Matt and I weren't there last week when they met there, but we heard that it's heated and big and fabulous. It even has a kitchen. It's a little outside of our neighborhood, but that's ok for a while. We're still looking into buying a place, but in the mean time it'll be really nice to have heat! And the place is big enough that we can start inviting people from the neighborhood to come, so we won't have to wait who knows how long until we buy a building. It's a really great. I'm excited to go there tonight and see what it's like.

Well I guess that's all for now. I need to get started on some reading!

2005-12-31T11:44:00.000-05:00

I had thought that since it was Christmas break I would be doing better at updating the blog, but alas I've still managed to keep myself busy enough to forget that I have one.

Christmas was great. My siblings came down to visit the Sunday before Christmas. We had a good time. We mostly stayed in our appartment and watched movies and played games it was low-key, but fun none the less. After a few days here I headed up to Goshen with them. Matt stuck around in Muncie (because he had to work) until Thursday. Then the holiday scramble began. We saw everyone we could possible see between Thursday night and Monday afternoon. It was slightly overwelming. When we got back to Muncie on Monday evening I just laid on the couch all evening trying to recollect my sanity.

The night before Christmas Eve we had our families traditional Christmas celebration. This year we had an Irish themed meal (we pulled away from our normally Asia theme). It was a great meal and really fun to prepare. Everyone helped cook and eat and clean. We had a great time. I was especially proud of my shamrock dessert that was layers of fabulous jelly mixtures. It looked lovely and tasted even better!!

After family festivities Matt and I headed up to the hotel where my friend Bekki is the manager to hang out with her and some other friends. She opened the pool/hot tub area for us after it was supposed to be closed and got us all hotel rooms for free. We had a lot of fun playing Outburst and watching late night television in our room. Kristen also made chocolate cover pretzles (sp?) in the hotel room. It was really great.

On Christmas Eve we really didn't do anything Christmasy, except go to the service at Tri Lakes. I was really fun to be back at Tri Lakes again, I hadn't been to the Christmas Eve service for a while.

We spent Christmas day with the Grandparents Brenneman. Which was great, as always. We, of course, played Dutch Blitz which is a huge family tradition. This game was not so traditional though. For some reason my game was really off that day and I could not for the life of me get my score above 0 (which is really, really bad because in order to win you have to reach 100 points first). I actually got so frustrated that at one point I threw my cards at Matt!! I have to say I was completely shocked by my own behavior. It wasn't like I thought it would be funny or something, I was really that frustrated with him and with the game!! After that I tried to calm myself down by not trying so hard. I wasn't sure what I was capable of and I didn't really want to end up asaulting my family members. I did end up calming down and having fun in the end, but I'm sure that the incedent will go down in family history and I will not be aloud to forget it!

Since Christmas I have begun to purge the house of all unnessasary clutter. I really think that getting rid of things and cleaning is increadible theraputic for me. I tend to go to war against the clutter in my home two or three times a year, so needless to say there isn't much cluter. Although, if I had my way there are a few things of Matt's that I would gladly donate to Goodwill. He's slightly less willing to part with things, even if they're just sitting in a box doing no one any good. Actually it's good that he's here to hold me back or I may not being to keep myself under control at all!!

Tonight we have big plans with friends. We're having an Itailan themed potluck and will hang out and play games, watch the ball drop and toast in the new year. It should be a good time.

By the way the countdown to graduation has begun (oh that glorious light at the end of my dark educational tunnel!!) I now have 127 days until I am free from the shackles of studnethood!

Good night and good luck.

Semester's over!!

2005-12-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

As of yesterday at 2pm I officially started my Christmas Break. I am excited. Only one more semester of school before I get to enter the "real world". Side note: I've always hated the term "real world", it bugs me because it makes it sound like I've been living in a fairy tail land or something. It implies that everything I've gone through in my 22 and half years has been fake. That is rediculous and that is why I put "real world" in quotes (make sure you read real world with sarcasm). Anyway, I am excited about being done with school. I know I've talked about it before, but living in two very different worlds is not for me. As far as Christmas break goes I'm going to enjoy it. Our appartment needs a really good cleaning (yes, I find cleaning enjoyable) and I have tons of reading to catch up on (fun reading that is not followed by a test) and most likely I will sleep in until 10a everyday! It's going to be wonderful!

On Sunday Kyle, Jezra and Breanna are going to be here. I think I've mentioned that before, but I am really excited about it. I like them.

We went to see The Chronicles of Narnia on Friday night. I was great. We really enjoyed it a lot. We went with a bunch of people and made a night of it. We went to Indianapolis and ate dinner and watched the movie at the Circle Center. Which was actually not that impressive. I was pretty disappointed in the theater, we have a nicer one in Muncie. But that was not the point. The point was to get out of Muncie and that is what we did. It was a blast.

Then on Saturday night we had our NRG Christmas party. I was really, really hilarious. Everyone had to dress up, yes it was indeed a Christmas costume party. Matt and I went as abstract concepts I was peace and he was love (we taped a heart on him and a peace sign on me). We were not the most festive however we had a husband and wife cross dress, she was a nutcracker and he was a sugar plum fairy complete with tights. It was hilarious! We also had a Christmas tree, a snow man, reigndeer, a donkey, an angel and an elf. What fun that was! We did a white elephant gift exchange also which turned out to be great. Everyone just brought junk from their houses. I took the opportunity to get ride of some nursing books I haven't been able to sell! I ended up with a pumpkin (a real, somewhat rotten one) and Matt got a really old pair of Doc Martins which fit him and he took the opportunity to wear them to church on Sunday. All in all it was a fabulous evening.

Last night we had Pat and Lezlie over. They aren't in NRG, but they go to our church. We didn't really know them very well before last night so I was a little nervous, but it turned out great. Lezlie and I are very much alike it was kind of creepy actually the little things that we had in common. So we got along very very well. They came over at 6 and suddenly it was 9p. I really had no idea that it was getting so late. We just sat and talked. The night was a huge success and the mexican lasagna I made was also a hit, even though it was a little soupier then normal.

We haven't seen Collin and Christopher for a while. We were going to have them over this weekend, but their dad ended up picking them up. So we're going to try to have them over this week sometime. I miss them and I'm excited to give them their Christmas presents. It's fun to have little people to buy for again.

We have some hopeful news about buying Josh and Lacy's house. They think they've found one they like so they're going to put an offer on it sometime soon. It needs a lot of fixing up so it'll be a few months before they can move into it, but the fact that the ball in now rolling and there's a light at the end of this crummy appartment is great news. If all goes well we could be moving around the beginning of April. That's sometime that you all can pray for!

