A year with very little change

Hellllooooo? Is anybody still out there? If you can believe it, it has been over a year since my last post. A YEAR.

And the last thing I posted about? Black bean corn cakes.

When I first began blogging, I was feeling restless at home with my two kids. Nothing new there.  I love cooking and writing and thought maybe blogging about what what I cooked for my kids would provide an outlet for all that restless energy. Nothing new there either. It worked for awhile.

Then I started taking some business courses, again with the hope that I could rid myself of the dissatisfied feeling I was struggling with. It worked for awhile.

Then we got a call from our preferred daycare that we had not one, but two spots! I thought, "a-ha, now I can go back to work and everything will fall into place". My background is in environmental liability and project review. I thought to myself, "I'm educated, I have some great experience on my resume -  I'll be snatched up in no time". I sent out dozens of resumes. And waited. I immediately became discouraged at the lack of phone calls. I eventually did get called in for a few interviews but I either didn't get excited about the position or they didn't get excited about me. I couldn't understand why things weren't working out. Was it because of the extra year off I took? Was it because I don't have much of a local network (other than other mommies)? I started to question my hire-ability.

The first job interview I went to was a short commute away and for the same company my husband works for. It would have been perfect. I thought the interview went quite well and I felt excited and good afterward. The only downside was that my son was going through a rough adjustment period at the daycare and I was experiencing massive guilt associated with leaving them both there. Way more than I had expected. After all, I had been through the whole daycare experience before with my daughter.

While I waited to hear back, I asked God that if it was his will that I go back to work, then I would receive a job offer. If it wasn't, then I would not get the job and I would know to pull the kids out of daycare. Pretty straightforward.

I didn't get the job.

Here we are 5 months later and I just recently informed the daycare that we are not going to keep our spots. Why didn't I do this months ago when I first asked God for direction? Maybe I'm a slow learner. The truth is, when I prayed what I prayed I was feeling pretty confident that I would get the job and I think until recently I was in a bit of denial. The thought of being home indefinitely and going back to feeling aimless and restless also scared me.

I've been a Christian for a long time but amazingly (and tragically) I didn't really get what that meant until very recently. I'm tired of feeling restless, dissatisfied, and adrift but I think I'm discovering the key to peace.

If you haven't noticed, the focus of this blog is changing. There will still be recipes since besides cleaning, cooking is the 2nd most likely thing a person would find me doing in this household.  But, there's going to be a lot more focus on God. Because I'm putting a lot more of MY focus on God. And we'll see where it gets us. Hopefully you'll stick with me.