Day 3 of Everpresent Snow

Well I think I need to send an email to the weather guys. Attention: We live in Northern GA (truly the deep south). We do not need snow for more than a day at a time. It is important to our lifestyles that the snow melts following day 1. So, stop broadcasting that it's going to be so cold! Give us a few degrees -- say 15 or so-- and we'll all be much nicer folks, I promise. We need our sweet tea and sonic ice and light jackets. My children don't own clothes thick enough to play outside and are tired of wearing 2 layers! So, hurry up and warm it back up around here -- please and thank you.

Currently, Tuesday is the first time it's supposed to get above freezing... a whollaping 38 degrees for our high. If it gets that warm, I might not have to give myself an extra 30 minutes to drive in case some other person decides that they don't know how to drive in the snow (though it's on the sides of the roads, not on the roads anymore) and go 15 mph down the highway with double solid yellow lines so I cannot go around them. If it gets that warm, I may be convinced to not wear leggings underneath my work pants and a tank top under my uniform shirt. I might even be convinced to take a shower again!

I went to take a shower last night, after washing some dishes almost an hour previous to that. Well, I turned on the hot full blast and kept waiting for the warm water to appear. I stripped down in good faith, freezing my buns in the meantime, and finally decided that the water was warm enough. I hopped in and the very second the water touched me I shrieked like a child and scrambled back out of the shower. Brent thought it was hysterical and dried me off (well the small section of me that had gotten wet) and dressed me and stuck my hands under my arms so that my core would heat up faster and wrapped up around me to try and warm me faster. Its so nice to be married to someone who knows how to fight off/prevent frostbite. Ok, not that I was in danger of loosing a toe or something to frostbite, but I was cold and he knew the best ways to warm me up! He tucked me in bed and brought chocolate covered cherries to feed to me :-) They were REALLY good but I only let myself have 3 because I really probably don't need them.

Today I work until 5. I need to finish washing dishes, throw in a load of laundry, straighten the house a bit.... and pick up milk and bread and a few things from the store. (It's been hard to find milk and bread lately, the weather man said the s word and everyone ran off to the store like they were expecting a blizzard!) I think tomorrow Alina and I will make some more "princess" cookies (sugar cookies with pink icing and sprinkles) because we are out of them and she seemed to enjoy them so much. Something about homemade cookies just makes me happy... I don't mind giving those to her as much because I know exactly what's in them and that seems to give me some comfort (I don't really know why).

Next weekend Brent and I are going on a church retreat together - I think this is the first one we've gone on together as a married couple. We're really excited because this is leadership training for our church and we were asked to go by our pastor. We'll be there Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning - no kids :-) so it's actually a retreat, and a mini vacay together. I'm really excited to see what all we do on the trip, and what things we look into and stuff.

I know a big part of the retreat is finding out what your gifts and strengths are and how to use them to benefit the body -- and that's really cool to me. I've taken like a bazillion of those "what is your spiritual gift" tests and it always comes out different... depending usually on what denomination is administering the test and what they call things. I know I've got alot of hospitality that's naturally oozing out of me - so much so that we had a prophet couple come to our church one weekend and they looked at Brent and I out of the blue (we hadn't even met) and said "you have a very hospitable spirit, and you've always kept your home open and you need to continue to do that." I know I hear specifically from God pretty frequently about doing things or not doing things -- but it seemes to be more prophetic than discerning... but I also know that I'm very much a teacher and shepard but I also know I can't be everything so I just don't know (LOL). Ahh if only it was on an index card one day when I was reading in my bible or something. Just tell me "hey, you're a prophet" and I could handle that pretty easily! I don't think I'm an evangelist... I feel more concerned with teaching people how to live correctly and how to impact others than I do going out and "preaching to sinners" so to speak. And I don't think I'm an apostle either -- I'd rather stay with a group of people than jump from church to church to church planting and growing them for a little while and coming back to kick their butts when they've been stupid. And, for that matter, I've never really felt a calling for intercesory.... sure, I pray for people and on their behalfs on rare occasion, but its only happened one time that I really felt like I needed to set myself entirely aside to pray for something/someone specific and I have the feeling that that had more to do with the person whom I was praying for and what I'd just been told about what they were going through. I think that qualifies more as worry than intercessory. I think part of the deal with being a true intercessor is to know someone needs prayer before you hear about what's wrong or if there is something wrong -- like speaking prophetically doesn't really count if you look at someone you know is in drug rehab and tell them that drugs have been controlling their life. It's sort of a duh statement.

