Some Thoughts

Of course, if you think about it, the whole blog is my thoughts, so this title is really just to have a title.

We started the day out at the lake.  I love going to lakes and playing in water and hanging out with friends.  We only had a couple of hours there, but it was so worth it.  Especially to know my husband seems to enjoy it almost as much as I do.

I went to the funeral today of a 26-day-old baby.  It was the saddest and most uplifting funeral I have ever been to.  But, I can honestly say that I hope I never have to see a casket that small again.

I went to a wedding shower yesterday.  The girl started out not breaking the ribbons on her packages (because we all know that means how many kids you have).  Then, she and her fiance' just let loose and started breaking them all.  I told her afterwards I wished I had broken a few when I was having my wedding shower.

School is out and summer is here.  It's hard to believe until you step outside into the 90s and 100s.  Whew!  My tomato plant has two green tomatoes on it.  It has had two green tomatoes for over a week now.  I'm getting impatient.  I guess to make up for waiting, I'm going crazy in the produce section of the grocery store -- fresh corn on the cob, squash, peaches . . . yum!

By the way, I'm back on birth control again.  After bleeding for a month and a half and becoming anemic, I called my doctor to start up the pill again.  I couldn't think of starting summer camp still going through that.  So far no terrible mood swings, but I am crying a lot easier lately.  Part of me thinks that may be a good thing.

I am taking this week off from working so maybe you'll get another post or two soon.  We'll see.

What do you think of the new fonts and stuff?

Heaven is sweeter

If I haven't posted it before, here is a link everyone should go check out.  It's a blog of some friends of mine.  In my post several months back about it could be worse, I think I referenced them.  They had a baby about three weeks ago who had a lot of health problems when she was born.  Her name is Maggie.  We've been praying for her since December when they found out there were a lot of complications and issues coming their way.  Today, Maggie joined our Father in Heaven.  It's definitely a sweeter place because she's there, but if you would, please say a prayer for these sweet friends of mine who are so sad today and in the days to come because they had to give their precious daughter back to God.  Because even though Heaven is sweeter, the earth will miss getting to enjoy that sweetness.

Good News

So, a friend reminded me the other day that there is a lot of sad stuff going on right now, not only in my life but in a lot of my friends' lives, too.  She said she was just so sad because of everyone else's problems.  So, I am dedicating this post to only good news.
My brother, who has been looking for a better job for several years now, got hired as a teller at a bank he interviewed with the other day.  He gets a $1.50 pay raise, better hours, and they'll help him get his MBA.  Yay!
My grandfather who is in the hospital with pneumonia is getting better.  He has been having some issues with his heart -- the heartrate has been rising when he goes to sleep.  The heart doctor came today and said that it's some sort of flutter, but it can be treated with a outpatient procedure which they're planning to do once he's all the way better.  This is good news because it means they can fix it.
Jeremy went to the orthopedic doctor for the second time today and he said that while he still needs to wear his splint, he can now take it off every now and then to flex his hand and work it out.  He's a little worried about the bump that is still there but the doctor says that will go away with time.  His hand is getting better.  This is good.
And yesterday, one of the elders at church gave us some interesting news.  The schools around here were having major budget cut issues and were having to lay off teachers.  BUT, now they are getting some of the money back which means they can hire teachers back.  Yay for more chances for my husband to maybe get a teaching job this fall.
AND, I got gas for $3.65 today!  That's almost ten cents a gallon cheaper than the last time I got gas.  :-)

What It's Worth

When I saw my husband this evening over his dinner break, he told me, "I now know what it's worth to go to church on Wednesday nights."  I honestly had no idea what he was talking about.  The store he works for (and the entire company, I assume) has been cutting back on people and on the hours of the ones they're not letting go.  His hours have been cut from 37 1/2 to 34.  However, this means that they're having to rework some schedules to make everything fit and make sure it's all covered.  His schedule got changed next week so that he was supposed to work on Wednesday until 7.  That's when church starts.  He went to his manager and asked if they could switch him with someone else and they did . . . but his shift was longer than the one he switched with by an hour.  So, it's going to cost him $13 to go to church next Wednesday.  Who knew the cost was so little?  And so much?

Cracked Eggs . . . and Bones

So, we made a mistake.  It's one we've made in the past, but it's so easy to do.  Jeremy had been talking to a Christian school in Tennessee, one he's wanted to work at since we took this job five years ago.  And they had said that they might actually have a position and that his file was at the top of their stack of people to call if it opened up.  He called them again on Friday to just check in.  What we had been calling a "definite possible maybe" no longer had the "definite" or "maybe".  It is now more of a "possible probably not."
We had put our eggs in that basket, had started saying things like, "when we move . . . we can get together with my siblings one weekend a month. . . we can go hiking at Fall Creek Falls State Park (one of my favorite places on earth) . . . we can go see a Braves game . . . we can . . .
I knew it was a mistake when I was doing it, but it still felt so good to have hope.  After two years of him looking for a job, this felt like it might actually pan out.
I was at work when he called.  Right before I was going to go get my kids for that day, he walked into the classroom and showed me his hand.  It looked a bit swollen around three knuckles and a lot swollen above his pinkie knuckle.  Yep.  He hit the bookcase out of frustration.  The school nurse put ice on it and told him to go see a doctor so he headed to the clinic close to our house and had it x-rayed.  He has a "boxer's fracture."  They splinted it and he has an appointment to see the orthopedist tomorrow.
To make matters more fun, he also figured out that the file he had saved his prospectus to (the thing he has to turn in before he can register to write his guided research paper to finish his masters degree) was corrupted and he broke his right hand so now he gets to piece it all back together and try to get it finished by the end of this week with a broken hand.
Isn't that just what we needed?
Lessons learned:  Don't put all your eggs in one basket or count your chickens before they hatch.  And, don't hit bookshelves.

