Next step in my life

Well it’s been quite a while since I posted.  I subbed a lot but as the school year end grew near the jobs got less so I spent more time at home cleaning, stitching and job hunting.  But recently several things have happened making some changes for us.  I know I’m ready to embrace some change.

Here are the flood water pictures from my parents house. 

My family church right behind my parents house. A little water and mud inside but no real damage.

The bridge next to my parents house where we use to swim as kids.

The neighbors gathering to help another neighbor tie down her propane tank to keep it from floating downstream.

A view across the creek.  You could walk straight across.  This usually is a rather steep embankment to the water.

 

 

 

In much lighter news Joel and I are both working!  Joel is working with a temp service and right now on a construction job for several weeks.  Starting Monday the 3rd I will begin working full time as customer service/ data entry at Ashley’s Furniture.   I’m so excited to have work.  I’m so excited for this new turn in my life.  I’m so nervous and scared for the first few days of new stuff.  Meeting people, learning the company, learning my job responsibilities, working 8 hours and not getting a nap lol…yikes.  But I’m also really looking forward to it. 

The downer of both of us working is that the dogs will be home alone but I believe our schedules are going to be off track enough that one of us will be home about every 2-3 hours so should make it easier on them.  Just harder on us to have to corral them that many times a day to put them up.  Maybe before long they will get into the routine and it won’t be too much of a hassle. If not I guess I’ll be spending my first paycheck on dog treats to entice them into getting put up for a bit. I am a person that works well with a schedule and routine as well as motivation to get things done. Being as I have really had none of these things in a while there are many things that must get done because I’m not sure when my days off will be. I will get 2 days off a week just might not be the usual Saturday Sunday weekend.

 

 

 

 

My nails primped and pretty for my interview.  Protection for my pretty nails during mandatory house cleaning. Joels sunburn a result of the first day of work.

 

  I actually can’t believe it but my baby sister graduated college this past month. Not that it’s astonishing that she completed school but in my mind she’s always my baby sister. No way is she big enough to now be a grown up and our in the real job force world. Just crazy but congrats to my sister! Way to go!

 

 

 

 

At some point in a random conversation with mom I mentioned a notebook I keep near my end of the couch where I put random notes to remember or phone messages or to do lists.  Mom reminded me that my Grandma Faught kept a “Book of Knowledge” where she kept important dates and such in.  Then from time to time we would read through it and remember stuff that had happened. I thought that’s neat to keep up with my notes and reflect back at a later time. So I bought this neat notebook to start keeping my stuff in. It’s kinda turned into a daily journal type thing. I try to write in it daily just a line or 2 about something that happened that day.  Might also come in handy for me to remember things to blog about. 

 

 

So that is our news of late.  Maybe I can have things to write about and start posting more often..Until next time…  Play time requires an adequate rest time.

 

The truest form of a hero

 

There have been a lot of severe storms in the last couple weeks. Oklahoma got hit pretty hard and a large tornado in one town basically clearing out a good portion of that town. Though there were some tornados that touched down near my hometown there was not a lot of major damage.  We are from Polk county and both our families still live there.

What the storms did bring was rain and lots of it. Flash flooding has a whole new meaning to me. The town had some major water in business's and a fiber optic line washed out shutting down most technology. Phones (land and cell), electric, internet , debit/ credit card machines and atms. In our technological age this was a big shock to many. Here are some pictures.

 

But the worst thing is the loss of life. It is confirmed that a neighboring county’s sheriff and game warden lost their lives. They were both helping other people out of the flood waters when a house imploded damaging their boat and knocking them out of it. So sad they were martyrs helping others at the risk of their own lives. The game warden was from my hometown and only a couple of years ahead of me in school. We had a couple classes together and were involved in an extra curricular activity together.

 

   

 

 

Thank you for your service men.  You are truly hero's in many eyes.

Sheriff Cody Carpenter and Wildlife officer Joel Campora……Rest in peace.

