Jen Russum

Flowers Fade Friday: Plans

Flowers Fade Friday: Plans

Recently, my schedule has been packed full {note the lack of blog posts this week}, my house is crazy from moving, and my plans each day have not really gone the way I intended them to. My plans. Ha. In the midst of my crazy circumstances I am reminded yet again that: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." - Proverbs 16:9 One of the main issues right now is with working. I don't think I've talked about this before, but I substitute for the school district near our house as a way to supplement our family income. The great thing about subbing is that it allows me to still work with high school students which is an age group I adore, I usually have a lot of time to work on school stuff on the job {yes, I'm implying I get paid to study and it's awesome!}, and it's completely flexible. I never have to go to work. If it's a really busy week, I can choose not to sub at all or if I feel like I have the time I can sub two or three days in a week. Every night around 5pm the system starts calling to fill sub jobs for the next day, and the nice thing is that I am a level 1 sub for secondary English and Social Studies since I am certified in those areas. That means the system calls me first for the jobs I enjoy the most. However, one day back in September the phone system decided it hated me. For no apparent reason, it rejected my pin number which I have to enter in order to accept a job over the system. It was the right pin. I had been using it for weeks, and I can still use it to log-in to the system online, it just will NOT accept it over the phone. Annoying. So every night I get calls to my phone and I cannot accept the job. Instead, I have to wake up at 6am every morning and call the sub coordinator to see if there are any jobs for the day. If there any, they are usually the left over jobs that no one wanted, which is why one day a few weeks ago I found myself sorting through thousands of bras {yes, you read that right} from some Breast Cancer Awareness display with a bunch of teenage boys. Ha! That should be a blog post in itself. Basically, this technological problem has resulted in me subbing fewer and fewer days and not bringing in as much money as I would like to for the fam. However, over the past few weeks I have seen God's hand establishing my steps in this circumstance. There was one day last week that I really wanted to get a sub job. I hadn't subbed in a week, my dad had been in town closing on his house, and now that he was gone, it was time to get back to work. However, there were no jobs available. Later that morning I got a series of frantic calls and emails that I needed to rush to the title company to sign some random form otherwise my dad's house was not going to close. If I had been subbing, I wouldn't have been able to get to the title office by 1pm deadline and my dad could have lost his new home. God is good. Yesterday, something similar happened. I've now gone two whole weeks without subbing and was hoping for a job. I even sat in my {new walk-in!} closet trying not to wake Micah up as I called the sub coordinator at 6am. She never answered. No job. I had planned to sub all day until 2:30 and then run by the apartment to do a final cleaning before our move-out inspection. Then I had class at 4:30. Silly me. Cleaning took way longer than I originally thought it would and I never would have been able to finish it if I had subbed for the full day. Now we are ready to hand in our apartment keys before the weekend. God is good. God is not required to show us His plan as each day unfolds. But I am thankful He has revealed His reasons to me this week as a sweet reminder that His plans are always better than my own. He is sovereign over all areas of life and He can be trusted infinitely. I am hoping to sub today. We'll see what God has planned... ... Read more

