We are nearing the end of our Arkansas sojourn. While it’s been fun (fun = interesting, busy, and definitely an adventure), we are both wanting to come home. We have one more stop on our travel extravaganza --- our third anniversary to New Orleans --- yay! so excited about eating good food! And then it’s a little more work for Brandon’s internship, a little packing-up, a few stops along the way…. and HOME SWEET HOME.

So here are a couple things that I miss from our Pennsylvania home:

Mountains on the horizon.


My mom’s salsa. Because of COURSE, I didn’t pack jars of salsa to trek them across the country for summer consumption. But perhaps I should have!

Strawberry Picking (it's a June family tradition)

Joking with the worship team on Sunday mornings / Also singing worship songs in a normal key. I never realized how spoiled I was by being able to basically pick what key we’re singing worship songs in. For some reason, no matter what church we go to, there’s usually a man leading worship and the keys are completely WACK. No offense intended though – I usually love the songs; it’s just so hard to sing them!

Caspianthekitty 's snuggling. Yup, we miss our kitty. He’s a nice kitty.



Not having to GPS everywhere I wanna go. Going places here in Arkansas takes time and thought and googling addresses… getting lost (a little bit) and planning ahead (a lot). That being said --- our new GPS is pretty awesome. Our old one was like five years old, maybe, and half of the time, we assumed that it was wrong because it didn’t know about new roads and new places!

Knowing everybody at church. It’s nice. It’s comfortable. A word about introverts (which I am, but rarely exhibit introvert-ey qualities at our home church because I have been there for *gasp* nearly 17 years + am very comfortable). In general, I dislike going to new churches. It’s hard. And even though we’ve been at our new/temporary summer home church for two months-ish, I still fight the urge to hide in the bathroom during ‘greeting’ time. It’s just: so many people, so many handshakes, so much smalltalk. SO exhausting.

My pretty china - I just wanna have a tea party.

The view outside my kitchen window. Also, my kitchen!


Sheetz. Sheetz is iconically Pennsylvanian. Sheetz is the best possible convenience store/gas station ever. Everywhere else, gas stations make me cringe. They’re weird, a little creepy, dirty and THEY DON’T HAVE SHEETZ FOOD. The idea of ordering custom food without actually talking to someone (I’m looking at you, Subway) is perfect. Sheetz needs to take over the world, or I’m never leaving Pennsylvania again. Thank you, all.

Little children’s conversations. Children make me laugh and smile and ‘awwwww.’ I miss talking to children, because one cannot talk to random children that one does not know. At home, there are children everywhere. Friends’ children, children in the church nursery, conversations with little nieces (and let’s not forget the NEW NEPHEW THAT WE HAVEN’T MET YET). I miss listening to little voices.
And this, my friends, is why I have a baby in my belly… so I can have my own little ones to ramble on in their cute little voices, with their grubby little kid fingers, without having to borrow other folks’ kids. Borrowing is just so darn inconvenient!

Canyon Pizza. It’s a little bit sketchy-looking, but ya can’t beat the two pieces of pizza + breadsticks and soda for $4. It’s our normal Friday night tradition… makes me hungry just thinking about it.

The beautiful summer months when Penn State campus is blissfully empty and we spend date nights wandering around and ending up with Creamery ice cream without the 1-hour-long wait. College students are so annoying. ;)


Pennsylvania, we will see you soon!

I recently read a trails blog entitled, “Five Reasons to NOT Hike in Arkansas in the Summertime.” Those reasons included ticks, chiggers, poison ivy, snakes and heat exhaustion. So I gotta say, this is not encouraging me to go outside here in the Natural State… Then Brandon came home one day and mentioned a coworker’s comment about tarantulas and scorpions. I’m like, WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!.. Just kidding. Kinda.

After Brandon finished his “second job” work (he works remotely for his PA company for about 20 hours a week, so that means he’s finishing that up late Friday night and Saturday morning before we get to do fun stuff!), we decided to brave the scary outdoors and do what we’ve been talking about for a month: CANOEING! :D

The weather was beeeee-you-ti-ful. 86 degrees and breezy, to be more precise. It was just warm enough that being out on the lake was refreshing. We paddled (errr, Brandon paddled most of the time) and floated and watched the rippling water. We talked and laughed and enjoyed the silence --- which was sometimes interrupted by my buzzing cell phone. Now before you judge my technology in nature, I was getting regular progress updates on the soon-arrival of my new nephew. So whenever my phone would buzz, I’m like, AHH! BABY!

