Wow, I’ve been sentimental lately. Maybe fall is the season for that. Spent all last week thinking about old youth group kids. And just now I was reminiscing about , of whom I never think. I almost want to call him to see if he’s going to Homecoming. But no. That’s not my job. If he wants to see me, he can get a hold of me. It’s hard - respecting myself enough to do that.

popularity: 9%

I know I haven’t posted in a while. Want to get back into the swing of it.

Big weekend for me. Big last couple of weeks, actually.

I bought a car on Saturday. I know! Huge deal, as far as I’m concerned. 2001 Daewoo Nubira in Silver. It took such a long time to get, and it cost more than I think I can afford, but still. I have a working car now! And it only has 34,000 miles on it. Considering my now-dead Civic had 167,000 miles on it, was blowing white smoke from the exhaust, and needed oil every time I filled up on gas, let alone the fear I had every time I drove it that it would break down and leave me stranded somewhere. Now I have a pretty car! (The picture doesn’t do it justice.)

Talked to last night. She had the closing on our old house on Friday, moved into the new house on Saturday, and had the closing for the new one this morning. She had lots to talk about. It was good to talk to her about the church stuff that’s been going on (more about that later) too, because she was right there on my side, and made me feel like I wasn’t overreacting or being too sensitive or anything. I thought I was right.

We’re going to an apple orchard this weekend! I’m so excited! & and I will be driving down and spending a good portion of Saturday afternoon picking apples and drinking cider and doing… orchard things. Yay!

More problems with . Two weeks ago (the… 10th) I went in for my regular staff meeting with her. It had been the first in a while since the summer schedule was different and didn’t work for her. It was also one day shy of my one-year anniversary, and she decided to use the opportunity to tell me all the things I’d done wrong or had fallen short on in the past year. Yeah. Like an hour of “you could’ve done better” and “you screwed up when….” Some of it was simply uncalled for, and some of it could have actually been dealt with if she had talked to me about it when it happened, back in April or whenever, because now I have no memory of said incidents and can’t defend or deny or explain or accept responsibility or anything, because there’s nothing to stand on. So frustrating. And she wants to add more to my list of duties, which means working more than they originally asked me to. This is fine with me, and I don’t want to be defensive, but I want it to be clear that this will mean I am turning in more hours and they will be paying me more. They asked me originally to be 12-15 hours a week, and it’s turning out recently to be more like 15-25. Let’s be honest here, folks.

So that’s been really frustrating. And hasn’t seemed like herself lately. I wonder if she’s just not happy living in the small apartment with me. She has a bigger room, a place to escape, and for the past three weeks, she’s even had a car to give her the freedom to leave if she needs to. But she’s also got a new job that isn’t as cool as she thought it would be.

I’m definitely going home for my college’s Homecoming now. It’s next weekend. I’m totally excited. We’re even planning a Female Flag Football alumni vs current students game, which I’m very pleased about. It’ll be a shorter trip home than I’d like, because of the new youth group schedule, but still, it’s a trip home where I’ll get to see my friends and family, so I’m happy.

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Argh!!! Called to let her know that I wasn’t going to come in today. Didn’t realized until last night that she thought I would be coming in this week. I was planning on doing it next week. We don’t have any programming this week. She was understanding, since she knew my car died a painful and horrible death this weekend and I couldn’t make arrangements that fast for alternate transportation. BUT. She’s got this real negative side, like overly critical of a lot of not very important stuff. Or, maybe it’s just that instead of encouraging me and supporting me to do the things she wants me to do, she makes it seem negative that I haven’t done it already. But there hasn’t been a ton of communication about that stuff. OK, the camp calls I understand, they should have been done by now. But calling the 6th graders to invite them personally to the group because she’s heard some negative feedback, well, how was I supposed to know? Nobody said anything to me. And in the last four days I’ve sat through 5 hours of meetings, all specifically about the youth. You think somebody would have mentioned it…. I know I could be doing a better job. But I could be doing a worse job. And when there’s another church who actually WANTS me, not just tolerates me as a warm body in the interim, well gosh darn it if it doesn’t make me want to work there even more. To be fair, doesn’t know that I’m considering another church, that there’s anybody interested. She doesn’t care about me as a person, though, and that’s been my complaint for quite a while. I need a pastoral staff who cares about me, even if it’s just because they know that my emotional etc health affects the whole program.

I did have quite a busy last few weeks. I worked almost 50 hours in the last 2 for church, on top of working full-time for the State, moving to a new apartment during the State Fair over Labor Day Weekend, and my car dying on Sunday morning. It’s not like I don’t have STUFF going on. When will people get that?

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So I hate using the phone. But I was doing a really good job today, making phone calls to people I don’t know and being the bearer of un-good news (mainly that we’re taking some of their computers away). I was really proud of myself (you would be too if you understood how much I hate making phone calls). I stopped briefly to read an email that I got (cuz Yahoo! has that instant notification thing when one comes through), and it almost made me cry I was so happy. Peace Lutheran still wants me! I’m really glad.

popularity: 9%