Life

Isn't it funny how life works? Sometimes, good things happen and you seem to be on the top of your world but the next moment can be tragic. You just never know.

Nothing has really happened too tramatic in my life recently other than the drama over my dogs but while posting a journal today on Cafemom about A girl or woman who has inspired me, I was thinking. I posted a journal about a girl that was born to a couple from the church we grew up in. The couple was older and during a routine procedure, an amnio, it was discovered that she had spinabifida and the doctors strongly urged the couple to abort the baby. The couple couldn't do that because they knew God gave them this child for a reason. This girl will graduate next year. It was thought that she would never walk or enjoy her life but God proved those doctors wrong.

Isn't that how life is really? We think that with something tragic happening, that its all over but it's not. If we rely on God and trust him and remember that he is always there for us, he will prove us wrong. Our God is so good is he not?

Now I just need a gentle reminder of that everyday. To remember that I need to rely on him and to know that He is all I need. No matter what, He will never leave me or forsake me. NEVER!

Crying my eyes out.

I'm sitting here crying thinking that I may have to make a really tough decision concerning my dogs. I love my dogs, and they mean the world to me. I don't think that I could ever get rid of them without breaking my heart and the heart of my children. However, we received a letter in the mail today from the chief of police about our dogs barking and the neighbor calling and reporting us.

I'm sitting here in tears cause I don't know what to do. I've heard that bark control collars are inhumane and could cause the dogs to be nasty, especially since they are older dogs and no longer in their training stage.

If it would come to giving our dogs away, I'd almost have to put my one dog to sleep because he can be aggressive to non-family members. He's never been aggressive towards the kids nor us, other than to try to tell us he's boss.

I'm really afraid that our neighbor is going to make a huge deal out of this and keep pushing the issue. I don't know what to do.

I'm seriously considering looking for a new house, one that is far away from everyone else because of this. And for me to say that, you know I'm upset because I've spent so much money in plants to make this house a home inside and outside.

The things that make you go eek

I absolutely hate rodents. Can't stand guinee pigs, hamsters, or anything similar. I pray that my boys will never ask for one as a pet because I don't know that I could handle them. I especially hate mice. Little tiny, field mice. They are gross and don't care where they go to the bathroom. They can cause sickness and disease.

However, they seem to like my garage. I've been dealing with these rodents for at least 2 years so far. At first I'd see one run across the floor when I pulled in but never saw much as far as mice droppings until this past winter. They seem to really like my garage now. Dh and I cleaned half of our garage a few weeks ago, when spring started to show its face but ran out of time to finish. In the process of cleaning we found 2 live mice and two dead mice. Gross. I refused to go through anything where there might be a mouse.

I've even gone so far as to bring in our soda because you never know where one might be and do I really want to find mice poop on my can? Anyways.

We did put poison down and have found about 6 dead mice so far. We must have another one out there because the one day last we I went out to the garage to get into the car and it smelled horrid in the garage. Disgusting. Like 10 wet dogs all standing around. The smell is now gone but we haven't found the mouse yet. Dh did manage to find a baby one in the dog's biscuits and two adults in the box where the biscuits were kept. He thinks he got rid of the family in the garage now. I'm not so believeable on this, so I've been parking in the driveway and avoiding the garage when I can. I know it's only a matter of time before I see another one and freak out again.

We still have the other half of the garage to clean out and as long as we have decent weather next week we'll do it on Wednesday. This half of the garage is going to be the worse though because we have to move everything away from the walls because we have mice in our ceiling and we have to find out how they are getting in and seal it up.

Yeah, you read that right we have mice in our ceiling. It's really gross especially when you're sitting at night watching TV or reading and you hear them scratching and moving around. We have no idea how to get them out of the ceiling but we're hoping with some more mice poison left around and some moth balls, it will get them and kill them and then we won't have to deal with them again.

A person can dream can't they?

Thanks Peggie for making me think about this. Now I feel like I have roaches crawling all over me.

Oh, my goodness, the worse thing to see while driving down the road

I know long title, sorry.

I worked today and after work the boys and my dh met me at work so we could go for dinner, then to Toys R Us so that the boys could use their gift cards from Easter from my sister. Afterwards, we had to go back to the store, she dh could pick up his car. We also wanted to look for a bike for Bman since he bought himself a helmet with his money.

Driving down the highway, I'm looking at the cars coming when all of a sudden I see a car go airbourne and start flipping. It was the most horrible sight ever. It didn't take me long to grab my phone, hit 911 and pull over. Dh missed most of it. He said he probably wouldn't have even seen it had I not gasped and started to freak out.

