Lost

Well, this week is really shaping up to be a test of faith or something. We went to Best Buy tonight and when we came home Harvey slipped out the door. Oops, we forgot about him until 10:20 and spent an hour looking. He's taken to wandering a bit, but he usually stays close and comes home by now (12:22). As you can imagine, we're worried about him and Jennie is maintaining a vigil outside in case he comes home. I circled our immediate area on foot, bike and then drove hoping I wouldn't find him injured anywhere, but wanting to make sure. I guess our hope is either he's laying low because he doesn't know how to get home at night, or someone took him in. Looks like I'm making telephone pole flyers tomorrow. So this is just like the icing on the cake for the week. Audrey's been running a fever since Monday and we've taken turns being home with her. It broke tonight, and hopefully she'll continue to improve but it's been tough since she's irritable. Then earlier in the week Harvey had some mystery malady and we had to take him in to the vet and leave him overnight. Man, it's like when your kid wanders off at the mall and you're so pissed you want to let him know how worried you were, but once he shows up you're just glad he's safe.

The rest of the summer has been equally challenging. I haven't been able to get a single interview, all the schools want are people with experience and resume padding only goes so far. For a long time, I'd hope every time I sent out an application I might get an interview. Then I'd get rejected and fall into a funk, be angry, bitter, rant about Wisconsin public schools and ultimately question God's judgement. I was talking to my parents and mentioned this is probably the most frustrating period of my life and that includes all the angst of dating. Lately I've returned to the realization that God does in fact know what's going on down here, actually cares and does something. Nonetheless, acting in faith is really hard when you seem to lack any concrete direction - where should we move, will I get a job last minute and have to break a lease, will we be able to find jobs if I can't find a job and we move back to the Fox Valley? Sometimes I wish I were the guy in the Jim Carrey movie who can just speed up time. I know it's not the right thing and the challenges in life are to refine our character, making us more like Christ, but man it's hard.