Christmas and the latest

Much has been going on around here lately. I've just been too busy to sit down and blog about it.

I have started my new job. I went to my bosses house Saturday and trained on actually sending through the credit card and eft/bank billing. I stayed there about 6 1/2 hours. One thing I love about my boss (among many, she's great.) is how she trains. She showed me how at first by telling me what to do and having me do it. Then she let me loose and had me do it myself. She let me make mistakes, so I could go back and correct them and learn from them. I left with tons of knowledge and really being exited about it. I love working on the computers and I love working with numbers, so this is right up my alley. On Monday I went and worked with one of the managers at the gym. She showed me a lot about how they use our system. She was extremely helpful, and that knowledge will definitely help when I'm tryin to figure out a problem in an account. Monday night and Tuesday morning I actually did some work from home. It was so nice. I clocked in and worked until I needed to do something else, then I clocked out when I needed to do something here and went back to working when it was convenient for me. It was great. It won't be like that for everything I do. There will be about 4 days a month that I have to get things done on a certain day by a certain time. I won't be doing any more work until Monday and will go do the second phase of the billing process with my boss again.

While I was at the gym on Monday, my kids were in the childcare area. Well, Mason has some loose teeth. The first one he lost in a totally crazy way, the second one I pulled and the third one he lost at the gym. He was trying to grab a ball and fell and just as he fell Keeli was trying to kick another ball and kicked him in the face. So, he lost his third tooth. He hates to wiggle his teeth or have them pulled. I'm beginning to wonder if something crazy is going to have to happen everytime, to get his teeth out.

I've also been doing a lot of sewing. I made my niece 2 more pillowcase dresses for Christmas. A friend came over and we sewed 4 aprons and I embroidered them with my embroidery machine (that just came home from the shop). I have since made 2 more aprons, embroidered those and 3 of our personal aprons and made wallets for the girls and embroidered those. I have so many other projects that I want to work on. I am going to make my sister-in-law a diaper bag, myself a couple of tote bags (a large one and one the size of the files I sometimes need to carry around with my gym stuff in it), and a wallet to keep up with receipts in my purse. I will try to post pictures after Christmas.

We have had some company over lately. I've had a few friends over during the day and we had a family over for supper one night. That's fun. It's one of my favorite things, it just seems that I rarely have time to do it.

We've also already had Christmas at my mom's. The girls and I each got nice sewing boxes, we were all very exited about. My sister-in -law sells Thirty-One products and she gave the kids cinch sacks with their names on them that we also love. The kids also got some toys that they love and the girls got some long sleeved leotards that they really needed. I gave my parents a collage frames with some of the awesome pictures that we have taken recently. It was a great day.

We still have to do Christmas with my Pappaw's family tomorrow afternoon and Friday morning we will be going to spend some time with Patrick's family. Please pray for that trip, for safety and peacefulness. It is often chaotic there and our beliefs are very different so it is sometimes a bit of a challenge.

On a personal note I want to encourage everyone to spend time this Christmas season really reflecting on all the Lord has done for you. He has really had me in a place of reflection lately and honestly it is overwhelming. I find myself wanting to sob at times, just from feeling so overwhelmed by Him. The idea that he found us, who are so unworthy, worthy enough to do all that He has for us. To deliver us from so many things, to change our family so drastically, to take control of our finances and bless us in such an amazing way, to bring such amazing friends into our lives that truly sharpen us, I could go on and on and on. We serve such an amazing God and I find myself so frustrated by how inadequate I am to be able to truly give Him all of the praise and honor and glory that He sooo deserves.

I pray you all have a truly blessed Christmas!!!

Bed and Breakfast Fiasco

I am very behind on my posting, so I'm going to work on updating.

The weekend after we renewed our vows, my brother and sister-in-law kept our kids and we headed to Mentone to stay in a bed and breakfast. We were planning on staying at DeSoto State Park. We have stayed in a Chalet there and I have stayed in the hotel and we were really pleased with both and the prices are great and so is the food. We really love all the scenery there. It is a gorgeous place and it's only about an hour from home. Well, I waited to long to book it and since it was the weekend after thanksgiving there were no rooms left. So, I ended up getting us into this bed and breakfast. The price was significantly higher, but we thought it would be worth it for the experience. Boy were we wrong!

First of all the day after thanksgiving I woke up early and went shopping. Then I headed home to finish packing and take a nap before we left. When I woke up from my nap I felt sick. Then it started raining. We get up the mountain just before dark and the inn was so neat looking from the outside. We had been told that that weekend was the beginning of the festival of lights, well that was a joke. There were hardly any Christmas decorations. So, we head inside the inn and it was freezing in there. I thought it was just because I didn't feel well, but Patrick snuck and checked the thermostat and it was 62* in there and the thermostat was set on 65*. Then we went into our room. It was tiny, but kind of cute and the innkeeper showed us the claw foot tub in the bathroom and it was dirty. Patrick thought it was stained, but I wiped it with my finger nail and it came off. GROSS! Inside the inn looked cluttered, dusty and not vacuumed. There were cheap silk flowers in our room, a very cheap looking comforter on the bed (and a gorgeous quilt folded up at the end of it, you would think they would have used that), a book laying on the bed called "A Secret Affair" and the towels in the bathroom looked like the towels that most of us keep around for spills and such. They were mismatched and had bleach spots on them and such.