I had to wait for about 20 minutes for a cop to finally come over and take my statement, and that was after I called the local police department to tell them I was waiting and my kids were in the car with me. The police officer came over and was really nice. He took my license so he could get my info off of it and then asked what I saw so I told him. Not only did a van flip but another car had gone into the center dividing wall. The cop said that speed and alcohol were both factors and that the driver was on his way to the hospital to be tested.

It was really amazing to me that no one was killed. I'm guessing that they were all wearing seatbelts. Seems that there were 6 in the van and only 2 were mildly injured.

I'm on the other hand freaked. I had to drive home which was about 30 minutes. I was gripping the wheel and praying that I made it home safe. Now I'm going to go drag my dh to bed so we can snuggle for a little bit. I'm hoping and praying that I don't have nightmares about this tonight.

One of those days

I am a shopaholic. I love to shop and I love a great bargain. When I see a bargain, I have a hard time turning it down.

This, however, gets me into big trouble as it did today. I was shopping the last week online for a book for the bookclub that I run online at Cafemom and I found it along with a few other things and bears. I love bears. My mom got me hooked when I was younger with her ever growing collection of Boyd's Bears. I also love Thomas Kinkade and his pictures so when you put the two together its hard to resist. Especially when its at a great price. I bought 5 Thomas Kinkade bears. They were only around $20 for the 5 of them. They are the cutest things.

Well dh saw them today and freaked out on me. Well actually he didn't freak, he just gave me that cold silent treatment that I hate and when I know something is wrong but he won't tell me. Ugghhhhh, I hate when he does that. I'd rather get a tongue lashing than a silent treatment. And of course he was on his way out the door when he finally decided to say something to me about it, which only makes it worse.

Now yes, I do know it's my fault. I'm the one that bought the bears when I knew we didn't have the money for them. I'm the one that asked him to wait until June to go to the dentist because we didn't have the money to pay outright for the visit (I'm trying not to use the credit cards when shopping). I'm the one that knows how much money we do have or in most cases don't have. He doesn't spend the time to look to see where our money is going so I'm not held accountable if I spend money we don't have. Does that make sense? It does to me. Let's see if I can explain it better.

I pay the bills, all the bills. I take care of all the monetary aspects of our marriage. He asks me how he's to pay for his gas. He doesn't buy anything, or almost anything. I do the grocery shopping, the clothes shopping, everything. If something were to happen to me, he probably wouldn't know what to do about money. Not that he's clueless about money but he doesn't know how to check out account, whether by phone, online or anything. He knows that we use a credit union that is based out of our state capitol but that's about it. He knows what credit cards we have, but probably couldn't name them. So because I know that he doesn't look at the bills and the checking/savings account, I know that I can spend money without him knowing too much. This has really bothered me. It wasn't always like this. He actually took care of most of the bills when we first start living together, but he would forget that the rent was due the first of the month and would end up dropping it off late, so when we got married, I took over everything. He doesn't seem to mind, most of the time. However I do, I can't stand him not knowing. I've even offered to have him sit down with me and go over the bills and credit cards and checking account. He just doesn't "have the time". Which by the way, is something else I hate about him (note I said about). He never seems to have the time. He has NO hobbies because he doesn't have the time.

Please understand that I do love my husband and don't know what I'd do without him. He is my everything but some days, I'd like to ship him out the door for awhile and not just to work, like today.

Forgiveness

Good morning everyone. Life is great and God is good. Amen?

I was thinking today about what I could write about and really don't have much to say. Unbelievable if you know me. I could talk your ear off if you would let me but not about much that is important. However when I came on this morning i read the Motivation for moms and saw this

Handle bullies by sitting down with your child and explaining forgiveness. Teach
them how to pray for those who persecute us.

Isn't this how we all should be? I sit here and think about the tragedy that happened at Virgina Tech yesterday and wander why things like this happen. I was talking to my mom yesterday and I asked her why people couldn't use their fist like in the old days instead of guns to solve their problems. Then I read the above and thought, you know God doesn't want us to use our fist, he wants us to forgive. He wants us to be peaceful and not raise our hands to others. When tragedy strikes like at VT he wants us to forgive the man who did this. He wants us to show the world that while we might not agree with the man and how he handled himself, that it's not up to us to cast judgement on him but to forgive him. It may be easier to do now that he took his own life but even if he hadn't we should still forgive. It doesn't mean that we should forget what happen and learn from it, just as the school officials are doing right now, learning how to better communicate with the students when something like this happens.

