February 3, 2014

So, stuff's been pretty chill as far as Ranch life goes.  Our transportation load got really easy, because some appointments we'd been having off-campus got moved to on-site, so that was VERY very nice.  Also, Nathan and I were going to have to make an out-of-town pick up on Friday, and that got canceled too.  Prayers requested for the issues surrounding WHY it was canceled, but it may actually have been a good thing, because we got hit pretty hard with a snowstorm yesterday, so the related drop-off today might have been tricky, or perhaps even impossible. 

But we've had a good weekend. Friday we went bowling with our boys, and while not flawless, it was a pretty good experience.   Really, the biggest drawback to it was that we were planning on going right after school, so...get to the bowling alley around 5:00.  Instead, we had forgotten about an appointment, so we left around 6, and had to get dinner first.  Also, I'm used to blacklight bowling starting around 10 or 11 (of course, those bowling alleys also stay open til 1 or 2 in the morning).  Instead, blacklight bowling here starts around 8.  And...well, that's pretty much why we only bowled one game.  Well, they were getting a little antsy prior to that, but that pretty much ruled out any hope we may have had at getting them to sit still through other people's turns.  But really, it was an overall good experience.
My amazement yesterday was that it started snowing (barely) when we left for church yesterday, and got a few inches (at least one by the end of Sunday School), and school was canceled for two days before we went to bed.  Lots of snow here (this is snow day...11 or 12 for them?).

But snow days aren't all bad.  While maybe too much TV, we've had a good day.  I got to take this picture in the afternoon (because I thought it looked like a giant crack in the sky).  Also, I started a challenge with one of our boys:  that I can do all of his next discovery thing in his AWANA book (7 pages/sections) in half the time he can.  He's smart enough he could beat me like nothing, but he's not terribly motivated to work on it.  Of course, with the upcoming Bible Quiz, that's pretty much the point of the challenge:  to motivate him.  Anyways, I guess we'll see how that goes. 

Anyways, I guess that's about everything that's going on around here.

I took this picture because I thought it looked like there was a crack in the sky.  (Though, it doesn't quite look like that as I look at it right now...:/ )

Jan 29, 2014

Man, I've had a lot of thoughts running through my head lately. Some of it's been getting our house organized (or namely, our kitchen table cleaned off - that's where EVERYthing seems to accumulate), some of it's been how to spend our money (I was pretty okay with our plan to pay off student debt before I realized exactly how much interest sucks), and so forth and so one, and some of it's been wrestling with deep theological/personal issues.

I mean, this goes right along with how to spend money.  One of my friends recently posed the question "is it okay for Christians to be wealthy?"  (or how much money is it okay for Christians to have, I forget exactly how she worded it.) Now, in a broad sense, when you put it like that, I know my answer.  But when it comes down to how I use my money?  well, then it starts to get a little fuzzier.

A perfect example (and the one that I've been struggling with lately).  Around...I dunno, October maybe? I decided I wanted a tablet, so I set up a way for me to get one.  Then, just after Thanksgiving, I found a good deal on one, so I just went ahead got one a little preemptively (I thought it was on sale, but it wasn't.  But it WAS a really good deal, and I'm really happy I bought one, so it kinda works out.)

But, around the time that happened, my husband decided he needed a new computer (his computer kept shocking him).  So, he got a really nice new computer, which, to be fair, he probably needed more than I know or will admit.  But, when he started complaining about his computer, I started disliking mine.  I found a pretty cheap solution to mine, decided to try it, and it started working really well.  :)  And yet, I still wanted to get a new computer.

And then the shame set in - all of the nice things we have, not wanting for food, for clothes, not shivering in the middle of the night....and yet I'm upset because my computer's running too slow.  Do I really want to spend $300 or $400 on a new computer, when mine still works pretty well?  Am I really that spoiled?  Is a new computer really worth it, especially compared to all of the people world-wide who NEED that $300 for food?  I'm just not sure.

See the tape?

And then, shortly after Christmas - things got a bit more complicated.  While cleaning up our kitchen, I accidentally knocked my laptop off the kitchen table.  When that happened, the battery popped out, and some little pieces broke off (the battery won't stay in on it's own).  To which I thought, "oh, well.  I guess that makes my decision for me - now that my computer's actually broken."  Of course, not long later, I realized that this was actually pretty easily fixed - I can either use my computer on a flat surface, where the battery can't fall out, or leave it plugged in all the time.  OR, true to how I was raised, I could tape it in place, which has worked pretty well.  

