August 29, 2013

Welp, I was wrong...that chair did get here today. And I even managed to squeeze in some time to get it unpacked and assembled... well, sort of assembled.  All you had to do was open the box, put the cover on the floor, then dump the mattress-cube deal into the cover, zip it up, and squish it some to get it to decompress.  I think it's still got some decompressing to do, but it's plenty comfy anyways. :)  Even better, it's just the right size for my husband and I to both sit on, which is exactly what we wanted. :D

Anways, the only other real exciting bit of news is that we're getting two new boys today.  The other boys are all excited to have them here, so I think it's gonna work out real well.  In any case, be keeping us in your prayers, and just that they'd settle in well and all that.  Also, one of our other boys started asking about salvation and so forth last night, so keep in your prayers too!

August 28, 2013

So, as we expected things are going fairly smoothly.  I mean, we've been on the receiving end of some temper tantrums and such, but...that's what we get for working with 7 year olds, right? But seriously, it's been going really well, overall.  Having them in school is pretty nice, 'cuz then we can catch up on sleep during the day and stuff, and that's been very helpful.

So...pictures.  yeah, last night, I went to bed knowing what I was going to post when I got around to posting it, so here it is.  When we first moved into this apartment, we noticed there were no blinds in the window (but two sets of blinds lying underneath the window).  Turns out, those blinds were too big.  We put in a maintenance request to get those installed...within two weeks of getting here. But other stuff was more important (and we do appreciate all the other stuff they keep running instead of us having blinds), and they had to hand-cut the blinds to the correct size, and this that the other... but finally, we got them installed yesterday.  Or, to be fully accurate...our wonderful handymen finally installed them yesterday.  And they look great, and we're excited to have them up in our apartment. :)  (Plus, I got our kitchen table cleaned off, so it actually looks like responsible people live here and stuff. :) )

BUT THEN, came the truly exciting story of the evening.  Or rather, the next day.  We have to set an alarm system in our house, so we know if kids are getting up in the middle of the night and that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the kids in our cottage set it off a bit more frequently than we'd really like (especially once we find out WHY they woke us up at 1:30 and 4 in the morning).  In any case, last night the alarm went off  (twice, if you didn't pick up on that), and I ran out, turned off the alarm, and started to go to the kids room, but I accidentally kicked the door I had to go through, and scraped my foot. But I didn't realize I had until after I had gotten him all taken care of, and was starting to go back to bed. (I feel like the tape all the way across my foot makes it look way worse than it really is, but at the same time...it is kinda gross-looking underneath the gauze.)   Anycase, doing that meant that today I got to fill out forms about my injury, and what time it happened, and "the specific process I was involved in when I sustained the injury" and so forth, and it was really kinda a hassle.  ...Especially since I'm pretty sure the most this'll turn into is a week or so of me having to take an extra 15 minutes a day (throughout the day, not even all at once) to make sure it's clean and bandaged nice and that sort of thing.  oh well.

And the really exciting part of the day is that we're supposed to get our couch/beanbag deal today (check out CordaRoys.com if you want to know exactly what I'm talking about).  I didn't believe that it'd get here today, especialy when it got to Memphis at 7:20 last night.  But, it was in town at 6 this morning, and on it's delivery route at 6:05, so I started to change my mind.  ...but it still hasn't gotten here, so I'm getting a bit more skeptical each second again.  I guess it doesn't really matter, since we won't really get to use it until next Tuesday or so (when we finally get some time off! :) )

August 24, 2013

Well, things at the Ranch never go quite like we plan on them going, but this past week has turned us for more loops than I really care to count.  Monday was the last day I posted about, so here's a quick update of the week:
Tuesday:  all hell broke loose in our cottage.  and yes, it was really that bad.  and keep in mind, the kids are in school for most of the day.
Wednesday:  our wonderful co-workers helped us recover from the previous night, and stuff is starting to look up a bit.
Thursday:  We went to training out of town for the day, and were supposed to go off for the weekend that night.  Unfortunately, our relief houseparents had a death in the family, so we got Thursday night, and Friday night off, and go back on Saturday morning.
Friday:  ...nothing super exciting happened. just slept up, and ..well, didn't really get a day off; we had to keep running to the office about kids we have to take to the doctor before the office re-opens and other crises with kids and stuff.  ...But we weren't responsible for WATCHING (or feeding. :D ) kids.


