Growing Pains

When I was a kid, I used to get these awful pains in my knees, especially at night when I was trying to go to sleep, or at least that is when I noticed the pain. I was always told that they were growing pains, and so I bore through them, because I knew that I would be taller as a result.

I still feel like I get those growing pains, more figuratively than literally. I get into a zone of comfort, where everything seems to be going okay, and then something jabs me, like a sharp pain in my knees (again, a metaphor), to make me shake out of the comfort and remember that I'm not the one controlling my life. There isn't anything terrible going on in my life right now...we've just been studying Joseph in my Bible study, and we've talked a lot about how we should remember God. We get caught up in our own lives and forget Him. For some people, we forget Him when times are good, like me, and call on Him when we find ourselves in trouble. For others, it's a matter of forgetting about Him when times are bad. A gal in the Bible study mentioned how one of our biggest enemies can be comfort...we skip along, bluebird on my shoulder style, and God is sitting there, going "Hey you! Remember me? The One who brought the good into your life? I'm going to let this little thorn come in to shake you out of this stupor, to bring you back to Me."

So, the growing pains - that jab of reality that says that we need to pause and remember. Whatever our own personal thorn is, it makes us think back on how God has carried us through similar situations, how He has been gracious in the past, how He has always provided for us, and how He will take care of us through this pain. And, after a time, the pain eases, but hopefully we won't forget Him when it does.

New Job!

I met with George today to discuss working for him at Royal Blue Grocery. Everything seemed to click, so I start next Friday, at 7 am. Thankfully I only have to get up so early once a week! I'm excited about this new opportunity.

Potential 3rd Job

So the title of this post makes it seem as if I do nothing but work work work, and that Luke and I are so destitute that he makes his wife work 3 jobs. Ha! You are so mistaken. Ok, maybe not about the money, as we could always use extra money to pay off my wonderful, expensive Baylor education, and it's been tight since we moved to Austin. But with 2, and potentially 3 jobs, I still have more down time than you can imagine. I average about 3-5 hours a week doing diet emails for Curves, and then 10-20 hours with Luxe (usually closer to 10).

Enough of that...let's talk about this new possibility. There is a great little grocery store in downtown Austin that we supply cookies to on a weekly basis. The owner of this store has called my boss at the bakery to see if we could all work out a deal where I work for him at the grocery store one day a week. This is so random! But I love how the Lord has provided me with these jobs to help Luke and I pay off my school debt and put the rest into savings for whatever the future holds. I am going down there tomorrow to meet with the owner to see if this is a good fit for both of us, and if I want to take on more shifts at a later date, etc.

Now when I say little grocery store, I mean little. This isn't like working at Whole Foods or HEB - this is a downtown-y neighborhood store, where a lot of office workers stop by on their lunch breaks. The people there are great! And I wasn't looking for another job, but somehow God saw it fit to bring this opportunity my way. Yay God!

Bake Bake Bake

I've got just a few more days alone at the bakery - S. comes back next week. I'm so thankful that this time is almost up, but I've really enjoyed it also. It's helped me see just how much hard work is involved in running a business by yourself.

Here's a rundown of how my week went:

Monday, call from both RBG and another coffeehouse asking for 4.5 dozen cookies, and a couple dozen biscotti and chocolate covered macaroons, since the ones I had delivered last Thursday were gone already. Delivered them that afternoon, after frantically baking. I'm glad people are buying the cookies, but I didn't realize how much easier it is when two of us are doing it! I spent all last week baking as well.

Tuesday - spent 8 hours icing 150 french macaroons and then putting them ever so carefully into small boxes. Those things are so fragile! On top of that, I had to package 150 pieces of fudge, then make everything look pretty with ribbons and such and deliver it to an ad agency downtown.

Wednesday - finally had some time to develop my own recipes for some recipe contests I'm entering this month, ran errands, tried to do laundry and failed to finish it, found tons of stuff to put in the garage sale this weekend and priced it all. Also did a lot of Curves emails. Only day I had to myself this week, and I didn't even get to relax.

Thursday - baked 7 dozen cookies for RBG

Thursday at 4:30 - done, I'm exhausted, but I still have to finish getting ready for the garage sale, pick Luke up from work soon, cook dinner and finish that laundry I tried to do earlier in the week.

Friday (tomorrow) - more work on the garage sale, more development of recipes (they're due Monday!), hopefully no more orders for the bakery, help Brian move his stuff into the other half of our duplex, drive to Houston and price more stuff there for the garage sale. Then come straight back to Austin Saturday afternoon in case any calls come in for the bakery.

Just imagine if I was trying to do this with kids! We're almost at 2 years of marriage, which is when a lot of our friends started to have babies. We are so not ready for that. I'm too selfish with my time.

I love my job though! It'll be so nice to have S. back, but this has to be the coolest job ever. And people love you even more when you tell them you work for a bakery.

The Unfathomable Goodness of God

God is good. Today I might have been in Virginia, doing my dietetic internship at Virginia Tech. I had picked Va Tech as my first choice for my internship, but I wasn't placed in one at all. Instead He has me here in Austin. For what purpose right now, I'm not sure. But His plans are good. I'm sure there are many reasons why I'm not in Virginia right now and am still in Texas, one of which might be the tragedy that occurred today at Va Tech. So, needless to say I am thankful that God is in control of my life.

Wicked

We went to see Wicked this past weekend...on Easter Sunday, ironically. The show was awesome! Here are some pics of the fam while waiting to be seated.

On My Own

I'm currently running the bakery on my own for the next couple of weeks. My boss and her hubby are on vacation, so I've been crazy busy making sure orders get done and delivered in a timely manner. I didn't realize how efficient we are together until I had to do it all by myself. But the week is almost over, and I'll get to take the weekend off and drive to Houston with Luke to visit family.

Our good friends Brian and David are moving to Austin, hopefully this weekend, and there is a really strong chance that they will move in right next door to us. It'll be so good to have some old friends here in Austin with us - we've made new friends, but it's nice to have the people who know you the best close by.