Wednesday, August 27, 2008

New schedule, exciting week!

I am really enjoying this new school schedule. Right now I have one child, and I will have one child tomorrow with Friday off. Next week will be pretty slow as one Mom and Dad are off to Florida and Grandpas and Grandmas are trading off watching the kids. I am here as needed, but the one Grandma wants to spend the time with them and so I may not see much of them at all.
The first football game of the season is Friday night. I am excited! Two of M and C's boys will be playing and we plan to pick up our activity tickets this year since we go to so many games. C will have his first 9th grade game and J will have his first Varsity game. I'm not sure, but he may be starting. I will definately have my camera and take LOTS of pictures!
Tonight is our first Awana night. We are having our picnic in the park. Maybe. It has been sprinkling off and on all day. I plan to have my camera ready and take LOTS of pictures there too. I have become the Awana paparazzi. I take tons of pictures and K puts them in a slide show at the end of the year so the parents can see what we have done and the kids get to see themselves on the "big screen".
I am in the middle of touching up the pictures I took of the outdoor service/baptism/back to school picnic I took with Photoshop. I still have pictures of the youth group's drama to download and touch up, and get the prints of the outdoor service to make up my poster for church. I am going to need this extra free time!
I'm also hoping to get some more reading done, and som knitting and cross stitch. Things that I have not been able to keep up with much with the crazy schedule that I have had for the last year! I am definately going to enjoy not being so stressed when it comes time to leave for away games and things like that. The family that left was constantly running late so I could never count on them being gone when I needed them to be to leave making life pretty stressful there for a while. Even if I gave them an earlier time giving them a bit of a cushioin thinking then I could be on time they would be late and we would just make it or be a bit late for things. With the days off I am getting these next couple of weeks I plan to go and visit some family that live about an hour away, but I don't get to see unless they come up here with my schedule and tomorrow C and I are trying to find a time to get together and do highlights in my hair (I work 10-2). Monday night B came and cut my hair, she went a bit shorter than I would have liked, but it will grow.....so if it doesn't look too bad I will try to post some pictures.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Another song from Bart Millard from his new Hymned Again album! I LOVE this album!

Just for fun


My creation
Originally uploaded by H3IdI


I found this when I was checking out a new blog and I thought it was fun. Here are the instructions if you would like to try it too.

1. type your answer to each of the questions below into flickr search.2. using only the first page of results, pick one image.3. copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into big huge lab’s mosaic maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.the questions:1. what is your first name?2. what is your favorite food? right now?3. what high school did you go to?4. what is your favorite color?5. who is your celebrity crush?6. what is your favorite drink?7. what is your dream vacation?8. what is your favorite dessert?9. what do you want to be when you grow up?10. what do you love most in life?11. what is one word that describes you?12. what is your flickr name?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

School year excitement!

I have definately come out of my funk haha! The last couple of days have been really productive days! I am loving having fewer kids and the time to relax and have fun with them! Yesterday I had two typing jobs to do for PM and an email to send out. I got the typing jobs drafted up and over to PM for him to check out and back home to make the changes he wanted. I just have to take them tonight to make copies for the meeting tonight that he needed them for.
Today I have taken down the alphabet wall that we did last school year with the kids. I also took down the little shelf with beanie babies and teddy bears that I had on that wall and got the pocket chart ready with a small border sheet of colors and one that has ABC and 123. I took some of the lined sheets that I got to put in the pocket chart and wrote my name and K's name and all the kids names and got them ready to put in too. I'll wait a week or so to put them in since I didn't write the names of the two that are leaving and don't want any hurt feelings.....
I also decided that I am going to start the kids with learning colors this fall. Then we can move on to numbers and letters if there is time. It will be a good start for the little ones who aren't preschool age and a good place to just get the preschoolers into sitting and doing worksheets and things at our house. I'm so excited! Almost like having my own little school!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Victory

I LOVE this! I preordered and just got my copy of Hymned Again in the mail today!! I haven't listened to the whole cd yet, but that is my plan tonight while I get my zone therapy treatment done on my feet!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Feeling better

