Don't Worry!

I didn't fall off the face of the earth! Perhaps by this point (2 1/2 months after my most recent post) my already-small following has abandoned me, or my blog rather. But if there are any of you out there still holding on to that last glimmer of hope...fret no longer. I am going to make it my goal to muster something up during my time off over the holidays. This might be a let-down since this post in itself really doesn't offer much useful information. I don't really know what I'll share with you, perhaps some information about what's going on up in Duluth or else some thoughtful words as I take in new things as a newlywed, recent graduate, new assistant teacher to preschoolers, Duluthian of almost five months, among the many other roles I play. 

I kind of miss taking time to write and transcribe thoughts to a readership in an organized fashioned, so this should hold me over for a bit. 

Okay, well sister-in-law Lindsey is coming over very soon, I must make haste!

Going with God's Flow

The past month and a half or so I have been so eager to meet people in Duluth, find a job, get connected and start life with Peter. After about, oh, two weeks, my eagerness started to turn into impatience and restlessness. God knew what he was doing the whole time though and his timing was perfect as usual. After fruitlessly pursuing an AmeriCorps position that was unknowingly already filled and several other jobs, I started to assume that I wasn't going to find work for five years at best (note: exaggeration).

On Monday, however, I found myself searching Craigslist out of desperation and found a posting for an assistant teacher position at Summit School Duluth, an early childhood education center less than ten minutes from our house. I sent an e-mail with my hours of availability and resume and was very pleasantly surprised when I received an e-mail the next evening from the school's director asking if I could make it in for an interview the next morning. Unfortunately, I already had plans to clean, write thank yous and run errands.

Kidding! (You were on the edge of your seat, admit it.) I went in for the interview yesterday late morning and it went really well, but I didn't want to get overconfident. After telling Peter how perfect it sounded and how the interview went he urged me to follow up so the director was aware that I wanted the job if they were interested in hiring me. I e-mailed her several hours after the interview and found out just before bed that she wanted to offer me the job! I start on Monday! What an awesome blessing!

I originally thought it was a part-time position, but I will be working Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with Summit's junior kindergarten class (four- and five-year-olds). Before the interview I wasn't sure with which age group the position was available, but I was drawn to the junior kindergarten and kindergarten ages and, as it turns out, that's who I'll be working with! The best part is that the school's curriculum includes French class (French in Duluth? Who would have thought?), art, music, writing, phy ed, library time and, of course, the usual play time, snack time, recess, etc. I have hoped I'd be able to put my four semesters of French to use someday and this will be a great opportunity. I feel very humbled and somewhat undeserving of this awesome job opportunity, but I know that God very much led me to it and that I'll be successful as a loving and encouraging teacher only if I let him work through me.

Another exciting change this week is that last night I met up with a group of six women for our first weekly dinner-and-a-small-group small group. One of my sister-in-law's friends (Marissa) is co-leading it and we are discussing the book Beautiful Womanhood. It's really great to have one definite night a week set aside to just be with women (some younger, some older), have fun, eat dinner and encourage each other in our marriages. Up until this week I hadn't met any of them except Marissa, but I can tell it's going to be a great opportunity to start some strong friendships. I think there is the possibility that a couple/few more women will be there next week, so it will be fun to see who else shows up.

Lastly, we're eager to see some family and friends this weekend and next as:

• Natalie comes to visit Duluth this weekend while Peter heads to the Brule for both his first steelheading venture of the season and the last weekend of the stream trout season.
• We cheer on Joey for the Andover Huskies' biggest game of the year against Champlin Park.
• We celebrate the marriage of former co-worker Mindy and her fiancé Jimmy.
• We celebrate my niece Raina's 7th birthday (How is she already 7?).

Okay, that's about all for now. This update covers much of the briefly mentioned topics in the past couple blog posts. Below are a few photos from a day trip Peter and I took last weekend canoeing part of the Brule River in Wisconsin. It was a fun day with sunny, "warm" weather, and we were able to see Cedar Island (my favorite part), an estate built in the late 1800s that was visited by fly-fishing presidents Hoover, Eisenhower and Coolidge. It's really beautiful and still well-kept.


See some of you soon!

Miss Justine (my new name as of Monday)

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." (John 7:38)

JAMmin' with Justine

Okay, so maybe the title is a little over-the-top, unnecessary even. But I can't help myself, the alliteration makes it just so catchy and, dare I say, punny? Alright, I'm done. I'm still alive and living well in Duluth--if there's even anyone on the other side of this screen to wonder. Time is flying by and autumn is creeping up on us here in the Northland. The colors are already starting to turn colors of bright red, orange and yellow, which, in combination with the crisp morning air, is making me somewhat nostalgic for school. Not so much college school, more so...second grade school.