What We Wore {NASCAR edition}

What We Wore {NASCAR edition}

Well, I survived. NASCAR that is. If there is anything in this world that I hate, it's NASCAR. However, Micah's cousin and his wife came to town and wanted to attend one of the big races at Phoenix International Speedway, so we agreed to go with them. Actually, Micah agreed. I consented reluctantly. You see, I've actually been to NASCAR before. During my first year teaching and coaching in Texas, I somehow got roped into going to a NASCAR race as a volunteer to help our school's softball and baseball teams work at a food booth. I didn't really want to go and wasn't really obligated to as I didn't coach either of those sports, but one of the coaches pulled the "coaches should help each other out; I would help you with volleyball" card, so I found myself conned into it. The day consisted of hot weather, gross greasy food and an array of people that left me wide-eyed and disgusted. If you witnessed a 40 year-old woman wearing a nearly-transparent white bodysuit without a bra walk up to a 17 year-old boy to order a baked potato, you might not view NASCAR in the most positive light either... This time though, I was not a volunteer but a spectator. I actually got to sit on the track and watch the race cars zoom in circles going 130 mph. Or something like that. I have to admit that the first ten laps were pretty exciting and the last ten were fun, but the 292 in the middle were rather boring. Good thing I had my new CANON REBEL camera to keep me busy! I would just take 200 pics during the exciting parts of the race and then go through and delete the bad ones during all boring laps. I must say, the crowd in Phoenix seemed a lot more tame than the crowd at Texas. We did see a painted mustache, a few crazy hats, a couple of promiscuously dressed girls, and a few people wearing overalls and the like, but I definitely was not disgusted the way I was at Texas Motor Speedway. Except for the psycho girl in front of us who consumed margarita after margarita during the entire race and stood up and cheered the WHOLE time {we are talking 3.5 hours here}, everyone else seemed pretty calm and respectable. The highlight of the day is when margarita girl jumped up and down so much that she splashed her drink on her own face and didn't even stop cheering to wipe it off. At least her guy won the race, so I guess it was worth it... We tried to fit into the NASCAR scene as much as possible, which required a couple of trips to the thrift store to find the perfect t-shirts for the event. Pair a Jeff Gordon tee with some boots and you are ready to hit the race track. Here is what.we.wore:  {All NASCAR t-shirts courtesy of Savers Thrift Store. I sported Jeff Gordon. His brakes went out and he finished near the bottom. I was humiliated. Just kidding.}  {Cousin-twins had way too much fun shopping at Cowtown Boots.} {We shuttled on a school bus from our parking lot to the event. Our driver decorated our bus for us!} {Can you tell this one is from my new camera? Love it!} {Roomies looooove Jeff Gordon!}  {Like my ear plugs? Hott...} {First crash of the day. Apparently there were a few more, but I wasn't paying attention.}  {Sold out crowd. Did you know NASCAR is the most popular "sport" in America? Weird.} {We walked this close to the race track. They were going blow-your-hat-off fast!} And this is what THEY wore:Like I said, this crowd wasn't too bad. These were the worst outfits I saw. Funny story though. When I was taking this picture, a man almost walked in front of my camera and then quickly apologized and stepped out of the way. I told him it was no big deal and he said "Okay, but I don't understand why you are taking that picture..." as he walked away. I called after him, "It's for my blog!" Haha! A day in the life of a blogger. xoxo,Jen ... Read more

Flowers Fade Friday: Moving is FUN!

Flowers Fade Friday: Moving is FUN!

That title is a joke. Micah just yelled that from the kitchen as we are packing up our apartment. But this post is meant to be less funny and more of a confession. I have to be honest. I HATE moving. I know no one likes moving, but I think I hate it more than the average person. This probably stems from my incredible lack of upper body strength and my horrible furniture carrying skills. I am uncoordinated and weak which results in either being made fun as I struggle with a moderately sized box or arguing with Micah as he carries the weight of a king sized mattress on his back as I watch helplessly. Another thing I really don't like about moving is when it feels really rushed and disorganized and falls during a really busy season of life, like right now. I won't go into details but between family stuff, visitors, and the dreaded last month of the semester, I don't know if I could pick a less opportune time to move. However, that is not the confession. The confession is that my attitude about this whole moving ordeal has been horrible. Terrible. I am overwhelmed, easily irritated, impatient and controlling. I wanted Micah to take most of the responsibility for the physical moving part of the move, which he has, but I think in my heart I wanted him to do it exactly as I would have so I find myself snapping at him about not getting enough boxes or not planning ahead. I also dislike the feeling that my life is out of control and chaotic, so I act like an entitled brat about it instead of just resting in God's grace in the temporary mess that is my home. Holy Spirit, enter in. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is a day where I will find my joy in Christ and not in how my boxes are packed. Tomorrow is the day I will thank God for a new, bigger, cleaner, prettier home instead of being resentful about the chaos that sometimes comes with blessing. Micah is now sleeping soundly next to me, but before he fell asleep he reminded me of all the reasons this move is WAY better than our move down to Arizona last summer. Last July, we pulled an all-nighter packing a Budget truck just two days after our honeymoon in order to get to AZ on time to start our new jobs. We had no place to live when we arrived and knew almost no one in the city. An hour before we left Seattle, we ate breakfast with our families, opened all our wedding gifts, tossed them into the back of the truck, hugged everyone goodbye, and set off into the great unknown. This move looks a little different... We don't have to make a million returns to Macy's over the next few weeks. We don't have to combine all our stuff together for the first time. We actually have dressers. And a kitchen table for that matter. We have more storage than we need at our new place. We are moving twenty minutes away instead of taking a two day journey. We know where we are going to live next week. We aren't changing jobs. We don't have to find a new church or new friends. Micah is right; we are blessed. I hope I wake up in the morning remembering that as I wait for our new washer and dryer to be delivered at 8am. xoxo, Jen ... Read more