Guardian Michael arrived at 7:57 pm (Pennsylvania time) and according to the pictures, is quite the little cutie (including the camo hat that someone put on his head)…. That made me laugh. While I wasn’t quite old enough when my little brother was born to remember his newborn squishyness, my sis thinks Guardian looks like him, so that’s cool. Though his little dark eyes and hair could be both his mommy and daddy. I would take a moment to whine about my nephew being in Pennsylvania and me being in Arkansas, but who am I to whine about the provision of God in my life that leads me here… and besides, it seems like just a #firstworldproblems thing to whine about. That’s not to say I’m not looking forward to squishing his cute lil cheeks and introducing him to Auntie Nomi & Unca B’andon. In a few months. Just a few months. :)

The rest of our Saturday included gym-going. We’ve been pretty consistent on gym-going for the last four weeks. It’s hard to not be when it is literally a block away. We walk to the gym, except during torrential downpours. Also, I like to joke with Brandon that I. Just. Don’t. UNDERSTAND. why we are both working out and he’s getting skinnier and I’m getting rounder… with a wide-eyed innocent look on my face. I mean, two words. Baby Belly. (insert tiny pregnancy update here: 19 weeks pregnant, hungry ALL the time and happy-happy-happy).

Somewhere around 8:30 p.m., our downstairs neighbors started to have a birthday party. Not a cute little kids party--- oh no, this was the kind of party where they are outside chanting, “BIRTHDAY SHOTS! BIRTHDAY SHOTS!” Which tells me two things: they are probably not old enough to be drinking anyway, and tonight is about to get super-annoying. So we did the mature thing --- and went to Walmart to stare at the $5 movie bin for an hour, in which we decided that movies are stupid. :) Ended up with the coolest documentary ever called Planet Earth. All about the amazing earth. It’s like 9 hours long, so we watched an hour and went to bed. What? Sleep is good!


Happy Father’s Day to Brandon!

Isn’t this triple berry galette the most delicious thing you’ve seen? My mouth is watering just looking at it again. I used this recipe for the galette, a.k.a. rustic tart. Because temporary apartments do not stock pie pans or rolling pins, much to my chagrin.

My inner conflict about Father’s Day is that people don’t know whether to say Happy Father’s Day to an expectant father or that he will be celebrating Father’s Day in the future. Since we believe that life begins at conception, it’s a pretty clear thing to me. So hence, my wonderful dessert-making. Baking for my husband is definitely one of my favorite things to do. He’s just so darn appreciative and complimentary…. And I like being able to eat homemade dessert, too. WIN WIN.

And that is my turbo-fast weekend in review.

What did you do this weekend?

Who wants to go on an apartment tour? Raise your hands! :D

We were pretty excited when we walked into our new little apartment after hours on the road nearly two weeks ago. It was found through the great Internet machine and booked via phone, so there’s always a bit of a nagging suspicion that we were gonna be gypped. We eschewed more expensive apartment complexes because a) they were more expensive and every extra dollar in our lives goes to the great Pennsylvania State University, yo, b) the only real differences were that those more expensive places had swimming pools and an overwhelming majority of college student rentals. While Brandon is a college student, you can understand why we prefer not to be surrounded by the ‘party-hearty’ crowd… also, college students & swimming pools seem like a bad combination. I may (slightly) regret the lack of an accessible swimming pool when we get into the depths of Arkansas summer heat, but hey, I’ll just buy a little wading pool at Walmart and put it on our deck. At least my feet will be cool. And if I learned anything from my teenage summer job as a greenhouse water girl, it is that when your feet are cool, your whole body stays cool. The wading pool is a great idea! Yeah!… (I suggested this to Brandon and he shook his head & laughed).


See our cozy little living room. The couch is semi-comfortable. Sometimes I give up sitting on it and go sit on the floor instead, because the carpet is niiiiice. Or because I’m a savage who was raised in the wilderness and is actually more comfortable on the ground (maybe I’ve read too many pioneer stories?).