And so it's back to square one - should I, or should I not, get a new computer?  Is that really how I should be spending my money?  and I just don't know.

January 23, 2014

Well, that's just a silly picture to go with this post.  We've had an interesting week:  mood swings and tantrums with the boys, shuffling schedules around at the last minute, and some guests to our cottage.  That last bit worked out really well for me; I ended up not having to cook the last two days we were on duty this week!  And, in the extra time I had with not cooking, I got to do some other stuff that's been needing doing, looks putting up curtains in all the boys' rooms.

And now it's our weekend off.  We took an extra day, so we could make the drive up to our college and see a lot of our friends before they graduate and stuff.  Last time we came up here, the weather was horrendous.  The rain was so thick, it was hard to see the road for at least half of our drive.  This time, visibility was MUCH better.  But, it's also VERY cold.  It's currently like 1 degree, and I think the high for about the whole time we're planning on being here is something like 12 degrees.  (I'm also very thankful for the gloves and ice-grippers I got for Christmas! :-)  ).

And another thing that I've been thinking about lately.  How can we show that we're Christians in everything we do.  I mean, the "church answers" would be stuff like pray often, speak kindly, don't let yourself get into compromising situations (or, have integrity).  But like really...in EVERYthing...how do you do that?  How do you bring glory to Him while making dinner?  Or while setting up your budget (or just paying bills, or anything else having to do with family finances?) Or any of the other things we do every day, where we tend to really just check out and do what's expected, or what we need to? 

Anyways, hopefully I'll be back in a few days to tell you how our trip was.  If I don't, maybe I just froze to death ;-) .  God bless, and stay warm!

January 11, 2014

Hello everyone,

 I think it might have been a bit over a week since last time, but, much closer to it than a few months.  So, I'm working on it.

But the past week or so has been a good one.  We had another snow storm, not nearly as bad as the last one we had, just after Thanksgiving, but still enough to get our boys out of school for a whole week.  and more remarkably, they dealt with it really well - they got along pretty well, an didn't seem to be sick of each other by the end of the week, so there's not a whole lot more we could have asked for.

And in the past few days, it was my birthday.   We didn't do anything on my birthday, since we were working and snowed in and everything.  But, last night, we went out to dinner and to go see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ...which was REALLY REALLY good.  (Nathan said he hadn't thought it looked that good, but he was thoroughly impressed.

And in the next few days (or hopefully today)...we'll be pulling down our Christmas tree and getting all the clutter around our house picked up.  That won't be too much fun, but it will be nice to have it done.  :)

Anyways, that's about as much as I've got to say for now.  Hope to be back up here in a week or so!

December 31, 2013

Uh, so no pictures today.  I have quite a few since I last posted (...geez!  was it really mid-October since then? ), but...there are so many, and I decided I'd rather just write some stuff than have photos with it.  So, in keeping with the New Year's theme, here come some highlights of the past few months.

At the end of October, we were able to travel up to our alma mater to visit some friends and stuff.  (We'll probably do that again this semester too).  It was a really nice get-away, good to catch up with some friends, and just kinda pretend we were college students again.  It's not many people who can say they literally took a step back in time like that, but we did, and it was really nice. :)

In November...two of our boys left, (and we got to experience having boys kicked off the bus for the first time.)  But, that's about as exciting as work got.  And, we got to take some time off around Thanksgiving, which was pretty nice, since Nathan's family was able to come down for a visit.  We just hung around the surrounding area here, but it was still a really good time.

In December, again, nothing super exciting as far as work goes.  But, we did get to take some vacation time.  Right after Christmas, we got to meet up with my family in Memphis and tour around there some.  It's a really neat place, and we had a  really good time.  Plus, we switched cars with my parents, so we have a car(SUV) that's a bit more suited to living on a dirt road than our previous car was.  So that worked out really well. :)

We've had a really good year.  Lots of interesting things have happened, lots of things have changed, and we've learned a lot.  So, here's hoping to another year of good experiences and lessons!