Which brings us to today.  We came back on duty fairly early (...I guess 9ams not THAT early...), and had a pretty good day.  The one good thing about being suprise on-duty this weekend, is that the hard day to plan (Saturday), was actually pretty easy, because our kids already had their day planned out from about 9-6, and they're supposed to go to bed at 8:30.  We had a church group come visit and do some activities (and feed!) our kids, so it was pretty chill for us.  We spent the majority of the day building and shooting off bottle rockets.  I helped one of our boys make one (and it went pretty good! :D  mostly straight line, and a pretty good distance),  but somehow my husband and I ended up with this one:

yeah, cute little ladybugs all over it and everything.  Pretty sure it's not one of the boys'. ;)

In any case, we're pretty tired, but today went well, and it seems like things are looking up, and will smooth out soon. :D

August 19, 2013

So maybe you'll get a two-for one today.  This was MEANT for yesterday, but it was late, and the internet was being stupid, and...I just waited to post it 'til now, but you still might get one for actually today!

The big deal for today was that it was the first day of school.  So, Nathan and I got to kinda take it easy and do paperwork-y stuff while all the kiddos were off at school.  That was really nice, and we definitely appreciated being rested up when they came home from school all crazy and amped up and stuff.

The other kinda exciting thing from today, is part of a sort of long story.  We noticed the other day, that the living room smelled kinda funky.   The next day, one of our co-workers came to our house and was like, "man, it stinks in here...I think you have skunks living under your house."  So we got with another of our co-workers, who said to put some old meat outside of the critter hole we found, and he'd try and get it later.  So we've putting some chicken outside of the critter hole for the past few days.  Last night, we were going to bed, and saw this:

Hmm...I thought I caught him, when you could actually see the stripe across his eyes.  He's a little hard to see, but if you look close (just above the blue bucket), you can see a raccoon eating up the chicken.  

And that was pretty much our day.  

August 17, 2013

Today was fun, because I got to practice my wifey-mothery skills (and somewhat newfound crafty skills), and fix this cutie for one of the cuties in our cottage:  

 That particular cutie came up to me earlier, and asked me to fix his monkey (...except he called it a bear...), because one of his arms got pulled off.  I heard a story about he got in a fight with his brother, and his brother pulled it off...but I don't actually know how it got ripped off.   But it's a moot point now, 'cuz I fixed it for him.   

Though to be fair...they weren't complete cuties all day.  Sometimes the kids were being really rude to each other (it was really sad to see the brothers fighting), and after a while you just want to strangle them all.  But then you start tucking them into bed at night and they're just so sweet and give nice hugs, and you just want to take them all home with you...which is kind of an odd way to feel, since we basically do live with them.  

August 16, 2013

So, pretty early this morning, I looked out our back window, and this is what I saw:

notice how the background's WHITE.  yeah, that's how foggy it was (you can usually see mountains and trees and fields and stuff.  It was extra impressive and weird when I noticed it, 'cuz I was sitting on the couch and couldn't even see the trees in our yard.  

Anyways, we had a pretty quiet morning.  I hung out with our resident, while Husband went and took care of paperwork and stuff.  But then, things got REALLY interesting.  We had been thinking for a while we might ask to have two other residents in particular over to our cottage because  reasons,preferences and dynamics (and other factors that would take far too long to explain, besides probably breaking some confidentiality agreements).  Anyways, we had a conversation about that with some of our higher-ups almost a week ago, and then stuff came up, and we forgot to do anything about it until yesterday.  So this morning, Nathan sent an e-mail to the head honcho about it, and just before lunch, we got a phone call saying that that was definitely going to happen.  In fact, it was so definitely going to happen, it was going to happen after lunch.  

