The FOCCUS Experience by Kathleen

Since Chris and I both have extremely busy schedules during the school year, we wanted to get as much PreCana stuff done before the end of the summer. Naturally, the only FOCCUS test site that would fit into Chris' schedule was in Norfolk Nebraska. For those of you unfamiliar with Nebraska geography, Norfolk (pronounced Nor-fork solely so that the natives can mock the tourists) is about 3 hours from Omaha. I made Chris leave four hours early to combat that central Nebraska traffic, so we got there close to an hour before the class started. Our plan was to find the room, and then go get something to eat. I had been so adament about leaving early that we didn't get lunch, and it was approaching 2 p.m. Unfortunately, we were met at the door by the lady in charge of the program, and she was super excited to see us.

 

She was a very nice person, don't get me wrong. However, her fashion sense left a lot to be desired. She had the mom jean look going on- you know, the ones that are very high waisted, and make your butt look huge no matter what size it is normally. She highlighted it by over tucking in her hand made, neon lettered I <3 my husband t-shirt.  I finished signing in and she introduced us to her  beloved husband. (yep, that's how she introduced him.) She put her arm around his waist, and they stood there, grinning at us for a minute. To our credit, neither one of us laughed. Her beloved husband was wearing the exact same thing- mom jeans and all. Except his shirt said I <3 my wife. I don't know about anyone else, but somehow I was not able to take anything they said seriously the entire day. The shirts and tucked in jeans were just too distracting.

 

Needless to say, that pretty much set the tone for the day. We got started a good 20 minutes behind schedule, and the first thing they told us was that, becuase of all the paperwork, the class would probably go later than scheduled. We proceded to spend an hour (AN HOUR) filling out one piece of paper, which I had already printed off the internet and filled out.

 

For the record, it was also freezing in there. And the chairs were uncomfortable. Having not eaten lunch, we were starving. They had a little plate of cookies and water on a back table, so we kept sneaking back and eating stale Chips Ahoy cookies. By the time we got to the actual FOCCUS test we were miserable.

 

The test itself wasn't that bad though- we had talked about most of the issues in it, so I thought we would have the same answers on most of the questions. However, as we were driving the 3 hours back to Omaha afterward, we started comparing answers. We found that even though we agreed on all the issues, somehow we managed to interpret the individual questions differently and every question we talked about we had put different answers down. We haven't gotten the results yet, so hopefully Fr. Jim will still marry us after seeing it.

 

Looking back, I don't know if we got quite what the church intended us to get out of the FOCCUS test experience, but we did have fun together experiencing the craziness. I think the test results will be good talking points for our sessions with Fr. Jim too.

 

By the way, we did do the actual PreCana retreat too. I won't write about it now, but I will say it was a much more normal experience. Even-dare I say it- useful! Kathleen

Meet our new blogger: Kathleen of Kathleen and Chris!

 Kathleen filled out her info sheet. We're waiting for Chris to fill out his. While we wait, meet Kathleen.

Name: Kathleen

Age: 22

Employed By: Assumption Guadalupe Catholic School- I'm the 7th grade homeroom teacher, as well as 5-8 science and 5/6 religion.

Ethnic Background: Irish

Place in family: 2nd of 4

School: Graduated from Creighton University (in Omaha) in Jan. 2010

Religion: Catholic

Wedding Date: July 16, 2011

How did you meet? We actually met through my sister Mary Beth, who was a year ahead of me at Creighton, and Chris' friend Jordan. I was at Jordan's apartment with MB, and Chris and his roommates came over (they hadn't been able to find a way home from a party they went to, so they got the brillant idea to run 2 miles back. In December. In a snowstorm.) Chris was being shy and hanging out in the kitchen- I took pity on him and went over to talk. (He tells this part of the story differently but my version is true)

How did he propose? We went to a lake that we like to go walking around, and he popped the question there. I was SUPER shocked (so shocked, in fact, that I forgot to answer for awhile- oops) because there was no place for him to hide a ring- I had already checked. He was wearing shorts without pockets, so I assumed he wasn't doing it then because there was no place for him to hide the ring. Turns out he had wrapped it in plastic and duct taped it to his side so I wouldn't find it. Somehow, while we were talking he managed to rip off the duct tape and pull out the ring.