Speaking of this crummy appartment, last week Matt and I discovered that their is cold air rushing into our bathroom from a number of holes in a walls. There is also cold air rushing in from around the pipes under the sink and from behind the coach in the living room. No wonder the floor is so cold!! We're (By we, of course, I mean Matt) working on getting the holes filled and taping up the cracks in the wall. I've already noticed a difference, the toilet seat isn't so cold in the morning which is nice because I was honestly contemplating squating over it Nepali style so that my warm bum didn't have to meet the cold cold surface!! I think this is a much better solution though.

Well, I think that's all for now. I need to do get started on my day, it's almost noon! (ahh...Christmas break!)

Merry Christmas!!

It's December already?

2005-12-07T10:05:00.000-05:00

Wow, time is moving rather quickly. And while I am happy because the semester is almost over I also feel sad because I've been so busy I feel like I must have missed out on things. But now that busyness it almost over! All I have left is 2 classes and one test. Hurray!!

Life is going well. Matt and I had a great Thanksgiving visiting with Matt's family in Grand Rapids. We ate a LOT of food and played many many games. Jean (Matt's mom), Mandy (Matt's sister) and I (Matt's wife) went to see Hairspray at the GR Civic Theater. It was really, really good and I highly recomend it to everyone!! Matt and I also spent time with his friends and we played Scene It late into the night. We had fun, but it's a little frustrating to be the only girl in a group and get call "the dirty wife" and other such names. The guys are joking of course, but it still gets old after a while.

After Thanksgiving I had a ton of homework and papers that I had to write. I really didn't have time for much else which was sad and I'm glad it's almost over. All I have left to do is take one final next week and then I'll am down to one more semester!!! How exciting is that!?!?

We've also been spending quite a bit of time with Collin and Christopher (the two boys we met recently). They are 2 of the most energetic kids I've ever met, but they are so well behaved. I enjoy having them around. Last time they were here they discovered our dart board and played "darks" (Christopher had trouble saying dart) for almost the entire 2 hours they were here. I was a little afraid that someone was going to get an eye poked out or that our wall was going to get a few holes in it, but nothing like that happened so it was just fun. We're probably going to have them over again this week.

We're trying to get into the Christmas spirit (we'll I'm trying, Matt enjoys everything Christmas) so we put up our 3 foot fake Christmas tree and decorated it. That's all the decorating that our little appartment can handle. We're afraid that if we put up more lights we'll blow the fuse! So we'll have to be content with the little tree. We've learned since we put it up that our cat enjoys chewing on the branches. I'm not sure what it is about fake evergreen leaves that she likes so much, but at least she's not chewing on the lights! We are excited about spending Christmas with the Brenneman clan. It should be a blast and a half! The weekend before Christmas Kyle, Jez and Bean are coming down to visit. It should be fun to have all the siblings here. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I'm sure we'll find some fun to be had. There is a new dollar theater in Muncie now so i'm sure we'll make use of that.

Last night Matt and I went out to dinner with our neighbors and fellow group members Josh and Lindsey. It was really fun. We had lots of laughs and practiced catching snowflakes on our tongues in the Khol's parking lot (we did some shopping after dinner). We even ended the night with some coffee at the Blue Bottle. It was a great evening.

Some things that people can be praying for.
-our cars need lots of prayer to get them through the winter
-Matt's work has hit a lull and he's come home early twice in the past two weeks. This is bad for the business and bad for our bank account.
-our appartment is really cold so pray that we don't freeze to death.
-Pray that Collin and Christopher's mom finds a job so that she can provide for them (she's also getting a divorce so pray that she gets what she needs to support her kids)
-Matt also had a cold/cough for probably 3 weeks now and it's keeping us both awake at night. Pray that he feels better.

Well I think that's all. Hopefully I'll do better at keeping up now that school is almost over for the semester.

Happy Holidays!

2005-11-13T13:42:00.000-05:00

This week has been pretty good. It was still a busy as ever and I still have tons of homework to get done. Infact I have a 32 page paper due on Friday of which about 4 pages have been written. Along with a stack of other homework. This weekend has been very busy so I haven't worked on it much. I refuse to feel guilty though. I need time to relax and dog gone it (dad that one's for you!) I'm going to take it.

One of the reasons this weekend was so busy is that we had Collin and Christopher over on Friday after they got out of school. They're the kids of the women we went of visit a few weeks ago. Apparently I had made a pretty good impression on Christopher because he kept bugging his mom about me until she called me to see if I would babysit them for a little while. I think it's good for all parties involved. Matt and I get to spend some time with the kids getting to know them better, the kids get a break from home and their mom gets a break from them. On Friday then played every game in our closet from Pick-up Sticks to Taboo. They're 6 and 7 so Taboo was pretty interesting. Their mom wants me to start working with Christopher (the youngest) to help him learn to read and count and such. So I'm on the hunt for educational games and children's books (so far I've gotten them from the library). I've talked with my Aunt Jenny (who does this for a living) and she was very helpful. So we'll see how that all goes.

On Saturday we had Bible Club which we took C & C to. It was pretty fun, they both had a good time. The kids seemed especially roudy, but we calmed them down eventually. (mostly by bribing them with snack).

Yesterday we also went to visit Matt's parents/grandparents in Anderson. His parents were down for the weekend. We had had plans last night, but they were canceled so we got to see them and Matt's sister and brother-in-law. It was a pre-Thanksgiving party. We had a good time.

I forgot what I was going to say because I was just distracted by my cat who is really hyper this morning and thought it would be fun to push all of the stuff off our dresser and then top it all off by kicking over the trash can. She's a crazy crazy little animal. We just got her a new flea collar, it's bright pink and she either loves it so much and she's hyper because she's excited or she hates it and she is trying to get us to take it off. I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, there are only 4 more weeks of school. Until finals, but I think I only have one final...two at the most so that doesn't really count as a whole week. And another week is Thanksgiving so that doesn't really count. So I only really have 3 weeks left. I'm really pumped. The I only have one more semester...can it be true?!?!? I was beginning to feel like I'd never be done.