Feels like Spring but is it here to stay?

Wow it’s been pretty nice out side this week.  So nice Joel and I were inspired to go to a near by park and walk.  It wasn’t cold, not too hot perfect walking weather.  There was hardly anyone there.  We were a little confused at first by the mileage markers but I finally decided walking the whole thing was a total of 4 miles. Theres a loop marked 3/4 mile, a long straight stretch marked 1 mile, that connects to another look marked 1 1/4 mile.  We then have to take that long 1 mile stretch again to get back to the car.  By my calculations that makes 4 total.  The thought of walking 4 miles is hard but it’s doesn’t seem that bad.  Granted I’m just walking at this point probably at a leisure stroll for the first several times we do it.  But the weathers nice, Joel and I are chatting and the time and miles just fly by.  We actually went twice in this last week, we were suppost to go more but we had a few rainy days and we aren’t that dedicated yet.  I hope we can keep doing this.  Not only is the exercise good but it gets us out of the house for a bit and gives us time just us, no electronics.  And hey maybe I’ll be able to do enough to manage to shrink a little.  Maybe by the time it gets “too hot” to walk we can afford gym memberships and be able go to indoors.

Last weekend my BBFF came into town.  I love hanging out with her because we don’t have to DO anything major to have a good time.  Friday night we picked up some groceries.  Saturday afternoon I was back with her and we just sat around talking and I watched her bake a cake, and we chatted while she cleaned.  I had a great time, yet it was simple and free!

                                        

Saturday morning of Easter weekend I went to my great aunt’s house where we had a family gathering for Easter. My mom, grandma, uncle and his girlfriend all came to town for it. My cousin, his wife and girls were able to come by and my BBFF was there too. We just visited and caught up on each other’s lives for a bit. Then we ate and had an indoor egg hunt due to the rainy weather. I love watching little kids, they get so excited about finding those plastic eggs. The little girl ( she’s 2) opened up one of her eggs and got the candy out then couldn’t get it back together. She brought it to me and said “Broke it”. I told her it was ok I could fix it and I showed her how to put it back together. After that she kept bringing me her eggs and saying “fix”. I have a great photo that goes with this day that shows that sometimes we never get to move up from the kiddy table but I’ve been sworn to keep it out of the public eye.  Too bad cause it’s a funny picture!

 

This week was fairly low key.  Joel and I went and put in our applications at another Staffing agency.  Those papers take forever to fill out they are so long and ask for so much.  We were probably there nearly an hour and a half just filling out papers.  Lets keep our fingers crossed before to long something good will come open for both of us. 

I worked one day this week in the computer lab at a near by elementary.  In a way it was great because I only had one class from each grade level for 40 minutes.  They come in I told them what program they were to work on, they put on their headphones and worked.  I just walked around and monitered they were staying on task. When class time was up I told them to log out and line up.  EASY!  Except for me it was too easy.  Now if I was the regular teacher I’m sure I would have had my own computer work to do or working on student reports or something but being as I was the sub I just sat there.  For me I’d really much rather be busy busy than just sitting there.  I get tired when I’m still for too long.  But hey it was an easy paycheck for me!

Other than that my week was pretty routine.  Cleaning house, watching tv, playing on the computer, crosstitching.  Rinse and repeat lol.  I did paint my nails a fun Spring time color, then realized I did it before hand washing the pots and pans and didn’t want to mess up my nails so I solved the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh while I was modeling my nails and dish washing protection I also caught a shot of my ghetto fabulous watch I’ve been sporting these days.  See a month or so back I found my watch was always reading 8:20 no matter when I looked at it.  We have fallen on financially hard times right now and a watch though really not that expensive is beyond my budget at the moment.  So my grandma found an old watch of hers that she had.  Unfortunately it wouldn’t fit my overly fat rather ample wrist.  So she rigged it up to fit me.  Pretty fancy fixings lol.  I have since gone through 3 rubber bands that keep breaking and don’t look so stylish.  My dad bought be a nice watch for my birthday but alas it too was meant for thin wristed people and to get a link added to it is way more expensive then just returning it and getting a different watch.

