I was out of town last week and even though I didn't forget to personally tell THESE lovely ladies Happy Birthday I forgot to give them a shout-out on here!!
So first and foremost to my mother - Happy 61st Birthday!! She celebrated her special day on Saturday the 27th of Sept. (My mom is the one on the right)
Secondly - Happy Birthday to my very best, most special friend in the whole world - CJ! God has blessed me with your friendship for the last 7-8 years and I am so thankful for every day longer I have to spend with you. Every day is a gift from God my sweet friend...you are a constant reminder of that and I thank you for that. I love you dearly. (Her birthday was on Sunday, the 28th.)
Unfortunately this birthday wasn't a very "good" one for CJ...other than the fact that she IS still here with us and for that we are extremely blessed. She had her 6th round of chemo on Thursday and was sick as a dog all weekend. Our whole church went to the movies together Sunday evening. She stayed in the car until right before the movie started hoping she could make it through the movie and for the most part she did. If you have been following along with my posts about CJ and her cancer...please continue to pray for her - I would appreciate it!
Lastly, our pastor's wife - Sherry! She and CJ share a birthday - Sept 28th. Sherry is an awesome woman. She HAS to be to share her husband with a whole congregation of people the way she does with her husband...and she does it with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. Happy Birthday Sherry!!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Fireproof
Our church went and saw this movie last night together as a group. It is an amazing movie. I highly encourage everyone to go see it.
I've been struggling with some major personal issues lately (the main reason I haven't been posting a lot - depression) but after being gone last week and seeing this movie last night it gave me a fresh new outlook on life again. Thank you Jesus!
I've been struggling with some major personal issues lately (the main reason I haven't been posting a lot - depression) but after being gone last week and seeing this movie last night it gave me a fresh new outlook on life again. Thank you Jesus!
Update on our House
We have been in our house for one month today!!
Yay!!
Whoohooo....I can't believe it has been a month already!
God has been so good and gracious to us this past month. When we moved in to our new house we had beds to sleep in, clothes to wear and a few other odds and ends. We needed furniture, everything for the kitchen (pots/pans, dishes, etc), and all the "little" things you take for granted in your everyday use around the house. I can't tell you how many quick trips we had to take to the store the first week we moved in because we NEEDED something. Good thing we live in town now and Target is just around the corner one way and Walmart is down the road the other way.
Greg is an assistant manager at his job. He receives monthly and quarterly bonuses based on the performance of his team of 100+ employees. We are always amazed at the timing of some of his "huge" bonuses - they always come right when we could really use the extra money...like when we moved into this house and needed to buy everything. Because we had the extra money we were able to afford to pay more for good quality cookware, flatware and things of that nature - I am so thankful for this!
I already shared with you how Greg's parents blessed us with a dining room table so this area went from looking like this......
to looking like this every night now and it is a wonderful feeling to be able to prepare a meal and sit down and eat together as a family at a table!This past week we received another amazing blessing we were not expecting! My ex-husband never paid child support when our three children were young. Greg supported my children from the time we were married when they were 10 & 8 years old (my twins were 8.) It hasn't been until the last few years since the Dept. of Revenue started cracking down on my ex that he has been any kind of consistent with his weekly support but he is thousands and thousands of dollars in arrears so he'll probably be paying me until he dies. Anyway...I guess he must have filed his taxes last year (something he also doesn't do regularly) because I received a HUGE deposit last week courtesy of a tax intercept of my ex's!! Thank you Jesus! Because of that we didn't have to keep saving for our couch...I was able to go purchase our new couch and pay all our bills for the month.
So now our living room doesn't look like this anymore......
We finally have a couch (thanks to my ex! LOL)-----Dakota was on the laptop last night and left everything out...can't ya tell? haha Here is what Dakota's room looked like before.....
He is still sleeping - lol - he doesn't know I snuck in there and took this picture. You can see his head poking out from the covers on his pillow.
He normally keeps his room really clean but we just got home from GA yesterday and his backpacks are still laying around on the floor where he hasn't unpacked them and put things away. Can ya tell he follows his daddy's liking of FL Gators?
Right now he has a HUGE tv in his room which will eventually go in the living room. We are going to buy him one of the small flat panels and put it up on his wall - which will free up some space in his room. He also doesn't want his futon/bunk bed anymore so we have to find him another bed eventually.Dakota's bathroom-he wanted the black/white theme. He has taken ownership of his bathroom and keeps it clean! I am shocked!! The back yard before we moved in.....
My back yard now....I love my back yard! We have a hummingbird garden started and when I was out of town last week my husband bought me a bird feeder and put it up out there for me!! We have so many birds, butterflies, dragonflies and hummingbirds that fly around out here all day long. I absolutely love to sit out here every morning and just watch and listen and thank God for the many blessings.......
Yay!!
Whoohooo....I can't believe it has been a month already!