I couldn’t fit the piano in our car so I brought the acoustic guitar. Playing it again is downright lovely. I found a guitar tuning app on my iphone so my #1 objection of the guitar not being in tune isn’t valid anymore. Guitars had a more solitary sound than pianos, so I’m really appreciating the difference. And the guitar is inspiring my too-long-dormant songwriting. Funny side note: Ya never realize how important a blank notebook is until you travel hundreds of miles away from home and have nothing to write on. Really! I had to go to Walmart to buy a notebook!

Like my little travel suitcase decoration? It was a going-away gift from our church and I think it’s so cute! Also, I had to bring it along because it contained emergency food rations… no worries, the rations were consumed and now it is empty. I ate all the marshmallows, Brandon ate all the cookie butter and we both ate the Nutella... and decided that the healthy choice is to NOT BUY ANY MORE. :D



True confessions: This is the only area of the apartment that I actually cleaned in preparation for taking a photo. It quickly because our dumping area for anything and everything random. I had to go through all our electronics, papers and free internship gifts (there was even sunscreen & a beach ball! I’ll put that in my imaginary wading pool)… And we have no lack of laptops. You can see three here. Mine, Brandon’s college laptop and then his (Pennsylvania) work laptop; he’s still working twenty hours a week in the evenings/Saturdays to keep up with his PA job. Then he has his internship laptop that goes back and forth to work during the day with him! *shaking my head at technology*


First view after one walks into the apartment. You can see our balcony. We have a lovely view of… a roof to a gas station. :D



Living room! Dining room!


Ohhhh kitchen! I like the kitchen. I brought essential things along like my cast iron skillet, recipe books (that’s a free cookbook I got from the last church we visited!), coffee grinder and blender. All the important stuff. See the random water glass hanging out on the counter? I leave them everywhere as part of my secret plan to drink enough water. I have to go and collect glasses before loading the dishwasher.
The color palette of this apartment is very warm and neutral. I’m diggin’ it. I brought a collection of favorite books from home. Don’t leave home without Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott and The Chronicles of Narnia (TCON to all fellow enthusiasts).

Other parts of the apartment that just thrill my soul: CLOSETS! There are three! Ohmygoodness, I really love closets. One minor deficiency of our cute little cottage back home is that it was built over 150 years ago, before people had so many clothes. Closets just didn’t really exist. But here, we have a walk-in closet in the bedroom, plus a hallway closet, plus a utility closet. It’s blissful.

And I’d show you the awesome bathroom, but that’s just weird. I love that there is so much space on the bathroom vanity and I can spread out the stuff!

So that’s it! Our cute little apartment. I am thrilled with our little home-sweet-home in Arkansas and I’m sure it will serve us well for the next three months!

When our first full weekend in Arkansas ends up being a holiday weekend, what do we do? Eat, sleep and watch fireworks. Seems so patriotic. Like the American dream.

This internship is cooool ---- also with some weird hours. Brandon’s been up early and working late most days. Sometimes I drive him to work (if I need the car), sometimes I just get up to make him breakfast. He tells me that he can make his own breakfast, because he’s a sweetheart like that… but I wake up anyway when the alarm goes off and I figure I might as well get up and make sure the food/coffee sustenance gets in his belly. Also, I have a weird sense of alarm about stovetops being left on when I’m not the one cooking, so I prefer to be the one cooking. Even if it’s 4:00 am. ;)

Saturday morning breakfast omelet looked like this. Omelets always remind me of sunshine. They’re such happy breakfast items. Also, I am super-consistent at taking prenatal vitamins. :D


Anyway, I ventured out Saturday morning to find the farmer’s market. Not too much happening there… or maybe I just arrived towards closing time. I snatched up some fresh lettuce and a jar of local honey. Brandon now gets a tablespoon of honey in his oatmeal every morning, because I heard that local honey can help with allergies. We are currently testing that theory. I’ll keep you informed on the progress… I was a little sad driving away from the farmer’s market because there were no strawberries. Then, lo and behold, I turned a corner and there was a large banner on a roadside stand proclaiming, “FRESH STRAWBERRIES.” I did a pretty cool quick turn (good thing nobody was following me too closely) and bought 2 1/2 quarts of fresh, delicious, amazing-looking berries.