Well, I have found my way out of my funk. Actually this weekend went very well. I got to spend some time with some friends and things are more comfortable in some cases and I was able to talk about one situation with another friend and now I feel better about some decisions that I made. I believed that I had made the right decisions, but it always helps to have someone back you up, you know?
Today is my last summer day with the kids, it's back to school tomorrow. My numbers will be alot smaller, I lose one family and in the other two families one or two of the kids go to school so I drop quite a bit. I am not ready to go looking for other families though, on no school days I could still end up with quite a few kids. If the right family came to me, I might take them though,and a couple of people know that and are keeping their eyes and ears open for me.
K just went out golfing with one of our friends and his son, and for me I have two hours of kids left and then it is off to fold and put away laundry and print some cards up, and maybe if I feel really productive tonight work on the pictures for the poster/slideshow of our outdoor service/baptism/back to school picnic.
Thanks Jen for the comment you left, it was nice to know that someone was reading and cared and understood! Hope you are feeling much better too!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Just me venting

I don't really know why but I am in a bit of a funk today. I'm tired, which doesn't help, but it is not the sole cause if it. I can't really pinpoint anything that I could say triggered it, but it started late last night and has continued into the morning today. I really hope that it gets better as the day goes on.
It also doesn't help that my ear hurts. It's an odd feeling, not a throbbing necessarily, but not a constant pain either. Every once in a while I feel a pain like someone is stabbing something into my ear. Yesterday it was the right ear and today it is the left. Ibuprofen seemed to help yesterday, I'll have to find some again this morning.
It's rainy looking outside today too. Not terribly dark, just cloudy and rainy looking, fits my mood I guess.
I know it sounds corny at 30 to be saying this, but I am sorting/finding things out about friends lately. True friends vs people who are just there to use you and/or move on when something better comes along. I did have a very good talk with one friend who was supposed to be like a sister and then took off and changed her personality quite drastically when a new girl moved into town, but things still just aren't the same between us. Things are strained between my bf and I, I just don't know where I stand, if they think the same of me or if something has changed, I know they have family issues so it could be more of that but just with my funk things are more magnified you know?
The kids are playing nicely, I ended up with a group of older kiddies today too, so they are pretty self sufficient, so I think I am going to try to go and spend some time reading my Bible and some time in prayer during naptime and hopefully I can bring myself out of this funk.
I appreciate it if you spent the time reading all of my blabbering and hope that you all are having a much happier and wonderful day!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

I know I haven't written again for a while, not alot goes on here really and who wants to come and read the same thing over and over again. I did get to go on a little road trip last night. It was the perfect day for it because I had a houseful of kids who were grumpy and I was starting to get grumpy! I went with a friend to drop off her son at another friend's house so he could get in a weeks worth of detasseling work. It was an hour drive one way and we just generally chit chatted on the way there, but on the way home we had some really good talks. I am ever so thankful for these sweet friends. They have taught me so much and I can never thank them enough for all that they have done for me.
We had VBS last week. Nine kids made decisons for Christ. It was a great week! We had great helpers and a great group of kids! One night we had 85 kids! And 24 of them were preschool/kindergarten age! Our missions project for the week was to use our offering to help the school in Parkersburg after it was destroyed in the tornado. We sent them over three thousand dollars! It was wonderful! They kid really focused on that and they were excited to win the individual prizes but they were most excited to hear the grand total that they were able to send to help other kids!

Monday, July 07, 2008

You are gentle, caring, quiet, dutiful, neat, dependable, modest, unassuming, and humble. You can be counted on to make sure everything is in its place, that people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and all the supplies have been secured.
You prefer to work behind the scenes, driven by a sense of obligation, often overworked for the benefit of others. You prefer tasks that are highly outlined, organized and practical. You fill your life with meaningful activities and schedule any down time. You enjoy helping any friend in need. You have a strong work ethic and can be critical of sloth, laziness and people who have possessions only through extreme indebtedness. All you’d like in return for all of your hard work is recognition and gratitude, neither of which you receive nearly in proportion to the effort and time you exert.
One of your greatest strengths is supporting family or group activities. Your contribution of cooking, cleaning, fixing or constructing is an expression of your love and loyalty to everyone present, and such labor is truly a pleasure for you to fulfill.


You were a model child. Relatively neat, sweet and conscientious, you were the child that every parent thinks they’re going to have. You may have openly disagreed or rebelled but if so it was short-lived and harmless and you were quick to accept the judgment of your parents along with any punishment they deemed reasonable.

