A Whirlwind

I'll tell you what- the last couple of days have been a whirlwind! Wednesday I went to a job fair for teachers that was being hosted by UGA. Overall, I guess it went well. No one there really seemed to know what was happening. Even the schools that were there didn't have much to say since hardly anyone has any jobs open right now. I kept hearing over and over that there probably won't have many openings until the end of April; which is a far cry from the February dates that are supposed to be the typical hiring time for teachers. The odds are stacked against me also since I'm going through what's called an Alternative Certification program (meaning that I'm trying to earn my certification after college). No one really seemed that excited about me on Wednesday. Then I heard that Clarke County was hosting their own fair this weekend and I was planning on attending, but the online application that they want filled out before the fair is impossible to complete in the 12 hours I have before me. There was just too much to try to gather together in such a short period of time that I would not be able to get it done in time. So, I'm staying home tomorrow. Which hopefully won't be a bad thing. I've been burning my candle at both ends this week.

The Busy Women's Bible Study met yesterday for our second official meeting. We were going to cover the first week's/ month's homework and the watch session 1 of the DVD series. It was supposed to be great. Then he showed up. Again. We all believe that the Devil was all over that place last night trying to stop us from connecting with God. Even though our youth pastor, Brian, set the equipment up for us and had it going, we still encountered tons of problems. First, right at 7 pm when we were to start, Amy asked where the DVD for session 1 was. Yours truly was in charge of the DVD's. I thought it was on the DVD that we had. It wasn't. We had to quickly purchase and download it from online. Then had to trouble shoot through technical stuff with Brian on the phone while Mindy stalled in the sanctuary. Then we started having trouble with the music that we were going to play and the sound system. How Amy managed to fix that, I have no idea. Finally, we have these boards that cover the stained glass windows (to protect them from the teens who meet in the chapel where we have our study) fly off the window. Seriously. It's supposed to be held in the space by some nails; there were no nails when I went to put it back up. The weird thing is that there was no air movement around the area and the board was not teetering on the edge (I'd walked past it back and forth about 50 times that night while trying to set everything up). And it's not like it just fell to the floor, it ended up a couple of feet away from where it should have fallen. Strange occurrences. I'm thinking of having one of our pastors bless the space before we use it next. Maybe using some Holy Water or something. It really kinda creeped me out. I'm still a bit shaken when I think of it. Thankfully, God is on our side. :)

The Finished Tabernacle

Here are the pics of the Tabernacle that I promised!

I originally planned on making the entire tabernacle, but with the scale that I wanted to use the whole thing would have been about six feet long and much too wide to transport in my car. So, using John's suggestion, I just made the inner courtyard. The scale is 1 cubit= 1/2 inch. The total measurement is 20 inches x 30 inches for the yard and the Tabernacle measures in at 17 inches x 6 1/2 inches.Here are the brazen alter and lever just before the Tabernacle entrance:

Looking down into the Holy Place:

Looking down into the Most Holy Place:

Here at the furniture pieces for the Holy Place (from left to right: Lamp stand, table of the Presence, Alter of Incense)

The Ark and it's contents (jar of manna, stone tablets with the 10 Commandments, Aaron's budded staff)
Moses and Aaron- Moses is on the left with his hand up praising God and Aaron is in his priests garments. Aren't they cute?

Whew!

Whew! It has been one heck of a week! I've gotten TONS done. Primarily, I finished the Tabernacle project that I have been working on for a few weeks now; just in time for our Bible study group to meet this Thursday. :) I've also got a bunch of baking done- I received an Amish Cinnamon Bread starter from one of my friends and have made it twice now. It's really yummy, but it sure is a lot of work. Plus John's getting tired of seeing "bags of goo" on the counter every day. lol! Despite his apprehensions about the bags laying out on the counter all week, he's enjoyed eating it. Our V-day dinner at PF Changs went well; it was ton louder in there than I remembered. The best part was dessert (of course)- we ordered the Great Wall of Chocolate- a 6 tier chocolate cake with chocolate icing and little choco chips around the outside swimming in a delish raspberry sauce with strawberries and blueberries. Yummo! Then this past Friday night, John and I attended the Gwinnett PD's Annual Awards Dinner at the Gwinnett Civic Center. I loved going- I finally got to meet some of John's co-workers that I've heard lots of stories on, but never met and got to see a bunch of other police wives that I haven't seen in over a year. It was so nice to catch up with old friends. It was a wonderful evening. Then this weekend with the nice weather John and I have gotten little Sarge out a couple of times for some walks- he's really enjoyed it. He loves the warm, spring-like weather.

