NEET

We are nice and settled here in our new home of sorts. My eldest niece, who is four, is ecstatic to play games on my iPhone and take pictures of herself on my Mac. The younger two little girls are both sick, sadly. We unpacked all of our things and got our room organized and the XBOX hooked up. And we are in full swing of life as penniless vagabonds.

NEET: a government acronym for people "Not in Education, Employment, or Training"

It's been a two and a half months since I last clocked out for a day of work. I feel like I should be doing more to find a job but I'm at a loss for what to do. It doesn't help that I've got Aaron's employment to think about, too. I do my due diligence and meet all the qualifications to receive unemployment benefits (which is fairly minimal). I follow up on applications and try to network with recruiters on LinkedIn. I'm not being that picky at all when it comes to the types of jobs I'm applying for. I'm not yet at the point where I need to put on my roller skates, name tag and head to the Sonic down the road. I feel like I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do but it's bearing no fruit. 

It's also very strange moving into someone else's house. Normally, when we are here it's temporary. It's for fun. Now it's semi-permanent and its because we are helpless. Maybe that's a little dramatic but just take my word for it, it's weird. 

[Le Sigh..]

I'm looking forward to a phone interview I have tomorrow for a position for which I interviewed a few weeks ago. I'm really hoping this is the job but we'll have to see. This weekend we will get the opportunity to do a little church shopping. I still need to find several to try out. 

If you know of any good ones in far East Dallas or the Tyler area, please share!

This marks the beginning of a new season of life for us Thurmons. God is going to teach us so much, I just know it. I am praying that He has a church home and a community that He's been preparing for us. There IS a higher purpose for our troubles. I trust that. The process just isn't "NEET" at all. 

Jobless Homeless Moneyless Faithful

This week has kind of bummed me out a little bit. We have some big changes happening very soon that I haven't been very conversational about so I'll fill you in...

WE'RE MOVING!

We have lived fairly happily in Austin, TX for the past year. Aaron got a great job in retail management. Despite being bored out of my mind, I had a great paying job with lovely coworkers. We had a fabulous (and superbly decorated if I do say so myself) apartment. We fell in love with a wonderful church and served in their Children's Ministry since August teaching pre-kinder. We befriended an amazing group of young-married believers and even hosted them in our home every week.  God has really blessed us. 

When I lost my job, we had laid out various worst-case-scenario responses if A should happen or if B took place. And just our luck, they all took place at once. 

I wasn't able to find viable employment. Our apartment complex pretty much financially evicted us by raising our rent by 22%. Then Aaron, too, lost his job. 

Thankfully, God's timing was gracious. We are at the end of our lease term anyway. By being jointly unemployed, we are both free to uproot without any friction. We had just enough saved up to finish out our lease, bills, and cover moving expenses. 

So in two days we will be en route to our new home in East Texas. Aaron has an awesome brother and sister-in-law who has offered their home to us.  We are kind of looking forward to the change.

1. They have a huge house which will allow us to have our "own space." 

2. Aaron can hang out with and share in "manly activities" with his brother. 

3. We will get to spend a lot of time with our three nieces.

(Of this idea, I'm slightly enamored.)

4. Our sister-in-law is a recruiter with a bazillion connections in the area.

It shouldn't take us too long to find jobs.

5. Once we pick back up on the nine to five routine, we will be able to save up and get back on our feet better than we were before (hopefully). 

There are some things that we are mildly anxious about, however. 

1. Their house is in a remote location and we fear there will be difficulties finding that "community" feeling again. 

2. We will have to church shop for a while to see where God calls us. This brings out a wealth of logistical questions: How far will we have to drive? Will the friends we make live close by? Will we become full members? Will we serve in a ministry? How long will we be there?

3. We are going to be living off of someone else's good graces so I feel like every financial decision we make could be questioned. This is not to say that our family is judgmental in any way, only that I would probably have some thoughts of my own if people living with me were spending frivolously. 

4. We, a newly married couple, will be living with a family of five. 

I don't even know what to be anxious about in this area!

I think, most unfortunately, we will miss our church and our small group here in Austin. We prayed for so long that God would give us fellowship and call us into service. Now that we are being asked to give  back to Him that which we've been blessed with, I am not as optimistic about finding it quickly in a new city. 

We just finished a study on the book of Ruth utilizing a sermon series called Redeeming Ruth by Mark Driscoll.

This study felt so appropriate for our situation right now. It's so comforting to know that God is sovereign and good. His plan is perfect and He can use our bad decisions to bring glory to His name. Aaron and I are trying really hard to trust that this is God doing good things with our life that we simply cannot see. It's so comforting to know that my life means so little and ALL the glory goes to God and to advancing the Kingdom of Christ Jesus. It is a huge relief to trust that when Jesus hung on the cross and said "It is finished" that He did all the work for my life. There is nothing that I could do that would inhibit God from establishing His Kingdom on Earth.

