Poor Me

***Sorry for the confusion, the "I" is Sarah***
So, I have had like 5 sinus infections since February...maybe it has been one very long sinus infection. Medicine doesn't seem to be working and my face or head hurts most days. I finally went to the doctor AGAIN on Tuesday just to be told I need to see an allergist. Yesterday was my appointment with the allergist, and I got a back full of scratches with different allergens AND 12 shots in my arm AND 2 viles of blood drawn. My arm hurt for the rest of the night. It is kind of funny to watch bumps come up after being injected with things I am potentially allergic to. It doesn't take a medical degree for anyone watching my arm to figure out that I am allergic to trees...that bump was huge (think of a VERY large mosquito bite) and it itched like crazy. I am also allergic to molds and grass and something else I can't remember right now. I think I am basically allergic to outside...yeah! But, the good news is that I am NOT allergic to dust mites, however, I was told that Lubbock doesn't even have dust mites...figures. I am glad to know why my sinuses have been going crazy. I am now on a series of medicines to help with these allergies. The doctor wants me to start allergy shots, but I am not sure about that yet. He is also going to do this scope thing up my nose next week. I guess he wants to look at my sinuses. I just got some sinus x-ray results back, and they said those looked fine, so I am going to call this allergy doctor and see if the scope thing REALLY needs to be done. Geeezzz, you have to be able to outsmart some of these members of the medical profession.

House News: we are pretty much D-O-N-E with the house! We still have to complete the front flower bed and prune the rose bushes on the side of our house. So, there will be pics up by next week. It has been such hard work, so it feels really great to be just about finished.

SO TIRED!!!

We are completely in our new house now. It has been really fun finding a new "home" for our things...I really like that part of moving. I enjoy decorating my home, so that part is fun. Our house was SUPER dirty when we moved in. So, we've spent a considerable amount of time cleaning. We still have two bedrooms' walls to clean. I have fought the temptation to think that I am absolutely crazy for cloroxing everything, but I just really like knowing that the germs and dirt are MY germs and dirt. Does that make sense? The yard is also something that has needed lot of work. Paul and I have spent the past two evenings mowing and edging and trying to get the yard looking somewhat decent. We will be working more on it tonight. We still need to trim some trees and till a flower bed in the front of the house. We also need to pull out a ton of overgrown stuff on the side of the house. It seems like the work doesn't end! We have been working non-stop on the inside and outside of the house. I am excited about the finished product!

So, needless to say, I am sooooo tired. I promise pictures soon. I just want the house to look good first.

a little of everything

June has proved to be a little busier than I thought it would be. I am not sure if we have physically been busy...more emotionally busy. A lot of transition is happening in my office. It all started at the end of May and has continued throughout June. I am really hoping that things will settle down soon. I have found over the years of my life that I handle stress in some negative ways. I will, for example, sleep a lot or get really sick or withdraw from things. And stuff at work has provoked this type of behavior in me. It is funny, I talk to my mom about the fact that I am sick or really tired, and she confirms that I have always been this way when there is an abundance of stress in my life. At church the past two weeks, the series has been about responding to life in the up, down, and everything in between. We talked about worry and our circumstances and claiming God's promises. Isn't it amazing how timely church sermons can be. You might think that God was there or something :)

Paul and I have pretty much settled into the routine with Paul's job. We have enjoyed being home in the evenings together. If we aren't home it is for social occasions, not work. We miss InterVarsity but have welcomed this new pace of life. We have been in a place of savoring the rest (except obviously what I just wrote about). Ministry is tiring. And, we have needed some time to just "be". I think the rest of the summer will be about that.