This next week is going to be another busy one- LOG's getting together Monday to prepare for our Thursday night Bible Study, plus go over our answers to the study that we are doing based on Beth Moore's new book. Then yoga on Tuesday. Wednesday evening will be spent baking some brownies as a thank you for our youth pastor (he's been helping us out a bunch with technical support before our studies and women's services that we have had recently). Then Thursday is the big Bible study night. Friday, thankfully, there are no plans. :)

All things new

I've had a really great weekend! And the good news is that it's only half over! Yesterday the snow kept the bank closed, so I wasn't able to go to work. So instead I hung out some with John and Sarge. Then when the roads cleared up, we went to the Verizon store to check out new phones. I was eligible for my phone to be upgraded last month and John just has a couple of weeks left on his. We decided to try out this new authorized dealer store in the Hamilton Mill area. I'll admit, I was skeptical, but they were fantastic. Their prices were on par with the regular store and they were not pushy at all. They were very professional and knowledgeable, able to answer all of our question. They seemed genuinely interested in helping us get the phone(s) that we wanted for the price that we had in our budget. When I finally settled on my new phone (the new Blackberry Curve 8530, in black) they even took about a half an hour showing me the ropes of it so I'd know the basics before I left the store. I will definitely be suggesting them to all my friends on Verizon.

Then came today, the biggest romantic day of the year. John did a wonderful job of picking out a new purse for me- it's a Coach. And it's perfectly gorgeous. With my new blackberry and Coach purse I feel like a rich woman. Not to mention I've got a great man to go along with these nice things. So I guess I feel filthy rich. ;) Robin Leech has nothing on me right now.

Tonight is dinner at PF Changs with John. We haven't been there in years! It's one of our fav Chinese places to eat, but we just never go. So, watch out Buford PF Changs, here we come!

Hope you all have a great V-day!

lots of love!

~E

SNOW!

Well, it snowed last night. Just like it did over most of our great state. It was beautifully while it was falling and it looks nice out now, but we are ready for it to be gone. For those who know me best- I HATE winter. I'm ready for it to be over the moment it gets here. The thing that I hate most about the snow (more than it's cold) is how dirty it gets. Sure, at first it's nice being all fluffy and white, but then it gets that nasty brownish color and just looks terrible. The stuff can't melt away fast enough. I sure hope it melts away soon. We're going to the Gwinnett Gladiator's hockey game tonight and I totally don't want to miss that because of a little snow. It's the first game that we've attended in a couple of seasons. The temp's supposed to get into the 40's today so hopefully the roads will clear up enough for us to get out. Another good reason that the snow needs to go: little Sarge hates the stuff, too. He's up to his chest in snow (we got 5 1/2 inches!)! My poor little guy and I were walking around the yard this morning and at one point I knelt down near him and he came over, shaking of course, and put his frozen little front paws on me trying to hop up into my lap. Little fella had ice frozen to his feet when we came in. I had to melt them off with some warm water. Here's some pics from our adventure this morning, enjoy!

Our back yard, just off the lanai:

Sarge a.k.a. Frost for Paws up to his chest in snow (maybe we should make him some snow shoes?):

Our snow covered abode:

Hope the snow's not keep you in! Stay toasty!