Simple strawberry shortcake, anyone? :D


Sunday dawned a new day, and that meant visiting church #2. I gotta say, this whole visiting-new-churches-thing has perks. Like free homemade bread last week! Free cookbook and coffee mug and candy this week! If I was more shallow, I’d say we should keep on visiting new churches every week! Maybe by the end of the summer, we’d get a new car! (sillyness here should be obvious).. We did really enjoy church #2. Super-friendly. Greeted by soooo many folks. Liked the worship and particularly appreciated the sermon because it was… about the Bible, from the Bible and firmly on-topic the whole way through. Very good stuff. The consensus in the Schwartz family is that we shall be visiting there again (despite my love of free-visitor gifts. lol).



On Sunday evening, we headed into the city… well, semi-close to the city of Little Rock. There is Little Rock and then there is the river and then there is North Little Rock. I had heard about some big ol’ music festival happening in Little Rock --- which made me abandon plans of going into Little Rock, because we’re not big on crowds. Or music festivals, for that matter. BUT the really-cool-fun part is that at the end of said music fest, there would be fireworks. So we headed to the riverfront park on the North Little Rock side to see if we could catch a glimpse of the fireworks.



The weather was lovely. The heat of the day had passed (and it was HOT!), and there was a slight breeze blowing. We walked the trail for awhile and could glimpse the crowds across the river.



Found an empty park bench facing the river and waited until darkness fell.
Oh yes, and I was being “artistic” while waiting for the fireworks to begin!



As it turned out, we could not have settled on a more perfect spot for fireworks-watching. They were bursting almost directly overhead! We even had to brush fireworks shrapnel off our clothes when leaving. I snapped a few fireworks photos, but mostly rested my head on Brandon’s shoulder and just enjoyed the show. The best things in life are often free. Like date night by the river as fireworks burst overhead (and in my heart).






One last look at the river before the night was over.

Our Memorial Day was slow and restful, but the entire weekend was pretty fun.

How was your holiday weekend? Do tell. I read comments. :D

Our theme song that we always sing on road trips… that sorta-kinda applied to this one!

Side by side, driving the same highway
Leaving behind everything and everyone you love
The cost to pay, to tell the world of Jesus
Hoping that these bridges burned will not just be in vain

It helps to think that somewhere you're feeling just the same
And don't take even a moment for granted
Don't lose heart when the world crashes down

How many miles ahead? I can't count the ones behind
To all the friends that we've collected, all the people we respect
For the hope, the joy that comes with you
Made this up, I wrote it down and dedicate this song to you



We are here… in the great state of Arkansas!


It seems like positively years since finals week and packing up and heading out of PA. It hardly seems possible that it was a short two weeks ago that we left. Finals week was such a blur of change. I had my last day of work (ohmygoodness) which meant all sorts of fun co-worker goodbyes (sadness) and gifts (happiness!). And I couldn’t even enjoy it too much, because I mean, really, I needed to pack up our lives and put it in our Toyota Corolla and leave… all while Brandon was taking four finals in four days and grading final exams, too! Like I said, it’s a blur. I completed the miraculous and finished packing before 10pm on Thursday---we were set to depart early on Friday morning. Usually, my packing before any trip lasts into the wee hours of the morning… so either I was really prepared or really forgetful. It was helpful that Brandon kept saying, “They have Walmarts in Arkansas, too! If we forget it, we can just buy it there!”

Note: Walmarts are everywhere. It’s comforting and disturbing all at the same time. Actually, most chain stores are the same around America. I can see Walmart from the balcony of our new apartment. We ate some dinner at Panera last night, before going out to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy Brandon some steel-toe work boots. This is suburban American. Just like home. Hehe!


Anyway, our travelling commenced with stops in Virginia and Maryland to visit friends and family. Then it was onward to Tennessee for our Schwartz Smoky Mountain Vacation 2014. I like to capitalize things. It makes them seem so much more important. I will share photos of our wonderful weeklong mountain vacation soon, but don’t wanna get sidetracked in this basic-update-on-life blog post.

