new beginnings

welp...it's been almost a month since my last post, and quite a bit has happened. (so if this blog is the only forum from which you receive news from the little world of robin giberson lawrenz, i'm deeply sorry for my neglect.) here's what's been going on:

-jason and i moved into our new apartment on the gordon-conwell campus. it's a cute little two bedroom with a much larger kitchen than the one we had, and we're using the second bedroom as a guest room/study/craft space. pretty exciting, huh? i think so, too. we even ordered new couches, which will be arriving at some point within the next several weeks, and until then, we're using blow-up mattresses and pillows covered with blankets, fashioned to be somewhat couch-shaped. it's actually really comfortable, and a few of the youth group guys didn't even notice that it wasn't a real couch, so jason and i are kinda wondering why we bothered buying new ones. hmm...

-jason and i also celebrated our one year anniversary!! we went out to dinner and watched our wedding video and ate our cake that had been sitting in the freezer for a year. we were a little nervous about that part because we'd been warned that year-old wedding cake is not a pleasant experience. however, ours was actually still quite delicious...for the first few bites. (we threw the rest away.) but it was still definitely worth following the tradition. also, we had the greatest wedding of all time. now, you're probably thinking that i'm a little biased on that front. but seriously. best. ever. ask anyone who was there. our wedding kicked some serious tail. and i think we deserved it considering the 2 year engagement (bad idea), tireless hours of planning (so that every single little detail would be perfect--and it was), and the worst honeymoon of all time (which started out with pneumonia, followed by weeks of recovery). it's been strange thinking about how this time last august, i was just getting out of the hospital in Jersey (after God--in cooperation with a lot of praying people organized by one mr. devin goulding--worked some major miracles to get me there), pleased as peaches that no one had to drain anything out of my lungs with a needle, and finally cured by a magical leandro barbosa jersey. (i have the very best friends in the world.) since then, jason and i moved somewhere we've never been (where i knew a grand total of two people and he knew zero), started new jobs, and tried to figure out how to be married. a lot of craziness, but i wouldn't have had it any other way. jason is the very greatest husband ever, so easy to love and so eager to make me happy. go ahead. be jealous. he's just that wonderful. :o)

-in other news, i got a new job!!! i have 3 days left at csl, and 2 weddings to be in (hannah and josh and emily and devin are getting married!!! woohoo!!!), and i will be starting on august 18th as the administrative assistant for the department chairs of humanities and social sciences at gordon college!!! i will work 8:30-4:30, have free access to gordon's gym, three weeks of paid vacation, and i might actually have work to do at work!!! (in fact, in the interview, i was told about 7 times that i will have too much work to do and will have to learn to say no to people.) i'm really excited about getting to work for professors so i can get a little better of a feel for whether or not that's what i want to be when i grow up. and i can take undergrad classes for free, and if i work there for a few years, i can get reduced tuition for grad classes (masters in education, maybe with a concentration in the montessori method), and jason can get reduced tuition at gordon-conwell. so...needless to say, i'm pretty excited about all that.

so lots of new beginnings. it's kind of like we're starting over...new home, new job, jason will be starting at a new school. and i'm hoping that this year will be better than the last one. don't get me wrong. marriage has been wonderful. and i love new england. and our church has been fantastic. but i've been really...tired. 9-5:30, 5 days a week of a job that is unchallenging, uninteresting, and almost anti-creative...it's taken a toll on me. it's been really hard. so i'm hoping that this new job allows me a little more freedom to be myself so when i get home from work (a full hour earlier!), i just might have the time and the energy to be the person, the wife, the friend, the artist, that i want to be. here's hoping... :o)