moving

Sorry, it's been a while since the last blog (assuming anyone is reading this), but here goes.

Lisa mentioned last time that we had a 90% chance of moving. Well, make it 100% because we are moving into a townhouse in TWO DAYS! I am so stoked to be moving into our own place, and we are so grateful to Lisa's parents for letting us live with them for 7 months to pay off a lot of debt. We're in a much better position financially than we were this time last year.

Other than that, not much has changed. Jack is continuing to grow and we are very proud of him. I'm still at State Farm and I'm planning (keep your fingers crossed) on taking a seminary class in the fall. Lisa is still at Eastview helping the church and bringing in extra income for our family.

I finally feel like we are just starting to get our feet on the ground after a long time of being up in the air.

Summertime

Well... July has begun, so I feel like I should put up an update with what is going on in the Stanek family.

I am finally starting to really get the hang of my job. Today I had someone ask me if I would "volunteer" to help do something for someone else, because they knew that if I was doing it, it would be done right. That felt good. Feeling confident at my job is helping me feel confident in other situations, too. I think that while I was staying home with Jack, for whatever reason, my confidence level was slowly on the decline. Confidence in what, you ask? Mostly just in everyday social situations where I have to interact with others that I may not know very well, or in things that I need to do that I haven't done before, etc. I didn't really have a problem with that until after I had been at home with Jack for about 3 months. I noticed that I was significantly more withdrawn than I used to be - probably getting a little too used to not having much daily interaction with people.

But regardless, working is good for me. Working part time is good for my family too, because we rarely have to find a babysitter for him, and we aren't losing the majority of my paycheck to child care costs. So all in all, I am very happy with my job.

Let's see... what else is new....

Jack just got his first tooth on June 30th! I thought the teething process would be a lot more "painful" (for me) than it was. Jack wasn't extra crabby or anything - the only thing I noticed was that he slept a bit more than usual, and even that could be attributed to his growth spurt. So it was quite a surprise when I put my finger in his mouth and felt a tiny sharp thing poking out of his gums!

He's also rolling around the floor from front to back and back to front, until all of a sudden he's all the way on the other side of the room! I think he will be crawling any day now.... That will be interesting - and very exciting, Jack is so ready to be able to get around!

In other news, there is a 90% chance that we will be moving into a townhouse in the beginning of August! We are super excited about that, but there's no lease or anything yet, so I'll give more details later on...

Happy 4th of July!

Happy First Anniversary to Us!

One year ago the Tim and Lisa Stanek family began!

This has been the best - and most eventful - year of my/our life, and we are having a ball.

Congratulations to us for one whole year of marital bliss! =)

furniture

Well, now that Lisa is working, we are looking seriously at places to live. We found a great townhouse close to our old apartment, that would be an awesome place to live. It has a fireplace, it's large, has a partially finished basement, etc, etc. We are also looking at a "luxury" aparment behind Buffalo Wild Wings. They call themselves luxury apartments, but I wasn't wowed. They are nice, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't use the word luxury to describe them.

We are also starting to look at furniture. We went to furniture row yesterday to look at head boards, coffee tables, and kitchen tables. We found a bunch of nice stuff that we really liked, but we are waiting to purchase them. While we were shopping, a sales guy made his sales pitch to us and kinda just stood there, waiting for me to break the silence. In a sales environment, the first person to break the silence typically loses. Well I wasn't going to break it, but my awesome wife said something like, "if you want to leave, you can, we may be a while." My hero.

Take that, State Farm!

I have officially accepted a part-time position at church as the administrative assistant to the Director of International Ministries (20 hours) and the Director of Young Adult Ministries (5 hours). The pay isn't phenomenal, but it is enough to get us into a place of our own, and a nice one at that!

And the best part is that I get to pick my own hours! As long as they add up to 25, my boss said it really is up to me when I want to come in. AND I don't work on Fridays. So from Monday through Thursday, I get to come in on my own schedule. The good part about this is that I will only need someone to watch Jack for 1.5 to 3.5 hours on Tuesday mornings - that's it. So we won't be canceling out my income with childcare costs, AND Tim and I won't have to leave him with other people except for once a week, only for a couple hours. During the summer, I'm probably going to leave him with my sister, but the search is on for someone in the church to watch him once she goes back to school in the fall.

This week was an interesting week. I was called to come interview for a full-time position at IWU's library where I used to work, but as I thought about it, the work I would do there wouldn't even be remotely close to what I want to do with my life. The work I'll be doing at the church puts me much closer to what I want to be doing, and I know that I will be a much happier person if I like my job. So it sort of came down to more money vs. a happier, but poorer Lisa. I chose the latter. There is potential for my job at church to go full time eventually, so I'm trusting that God will provide until that time comes, and I am very happy with my decision.

Yay!

Jobs jobs jobs

And the job search continues...

Had a pre-interview and testing at State Farm last week, went pretty well. Will be following up later this week to hear what they think of me.

Still waiting to hear about the job at IWU's library.

Got a call today from a staff member at Eastview about a part-time administrative assistant position, but I missed the call because I (of course) have misplaced my phone. Hopefully he'll get back to me and tell me more. A part time job would be great, unless the pay is canceled out by childcare costs. But before I think about that part, I need to find out more about the job. Keeping my fingers crossed that he's flexible...

I have sent my resume to a local library and have heard nothing so far.

I also have my resume in for both an administrative assistant in a guidance counseling office at a local junior high as well as a teacher's aide at the same school.

Pretty much, I think that job searching should be considered a legitimate career. It takes skill to tweak a resume just so many ways in order to fit 500 different jobs. (I exaggerate, obviously, but still...)


Hopefully something works out.

mother's day and dead dogs

On mother's day, Lisa and I, and the whole family went to Paxton to visit with Lisa's grandparents. Because Jack woke up extraordinarily early this morning, I was already tired to begin with. We all drove to Paxton in the Schaumburg family Mini-van. Because the drive is long, and there is literally nothing to look at on the drive except for baby corn, I brought my portable DVD player. While Eric, Lisa , and myself were watching The Emperor's New Groove, we were jolted back to reality with a quick swerve of the van. The next thing I know, I am looking up at a dog running in front of the van...

The next thing I know after that, there was a big thud, and we ran over something. I look back to see a dog in the middle of road trying to get up, but failing miserably. We ran over the dog. It was quite sad. We turned around at the next intersection to go a) pull the dog of the road, or b) put the dog out of its misery (I'm not sure which, and didn't bother to ask). But by the time we got back to the dog, it had a) gotten up and walked away, thinking about how lucky it was to be alive (not likely), b) been picked up or dragged off the road by another car, or c) disappeared into thin air. Either way, it was crazy. This kind of put a damper on our day. Stupid dog.

We spent the rest of the day lounging around Lisa's grandparent's. There is a weird family thing that Lisa's family does where they all play baseball together (grandparents, aunts, uncles, kids, neighbors, everybody). It's weird to me because my family never does anything like this. But I digress. Because I don't like baseball and did not want to play, Eric and I went to the local watering hole and fished. We caught nothing but weeds. It was still fun to sit on the dock and cast.

(there are new pictures of Jack on his baby blog)