greatness in: BANG BANG Choo Choo Train

... Ok I don't really know that song.

The long awaited update has finally come. I'm sure I will miss out many details, but I seem to lose readers in the details - so this could be a plus.

I'll work with Past:Present:Future and see where we end up.

Past: 2008:
I think I will always strive to end the year with a bang. Lets start at the beginning though. At the beginning of 2008 I was let go from my job as a photo journalist at the Temple Daily Telegram. Finding a job was rough in Belton area, but I picked up enough odd jobs to keep bills paid and also watched a whole lot of "Peoples Court."
I moved from Belton, Texas where I had been living for nearly 6 years to move to Corpus Christi, Texas. Some of you are thinking "what in the world?" I know. I know. The opportunity to move to New York City to help a non profit ministry came up so in order to save money I moved to Corpus to live with my sister Shannon and her husband Chris. It was a huge hit to my pride in asking for help. I have been pretty independent my whole life so needing help was a learning process. It took me a while to find a job, but I found one CLEANING cars at Enterprise Rent A Car. Yup ... such a great season of being humbled. =) The job was not as easy as it sounds. With Corpus heat and wind, my days were long in the sun. I found little joys in it though by changing every radio station to K-Love. I most enjoyed when cars came back still playing k-love.

The day came in August to move to the busy city with my camera in hand. I was set to live in NY for 4 months. What an experience. I'm sure most of you received my long winded updates while there, so I won't go into much detail. I can honestly say that living in New York was the most adventurous days of my life and also the loneliest. If I could sum up the people of New York I would say that they are a exhausted people. People I met often talked about how many jobs they had in order to live in NY. Every train ride was full of people at all hours with bobbing heads or completely out. I don't know how people could fall asleep. The trains were mostly loud and well it wasn't always announced what stop it was. The most amazing thing about NY was meeting people from all over the world. I love love love hearing people's stories and hearing how/why people came to United States was a story to hear. I have never really been patriotic, but hearing the stories of sacrifice made me appreciate my freedom more. It was amazing to see and be apart of the different religions and cultures. Only in New York can you find a Catholic Priest BLESSING Muslims on Muslim Day. I often found myself in awe of seeing people love like Jesus. I attended a couple of Muslim events and one was a banquet for Muslims who excepted Jesus. One thing that was said over and over was "Love them until they ask why?" I'll never forget singing with them "I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back." They give up so much to follow Jesus.

I could go on and on ... To wrap NY up though I met some great people and learned so much about myself. I lived with a wonderful family and had great roommates for the most part. :] I hope to visit one day soon. I bet I could still give you directions. I love watching movies now and think I know exactly where that is!! It's funny how NY came about. In my update for 2007 I mentioned dreaming about living in New York. Never did I think it would actually happen. Like I said ... end with a BANG. I came back to Texas in December and was on the job hunt again. Boooo! I traveled a lot when returning because of the holidays. I was able to visit with Belton friends and family.

Present: 2009. Now 25.
Currently I am working at a photography studio. I believe I started late January if not early February. It's been a stressful job as I am the longest lasting employee. Somehow I am doing a good enough job to stick around. I work pretty long hours but hopefully that will slow down soon. Some days I can work from 9 AM until 10 PM. Thankfully it is not forever. I am living again with my sister, Shannon which I am enjoying. It's been an interesting transition being around family again so much. Do you ever feel like a stranger to family? Being the one that travels so much (sometimes called a nomad), I haven't been around in a while so it has been nice to get to know them better and share with them who I am now. Some new exciting news has been that Shannon and Chris are expecting their first baby. I am so excited for them! I can't decide if I want to be called Tia (spanish version) Kristine or Aunt Kristine. Though we don't know the sex yet, our mom is already buying baby stuff!! She's going to be a great grandma. And Chris and Shannon will be great parents.

Future: Mary Poppins.
I'll spare the details as this is getting longer than planned, but while in New York I was surrounded my nannies. I noticed them everywhere!! I remember having a couple conversations with friends saying "I think I will be a nanny next." These conversations usually ended with laughs as people didn't think I was being serious. I couldn't figure out why I felt led to this, but I was open to the idea. It sure wasn't something I could come up with on my own. I love babies but I have so much to learn about them. Any who ... Nothing came up as I was leaving New York so I kinda dropped it and took the job at the studio.

Whelp! As of August 2009 I will be "Mary Poppins" for a sweet family in Clarksville, Tennessee!!! I am so very excited about this!! It's funny how it all came about, but I believe it is so the Lords doing. If you would have asked me a year ago to be a nanny, I would have laughed and said no quickly. (haha) I did still laugh this time, but only because I couldn't believe the Lord was leading me this way after all. The great thing about it all is that I do know and trust this family already. I knew them when we both lived in Central Texas as we were apart of the same community and my best friend used to nanny for them. :] So yeah! These days you will find me reading about babies in my spare time. I look forward to learning from Nathan and hopefully can be of good help and encouragement.

(Sigh) This was not supposed to be long!! I think I covered everything needed. I'll keep the updated posts coming so they can become shorter.