~back to work~

I'm back to work. The family I work for went on vacation so I had 5 scheduled days plus 4 days of weekend to enjoy off. I love getting paid to sleep in and do my own thing. I did get a little bored at times. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a job. I have to stay busy. However, on occasion, I love days when I can stay in my pajamas all day long and do absolutely nothing.



It was the 4th of July last Sunday. Lance and I decided to stay home instead of going to see fireworks since he had to get up early for work. He ended up going to bed about 9pm as usual and I watched fireworks on tv. Haha. I did see a few outside that our neighbors were doing. I really could care less about this holiday. Probably since my family never really got into it. We'd occasionally go to see fireworks or maybe go to a picnic but it just wasn't a big deal.



I was able to get some much needed gardening done on Monday and Friday which was nice. It was sooooo hot out though both days. Yuck. I was drenched. I filled up the garbage twice! So many weeds. Next to our shed on the left is just a huge weedfest! I cleaned a fraction of that out. We've been trying to figure out what to do in that area since the soil is so sandy. [Idea 1:] I would like to move our shed over but that's not an easy task. Of course Lance just wants to demolish our shed and buy a new one to place where we want it. He's all about the easy route! [Idea 2:] Another thought was to get a dog and put a kennel there. I do not like animals inside. They're dirty! So we're figuring out if we want to get a full time outdoor dog. I want a chow chow or husky. I know myself and that poor thing will be alone all winter! I hate going out in the cold! So we'll see. [Idea 3:] I might just make a huge garden there. I'm leaning towards the last idea currently.



My nephew, Noah Michael, was born on Tuesday. Now I have 4 nephews and 1 niece. I love being an auntie! Caleb will be 11 in August. I can't believe how grown up he is! He'll be taller than me probably within a year or two. Cooper is 5. He's a little daredevil and loves his 4-wheeler! Lyla will be 2 in August. She is a doll. Thank God we have a girl in the family! Joshua is just over a year. He's a little cutie. And of course Noah is tiny and adorable! I can't wait to get to know him.



I also got a chance to go shopping but didn't find ANYTHING I was looking for. It's not like my wish list is outrageous or anything either. I've been looking for a set of 3 or 4 black and white nature prints for the basement wall. I've looked all over! Nothing. I think I am just going to buy a really nice camera and take my own pictures! I have also been looking for jean shorts. All I'm finding are super-short-show-your-butt-cheeks styles. Uggh.



On Saturday we greeted at church. After service we had a Hawaii themed party for the Saturday night teams. We're among the youngest greeters. I've heard on more than one occasion by random strangers upon shaking their hand, "Oh, it's so nice to see young people." I'm not that young. Haha. It makes me feel like they think I'm 12.



So, I'm working right now. Haha. I'm working really hard! The girls are outside with a neighbor catching bugs so it's not like I'm ignoring them. We already went to the library this morning and stopped at Target. We had lunch and rest. I have about 3 more hours until I go home. We were going to go to the pool but they have swim lessons tonight so I am not going to bother.

~my yard~

This lovely daylily was the only plant I salvaged from the back garden.

Here's our front entrance. (Oops, I need to weed the hostas.) We put these in last summer after digging out hideous looking bushes. I filled in the left of the sidewalk with rock after removing nasty faded red wood chips. I absolutely hate the color of our house! Hopefully it will get painted this summer/fall.

The hostas are starting to bloom.

I love my little bench and flowers. Lance did a good job picking out the planters.