What are you afraid of? I'm not really sure yet. Just standing up there in front of all those people sounds very daunting. I'm pretty sure we're going to end up inviting the entire state of both Nebraska and Illinois, so that'll be a lot of people to potentially trip in front of.

Other: I grew up in Naperville, IL, and then went to college in Omaha- Chris is a Papillion (a suburb of Omaha) native. Right now we're both living and working in Omaha. We're going to get married here in Omaha, at Assumption- the church connected to where I teach at.   Kathleen

Very stressed by Kelly

Jake made this for me. The dresser.

I have two relationships. One with Jake, one with work. I am at work way more than I am with Jake. I think about work way more than I think about Jake. The other day during a little chat with my boss he said, "Jake doesn't work for me. You do." Which made me think well, I am married to Jake, not to you. (You meaning the job). So if I'm not married to the job why am I so obsessed with it? I work long hours. I work most days. I haven't been to Seattle with Jake in 8 months. I spend any time I have at home stressing that I might have messed something up at work. Or thinking about the website I have worked on for 7 months. I end up sitting on the couch just thinking about work and ignoring Jake.

I don't know if he minds. I haven't asked him. He has been hard at work working, and then hard at work building me a bathroom and new bedroom. I go to work, then come home and watch tv and stress. Then I stress about stressing. I have horrible anxiety about our trip to Seattle. I don't want to be away from work for that long.

Don't get me wrong. I NEED a vacation. He needs to get home to see his family. But I will just stress the entire time. I will just think about work the whole time. I need to learn how to turn my brain off.

Please don't think I'm complaining. I'm not. At all. I really enjoy my job. I love the power. I like that I can jump behind the bar and make a few extra hundred bucks. The weird thing is I don't even have a stressful job. I have great coworkers and I'm lucky to have a great boss. I'm putting all this stress on myself because I like to be perfect. Not sure where this work ethic came from. I sure didn't have it in school. Anyone else out there married to anything besides their husbands? Kelly

New blog from my other blog by Kelly

I have this goal this year. Make 100 grand. That's not counting Jake's contribution. That's me. Somehow I have to make $100,000. Now at my salary this is impossible. But I will push myself. I will bartend even when I am exhausted. I will do whatever it takes to (legally and not grossly) make $100,000.00. I have less than 6 months to make a whole lot of money. I am infatuated with my job. I am obsessed. I like to work. I am not working this weekend. But that is ok. I will find fun things to do to pass the time.

I have always wished I could have the same days off as the hot hubby. Our schedules give us horrible hang out times. But I've had them this weekend. And he went outside to hang w my bro. Hang w my old neighbor. Hang with the new neighbors who speak no English. I'm not complaining. Don't take this the wrong way. I could have said, "Hey Jake, why don't you hang out with me?" If that were the case, I wouldn't have finally been able to give this place the deep clean it needed, couldn't have watched all these episodes of Desperate Housewives I've been dying to watch. Couldn't have made him go rent me "The Runaways" from Redbox. And then couldn't have watched it on my computer cause I was too lazy to get out of bed to watch it on the slightly bigger tv we have in the living room.


Also we saw Inception this am. Then argued about the ending. How unique are we? Kelly

Anniversaries and cilantro by Kelly

Anyone interested in looking at pics of our wedding? Here is my finished photo album.

http://www.photosbykurt.com/wambold.htm

I cannot believe I have been married for over a year. Time has flown by. We had an awesome anniversary. We had wanted to go back to Mexico but due to my insane schedule we settled on Milwaukee for 2 nights. That was nice and relaxing. I'd rather have had all inclusive sushi, but paying for Thai that is so spicy we can't even eat it had its benefits too.

Uh oh, I thought of Thai food. Whenever I think of it I have to order. I can't believe I went almost 28 and a half years without ever trying Thai. That's the best thing about having a husband. He makes me try food and then I get addicted (and fat).

That's kind of a lie (not the fat part, that's true). Jake made me Thai food once. It was on a day when I ate 2 day old sushi that hadn't been refrigerated (oops). I got the worst food poisoning anyone's ever had. But while throwing up, all I could taste was the cilantro in the Thai food.

I hate cilantro now. But Jake is still a good hubby. Kelly