Keeping in Teutsch

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July was promising...new town, new house, new school, new church, new people. Like I said before, we were still living as if nothing had really changed. The money was still there...my security! Oh, I should have seen that lesson coming, huh? It's definitely a tough one to learn.

I'm a control freak...or more like I'm a shadow of the control freak I use to be. In 2005, I learned what happened when you give up control of your body and give all control over to God...you get a long-awaited-for pregnancy at the end of the infertility journey. So, I'd definitely encountered some prior lessons I should have put to use here. Apparently, I'm a little hard headed and have be reminded! Hopefully, I got it this time!

I guess the real mood shift came when the money wasn't there anymore and that was around October. In October we finally closed on our home in West Monroe and crossed off another number on our prayer list and at the same time emptied our savings to get rid of the house. Three down, two to go. Sadly, there was no longer a savings account to be our safety net. Thankfully, we have parents that could be our safety nets, but I tend to be quite prideful (another bad thing) and don't like to ask for help much. I have a sign in my kitchen that says: Faith is not believing that God can--it is knowing that He will. How appropriate it became. I never lost faith...but faith and hope aren't the same and I have to say that there were many times when I felt hopeless.

Some of you reading my blog have never experienced a job loss that lasted very long or had a bad effect on your family...that wiped out your savings, your 401(k), your hope, and what you found to be your security. Tears were frequent around here this past fall from someone who NEVER cries! It was extremely high stress for quite some time. I had been monogramming as much as I could to bring in extra money. We had just enough money between Matt's little income and my unemployment to pay the bills. I had to pray for monogramming work (or parental "gifts") in order to buy food and gas each week. Just like God, though, He never failed to see us through each week. No bill went unpaid, no body too hot or too cold, no mouth unfed. We had to cut back--way back--but we always made it through each week. The lack of money contributed to an amount of stress that I never want to experience again, but it wasn't just about the money. I couldn't get interviews. I couldn't get hired when I got interviews. And after only so much of that, I started feeling worthless and questioning what I was supposed to be doing with my life. Oftentimes, the negative thoughts and feelings running through my mind were worse than the reality of how we were going to eat that week. Those negative thoughts and emotions, fueled with high stress, led to an explosive and depressive Melissa...agitated all the time, quick to anger, easy to upset. It's amazing my family still loves me!

God IS awesome, though, and as you've already read in prior posts, he turned this bad thing in our lives to good. He showed up time and time again on a daily basis and provided for our needs. And he put a smile on my face when I saw just how awesome He is. You see, one particular crying fit came at the beginning of November. I had decided to have a booth in a private school's Christmas craft show in Ruston. I had done a booth there the year before and made $1400...the most I've ever made at a craft show. Since I had been out of work, I had worked on expanding what I could do and had built up quite a bit more samples for Christmas shirts and whatnot. Halloween weekend, though, my machine broke. I wasn't finished with samples (in fact, didn't have nearly enough to even do a show) and ended up not getting my machine back in time to complete the examples--much less in time to actually make it to the show. I was devastated and crying on Matt's shoulder, I said "I don't understand why God would allow this to happen. He knows that I'm just trying to do the one job I have right now and make money that we desperately need." My mom echoed, but like moms do, she said, "There's a reason." As you all know, a week or so later, I got the university job interview and a few weeks after that I got the job offer and had to start the week after Thanksgiving. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't do the show in Ruston and God knew EXACTLY what he was doing! Had I done the show, I'm sure I would have gotten a lot of orders and would not have been able to complete them in a timely manner (which would have replaced one stress with another).

From the looks of this post, it would appear as if my unemployment consumed the latter half of 2009. In many ways it did. 2009 may always be known as "that" year, but it was also the year that I got to be a stay-at-home mom for 7 months...something I never thought I'd be able to do and something I may never be able to do again. Juliette will only be little once...it was such a joy to get that time with her. She helped daily give me something to smile about and laugh about and to be proud of!

2009 taught me a lot of lessons that I hope to never forget: God is still in control (just like he was in 2005); my security (including financial security) should lie in Him and only Him; He will NEVER leave me nor forsake me and He will provide for all my needs; that the bad things that happen in life can be turned to good; and that when I am weak, He is incredibly strong and many, many steps ahead of me!

I hope no one reading this ever has to go through a situation like we did. If you know someone in a similar situation, please pray for them to have peace, have faith, and have hope, because there will be better days!

