Future planning?

Life here at the Zaruba's is going pretty well these days. We had a pretty great day last Friday actually. I got a call about mid-morning from Progressive letting me know that the other insurance company had accepted liability for the accident! This in itself was awesome news!! But what made it even better was the fact that our car repairs hadn't been finished yet so the bill was going to get sent directly to the other company - we didn't have to pay a dime! I was one happy camper. And then to make things even better, we were able to pick up our car on Friday afternoon - repairs were done and it looked as good as new! It was a relief to have this all taken care of and we were so blessed that everything worked out in our favor.

Last weekend was pretty busy for both AJ and I - we each had to work all day Saturday. AJ was working with Riverside's speech team and they had districts all day. The great news is that they did have a couple of students make it to State so they'll be heading over that way soon. I think AJ is going to continue to help out with the speech team, especially within the area of Musical Theater. I think he really enjoys working with these kids and he's talked about getting more involved next year.
I on the other hand, was busy all day in Omaha working at our Housing Showcase on campus and then later Saturday night at our Dual Enrollment Hockey Event. It was a long and exhausting day, especially after being on my feet all day. I can tell you that AJ and I both slept soundly on Saturday night! 

Our classes at FPU are continuing to go well. We took a big step this past week and cut up all of our credit cards. That was a little hard for me to do. We had recently taken them out of our wallets and locked them up in our safe-box, but I liked having them there in case of an emergency. But as Dave Ramsey teaches us, we should really have an emergency savings account instead of using credit cards. And so that's what we're working towards. We are still learning a lot each week; this class has been very beneficial. I would encourage anyone who has ever considered taking this class to do it. Or if you haven't considered it but would like to feel more financially secure, this is the class to take. It has been well worth the time spent so far. 

In a couple of "great news" stories... our clans-baby is officially one year old now! It's hard to believe it - even more so for his mom and dad I'm sure! :) He celebrated his birthday party last Sunday but since AJ and I were both so exhausted from working on Saturday we were unable to attend. Hopefully we can make it up there soon to see the little man and of course his parents. :) I also had a very close and dear friend of mine get engaged recently! After the phone call I was literally jumping up and down! I am so excited for her and her new fiance as they start this adventure of wedding planning and the journey of marriage together. I wish them both a lifetime of happiness! :) 

Other than that, AJ and I continue to have conversations about our future. This is something that we discuss quite often actually. We talk about when we would like to start having kids possibly, where we see ourselves in five years, etc. The thing is that every time we talk about our future, it always seems to change. I shouldn't be surprised but sometimes I feel like it can be discouraging. I know that all of our talks of future plans are just that - plans. Plans change. And with so much unknown about the future, it's hard to set any plan in stone. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't like it to be so. 
With each discussion, it seems one of us always has a change of heart about something. But this is always a reminder about the compromise of marriage. Finding a "plan" that we can both agree on. Talking about a future we're both happy about. And most importantly, remembering that things are not always going to work the way we want them to. Things are going to change, our plan is going to change. We have no control over many of these things. Most important we need to remember to trust God. To ask Him what He plan for us is. What His future for us looks like. And we must remember to be quiet long enough to hear what He is telling us. 

Where does the time go?

I cannot believe it is already May. Seriously. I have no idea what happened to April?! That seems to be happening a lot lately... first - March disappeared... then April and now May will probably be gone before we know it! And no - I'm not even wishing for time to speed away! AJ has just a little over two weeks left of school and I've already been here at UNO for almost four months now! In just a short month, my baby brother will be graduating high school. I have no idea where the time goes...

I feel like I need to throw in these "update blogs" every once in a while even though who knows if you all even want to be updated on our lives - it's not like we have anything too exciting going on! haha But I'll continue to do it so at the very least it helps me try to figure out where the last month went.The last time I wrote an update blog I was still down in Kansas City for some college fairs. And as much fun as those can be and nice to get out of the office sometimes, I'm glad to be done traveling for work now... at least until this fall again. And I think AJ would say he's glad to have me home too, but I guess you'd have to ask him that!

After that, April seemed to just quietly slip by. I did spend about a half a week out for the count with a bad sinus infection, which was really no fun. Then it was Holy Week and we were off to Minnesota for the Easter week to spend with my family. We were able to make it back in time on Friday to attend a Good Friday service with my family as well, which was really nice. On Saturday I went to a baby shower for one of my high school friends while AJ went to the farm with the guys. (aka my dad, uncle and second cousin) I heard they had quite a fun time themselves, even if AJ wasn't suppose to tell us about it... haha The baby shower was a lot of fun and it was great seeing so many friends again. Although it's hard to believe we're all growing up so quickly and buying houses and having babies! Or at least they are - AJ and I aren't quite there yet! haha

On Easter Sunday we woke up for a sunrise service and celebrated that He has Risen! Easter Sundays are always one of my favorite Sunday's of the year! So much joy and celebration! We had some family over for dinner which of course is always a good time. We were even able to get some four-wheeling in with the nice weather before we needed to pack up and head back to Iowa.

