City Girl in a Small Town

Ahhh,
Here I sit in my little home office (Yes, I have my own office) listening to the delightful music of Karen Peris and enjoying a cup of coffee, thinking in utter disbelief that I am actually going to start this blog I have been dreaming about for months. Now that I have the entire United States separating me from all those I love on the East Coast, this blog is just one attempt to lessen the distance between us. Some of you may have been to California, but for most of you, my life is probably pretty hard to imagine. So I want to help you know me and the daily happenings by writing a little bit throughout each week. I know that I will probably be inconsistent with my writing, but I will make an effort to post at least two posts a week. If I do more, hey that is bonus!

I don't quite know where to begin with my life...I'll start with the beauty around me! California is so different than the East Coast. I am surrounded by rolling hills dotted with majestic oak trees. I am about 40 minutes from the coast in a little town called Paso Robles. The rainy season is in the winter, and after March, it doesn't see rain here again until November. So as you can imagine, the grass is golden-brown most of the time.
While it has it's own western beauty, I do miss the incredibly lushness of the East--- but I keep reminding myself that it is only grass, and God has blessed me with lush growth and blessings here in people that I struggled to find, especially during our time in Saint Louis. Some of the pictures here are ones I took of some friends at church. I have been trying my hand at photography, and I even was hired to do some senior photos. While I really find that I love and even need to feed the artistic longings in me, it is just a hobby at the time.


Within the first three weeks here I got a job at starbucks. I
knew I would immediately need something to get me out of
the house and meeting people so that this transition would be more pleasant and less "huge" than I imagined it would be. Getting a job has helped me to feel rooted here and has kept me busy. I applied for some social work jobs, but upon the interviews and even after receiving a job offer or two, I realized that I would rather serve people coffee and work with all different kinds of people at a coffee house than do any sort of social work at this point. All of the jobs I applied for seemed so exhuasting, and I realized I would probably have very little energy left to help with the Youth ministry or have relationships with people in my church. I find myself really being drawn to the idea of working at starbucks and developing an unofficial counseling ministry at my church. Walking through life with the people I know and love is much more the realm that I desire to use my counseling training. So, as long as the tiny starbucks paycheck helps pay the bills, I am off on an adventure of joy mixed with the reality of penny-pinching!


This was a great picture (with the Berkel Family) that we took on our trip to visit our east coast friends before we moved out here. Our journey out west was a very, very, very stressful one. Matt and I drove a huge moving truck filled with our stuff. The radio didn't work and neither did the cigarette lighter, which meant we had no way to plug in an any music attachments. 2200 miles driving with the sound of the wind beating against the roof of the truck overhead will drive anyone crazy. We discovered about 1 hour out from our destination that if we close one of the tiny side windows, the banging noise would stop!! Very ironic. Anyhow, Andrew, was so awesome to come with us and help drive our car and we towed the van behind us. Beside the bumpiness of that trip, our transition here has been nothing short of remarkable and full of kinds loving grace to us. One by one, blessings have popped up along the way during our move and in our transition here that have solidified in our minds that this is exactly where we need to be!

I hope you all enjoy reading about my and Matt's life. I am looking forward to sharing my heart and life with you all, and I am also looking forward to the quiet moments I can take in front of this computer screen and reflect of the goodness of God in my life. Until then, Goodnight all.

Love,
Alina

P.S. I would love to get comments from you all. If you have an account with Blogger, you can post one to this entry. It is free and it is easy to get an account. Also, there is no obligation to have a blog (I think, but check it out for sure).