So last Saturday, we left our cute little vacation condo with an estimated time of arrival at our new Arkansas apartment of 5:00pm. The driving part of our trip was relatively simple. It was the sitting-in-standstill-construction-and-accident traffic for three hours that KILLED our ETA. We finally arrived, slightly rumpled and annoyed at 8:00pm. We looked around our new little apartment and were basically thrilled. The apartment had a recent renovation so everything looks brand-spankin’-new. My greatest fear in renting an apartment that we had never seen in real life would be the possible smells. I’m sensitive to smells anyway, and being pregnant has made me ever-so-much-more sensitive. But the apartment smelled like NOTHING. What a relief.

Then it was let’s-go-to-Walmart-at-10pm because we need food. You know how Walmart trips happen…. the pile of items in the cart gets higher and higher, while you keep remembering things you need.

Then it was wake up Sunday morning and go visit a new church. Our thoughts are as follows: 1) hey, they give out homemade bread to first-time visitors! YEAH! Let’s come back next week and sit on the opposite side so we can be visitors again! (kidding… mostly… it was good bread!). 2) Wow, this church is big. 3) We really liked the sermon.. and then we realized that everything we liked about the church had to do with the Nigerian missionary who was guest-preaching. It was one of those hard-core reality check sermons where they talk about real-life persecution happening now in the African countries. It tears into the soul and gives perspective.

This work-week has thus-far been about unpacking and acclimating.



My Arkansas revelations:

It’s hot. Going from Pennsylvania cool springtime to Arkansas hot summertime feels like we skipped several months in the year. The weather forecast for this weekend is highs of 90 degrees. Ohman. I’m breaking out the sunscreen and smoothies now. I'm not complaining. I kinda like the heat. Besides, our air-conditioning works GREAT! ;)

I will not be able to miss the tornado sirens. Yesterday, I was just sitting on the couch, working on my laptop, when I heard the most AWFUL, HORRENDOUS, EAR-SPLITTING NOISE. I thought, that is a really loud saw and it is right underneath my window… but it wasn’t. So I googled “tornado sirens in Conway, AR” and guess what? They test the sirens every Wednesday at noon. Now I know they work and it’s ear-splittingly loud and I will NEVER miss a tornado siren because I can hear it everywhere in our apartment…. now I’m still not clear on what I should do if the siren actually goes off for real. Any tornado veterans wanna clue me in?

Apartment living is… interesting. We had a neighbor who likes to play video games REALLY loud late into the night. I hear the thumping bass on the other side of the wall, and honestly, it makes me feel not-very-charitable. I go to sleep while writing angry neighbor letters in my head. Also, my first real grocery shopping trip involved me carrying twenty bags of groceries up to our second-floor apartment and then collapsing on the couch in exhaustion.

It’s a college town. We laughed when we drove into this new town and the sign said, “Conway: City of Colleges.” There are FIVE colleges within city limits. We just can’t get away from college students! We’re actually living more towards the edge of town, so I can’t say I’ve seen too many college students. Though I’ve been pretty much holed-up in the apartment getting settled so maybe I will in the future.
And that’s about it.

We are here, the weather is warm and we are happy as clams. God is good!

Stay tuned for more updates soon! (and perhaps, I will post a baby bump photo one of these days… for all my dear PA friends who are dying to see! Hehe!).

And I love this quote that I saw on the wall of a Tennessee restaurant. For our faraway friends & family!

The news is out! It’s true. We are expecting a baby come November. It’s super-awesome and super-exciting and all those ridiculous adjectives. And now for the answers to the questions!

How do you feel?  I feel great. There were a couple weeks of feeling icky early on, but I’m pretty sure that my problem was that I wasn’t eating enough calories. Laugh if you will, but prior to pregnancy, I was still trying to lose a few pounds and get in better shape. So I had a little adjusting to do as far as the calorie intake. Also, I’m becoming even more vigilant on the eating/snacking at regular intervals throughout the day and that keeps me pretty happy.

Any weird pregnancy quirks? Well, strangely enough, I currently hate the smell of coffee. I know! It’s crazy! And almost any other strong smell just really bugs me.