~Eclipse~

I'm going to see Eclipse tonight. Andrea already got us tickets so no need to wait in line. That's always a plus. I pray I'm not annoyed by those young "Twi-hards" (what a stupid name!) with all their craziness. I boldly admit I am a fan of the series. I'm wearing a Cullen crest t-shirt today in fact. But good grief must we yell and scream at a theater when someone comes on screen? I never saw Twilight in the theater but at New Moon I missed half the dialogue. Well, maybe not half but it felt like it. Some of my friends are waiting to see it so they don't have to deal with the girly girls but I can't wait any longer! Haha. This is one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack:

~gardening~

When we moved into our home December 2008 I wasn’t quite aware of how horrible our yard was. Spring of 2009 we got a huge shock. The first thing we did was clean it up. There was so much miscellaneous garbage around. Pie tins, pop cans, a head band, cups, tires, wood with rusty nails poking out, car batteries, old fencing, unidentifiable junk, bags full of moldy leaves half buried in the ground…

Our neighbors to the right, Greg and Sue, came out and told us they were so glad we moved in. They had been watching us out their kitchen window in awe and said they felt like they were watching TV.

Apparently no one had taken care of the yard in years. Greg mentioned they were the original owners of their house so they’ve seen it all. The original owners put our grass right on sand, no topsoil. Moronic is all I can say. Our grass is a sad sight compared to everyone else. Lance would like to dig out all our grass then lay a load of topsoil and new turf. That’s not going to be cheap.

Last summer, we dug out three hideous bushes in the front of our sidewalk. While doing so our neighbor to the left, Gretchen, thanked us for removing such an eyesore. She hated them as much as I did! We discovered there was a ton of rock in the area that was so overgrown you would have never known. Thank God another neighbor, Barry, saw we were attempting to dig up all the rock (that was mixed in very deep with the dirt since the morons didn’t bother to put a liner between the dirt and rock) and he loaned us 2 wheelbarrows and a rock sifter which greatly helped us. We put hostas in the place of the bushes and it made it look a thousand times better.

That’s all the yard work we accomplished last year. We were busy staining and putting polyurethane on 7 of our new windows.

This spring I got right out there in the yard and started digging up 7 dead bushes along the garage. Lance had to help me with getting 2 out because the roots were just too deep. And what a shocker they didn’t bother putting a liner in between the rock and dirt again! Urg. So far I am only 1/3 done with that area getting the rock out.

Along the fence in our backyard at one point was probably a decent garden but my oh my what a mess. It was basically all weeds. I think I can save one perennial plant that’s in there out of I’d guess a 20 foot long area. So far I have cleaned up half of that. Thank you Lord that there’s no rock in there! One thing I found very odd was that there was 5 different kinds of edging! Wood, brick, green plastic, black plastic, and black tubing. Wowzer! I ripped all that out obviously.

We have 3 mailboxes for ourselves and 2 neighbors in our yard. The rock in that area was completely overgrown with weeds. It took a good 12 hours to clean that out! There was a liner this time but it didn’t help much when they put a layer of dirt on top of it with rocks and then rocks under the liner as well. My goodness. After getting all the rocks and weeds and liner out I planted marigolds. The neighbors have commented how nice it looks.

I also planted some marigolds in 2 planters to go on each side of our new bench. I bought way too many! I still have 9 more to plant.

There is another area off of our deck with 3 lilac bushes that I would like taken out so we can move our steps to where they are. I’m sure that’s going to be full of rock as well.

Once I finish along the garage, the fence, and by the deck we are going to landscape all around the outside of the house with bushes, river rock, and new edging. I will plant a flower garden by the fence too with perennials. And we’re going to put in a patio where the current bonfire sand pit is located. This will probably be done next spring since there is still so much to do with my limited weekends to do it all. Plus we have hopes of getting the last 3 new windows put in and the outside of the house repainted this summer/fall.

Owning a house really is a never ending job. I still have things to do inside too! New kitchen and bathroom counters and sinks and bathroom floors are at the top of my list. I love love love my house though. It is so me. The decorating is all done I just am now tweaking things a bit.

~feeling blessed~

I just have been so grateful lately. All my needs are taken care of and then some. I continually get blessed. Some people probably write it off to "luck" but I know God is faithful to me because I am faithful to Him.