Speaking of Graduation, I've sort of been offered a full time job ny Josh Block, who's the owner of NRG Services (window washing and house cleaning) in the house cleaning part after I graduate. No, it's not exactly psychology or anything related, but it would be a job that could work around other things I would want to do. I'm thinking about training with the National Institute (it's really institute, i looked it up!) of Learning Disabilities (NILD). They have a two week training program over the summer where I would learn to administer tests to diagnose learning disabilities and also gaps kids have in their education. Also I would learn the NILD method of tutoring them. That is what my Aunt Jenny does and we're almost the same person so I'm pretty sure I'd be good at it. ;-) So if I did do that, Josh would be willing to give me the time off and work my schedule around the tutoring and also he would have no problem if I eventually needed to go down to part-time or something like that. Once we have a church building we would like to be able to have an after school program where I could help out the kids in the neighborhood. I have no idea how that will work or how it will be paid for or anything like that. It's all in the baby stages right now. So that is one option for me after I graduate. I like to clean too so it shouldn't be too bad and I would get to clean house for famous people like Sandy Patty. That's right, I'd be that cool!

Anyway, I think that's all for now. Hopefully I'll be able to post again before the end of the semester, but no promises!

Meeting yesterday

2005-11-03T14:34:00.000-05:00

Our meeting with the lady I talked about in the last blog went well. Matt spent most of his time talking to her while I entertained (or was entertained) by her 5 year old. He is adorable! He loved attention and kept refering to Matt as my wife, which cracked me up. He had an older brother who is 7 and spent the evening watching cartoons, but he was polite and seems a little shy. Matt and I will probably be babysitting for them sometime next week. I"m looking forward to getting to know them better. Their mom expressed concern for how they are doing in school. The oldest is doing so well he's bored, but he's also experiencing some emotional problems (Understandable with his dad out of the picture and his step dad and his mom having problems), the counseler has said she's too busy to meet with him which make me mad and I'd like to see what can be done about it. Maybe we can find somewhere else for him or something. Also, the younger one is having a lot of problems in kindergarden. He doesn't know how to count higher then 10 or to say his ABC's or how to tie his shoes which means that he won't be able to pass kindergarden. He also needs glasses, but his mom is unable to get them for him until next year. I think he might have a learning disability on top of all this. He's pretty hyperactive and he doesn't stay interesting in anything very long. I'd like to help him out, but I'm not sure where to start. The school really seems to be dropping the ball with these two. Which isn't very surprising, but it's still frustrating.

So you can keep in your prayers what we're going to do to help the kids. The mom really wants to find a job, so you can be praying about that too. She's gone on a whole bunch of interviews, but she doesn't have any verifiable employment (I'm not sure why) so no one will give her a job. She's really out there trying to get one though, I hope we can find a way to help her.

Amber

P.S. Aunt Jenny, if you have any thoughts or helpful advise about what to do for the 5 year old let me know. Thanks!

Quick update

2005-11-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

Hmmm...what's been going on?

It seems like a lot, but now that I'm sitting down to post an update I can't think of much.

School is still as busy as ever. Only 6 weeks left! Woohoo!! I will also be quiting my babysitting job when the semester ends. It won't work out scheduling wise and I'm also feeling a bit like I'm being taken advantage of. The lady is kind of pushy and has mislead me on occation. I'm getting fed up, but will stick it out. As for a job next semester, who knows. I'm going to be looking for something on campus that's just a few hours a week. I'm not making all that much right now so it shouldn't be a big cut in pay. We'll see.

I still haven't gotten the coats that were donated to the school. Luckily it hasn't been that cold so I don't feel too badly. I'm planning on getting them over there on Friday. Thanks to everyone who donated (Grandma, the ones you bought are so cute!! I know some little girls are going to be really excited to have those coats that are pink and purple with the fack fir on them!!).

Matt may have decided what he wants to pursue in grad school. He's following his family tradition and looking into Creative Writing. He's been working on a novel since the summer and has a desire to really expand his creative self. So hopefully he'll be meeting with a faculty member soon to get the ball rolling.

Tomorrow night we are going to meet with a lady who called NRG wanting help. She's really lonely and her husband left her so she is running low on money. Matt and I are just going to go talk with her and see what we can do for her. Matt (being the wonderful social work type person that he his) spent 1 hour and half on the phone with her on Saturday. There are a lot of issues and it's hard to know how to approach them all (or even if we should). So if you could keep us in your prayers tomorrow (we're meeting at 7:30) we would appriciate it. We don't really know what to expect. The biggest thing is probably finding her a job.

We still have no neighbors and are getting used to it. Who knows how long it will be before anyone moves it. I won't be sad not to have neighbors, our appartment feels more peaceful this way.

As far as the church plant goes we're looking into buying a building. There is one we have in mind which right now is a Bob's Furniture store. It's in a great location and has a lot of room. We would be able to have an after school center and purhapse addition recovery and who knows what else. As a group we are all feeling ok with pursuing it so we'll see what happens. We don't want to push it if it's not God's will, so prayer in that area is also welcome!

T-t-that's all folks!

Amber

2005-10-07T19:28:00.000-05:00

I forgot to post this. One of the girls made a site for the kids in our neighborhood to post things. A lot of the posts are to Sarah who's lived in the neighborhood for a while, but right now she's in Thialand for 4 months. Here's the site:

www.jeffersonstkids.blogspot.com

enjoy!

Amber

Keep on truckin'...

2005-10-07T00:24:00.000-05:00

What up?!? I actually have some time, well, actually I'm putting off writing a paper, but whatever.

I am really, really wiped out. The commute is wearing me out big time. I've been spending the night in Anderson on Wednesdays just to give myself a break. After this Friday I won't be babysitting anymore so that means I'll have a day to get homework done and clean and do whatever else needs to be done around here. That will be nice, but alas tomorrow I must drive to Anderson again.

As far as the whole house buying extravaganza, we're starting to have our doubts. The timing just seems bad. We're poor and busy so it doesn't seem like adding another major thing to our list of priorities is a good idea. So we're giving the whole thing some more thought and prayer. Also one of the couples in our group is looking into buying a new house in the neighborhood and they want us to buy the one they live in now. They don't want to sell the house to someone who isn't going to take care of it. It would be AMAZING to move into a house that was already completed then we could just work on buying appliances and furnature and stuff like that. It sounds good to us, so we're trying to work that out.

Tonight we had our weekly NRG meeting. We're going through a book, but tonight we took a break from that and just talked about issues. It was so good for me. I had been feeling guilty about not being around in the neighborhood and not really getting to know many people because of school and commuting. It was good to get that all out to have people tell me that it was fine for me to focus on school right now. That's what I'd been telling myself, but it was really great to hear from other people. A lot of other group members have been feeling burnt out lately so we're talking about going on a group retreat somewhere so that we can just relax together and work on building some community. I really hope that happens because I think it would be good for us all!

