A Not So Restful Sunday

Today was one of those days where all I wanted to do was relax but unfortunately that didn't happen until about 6pm.  Whenever I have to go out of town for work I like to have a restful Sunday.  I start getting sad and upset that I have to go out of town because I'd rather be at home where I can eat healthy food, sleep in my own bed with my wife and just have familiar surroundings.  There are so many things that I rely on Mandy for when I'm home and she relies on me a lot too.  It's very hard for us when I have to travel but it's something that comes with my job.  Mandy is still in the midst of her new job and I really wish I would be home to be there for her.  Luckily with our new computer we have a webcam built in which means I can take the other one we have with me while I'm out of town.  So now Mandy and I can actually talk and see each other instead of just the phone.
These Sundays are always hard for me and I wish I could stay home with my wonderful wife.
I'll be back on Friday and do this all again next Sunday. Sigh.

A New Beginning

Ahhh, where to begin? I find that I don’t have adequate words to describe how I am feeling. Maybe it is because I have not used them to describe my own life in so long. Or maybe it is that I never experienced them in this way? Regardless of what the reason is, I can only try to describe this new part of my life the best I know how. By using over the top words and actions, with slight exaggerations and complete and total abandonment to the events as they happened. I am still a Pierce despite the sign on my classroom door that reads Mrs. Fiechtner with an additional Mrs. Feekner logo (my feeble attempt to have my name pronounced correctly), and a Pierce always embellishes for effect.

Coming from a place of great sorrow and spending so much time longing for something to change I found myself relishing every bit of this new experience. Spending many hours at school way before I was expected to be there, rearranging my room, working on projects, cleaning, and just generally soaking up the atmosphere. As the school year drew closer I began to feel more and more confident in the plans that God has so clearly laid out for me and Mike in this new adventure. Don’t get me wrong I was very nervous the first day of school. I knew one of two things would happen, I would sound completely prepared and ready to teach art, or I would throw up on the senior sitting in the front row. Well, even though neither of those happened I made it through my first day with little to no issues, with a great big praise for the lack of vomit by me or anyone else in my classroom. And each day as I stood in front of my class, my confidence grew; and slowly I could feel a new woman rising in me. For the first time in a long time I could feel the presence of God leading me, and I was listening. As the words poured from my mouth one feeling kept coming back to me, “so this is what it feels like to do God’s will.”

I have to admit, as a girl who is never at a loss for words, never one to appear uncomfortable in a social situation and always quick to put on the façade of perfection, the last year and half have been the most difficult time of my life. And to be able to emerge from that with a new hope brings so much joy to my heart I feel as though people might begin to stare at all of the extra oozing out in my smile and demeanor. And although I am still very beaten and battered from the events that I never go a day without thinking about, I finally feel like instead of new blows I am being given the chance to heal. Slow as it may be, I know in my heart that this job is going to play a big part in making those wounds less painful. And in some way I feel as though this is God’s sign to me that he can create great things out of horrible situations. I think the moment of greatest emotion came for me when I was putting the final touches on my room. As anyone who knows me can tell you, the one thing in this world I am most proud of is my family, and so of course I needed to get pictures of them up for all to see. As I hung those pictures in my room I knew without a shadow of doubt that this new road that God was taking me on was going to be a success. Because with a family like mine behind me how could I possibly fail. As I hung the picture of my Grandpa Jim, I saw so clearly the collision of two paths, one of sorrow and pain crashing into one of hope and promise. And in that moment I could feel my grandpa telling me, “I am so proud of the new path you are about to walk down, and I will be with you every step of the way.”

So here I stand at the end of week one. Not blind to the struggles that face me nor standing in a pool of naiveté thinking that it is always going to be this easy. It is just me standing at the beginning of a new road, treading lightly toward the light of hope that this new journey brings. Fully aware that it is not the job that will change my life but the life giving gift of me welcoming God’s presence back into the journey. And although I know I will look back from time to time, it will be out of love not pain.

And just to spice things up, (I wouldn’t want to let the greatest story teller of all time down by not throwing in a bit of humor and exaggeration).

My week one top 5:

5. Starting my new job off by singing worship songs, listening to devotions, and taking communion with my co-workers.

4. Having one of my middle school students tell me my name was spelled wrong in the syllabus, (she really bought into the phonetic spelling, its spelled Fiechtner, not Feekner).

3. Blindfolding my students and letting them draw sound, all in the name of art of course.

2. Being initiated as a new teacher at our all school retreat. I was asked to describe my first time eating a candy cane, but the students were told I was describing my first kiss.

1. Getting to share my job as a teacher, with the one person who has been my biggest supporter through the good and the bad of getting to this point. Mike made an amazing teacher, and the kids loved hearing about his amazing photography!

Is it really that hard?

I will forever live a life with a confusing last name. Both saying it and spelling it is difficult for people. I'm not sure why! I guess I've had my whole life to practice saying it and repeating it to people and correcting their spelling of it. I find it very entertaining to see how people spell it and say it. I've seen it spelled so many different ways: Feichtner, Fiebner, Siechtner, Fletcher, Flechtner, Fiechma, Feikner to name a few. Listening to people say it wrong my entire life I've started spelling it to them phonetically F-E-E-K-N-E-R. Funny thing is that FEEKNER has become many of my logins and usernames including flickr or my photo blog cause Fiechtner is too difficult for people to understand or spell.