I love your baby announcement. Did you get the idea from Pinterest? Haha. NO. I was sitting in bed one morning thinking about how to announce our pregnancy, and that popped into my head and I LOVED IT. Told it to Brandon and he loved it. Then I went to six different stores to find tiny espresso cups that I liked, and finally ended up finding them on clearance at Walmart for $5. Yeaaaah. I have been wanting those little espresso cups for yeeears, so it was the perfect excuse. So I essentially created my own meme by setting up the photo, editing it and adding text. Oh yes, and the background material? It was leftover table runner material from our wedding day. So cute, right? 

Are you going to find out the gender? Yes. I waffled on this for a short time, but honestly, I don’t like color yellow very much and that’s what gender-neutral clothes/nurseries/etc. tend to be. So we’re gonna find out the gender so I can plaster everything in pink or blue (slight overkill maybe/ maybe not).

What do you want? Boy or girl? We want a healthy baby. No gender preference whatsoever. Fo’ real.

Are you gonna tell the baby names? Nope. We’re secretive like that because a) naming our babies only includes two opinions: mine and Brandon’s. And we like to be without everyone else’s opinion until they can’t do anything about it (*insertevillaughhere*), b) our name list is long and want to have the option to change our minds if we want prior to birth, and c) if we’re not waiting to reveal the gender, we want to wait on the name… because surprises are nice sometimes!

Can I touch your belly? NO. Just no. Respect the personal bubble.

Onward to other interesting things….
So that’s the most wonderful-and-delightful news in our world. We are barreling full-speed-ahead towards the end of the semester and into our summer adventure in Arkansas (WOOHOOO!). These are days are full of times of transition. I’m just days away from the end of my full-time-working-outside-the-home career. I’m making jokes about “retirement” and “career changes,” but in all seriousness, this transition has been a long time coming. In one of our first conversations as friends, I remember Brandon asking me about what I wanted to be in life. My honest answer (and no, I wasn’t fishing for a husband---though honesty worked well for me!) was that I wanted to be a wife and mother. I’ve worked full-time since I was 17 years old, graduating from high school early and starting full-time work even before I graduated. I did Bible college on the side, worship and youth ministry on the side and a photography business on the side. I bought a house and went on missions trips and all while keeping my full-time job in accounting. It’s been good, but it has always been temporary. I knew God was eventually gonna take me to home. Not heaven-home. But that the home would be my focus, my ministry, my calling.

Things are getting real around here, and I am so excited that I can hardly contain myself. Though I am also so tired that I can hardly be excited (it’s a difficult paradox). Packing up necessary items for a summer spent in temporary housing and in a far-off place is mind-boggling. I’m contemplating questions like, “can I pack my cast-iron skillet? What about a teapot?”  I am a chronic over-packer and trying to get our life (even only for the summer) in a Toyota Corolla is making my brain hurt. Not like I’ve actually packed anything yet… it’s the thinking/planning/writing out the list part that’s most difficult.

I am a little nostalgic about going away from here, but not sad in the least. Since the door opened to this opportunity, we have both felt a sense of perfect peace. I am thrilled to be living out one of the things that has been on my heart since the beginning of our marriage --- the concept of “I will go where you go.” (Yes, I know that’s a verse from Ruth and it’s not about marriage and I wasn’t using it like that). I’m using it more of a “leave and cleave” concept. Marriage is a lot about leaving. Departing from the familiar, the family, the comfortable, the childhood things… and cleaving to your husband. It’s about leaving one team and making your own team. God designed the covenant of marriage to bring two lives together into one, not meld it into your current existence. Sometimes this means going away. Sometimes it doesn’t. In our case, we’ve spent a wonderful first two and a half years of marriage here, close to my family, entrenched in a life that is familiar to me--- places, people, things… it was all apart of my life before Brandon. In going away---even just for 3 1/2 months---it feels like the newlywed season again, learning to live life with only each other and the Lord to hang onto.
And that’s pretty awesome.

The teapot whistled on the stove while I moved around the kitchen throwing dishes into their places and wiping up spills. We get home from work late because of Brandon’s school and work schedule and I always spend the first hour or two doing housework, cooking and packing lunches.