Well, our first bible study is Monday, and then we have the retreat (called Encounter) and then we have bible studies on Monday nights till like June I think... I'll be really interested to learn about what it is exactly that God has for me. Lately I've felt like I was just waiting around for whatever it is to happen so I can start to reach out and minister.

I remember a few months back, Brent and I were asked to go to a meeting about starting a youth group. We were ready to be involved and be leaders but God stepped in and said "nope" even though we weren't really listening. He timed it to where Becca went into the hospital the weekend of our first youth group night so we didn't go to the first meeting and just never really went back.... probably a good thing, anyway, because the guy in charge was very zealous but seemed to think that his passion for the kids would be enough to make them realize how awesome God was -- and didn't really have a course of action besides "let's have a church service and just invite teens." ech. We tried to talk to him about it too, because they've been tons and tons of people to come in, start a youth group, loose zeal, and dissapeer at that church and it's just frusterating. Brent and I KNOW that whatever it is that we have to do is going to be involved with teenagers somehow -- we've been told and shown that time and time and time and time again. We both knew it while we were still like 15 and 16. I was a youth leader in high school and I even organized and ran entire retreats -- and let me tell you, Happening was alot of work. I didn't sleep but like 5 hours all weekend. It was exhausting, but let me tell you, I knew that was what I was supposed to be doing. I was sure that was the thing that was meant for me. But since graduating, I've just been... on hold. Now I'm married and have kids and my own schedule and stuff, so its different. And I guess, good youth ministers have their own teenagehood under their belts a bit and aren't still growing up (not that I'm not still maturing but I'm past the teenage part of it). But, I'm ready to be doing something. I'm ready to be ministering and making a difference. I'm ready. But right now I'm still waiting. Maybe Encounter will change this and it'll be a step towards whatever-it-is.

Snowy Frozen Day

Thursday called for 70% chance of snow with a high of 26 degrees and the lows below 10. Today called for flurries. It's a might cold... 18 degrees right now a bit past noon. 2 degrees after wind chill at Brent's work today.

We got about an inch of snow between yesterday afternoon and last night. I took pictures as this was the first snow that Brent was home to enjoy with Alina. Alina was super super grumpy for a while - I'm not really sure why she just felt like screaming and crying whenever she woke up from her nap. But, she and daddy made Jello and then went to play in the snow and she cheered up a bit (pacie and all).





She only played for about 30 minutes before she broke down in tears out of the blue and said she was cold and wanted to go inside and watch Ice Age. (funny that she's cold and wants to watch Ice Age)



They had a snowball fight. Daddy made snowballs and Alina threw them at him and he threw them back at her. Brent said the first one she hit him with made her little face light up and she laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen!


Its been so cold that we left the water running everywhere in the house but the water pressure is poor in some places because its freezing the pipes some anyway. We've had to bundle up an extra bunch - Alina had on leggings and a close fitting shirt under her normal clothes today. She wouldn't wear 2 pairs of socks for me but she gladly wore mittens and her jacket. Raziel's been so sick I was scared to bundle him too much - he's had the worst diareaha ever. I changed him every 2 hours yesterday and put baby powder on him and everything, even got up and did it once in the night. His diaper rash is so bad that he screams and cries so hard he shakes when I go to change him - it breaks my heart. But, he's gotta get cleaned or it'll get worse. If I go more than about 2 hours without checking him his diaper explodes all over his clothes and blankets and everything he comes in contact with. So, I just left him in his fleece PJ's and brought clothing changes to the sitter today and that seemed to be enough for him under his heavy jacket. I hope he gets better soon, this getting up in the night is too much for me and all this diaper rash is too much for him. :-/

I've finally accomplished that whole to-do list from the other day. I'm very proud of myself. I even got all the paperwork I needed faxed over to HIPP so that GA Health Dept can look at re-imbursing us for our health care costs. It may only be $70 a month but every little bit counts. I do need to call back my OB about taking iron pills.... I don't want to do it but I've been so tired lately that it's very possible I just need to buckle down and do it (yuck).