We also need to pray for the family of the man that did this, pray for the victims and their families and all those that have been effected by this senseless tragedy. Just like the Amish forgave and moved on after losing 5 of their own in October.

Catching up

Well it's been awhile again since I last wrote on my blog. Wow almost 10 days ago. A lot has happened in my life since then.

I worked last Friday and Saturday and it was busy in the store. Friday I also called the boss of the speech lady that Bman is suppose on Wednesdays. She never showed up on Wednesday and it seems to be an ongoing issue with her, not being able to help him. I did talk to her boss and I seemed to have gotten somewhere with her at least. However at the moment he is not getting an help whatsoever that he is suppose to be getting. It's really disheartening too. The weather was cold and miserable and still is.

Easter we went to my sisters house for dinner and all was going well until my bil forgot he was 41 not 5 and had to act up. Luckily it was after dinner and dessert so we all left and went to my moms house. I'm posting a pic of the cake that I made and decorated. It's a coconut cake with colored coconut icing. It was my first try at cake decorating. It was really fun. Now I'll have to try some other cakes so I can get some pratice in before I have to make the kids birthday cakes in August. We enjoyed some peace and quiet after going to the new Walmart that opened there. I know I hate people who have to shop on holidays but it was a new store. It was different from most super Walmarts that I've been in but nice.

Monday was pretty uneventful, just relaxed most of the day. Tuesday I worked. Bman got his in home help with speech. Wednesday we didn't go to speech because she yet again didn't contact us about whether or not she was going to show up (I had called her that morning to confirm and she never got back to us). Thursday I played catchup on laundry. I was protesting not doing laundry because of the weather. I had gotten used to hanging out my laundry during those really nice spring days and now that it's so much colder I'm not into hanging out laundry.

Friday I worked all day. It was a pretty good day at work. I was in layaway and we were rather busy (not overly but busier then usual). I got to work in infants for a little bit too, stocking diapers and wipes. The only really bad part of my day was my one manager who feels like she needs to babysit me. I had been at lunch when our Service Desk girl called me about a lady who called saying she had won a $1000 on a scratch off ticket. The SD lady never had to deal with it, so I told her when she came in to call me and I would come off of lunch early and come up to help her (our Front End manager didn't know how to do it either). So I ended up taking a short lunch to help out. The manager who is over fashions decided to call me and I was on my way back to infants to finish what I had started before lunch. So I just went to where she had paged me from. She didn't want anything other than to know where I was. Hello, I don't need a babysitter. Honestly. I can do work without having you looking over my shoulder. I was nice though and told her what I was doing and she said okay.

Last night we had to go to Walmart becaue dh forgot to tell me that we needed dog food before I left from work so we went there and got a few things. We stood in line for what seemed like forever though because they were really busy and didn't have much help. We came home and rested for awhile before bed.

Today dh will be home for dinner which is really nice, since that doesn't happen often. I have no idea what I'm making for dinner. If I felt like freezing I would make steaks on the grill but I don't feel like freezing so that is out of the question. I want to make a cake I think for dessert. I'll have to see what we have left in the boxed stuff since I want to get them used so I can start making stuff from scratch. I still have laundry to do so I will also have to do some of that.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to just enjoy the day by resting and relaxing. Dh is home all day and its suppose to rain all day, so I want to maybe play some games and watch some movies and read a book. Maybe I'll even through in a bubble bath with that book. One of my favorite things to do.

Cell Phones

Let me start by saying that I have a cell phone but I think that I act pretty responsibly when I am using it.

Yesterday I had two different ladies come in to do a return. The first one comes in yakking away on her cell phone, the other lady gets a call while she's digging for her receipt.

As I said the first lady was yakking away. She comes in lays her stuff on the counter and says, I want to return this then goes right on yakking, loudly too. I start doing the return and the whole time she's on that dang phone. I ask her if theirs anything wrong and it's like it's an inconvenience for her to put her conversation on hold for few seconds. Finally I put the transaction through back onto her credit card and ask her to sign and she does and off she goes. No thank you, nothing.