We are looking forward to "better days" in 2010 and hope you have a good year too!

Melissa

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I've gone back and forth on whether it was really necessary to write a review of 2009, since I'd like to forget quite a bit of this year. In the end, though, I decided that it would be good for me to reflect on it, find the positive in it, and then file it away and move on to a bright and hopeful 2010.

Our 2009 started out with promise. We popped fireworks with Juliette, although she preferred to watch from the window, while Matt popped them for her, since she was scared of the loud noise...just like the dog! We had a spring in our step, hopeful that 2009 would be the year that Matt got accepted to a Ph.D. program and we were making the most money we had ever made thus far. Life was good! In the first few months of 2009, Mom & I took Juliette to Sesame Street Live in Shreveport, Mom and Juliette went with me to Dallas for work for a week in March, Russell and Karen (the in-laws) went with Juliette and me to ride Thomas the Train in Dallas, and we got the long-awaited-for news that Matt was accepted to not one, not even two, but FOUR Ph.D. programs. We knew we were moving somewhere that summer and change was on the horizon.

At work, I felt certain that a big change was coming, but I thought I would be the one heading it up by leaving...not the other way around. Simon & Schuster had bought Howard Books three years before in February 2006. It was no secret that the publisher (the head honcho for you non-publishing people) had a three-year contract and when you couple that with the fact that the economy was tanking and we were an "entertainment" industry that was suffering from the lack of discretionary income among normal book buyers, the outcome just didn't seem good for Howard Books. Due to some other changes that had been taking place over the 3 years since S&S had bought Howard, I thought the outcome would be for Howard to be downsized and moved to NY. I was semi-right. In early February, right about the time of our 3-year anniversary with S&S, corporate announced that a new publisher had been hired for Howard and he would work out of Nashville. They said "nothing was going to change" (famous last words...we'd already seen changes take place from the first time they said that) and that the current publisher would still be publisher...we would just have two publishers. I might not know much about running a multi-million (might even be multi-billion) dollar company, but it doesn't take an economist to tell you that when job layoffs are frequent and the economy is horrible, you don't add another high-ranking boss with a six-figure salary to the equation. The current publishers' days were numbered and I knew it would be just a small amount of time before the news came down from NY.

Almost exactly 4 weeks later, the announcement came the Monday after Easter and it wasn't just the announcement that the original publisher was losing his job, it was the announcement that most of us were losing our jobs...in just 2 1/2 weeks time, at the end of April. I was supposed to be off the week after Easter, since it was Juliette and Matt's Spring Break and I had planned to spend it with them. That Monday morning, I got a call from my boss (who knew he was safe, but wouldn't say, and who was also in the process of boarding a cruise ship for his 20th anniversary celebration) that I needed to be at the office by early afternoon...two HR reps were headed our way and no one was safe. So much for a week bumming around the house, but I figured a few months of bumming around the house was headed my way. I KNEW without a doubt, I wouldn't be one of the positions they were keeping. I also knew that I worked for a MAJOR publisher who was owned by CBS (who is #1 among the networks) and I was hopeful that a nice severance package would be given to us. I also was probably the only one that was actually happy to lose my job. I know, I know, that sounds crazy, but I had hit a wall there. There was no room for advancement and I knew we were going to be moving that summer, so I was excited about the chance to kick back and have some extended time off to be with my family. Getting laid off was actually a God-send because it gave me the opportunity to file for unemployment and have some income while looking for a job. If I would have had to quit Howard, I wouldn't have had a severance (by the way, it stunk) nor unemployment and would have had NO income at all.

May and June were pretty busy months and I actually thought to myself how it was even possible that I had time for a job before! I enrolled Juliette in a 5-week summer session of Kindermusik (music classes for small children), Juliette got to attend VBS while I helped with a 1st grade class, we spent time at my parents just messing around, played in the kiddie pool outside, visited friends, had an early 3rd birthday party for Juliette and of course, packed for moving day. You can see from prior posts (some of the very first ones) that we were able to get an awesome, large rental home for our first year here. (The years after that will be spent in a 2-bedroom apartment on campus.) We moved the first day of July and up until that point, I had spent little time trying to find a job. I figured that once we got moved and unpacked, then I would hit it hard and heavy. In my little mind, I figured I'd have a job within a month or two. I didn't seem to factor in the whole "national job crisis" thing. Also up until this point, we still had savings, Matt was still receiving paychecks from his teaching job from the spring and life was still pretty good.