Ok. I'm done for now. I need to go clean up at work. We did inventory the other day and haven't finished re-organizing since then, and I can't find anything.

Got my hands full

Seems to be that everyone says that to me these days. When I called my precious g-parents I found out that they hadn't been told at all about Judah until a week or two ago and I couldn't believe it! Surely -- surely, my dad would call them up to announce another great-grand.... I guess not. But, even my blessed wonderful granpa said "wow, you're gonna have your hands full." Everyone seems to say that - strangers, family, friends. Oh well, I guess I probably will!

Today has been interesting. I got ALOT of my to-do list done... not quite all, though. I still need to re-schedule my ob appt and there was something else..... hmmm.... but I did start some laundry. When I finally got home last night the kids were both already asleep and I just stuck them in their beds and turned on the heaters and they slept just fine. I was FREEZING last night for a while until my eagle scout asked if I'd worn those socks all day and told me that they were holding moisture and I needed to take them off. Its wonderful to be married to an eagle scout when the house's insulation isn't the best. He tells me that the secret to being warm is wearing as few clothing items as possible (or none, really) and snuggle up under the blanket. Your body heat will be trapped by the blanket and you'll be warmer faster. The problem with this arises whenever you have to get out of the bed to pee or to get up in the morning.... because the warm doesn't come with you :-/ I tell Brent this is just a ploy to have me wear less clothing and he says that he finds that amusing because he used to tell it to 11 year old boys at scout camp and he hopes that I don't really think that's the case. LOL.

We tried to put the dog in the shed last night so he'd stay warm while it dropped below 10 degrees... he got out anyways and went across the street to cuddle with the in-laws dog. Can't blame him, I would do it too! But poor thing had ice chips on his fur when we brought him in this morning. He's such a good dog, Brent didn't have to keep him on a leash or anything while they were going in and out the house all morning... he just hollers and Odin recognizes something (not sure what it is because he's pretty darn deaf) and comes running up to him every time.

The current battle has been keeping warm at home... the insulation is just awful, the heating and air is too expensive to run because it's not working right... and we're out of firewood (which is expensive too). So, we use space heaters and we've borrowed Pam's radiator and we do all right but it's still pretty daggum cold... even if the heat was running all day, we'd still be cold - we've got 70% chance of snow on Thursday and it hasn't been above 30 degrees all week long. I saw some thing about weatherization the gov't is doing but I haven't had the time to try and see what it is or how it works much less apply and go through an interview for it. I know that it's created to weather-proof the homes of people that aren't well-off-enough to do it themselves... which sounds great but man that means I have to fill out an app and talk to the gov't etc etc etc etc etc. sigh.

I did start a load of laundry.... and I took the trash out of Raziel's room, though not to the dump yet. Razzy was sick yesterday when I got him from the sitter, he'd thrown up all over himself.... Alina had that little stomach bug while we were on our trip to FL -- effectively puked all over me right when I was discovering the bathtub in our hotel that was big enough to fit 3 adults into (not that there'd ever be a need for that as far as I can tell!). I was sick on Saturday night too... and Brent had it on Thursday night. So, I guess it's a 24 hour puke-once sort of thing, and today Raziel's doing fine. I even called mid-way through the day today to check on him and he's doing just perfectly normal, so I'm glad. I hope the kids don't get as exhausted as I was Sunday (couldn't get out of the bed). So, the point of this long confusion is that it's been so cold that the clothes that were wet from when I washed Alina's puke out in the tub were frozen when I threw them in the wash LOL

wow I'm random today and I can't really focus. I'm gonna end this rambling.

Catching Up on Life

Ah my to-do list is long

#1) bugdget, pay bills, make billing arrangements
it was so odd to not have a $3000 check in December, we've got a bit of catching up to do because we did really really well but still aren't used to the no-extra-money thing during Christmas. I like this job way better but it's different in that respect.

#2) clean out the car, bring in all the lovely New Years gifts and distribute throughout the house. Exciting gifts worth mentioning include a breadmaker and knife block and set for hubby and a beautiful yellow purse from New York New York in Las Vegas :-D and a new bottle of my fav purfume.