The innkeeper had boasted to us about the "full breakfast" that was included. The first morning it was scrambled eggs, a half piece of bacon, grits, a biscuit (which I'm pretty sure was a frozen biscuit) and "orange juice" that tasted exactly like Sunny D and some weird kind of mashed sweet potatoes with black stuff in them that tasted completely burned. The next morning it was some kind of little pancake looking thing made out of the leftover grits (it was actually decent tasting), a leftover biscuit, scrambled eggs, another half piece of bacon and the same weird oj.

The whole time we were there I was getting more and more sick. Patrick watched the Alabama Auburn game while there and I slept on the couch next to him. When we got home I was in the bed for 3 days. On Saturday we went to a couple of flea markets (which weren't very good because of the rain) and an antique. We did eat at a couple of restraunts that we really enjoyed while we were there. Which reminds me one of these restraunts has amazing desserts and they are only open Thursday - Saturday. We ate there Saturday night and when they found out where we were staying they wanted to send some dessert with us, so they wouldn't have to throw it all away. There was hardly anyone else staying at the inn, but we took back 8 huge pieces of cake and two pieces of pie. I took the pie and left a note on the cake. The next morning all of the cake was gone. I'm pretty sure the innkeepers had taken it for themselves instead of sharing it with the guests.

So now for the weirdest thing of all. There was a car there that had the words "Ghosthunter" on the back. Just before we left I overheard one of the innkeepers and this man talking and apparently he and his girlfriend were staying there to try to contact ghosts. Creepy!!!

Anyway, it was such a pitiful trip that it is honestly funny. We will definitely go back to Mentone, but we will not be staying at "The Mentone Inn Bed & Breakfast".

I'm Heading Back Into the Workforce.....

sort of.

I received an email yesterday morning that actually took me off guard. A previous employer was offering me an oppportunity that most of us stay at home Mom's dream of. A job, workinng completely from home. I was really unsure if this was something that I wanted to take on. Between homeschooling and church we stay pretty busy and I am about to take on more responsibility in one of the departments at church. The interesting thing though is that I have recently been freeing up my schedule more so we could spend more time at home. I emailed her back and asked a few questions and asked her to call me. Within 15 - 20 minutes my phone was ringing and she was giving me all of the details. The company is a local fitness and tanning center. I worked their before as the coordinator over their children's area. I was responsible for all of the employees in the children's area. I took care of the hiring, discipline, scheduling, as well as dealing with parents if necessary. Since I would not be over a department this time I figured it would be less money and really was unsure it was worth it. Well, it isn't less money, it is significantly more money. This can be nothing less than the favor of God. So, I accepted and will be going in to fill out all of my paperwork today. I will be handling the billing for both gyms. I'll take care of running the billing through banks and credit card companies, charging NSF fees to accounts, notifying the office of memberships to cut off and taking care of pre-collection notices. It's expected that this will take me 12-15 hours a week. If at some point and time I decide that I can take on more responsibility, then they may give me more, but onlly if I ask for it. I am very excited about this new opportunity and am so amazed at how it all came to be. This could only be a gift from the Father.


On a side note I wanted to let you all know what I have done so far about the situation with the girls. First we are going to be minimizing contact with the one who is being intentionally rude to them. I also had some really long conversations with them during the storm the other night. I explained to them that they could not take these things personally because as the Word says "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks". If someone is speaking something ugly to them, then their is probably something ugly in their heart and that is their problem to fix (hopefully with the Lord's help), not ours. I also talked to them about how we(christians) will be known by our fruit and what the fruits of the Spirit are. I told them that if they did not see those fruits in someone then we should probably back away from that friendship. I also told them that they needed to look for those qualities in people and work to get to know people that exhibit them. Lastly, I explained to them that two Christians as friends sharpen each other "like iron sharpens iron". That they needed to be friends with people who were good examples so they could sharpen each other and that when we are friends with people who hurt us we are only allowing ourselves to be dulled by them. I told them that just because someone was not good friend material didn't mean that we shouldn't love them with the love of Christ. I explained that we should be kind to them, that they should see Christ in us and that we should pray for them, we just shouldn't try to be more than aquaintances with them. Those conversations went really well, but I was still feeling very unsure if I was handling it all correctly. So, yesterday afternoon I had to pick up something from the children's pastors (it is a couple) at our main campus and while I was there we had a conversation that was fabulous. It helped so much. Mostly she told me that she felt like I was handling the situation very well and all that we have done so far was putting us on the right track. (She also spoke to the girls, which I think helped a lot as well.) I feel much better about the situation today and just wanted to update you all on where we are with this.

I pray you all have a truly blessed day!

Girls....

If you've ever met my girls then you know that they are very thoughtful, sweet and pretty mild mannered. We definitely have issues at times, but they are usually very minor.