We are moving in a week! YEAH. We found a house close to our good friends, Casey and Adam. We are so excited about it. Our apartment has been a great place to live, but we are really ready for more space and a new neighborhood. We intentionally looked for a house within about one square mile of our friends. We have been praying about being able to live close enough for our lives to intersect on a regular basis...we want to "do" life with them. That means we have to live close enough to be spontaneous. So, we looked and looked and looked for a house to rent. And have prayed and prayed and prayed. Nothing was coming open in our price range. The house we ended up getting was one that I really liked the outside of but was too much money. Then, I noticed that the price dropped significantly. We moved very quickly with signing a lease. The house has a big living room (which was important to us), 3 bedrooms, a bathroom (it is only the two of us, so we can handle that), a nice sized kitchen, big backyard, garage and lots of storage space. I think we will really like it. We will be living 6 blocks from our friends...which is under half a mile. The move begins this next weekend. We have already started packing up our apartment. We are both super excited but also a little sad to be leaving our first home together. In a lot of ways, it feels like we are exiting the "newlywed" stage of our marriage and entering a "young marrieds" stage...I am not sure what you would call this new stage, but we are in a different place. We have labored through our first really big fights and come out on the other side. We are still learning how to love each other well but have more of an idea of what that looks like. We really like this phase of marriage.

Speaking of marriage...we will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary on July 9. We have been trying to figure out how to celebrate. Last year, we were in Cabo San Lucas. We want our anniversaries to be a big deal...especially in this age of treating the marriage covenant very flippantly. Since we are moving, we have decided to celebrate a week or so later than our actual anniversary. BUT, we can't decide what to do. We would love to get away for a weekend. We've thought about Santa Fe, Taos, Dallas. We don't want to spend a whole day driving, but when you live in Lubbock, it is hard not to. Any suggestions???

We will post pics of the new house soon.

That's Hot...NOT!

If only my last name were Hilton. This is a list of everything I would be able to do...and get away with
- have platinum colored hair
- always look as if I had just rolled out of bed...or am actually just high
- coin really ridiculous phrases
- be BFF's with all the name brands in Hollywood and then hate them the next day
- never actually do any work but spend money like it grows on trees (I guess if you last name is Hilton, then it does)
- have an attitude like I am the goddess the world has been waiting for
- be late to my scheduled court appearance
- go to jail, decide I don't like it and get to go home!

I've just learned, however, that Miss Paris has had a change of heart. She evidently says that she is learning a lesson and has compared herself to the soldiers serving our country in Iraq. WHAT????

where o where have the maneys been?

We've been in lots of different places and have been doing lots of different things! May has proved to be (once again) super busy for us. For the past four years, Paul has spent 2 weeks every May at REC week - InterVarsity's annual week-long student conference. Paul has to be there for two weeks because schools in the region don't finish up at the same time. So, Paul pretty much lives at Camp Buckner outside of Marble Falls for half the month. This year, my sister graduated from high school (yes, there is a large age difference...13 years to be exact). So, I flew to Houston for her graduation, and Paul was able to meet me there for a weekend away from camp. After returning to Lubbock for less than 48 hours, I flew out to Austin to be with Paul at REC week for the last three days of the two weeks. It was a lot of fun to see everyone as well as say goodbye. Paul and I have both felt really mixed emotions. This is my second time to say goodbye to InterVarsity since I left after 5 years of staff about four years ago. There is a sadness to saying goodbye to something you have given your life to. Paul and I flew back to Lubbock this past Friday in time for a long Memorial Day weekend. We have been anticipating what our new routine will be like as Paul begins his job full-time with Conetrix this coming Friday. The entire time we've been married, we have ridden to work together in the mornings and home again at night. We eat lunch very regularly together. Now, we will take separate cars to work in the morning and will have to make plans to see each other at lunch. It is going to be different.

We have really enjoyed this long weekend together. We've spent the entire weekend hanging out together and enjoying each other's company. We celebrated my birthday on Saturday by going to the movies and eating fajitas and drinking margaritas on the patio of On The Border. We've spent a lot of time looking for a new house (you can pray about that with us...we are looking to rent, so please pray for something that we can afford that meets our space needs in the area of town we would like to live). We also go my birthday present...A NEW BIKE! I am really excited about it. You know Paul is really into biking, and I have wanted to get into as well. So, for my birthday, I got a pretty, new mountain bike.

The past month has been good and hard and sad and exciting. We are really missing our family and friends that live far away. We are excited about the new cadence our life will soon have. We are sad about leaving InterVarsity. We are ready for the summer routine.