Parenting, for you, is a lifetime commitment. You are protective, supportive and patient, often putting your children’s needs before your own.
You prefer not to make waves or attract too much individual attention. You go by the book and are suspicious of anyone suggesting that tried and true established methods should be revised or ignored.
You have a strong appreciation for antiques, traditions and heirlooms. You have a natural appreciation for and connection with your past and the people in your family tree. You find special joy in guarding old family artifacts regardless of their monetary value.
You put a lot of energy into maintaining your home. You keep things tidy, visually appealing and in working condition. You make sure your home is always well stocked with food and supplies. You take better care of your possessions than most types, cleaning, oiling, maintaining things so that they will always be nice, maintain their value, and function when needed. You want things to be sturdy and may replace something which isn’t broken if, after acquiring it, you realize that it’s of the new, shabbier quality.
You may or may not be a pessimist, but your speech is laced with reminders to realistically expect problems to arise. You are aware of the general dangers of living and are conscious of the fact that other people don’t heed your warnings as often as they should. You are also the first to point out to someone who seems surprised that they should’ve known that setbacks would occur.
In a marriage you are helpful and supportive of your spouse. You enjoy working on tasks together, or working on your specialties at the same time (one cooks while the other fixes the plumbing). As a parent you do all you can to ensure that your children are well behaved and hard working.

http://www.perex.com/index.php

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

I survived the inlaws visit. Things were a bit tense at times, but I had some good friends and my wonderful hubby to help me out! Saturday he left me with the house to myself! His parents went out to the fair to see his oldest brothers kiddos in the kiddie tractor pull and he took his youngest brother out shooting. I got quite a bit done, and just enjoyed the quiet! It was wonderful!
Yesterday was sort of a slow, blah day. I had seven kids to start with and then one of the Moms was sent home early so by naptime I was down to four. I put some laundry away and got caught up on some more. After the kids left we went out for a little drive and a little bike ride. After that we just crashed on the couch and watched tv. Exciting times lol!
Today has started out well, one of the Moms was told that she didn't have to come in, at least for the first four hours, she may have to go in later, or she may not have to go in at all. I got some more laundry done and I am getting ready to do some painting on the shelf for the kids artwork that I have been working on. I'll post some pictures when it's finished. I really need to post some pictures, I've said I would in other posts just haven't gotten around to it.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Thursday, June 26, 2008

A little vent....

Well, I haven't gotten to post as much as I would have liked lately, but my days have been filled with chasing kids and getting ready for the inlaws to descend on the house. Yeah. For most people that is no problem, but for me it will be loads of "fun". I was very thankful when K told me that he took tomorrow off. Once upon a time my mil and I got along, now it's another story. I really don't even know why things changed for sure, my guess is that it's because we stayed here when our plan was to move with them....until the candidating for churches was taking six to eight months and we still had no answers as to when or where we would be moving. We prayed about it, and talked about it, and as soon as we had an offer accepted on this house the inlaws got their church. K and I see it as a sign from God, that we were not supposed to move, that we were supposed to stay here. And I am VERY thankful that we did, I now have some WONDERFUL friends and have had some TREMENDOUS blessings and can not imagine my life without them!!!! I just wish that she could see it that way. Ever since she has been very vocal about just what I am doing wrong in my job and my marriage, how I should be cooking this or that from scratch, how I should be able to give my husband his haircuts like she does, how I should be sewing these curtains, like she is so disappointed that I am not the ultimate home maker like she is. And when K is proud of something that I have accomplished and tells her about it she always runs right into, well your sister did this one better, or one of your brothers has done that even better, I don't know if she means to or not, but it really hurts my feelings. I am getting better, with the help of my two best friends, to just let those things roll off my back and move on, and K has gotten a better understanding of just exactly how I feel so he has been my rock and given me alot of support too so I do really feel blessed, I just wish that things were better between my mil and I.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Heartbroken

Having a hard time getting through the day today. One of our Awana clubbers, eight years old, was killed in a tractor accident last night. It sounds like the kids (there are three in the family)were playing hide and seek and the little guy hid in the machine shed and Dad ran over him with the tractor. Please pray for this family during this difficult time.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Water, water, everywhere!