Well, they have never had a lot of friends, largely because in the areas that we have lived and gone to church in and homeschooled in, there just haven't been very many girls their age. When they do get together with other girls, they usually are peacekeepers and prefer that there is no conflict. They try to avoid it at all costs, even sometimes if it means bowing to whatever someone else wants. Well the last couple of years have been very difficult. They have had one "friend" that is just outright rude to them. She's very bossy, creates conflicts, has tried to pit the girls against each other and says hurtful things to them. For instance, my girls recently had their hair cut into styles that they chose. Everyone that has seen it has loved it, but this little girl told one of them that she didn't like her hair and then looked at the other and told her she did like hers. I have really worked on distancing them from this friendship, but there are unavoidable situations where they have to be around this person. Then they made some "friends" that I would call "fairweather friends". They can't decide who they want to be friends with from one minute to the next, as if it's only possible for them to be friends with one person at a time. They are constantly squabbling with someone, not my girls, but usually one of their other friends, so there is often turmoil in the group. Honestly, as a mother, this has been one of the toughest things to deal with.

I'm just tired of this whole situation. We have worked really hard at teaching our girls how to be good friends. We've taught them about treating other people the way they want to be treated and about getting to know the quiet kids as much as the outgoing ones. I even watch them in situations with their friends to see if their are areas they need to work on. It is absolutely unacceptable to me for them to say anything that would be hurtful to someone else. If they did, I would not think it was cute or that it is just a normal girl thing. I cannot for the life of me understand why any of us would stand by and accept that what is normal for the world has to be normal for our children as well. I refuse to accept that girls are just "like that" and allow my girls to develop those traits.

Here are a few words of advice and then I will get off of my soap box. If a behavior is not attractive in your child, it will be even less attractive in them as an adult and you have a much better chance of changing it in them now than you do when they are older. Instead of just disciplining in the moment, try to figure out the heart issue that is causing the unatractive behavior.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I am just feeling a little fed up at the moment and you know how us momma's feel when someone is hurting our children.

(Disclaimer: I by no means think that I have this parenting thing down pat. I make mistakes all the time and run into situations constantly that I don't know what to do with. I've second-guessed many decisions that I have made in the friend and how to be a friend department. It just seems to me that it shouldn't be too much to expect your child to be kind to others. That just seems so fundamental to me, maybe I'm wrong, but this is what's on my heart today.)

First Corinthians Christmas

I recieved this in an email and thought it good (and convicting) enough to pass along.

FIRST CORINTHIANS CHRISTMAS

IF I DECORATE MY HOUSE PERFECTLY WITH PLAID BOWS, STRANDS OF TWINKLINGLIGHTS AND SHINY BALLS,BUT DO NOT SHOW LOVE TO MY FAMILY,I'M JUST ANOTHER DECORATOR.

IF I SLAVE AWAY IN THE KITCHEN,BAKING DOZENS OF CHRISTMAS COOKIES,PREPARING GOURMET MEALS,ARRANGING A BEAUTIFULLY ADORNED TABLE ,BUT DO NOT SHOW LOVE TO MY FAMILY,I'M JUST ANOTHER COOK.

IF I WORK AT THE SOUP KITCHEN,CAROL IN THE NURSING HOME ANDGIVE ALL THAT I HAVE TO CHARITY,BUT DO NOT SHOW LOVE TO MY FAMILY,IT PROFITS ME NOTHING.

IF I TRIM THE SPRUCE WITH SHIMMERING ANGELSAND CROCHETED SNOWFLAKES,ATTEND MYRIAD HOLIDAY PARTIESAND SING IN THE CHOIR'S CANTATABUT DO NOT FOCUS ON CHRIST,I HAVE MISSED THE POINT.

LOVE STOPS COOKING TO HUG THE CHILD.

LOVE SETS ASIDE DECORATING TO KISS THE HUSBAND.

LOVE IS KIND, THOUGH HARRIED AND TIRED.

LOVE DOESN'T ENVY ANOTHER'S HOME THAT HAS COORDINATED CHRISTMAS CHINA ANDTABLE LINENS.
LOVE DOESN'T YELL AT THE KIDS TO GET OUT OF THE WAY, BUT IS THANKFUL THEYARE THERE TO BE IN THE WAY.
LOVE DOESN'T GIVE ONLY TO THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO GIVE IN RETURN BUT REJOICES IN GIVING TO THOSE WHO CAN'T.
LOVE BEARS ALL THINGS,BELIEVES ALL THINGS,HOPES ALL THINGS,ENDURES ALL THINGS.

LOVE NEVER FAILS.
VIDEO GAMES WILL BREAK,PEARL NECKLACES WILL BE LOST,GOLF CLUBS WILL RUST.BUT THE GIFT OF LOVE WILL ENDURE.

Sickly...

Ok, sorry I have not been blogging. There really have been things going on around here that are blog worthy, but I have been extremely sick since last Friday and just can't seem to get my thoughts together long enough to type them all out. Today I felt much better, but my kids have started coming down with it. Mason has been very sick today. His fever got up to 102.1 and that is really high for us. We have low normal temps and never run fevers. I can't remember the last time someone here had a temp. Anyway, I promise to update soon.

P.S. Apparently half of the world is sick right now. I highly recommend that you stay home if you can and wash, wash, wash those hands!