Ramblings on a Tuesday

Josh started at Tire Kingdom yesterday, and I think he is happy to be back.  He has his work cut out for him with some of the guys there, but he and the district mgr have plans, and he seems to respect Josh's knowledge and experience which is awesome! He works late tonight which is odd to not have him home already, but in a way I am kind of enjoying it....the kids are in bed which means that I have almost 2 hours to myself to get things done, play on FB and blogger, maybe even have a cup of tea while I read a book.....Dont get me wrong, I love spending time with my hubby, but his late nights give me "me time" and I will enjoy it when I can! :)
My brother and his family are coming to visit next week!!  I am so excited! I havent seen them since thanksgiving, and thats way too long of a time!!!  My SIL is due sept 10 with their third baby  (its a GIRL!!!!)  I love watching the cousins play together. it can be months apart, but they pick up where they left off and its so neat to watch! Hopefully my parents will share CHristopher and Julie a little bit, but either way spending time with them however it may be, is still great!!
I know I tend to whine, and rant and rave about where we live (HATE IT)  Its not where we want to be, but its where God wants us for now and we are dealing with it......anyway, over the weekend, I heard about 1 place that might have an opening which would be great! great location, great neighbors, not in burlington.....then yesterday out of the blue, our property mgr called telling us that one of the places we inquired about literally 3 months ago (and never heard back from him either way) was available, and it is ours if we want it, they have to clean and do paperwork, blah,blah,blah....so in less than 3 days we have the option of 2 places...I havent seen the inside of one of them, but if they are even close to ours in a heartbeat Im out of here!!  wed have our own entrance, these places are not even 2 years old, small yards, porch, park....just need to find out what they are like inside, and how much,if any storage they have.....
I will keep you posted, but I am so excited to have an option.....an affordable option, that gets us out of burlington, and this apartment!!  Now, I have to go, the neighbors are cooking,and I need to go light a few candles, and turn the a/c back on  :)
Happy tuesday!

my inspiration.....

Quick blog right now....I have a friend who also blogs......actually she is the one who told me that I should start blogging :)
Anyway, she is not only a blogger, but a mommy to two awesome kids (that she takes lots of pictures of, and they are soooo photogenic!!) as well as she is working on writing a book (that I cant wait to read someday)
She is doing a giveaway on her blog, and I thought that I would share her link for those of you who dont already follow her...I would love to win the giveaway too, but even if I dont its a great way to get her blog out there. So check her out...heres the link:
http://www.deannajsmith.com/2012/07/baby-bash-giveaway.html

Today I was inspired by a simple voicemail message.  Im not going to go into details right now, but basically it showed me that I should not give up, becuase when we least expect it, what we have been hoping for can fall in our laps :)

my brave girl

I was in total awe of my daughter today.  Not only did she do a great job of only eating jello and popsicles until 10:30  ("Mom I have to take a drink quick, its 10:29!!) , she did not complain about not being able to eat either....well, except for when someone (caleb) started taunting her with pretzels...
She was brave at registration, she talked with the nurses, and answered questions.  We had one minor meltdown when it was time to change into the hospital jammies, but that was short lived thanks to daddy making her laugh....She rode to surgery like a princess--reclining back in her bed arms out . very regal.
She held my hand and let them hold the mask to her face, calmly looking at me until she fell asleep....thats where I almost lose it, giving you unconcious child a kiss and then leaving....thankfully they have a nurse bring me out which helps keep it together a little better.
we met with the dr  (her adenoids were very large) who said everything went perfectly, and we could head to recovery to see her....we walked down the hallway to find her "room"  she was covered head to toe in blankets, all we could see was her little face, still sound asleep...she was cold so they had to cover her up....after a bit the nurse started uncovering her to start her waking up.  All of a sudden she sits right up and asked me "whats next mommy?"  I had to explain that she was all done and just had to wake up and then we could go home...after some juice and a popsicle and a little tv time she was thrilled to get to ride in a wheelchair out to the car.(she cried when she realized we didnt take the wheelchair home with us)
after getting carried in the house, we got her all snuggled in on the couch with a movie and some sherbert, and she started getting some color in her cheeks and getting chattier and chattier :)
Grammie and Boppy brought caleb home and of course brought her some presents, and some of grammies ice tea (athena specfically requested it)
Now my princess is snoozing peacefully in bed, where hopefully she will sleep well all night, and wake up feeling more like herself.
I just cant get over how well she did!!  My girl who has such anxiety over a regular dr appointment did better than I ever thought she would do!  So many friends and family were praying for her and I know that helped, but I am just so proud of my princess!!
Im too tired tonight to post pictures, but I will try to get some up this weekend :)