In other news, our duplex neighbors moved out yesterday. Part of me is a little glad because now it's so so quiet!! No one is banging around or screaming profanities! But I am a little nervous about who might be moving in next door, so that's something that people could pray about if you wanted. I'd be fine if it stayed vacant until we moved, but I doubt that will happen.

Matt is doing well. He's decided recently to start looking into graduate programs at Ball State in hopes to start there in the fall. His job at Aqua Gold Plumming is ok for now, but isn't something that he wants to spend the rest of his life doing.

Well, I think that's about it for now. I'm getting pretty tired so I think I'm going to go to bed soon.

Amber

P.S. Mom, Gma G. asked me to email her these when i write them, but my email is down tonight so I don't have her address. Can you email her the link or the message or something? Thanks.

Busy busy...

2005-09-27T18:05:00.000-05:00

This one will just be quick since I am really busy.

School is keeping me very much on my toes. I have a HUGE research paper/presentation due on Thursday that's freaking me out, but so far I am surviving. I would be enjoying my classes this semester if I wasn't so tired and stressed out all the time. Hopefully after my presentation is over I'll be able to breath and enjoy life a little more.

This weekend Matt and I were in Goshen for my Grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. It was good to see some family that I hadn't seen for a while. We had a good time, but next time I won't let Jezra talk me into watching a movie at 11pm the night before!!

Right now Matt and I are the proud parents of two homeless kittens. I say homeless because they're not going to find a home with us. So if anyone wants a cat let me know...they're really cute and I will miss them (I will not miss them making a mess of my bathroom though!).

The biggest news for us right now is that we are in the process of buying a house. We looked at a house about a week and a half ago and it's almost too good to be true. All of the major work it needed is already finished, so most of what it needs is cosmetic. It's really exactly what we were looking for and it has tons and tons of potential. I'm really excited about it. Right now we're waiting to hear back from the bank about what kind of a loan we can get. We're praying that if this is what God wants that everything will work out and if not then we're sure something else will come along eventually. I am so ready to be out of this slug infested crap hole of an appartment and into a house that I can actually work on.

Right now I'm working on getting donations of hats, coats, mittens, scarves and boots for elementary aged school children to donate to the school in our neighborhood (just like we did with the backpacks). I'm taking stuff to the school at the end of october sometime. If you're in the Goshen area you can get in touch with my mom to drop stuff off (there church is doing a coat drive) and if you're around here you can get in touch with me. Money is also accepted! ;-)

Ok, that's all for now. I'll try to keep updates coming, especially about the house, but no promises!

Amber

P.S. Today is Matt's birthday send him love!

Life goes on...

2005-09-01T11:15:00.000-05:00

Life is moving along quite nicely here in Muncie, Indiana. I had a nice trip home to visit my family a few weeks ago. Although my brothers are punks who only have love for computer games. Ugh... I also had a great time with my fabulous little sister who stayed with us for a week. (woot! ;-) We had a good time miniture golfing while watching a sky get darker and darker and the wind pick up and lighting flash. Speed miniture golf is the way to go!

I started my classes this week. It's been good to get back into the swing of things, although being on campus is depressing because I know hardly anyone on campus anymore which is really sad. My first day back I kept expecting to see my Abby (my roommate for 2 years), but alas she has moved herself far away to Colorado.

Other then the depression of having no friends at AU anymore things are good. I'm excited about my classes, mostly because they're not nursing classes. But also because I really enjoy psychology. I'm only taking three actually classes this semester and an independent study on Community Development.

Babysitting is also going well. For the first 3 days Ryan (the toddler with autism) wouldn't eat anything for me before he left for kindergarden. That was a little stressful, I felt bad for the poor kid. This week he must have decided that not eating isn't fun so he's been fine. The two babies are mostly good. One of them is a little spoiled and won't fall asleep unless I'm holder her and even then she fights it with all she's worth. It's pretty frustrating but I"m surviving thus far. I definately think that this is the best birth control I could possibly be on. My desire for a baby (small as it was before) is completely gone now! (hopefully it'll come back someday! ;-)

The commute to Anderson (30min) every week day is a little tedious. I don't really like driving and our poor dying honda doesn't like it either. The spedomitor gets tired and falls back to zero every once in a while. So I'm just expecting it to fall and never get up again someday. And with gas prices crazy high it almost hurts when I start my car in the morning!!

Matt is doing well. He's kind of in shock though about New Orleans since he was just there last week and now it's pretty much gone! Matt went on a road trip with his friend Josh who paid for Matt to fly out to New Mexico so they could drive back together (they took the scenic route through Dallas, New Orleans and St. Louis). He's getting back into the swing of work this week.

Things in the neighborhood are moving right along. On Tuesday I bought 20 backpacks and 30 boxes of Kleenex at Wal-Mart for Garfield Elementary School (the one in our neighborhood). I'm going to drop them off this morning. Even though it's minor it makes me happy that I am involved with something. I feel like I sort of have a place in the group now. I'm going to be the go to girl for anything to do with the school. The next thing we're looking at doing is a coat drive sometime in October.

I've been working on getting to know the kids that just moved in to the house next to us. I'm not really sure how to go about doing that so for now I just say hi and wait for a better opportunity. I don't want to be the creapy neighbor who's over eager to meet kids. The two kids are always out on the porch, but I have yet to see a parental figure.

Star and her family (who live next to us in the duplex) told us that they are moving out this month. They told us that a month or so ago and are still here so we're just waiting to see what happens. The "Gentlemens" club where we think Star works got shut down for code violations and we think that's why Star has been after us even more then normal to buy things from her. But now that I'm not a server we have no cash in the house so we can honestly tell her we don't have any cash. We tried not to lie about it before, but it was hard to dance around it.

Well, I think that might be everything. I've got to get ready for classes. Hope everyone is well.

Amber

Pictures!

2005-08-17T09:38:00.000-05:00

The first picture is the front door of our bug infested appartment.
The next is Matt standing on the street in front of our house.
After that is our cat who hates people (unless you're eating something).
Then another picture of our neighborhood (notice the kids riding bikes in the middle of the street, the side walks are too broken up for bike riding or much of anything really)
The last picture is Matt and I.

I'll try to have pictures more often. I wanted to take pictures of Bible Club, but I didn't get a chance yet. Maybe next time.