God has been so good and gracious to us this past month. When we moved in to our new house we had beds to sleep in, clothes to wear and a few other odds and ends. We needed furniture, everything for the kitchen (pots/pans, dishes, etc), and all the "little" things you take for granted in your everyday use around the house. I can't tell you how many quick trips we had to take to the store the first week we moved in because we NEEDED something. Good thing we live in town now and Target is just around the corner one way and Walmart is down the road the other way.
Greg is an assistant manager at his job. He receives monthly and quarterly bonuses based on the performance of his team of 100+ employees. We are always amazed at the timing of some of his "huge" bonuses - they always come right when we could really use the extra money...like when we moved into this house and needed to buy everything. Because we had the extra money we were able to afford to pay more for good quality cookware, flatware and things of that nature - I am so thankful for this!
I already shared with you how Greg's parents blessed us with a dining room table so this area went from looking like this......
to looking like this every night now and it is a wonderful feeling to be able to prepare a meal and sit down and eat together as a family at a table!This past week we received another amazing blessing we were not expecting! My ex-husband never paid child support when our three children were young. Greg supported my children from the time we were married when they were 10 & 8 years old (my twins were 8.) It hasn't been until the last few years since the Dept. of Revenue started cracking down on my ex that he has been any kind of consistent with his weekly support but he is thousands and thousands of dollars in arrears so he'll probably be paying me until he dies. Anyway...I guess he must have filed his taxes last year (something he also doesn't do regularly) because I received a HUGE deposit last week courtesy of a tax intercept of my ex's!! Thank you Jesus! Because of that we didn't have to keep saving for our couch...I was able to go purchase our new couch and pay all our bills for the month.
So now our living room doesn't look like this anymore......
We finally have a couch (thanks to my ex! LOL)-----Dakota was on the laptop last night and left everything out...can't ya tell? haha Here is what Dakota's room looked like before.....
He is still sleeping - lol - he doesn't know I snuck in there and took this picture. You can see his head poking out from the covers on his pillow.
He normally keeps his room really clean but we just got home from GA yesterday and his backpacks are still laying around on the floor where he hasn't unpacked them and put things away. Can ya tell he follows his daddy's liking of FL Gators?
Right now he has a HUGE tv in his room which will eventually go in the living room. We are going to buy him one of the small flat panels and put it up on his wall - which will free up some space in his room. He also doesn't want his futon/bunk bed anymore so we have to find him another bed eventually.Dakota's bathroom-he wanted the black/white theme. He has taken ownership of his bathroom and keeps it clean! I am shocked!! The back yard before we moved in.....
My back yard now....I love my back yard! We have a hummingbird garden started and when I was out of town last week my husband bought me a bird feeder and put it up out there for me!! We have so many birds, butterflies, dragonflies and hummingbirds that fly around out here all day long. I absolutely love to sit out here every morning and just watch and listen and thank God for the many blessings.......
Friday, September 26, 2008
Baby Beauty Pageant
Tina entered Bailee in a beauty pageant. That's one reason I am here in GA visiting with them for the week. She wanted me to come up and see Bailee all dolled up. She won't be 2 until November but she LOVES to dress up!
She sat so still through Tina and I putting her hair in curlers and she just stared at herself in the mirror. She was adorable!
Her other grandma (Bryant's mom) bought her dress and shoes last weekend when they were visiting. It was gorgeous on Bailee!
Bailee looked so cute up there on the stage. She walked up there the first time and sat right down in the middle and spread her dress out for everybody to see. She looked like a little princess.
Bailee got a trophy for Honorable Mention...she was so excited! She ran off the stage and over to me and her daddy to show it to us. She kept carrying it around all evening - she was proud of her trophy!
She sat so still through Tina and I putting her hair in curlers and she just stared at herself in the mirror. She was adorable!
Her other grandma (Bryant's mom) bought her dress and shoes last weekend when they were visiting. It was gorgeous on Bailee!
Bailee looked so cute up there on the stage. She walked up there the first time and sat right down in the middle and spread her dress out for everybody to see. She looked like a little princess.
Bailee got a trophy for Honorable Mention...she was so excited! She ran off the stage and over to me and her daddy to show it to us. She kept carrying it around all evening - she was proud of her trophy!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Love Bugs
I drove to Georgia yesterday to spend some time with my daughter and granddaughter. Since they moved here from CA last month they are now only 4 hours away from me! I am so much happier that they are closer and I am able to just hop in the car and go whenever I want to spend some time with them.
Since we are a one car family we either have to rent a car for me (or Greg to use) while I'm gone or we borrow a vehicle from one of our parents. The latter wasn't an option this time so I rented a vehicle for Greg. I needed our truck to be able to haul some stuff up here to Tina's house. Wouldn't you know it? When I went to get the rental car yesterday morning they didn't have the economy car I requested so they upgraded me into a nice sweet little convertible Sebring! Oh man! Greg started laughing and said "Hey, if you can fit all THAT stuff in here (as he pointed to my overloaded truck) then you can drive this."