The next week was fairly quiet. It was my little sister's 24th birthday and AJ and I also celebrated three years since we had gotten engaged. This past weekend, my sister came in for a visit! It was so nice on Saturday that we went for a  picnic at the park across the road from our apartment. We then spent the next couple of hours just soaking up the sun! Megan and AJ even got a little sun burned! That night we had a dinner party with Megan, one of AJ's co-workers and his date. It was a big success and a lot of fun! After dinner, we headed to Omaha to see the production of Les Miserables. It was absolutely fabulous. On Sunday, we took Meg back to Omaha for a famous Jones Bros Cupcake so that her trip would be complete. :) After that, we spent the day relaxing and enjoying the breeze from outside.

On Monday, AJ had his last high school choir concert of the school year. It was amazing! You could really see how much the kids have learned over the year and how much better they sounded! You could see that AJ was doing an amazing job and getting through to these kids. It was a great concert. We did start a facebook page for the vocal music program at Riverside that can be found here if you're interested. ;-) This Friday, the choir has large group contest and AJ and the kids are very excited and eager for this - really hoping to improve their score over last year. Then next Thursday is the final middle school concert. After that, just some preparation for graduation and the school year will be over.

Another piece of good news is that AJ received his contract for next school year and already has it signed and returned! Not that I had any doubt about him getting a contract again, but you never know with the state budget cuts what could happen. So we are very excited that he will still have a job! :) For the summer, AJ is currently looking for some temporary work (mostly due to his nagging wife... haha) to keep him busy during his "time off". I'm also looking for a part time job because the life of an admissions counselor is pretty slow during the summer months so I thought I'd see if I could find something else to help keep me busy as well. And the extra money never hurts! ;-)

That's about it for my updates right now. I'm sure you've all enjoyed them! :)

A New Year with a fresh start

Happy New Year everyone! I realize I've been slacking quite a bit when it comes to our blog, but I'll do my best to get back into the routine of writing. It's been a long time since my last blog - last year actually! And so there's a lot to catch up on!

AJ's last day of school before break was Dec. 22nd and the next day we headed up to Minnesota to spend the holiday with my side of the family. We spend Christmas Eve up in the cities with my dad's side of the family and exchanged gifts that started with the first letter of our middle names. Always a fun time with that side of the family and this year was no different! Although we were all entertained by my cousin's daughter Lilly who was just too cute and very helpful in opening all of our presents! :)

Christmas day was spent with just my immediate family since everyone else on my mom's side were off celebrating Christmas either in Ohio or Arizona. So we had a very relaxing day filled with gifts, hot chocolate, falling snow, Christmas movies and snacking all day long. It was perfect. My mom even managed to find the Muppet Family Christmas video - which is a classic and very hard to find! We all enjoyed watching it again, but agreed it wasn't quite the same without the old school TV commercials like our VHS recording once had! :)

On Sunday, my parents left for a Caribbean cruise and left the house to us kids. AJ and I spent our week up in Minnesota hanging out with a lot of my high school friends and spending a lot of quality time with my siblings. I honestly can't remember the last time the four of us were able to spend so much time together and have so much fun!! It was very nice that Minnesota had so much snow as well because that just added to our fun! We were able to build snowmen, build a tunnel and even go sledding! We also managed to get our car stuck in the driveway but luckily we got unstuck.

After an epic week in Minnesota, we headed back down to Council Bluffs where we were met with 60 degree weather! It was quite the change and a very welcomed one at that! For New Year's AJ's sister Amber and her husband Matt drove out to see us and spend the night in Omaha. We had gotten hotel rooms in downtown so that we wouldn't be out on the roads. We spend the day/night eating a lot of fun, playing some fun games at Dave & Buster's and bar hopping in the Old Market. We tried to stay inside as much as possible because it was freezing outside! But all in all, it was a very successful New Year's! We were even lucky enough to meet up with my cousin Courtney and her fiance Matt as they were in Omaha for a wedding that Saturday!

So that was our holiday and a great start to the New Year! And fortunately, things just keep getting better for us!

I had a phone interview the Thursday morning before AJ and I drove up to Minnesota right before Christmas with the University of Nebraska Omaha for an Admissions Counselor position. While we were driving up to Minnesota that same day, I got a call back from UNO asking me to come in to do another interview! So this past Tuesday I was on campus for my interview which included doing a 15 minute presentation on the college. After I left, I was feeling pretty good about how things went and was hoping to hear back from them within the next week. Well yesterday, Thursday, I got a call back from UNO asking if I could come in that day to meet with their Associate Vice Chancellor who oversees all Admissions. So yesterday afternoon I was back on campus and while I only thought I'd be there for about a half hour, I was actually there about two hours having some great conversations about this position and what they're hoping to see happen within the next year. Again, I left feeling really good about things.

