slow and steady wins the race

Well the race is on, well I have made it a race, I feel like I need to get caught up on it all. First things first though, catching up on a much needed routine for all of us. Establishing a good getting up and going to bed and a regular start time for school and chores. I have finally slept two nights in a row through the night and slept like I really was asleep, after two to three weeks of fitful sleep and daytime sleep walking it is good to feel rested.

Been striving to cook more, made biscuts and syrup for breakfast, made a lot of bread in bread machine, made new types of cookies and generally experimenting with cooking. Trying really hard to spend less money by cooking more. Then I am trying to throughly clean my house, that is not going as fast as I want, but taking a few chunks out here and there. Trying to help Dave with his schedule also. Hoping to get all this in some sort of routine really soon. I know it didnt happen overnight and cant get solved overnight but in high hopes that we can keep going forward. I just am naturally impatient person and plan to have it all done yesterday.

Today we have a birthday celebration to go to, finish Daves route together as a family and then back here and get ready for Sunday.

Ordered two new books for homeschooling, will get them mid Jan. I always love getting new books, one will be a Music Learning about the Classic Composers, the other a writing book.

WEll back to the grind for now.

not a bad start

Yesterday, was our first official day with me being home, it would pretty good except for MDK meltdown. She was upset that we started school when other friends are out and she pouted and acted like a three year old. Other than that it went pretty good. I was able to import the grades from the old almost dead computer to the downstairs one and then we worked on subjects and cleaned house. Later that evening we watched Monk, and then I went off to bed early. I finally had a normal nights sleep in fact a little more than that which was great.

Well better get going this morning will blog more later.

it was a nice time

Good morning! I am still at Mom's and Dad's this morning and will be leaving sometime this afternoon. They all suprised me with a big and I mean big picture of the girls it was so good!! It will go up in the living room and my Dad made a frame for it. MLK and MDK got some really nice gifts also. MLK says she got alot of bling, and MDK got movies and games. It was nice to be with all the family, but I must say the house gets smaller due to more and more generations.

When we get home tonight will be my official start , and I am looking forward to that.

All for now.

Merry Christmas

It was my last day yesterday, didnt do a whole lot when I was there at work as I had finished most of it the week before, so piddled some and also wore the MERIL tshirt and some nice sweat pants, I am such a rebel, but a warm rebel.

Candlelight communion was beautiful and very touching, it really hit me what a sacrifice, would I be willing for my child to be seperated from me and then to die for ungrateful people. We then piled in the van for the trip to Iowa, listened to an old radio production of the Christmas Carol, which we all enjoyed. Arrived here in Iowa about 10ish.

The girls really liked the rings we got them and enjoyed the mp3 they got from Gpa Dave on Sunday. I have enjoyed their more mature attiude about Christmas, they are doing better about not getting stuck on the materilism of it all. We will be here at Mom's for a few days and then we will go home.

Home I cant wait, truely home, I am so ready to conquer home and get it organized and ready to go, looking forward to being Daves helper and homeschooling as my primary concerns.

Well all for now will blog later.

up all night

I am up doing laundry and constant trips to the bathroom, something I eat or some sort of bug is tackling my lower GI system. So I thought be productive at the same time and get the much needed laundry done.

Had Christmas for the Kasters side tonight, it was at Denise house, it was fun, Grandma Kaster is failing bad, couldnt remember when Tonk died or his birthday, wasnt sure what day it was and was confused as to where she was last night in the middle of the night. I dont think she will make it much longer. However it was nice, and Denise did all the cooking and fretting. I am usually the one doing it, but it was there this time. The girls and Kelly are having a sleepover at Denise tonight.

I go in for a shortened day tommorow and then I am done. I am not sure what I will do tommorow since I tied almost all loose ends up last week.

Well blog when thoughts are clearer.

all that jazz

Well went to bed last night around 10 and got up at 5. Dave has been on the go go go. One of the church members is in ICU and he had to get his Redbox done by Friday at midnight. He has meetings (unexpected) with different church families due to their kids dating and breaking up and harrasing each other. Dave's time card was 49 hours this week due to ice storm and then a push to get it all done by Friday, he actually got it all done on Thursday. He is a little tired. We went in to visit at the hospital and had lunch together. Then MDK and I both went to the eye doctor. She is getting reading glasses, I am getting glasses too for reading and night driving. I have 20/20 but have stigistisms in both eyes. They wanted to charge me 170 for my cheap framed glasses and I said will be shopping elsewhere, however ordered MDK glasses they will be in after the first of the year. Going to look at Walmart when I get back from Christmas for my glasses.