Early on in 2009, after we established that Matt would be attending ULL and we would be moving to Lafayette, there became a 5-point prayer list for us: 1) Sell our home in West Monroe; 2) Find a rental home that would allow us to keep our dog; 3) Get Juliette in UL's morning preschool; 4) Find Melissa a job; 5) Find good afternoon daycare for Juliette. That's a lot to ask God to do in a summer, huh? The rental home and the preschool fell into place pretty quickly...the others, not so much.

I'm going to break this post into two parts, so come back tomorrow for Part 2 and I'll be sharing a recap of the last 6 months of 2009. I'll be sharing a good bit about the emotional toll that being unemployed took on me, the spiritual lessons that were learned and the new found hope and joy we now have...a lot of stuff I haven't blogged about or even talked about it.

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Yeah, yeah, I know...it's been FOREVER since I've blogged. Sorry about that! But don't worry, I'm here to play catch-up and maybe one of my New Year's Resolutions will be to blog more often in 2010!

Let's rewind back to October, shall we? As I recall, we had beautiful weather down here in October, got to visit quite a bit with my parents in North Louisiana, and FINALLY sold our home in West Monroe, which we were SO happy to get rid of! :) We ended the month with the in-laws joining us for Halloween and realized that we live in an awesome trick-or-treat neighborhood! Everyone was out on their porches and there were tons of people all up and down the streets. We've never lived in a neighborhood like this, so it was fun to be out with the neighbors and of course, Juliette loaded up on the candy!

Our little "Woody" from Toy Story! Yes, she wanted to be the cowBOY, not the cowGIRL! :)

November came around and the monogramming orders picked up big time. I basically spent almost all my spare time in front of the monogramming machine between Halloween and Christmas, which became not too fun after the first month! It was good, though, to have the money coming in since I was still without a job. Somewhere there in the beginning of November, I was driving home from Wal-mart and thought to myself, "Boy, it sure has been a while since I've gotten any calls for job interviews." The next day (I kid you not!) I got not one, but TWO, calls for interviews and went on one of them the next day and the other one the next week. The first interview was for a Marketing and Communications Manager for an environmental consulting firm that was relocating their corporate offices to Lafayette. I really felt like it would have been a challenging job, since I don't know anything that industry, but I was open to learning. The second interview was for a healthcare marketing position at the university. I went to that interview thinking about the same thing...that I knew nothing about that industry either. Turns out, that the job had been advertised incorrectly and that the position was for a Sales and Marketing Director for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press...a university publisher that publishes about 10-12 titles a year on Louisiana history and culture. Talk about God literally dropping a job in your lap! I accepted the job right before Thanksgiving and was truly thankful that week at His perfect timing!

Here is Juliette at my parents' house. Lafayette didn't start looking like fall until just now (after winter has officially begun), but my parents had this gorgeous red tree in their front yard that was perfect for picture taking. Juliette "posed" all by herself!

December has been a whirlwind. I started my new job on November 30th and had to get Mom to come help us with Juliette that week since it was her last week of preschool until January and we didn't have anyone else to keep her. Mom got to take her to preschool and pick her up each day and I think enjoyed getting a little glimpse into her everyday routine. I know Juliette enjoyed having her here all week. After just three short weeks of work, though, I got a two week vacation! How about that? :) One of the perks of working for the university is that they close for 2 weeks at Christmas and they also close at 12:30 every Friday. I've already enjoyed the few half Fridays that I've experienced so far, and I know I will enjoy the early start to my weekends. So far, work has mostly been training and playing catch-up on some of the paperwork and whatnot that was left undone during the time that position was empty. The real work starts when I return next week!

Juliette and Zoe in front of the tree. It was impossible to get both of them to look at me at the same time...this was the best I could do!

I think she looks so growny here!

This December, I also celebrated my 29th birthday, which means the big 3-0 is going to be here very quickly. That just seems crazy to me! I still feel like I'm 16 sometimes! Juliette spent some time with the in-laws before Christmas, so Matt and I were able to go out to dinner for my birthday. We were planning on going to a movie, too, but decided to just go Christmas shopping instead. We had a good Christmas and were really blessed. So blessed that I'm still working on cleaning out Juliette's old toys to make room for the new ones!