I love being let off the hook a little bit and having more confidence in my own decision making, knowing He'll use my choices any way I make them. I pray that I can be like Ruth and submit to His will for my life. Right now, His desire is for us to be jobless, homeless, moneyless, faithful children.

That doesn't sound so hard now does it?

Green Chile Chicken

Aaron's Green Chile Chicken & Rice

Ingredients:

3 Large Cans Chunk Chicken or 3 Fresh Chicken Breasts

1 4oz Can Green Chiles

1 7oz Can Verde Sauce

1 10oz Can Cream O' Chicken Soup

1 Cup Sour Cream

1 Block of Cream Cheese

2 Bags of Success Rice

Salt  

Shredded Cheese (We used Monterrey Jack)

Preheat oven to 350. 

Prepare rice as directed on box (we did the microwave method).

If canned, heat chicken in skillet for 5 minutes on medium heat to lightly brown. 

Combine rice, chicken, green chiles, verde sauce, soup in a large bowl. Add softened cream cheese and sour cream. Salt to taste. 

Coat 9x13 pan with nonstick spray. Pour mixture into pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Low broil for an additional 5 minutes to brown the cheese. 

Serve hot! Enjoy!

New-Sew Stockings

Today, I embarked upon my quest to make this little family some Christmas stockings and, to my surprise, Aaron wanted to help!

After determining that Hobby Lobby had a selection of stockings that would neither suit my creativity or tickle Aaron's red and green traditionalism, I continued with my plan of going DIY.  I did some Googling and decided that a felt stocking would be much less invasive, especially since I really didn't want to break out the sewing machine.

The Shopping List:
1 yard of felt from the fabric section
2 giant buttons
Fabric Glue
Assorted fabric sheets from the craft section

For starters, I made a pattern using leftover wrapping paper. This worked really well and kept things festive!

After cutting out four stocking shapes, Aaron began working on what he termed to be his "Reindeer Camo." We cut out and tacked down all of the shapes with the fabric glue.

I began my own stocking as Aaron's lay drying. I started by cutting out my main attraction.

Then I grabbed some felt flowers I'd made for a wreath that I never finished and played around with layouts.

After our designs were done drying, we flipped them over and placed fabric glue along the edges in lieu of sewing. For a finishing touch, we folded down the top to create a nice even rim.

After the glue had set, we flipped these babies right-side out and added giant buttons to embellish our hooks.  Don't they look great?

Super excited that now we have stockings!
Hope ya'll enjoy!
Oooh I also added a really yummy Green Chile Chicken & Rice recipe to the Food tab.

Happy Holidays!!

Merry UnChristmas

I've been feeling very non-Christmasy lately.

For all the decorating that took place for October and November, December makes me look like a slacker. Our tree is still up but I only have four ornaments and some leftover gift wrapping ribbon on it. The only reason that the ornaments are even there is they just happened to be in the same box as my Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It's the one my mom got us last year, knowing we would be too busy with graduating and the wedding and the honeymoon and moving to decorate. Lastly, my sister painted for our home a giant ornament night-light that shines "Merry Christmas," it's sitting on our TV stand.

Yeah that's about it.
Isn't that so un-festive? It's definitely un-spirited for me. I do love Christmastime but life has just had other plans for my creativity.

Last year, Aaron and I came back from our honeymoon in Mexico on Christmas Eve and went straight from the airport to his dad's house to celebrate. This year, we aren't even sure if we will still be in our apartment by then let alone knowing where we are going to spend the holidays. It seems silly to put up a Christmas tree that you'll have to take down before the 25th.

But I'm thinking I need to take the initiative and kill two turtle doves with one stone: Festivity & Boredom.

Thus, I will be embarking on a new adventure that is DIY Stockings!

I'm kind of nervous about it because growing up I've had the same stocking all my life. {.. or at least for as long as I can remember ..} So I want to make sure that I pick out a design and a pattern that will suit this new Thurmon family for years to come. This means it will also need to be something that can be fairly easily replicated for any Thurmon-ites that should be borne out of our holy union. Also it will need to be a fairly frugal craft activity, seeing as how I have no employment offer wrapped underneath our sad little undecorated tree. And I'm a pretty novice sewer.. in fact I'm pretty sure my machine will need some repairs before I get started or I'll be doing this by hand!

Ahhh I'm already salivating at the idea of going to Hobby Lobby!
Or maybe I smell Aaron baking cookies for Santa.

There may exist a twinkle of hope for a little merriment this year yet.