Amber

2005-08-16T01:28:00.000-05:00

I am finally free of Applebee's!! Hurray. My last day was yesterday and I am very very happy that it's over. With any luck I will never serve at a table that's not my own again. I start my new job next week. I'm excited about it. I've met two of the kids so far and they're both great. I'll make sure to keep you all updated.

Breanna has been visiting since Tuesday, it's been really fun. I think the highlight of her time here was Friday night when her, Matt and I went miniture golfing. The place wasn't really very interesting, but what made if fun was the impending doom of the weather. As we played the sky got darker and darker and the wind picked up and there was more lighting and thunder. Se we were playing speed golf. It was a blast and we all made it out alive and it didn't start raining until the last hole so we didn't even get very wet.

Tomorrow Breanna and I are driving up to Goshen. I'm going to be there visiting the family for about a week. I'm excited, I haven't seen my family much this summer. It should be a nice time to relax and recover from serving before I jump into my new job and classes.

As far as the neighborhood, things are going well around here. Today I went to the elemetary school in our neighborhood to work out us donating school supplies to them. The lady I talked to was really excited about it. Our group didn't want to be the ones to distribute the supplies because we don't want to create an us-them mentality. So the school is going to call me after Thursday when school starts to let me know what kind of things kids need. So if anyone wants to donate you can write a check to NRG and send it to me. I'll probably be shopping for the stuff next week. I like this because I feel like I have a role now, even if it is a small one. I'm going to be talking to the school about donating coats to the kids through them later on this year.

Church is going well. We're working on finding a building still and putting together some child care. It's been a while since Matt and I have gone to church regularly and have really felt apart of a church, it's nice to have a home.

Well, I think that's all for now. Peace out.

Amber

Good news...

2005-08-05T00:53:00.000-05:00

I had an interview today with a single mom who is looking for someone to baby-sit her 4 year old son who has autism. Plus the three babies under 1 year that she takes care of in her home day care. She was really nice and her son is really cute. He's also pretty functional for being autistic. He doesn't really talk yet, but he makes eye contact and smiles.

Anyway, I got the job and I'm really excited about it. It's during the day so I will be on the same schedule as Matt and we would have more evenings and weekends together. Also it's a steady wadge which will be good for us too. Hopefully I can handle 3 babies and a toddler!! The best part of the whole thing is that tomorrow when I go into Applebee's I get to give my two weeks notice which, because of the time I'm taking of to visit Goshen will turn out to be more like a week and a half notice! You have not idea how happy that makes me!!

Things are going well other wise. I don't remember if I mentioned it in the last blog, but our neighbor Star and her family told us they were moving out on Tuesday, but they're still here so we're not sure what's going on there. We haven't talked to anyone over there this week.

Well, that's all for now.

Amber

Long Overdue Update…

2005-08-01T13:22:00.000-05:00

A lot of things have been going on around here since my last update. So I’ll just jump right in.

Firstly, Star hasn’t paid us back yet (not a big surprise), but she has continued to give us days when she will pay us back. She seems to genuinely want to, which is good. We also found out this weekend that Star and her family are moving tomorrow. We wonder if it’s because they couldn’t pay their rent, but we have no basis for that really except that we haven’t seen our $20 yet.

It’s sad to think that they’re leaving when we’ve just started to get to know them, but they’re moving to a bigger place in a little better neighborhood so we wish them the best. It’ll be interesting to see who moves in next.

Our church is now officially an organization and we are officially called Urban Light Community Church. We chose the name because during all the prayer that went into the start of the church a lot of people prayed that we would be a light in an urban neighborhood so the name kind of stuck. We still meet on Sunday nights, but we want to start meeting on Sunday mornings as soon as we have childcare in place so that we can start to invite people from the neighborhood. (The reason we don’t have it on Sunday mornings now is that a lot of the neighborhood kids go to church with people in our group on Sunday mornings, so we didn’t want to stop taking them to church before we could invite them to ours.)

Last night was the first time that our group meeting really felt like church to me. It was really nice to feel like we’re starting to gel as a community. (By the way, the church consists of more people the just NRG) We are studying Joshua right now and we were in Joshua 4 last night which is the continuation of the story of the Israelites crossing the Jordan river. In this chapter they took stones out of the river, at the place where God parted it so they could cross, as a reminder of what God had done for them. So last night we spent telling stories about things that God had done for us in the past. It was an amazing time to hear people’s stories and get to know everyone better. I left feeling more hopefully then I have for a long time!

Matt and I started thinking about buying a house a few weeks ago. We’re starting to feel like being in the neighborhood could be more then just a one year thing for us. We actually looked at a house a few weeks ago, we liked it a lot! But both felt like the timing isn’t quite right for us to really get into house buying yet. So we’re going to give it sometime and who knows we could still end up with that house (It usually takes a really long time for houses to sell in our neighborhood). So we’re keeping all that in our prayers.

Also, I’m kind of excited because I may have found a branch of psychology that I want to get into. I’ve been reading a lot about School Psychology (which is what school counselors are trained in), I never realized how much community involvement school counselors have (or can have if they want to). School counselors do more then just talk with kids who have some sort of trauma, they also do screenings to diagnose kids with learning disabilities and then work with parents and teachers to equip them to know how to better serve the kid. Also they work with kids who have behavioral problems and also kids who come from families (like ones from our neighborhood) where they may not have been taught social skills or the importance of education. It all sounds fabulous to me and on top of everything else Ball State has one of the top masters programs for school psychology! And there is an elementary school within walking distance from our neighborhood. It’s a long shot, but if I was able to get a job there then I would be working directly with kids from our neighborhood. And could work together with NRG to create programs to help our neighborhood kids through the school system. Plus isn’t only 2 more years of classes (which I think I could handle).

Also, for now I’m still working at Applebee’s, but I’ve have a few job leads in Anderson so I’m hoping that one of them will work out. I’m not sure how much longer I can handle working for tips. It’s really starting to feel like a mild form of prostitution!! ;-)

Ok, so I think that’s all for now.

Amber (& Matt)

P.S. One more thing. NRG is now an official organization with a bank account so we are all set to take donations. Right now we’re working on buying school supplies for some of the neighborhood kids (backpacks, crayons, paper, pencils, etc...) and when it starts getting colder we’ll be working on getting coats, hats and mittens for kids. So if you want to make a monetary donation you can make out a check to Neighborhood Restoration Group (it’s tax deductible) and email me or comment to this blog and I'll get you the address.

Also, if you wanted to send some school items just email me at adbrenneman@anderson.edu and I can let to know what we need and how many and you can buy stuff.
Lastly, if you feel so called you can support our church plant by making a check out to Urban Light Community Church and sending it to me. (as soon as I figure out where else you can send it I’ll let you all know)

Holy Crap!!