Juliette dressed as Cinderella. Santa bought her princess play clothes.

Juliette's new doll house that she bought with some of her money from MeMe. (Thank you, MeMe!) She had outgrown the little one that she got when she was a year old. This one has 8 rooms and came with all kinds of furniture with neat little details. She has really enjoyed playing with it so far, although it is still in the dining room right now since I'm still cleaning out and rearranging and putting other stuff in storage.

I have to say that I'm very much looking forward to 2010!
Check back in the next day or so for a recap of our 2009!

Happy New Year Everyone! I'm sure I'll be snoozin' when the clock strikes midnight...such a party animal!

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So, about 18 posts ago or so I said I would put up pictures of the sun room and the living room. Well, I hope you weren't holding your breath! :) The sun room has mostly been a huge mess, but my mom came to visit for a few days and I got it spic and span for her (since I don't want my mom to think she didn't do a good job teaching me to clean!) and so I finally took some pictures. BUT...these are just pics of MY side of the sun room. The other part of the sun room is about twice the length of my side and has Matt's guitars and music equipment, a hand-me-down, worn couch and the TV armoire. Nothing matches, or is decorated, and it probably won't ever be since we plan on being in this house only through June of next year, so I doubt I'll want to take pictures of it. My side is really the only part worth looking at anyway...mainly for my crazy organizational skills and overuse of the label maker! :)

My side, which serves as my monogramming area, as well as the laundry room.

The corner where all the monogram magic happens!

My organizational system for all my fabric...sorted and stored by color!

See my labels? I love that little label maker!

The printer and my organizational system for bills. PAY--the bills that need to be paid; FILE--the paid bills that need to be filed; and MISC--where the label maker, my address stamp and other misc stuff reside. These were originally supposed to be used for flowers, but I put the scrapbook letters on them.

I have oodles of ribbon...I just love ribbon! And I needed a way to store it so that I could actually SEE what I had. I searched the Internet and found some different ideas and decided to use this one. It has worked out nicely.

These are clear glass jars that hold scrap ribbon that wasn't long enough to put in those baskets with the holes.

A while back, I found two of these planters with the chalkboard section on them for $2 at JoAnn Fabrics on clearance. I wasn't sure what I was going to use them for, so they sat around for a little while with nothing in them, but I eventually realized that I had no place to put any new ribbon I bought, so these two quickly became full of ribbon and serve as another storage area for it. (They sit in the sink that is in the sun room, since we never use that sink. Notice the stopper?)

Tomorrow, I plan to post pics of the living room finally and also have a super cute video of Juliette to share! Mom is here and Matt has class until 8:30 tomorrow night, so we plan on hitting the road, doing some shopping for Mom's new house and showing Mom around Lafayette. I'm looking forward to it!

Check back tomorrow for more!

Melissa

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...in Hobby Lobby (but it's been Christmas there since June!) and also in my little monogramming corner of the house! I've been having fun making Christmas tee samples for the web site and I'm not done yet, but thought I'd share what I've done so far.

This Santa has a fuzzy, fringe beard.

I did a shirt similar to this one last year that Juliette wore at Christmas time and I love it, so I just had to make her one for Christmas this year, although I used new Christmas fabric this time.

This sample tee will go to Juliette's friend Hannah back in West Monroe. I figured Juliette didn't need more than two Christmas tees, so I've started making samples for other people's kids, although I suppose I should limit how many I make or I might not have any business!! :)

In other news, I went for a job interview at the charity hospital yesterday and it went amazingly well--so well that I am positive they would have offered me the job except for a little pay issue. It seems that they can only pay $8-9 an hour, which is around $18k a year. Less than half of what I used to make...and about what I am currently making on unemployment. I was REALLY bummed about the pay because I think I would have really liked it there. But, it's out of my control, so I just have to move on. My next prayer request: to get an interview at UL for Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs and for that job interview to go really, really well!! Applications for that job are due Friday, so please pray I'll get a call next week for an interview!

Also, it looks like we might not be closing on our house this Friday, which was the 2nd time the date had been pushed back. We've had a contract on the house since the end of August, so we're getting a little frustrated that it still hasn't closed. If it doesn't close by the 15th, we'll have to pay the mortgage for October, and we REALLY don't want to do that, so please pray that it closes this Friday or next week before the 15th!

That's it for now. Thanks for the prayers!

Melissa

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