It’s herbal tea for me and Earl Grey for Brandon. He likes the tea sweet and I prefer mine sweet, but not as overpoweringly sweet as my coffee. I drink half the cup and then drip a few hot drops on my leg as I run up the stairs holding a mug in one hand and a computer power cord in the other. My pants will dry, right? Then I get distracted by carrying two loads of laundry upstairs to be dumped unceremoniously onto our bed for folding. The tea is forgotten and it’s okay, because I amuse myself during laundry folding by attempting to do squats between sock-matching. Exercise is a great idea. My legs hurt. It was also a bad idea, because remember that half cup of tea? It’s now all jumbled up in my stomach.

I think about things that jumble up my stomach and it’s always the things that jumble up life. Things that I can’t control and yet insist up worrying about. I told my sis that I should write a blog post about “Learning to Live in Times of Transition,” but really, I can’t. Because I’m not an expert and I haven’t yet attained. I do know that it feels as if the last three years of my life have been constant transition. They have been the greatest tests of my ability to trust in God. Now I do believe that God prepared me for years and developed my heart and showed His faithfulness over and over again, so that when I got to marriage and was faced with so many life changes and possibilities (jobs! school! internships! ohmygoshwhatwillourlifelooklikeintenyears?!?), He would make me able to live at peace.

Our newest transition is something we’ve been thinking about for months. It must have been the first week of the fall semester 2013 when Brandon learned that summer engineering internships in his department (Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering) were paid. And paid well. For some reason, we had always thrown that possibility out the window and understood that it would be more difficult for him to get a job out of college without an internship because he was working and going to school, because ya know, he has a wife and family (i.e. cat) to support. We just thought, this is one of those sacrifices we make. God will work it out. Well, God did work things out and continues to do that… though not in the way that we expected. In even better ways!

There were resume-passing out days and evenings when Brandon had to go to a few ‘information sessions,’ where he would talk impressively to recruiters—yeah, I think my husband is pretty impressive so I’m always happy when I notice other people noticing how impressive he is. Hehe. There were interviews. I don’t even remember how many. But I do know that by the end of recruiting week—actually about ten minutes after the recruiting time had closed—Brandon got a call from a large natural gas company recruiter with a summer internship offer.

It’s official, y’all--- we’re going south for the summer. Granted, it took moooonths for details to get hammered out and things are still being finalized (like where we’re gonna live!), but it’s official as it could be. We’re leaving after finals week in early May and will be back before the fall semester begins in late August. We are headed for Conway, Arkansas. We’re going to the middle of nowhere and that suits me fine. And yes, of course, I’m going with him. There was really no question in our minds about that; he talked about it in the interview. Where he goes, I go, cause that’s the way marriage works for us. And God’s hand is always working to be in our place of need before we even get there. I’ll be leaving my job that I’ve been at since I was 19 (it’s true!) to go with my husband hundreds of miles from the place I’ve called home for most of my life. Basically, I’m retiring or changing careers or becoming a domestic engineer or stay-at-home wife or something. We call it many different words, but always with wide smiles and happy hearts. Oh, I’ll surely be working… on something or at something. But we’re not sure what yet! And honestly, after being a full-time office worker + evening-and-weekend wedding photographer for years, I am ready for change.

I’m convinced that God always prepares us for times of transition. It may be just a feeling on the inside, a pressure of the Spirit, the gentle winds of change, the thoughts that turn to new pursuits, the heart that longs for new things. God is always working in our hearts. He is always guiding us through the maze of life, looking at the future which we can’t see. I feel like I have been prepared for this---this crazy idea of spending the summer in a new place. I feel like God is taking us there for a reason, that He is putting our feet in the path that He has carefully and perfectly laid out before us. I know that we are just discovering the treasures of His plans for us. We revel in the intricacies of His provision for us in this season so often. Things that could not have happened if we knocked on every door. Provision that couldn’t have happened without God’s oversight and us responding to His gentle instructions from even before our marriage. I could tell stories upon stories about things that we felt strongly about and so we did them, and they impacted our future. We couldn’t have known that simple actions would reap such harvests but they did.

So Arkansas. Yeah. We’re going to Arkansas.

It will be The Great Arkansas Adventure.


* My parents are the ever-supportive folks and also my dad has passed on his love of maps to me. They gave Brandon an Arkansas map for Christmas. Yay! I hate getting lost! I love maps!