Sick, but getting better

Well, I've been feeling a bit under the weather recently (if you've talked to me on the phone, you've heard my stuffy nose). I think that my taking-it-fairly-easy strategy is finally starting to pay off. Today wasn't so bad. I could finally breathe though my nose- which was super welcome after days with a leaky schnoz. I've still got some congestion, but hopefully that will start to ease up tomorrow. I don't know how many more days I can take with my ears being clogged up, hardly able to hear. It could always be way worse, so I'm still counting my blessings.

I had a great conversation this afternoon with my pal, Heather, about the article that was in our local news paper talking about the new yoga studio that she just opened. We knew the article would be coming out this week, but we didn't expect it to be so BIG. We figured that we'd have a little article with a couple of small pics in there, but it turned out to be over half a page with just pictures! Then there was the article that took up some more space! It was fantastic! Hopefully a bunch of folks will read it and come try out a class at the new studio. Unfortunately, with my under-the-weather-ness I missed yoga this week, but hopefully I'll be feeling up to it next week. Our new studio is so perfect- I joke with Heather that it screams tranquility.

On other news as of recent: With the Busy Women's Bible Study officially kicked off I figured that it was about time that I crack open my workbook to review the material before the next session. For some reason I think I'll be more prepared, but I don't think that I can ever be 100% ready, not with God in the mix. Anyways, being the visual person that I am, when I went through the class back in the fall with LOG I had wished for a 3-D layout of the tabernacle and had thought of building one. Although, by the time that I had come up with the idea, we were almost through with the study, so I scratched it. Now that we are going through it again with a larger group of women, I decided that it's time to build it. So though the fog of my sinus issues, I've started working on a to-scale 3-D rendition of the tabernacle that God had Moses build for Him. I've only started with the furniture and I'm almost done, but it's looking really good. Just a few more pieces to go and I'll be ready to start on the walls and assembling the whole thing. I'll tell you what, my rendition of the Ark gave me chills. Granted it's just made out of modeling clay (like all the other pieces of furniture- thanks for the clay mom-it's finally be putting to good use), but just to look at it and imagine what the real one(s) look like started to blow my hazy mind. I can't wait to see the whole thing put together. I even plan on making a little Moses and Aaron (also to scale, assuming they were 6 feet tall, which I doubt, but it makes for an easier calculation). I figure that I'll dress Aaron in his priests clothes, but I haven't decided on Moses. Maybe a potato sack. With flip-flops for sandals. Then again, maybe I should watch The Ten Commandments again, after all everyone thinks that Charlton Heston looked like Moses. Either way, I'll definitely post some pics on here when its done.

Hope everyone else is healthier than I have been!

Lots o Love!

I PASSED!!!

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!! THANK YOU, LORD!!!!! I PASSED!!!! Teaching jobs here I come! Part of me can't believe that this part of the plan is over. It seemed to last so long. I started this process about 9 months ago and have taken 6 tests in that time. Then there was the waiting for the results. Each month felt longer than the last, but here it is February. Finally. This part is finally over. I can't believe that it was a year ago that I was contemplating this unbelievable move. Now this part is done. The next step in this process is to find a job; which after what I've been through this past year feels like it will be a breeze. My plan is to find a position so I can start teaching this fall. I haven't seen much activity in postings recently, but from what everyone told me last year, the jobs typically are posted sometime in February. Just in time. I guess that's how God always works; He gives you what you need just in time, not a moment too soon, not a second too late. He's led me this far- I know He's not going to let me down now!

48 Hours To Go!

Well, I've got 48 hours to go until I get the good news (hopefully) regarding my test result from the GACE. I've been waiting for a full month to hear on the score from the final portion of the test and I can't wait to find out. I feel like my whole future is swaying on the results... Well, at least professionally. No matter which way the dice rolls, I plan on searching for a new job starting Monday night; whether it will be in teaching high school English or moving onto another business related field I don't know. Only the results will tell. I do know one thing: that no matter what happens, it will be God's will. Though it may not go the way I want it to, it will be for the best. I sure hope the next 48 hours passes quickly...