And then things got more interesting.  While discussing which rooms we were going to place the new residents in, we were told that we're going to get two MORE boys next Tuesday.  They told us things might change quickly, but I wasn't *quite* expecting that one. But things are definitely changing quickly.  One boy on Wednesday, 3 today, school starts Monday (after getting all three adjusted to a new church on Sunday), and then two more on Tuesday!  And then we go off Thursday night.  whew!  Crazy few days, but God is good. :)

August 15, 2013

Woah, that snuck up on me.  did not realize it had been...3 months since I last posted?  apparently moving keeps you busy. ;)

Right so, we agreed to take the job, went to visit my folks, went back to our apartment, spent about a week packing and cleaning it, then went up to visit my husband's family.  Then, his mom and sister came back to our apartment with us so we could use their van as a moving van (which we REALLY appreciate).  So we loaded up, and drove to St. Louis, hung out and did some sight-seeing for a day, and then continued on to our new place.  We're thankful to work at a boys' home, so there were lots of nice, able-bodied young men who could help us unpack the van and get it all into our apartment.

Ever since we got here, we've done a lot of training (read:  following people who knew what they were doing around) on our on-duty days, and sleeping/recovering from that or getting settled into our apartment on our off-duty days.  I've already said it about 6 times, but...I think we've got it.  the latest touch:  a TV and entertainment center.  Though to be fair, part two of that is getting a couch.  but, here's the main feature of our "living room":

We were even able to set up the lovely candle holder my cousin-in-law gave us for our wedding, but didn't have room for in our last apartment.  It looks great, especially when it's all lit up. :)  Anyways, definitely thankful to have a TV in our apartment now, because now when we go off duty, we can watch TV in our apartment, instead of having to sneak into the cottage to watch TV.

We've had even more additions in our cottage (due to our jobs and stuff, our apartment, is attached to a cottage.  When we work, we leave the door open and basically have a master bedroom on steroids; when we're off duty, we shut the door and try to forget there's a house full of people on the other side.)  First off, someone generously gave us a lot of Legos and some video games stuff, like a RockBand set, and a lot of video games.  Anyways, while we were organizing some of those things, we realized some of the Legos were REALLY gross (...think what normally happens when you leave stuff in your attic for a while, like what might come and get it...), so we had to spend a day washing them and disinfecting them and everything.  But they're all clean now, and the few kids who have come by have enjoyed playing with them, so I think we're pretty much set on that. :)

And a confession:  we haven't really been sneaking into our cottage to watch TV.  We've just been going in, because there was no one in our cottage!  But, we can't do that when we go off duty any more, because yesterday, we placed our first boy in our cottage.  

This picture is of the room we placed him in (before any of his stuff was moved in, so none of it can give him away...confidentiality purposes and all that. :) ).  I thought some people might appreciate seeing his room or something as they were praying for him, and believe me...we ALWAYS appreciate prayer for our boys.  This particular kid is pretty sweet, and seems to be making friends and adjusting well, but, we still just ask that you'd pray that the situations or behaviors that got him here would go away, and that we'd be able to show him that he IS loved, and help him work through those situations or behaviors.  And...well, I think that might be all I have on updates from around here...personal or work-related.  

Oh.  well, I guess the last personal note is from almost a month ago.  My mom and aunt were able to make it all the way out here for a visit, and we had a really nice time.  It didn't end on such a good note though...we got a flat tire, and...man, we've had a heck of a time getting it fixed.  But, such is life when you live on a 3 mile long dirt road.  On the other hand, my wonderful husband did some research about getting us some thicker tires, and we got a very helpful response from a guy at Firestone, saying some characteristics we should look for, but they don't have any tires that meet the bill, and fit our car.  But, he did say that we brought up an interesting situation (cars -- rather than SUVS -- who live on dirt roads), and it may lead to research and the development of thicker tires that will fit on a car/sedan. so...look for the Wright Choice tire in the future. :)