Working on finishing up ornaments for the church this morning, gift wrapping and general pickup, Daves dad and grandma are coming, we feel this maybe the last Christmas with grandma due to the fact she keeps losing weight without an explanation and she has very little will to go on, I think she is either 87 or 88 this Jan. She is coming this way as she wants to hear Dave preach and see candlelight communion in our new sanctuary.

The girls and I fooled around some last night watching stupid videos on you tube. Cute song called Homeschool girl, MLK really liked it. The animation was done with all Simms characters and they cherographed it really good, it was cute. We also cleaned up this and that, mostly my room which they helped with because the way they cleaned this week, was throw everything in Moms room, so then they had to take care of it last night.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to just do it myself,but then I know that would not help them know what to do for themselves. It is so irrating to tell them to put away kitchen towels and to find them only inches away from their home, IE the counter instead of the drawer, ugh want to scream. Oh well, another day another white hair.

Thinking about crawling under to covers for a early morning snooze. Bye!

packing it up

I just packed up three bags of stuff here at the office, and getting ready to take it home, I have one more day but it is Christmas Eve so I want to get stuff home. I am looking forward to having this transition behind me. I am hoping that I can leave the drama behind me as there is a lot of it. I slept long and hard last night, the girls and Dave are out on the route. I will be home by myself tonight and am thinking about just being a bum but the urge to get everything straightened up may be too hard to resist. Daves family is coming down this weekend and then we will go to my folks, dont know when we will do Dave and Viv part maybe after the first of the year.

Well better get off here.

what a nutty day yesterday

Yesterday at work was just so emotionally and nutty. They all had a going away party for me it was nice and fun, then the afternoon was off the rector scale. They finally had a meeting at 11 am this morning to decide what to do with my job. It was crazy, they asked me to do my job for three more months, I told them no, that wouldnt work for my family, and now Marilyn will be stuck with my job and Jean will be interpreting, I told them I could keep the interpreter phone for 3 more months. I would be willing to do that to help out. Also one of my consumers attacked me claiming I never cared for the deaf and I had enough, I just broke down and cried. I felt like I was leaving them all out in the cold, then after that I got pissed, because my new CEO was give 10 weeks notice, so this kinda of crap wouldnt happen. He waited to0 long and then he is pulling stuff out of his butt. He lead one of the interpreters along saying that we need to discuss some options about her proposal so she was upset. It was a mess, I was tired from the night before and an emotional wreck when I got home. I am very very glad to be here today.

Well better get around and just refocus.

so much for global warming

Eat your heart out, Al Gore, no global warming in this state. Ice storm followed by snow storm doesnt say global warming to me. Everyone that was in our shelter is now home and everything is starting to go back to normal.

God has been reaffirming alot of stuff for me this week about my move out of MERIL and onto other things. Just little things that tell me I am doing the right thing, and I am exicited about getting things going. I am ready to turn the page in my life. Will share those tidbits later.

Church was awesome this morning!! It was fantastic! God has given us an ice storm to show us as a church how to minister to others. Our church is posed to start at it and go again, Iknow the Lord is gearing us for the next growth spurt, spirtually and numerically. God is amazing, if we just let Him move outside of our box.

Going to take a short nap before I go over to the church.

wow what a week

Well this ice storm will go down in the books for awhile. We experienced close to an inch of ice, which wiped out a huge radius of towns in this area, then people had difficulties with water, heat and food. We had been preparing for our church to be a Red Cross shelter and we official became one overnight. We started housing people Tuesday night and tonight everyone got back home. We at one time served 40 people hot meals, was able to have hot showers for people, and housed 20-25 people for a few nights. I was amazed at Red Cross, they really do an awesome job, I will proably get certified to work our own shelter. We also had a huge funeral dinner today for Mark who died of cancer (age 41). It was a long haul for him and now he is in a better place. Our church seems to be okay with what we did, you never know how people will respond with doing real down and dirty hands on work, so many people dont want to get that close to peoples need. We want to say be warm and filled, and go on. This was a great outreach and postive thing that we did for our community and I feel that God was greatly honored in it. We still are delivering kersone to an older lady. We are going to clean up tommorow evening if everything stays good.

School came to a standstill, this week, due to the lack of electricty, heat and shelter work. So hopefully we can get started again tommorow. Guess we call this "snow days", anyway they both pitched in and did great. MLK is finally getting over this crude, boy with her it just kept her down and out, but had one of the nurses listen to her lungs and they sounded clear.

