when i grow up, i want to be a...

before i answer that question, let me first say that ya'll should wish that you live close to my house so you could have come over this past month because i made some stinkin delicious food. :) butternut squash lasagna, turkey meatloaf with sun-dried tomatoes and feta, a berry trifle with homemade pound cake, honduran enchiladas, cranberry-orange muffins, homemade pasta, jambalaya...it's been so good!


it has been a month since i've 'graduated' and i still have not found a job. i had an offer for an internship (Gracehaven) and a job (Mission Indy), both of which i turned down (even though i wanted to do both really bad) because the Lord answered my mother's prayer. she told me a month or so ago, right in the thick of 10K/community night/child abuse prevention month planning that she had been praying, asking the Lord to help me realize my need to rest and take care of myself...a rather loaded prayer...well, He answered. instead of finding a job and making some money...even a little to just make my car payments each month, i have been either: running/walking/exercising, reading, hanging with the kids, attempting to be productive and get school stuff sorted and ready for Fall semester,watching Food Network occasionally, cleanting, doing random art projects, or cooking! my favorite of these activities is cooking...and baking occasionally, which has made me reconsider on many occasions about forgetting this social work thing and just opening up my own restaurant/cafe and cook and be an artist on the side.


growing up, i had a string of possible jobs after college: do the cosmetology program in high school and get my cosmetology license so i can work as a cosmetologist to get myself through college, go to college and play college basketball, after that, get into the WNBA (i actually wanted to be the first woman in the NBA). After i was in the WNBA for a while, i wanted to again, be a cosmetologist to get myself through law school and then work as a lawyer for a while. after that, i wanted to move to the beach, open an art shop and sell my pottery. after that...i didn't get farther than that. 

since then, the dream has changed, i've scrapped most of that and got it boiled down to helping people, you know, simple stuff like changing the world. :) one dream that still have, is to one day open a coffee shop/cafe/art studio, where i can cook and make coffee and pottery and sell it, and have neighborhood kids come and learn art and play music. i tell my friend ben this earlier this week and he is all on board to start it now...talk about scrapping the whole social worker idea!

this past month has just been so weird. i'll say i'm definitely learning to relax...it's hard, i just do not feel like myself. i love just being able to cook make pottery and i think to myself how hard it is to help people and why couldn't i just have picked an easy profession? then i read stuff about girl's being trafficked. or i go down to 23rd and Guilford and i talked with 11 and 12 year old girls and i see how vulnerable they are and how much love they need and i realize that yes, helping is hard, and it takes a lot out of you, but that is how God made me, how my heart is wired. i love cooking and being an artist, but my heart is made to help people. now, it's not to say that i can't help people by cooking or being an artist or that i can't be a social worker and a chef or artist, but i can't NOT be a social worker. 


this time off now is about relaxing...learning what it means to relax, but i am realizing that once i get a job, i won't be able to take a month or two sabbatical and just do nothing. so, not only do i need to just take time now and relax, but i need to figure out how to be a social worker and relax and take care of myself at the same time... (my social work prof's are probably like...Jen, this is what we were trying to teach you for 4 years.) bah. it's hard. crazy, long, hard journey...that's what the title of my blog should be, because that is what this summer has been so far, a journey of interesting lessons. it's been a month unlike any i have had before and i am still trying to figure out what to do with it...and how the rest of the summer is going to go...how long can i make it without a job? will i ever learn how to relax?! but i think i have been able to somewhat answer the above question...


when i grow up, i want to be a...social worker who works with teen girls, who lives in a community, in the CITY, in need of Christ, who knows all her neighbors and has the neighborhood kids over at her house every night for treats (sugar-free, of course) and to hang out, who cooks meals with love every-once-in-a-while for her neighbors and has them over to her house to eat the scrumptious feast with veggies from her garden, who is the owner of a little coffee shop/cafe/art studio where she provides jobs for individuals in the community and helps teens learn job skills by letting them work in the cafe and gives teens an opportunity to express themselves through music/poetry played in the coffee shop regularly and teaches community residents art [and has huge wall for graffiti], who runs races with a purpose, who advocates for the poor and oppressed in her community, who changes the world, and who glorifies God in everything that she does...

...something like that. 
check it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4KiGN1j1No