Well, three months since my last post is better than the usual six or so. I’m making improvements! Here are a few things worth noting about the last three months or so.
As you can see, I didn’t do my normal Advent countdown this last Advent. I had intended to, but God made it clear that I needed to spend time focusing on myself this time around, and I am so glad I did. It wasn’t the best Advent I’ve ever had, but it was nice to not have as much on my plate this time around.
I started exercising on a regular basis. It’s actually been longer than three months since I started this. A coworker of mine has been part of this group of women for many years. And for a few years she’s been inviting me to join. So, at the end of September I bit the bullet and jumped in. The only downside has been that it’s a 5:30am class. If you know anything about being a youth minister, you know that it requires a lot of late evening hours, so getting up that early has been a bit of an adjustment. But, it’s not completely foreign to me. I had a paper route for just under seven years as a pre-teen and teen, and was up at 5:00am, six days a week, delivering newspapers. My default is early to bed, early to rise. I’ve only gotten out of that habit because of all night classes in grad school and almost 11 years of full-time youth ministry. It’s definitely been slow progress, but I’m happy with the weight I’ve lost and how I’ve been feeling. And I really love the group of ladies who greet me with smiles and hugs every morning.
I welcomed a new niece into the family! My Sister had another baby girl on December 28th, which would have been our Dad’s 84th birthday. I haven’t spent as much time with them as I would like, but hopefully that will change soon.
The other big thing is that I changed jobs. I’m still doing ministry and I’m still at the same Church, but I did receive a “promotion.” Each diocese, and even in many cases, each parish has it structured differently as far as which job titles are responsible for what. Just because two people are both “youth minister” doesn’t mean their job is the same. In North Carolina, I was responsible for junior high and high school. Here in Texas, that same job title was only responsible for high school (or at least that was the case while I held the title). In some places, the Director of Religious Education (DRE) is responsible for the elementary aged kids. In my parish, the DRE is directly responsible for the adult programs, and then supervises the elementary coordinators and youth minister. So about two weeks ago, when the previous DRE retired, I moved up into her position. I’m loving the challenges a change like that brings, but definitely miss interacting with the teens on a daily basis. And, yes, my college kids have started calling me Dr Dre.
While it may not seem like much when I list it out, I feel like life has been full of big changes the last three months. And while I’m normally one who does not like change, I find myself excited about it at this point in my life and hope that there are more exciting changes to come.
So Completely 