So last post (for most of you this will probably be mere moments after reading the last post, if you actually have been reading, and waiting for new posts could you leave a comment? I need a little acknowledgment) I said I would write a little more about Indiana, to fill in some of the blanks. And I totally will, I just have to mention that Erik got a job!!Which is pretty awesome for us. So thanks for all the prayers and good wishes. Now, on to Indiana.
When we lived in Indiana we lived pretty close to the ghetto. Now, some people will look at where we lived and say, "What do you mean near the ghetto, this looks like the ghetto to me!". To these people I say that you are mostly right. It was a little ghetto, but for the most part it could have been worse. I saw places where it was worse, where every other house was boarded up, but some of the boards had people sized holes in them, for homeless people, or they were drug traps or whatever. Or places where the parks were over grown because kids didn't play there. So by that measure where we lived was pretty nice. What put it over the top though was our neighbors.
Specifically one neighbor, Jimmy. Jimmy was the nicest guy you could ever meet. For example, there were some college kids who lived next to him, and he would drop by their place to make sure they had enough to eat, and if they didn't, he would give them dinner. He lent his vacuum to every family in the building who needed it. When we moved out and were getting rid of some of our stuff, including an old twin sized bed he knew exactly who needed one, and he helped to move out the old mattress and move in the new. When my niece visited, she was immediately family as well. Completely the epitome of a neighbor. I actually feel a little guilty as I am writing this, because I haven't spoken to him since we moved away. I keep meaning to call him but unfortunately I haven't.
I'm not as good a neighbor as him.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
It's only been 2 years...
Since my last post on this. That is MARKEDLY better than some of the entries I made in my journal (Confession time: I totally typed "posts I made" before I realised I was talking about pen and paper, not keyboard and internet tubes. Does that officially make me a nerd?) some of those posts were further apart. I guess I'm just not that awesome at keeping up with my journals/blogs.
So. News then. Let's see... last time I wrote Erik and I had just moved to Indiana. Which means that my not writing was truly laziness (I'll be honest again, it does have to do with the fact that my faithful readers topped out at about 2, so the drive to write wasn't there so much). I know it was truly laziness because i had quite a bit of time out there in Indiana (notice the past tense? Yes, we will get to that in a minute). See, Erik was almost always working. Now, I can hear you asking "But Jenny, isn't Erik a teacher?? Don't teachers work from about 8 to about 4:30?!". While this is usually the case, it isn't necessarily true when one is a teacher in the "Murder Capital of the U.S.", working for a charter school. So Erik worked and I was at home a lot, but not blogging and letting you guys (my 2 faithful readers) know what was going on. So I will sum up, yes?
We moved out there in August and got our apartment and met some people. We went to church and made some awesome friends there, the Goepferts. We lived in a place very near to the ghetto, if not actually in the ghetto, where we made some equally awesome friends, the Shorts (in particular Jimmy). Jimmy was our upstairs neighbor and he took care of us. erik went to work at 6:45 each morning, and left work around 7 each night. His students' parents were largely non-committed to their children's education which in turn made the kids not care much either. I stayed home and played the Sims 2 a lot, and Megan came to visit me in the winter and we had a good time. We went into Chicago a couple of times (mostly driving through on our way to other places) but mostly Erik was too tired/ stressed to do much other than hang out around home.
After Erik was not renewed at WGLCS he tried to find a newjob around the area we were in, but nothing happened there so we moved back in August of 2007.
One thing people often ask me is "How did you like the weather out there, wasn't it horribly hot (or cold, depending on the person)?" I will answer this question here: Yes, it was really uncomfortably hot there, from June to mid-September. However, the frequent rain/thunderstorms kept it interesting and very green. In the winter, yes it was very, very cold. I remember one night ( I think it was late January, or early February) Megan (my niece) and I called my friend, Ben, to let him know that it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit outside. While Megan was visiting we would often go outside and blow bubbles in the single-digit temperatures, because the bubble froze in mid air; when the bubbles landed they wouldn't pop, they'd crumple. Because of the difference in what I was used to, and the absolute beauty of the dark green foliage or the crisp white snowstorms, I really did love the weather.
When we moved back top Puyallup, WA in August '07 I was sad to leave Indiana. I would have loved to stay there for much longer. Thankfully Erik was able to get a job in the Puyallup School District, and he really enjoyed teaching this last year. It was such a nice change to have students who liked him and liked learning; or at least they'd tolerate learning.