Superstitious.....I hope not!

Tomorrow my baby girl has surgery for the first time.  After having over 17 sinus infections in the last year the decision was made that we take her adenoids out and pray that this works for my poor little peanut!!
When we scheduled this surgery the choices were tomorrow Friday July 13th or the end of august...we picked tomorrow becaue I want her to be 100% and ready for school, instead of recovering from surgery and starting first grade...Thankfully I am not superstitous, but still a part of me cringed when we scheduled it.
I am more nervous about it than I thought that I would be.  I have gone through two surgeries with Caleb,(tubes,tubes and adenoids), was by myself for one of them, and did fine, but I am so VERY thankful that josh will be with me tomorrow...The hardest part (other than holding her until she falls asleep) will be keeping her from eating all day...she can have clear things like jello and juice until 10:40am, and then nothing until after surgery which right now is scheduled for 2:40.....  Plus the whole mom thing, you know, being the strong, calm one no matter what, and thats not easy....
Yes, I know this is considered "minor" surgery, and feel blessed that so far this is the worst we have had to go through, but its still not easy...that's my baby girl, and I just dont want her to have to suffer for any reason.
So, if you think of us between now and tomorrow, please say a little prayer for my little girl to be brave, and obedient (not eating food), and for me and Josh as we stay as brave and calm as we can be for our little princess tomorrow.
---(I just got off the phone with the dr office, and they will call us if there are any earlier cancellations in the morning....I am praying that whoever is scheduled at 11am will cancel and we can get there sooner)--------
I will try to keep you posted as to how everything goes and how my girl is doing tomorrow night....Thanks in advance for your prayers!!

repost condensed changes...again

I guess that I was too open in my last blog post, so I first need to apologize to my husband, who thought I shared more than I should have...I am sorry.

Josh got a new job and starts a week from saturday.  Its very exciting, and I am happy for him.

Changes........again :)

Ok, so I posted a couple of days ago that there were some good changes happening...well I need to apologize for getting people overly anxious since its probably not going to seem all that exciting to some of you out there, but here goes.....

Josh  (took a break from the automotive industry)  has been doing landscaping for a few months and enjoying the work, being outside, working with friends etc...the down side was that he took a slight cut in pay.  I started selling jewelry as a second job to try to make extra money to put toward the kids tuition etc (which is harder to get started than I thought)...we had been praying about what he would want to do , where to apply etc...feeling kind of discouraged and honestly a little stressed out seeing the money in the bank become less and less while the bills stayed the same.

Tuesday afternoon (July 3) Josh got a "random" phone call. It was one of the guys that he worked with at tire kingdom. The store manager (that had,had issues with Josh when he was there last year) tossed his keys at the desk and walked out.  They wanted to know if Josh would come back and be the service manager......Josh came home and we talked about it, and decided that yes he needed to talk to them, and at least apply. If nothing happened it wasn't meant to be, (but what a compliment to Josh that they guys who were there thought to call him when they needed someone)  but if it worked out, that would be great, he LOVED working there, and the guys that he worked with are great guys.  he did the online application and had a phone interview scheduled for Friday. He was offered service manager position (IF he passed an aptitude test online) which would be a raise from what he was making before when he was there, plus commission and bonuses. If he didn't pass the test he would be hired for sales which would be close to the same pay he is making right now, but with commission and bonuses.