Tagalicious

1) I love NPR. I was excited when we recently bought a second car because that meant that I would get to commute by myself and listen to NPR. Normally it gets vetoed because up until now Sarah and I have rode in the same car together to/from work. Too bad my commute is only 5 minutes.

2)I really like things that are practical. I enjoy having things like tools, extension cords, etc. I like things that are durable and help you accomplish a goal.

3)Things I am responsible for when Sarah and I are getting ready in the morning: Grinding beans, making the coffee; Making a quick bite to eat for us (usually something we eat on the way to work like an English muffin or instant breakfast); Plugging in Sarahs straighener when Im done with the bathroom.

4)I enjoy biking, always have and I probably always will. Ever since I was a kid I've loved riding. I like mountain biking, road, and I would love to try BMX (no, its not just for kids).

5)I like to spend money on big things, not little things. Sarah has an easier time spending money on smaller purchases. I have an easier time researching a larger purchase then "pulling the trigger" on buying it. Its good, we balance each other out.

6)I often try and "figure" money computations in my head... i.e. when we were out at a coffee shop I was wondering how well they did income-wise, so I tried to estimate their traffic, income, costs, etc. Ya Im kind of a dork.

7)I have a side business selling glowsticks on the internet. No, I dont have some sort of afinity for glowing novelty items...basically its a good deal because it was a low startup cost, the markup online is huge, and it doesnt take much of my time. I don't make a TON of money off of it, but its enough to put a little fun money in my pocket.

We've been tagged.

I (Sarah) will be a good sport and complete the taggee (is that what I would be called) assignment. I will also make Paul post his response. The assignment is to list 7 random facts or habits about yourself. So here goes...

1. I have had the same alarm clock since 5th grade. That is a pretty long time considering I will be 31 this month. It is pink and purple (what other color would a 5th grade girl have in the 1980's), and it is called the "P'Jammer". It used to have these little "earbuds" (fancy for earphones) that fit into the side of it, but those have been gone a long time. I have contemplated getting a new alarm clock for a while, but I am not sure I want to part with my P'Jammer.

2. I love really great hair. If I could, I spend A LOT of money on hair products, and I would get my hair cut every 3 weeks. It is of value to me to spend a little money on my hair cuts, so I do not like to go hair cutting chains. I also do not like to go stylists that have really bad hair. My stylists is moving to San Diego, so I will get my hair cut by her one last time in a week. Then, I must train someone new.

3. I was in a beauty pageant. You can laugh now if you want. I really was. It was my sophomore year in high school, and I was first runner-up. I got a big trophy.

4. I like things to be clean. I wouldn't so much call me a "neat freak"...mainly because I don't like that term. Cleanliness is a very high value of mine. This pertains to just about anything - my house, my office, my car, myself. I also like for things to look clean...this means no clutter. I like clean, crisp decorations that are fairly simple.

5. I have had 9 jobs in my life. secretary/do whatever I was told for a software company, sales associate at Gap Kids, student assistant in my residence hall, substitute teacher, staffworker for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, high school English teacher, secretary/do whatever I was told for the Texas Tech Library, Assistant Director of the New Student Orientation program at Texas Tech, Supervisor/Coordinator over admission's processing at Texas Tech.

6. I have fantasies about living in Mexico. Specifically in a little town called Guanajuato. My other choice would be running a quaint little hotel or coffee shop in a place like Cabo San Lucas. And that brings me to luck #7...

7. I have a set path that I take when I go to Target. First, I walk through the clothes and look at everything, then I go across the big aisle to the handbags. I then walk the outer aisle of the store past electronics, toys and baby stuff to the shoes. I keep walking back toward the front of the store to housewares, kitchen stuff and decorating stuff. I stop there for a good while. Finally, I make it to the cleaning supplies and toiletries and get what I am usually there to pick up. I LOVE Target!

And for the bonus...
I have a few dreams that I would love to be realities at some point in my life...own a coffee shop, go to graduate school (I could do something about this, but I am kinda scared), have babies...not sure how many and not at one time - that scares me too, own a house that is a blank slate for decorating, run a marathon, and own a chocolate lab.