Anyway, I am really eager for the fall here in Duluth. We already have much planned the next month or so. A weekend visit from best friend and ex-roommate Natalie is not too far off, little brother-in-law Joey's biggest football game of the year, a wedding celebration for my former co-worker Mindy, a visit to brother-in-law John at Michigan Tech in Houghton, MI with sister-in-law Lindsey, a visit from my mother and sister Laura and, of course, Halloween will be here before long. Peter and I were going to try to cheap it and go as Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova, but now I am thinking that might be a) lame and b) cold. We could at least try to pull off Venus and Serena, right? Maybe not. I guess we need to find a reason to dress up first, unless we just plan on trying to blend in with the children.

I am really getting off track here. So the past few weeks are kind of a blur, but they've been enjoyable nonetheless. Near the end of August Peter and I attended his unofficial company picnic. I was caught off guard when Peter's 60-something-year-old computer station buddy asked me whether the food on my plate was compliant with my PKU diet. "Are you supposed to be eating pasta? Doesn't that have protein? There's a lot of fruit for you over there. Maybe there's an insulin-like shot you can take for that, have you looked?" He was certainly a charismatic old man and it was good to finally meet him after all the "talk-up" from Peter. I also made my first batch of homemade jam, which was as successful as my first attempt could be. It tastes really great! I'm not sure if the texture is exactly how it's meant to be, but I'll get more familiar as I get more experience I suppose.

The same weekend I made the jam Peter and I took a short one-night camping trip at Eckbeck Campground near the town of Finland. We did a little hiking in Tettegouche State Park and tried to make a meal before the rain could put out our fire. We cut our stay short because the weather was hindering our enjoyment, but it was still a fun time away from home.

This same weekend my parents also stopped for their first visit to our new place in Duluth. We got lunch with them at Fitgers Brewhouse, visited some of the shops, drove them to Hawk's Ridge lookout (where we were apparently interrupting a very important birdwatching session) and got treats from THE Malt Shop on the Lakewalk. It was really fun to see them and spend time with them. They seemed to really like the area (horrible roads set aside).

This past weekend Peter and I headed down to Minneapolis for the first time since the wedding and visited his parents for a day, went to the State Fair with Natalie and Joe and stayed at their new place, visited Hope and made some wedding gift exchanges. Oh, and we made a quick stop at Ikea to pick up chairs for our kitchen nook. Complete chaos (move-in weekend for the U of M). Those are the major events for us over the past month, but there have been so many other new, exciting, fun and, yes, challenging things that we've been experiencing. It's a slow transition to a new area and we are eager to get even more connected and meet more people. And of course, staying optimistic about the job search is sometimes tough. But there's something waiting for me and I've finally decided it might not be such a bad thing to get a temporary job at a coffee shop or someplace in town for the time being. I'd get to meet people at least and everyone gets really excited when they hear we are new to Duluth.

Since this entry has become extremely long, I'm going to stop where I am at. Hopefully this keeps some of you up-to-date with what we're up to. I do hope to include more thought-provoking stuff here soon, it's hard to take the time to document all the little things that happen throughout the week or anything I feel like writing. Lastly, "little things" has become one of those overused and sometimes obscure phrases for me as of recent. My goal is to use it less and be more specific in my speech.

To be continued... (cliff hanger)

Meet the Blakes

Peter and I are finally married and getting settled down in Duluth after our honeymoon in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Because we're a few hours from most of our family and friends, I thought I'd share some pictures and short tidbits to give some insight into our new life we're sharing together. Now that the honeymoon has been over for almost two weeks (not quite), Peter's been back working and I've been trying to organize and settle things into our house (having a completely wide open schedule makes it hard to get motivated, strangely enough), work on shower and wedding thank yous, as well as look for a job. We're also trying to get connected with the Duluth community so we can establish a social circle (?). In the meantime, it's been really nice having Peter's brother and sister-in-law so close (although John just went back to school in Michigan this past weekend). So, first off, here's a link to the Flickr site where our wedding photos are posted. As of now, they aren't all posted, but take a look if you want, people keep asking about them. Below are some additional photos from our honeymoon. More to come on our new life in the Northland. On a sidenote, I think I'm already developing a thicker Minnesota accent. "Ya!" seems to become a bigger part of my vocabulary every day here.

First, you must meet the newest member of our family: Diane. She is the GPS "navigator" that accompanied us on our honeymoon and now guides me through the unfamiliar streets of Duluth. Peter and I immediately developed a bittersweet relationship with Diane, as she almost always accurately leads us to where we want to go but often in an overly persistent, almost bossy, manner. We're learning to love her for her faults though, because we would literally be lost without her.