We decided either way he should take the test and accept either position there.  He needed to find a 'career', and this seemed the way to go.  He took the test saturday night. Sunday afternoon he heard from his district manager that he not only aced the test but aced it with flying colors :)  So we became even more excited about this "random" phone call that was turning into a career move for him.

Monday he gave his 2 week notice, and it went ok.....no one blew up at him, or threw him out of the shop, or cursed him out (yes all those things have happened in the past to Josh) .

IThe atmosphere in our house feels calmer.....The level of stress feels like it decreasing, and our happiness feels as if it is increasing....please do not misunderstand and think that our happiness is dependant upon money.
 There are just things that we were starting to get nervous/frustrated/discouraged about: we were not able to take our vacation to Michigan to visit family (hopefully sometime late fall we might make it out there) kids school--there was no way we could add school and preschool tuition to our bills and had not yet enrolled the kids for the fall.  Now we will be able to enroll the kids for the fall in school where we know they will get a great education, and they will be safe while they are in school too!

Even Joshs demeanor has changed.  I know that he had been feeling discouraged about the lack of money, and it was affecting him more than either of us really realized.  One of the first things he said Sunday after we heard he got the manager position was "I feel like I can actually take care of my family again"  I didn't realize how much it had been bothering him until he said that.  I know it might sound silly, and maybe even petty but I am so excited that we will be able to go on a real date soon.  We haven't really had a dinner and a movie while paying a babysitter kind of a date in ....well I'm honestly not sure, its been that long!!  :)

So, in a nutshell, Josh was offered a great job, doing something that he not only loves, but is good at too! a week from Saturday will be his first day back at Tire Kingdom, so go see him for tires, oil changes and  anything else your car might need!   :)
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I put the word random in quotes because we realize that nothing that happens, happens randomly.  We have been able to step back and see how God has been working and showing us that he will take care of us no matter what, we just need to trust him.  It wasn't random that the store mgr quit, it wasn't random that the sales team called Josh to see if he would be interested in coming back, it wasn't random that Josh not only passed that test, but aced it, it wasn't random that when he gave his notice it went ok, and no one tried to kill him lol!  seriously though, and I'm not trying to be preachy, if nothing else, this has been a lesson to me to trust God more.

So, that was my news....and thanks to all of you out there who have been praying, and I know will continue to pray for us. we appreciate it!

friday...yay!!

Yesterday I posted the words to a song that has got me through a lot lately....I can't go into the details too much yet, but had a very encouraging phone call, which led to an encouraging evening.  Again, I am sorry that I cant go into much detail and this is so vague...I should be able to post more by the end of the weekend.....
It just amazes me how the Lord  just keeps taking care of our family, in ways that we just dont deserve.  Just when we start thinking how on earth are we going to ..........   he shows us, and works in ways that are just amazing.
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So, I have been gluten free for almost 2 weeks, and this morning hesitantly weighed myself...I have lost 5 pounds so far!  I know it sounds silly, but I was so excited!!!  No matter what I have done, tried, or taken since caleb wasa year old I have not been able to lose weight....I guess being hungry, and not eating my carbs has been worth it....I m gonna keep trying this....hoping to find some recipes and some gluten free crackers/bread....to fill in the gaps when Im hungry...

Stay tuned, and I will be able to explain the above post soon....

This Storm

                                                 
Lately I have felt like I have been in a storm....so many trials,and uncertainty, and it seems like just when I start to feel like its just not worth the fight anymore, I turn on pandora or k-love and this song will come on....I wish there was a way that I could put the music to the words on here because it makes it that much more powerful.  
Just knowing that even though I might feel like I am the only person going through something hard, I am not alone, and for that I am so thankful!




                                                     "Praise You In This Storm"

I was sure by now
God You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

[Chorus:]
And I'll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I remember when
I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to you
And you raised me up again
My strength is almost gone
How can I carry on
If I can't find You

But as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

[Chorus]

I lift my eyes unto the hills
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
The Maker of Heaven and Earth

[Chorus x2]