This and That

Hey, I am still not keeping up with my blog very well. Well we took the sign down Monday. It was really a relief in a way. Now we just wait on Cory's job situation. He probably won't know anything till June. Anyway, I have been making out my calender for spring till the end of the year. I have so much going on. I have started planning for next years school year and we have decided to bring Kara home for school. I love looking at new curriculum and books and teacher stuff. I should have been a teacher. I was always the kid who loved to get the new school box each year with new pencils and crayons. I still love that. We have a couple of used book fairs coming up in April and convention in May. I love to go to those and look around. I am making my list slowly of what I need for the girls next year and hope to find some good bargains on used stuff. We will have spring break next week since Kara will be out of school. We are just going to hang out around home till Thurs. Then we are going to Dallas to the American Girl store to eat brunch and shop, then on Friday we will be going to Old City Park for folk days there. I hope the weather will be nice. We are going to stay with my dad. I am ready for a break even though our school at home has really slowed down.

God showed up

Yesterday was a hard day for me but the Lord showed up. Everyone knows we have been trying to sell our house, coming up on 10 months now, and have had no success. During this time Cory has applied for two jobs and did not get them, which is good because they were out of town. We have been waiting for God to show us where we would end up and where we should move and asking him to protect us and guide us in the direction we should go. Yesterday Cory came home and said there is some restructuring going on in his company and he will have to apply for another job in Tyler. So, we have decided until all of this is over we are going to take out house off the market for now. Meanwhile, I was watching Oprah yesterday. I don't watch her much anymore since she has gone wacky with this new age thinking of hers, but yesterday was about the faces of the recession so I thought I would watch it. It was about middle class Americans all over the U.S. who have lost their jobs and homes and are now homeless or living in shelters. It was so sad. This is happening more in the West right now but eventually it will trickle down to everyone. How it hit me that I should be thankful for what I have, but then it made me think about why are we moving. We want a bigger house in a better neighborhood but why. It would be nice when we have people over to entertain or when family comes and stays with us but is it necessary? I don't know the answer to that but the Lord did show up and tell me that he cares about my hurts over this situation. I laid down to read last night, my new little book my secret sister gave me called Divine Moments. I just "randomly" opened the book and the section was on disappointment. God spoke to me through this book. He said life is full of disappointments but we do not need to dwell on them, this will make you a depressed, grumpy, sad person. He is in control of what happens to us and it will happen at just the right time. He is the God of hope and will never leave us. I just cried, he had showed up and spoke directly to me through this book. What an amazing feeling that the God of the universe does care about me and my silly feelings about a house and where we live. Cory will not know anything about his job till the middle of the summer, so in the mean time we will wait and pray, and know that the Lord has a plan for us that he will reveal in his own timing.

Alone would be good

I am ready for some alone time! My daughter Emma has been talking non stop for days! She needs to get more friends to talk to. I like my piece and quiet(not really good for a homeschool mom). She talks, sings, hums, whistles, and talks some more. I cannot get any simple answer, it has to be a long long story about how we got to this question in the first place then she may answer it. What will the teen years hold if this is how it is at 9 1/2? Cory and I have a date night tonight. It is PNO at church so we are going to eat and who knows what else. I hope he doesn't have a lot to say!

Neglected

I know I have not posted on my blog for a couple or three weeks, but I do have over 85 friends on facebook now! It has been great to get reacquainted with old HS friends and youth group friends and college friends on facebook. Now I have got to learn how to keep up with it all. Nothing has happened with the house in a couple of weeks. We did have to replace the floor in the bathroom and reattach the toilet where it had come loose and leaked under the flooring. There again, what a handy husband I have, he did it all. Now we have to repair a piece of the patio cover that blew off, but he can do that too. We got signed up for Pine Cove day camp this summer. We are going week 10 and I will be the camp nurse again for castle rock and both family camps. I HATE driving back and forth to Tyler everyday, but it was better than writing that $450 check it would have been for camp. We also have decided to go to Disney World in September. We have invited my mom and sister go go with us. They are still deciding but we have locked in our dates. I am so excited and the girls are too. We went in 2005 when Kara was 3 and Emma was 6. We are getting the dinning plan free again and so we can do all sorts of character meals. I can't wait. I have started walking everyday. I have got to loose some of this weight I have put on in the last year and get in shape if we are going to walk around Disney. I am going to the Dr. next month for a check up too. Well, that should catch you up on us and I will really try to do better about blogging. It really is kind of fun and therapeutic.