This is my first time having to sign "Justine Blake," on the second full day of our honeymoon, before we set out on a kayaking day trip out to the sea caves on the South Shore. It was beautiful, but windy day, so the trip back to shore was a little slow-moving. Definitely worth it though!

Getting ready to leave shore. There's Peter with our teal kayak. He makes that wet suit look good, huh?

I think we were about to paddle through an arch in this picture. Our guide tried to boost everyone's self-esteem by giving enthusiastic encouragement and praise.

On the ferry out to Madeline Island to do some tandem biking (our team-building exercise for the day), exploring and eating. We walked around, biked out to Big Bay State Park, biked back, got some cheese curds and drinks and decided to head back to Bayfield for dinner where there were more restaurants to choose from.

Big Bay State Park. Great view from a little lookout at the entrance of the campground.

Our last night of the trip, we decided to go camping. It was hard to find an open campground that we liked, so we drove back on a very long and extremely bumpy road to find ourselves near the top of the sea caves. We pitched our tent near where we parked the car and had a five-minute walk to the lookout over Lake Superior and the distant North Shore horizon.

The view below our little lookout. Very cool and peaceful.

We went berry picking our last day in Bayfield, so we could store some blueberries and raspberries for jam, baking & eating back home.

That's a little bit of what we've been up to the past few weeks, or through the honeymoon anyway. More posts to come, but not necessarily all "life updates."

I thought I would share something I read today:

It isn't the thing you do, dear,

It's the thing you leave undone,

That gives you the bitter heartache

At the setting of the sun;

The tender word unspoken,

The letter you did not write,

The flower you might have sent, dear,

Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted

Out of your brother's way,

The bit of heartfelt counsel

You were hurried too much to say;

The loving touch of the hand, dear,

The gentle and winsome tone,

That you had no time or thought for,

With troubles enough of your own.

These little acts of kindness, 

So easily out of mind,

These chances to be angels,

Which even mortals find--

They come in night of silence

To take away the grief

When hope is faint and feeble

And a drought has stopped belief.

For life is all too short, dear.

And sorrow is all too great, 

To allow our slow compassion

That tarries until too late.

And it's not the thing you do, dear, 

It's the thing you leave undone,

That gives you the bitter heartache,

At the setting of the sun.

-Adelaide Proctor

Forgiveness

Surprise! Two blogs in two consecutive days! I just read a column on the website of RELEVANT Magazine (thanks Krista!) that was really, for lack of a better word, awesome. It's about resentment and forgiveness, but since my words can't really do it justice just read it here. You won't regret it! 

Justine, are you alive?

Yes. I am. You might wonder where I've been and what I've been up to the last three or so weeks--the last blog post was a real cliff hanger, huh? No, not really. Well, first of all, I am finished with my web design class so I think it's time to give this blog a little content makeover. I guess in short all I can say is there's going to be a wide variety of stuff on here and I probably won't be very consistent with what or how often I post. Anyway, here's a little list of what I've been up to since I last wrote:

• Finished finals (somewhat anticlimactic, but still exciting)
• Went to Duluth in search of a house (and found one--amazing!) with Peter, camped
• GRADUATED (much-needed closure after the uneventful finals week)
• Spent some time with my parents and took care of some wedding planning
• Started working at good old Power Process
• Started packing some stuff up in preparation for moving
• Spent time with Peter after he returned from his BWCA trip
• Embarked on the difficult but rewarding challenge of living 2 1/2 hours away from Peter as he starts work in Duluth
• Celebrated my 22nd birthday and first "reunion" with Peter (prematurely) AND my nephew's high school graduation in Rochester
  

This is just a short summary, but in general it's been busy and fun and challenging and exciting...I'm trying to take it all in. 

charity:water

Through a fellow Tweeter I found out about a non-profit called charity:water. Well, first I should give my brother credit for telling me about it awhile back. BUT, just the other day I finally explored the site a little more in-depth. In their "photos+media" section they share stories and photos documenting their efforts to provide developing countries with clean water. My favorites are the accounts from Honduras and Rwanda. Also, a couple of other organizations I've been wanting to share are Kingdom Vision International and Same World Same Chance. They both prove that a little inspiration can go a long way, and that the effort to reach out to just one person or community in need can turn into something much bigger that creates awareness and impacts the lives of many.

On a slightly unrelated note, I would like to provide a post-graduation plan update. We are officially moving to Duluth (not La Crosse)! From now through the summer I will be on the hunt for a job fitting to my interests and expertise-it's exciting to see everything start to come together. However, my last few days on campus (one more final project to go until graduation commencement on Sunday) have me feeling quite sentimental. I'm going to take in as much University of Minnesota as I can these next two days, then I'm off to Duluth for camping and house/apartment searching. A crazy week lies ahead. And many blessings!