Here's a recent funny story, the person at the drycleaners couldn't spell our name right so I handed him my driver's license to show him and now I will always be known at this dry cleaners as "Mr. Fiechma" because he just copied my driver's license number which includes the first five letters in your last name and the first initial for your first and middle names or MA for Michael Allen. I'm glad all of my dress shirts now have FIECHMA printed on them.

Having a confusing last name is a blessing and a curse. Here are just a few positives and negatives to having a unique last name. If you have a unique last name I'm sure you can relate:

Positive:
1. You always knew when your name would be called during roll call at school on the first day. It would go something like this, "Ellis, Everett, Fffff........." and I would chime in "Here! It's pronounced Fiechtner (you idiot)"
2. You know when a solicitor is calling on the home phone. Solicitor: "Is Mrs. Fiechtner (mispronounced) home?" Me: "No" CLICK.
3. Easier to Google yourself
4. Easy to find Usernames on websites that work. Most of the time mfiechtner or something similar is available. You'll never see me with johnsmith26@gmail.com or something like that.
5. Easy to find family history on the internet
6. People will be more likely to remember you
7. You can get a good laugh at Safeway when they try to pronounce your name when handing you the receipt. You either get the person that will try to pronounce it, the person that looks at the receipt confused and muffles their voice attempting to pronounce it cause they have no clue or the person that just looks at the receipt and looks up and says "thanks."

Negative:
1. People can't seem to find your reservation that you made. Go back to all the different spellings and try each until you find the right one.
2. Constantly having to repeat it and getting that "What the hell did you say?" look from people.
3. Mandy has to decide how to present herself in her new class. It may end up being just Mrs. F. Anyone have a suggestion?
4. Microsoft Word says that it's mispelled in all of my documents.
5. Your true friends still can't pronounce it or spell it.

Having a last name like Fiechtner has presented many challenges in my life but overall I'm happy with the name and I will be proud to pass it down to my children. I will always remind them how to say it just like my grandpa Verne would say it, with a true German accent (make sure you almost spit when saying it).

I will always love being a Fiechtner!

Move or no move?

Mandy and I are tinkering with the idea of moving further north in West Seattle. Are we crazy? It would only be a few miles more north. Sometimes Mandy gets these crazy ideas and I never know whether it's something she's completely serious about or if it's just her need for change. I've definitely learned in my three years of marriage that Mandy loves change. I'm not at all saying it's a bad thing. She has a brain that goes a mile a minute and occasionally I have to bring her back to reality. I love you Mandy! Most of the time though her ideas are great and something I would have never thought of. I'm usually pretty content with where I'm at and don't like to rock the boat. Well her latest idea of moving further north is starting to sound kind of nice. We'd be closer to some of our good friends John and Nichelle Keatley and most importantly my parents. We'd also have a shorter trip downtown and be in a nicer neighborhood (most likely).

The other idea we've had is remodeling our house a little. If you've been in our house we are thinking about tearing down the wall and pantry between our living room and kitchen which would open things up quite a bit. We'd also like to potentially add something to the front of the house. Not sure if that would be an additional room where our right driveway is or some kind of porch and additional peak in our roof at our front door. We just don't like the look of our "box" of a house.
What do you guys think?

If you haven't already done so, please go and check out my photo blog or flickr site!

Feekner photo

Mandy and I had dinner last night with some friends and I was told that they didn't know about my photo blog that I started so I just wanted to add a post so that anyone following this blog will know that I did indeed start a photo blog. Instead of getting into all of the details why don't you just go and check it out! Click here feekner photo or go to http://feekner.blogspot.com

Also, if you can't figure it out, feekner is phonetically how you say our last name. Well maybe not the true German way but it's how I pronounce it!

Here is a taste of my flickr site and some of the photos I've been taking. You can never have too much of the Masters and Augusta National.



Have a nice weekend!

Seattle's Newest Teacher

I'm happy to announce that Mandy has been offered a position at Seattle Christian School as their Art and Technology teacher position for high school and one middle school class. During the last 7 months of Mandy not having a job there have been a lot of challenges for both of us. There was a lot of questioning God and what His plans were for us.

When Mandy took the girls golf coach position at the same school I knew that she would do great with the kids. Mandy has a knack with kids and knows that sports is not about winning but having fun (Maybe I should listen to Mandy too). They did finish 7-1 so there was definitely fun and winning. I think she did a great job at this based on the comments I heard from some of her golf girls.




So when the Art teacher position opened up at the same school I knew it had to be God that set this up. Neither of us wanted to get our hopes up and so we prayed about it and tried to not talk too much about it. It seemed to good to be true. Mandy had her first interview a week ago and it sounded like it went well. Well they called a couple days ago and asked for a second interview. That's always a good sign! When she showed up they started talking as if she already had the job. Mandy was confused. They ended up offering her the job contingent upon follow up with her references. We knew that would be a slam dunk so today Mandy got the word. I'm very proud of my wife and so happy for her. This has been a long hard road for both of us and it's going to end with Mandy teaching art (which she loves) and coaching golf (which she loves) at a Christian school (which she loves). Congrats Mandy! You'll be the best teacher!

Bath time with Luke

Bath time with our nephew Luke. What a cute kid!