Plans and Ideas

So, I'm a pretty creative person.  Okay.  I'm a very creative person.  If I don't have about three or four projects going on at all times, I'm looking for something else to do.  It's almost physically impossible for me to sit in front of the television without some sort of sewing or crochet or something in my hands.  And I don't just use ideas that other people have come up with, either.  I create my own patterns and projects, too.
Right now, I'm trying to make two afghans for a couple of girls who've been working after-school care with me the last few years and are graduating this month.  I have one almost finished and the other about halfway.  Instead of just being happy that I'm doing these projects, though, my brain is jumping ahead and coming up with more ideas that I want to do -- some of which I've been meaning to do for a while and some of which are new, including a new story idea I'm hoping to save for nanowrimo in November this year.  We'll see if I make it that long before writing down any of it (working title -- For the Love of Smoothies).  So, here's a list of what I want to be working on, for someday "when I have time," whatever that means.

1. Make a new patchwork skirt in a "Grandmother's Flower Garden" style pattern.  I've already sketched and cut out the pattern.  I just need to cut the fabric and sew it up.
2. Use the last four canvases I bought in a multi-pack when I decided to do a tryptich for my mil for Christmas and paint a huge rose that is partly on all four of them.  Then, if I like it at all, I'll have to decide how much to charge for it and put it on my etsy site.
3. Come up with a Bible-themed quiet book, something I've wanted to do for a long time.  I'm thinking of pages like put the animals in the ark, lace up Jesus's sandals, stack up the tower of Babel, arrange the books of the Bible, dress Joseph in his coat, etc.  Ideas are welcome.  I'm either going to do it in felt like an old-fashioned style, or more like this one, which I also just want to make someday because it's so stinking cute.
4. Make the necklace my sister asked me for, with a huge flower and big pearls.
5. Stamp some greeting cards, some of which will have my favorite saying of Eleanor Roosevelt:  "A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water."  I also have been meaning to do some "Texas-style" one with watercolors of Texas flowers like bluebonnets and the fun sunflowers that always grow here in the summer.  And I've been meaning to do some for some friends with stamps of their families.
6. Write on my fertility book that I started and then never moved past the prologue.
7. Continue to work on one of my fiction books to try and send it to a publisher or two.
8. Strip the wallpaper in my bathroom the rest of the way so we can paint and finally rehang the towel rack.
9. Etc.

Of course, I also need to still finish the quilt for my sister that I started over two years ago for her wedding.  And the one for my brother that I only have one strip pieced.  And I need to take up a few things for people who are going to pay me to do that.  And I told someone else I'd crochet some baby hats for her.

Yeah . . . "when I have time."

Don't Worry; Be Happy

So, I was (lovingly) confronted by a friend tonight who was worried about me (and she said some of you anonymous mutual friends who secretly read my blog were worried about me, too).  I am so sorry I left my blog on such a down note.  When I restarted my blog . . . . has it been a year ago now? . . . I meant to not let it get so down-in-the-dumps as it had been for a while.  Seriously, who would want to read that?  Not me.
In all seriousness, though, I am doing better.  I had a rough spurt, obviously, if you read my last post.  And let me fill you in on some of the things that were helping keep me down.  I'm very stressed out right now (so much so that my clenching teeth during my sleep has actually chipped a tooth in the last week) due to work and trying to get way too many things done personally and job-related.  Also, it had taken me two months before this last period started but once it did, it didn't want to stop and has gone for over a month.  It's finally acting like it WILL end, but it definitely wasn't fun.  Sorry for anyone that offended, but it's just the way my body works -- or doesn't as the case may be.  This is the joy that comes with not ovulating.  And finally, my husband hasn't exactly had an easy two years due to all the job stuff.  He lost the job he loved and has been working a job he doesn't love while trying everything he can to get another teaching job.  This does not lead him to being happy very often.  Most of the time, one of us is down and the other one is "up" enough to be able to balance us out so that we can keep each other from getting so depressed.  However, with it being the end of the school year and Jeremy trying harder than ever to not have to work returns in an electronics store another year, he's downer in the dumps than sometimes so when I took my turn in being blue, he didn't exactly have it in him to help me back out.
Needless to say, that's what prompted that last post, with probably several other things.  I'm a major worryer, in case you haven't figured that out, and it's VERY hard for me to let go and let God.  Maybe that's one of the things God wants me to learn through ALL of this.  Who knows?  What I do know is I am doing better than I was.  Thanks for being worried for me.  I was having a bad day/week at the time I posted my last post, but I'm doing better.  I'm not perfect, but I'm better.  Keep praying for me.  I will hopefully have more time to post soon, but my life is CRAZY BUSY right now so I can't promise when.