More curves in the road

Well, more upcoming changes ahead. Cory found out yesterday that two more job opportunities are going to open up for him. One is in Tyler and one is in Mineola. He has the best chance for the one in Mineola. His boss told him yesterday to get ready for the move. Cory said we could live in Lindale. I do not want to move out of Longview. That is not what I had in mind when we decided to move. I am sure tired of all this uncertainty. I am ready for some concrete plans and actions. Now I get ready to wait and see what will happen. The thing about the state(who Cory works for) is that they do not get in any hurry. This could be a three or four month process. When you read this, just shoot up a prayer for us, that God will guide us in the direction he wants us and closes doors to the things we should not do.

Back from Camp!

Well, we made it back from Pine Cove Scrapbook Camp. We all got a lot done. I got 32 12x12 pages done. Now I am done with 2007 pictures and my Christmas album is all caught up too. I don't know how many people were there but we all did 2300 pages the entire weekend. This is about my ninth year to go. I always have a great time of fellowship and renewal with my friends I don't get to see that much during the year. It is really great to have such great Christian mentors to visit with. I love you girls! We were all tired when we got back. I slept till 10am today. Cory and Kara were home for MLK day so we all slept in. Cory had to go to the office for a couple hours so I sent Emma with some of her school work so she could keep on track, and Kara and I are here at home just messing around. It is always good to have one on one time with each kid especially since I feel like I don't see her as much because she goes off to school. Well, it's back to the everyday stuff I guess. No news on the house yet either. Blessings!

Hey, I just wanted to give a shout out and say Emma is in the paper today! She was so excited. It is a great picture in the sports section. We are trying to get school done today before we go to art class. I was a little lazy yesterday and we did not get everything done I wanted to, so we are rushing today. I am going to Pine Cove tomorrow for scrapbook camp so I am getting ready for that too. This is the sixth year I will be going. I just love it. We spend the whole weekend there and can scrap, eat and sleep when we want for three days. They feed us, take care of all our needs, we have skits and devotionals with worship time too. You can even get a massage if you want and go horse back riding. It is a great trip every year. I hope to get alot done and at least get finished with 2007 family album. I woke up this morning and decided I need a hair cut too. I just do that. I don't have a regular hair dresser I go to (you probably could tell that) I just go where ever. I need to fit that in before I leave tomorrow too. Too much to do, especially when your lazy one day out of the week. When I get back Monday, I will let you know how many 12x12 pages I get done. I hope it is alot!

Well, we went to look at houses yesterday. There are a lot FSBO that we had not seen, so that made us feel better that if we had to move now there are some options. We have had one couple very interested in our house and several showings over the last week. Cory is going to have to apply for another job in Tyler soon and we will start that whole four month process again. We just keep praying for the Lords timing and that he will guide us in the right direction.
Since we have had our house on the market, I decluttered our house to make it look neater. That means alot of stuff in now in the garage. I am going to have a big garage sale when spring roles around. I read an article somewhere over the holiday that said kids are really more interested and remember the things you did with them, like trips, family outings, and fun things at home, more so than all the stuff they had. I want to implement that this year by doing more things with them instead of wasting money on little things here and there and trying to make a birthday list for the relatives. I want to go camping sometime when it gets warmer, and over spring break I was thinking of going to Dallas to some museums and things around there. I want to go see the King Tut exhibit before it leaves town. I really hope this year or next we can go back to Disney World. It is kind of hard to plan big things like that if we don't know if we are moving or not. I just can't sit around and wait and let time slip by. I am reminded of that when I go to work and I have a patient die of cancer when they are young. So many people wait to do things "later", when they retire, when they get enough money, when they get older. Some people run out of time before they know it. I hope I am giving my kids lots of great memories but most of all, I hope they feel loved.

Back to school

Well, vacation is over and school starts today. I sure do want to just lay in bed today, it is raining and dark. Kara is out of school today but I am making Emma get started so we can stay on track. I still have some organizing and cleaning to do today from the holidays but things are coming together. We had a great sermon yesterday at church to get started in the new year. It really challenged me to be more Christ like this year and keep my perspective. I feel like I am always trying to do better and never reaching it. I guess that is a sign of growing in the Lord and not being satisfied with where I am at. We are putting our house back on the active list today to show. I am really ready to take it off the market completely. If we sold it now there would be no place for us to move anyway. We keep praying that the Lord will guide us in his timing and take care of our needs. We know that he will, he as done it many times before. Hope you have a great day!