The other lady comes in with a bag full of stuff and a shoe rack. She starts digging through her purse for her receipt, which she should have out and ready, when her cell phone starts ringing. Now I can understand that there are times when you have to answer it like if you waiting for a phone call from your doctor or something else that is important but thats when you should step to the side and take the call then come back to what you are doing. Otherwise, if it's not important, ask the person to hold on or call them back. Don't stand there and fumble with your purse, your phone and look for a paper a pen, which is what she was doing. Yet again I had to ask if there was anything wrong with the shoe rack and she said no and right back to her conversation. In the process of taking her phone call she looks for paper and pen. She just reaches up and grabs the pen off my register and then ask for it and searches around for a piece of paper. I would have been glad to give her both had she just asked but instead of asking she started reaching. Then while shes on the phone and trying to write down the info, she's also trying to look for the receipt that goes with the bag full of stuff, which she can't find and I'm waiting for her to get her credit card out while she's doing all the other stuff. I so wanted to reach over and grab the phone and tell the person she'd call back but I figured if I did that I'd be looking for another job.

People just seem to have loss all common sense when cell phones took off. I try not to use mine in a store unless I have to, and usually that's only when I forgot what I was to get or I see something really great and want to know if dh or my mom or my sister wants it. I refuse to use it when I'm in line waiting to check out or returning something. That is just plain rude. You would want the checkout operator standing there talking on their phone, so don't do it to them.

Rambling

Well today was the last nice warm day here in Central PA. Tomorrow a cold front comes through with wind and rain and behind it comes the cold weather that I am not looking forward to. They're calling for 30s and 40s and into the 20s at night. I'm worried about the new plants that I planted. Urgh!

I had a good night visiting with the neighbor tonight. The kids played together rather well with only a few ruffled feathers. I'm so glad that the kids have fun together. It's important to me to have my kids involved with other kids.

My mil called while we were outside and I called her back. I used to never call my mil but the last couple of months, I've called her about 4 times. Seems that her dad, my dh's grandpa will be coming home to live with my mil and fil from the rehab hospital which hopefully will greatly aid in his recovery.

We are hoping to go up on the 28th to visit. We haven't been up in awhile so it will be nice to go up for a change.

Tomorrow starts my 4 days of work this week. It will be a long 4 days I'm sure but worth it in 2 weeks when I get paid. I'm hoping the week goes well and that I don't have many horrible customers. We'll see I guess.

Have a great Easter if I'm not back on til then.

My planned Sunday that came unplanned

Well I had a few plans for today but didn't do many of them.

I bought a bunny hutch the other day to do with the kids today since they were calling for rainy miserable weather but it seemed that the day got away from me, so we didn't get to that. I also wanted to watch Happy Feet with the kids but again that didn't happen. I did however get to Michael's to get some more icing bags and they had a special one day coupon for 50% off one item, so I got 100 bags for 9.99. Great price. I also got a box to carry my cake in for Easter and an icing scraper thing to put a cool design in the icing on the cake I'm making.

I haven't decided what kind of cake I'll make yet but it should be interesting. I work all day Saturday and I'm sure I'll be exhausted but I have to get the cake done Saturday because we leave early Sunday to go to my sister's for Easter. We are going up early enough to go to church with her and the kids. I can't wait. I haven't been to that church in at least 4 years, so I'll hopefully get to see a few people that I haven't seen in a long time. I'll get to show off the kids too, since most of the church hasn't seen them. I'm really excited. Guess I mentioned that already, huh?

I'm hoping to get to the in-laws the end of April, hopefully. I asked dh to call his mom the other day but he forgot. She works most Saturdays and Sundays, so I'm hoping that she won't have to work too later the 28th so we can go up. It's the only way that they see the kids is if we take them to their house. Which most of the time it's not a big deal but with gas at a higher price again, it hurts the wallet. I'm hoping to start saving some money now instead of spending so much.

Sat today and cut a lot of coupons and redid my coupon organizer. This great lady on cafemom said she uses a photo album for hers, so I thought I'd try it. I got the ones that you just slide the pic into. It's better because now they're more organized and I can add catergories if I want without too much of an issue. I even went through the grocery ads in the paper and wrote down what I want and need, which isn't much but when you have coupons, you try to get what you can when it's on sale.

Now I'm planning on getting up and going to the one local grocery store tomorrow morning first thing so that I can get their ad (it comes out in Wednesday's free ad paper) and to get some of their sales from last week (they run their ads from Monday to Monday so you get 2 weeks worth of ad prices on Mondays). I can't forget my sister's cheese. The silly girl bought some the other week when she was down and forgot it at my house, so I told her I'd get some to bring up for her.

Well guess I'll go see how long Happy Feet is and see if we can watch it tonight or if I should just watch some Martha that I have recorded.