In my last post I wrote about how we had done a project for our good friend and Pastor with his wife. Well yesterday we got to do a project with him while his wife is away. Although, the project that I wrote about in my last post was much more fun....
The weekend started out quite normally, we were up late Friday night so we slept in and we decided that we were going to go and have lunch with my Mom for her birthday and spend the afternoon with them and go to a neighbor's graduation open house together. We had gotten some rain off and on throughout the day, just before the open house it had rained quite hard for a while but let up in time to go and visit for a bit. It was in the back of all of our minds, how high the water must be getting in the rivers, K and I had just been out to the local lake and seen how high the water was getting there and we both wondered how high it was after the last week, but we still weren't prepared for Sunday.
It started to rain hard Sunday evening. B and I even ventured out in the rain to pick up another friend for music practice at church since she and her hubby weren't too thrilled at the thought of her out driving in the rain. We were surprised at how it was puddeling along the sides of the road, and how it seemed to be just pouring out of the sky.
There was a break in the storm and we looked out the church windows and saw a beautiful sunset. The sun was peeking under the storm clouds and in a hole in the clouds it there was a beautiful golden glow. We were all in awe of this spectacular show the Lord was giving us!
We awoke to more rain and storms during the night, again surprised at how strong this rain was and the claps of thunder. Our shih tzu woke me up a few times because he was afraid of the storm and the power went out at least once, maybe twice. We woke up late and had to hurry to get to church on time for Sunday School, and when we got there we met PM pulling a shop vac out of his van. Not a good sign. We had some issues with water in the basement at church before, but PM said that this was the worst ever. We planned to come back after church and work on clean up but we quickly found that it was more of a job than we were expecting. Water just came pouring back in as soon as we could get it cleaned up. We have gotten so much rain the water table is extremely high and water is coming in wherever it can. We have never had water in our basement and we had eight to ten inches Sunday afternoon. K and my Dad got a pump and emptied the basment out three or four times. They ran uptown to get a new pump (at first we were borrowing one from my Dad's work place) and in the half hour they were gone it filled up again. The lake in town was terribly flooded.
While we were cleaning up at church we got a call that PM's house now had water in the basement. They have a finished basement where the tv and the computer are so we hurried over there and spent hours trying to get ahead of the water with no end in sight. Finally about ten or so we quit for the night and have plans to go back and clean up the at least three inches that are standing on the floor now. There are stories from all over the area of water in basements that have never had water before, flooding, no power, and in some areas not being able to use the bathroom or drink the water. Thankfully the rain has stopped for now, but it sounds like we are in for more later in the week. Fun.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Well, here I am again. I really don't know where to start again, so I guess I will tell you about the big project that we had going on last week....
We have gotten to be good friends with our Pastor and his family, so much so, in fact, that we think of them more as family than friends. With K's family living nine hours away and my family living close in distance but not being that close bond wise it has been such a blessing to have them in our lives!
Well, our Pastor was going to be away for a week at a conference and then visiting some family and friends in that area, so his wife decided that it was the perfect time to remodel his office! K and I were all for it! Pastor has been working out of the living room of the old parsonage that sits beside the house and it was supposed to be cleaned and painted before he moved his office over there (it was in a small room behind the old kitchen in the church, but when they remodeled that he was moved over to the old parsonage). That cleaning and painting never got done, so we decided to do it now. We had a great time! The three of us got the painting and carpeting done as well as new outlet covers and K did some work with grounding the outlets, spray painted the furnace vents and hung pictures even with Pastor deciding to come home a day early! He was shocked when he saw what we had done, he just kept saying "Wow!" and just looked around in shock. I got his reaction on video too! It was great!
Now the unfortunate part is that he can't find some things, which has caused a bit of a wrinkle in planning for the wedding coming up this weekend, but he isn't too upset or worried about it, we just go to plan B.
If I can get everything to cooperate I will try to remember to post some pictures when I get them downloaded from my camera!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Wow, it has been a LONG time since I have written! Alot has gone one, real life caught up with me and last week I had a big project I was in on that was alot of fun. I have still been reading others blogs, just not posting on mine, and I saw that Jennifer from 2 Bee's Hive had started a new blog and was offering to "remodel" other people's blogs, so I left her a comment on her design blog, Jenieshell's Design Challenge~click on the button over to the right and it will take you to her blog~and after several emails this is what she came up with! I LOVE it! She has done quite a few blogs now and does a great job using your input and putting something together that suits you and the look you want for your blog. Go and check her out! Thank you so much for all of your hard work Jennifer! I really appreciate it!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

What Be Your Nerd Type?
Your Result: Social Nerd
 

You're interested in things such as politics, psychology, child care, and peace. I wouldn't go so far as to call you a hippie, but some of you may be tree-huggers. You're the type of people who are interested in bettering the world. You're possible the least nerdy of them all; unless you participate in other activies that paled your nerdiness compared to your involvement in social activities. Whatever the case, we could still use more of you around. ^_^