 

Yesterday we were invited to my cousins daughters birthday party. Again another great time watching the excitement, fear and joy of children young and old. She had a horse themed party and even had a horse to give rides.  They had a one of those play Barbie cars they all took turns running into things and people in their way  driving around the yard.  There was a trampoline, sandbox and lots of little kids.  What fun! Why do we grow up and not get fun parties like that anymore?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The horse themed birthday cake.               The birthday girl getting her horsy ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     My cousin Tony riding the horse.                         The birthday girls mom even takes a ride.

This is the beautiful old barn they have on their property.  If you’ve noticed in my pictures few are posed pictures.  I’m more about the candid shots.  They are more real life and true to character.  Landscapes are some of my favorites.  And barns are my absolute favorite.  I have a barn picture (I might have mentioned and posted a picture before) of my grandparents barn behind their house.  This picture is blown up and framed in my hallway.  I want to do a whole barn motif so I’ve crosstitched some barns and have some other barn pictures that just have never been framed and hung.  I might have found another wonderful piece of art for my home décor.

 

So that about covers my week.  Today I’ll probably stick to my “usual routine” because I have business on Monday and maybe some work this week so I’d like to have the house in shape just in case.  I’m about half way through my current crosstitch project and since I only have a little over a month til my deadline I’ve got to get to working on it also.  Until next time…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          This is my computer wallpaper on my main screen.

3 months into 2013

 

*****Disclaimer the first is long, wordy and picture free but the interesting/ pictures are farther down.***

 

Well it seems yet again I have failed on my plans to blog.  I recently found a friend from college had a blog so I went way back to 2008 when she began and got caught up.  How fun to catch up on her life and the crazy funny antics of her now 3 year old son.  It inspired me to get back on my blogging.  If nothing else for my own personal reflection of life events.  And who knows maybe an old friend will notice my blog and be a dork like me and go WAY back to the beginning and catch up on the missed years, and if I don’t’ have much well they wouldn’t take a week to get caught up like it did me.

 

So lets see what’s happened since December.  Unfortunantly I don’t have a cute little kid to provide plenty of blog worth information.  My life is pretty routine hence why I blog so little I don’t think my blog would be very interesting if I blogged every few days about what I’ve been doing and it is repetitive beyond belief.  Go to work, come home and relax a little, cook supper, think how I desperatly need to do some house work but I’m too tired and put it off til later.  Watch some tv, eat supper, crosstitch then go to bed and read before sleeping.  Rinse and repeat most days of the week, month, and year.

I’ve been working a lot these 3 months.  This is great for the bank account as well as a reason to make my lazy behind get off the couch and do something.  However as just stated lazy is my middle name so working just makes me tired and more lazy.  It’s a never ending cycle.  It doesn’t help that I don’t have a consistent work schedule and that is rough on my body.  If I worked 5 days a week I’d get use to it and in a routine and could manage but this work 4 days then off 4 days then work 3 more days then off 2, etc, etc, etc, is hard.  After some deep thinking, soul searching and discuss in with the husband I’m looking into some full time positons most likely not in my chosen (i.e. gone to college for) career choice. I am a certified elementary teacher.  I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember minus a few years during late high school early college where I dabbled in another area.  SO teaching is in my blood something I’ve wanted practically forever.  However my 5 years of having my own classroom I was never truly happy.  Granted few jobs are the ideal perfect situations but these had multiple problems for me.  Don’t take me wrong I don’t regret those 5 years.  They are a part of my life and what makes me who I am.  They have given me life long experiences, lessons and friends that won’t be forgotten.  I thought a key reason to my troubles was location so I came up my job and moved closer to my hometown and in a place with more opportunities.  I didn’t get a teaching job as hoped so I decided to substitute.  This kept me in the school buildings get that exposure needed for being offered a teaching position plus keep me involved with kids but with benefits of not having to deal with the daily classroom teacher grind.  We’ve now been in this new town nearly 2 years and I’m still just subbing.  Now it’s been a generally good experience but still not happy and not having a steady salary is putting a major strain on the bank account and my marriage.  Something needs to change.  I’ve been interested in the aspects of anything clerical.  I like that organization and order that comes with office work.  I like the variety of things to do.  In college I worked in the reception office of the university health clinic and really enjoyed it.  In subbing I’ve had several opportunities to work in the office of one of the local elementary schools and have LOVED it.  Still get that kid environment plus the office organization and such.  So this is the new career path I’m heading.  Idealy I’d love to get a position in a school but those are few and far between, more so than teachers and there’s not enough open positions I can even get one of those so I’m not holding my breath for a school office job.  I’m actively searching for any medical offices needing a receptionist.  So if you know of anything in my area hit me up!