Then this morning, I got another phone call from UNO offering me the position! I was ecstatic and accepted pretty much right away! :) I start on Monday, Jan. 18th and I couldn't be more happy and excited about this possibility. I will be focusing on two programs at UNO one of which is offered to some western Iowa counties and the other  will involve some travel the Twin Cities and the Kansas City area. This is obviously a lot different from what I was doing at Kruger, but I believe that I'm going to be able to bring a lot of my experience from Kruger into my new position at UNO. I'm also just super excited to be back in higher education admissions. Back in college, I worked as a student work study in the Admissions office and did Student Ambassadors. Both of those experiences taught me that this was something I could really do with my life. Now I have that opportunity. I'm excited to start working with students and helping them make some big life changing decisions! This is a new chapter for me and I can't wait to start!

Looking back, I wasn't unemployed for that long of time, but I can mostly say that now knowing I have a job! :) In the past month or so, I was taught a lot about patience - as was AJ I'm sure! We were so ready for something to fall in place, we just had to wait for the right timing - God's timing. AJ and I are finally going to be able to get back into a great routine of things and I know we're both way excited to have dual incomes again! :)

So, for this Zaruba clan, the first week of 2011 is off to a fantastic start! And I know that the next 51 weeks are going to be just as great, if not better!

I hope God blessed each one of you with a great start to the new year and also an awesome rest of the year! We look forward to seeing what will happen in our lives and in yours. :)

Roller-coaster of Life

June 23, 2010

Well, it seems about time for another one of these... a lot has happened and at the same time, nothing has happened.

AJ and I went to Council Bluffs/Omaha a couple of weekends ago. We had a really good trip too. On Saturday we looked at about six different apartment complexes and really fell in love with one - the one that was of course, most expensive. Ah, such is life. We're currently filling out an application and we'll see what happens! Some of the benefits of this apartment complex is it's location - it's right next to Interstate 80 and the shopping center, which has a Hy-Vee and Walgreens. We like convenience!

That night, we drove over to Omaha for The Taste of Omaha and enjoyed some good food and music at a park next to the river! It was a lot of fun, but it was also really hot! We probably would have stayed longer if it wasn't so hot, but we were just ready to go back to our air-conditioned hotel room. On Sunday we went to the Omaha Zoo. We spent the entire afternoon there and didn't even see half the zoo! It was a lot of fun! We definitely have plans to go back there again! (and again, and again!)

On Monday, I had my interview. I think that it went as well as it could have gone. I found out I was one of three people being interviewed. I did find it ironic - almost - that one of the questions was what I thought my dream job was. And I had to answer honestly - back in college, Wartburg was big on 'finding your calling' and as I was ready to graduate I hadn't figured out my calling! I did tell them that although I still don't know what my dream job might be, i definitely want to be helping people - which was really what this job was about. Another guy from the interview was also honest with me. He told me he had concerns about me being able to handle parts of this job because of my lack of experience in the 'business world'. I think that really defeated me, the more I thought about it. No one likes hearing something like that - even if it is true. And I think I missed my opportunity to prove him wrong. I needed to tell him why he was wrong. But I don't think I did that as much as I should have. Before I left, I was told they wanted to make an offer by the end of the week as they wanted to have someone start by at least July 12th.

On Friday, I still hadn't heard from them. I really tried not to think about it too much or to get too disappointed. At about 4:45, I called the office to ask about the position. I wanted to make sure they knew I was still interested. I was told they were still in the deciding process and hope to have an answer soon.

It's now Wednesday and still nothing. I'm taking it as a no - they probably offered it to someone else and were waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully I'll at least get a call (or even an email!) at some point to let me know they went in a different direction. We'll see.

I'm trying not to be too disappointed. Obviously this wasn't what I'm suppose to be doing. God has different plans - something better hopefully! :) So I'm back to applying to more jobs and keeping my fingers crossed!

Recently, I had a friend that had some very big news and during one of our conversations we discussed how we've definitely grown up and life is moving very quickly for us - her and her news and AJ and I and our big move and starting a new adventure. She mentioned that life is moving so fast we better hold on! I told her it was like we're on this Adult Roller-coaster - or a Roller-coaster of Life! And then she asked me, "Are we going up or down right now?" And I had to answer, "Let's say we're on the curve and we can't yet see whether we're going to be going up or down." Of course we both hope we'll be heading up but life is full of ups and downs. It's an interesting concept - life as a roller-coaster. Never really sitting still, always moving up or down, coming across twists and turns. And hopefully we all enjoy the ride while we're on it!

Right now, I feel like AJ and I are on a stand-still. Maybe the calm before a storm? haha There's so much up in the air right now and it really makes me anxious. We have to fill out an apartment application and give them a move-in date. We have to give our current apartment a 30 days notice before moving out. AJ has his student loan bills that start next month. And while he has his job lined up, it's hard to look at our finances and try to get a budget set when we don't know what my potential income might be. And that is really frustrating. And I still don't know when I should tell my current job I'm leaving. If only I could just take some time off from working to get settled 'out West' and then look for a job once fall comes. But we definitely don't have the money for that! I can't help but wonder how some families survive on one income?! But that's just not meant for AJ and I! Oh well.. haha

Well, it's pretty late and I have an early morning (again) tomorrow. So it's off to bed for me. I pray that God will give us some answers and some clarity on what might be coming up for us. But until then, we wait... and enjoy the ride.