This summer has been slightly unfortunate in that Erik has been looking for a job again. His contract with Puyallup last year was not a continuing contract, and so when his school needed to lighten it's numbers he was one of the ones who had to leave. Other than that we have had a great summer. Erik's brother Andrew got married to an awesome girl named Bobbi, we got a new dog (named Wrex), and we have been lucky enough to spend almost all of our time together, kind of making up for the lost time we had together in Indiana. We have gotten to spend a lot of time with our nieces and nephews and with his parents, so other than that little job thing, it's been a good time.
Erik has another job interview tomorrow, so we are anxious to hear good news back from that, I am planning on cleaning while he is interviewing, and that pretty much fills you in on our lives for the last little while. Hopefully I will be able to flesh out more of the details of Indiana and Puyallup in later entries, but I think this one is quite long enough.
So. News then. Let's see... last time I wrote Erik and I had just moved to Indiana. Which means that my not writing was truly laziness (I'll be honest again, it does have to do with the fact that my faithful readers topped out at about 2, so the drive to write wasn't there so much). I know it was truly laziness because i had quite a bit of time out there in Indiana (notice the past tense? Yes, we will get to that in a minute). See, Erik was almost always working. Now, I can hear you asking "But Jenny, isn't Erik a teacher?? Don't teachers work from about 8 to about 4:30?!". While this is usually the case, it isn't necessarily true when one is a teacher in the "Murder Capital of the U.S.", working for a charter school. So Erik worked and I was at home a lot, but not blogging and letting you guys (my 2 faithful readers) know what was going on. So I will sum up, yes?
We moved out there in August and got our apartment and met some people. We went to church and made some awesome friends there, the Goepferts. We lived in a place very near to the ghetto, if not actually in the ghetto, where we made some equally awesome friends, the Shorts (in particular Jimmy). Jimmy was our upstairs neighbor and he took care of us. erik went to work at 6:45 each morning, and left work around 7 each night. His students' parents were largely non-committed to their children's education which in turn made the kids not care much either. I stayed home and played the Sims 2 a lot, and Megan came to visit me in the winter and we had a good time. We went into Chicago a couple of times (mostly driving through on our way to other places) but mostly Erik was too tired/ stressed to do much other than hang out around home.
After Erik was not renewed at WGLCS he tried to find a newjob around the area we were in, but nothing happened there so we moved back in August of 2007.
One thing people often ask me is "How did you like the weather out there, wasn't it horribly hot (or cold, depending on the person)?" I will answer this question here: Yes, it was really uncomfortably hot there, from June to mid-September. However, the frequent rain/thunderstorms kept it interesting and very green. In the winter, yes it was very, very cold. I remember one night ( I think it was late January, or early February) Megan (my niece) and I called my friend, Ben, to let him know that it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit outside. While Megan was visiting we would often go outside and blow bubbles in the single-digit temperatures, because the bubble froze in mid air; when the bubbles landed they wouldn't pop, they'd crumple. Because of the difference in what I was used to, and the absolute beauty of the dark green foliage or the crisp white snowstorms, I really did love the weather.
When we moved back top Puyallup, WA in August '07 I was sad to leave Indiana. I would have loved to stay there for much longer. Thankfully Erik was able to get a job in the Puyallup School District, and he really enjoyed teaching this last year. It was such a nice change to have students who liked him and liked learning; or at least they'd tolerate learning.
This summer has been slightly unfortunate in that Erik has been looking for a job again. His contract with Puyallup last year was not a continuing contract, and so when his school needed to lighten it's numbers he was one of the ones who had to leave. Other than that we have had a great summer. Erik's brother Andrew got married to an awesome girl named Bobbi, we got a new dog (named Wrex), and we have been lucky enough to spend almost all of our time together, kind of making up for the lost time we had together in Indiana. We have gotten to spend a lot of time with our nieces and nephews and with his parents, so other than that little job thing, it's been a good time.
Erik has another job interview tomorrow, so we are anxious to hear good news back from that, I am planning on cleaning while he is interviewing, and that pretty much fills you in on our lives for the last little while. Hopefully I will be able to flesh out more of the details of Indiana and Puyallup in later entries, but I think this one is quite long enough.
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