This past weekend was an interesting one. I made the trek to Fort Worth on Friday morning to look for jobs. My mom was gracious enough to take the day off work so she could drive around with me. I had planned to make this trip myself with the help of my GPS, but having someone else in the car as I drove around to the 15+ different schools definitely eased the frustration. I had also planned to hopefully meet with some principals as I stopped by the schools and handed them my resume. Well, things did not quite work out that way. I did not end up meeting with a single principal, as they were all in meetings or would only be seen by appointment. So, I left my resume with the secretary at each school and felt my hopes fading upon getting back in the car after each school visit. My plan is to follow up and just keep applying for as many jobs as possible. I'll probably be that annoying girl who keeps sending emails and making calls to administrators. I just want a job. In all honesty, I had not been worried about finding one until this weekend, but after my day on Friday and after talking to someone who told me that Fort Worth is only hiring about half as many teachers as last year, I can't help but be discouraged. Instead of getting more excited about moving, I am actually looking forward to it less all the time. Ok, I am excited about moving closer to some people in the DFW area including my family, the Williams, the Harbers, and Rachel. And I'm kind of excited about the church we will be attending. The truth is, though, I just really love it here. I LOVE our church. I love our house. I love the people here. And I love the many doors that are open for us here to serve and work. I know that God will provide for us in Fort Worth. I guess I just need to be still and trust.

We did buy a new car this weekend. New to us, anyway. It is a 2005 white Corolla with 48,000 miles on it. We got it for less than we sold my car for, which is a huge blessing. My dad and I were talking on the way home about how God tends to line things up just right for us to show us His will. I randomly picked this weekend to go down to Fort Worth, and Andrew just this car online a couple of days ago and noticed that it was in Arlington. When we decided to buy it, we were talking to the owner about how to pay for it. As it turns out, he was a Bank of America customer also, so all we had to do was transfer funds. And there was a Bank of America about a mile down the road. I am so excited to be the new owner of a car that hopefully won't be a huge money pit like the last one. My dad and I calculated that I could have bought a fairly nice new car for the amount of money I spent on my VW while it was in the shop.

Student teaching is going alright. My teacher is great- she's the kind I could see myself being friends with outside of work. Ironically, she actually wanted to teach middle school, too, but she ended up in preschool. I just don't enjoy the age group or the disability level very much. God bless people who want to teach little kids. To me, it's exhausting. I also feel like I am not really teaching or relating to them. Most days, it kind of feels like babysitting.

My friend, Rhiannon, had a baby this week. She is precious. My brother came up to the hospital with Andrew and I to see her. This was the first time Tim had ever held a baby and he asked us when we were going to make him an uncle as we were leaving. :-)

I have still been thinking about Peru a lot this week. I want to be there. Really bad.

One of my favorite hobbies lately has been shopping for deals. I don't know why I enjoy that so much. I think I am going to start posting some of my weekly deals on here. This week's deal: Groupon. I'm not sure if they have Groupon for other cities beside OKC, but I'm guessing they do. You just go to the Groupon website and create a free account, and every day, they send you an email with some awesome deal in OKC (or Dallas, etc.). I bought my first one this week. It was a $25 gift certificate to Coco Flow Chocolates and Coffee that I got for $10. (AND, if you use the link I just gave you, I get a $10 credit!) I just found out that there are already 4 Aldi's open in Fort Worth. Yesss. I had been worried about that.

Thanks to Kate Hanna, I also found an awesome new coffee/cupcake shop in OKC. It's called Sara Sara Cupcakes. Deliciously cute cupcakes and tasty coffee in a redesigned historic home. Definitely worth the drive.

In Christ alone,
Mary Rachel