 

Ok well all that was very long and wordy and no exciting pictures so heres for some less daunting stuff. The beginning of March brought good time for this aunt.  I became aunt to my 3rd niece.  This is baby Erika.  A few days old.  I don’t have many pictures of her because I had been sick the previous week so only spent a few minutes with her.  The other picture is Erika’s older sister Breanna.                                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are my husbands sister’s girls.  They live in our hometown so we don’t get to see them on a regular basis. When we are with them I’m trying to catch up with the family plus pay attention to Breanna who has to show me all the new things she’s gotten since I was last there so I don’t typically get around to taking many pictures.  I actually spent a lot of time with Breanna in her first 6 months.  We lived in the same town and I kept her a lot before we moved at the end of that summer.  I have quite a few pictures of Breanna but they are all on the desktop computer which has never been set up at this house.  Perhaps I should do that sometime if nothing else to get my pictures off of there…Geez another project lol.\

 

Being as we had planned to go in that weekend to see baby Erika we went ahead despite my having been sick.  Since she is older and has a better immune system I was able to see niece number 2 Jesslynn ( my brothers daughter).  She’s about 7 months old in these pictures and a ball of fun.  She is crawling and babbling like crazy.   Here she is sitting with Grammie ( my mom) and me on the couch being mischievous yet oh so cute.  Chewing on grammies robe belt, playing peek a boo with the couch decorative doiley. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I’ve been rocking the iphone for maybe a year now.  I really like it but I had a hand me down iphone

3.  This old of a phone is no longer compatible with things so I wasn’t able to update apps or get any new ones.  As much as I’d like to stay with the iphone I can’t afford a new one and I know before long a used one won’t be compatible and I’ll have to get another one so I looked into another route for the time being.  It happened that my sister owed me some money from a while back so we agreed that she would use what she owed me to buy me a new phone.  It’s an android which I’ve never had experience with but I’m learning and it’s ok.  It took some time to figure it out and how to balance and move things around to not use up too much memory but I’ve pretty well got it down by now.  The biggest problem is that it as a phone to talk to people is useless in my house.  Too much brick I suppose because I only have like a bar of service and drop calls like hot potatoes. But out of the house I can make and hold calls just fine and the apps work great.  I think I’ll just have to find a little antenna booster for in the house to make calls.

 

 

Well this has gotten lengthy and if you’ve stuck with me thus far congrats and thanks for the support. I’m going to try to do better with posting more often. I will leave you with this parting shot of my babies and their four legged cousin looking out the window.  They love windows!

December 2012

Well I’m behind again here but I’ve finally gotten a chance to write about my December.  Maybe my new years resolution should be be a better blogger.  But I don’t want to put a goal that I might mess up so um ya we’ll just say I hope to do better. Anyways I had a pretty busy December, lots of exciting (to me) things.  I ended up working 2 whole weeks subbing in the same classroom right before Christmas break.  I really enjoyed it, thankfully I had a good group of kids. This kept me busy and very tired.