#3) must purchase a new year's daily planner... I am lost without one. I started using one last year to help keep up on bills and it's been the best thing I've done along with online banking and billpay.

#4) laundry. Ah, traveling brings piles and loads of laundry. I was off yesterday but sick as a dog all day and couldn't even get up out of the bed to think about doing laundry. Good thing I washed all the dishes before I left, but leaving the diaper genie full was a mistake! IT STINKS!!

#5) clean Alina's room. While I was sleeping all day yesterday the babies were playing happily. I was right there, on Alina's bed, so it wasn't like they were in any danger, but gosh did they make a mess!!

#6) make arrangements for Child care while on my retreat... brent and I go on a church retreat on the 14-16th of this month and I need to make sure my in-laws can keep the babies at nighttime for us. (they'll stay with the sitter during the day)

#7) get up the nerve to go outside in the 26 degree weather without my jacket (don't know where that is... lost in the new years stuff to be taken from the car) and go pay the car insurance.

#8) upload new years pictures to my blog. We had a family picture taken of brent and myself and the babies and are very excited because it turned out GREAT. I'm going to post it here and then email it to my mom because she'll want it

#9) call my grandma back because bless her heart she called like the day after Christmas and I still haven't had a minute to call her back!

#10) Re-schedule my next OB appt to correlate with my next day off so that I don't arrive to work late (which I was 5 minutes early today! WOOHOO!)

Gosh my life is so insane. I don't really have time to blog either and I have about 30 posts to catch up on people's blogs!!

Christmas Pictures

Wow I know its been forever lol we've been so slammed at work!!! OK here's the Christmas pictures! More to come... I have to take photos of Brent's workshed (that's the big present I made for him I've been talking about forever)

this is Alina opening her baby doll -- she was so excited! She skipped the big slide with the bow on it, and ignored her stocking and candy and opened it right up.


Here's the boots painting I did for her. It and Larryboy are now on her wall.

This is my living room wreckage once all the gifts were open....


This is Alina chillin out, checking out the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


I took pics of Raziel all day and always got the top of his head.... LOL. This is him opening a curious george stacking toy. He wasn't interested, haha.


He just picked up his blanket and went to his room. I think he was voting to get back in bed!


Brent got the first season of the Spiderman Animated series from Alina. That was the present she got him that she wasn't allowed to see because she would tell him what it was... Like the pillow we wrapped in a box so he wouldn't guess it. She brought him the box to open stating "it's a pillow, daddy!" ahh... what will I do with her?!?!

Raziel's top of his head (again) playing with his blocks and his blanket.

and lastly, Alina enjoying her stocking candy.


So that's our Christmas. It was wonderful. We woke up at 7:30 and made breakfast, turned on the heaters, etc. Kids woke up around 7:45 and were sooo excited. Brent made purfume for me this year and that was AWESOME. It smells so wonderful - I thougt he'd bought it but there's evidence of purfume making supplies in my master bathroom (I wasn't allowed in there for a week) so I know he's telling the truth. He also gave me a gift card of $65 to redecorate our living room (SWEET!!!). I'm really excited about this because I LOVE decorating. I think I'm painting the walls green, painting the trim white, recovering the sofa and chairs with white (removable so I can wash them), painting the furniture black, getting an entertainment center and moving our family-hand-me-down-heirloom chest of drawers to the dinning area to hold sheets and things... and then maybe getting a big white throw rug and framing some b&w's of the kids on the walls in black frames. Besides that, Brent gave me a few filmmaking books, some girly spa things, and the soundtrack to Spring Awakening on Broadway. I really enjoyed our Christmas... it floors me how thoughtful my hubby is :-)

I'll blog soon about the workshed I made him. I've got things to do :-)

Christmas

OK Christmas pictures will arrive on Monday. I took a bunch and can't wait to share them but my camera is not in my bag and must still be in our Living room somewhere so I will be posting a big post with stories and pictures and such on Monday!

My Amazing Find

I wish I could tell you what it is. I think I'm really going to have to go back through the last few months of my blog and see all the things I haven't been able to say for fear of ruining Christmas and just make a big blog of how excited I have been about the things I have found!!

