Introducing "Health & Wellness Wednesday"!

Welcome! I have decided that the knowledge I have gained over my past college career (so far) is too important not to share! SO, every Wednesday, I am going to do my best to post a blog about Health & Wellness. My degree (Health Promotion- emphasis on fitness) and thus skill/knowledge set is very broad concerning H & W, so there will be much variety! Much of my training is in preventative medicine, but I have also gained much knowledge in disease management (which is one of my favorite parts :) ) I would also encourage any topic requests or specific questions! In turn, I would love to hear your comments! Remember, every one is different, various things work for various people. If you have requests/questions please feel free to leave them in a blog comment post, or facebook me! Of course if you have any questions you would like me to answer to only you, then facebook msg me or email me (jlhartwig29@gmail.com) and I will do my best to get back to you! Hopefully this is something you enjoy and will find helpful! If not, it's my passion, so bear with me :) Thank ya!

Always Keep (your) HeART (strong!) ......Jennifer :)

Christmas Crafting :)

One of the funnest things about starting a family (yes, you can start a family without having kids...haha) is that we get to start our own traditions! One tradition for us is having a picture Christmas card :) Part of it, is the fun of actually being able to send a christmas card....but I just enjoy being able to show how we have changed...meanwhile sending some love to our closest family members. I wanted to be able to display these in my home every year to show how our family has grown and changed! So, I came up with this little diddy...

It says "A Very Merry Hartwig Christmas" On the back of the "hanger/plaque" thing, I have attached a long piece of twine. You can't see the bottom, but I simply knotted it up, this way I just let some of the twine out as I add to it with more cards :)...Also I'm planning to get the mini clips and adding the year on each one!

This was quite simple to make. The background is a fan...of which you can find the directions to make Here! Then I simply decorated the scrapbook paper and glued it on! OOBER simple..and now I have something to display MY family at christmas...not just everyone else's lovely faces, although one of my favorite things is opening up all the christmas card that come in the mail! 

Anyway, thanks for stoppin by! Always keep HeART...and Christmas faces :)

Rollercoaster of Career Paths...

Hello! You know you haven't blogged for a long time when my goggle chrome doesn't recognize it right away. ha! Due to my senior year, I haven't kept up with this here blog. Might be time, but probably more because after writing papers all the time, it's the last thing I want to do.Anyway, I thought I would share with you what's been going on in our career paths as of the end of the summer. It's been quite the rollercoaster!


*Let's go back a little further. During our first year of marriage, life and careers took turns and twists and we both found ourselves starting the summer of 2011 in our original summer jobs that we swore we would never return to. But God worked. David was able to bring Zach on at Agri-tech, which was a real blessing for him. I was able to help a new boss get going at faith, plus I made two very good friends! Tashika and Liz! Scratch that-3... Ceceilia (my new boss) of course!In the end, we were both thankful God put us where he did.


*SO, At the beginning of the summer I received a phone call from a friend asking if she could give David's number to someone who was in need of a Property Manager for his rental business. I of course said yes! David met with the man, and they temporarily agreed but David couldn't start til the end of the summer. SO basically we were stoked out of our minds that David would get such an amazing opportunity and that God showed us this at the beginning of the summer, so David wouldn't stress out about having a job for the fall.


*David ended his summer at the end of August, and had quit Lowes permanately that spring, and was ready to become a property manager! Then the thing that you never want...He could not get a hold of the man for 2 weeks. He finally met with him, they agreed to a 6 month plan where David would slowly take over the business and made it "official"...but didn't sign anything. Over the course of the next two weeks, we started our management company, we decided to keep the truck for work purposes -even though we had originally decided to sell the truck when we get a new car. I say two weeks, because it happened again. We couldn't get a hold of him. David fiinally did, where they met at 7AM for breakfast, contracts in hand. David came home a half an hour later. Business deal officially off. The man no longer needed him. I will never forget the feeling of my heart falling into my stomach when I heard that door open at 7:30AM. 


*We bummed out for a few minutes than we started talking about how God must be protecting us from something. We were also wary of a few small but potentially big issues with the person, so we could see how we may have dodged a bullet. But we were left answering the question, WHY?? The entire time, we felt like this experience was such a GOD thing. He orchestrated it to fall into place. We found out at a great time, as to eliminate stress on David. We made decisions we wouldn't have done otherwise. But our greatest issue was wasted time. Not only did we miss out on a months worth of pay, but it meant more days without pay while David searched for a job. We just don't understand it all. Yes, God definitely could have used this blimp in our life to perfect timing, and to help us make decisions we wouldn't have otherwise. But still...why this? Why get our hopes up to a level I never thought existed...then this??? I know there's a reason...but for now I wait and trust my God.


*Where are we now? Well David got a job at Wells Fargo as a Loan Document Specialist and just got home from his 3rd day. Insurance, pay we need and great hours. Praise the Lord! I am even more thankful for his summer job that carried us this fall while he didn't work. The week we got our new car (a week before school started), God worked it out for me to get a nanny job! It has worked out perfectly! It has been such a blessing. In other news, BIG news, I just got offered an internship position with the medical programming director at the YMCA Healthy Living Center of DSM. SO stoked. God really worked in that too. My dad is really good friends with the Head director there, who is a Christian. Come to find out he is on our board for my major, so I snagged him when it was time to do mock interviews. Thankful that my Dad was kind to the man! Here I am...an intern :) I start next semester!


*Thanks to everyone for praying for us as we journey through this part of our lives! Have you been through a time you didn't understand and asked God "WHY?"...How did you handle it? What did you discover? I would really appreciate your input!