Well my brain is gone so blog more later.

recoup day

The girls, Dave, and I had a recoup day yesterday. We only did documentaries for school, but both of them were excellent. One was on Jamestown and the other on the Mayflower. I was amazed at the girls recall of what they had read about this (right now MDK is reading about it, and MLK read the same stuff two years ago). Alot of people died at Jamestown, the Mayflower people faired some better but all was a rough time. We discussed the Mayflower Compact and how it laid a foundation for our Declaration of Independence. It was a nice break and still alot of learning going on.

I have almost got the laundry whipped into shape, it was behind again, mostly because we have ran and done all week. I got 100 dollars at my Christmas party from the board at MERIL, plan to put that into savings. Seven more working days, been cleaning out files, checking through files and taking and tying up lose ends. My focus is starting to turn homeward.

I am planning on taking on maintaining the church website for Dave and also doing the Baptist Buzz (newsletter). I will also be doing a database of members and visitors so that can be more easily acessed, updating birthday and calender days. Those are the first things I have on my agenda concerning the church, then I want to paint the downstairs at the church and get the storage into shape.

Homeschooling has a little bit of catching up to do, plan to implement more sign language and a music appreciation course into it. Plan to organize my office again to better use my resources.

My house is getting an overhaul, a through cleaning, sorting, throwing away, reorganization, I have already started with this corner or that and plan to do one area every day whether big or small. I am tired of having to purchase something because I cant find it.

My other goal is to bake and cook more and teach MLK how to also. I am interested in canning and gardening better.

I also want to go home and see my relatives, but proably not untill I get a good handle and a routine going here at home. I think the girls and I will get alot done if we have a rhythm. Also plan to go out with Dave on the route and go on short field trips, lots of museums and cool things in some of the places he goes through.

Lots of thoughts roaming around in my head.

Today we will work on school subjects after we finish at the youth group bazzare. We also have a few household chores to do, plan to bake some bread and clean out the old desk.

Well better go

4 am musings

Well I think I might be related to my father, I have of late been waking up in the middle of the night and not sleeping, I cant complain I am getting more sleep than my sister has in years (three small children). I do this off and on through the year get a good six hours of sleep and I am done. So I get up and piddle on the computer as to not wake up the house.

Yesterday was a full day at work, trying to make sure everything is in order and ready to go when I quit. It was good though felt like I accomplished some stuff.

Ordered a book called Created to be His Helpmeet, very good excerpt I read out of this book so I went ahead and bought it, it and a journal where on sale for 12 dollars.

The house is slowly getting better, been able to get to a few projects so when we pick up it doesnt take as long, the girls whipped it up in shape in one hour last night and it looked pretty good. I want to spend the entire month of Jan. cleaning. I think I will do less house cleaning if I can get to the baseline and raise the bar on clutter. I will be the anti clutter queen!!! I have conquered a few drawers, the entertainment center. Next on my list is under the bathroom sink and the old desk.

Today we are all getting up and getting on the road early, Dave wants us to travel with him today, he doesnt usually ask, so if he does we try to go with. Usually means he wants to just chat and carry on with all of us. We have a deacon/trustee banquet tonight.

Well off and about for now.

a moral compass

We have been watching the new session of CSI on Netflix DVD and I wanted to quote and comment on an eposide we saw called Fannysmacking, the eposide was aboutto a bunch of kids that thought it was fun to go around and beat up tourist in Las Vegas, they would kill or seriously miam their victims, it was a swarm mentallity. At the end of the eposide Grissom comments These children may have had a moral compass but they did not know how to use. We have taught children that nothing is truely wrong and that there is no reason to feel quilty about anything. This has lead these teens to feel that death isnt even wrong if they are having a good time. (not an exact quote from the show)

I thought this was a great way to sum up the disservice we do to the next generation if we do not teach them absolute right and wrong. The wishy washy is not good, we must get back to God's way of doing, he is much clearer and not very gray on anything.

We had a great Bible quiz on Saturday!! Both my girls quizzed out alot and all the kids did really really well. The girls then had friends stay the night and then Sun. afternoon MDK went to a friends, MLK watched some tv, and Dave and I took a long nap. I think Daves predisone is finally washing out of his system cause he can sleep again. We had pizza and decorated the church. It was alot of fun. Well better get off here and get around!

the wind is a blowin

The wind is just whipping around outside, it sounds yucky to be out in. I hope it dies down before Dave has to be in it tommorow. We all went to Bible quizzing yesterday. It was alot of fun, the girls did really well. I came home and watched CSI and Dave finished his sermon, the girls had friends over. Hopefully they slept!

MLK has been much more dilligent about her work in general, I am thinking she maybe maturing, but I will wait and see on that, MDK has been in a snite all week and I about put a knot on her head.

Well I had better get around for church this morning. More later.