2005-07-14T01:56:00.000-05:00

Tonight was crazy!! But let me start at the beginning...

Matt and I had just sat down on the couch to enjoy a glass of wine and watch a movie together when there was a knock at the door. Matt answered and it was our neighbor Star (she lives in the appartment next to us). She comes over a lot so we didn't really think much of it at first. This time it turned out that she needed more then just to use our phone or borrow matches. This time she wanted to borrow $10.

She told us that she needed money to fill her perscription and she promised that she would pay us back on Friday. So we decided that $10 isn't that much and that even if she didn't pay us back we would still be ok. So I got the money and gave it to her. Matt didn't realize that I had given her $10 so he got $10 and brought it out to the living room where I was talking to Star and before we really knew what was happening Star had grabbed the ten from Matt and was saying that she could really use $20 and that she would pay us back for that.

Well, we were both a little shaken up by her just grabbing money out of Matt's hand, but Star has always been a little socially awkard so we didn't do anything. And Star, after hugging and kissing us and tell us that we were wonderful people left.

We both didn't really know how to handle the situation since it was the first time that anyone in the neighborhood had ever asked us for money so we didn't really have a game plan. Matt was really shocked that she took money out of his hand and we were just beginning to relax again when there was another knock at the door.

Star was back and this time she brought her friend Amber. Star was obviously upset. She was shaking and talking really fast. She told us that she had lost the $20 some where between her house and the pharmacy. Her friend Amber (who seemed to have a better understand of proper social conduct and was a little embarrassed at how much Star was begging) told us that it was true and that they had back tracked and still couldn't find it.

Star (that goodness) directed herself to Matt and started asking him for $16 more to go and get her medication. Matt told her that he felt uncomfortable giving her anymore cash but that he would be willing to go to the pharmacy with her and write a check for the money. For some reason Star did not want Matt to go with her and she talked for probably 15 minutes to him trying to get him to change his mind. She talked completely in circle and contradicted herself left and right. Matt handled it so well though. I was really proud of him. He was kind, but very firm about not wanting to give her anymore cash and was working very hard to come to a compromise that she was happy with.

Meanwhile, I was doing my best to keep talking with her friend Amber so that she wouldn't feel so uncomfortable. Eventually Amber had to leave because she had left her kids with the neighbors and needed to check on them (Amber lives about 3 houses down from us). After she left Matt and Star came to an aggrement. That Matt would write a check to Wal-Greens and would drive Amber and Star to there and wait in the car while they went in incase there were any problems.

So Star left, we thought to go to Amber's, and we left for Amber's after getting our shoes on (we decided it would be best for me to come along so Matt wouldn't be alone with two women he barely knows). So we went to Amber's.

Star wasn't there when we got there so we sat outside and talked to Amber and her daughter Harley, who is four and really, really, really cute!! Amber confided in us that she didn't want to be involved in any of this, but that since Star was her friend she came along to our house with her. She also told us that we shouldn't get involved. She really seemed to want to look out for us. We didn't spend that much time with her, but I would really like to get to know her better and her daughter (Harley found out we have a cat and was already begging her mom to let her come over an pet it, which of course I would love!).

Anyway, when we got back home Star was waiting for us in our yard. So the three of us headed to the pharmacy. When we got there Star was still completely against us going into the store with us so Matt wrote a check and she went in herself to see if it would work. We're have no idea who she talked to or if she even talked to anyone, but she came back out in about 5 seconds and told us that it wouldn't work. She started asking for cash again.

Finally, Matt told her that we would go to the ATM and get her cash if I went into the store with her. She agreed so off we went to the ATM. When we got there Matt mumbled something about not wanted to scratch our junk ford tempo (which is a piece of crap) and got out of the car to use the ATM because he was afraid of her figuring out his pin number. We don't really like not trusting her, but we really haven't know her for very long and she has told us that although she doesn't do drugs that her husband does and that his friends do a lot too. So we just don't want her to accidentally give someone information about use that could put us in an unsafe situation.

While Matt was at the ATM Star and I had a quick talk about how Matt and I don't have a lot of money and that I don't want her to feel like we don't like her or that we can't trust her at all, but also that we haven't really known her that long and that we just want to be careful. She seemed to completely understand that and kept calling me girlfriend and sweetheart.

So we got back to Wal-Greens and Star and I go inside. She wanted me to wait at the front, but I am a curious person and so I had to know if she really went to the pharmacy so I watched her through the mirrors that were on the back wall of the store. I don't know if she could see me, but I don't really care. I just wanted to know if it was true so that next time we would have more information.

So she bought her medicine and to my surprise gave me $5 in change back from the $20 I had given her without me having to ask for her. As soon as she had her medicine in her had her mood changed. She was more calm and she wasn't as jittery.

So when we got back home she was very happy with us and kept promising that she'll pay us back. Matt told her that he wants what she can afford to pay of the $20 she lost, but that she didn't need to worry about paying us back for the medication. She still promised to pay us back for both.

So tonight really stretched us both. But in the end turned out really well, so far anyway. We got to know Star better and help her out. We also met Amber and her daughter and got to know them a little bit. We learned a lot about ourselves and the neighborhood and now have a basis for how to handle any other situation like this (like make sure the other person knows that you're getting the money!!)

Some prayer requests that we would have would be that this experience would be a bridge for us to continue to get to know Star, but our friendship wouldn't become about money. Also that there would be more opportunities for us to get to know Amber and her family. And that we would have wisdom in handling any other situations like this.

Another thing for me is that I spend a lot of days home alone while Matt's at work and it makes me a little bit nervous that she'll come ask for money while I'm here by myself. Not that I wouldn't be able to say no to her, but I don't handle uncomfortable situations as well as Matt does and it is hard for me to say no to people. So prayer that I would be able to handle anything that happens while I'm here alone and also for protection while I'm alone. I'm not really that afraid because Josh and Lindsey live across the street and Andrew and Leslie live catty-corner so I don't feel completely alone, but it's still a little scary.

An update on other stuff. Matt still loves his job and found out that it's Justin's (his boss and the guy who owns the business) goal to have Matt be an assistant manager at some point who would basically be running the office (eventually with people under him) so that Justin could be out and about and also focus more on the other 4 businesses he own (which we just found out about...this man is busy busy!). So it's starting to look more and more like we will be sticking around Muncie. Part of me is really excited about the possibilities, but I also think Muncie?!? Really?!? But I guess God knows what he's doing so whatever happens happens.