Brent's big present this year has been a big project. It's not at all like I thought it would turn out, but its turned out really well. Today I ran over to the Habitat for Humanity store looking for that finishing touch and found a REALLY nice addition.... something I would paid like $75 for (because it's such good quality... and I'm cheap, so it'd probably be worth ALOT more) and I bought it for $15. I can't wait to show you what I bought! It's big, Brent already knows that. My co-worker is going to haul it down to my house for me in his truck and Tyler is going to unload it for me cause there's no way I could do that being pregnant... it's too heavy.

I went over to the Dollar Tree today and purchased a few stocking stuffers along with the actual stockings themselves. I remember pulling out our stockings when we set up the tree but I don't know where they've gone to... usually I hang them right away and I didn't for some reason, so now they're missing. But, I bought 4 at the dollar tree, so no harm done. I got all of Brent's stocking stuffers and bought 2 things for Alina's stocking (princess dress-up shoes and pacies which were 2 for $1 and I've never seen at a dollar tree before!) but I've left the major stocking shopping for Christmas eve when I can do it with Brent. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow morning *gasp* I know, stupid. But, we just got paid today and while I was planning to go this evening, I can't really do that with the delivery coming to my home sooooo... groceries on Christmas eve at walmart... sounds fun *HAH*

My boss stopped by and dropped off our Christmas bonus this year - $50! cash! no taxes deducted, no needing-to-be-deposited-or-cashed! I'm glad... I needed it, lol. Well, we always seem to need it, but with Christmas shopping and such its been especially fun and challenging to balance "go ahead and buy it honey" and "we need to pay this bill first." If only Christmas were in January, with tax return season... hahaha. Oh well. The bills can wait a few more days :-)

I'm alot less stressed out today. I think it has to do with getting paid which always makes my life a bit easier.... not waiting and hoping that a certain check doesn't clear leaving us with very limited funds until payday... its easier when the things are deducted after we get paid. I guess it'd be easiest just to not have any bills, LOL. If I ever get there, I'll let you know how to achieve that.

I'm proud though. I got up, got to work in a timely fashion, got the kids dressed and fed and teeth brushed, remembered to bring diapers to the sitter and pay her, even remembered to buy wrapping paper at the store so we can finish up wrapping the presents! I even had breakfast and took my prenatal vitamens. I haven't forgot to do anything, I wasn't late, and I found my amazing find on a 30 minute lunch! I have one more purchase to make (about $25 worth) and I'm done done done done done. Brent's present has been so much work, and I've had to spread it out over checks... but now I'm finally (almost) done. LOL.

Can't wait to come on Saturday and show you all the pictures from Christmas eve, Christmas morning, etc. Alina's excited because she's down to her last mini-present since tomorrow is Christmas eve and we open a normal present and then everything else on Christmas day. She knows its getting close, finally! She asked me this morning if we could go ahead and open all the presents yet.

Oh, and one last thing to tell you about. For Christmas, one of the things Alina bought for me was paintbrushes (I'm a good present feeler and guesser and Brent said I was right). Apparently when she and her daddy went to the store to pick out presents for me, she got the one thing she'd already decided on (wow, my 3 year old wanted to get me something specific) and then she looked at Brent and said "daddy, can I get mommy some paintbrushes since I ruined the ones she had?" Brent said it melted his heart and he wanted to cry when she said that. I wanted to cry when he told me about that!

It was weeks ago - Alina did ruin some of my paintbrushes... she dipped them in glue or something else goopy before I got up one morning and we had forgotten to shut her door the night before. She painted all sorts of things - the wall, blank canvases, books, paintings that I'd finished years ago.... etc. I was really upset that she did that but most of the stuff cleaned off but the brushes she played with were ruined - I tried everything I could to get that stuff out and nothing got it out. I told her that day that she wasn't allowed to play with mommy's paintbrushes without asking because she ruined them. I can't believe she remembered me saying that to her. It really brings into perspective how intelligent she is and how much I let her get away with because I think she doesn't know better but she actually does!!! Nonetheless, she is a sweet, caring little person and she remembered, weeks later, that I'd said she ruined my paintbrushes and she wanted to buy me new ones. Ah, I love my little girl.