(P.S.  Let's make a deal - I'll try and post once a week, and if you read/like my blog, comment, share it on Facebook/Google+, or just tell me.  okay? God bless :) )

October 13, 2013

So, what we do on our weekends off:  go for walks.  And it's starting to get a little cooler here, so the leaves are *just* starting to change.  (It's still mostly green...really green.)  But, what has changed looks really pretty, and makes us even more excited for it to change. One of the things we said when we first moved here, was "man, I bet it's really pretty when the leaves all change and everything in the fall," so it's exciting to see how that goes. :)

And then we came back on duty, and had one of the busiest weeks of house-parenting I've experienced yet.  The day after we came back duty, we had a boy who had a left for a short stint, come back.  Of course, his behavior showed that the reason he had left in the first place was still an issue, so, he left two days later, which was the double-edged sword:  it was stressful to have him back here, but it was stressful to have him gone too.  (But on a more serious note, pray for him).  But then on top of that, the next two days after he got back, all us houseparents went to a marriage seminar, from 8am to 3 pm (and with travel time, that goes from about 7:20 am to about 3:40 pm).  Which more importantly, means no time to go talk to office people about issues, no time to plan meals or get the food for them, any of the paper work we need to do during the day, or (probably most importantly) no time to process what we talked about at the seminar.  So in short, that was a very long two days in itself.  But, they treated us to a very nice dinner after the second day, so that was nice (and I still have leftovers. :D ).

But, we've had a good weekend.  We took advantage of the nice weather, and went down to the creek last Friday night.  We roasted hot dogs, and made s'mores, and it was even nice enough that the boys could go swimming a little bit.  It seems like the boys had a good time (and I know they had a better time than the other cottage that went camping, and then got rained out and had to come back in the middle of the night).  We also got to take all our boys to Wal-mart so they could spend their allowances, so they're all jazzed about their new Nerf guns and everything.  So, as usual, ups and downs, but overall good. :)

October 4, 2013

oops, guess it was another long one.  And to be fair, we have been on for pretty much the entire time between our last post and this one. This picture is the only exception to that; it was from our last weekend off (actually, on the same day as my last post).  We went for a walk, and these were just some pretty flowers along the road as we walked.  And so...there's a picture. :)

And that was pretty much the end of our time off; we didn't do anything particularly exciting.  Just slept a lot and got our house cleaned up.  (This time around, I got it cleaned up right before we went off. :) ).  Our time on was pretty exciting too; family visits for some of the kids, parent-teacher conferences (which took forever).  One of our kids also had to leave rather unexpectedly.  As hard as that was, it was really kinda see God teach us through that.  I was rather moved, because the morning that happened, I went to a Bible study about how God is outside of time and controls everything, and so I thought it was really cool to see not only that we can trust him through everything that happened that day, but also that God knew that I needed that reminder that morning.  Nathan got a good glimpse of that too; he said that his Bible reading that morning was about God telling people that "I'm going to take you away for a while, and it's gonna be really hard and not fun at all, but it's for the best," and that was just a really good reminder for us too.  So as we've said, God is good, even when life is hard.

But yeah, that were pretty much the highlights of this week.  Oh, nope one more.  I had felt a little rough over the weekend, but the high (or low...) point of that was Saturday night when I actually got sick, which then meant I couldn't really do anything the next day.  I felt bad leaving Nathan by himself for the next day, but it was nice to have some extra time to relax, and I had to erase this:

All month, I've been systematically using colors to make a pattern as I crossed out dates on our calendar.  Of course, what I didn't really think about when I started this, was that it wouldn't really show up until it was time to erase it.  so...I took a picture of it right before I erased it.  And as Nathan points out, the blue, purple, and black, are almost indistinguishable from each other, so that whole pattern idea might have been a flop.  (Which is why it's a checkerboard this month. :) )



And the last big deal (or at least the last thing I remembered to take a picture of), is the fly.  When we first moved up here, there were a TON of flies, EVERYwhere.  Literally, we put people on "fly patrol", where they just walked around with a fly-swatter and tried to kill as many flies as they could.  Anyways, we noticed...maybe a month ago, so that the flies got a lot better (more scarce).  as in, we didn't really have any.  And then about two days ago, we found another one.  and not even just a normal fly....a HUGE one.  and it just flew around the house, and buzzed around my ear while I was trying to nap, and basically I vowed to kill it.

Well, tonight we made it happen.  I got serious about getting it, and ran around our living room for about 15 minutes, and then finally Nathan got it.  Of course, we didn't think he got it, so we just stood guard in the room for about another 5 minutes, before we finally found where it had just landed after he had smacked it.  And I'm telling you it was a big one.  Here's the fly near my thumb:



And...I guess that's all I really have to say.  Except...maybe I'll be back sooner this time?  We'll see. :)