Well, I think I need to end here. It's getting really late and I'm starting to have a hard time typing so if there are more typos and more crazy grammer then normal...sorry!

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

Amber (& Matt)

Neighborhood Restoration Group...

2005-07-09T00:40:00.000-05:00

(This a long one so make sure you go to the bathroom and eat something before you start!)

Not much has happened this week so I thought it would be a good week to talk about NRG and what we’re about.

Last night in our group meeting we had a few new people come so we talked a lot about what our goals are and what our philosophy is. I wish I could have taped it and put the sound bite on the website. It was so great to hear everyone’s heart and why they feel they’ve been brought into this neighborhood.

The thing that impressed me the most last night was how different everyone in the group is. Except for the fact that we’re all white (which we really want to change, but we’re not sure affirmative action is the way to go ;-), we all have different backgrounds and passions. The thing that draws us together is our passion for the poor and our ideas of what ministry should look like.

A lot of the people in the group aren’t people that Matt and I would normally meet or hang out with…it’s not that we don’t like them, but under normal circumstances we wouldn’t have had the chance to meet them. Last night we talked about all of our connections in Muncie. We really have a lot of them. We don’t all go to the same church so we’re not tied to any denomination. Once a month one of the guys in our groups goes to a prayer meeting of prominent business people who live in Muncie that includes the mayor of Muncie. Josh Block the guy who owns our business (I’ll talk more about it later) is apart of a group of small business owners in the city who meet to discuss business issues and who help to promote each other’s businesses (Matt’s boss is also apart of that group, but doesn’t live in our neighborhood). Since we all come from different parts of the country (no one in our group is actually from Muncie at this point) we have connections that reach pretty far. One of the guys in our group joked that we’re just two phone calls away from the president!

When we try to explain ourselves we use the Three R’s reading, writing and ‘rithmetic…just kidding. We do use 3 R’s, but they are Redistribution, Reconciliation and Relocation. These are not ours originally they are part of the philosophy of the Christian Community Development Association (which we aren’t officially apart of, but we agree with their stuff).

Relocation: This is about relocating ourselves to the poor area, not moving the poor. This is pretty much the foundation of what we believe. By relocating you are making the target neighborhood your own this makes a huge difference to the outreach. The problems of the neighborhood are not long just the problems of the poor souls who live here, but they are our own. You get a whole different perspective when you live next to the people you want to reach out to. We see a lot more and get to know a lot more people when we’re here for more then just a few hours a day or a week.

Also there is ministry just in the way we live our lives. Being married is a huge ministry here. The fact that Matt and I are married and we don’t cheat on each other, we don’t yell or hit each other and we actually enjoy being around each other is huge. It’s also huge for all of us to hold jobs and got to work consistently – that doesn’t happen much here. We also help the neighborhood out by buying houses that previously belonged to slum lords (in most cases) and fix them up so that we bring up the value of the property and the neighborhood. We all believe overwhelmingly in the benefits of relocation and we now have 6 houses in the neighborhood that are owned by people in our group.

Reconciliation: To God and to each other. We believe that this is what is on the heart of God for all people. This is pretty self explanatory. We want the people of our neighborhood to know the love of a God that doesn’t want to abandon and oppress them like the rest of the world has and through this new love to be reconciled with each other. Even though our neighborhood is about half black, half white there is still a LOT of prejudice and discrimination that goes both ways. Just the other day our neighbor told us that she wants to move, when Matt asked her why she said because of drugs…and black people. We’re pretty sure that these things are one in the same to her.

We would like to break down socio-economic and racial barriers between people of the neighborhood to bring equality to our neighborhood. Which brings us to the last R…

Redistribution: When the middle/upper class white people left Muncie for the suburbs they took most of the resources with them. Now there are very few resources left in our neighborhood. For example, if a child who grows us in the neighborhood somehow manages to go to college and become a doctor or a business man the last thing that that child wants to do is bring what he or she has learned back to the neighborhood. What we want to do is help to bring resources that were lost with the flight of the whites back to our neighborhood which is one of the goals of the business.

NRG Window Washing and House Cleaning is only two years old, but already it has already started to grow. Right now the only people who are employed in it our people from our group. Eventually the goal is to employ people from the neighborhood to give them a skill and an income. I don’t really understand everything involved with the business because business is not my forte, but I do know that Josh is very good at what he does and he is excited about being able to employ people from the neighborhood and he is just waiting for the right time.

I actually have a story for an example of how all this works.

Andrew and Leslie joined NRG and moved into the neighborhood about a year and a half ago. As they lived here they build a relationship with 5 children (3 sisters and a brother). Through this relationship with the kids they began to become friends with their parents. About two weeks ago the father of the children told Andrew that he was excited because he had found a company (outside our neighborhood) who does rent to own and he had gotten a deal to move into a house that weekend. Then he asked Andrew to read the lease and let him know what he thought. The lease was completely bogus. The deal was that they had to pay $175 a week and after two years of living in the house they could by the house for $40,000. The lease also said that if they failed to pay their rent on Saturday that they would get a fine of $50 for every day they were late and if they were late 3 days they would be kicked out (without 30 days notice). Andrew was obviously alarmed by this and told the father of the kids that he didn’t think this was a good thing, but the father was convinced that he was doing what was best for his children and he had already signed the lease and paid the deposit so he moved his family. Andrew and Leslie thought that this was going to be the last time they ever saw them.

A few days later they got a phone call from this family who asked them to come over to their new house. The house was in HORRIBLE shape, there were exposed electrical wires, their plumbing wasn’t hooked up and their roof had holes in it just to name a few problems. So Andrew and Leslie took pictures and found out what company owned the house and went with the father to their office and tried to get their deposit back. These people were complete jerks and the family still has yet to get all of their money back. They refused to give them anything back at first and wouldn’t budge until Andrew and Leslie told them they were going to report them to the code people (I don’t remember what the actually office is called).

The family ended up getting $100 which is only half of what they paid. So our group is in the process of reporting the company, which is obviously predatory, no one could meant the guidelines of the lease, plus a lot of what was in the lease wasn’t legal.

During this time of talking to the owner of the company Andrew and Leslie were working really hard with the family to find them somewhere else to live. And when the found the place Andrew went with the father to make sure that the landlord was a good guy, which he was.