Literature Nerd
 
Artistic Nerd
 
Musician
 
Gamer/Computer Nerd
 
Drama Nerd
 
Science/Math Nerd
 
Anime Nerd
 
What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes for MySpace

Thursday, February 21, 2008

This week has been one of those weeks that I really dislike doing childcare. The kids are crabby because they aren't able to play outside and their regular schedule is disrupted with all the late starts, early dismissals, and cancellations in school with the winter weather, I am cranky because I am cooped up with cranky kids all day and I can't get out of the house for the activities I would like to do and need so I can destress after my day, and I have a family who promised to catch up on their daycare bill this week who has not even mentioned payment to me, so I am forced to send a notice home that unless I receive a payment (not asking for the whole amount mind you, just a payment on the account)by drop off Monday morning that I will suspend childcare. I have NEVER had to do this before in all my years of childcare, but they are so far behind and after weeks, and actually months of empty promises to pay I can't take it any longer. I am just afraid that if/when I suspend childcare they are going to find someone else and I am going to have to eat a large loss. Calgon take me away!!!!!!!!

Friday, February 08, 2008

Holli stopped over and asked how I was doing with my goals and I realized how long it really had been since I had come in to post a blog entry! I have kept up pretty well with my goals. I wish I had done better with pictures, but I have still taken more than I have in a long time, which is keeping my goal, but there are still blocks of days where I don't take any pictures at all. Winter is not my friend. I just feel so uninspired. I'm working on it though.
As for my daily Bible reading I am doing wonderfully! I have read every day in January and so far every day for the month of February. At least one chapter,and some days two or more. I have also started reading a book that I started last year and never got very far in. It is Jesus Freaks by dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs. I am only in the introductions but quite a few things they have said have hit home.
The daycare kids have caused alot of fun and craziness around here....I'm just glad that all days are not like Monday was! The day started out pretty well, things just piled up to make it one long day. A couple of the families had Super Bowl parties so the kids were crankier than normal because they were up later than normal and one of my mild mannered boys threw temper tantrum after temper tantrum and was just unhappy in general. The baby was clingy and trying to get anything else done was not happening. I tried to empty the dishwasher one of my serving bowls was in the top shelf and when I opened the door and pulled the shelf out and it shattered into a million pieces. A couple of large pieces fell into the motor of the dishwasher and I had to wait for K to come home and get the pieces out so I could run it again leaving me with a sink full of dirty dishes from lunch. The kids got out of school early and I got two extra school agers and found out that they had not eaten lunch at school like they should have and scrambled to find them lunch, which they only picked at anyway. We had spaghetti for lunch and I just had the baby wearing his diaper because I knew he would be a mess and after getting the big kids cleaned up and watching a cartoon I took him upstairs to give him a bath quickly. The bath went well and he was quite happy splashing in the water and didn't fuss when I took him out of the tub. I wrapped him up in a towel and tucked him in my right arm to bring him back downstairs to dry him off and get him dressed and I pushed off of the toilet as I was getting up because my back has been bothering me a bit and when I did the toilet seat slid sideways breaking the hinge off and cutting my pinky finger in the process. I finally get a bit of a break during naptime and when the kids wake up the fusiness begins all over again with Miss A and when her Dad comes to get her and her brothers he picks her up and asks her what the problem is she proceeds to puke all over him three times! We get that cleaned up and the boys Dad comes to get them and tells me that there is a schedule change and I may have the boys the next day causing a conflit with the plan to drive to the basketball game in Waukon so we would have four wheel drive since the weather would be questionable but we could deal. Everyone leaves and Casey (the shih tzu) decides to puke up the entire contents of his stomach right behind my chair at the computer! I told K that I didn't care where we went but I was LEAVING THIS HOUSE BEFORE I GO COMPLETELY CRAZY! Things finally settled down and I ended up having no kids on Tuesday and got some more cleaning and sanitizing done and only working for a couple hours yesterday getting caught up on laundry and a few other projects that needed to be done. We had a make up basketball game last night so we delayed prayer meeting for a half an hour so we could watch one of the boys play. We have another game tonight. Saturday brings the tearing down of the old shed at church, Awana quizzing practice for a couple hours in the afternoon, meeting with PM to go over powerpoint sometime, and getting Sunday School done. Sunday we have church and then leaving quickly after that to go to another basketball tournament and we will miss the evening service. Basketball season is almost over but then something else will take the place of those games that we have been going to, guess I stay out of trouble that way!
Well, the animals at the zoo are calling so guess that's it for now. Hugs!