• A couple weeks ago I did a taste test for $35. Eating pie for an hour is a great way to make some cash!
• I signed up for a Physicians Formula makeup buy one get one free coupon and in doing so I won a daily drawing for a $50 Target gift card (I got it in the mail yesterday). While in the store looking for something to get with my bogo coupon they had a coupon stuck on some items for $5 off. I got an item that was just shy of $5 so I only paid tax! Plus a free item from the bogo! I love a good deal!! I was able to print off 2 of these coupons so another purchase had a bonus item attached so it was like buy 1 get 2 free!
• I had a $10 off coupon at Fashion Bug so I got a $10 pair of underpants for free. I love free!
• 2 weeks ago I spent Friday night at work and made an extra $120! I really love my job. It's a perfect fit for me.
• April 15-19th I'll be staying at work day and night while the parents go on vacation. I'm not sure how much extra I'll be getting but I'm sure it will be well worth my time.
• I found a coupon for an item I was already planning on getting for $5 off plus Target had a promo and gave an addition $5 gift card for buying the product!
• I got a free 14 page photo book I designed and only paid $2 shipping from Kodak.
• I got 2 8x10 photos from Walgreens completely free.
• I am constantly getting free samples and coupons from the website pocketyourdollars.com . I love love love it!

The list could go on but those are the most recent deals and blessings.

~author~

I started writing a book when I was 12 years old. I used to want to be an author as my career of choice. Over the past 15 years I've worked on it here and there. Obviously I've changed nearly everything yet the plot remains the same.

I even started writing it as a screen play a few years ago. I shelved that idea. Although, I would like to see it "live" at one point.

Over the past month I have really wanted to get the ball rolling and finally write it. I started writing a chronological list of events, character names (that I'll stick with finally), and an opening chapter. On Monday I typed out the first 2 pages. I am realizing this is going to be a huge feat to accomplish. What spare time do I have? I just need to focus if I want this to happen.

I mentioned to Lance I really want to finish my book. He told me I just have to do it then. He also said once I finish I should try to get it published. How in the world does one go about doing that? That's another thing I'll figure out once the time comes.

We had a good laugh over what he said in regards to getting published. I'm paraphrasing but it was something on the lines of...

"You should try to get published when you're done. They publish a lot of crap."

"Oh thanks. You're saying my book is crap?"

"No! That's not what I meant! Just that anyone can get published."

"Sure. You think my book is crap." (Jokingly)

"I haven't even read it. How would I know if it was crap?"

Haha. I'm going to tease him about that for a while.

Hopefully within the next year I'll have a large portion done if not the whole thing.

~People get ready~Jesus is coming~

I've been doing some reading about the "end times" lately. There is just so much going on in the world as of late that makes it seem so close. Things are lining up that must be in place before Jesus can return. I have had the song "People get ready. Jesus is coming. Soon we'll be going home" stuck in my head.

Some people I know are kind of going to extremes about the tribulation in my opinion. But maybe they are right to be?? I keep hearing, "Buy gold. It's the only currency that will stand once the market completely crashes and our money is worth nothing!" and "Hide your guns because the government is going to unarm America!" and "Make sure you have a good stash of canned goods and water on hand."...

I've always felt that the rapture would happen before the tribulation. That we are "not appointed unto God's wrath." But what if we are here for it or part of it? There are pre-trib, mid-trib, and post-trib views. And the Bible is not completely clear on the issue. Regardless, I know God will protect me. Even if there are hard times ahead (which I believe we'll experience more "darkness' and troubling times) I will be ok.

The date December 21, 2012 is when previous civilizations said the world will end as we know it. I don't buy into this exactly but I do believe something major will occur around this time. I have heard 2012 or 2017 will be the "end". We'll just have to wait and see. The Bible says we can know the "times and seasons" but even Jesus doesn't know the exact moment.

All I know is that I am ready for Jesus to return. I just want to be a light to those that are not saved so they will seek the truth and join me when He does.