So that’s just a little bit of the kind of things that we want to do for the people in our neighborhood. Some other things that people in our group want to look into getting started in the future are: a dental/medical clinic, fair and equitable housing including remodeling homes that we aren’t going to be living in, a recovery home for addicts, a church plant (which is actually happening now) and a club for kids to come to during the summer or after school when their parents aren’t home.

This is getting really long so I’ll try to make the rest quick.

Here’s an update on us:
-Matt is really enjoying his new job.
-I am still working at Applebee’s and probably will be for the rest of the summer.
-We haven’t done anything about the screen door situation yet because we don’t have the $$ yet and we also don’t know how long our neighbors will be living there.
Alright, hopefully you all made it through ok, sorry this turned out so long!

Amber (& Matt)

The first sign of oppression...

2005-06-27T18:03:00.000-05:00

Hello all!

Things are well here in Muncie, Indiana, aside from the blistering heat!! Yikes, but lucky for us a friend of ours had an extra air conditioner lying around so we got the hook up and are not dying from the heat anymore. Although the air conditioner has created an interesting problem. Apparently our appartment was not meant to use so much electricity so when we forget to turn it off before running the microwave or vaccuming the power goes out. That is a pain in and of itself, but what makes it more of a pain is that our eletrical box is in the bathroom...of our neighbors side. So far the power has only gone out when I'm at home alone which is fun for me because I'm kind of afraid of going to next door by myself, but it's forcing me to be bold which is good.

Today when I went over I think I met Star and Wayne's dealer. They introduced him as a salesman and they wouldn't let me got into the kitchen because he was trying to sell them "magazines". I wonder how innocent they think I am?

Last night Matt had a lot talk with Star about how they don't have a screen door on their side of the house. (they don't have an air conditioner either) Star told Matt that Lynn(our landlady) won't get one for them because she says that it will ruin the warrenty on the other door. And to that I say WTF mate? (hehe, that was for you sissy!!) Seriously I'm not sure that I've ever heard something so rediculous in my life! I guess I don't know much about doors and their warrenties, so if anyone out there knows anything about this let me know.

Anyhow, Matt got to thinking and he cooked up a plan to nicely, but firmly give Lynn a piece of his mind. But in order to put our plan into motion we need to find a screen door. So if anyone has any ideas for that let us know.

Another thing that going on that we don't like is that Lynn is threatening to raise the rent for our neighbors (they don't have a lease so they can't really stop her) because, she says, they use too much electricity. (This woman is really turning out to be quite a B-word) So Matt and I were talking about possibly putting the idea into Wayne's head to ask for a lease.

Honestly this is the kind of stuff we moved into the neighborhood for to stand up for people who, in whatever small way, are being oppressed. Our neighbors know that they are being taken advantage of, but they don't how the tools to fight back. Matt and I want to do what we can to help them get those tools. Star really impressed me with what she said when Matt asked her if she had given Lynn a piece of her mind. She said "No matter how me she is to me I'm going to kill her with kindness". She is definately being more Christ-like then I would be in that situation.

In other news, Matt has a second interview this week for a full time Administrative Assistant or Sales Job at Aqua Gold Plumming. It's a full time job with health insurance that pays AMAZINGLY and has great hours. It looks very promising. He heard about this job through one of our fellow NRGers. And we also heard that the owner who did Matt's first interview was very impressed with him. Hurray!! We're hoping that we'll know by the end of the week if he has the job.

As for me, I got offered a job with NRG (they have a window washing/house cleaning business) in the house cleaning part. I'm thinking that I"m going to take it. I've been making surprisingly little money at Applebee's and I'm pretty tired of it. I would be making a lot more at NRG and Matt and I would be on the same schedule (assuming he gets the job at Aqua Gold), plus I wouldn't have to work evenings or weekends. It's funny because I was really frustrated leaving work on Saturday afternoon because I had been stuck in a crapy section again and hadn't made anything and by the time I got home I had decided that I was going to start looking for another job. Then Matt told me that Josh (he owns the business) had asked if I would be interested in working there. It was pretty cool. Josh told me yesterday that he needs to talk to the other two girls who work there (they also live in the neighborhood) because he had asked them if they wanted to pick up extra days and make sure that they are ok with me starting on and if so then the job's mine!

So that is us in a very long nut shell. I hope that all of you are doing well also. God bless.

Amber and Matt

Mmmm...air conditioning!

2005-06-08T18:50:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to write, but all I can think about is how nice it is to be in air conditioning. Our appartment in a sauna! It wouldn't be so back if we could open up more windows, but we only have one screen (the kind that you can take in and out). We have a lot of fans and a screen door so we get a little bit of air flow, but it's still really, really hot!

Moving on, we have now been living in our new place for a week and a half (if anyone is counting). Yesterday Matt met our neighbors in the duplex, they are a little socially awkward (which is actually normal around here so maybe we're really the awkward ones) so there have been some interesting conversations. For instance the wife told Matt that she and her husband have been married for 25 yrs and that they fight so if we see them throughing punches in the front yard we shouldn't call the police!! Interesting...

We are getting to know our fellow NRG members better. We have been helping Andrea and Jason work on the house they just bought in the neighborhood. It's been a really good time to get to know them (they remind me a LOT of Amanda and Mark so it's been a little twilight zone-ish, but still fun). We also taught one of the couples to how to play Dutch Blitz (that really made us feel at home!!)

In our Thursday night NRG meetings we've been going through the book of Nehemiah. It's been really interesting to see the parallels between what he did and what we're doing. Nehemiah showed up in Jerusalem when it was in complete shambles and took it upon himself to rebuild the was around the city. But he didn't do it by himself he had everyone living in the city build the section of the wall that was in front of their home. This is a very smart idea if you ask me because people aren't going to take short cuts on the part of the wall that's protecting their own homes. And it was cool to read about how not just builders worked, but everyone in the city helped. Josh Arther (the guy who leads the Thursday night meeting) asked how each one of us were going to build the wall in front of our home. Now that isn't meant to be literal, obviously, we don't want to shut people our. What he wanted to know was what do we feel like our role is, how are we going to go about rebuilding our neighborhood.

I've been thinking about that a lot this week and I honestly have no idea. I'll keep thinking though and keep you updated if I have any thoughts.

My job at Applebee's has been going well. Today I served by myself for the first time, it was a little scary, but I survived. Matt is still job hunting, we could use some prayers about that. I'm not making that much yet and we have bills to pay and Matt's getting restless.

Well, I think that's all for now. I am planning to write a blog soon about what exactly we're doing in this neighborhood and what NRG is and all that just incase people don't really know what or why we're doing what we're doing.

(Matt says hello)

Amber