 

I don’t actually remember if it was early December or sometime near the end of November but I went to the park with my cousin and her best friend to take pictures of them and their families.  I had such a great time.  I’m no photography genius but I think it’s fun finding great shots.  I don’t care for the posed “stand like this, smile, say cheese” pictures.  I prefer random candid shots.  Much more natural and sometimes great unplanned shots or even some rather humorous ones. Here are 2 of my favs. 

                                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid December I went to stay the weekend with my  cousin and her husband at their new house. This is the second time I’ve driven to her house in pouring rain, good thing I have a good time and it’s worth it.  On top of driving in rain it was a Friday after I had worked all week so it was late afternoon and I was tired.  Friday we went to a great pizza place in their area that I always want to go to when I’m there, then we just went to their house and watched movies.  Saturday we got up early and went shopping.  In and out of store upon store oh yeah and it was still raining.  It happened to be like 2 weekends before Christmas so needless to say places were CROWDED.  We circled the mall for 10 minutes looking for a parking place and found none.  Not even way back in the far edge of the parking lot.  We ended up watching someone come out the doors and following them to their car and waiting while they put away all their shopping bags AND a baby just so we could get their parking spot.  Here’s a few shots from my trip.

 

Picture 1: Notice the dog she’s using as a pillow and cuddling up to. Chip lays up against my leg and sometimes in my arms if I’m sitting up but no way would he let me cuddle like this.  He always moves when I try.

Picture 2:  Resourceful James.  The restaurant didn’t give us silverware so he used his fries to put mayo on his burger.  Hilarious but smart!

 

 

The Sunday before Christmas we headed to our hometown for Christmas festivities with our families.  Sunday night we got to gather at my parents with my brother, sister and their families.  We just ate and did gifts for the kiddos this year.  Since we only had 2 little ones there and one was less than a year old this year this didn’t take long but we had a good time just being together. Monday morning we got together at my maternal grandparents house with my family and one of the cousins. We decided this year to do a brunch and a white elephant gift exchange.  When discussing with my cousin my grandmother suggested household useful things that anyone could use like toilet paper.  My cousin mentioned that would be good she needed toilet paper.  Soooo… we “pranked” her and all got her some toilet paper.  Bet she’ll watch what she asks for next time, or atleast be more specific lol!

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday evening we went to Joel’s uncles for Christmas with all of his family.  We were suppose to have venison this year but something went wrong and we ended up having Christmas pizza.  Not your traditional holiday meal but I love me some pizza so I wasn’t complaining.  We only do gifts for the kiddos at this get together too.  This one was a little longer and more fun because there are 3 kids and a baby on the way in that family so the paper was flyin.  I enjoy watching their excitement.

 

Joel had to be back to work the day after Christmas but the dogs and I stayed for the next week and a half to spend more time with my mom and grandparents.  We just had a complete do nothing vacation.  We played games with my grandparents and uncle, watched tv, played on the computers, and worked puzzles.  We are doing barn puzzles so I can glue and frame them and put up as decoration in my house.  Being I want them for decoration we needed atleast the majority of the pieces, so we ended up having 2 false starts with too many pieces missing to continue.  We did get started on one but decided we needed a second one going to give our brains a break from that one picture.  The snow barns picture we had a couple restarts on because the dogs kept getting on the table and messing it up.  We got about half of the snow barn puzzle done before I left and maybe 1/3 of the other one.  We left them set up and mom said she’ll work on them a little bit and they will be available next time I go visit and we don’t have to start all over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course being back in my hometown and the holidays I saw my niece Jesslynn.  She’s 5 months now and so much fun.  She stayed Sunday night at moms so I almost got a full 24 hours with her.  Then mom and I went to her house one a day later in my 2 week visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite this getting long and having LOTS of pictures I can’t end without atleast one picture of my sweet four legged fur babies.