Well believe me...about one hour into my trip I was extremely thankful I was NOT driving that convertible. For any of you who don't live around these pesky little critters that come out twice a year - let me tell ya something. They LOVE white objects and the convertible was white and they love committing suicide on cars while your driving!
We call these "LOVE BUGS" - they are a pain! They come out in the Spring and Summer and fly around in swarms everywhere! I had to keep spraying all their little bug gutts off my front windshield the whole trip. If I had been driving the convertible I would have been picking them out of my teeth! Ewwwww, no thank you!
Such a lovely sight - this is what the vehicles around here look like at this time of the year. Nice little bug guts all over the front. Gotta wash those critters off today.
Since we are a one car family we either have to rent a car for me (or Greg to use) while I'm gone or we borrow a vehicle from one of our parents. The latter wasn't an option this time so I rented a vehicle for Greg. I needed our truck to be able to haul some stuff up here to Tina's house. Wouldn't you know it? When I went to get the rental car yesterday morning they didn't have the economy car I requested so they upgraded me into a nice sweet little convertible Sebring! Oh man! Greg started laughing and said "Hey, if you can fit all THAT stuff in here (as he pointed to my overloaded truck) then you can drive this."
Well believe me...about one hour into my trip I was extremely thankful I was NOT driving that convertible. For any of you who don't live around these pesky little critters that come out twice a year - let me tell ya something. They LOVE white objects and the convertible was white and they love committing suicide on cars while your driving!
We call these "LOVE BUGS" - they are a pain! They come out in the Spring and Summer and fly around in swarms everywhere! I had to keep spraying all their little bug gutts off my front windshield the whole trip. If I had been driving the convertible I would have been picking them out of my teeth! Ewwwww, no thank you!
Such a lovely sight - this is what the vehicles around here look like at this time of the year. Nice little bug guts all over the front. Gotta wash those critters off today.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Love my hummingbird garden!
I am fascinated with these hummingbirds. I put this feeder and garden up last Sunday (one week ago) and I have 3-4 hummingbirds eating out of this every day...all day long. I sat outside with my tripod and tried to catch a few pictures Sunday afternoon. This is the best one. The other pictures focused in on the background and made my feeder/hummingbirds blurry so I'll have to try again another day.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Happy Birthday Brianna
My stepdaughter, Brianna turned 17 on Friday. She and Justin, her brother came over for a dinner on Saturday night. I can't believe how big she is getting. She is an 11th grader this year. When her father and I got married she had just turned 4-yrs-old but I have known her since she was 18-mo-old as an adorable little red-head. These days she likes to color her hair so her beautiful red hair doesn't show. Happy Birthday Brianna!
Justin is a senior at Florida State University...notice Greg's shirt (yeah, he roots for Florida! Always has and always will!) BIG Rivalry in our house! LOL
Friday, September 19, 2008
Need a laugh?
If you need a laugh today go check out Toni's hilarious poop story....oh my goodness it is the funniest thing I have read in a long time!!
Update on my best friend
I haven't updated ya'll on my best friend CJ's bout with cancer lately. I think last time I updated you I told you that she was supposed to be taking three chemo drugs but she has had an allergic reaction to two of them so she has only been taking one of them the last 2-3 treatments. That one drug is actually supposed to work in conjunction with one of the other drugs too so she is extremely frustrated as to why she's even bothering to do it at all.
We were supposed to have a yard sale together tomorrow but it looks like rain this weekend. I haven't yet talked to her this morning so I am not sure what we are going to do. Her last chemo treatment is Monday. That will be her 6th round. After that her doctor is going to run all the scans and tests again to find out where her cancer is growing. We are thinking it is in her back somewhere because she has awful horrible shooting pains in her back all the time. We went to breakfast last week and she couldn't hardly sit still during our meal because her back was hurting so bad...she has to shift back and forth to find a comfortable spot. Bless her heart - my heart breaks for her - the pain she is in and the decisions she is facing. Please continue to pray for her.
We were supposed to have a yard sale together tomorrow but it looks like rain this weekend. I haven't yet talked to her this morning so I am not sure what we are going to do. Her last chemo treatment is Monday. That will be her 6th round. After that her doctor is going to run all the scans and tests again to find out where her cancer is growing. We are thinking it is in her back somewhere because she has awful horrible shooting pains in her back all the time. We went to breakfast last week and she couldn't hardly sit still during our meal because her back was hurting so bad...she has to shift back and forth to find a comfortable spot. Bless her heart - my heart breaks for her - the pain she is in and the decisions she is facing. Please continue to pray for her.
Great pick me up song every morning
Thursday, September 18, 2008
When is a Lie a Lie?
Webster's Dictionary defines lying as--
: marked by or containing falsehoods : false
Does everybody lie?
Why do people lie?
What constitutes a lie?
Are there different "shades" of lying?
Do people get hurt when you lie?
Hmmm, just something to think about today....
Why do people lie?
What constitutes a lie?
Are there different "shades" of lying?
Do people get hurt when you lie?
Hmmm, just something to think about today....
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Yearly Doctor Visit
I took Dakota in for a physical last week. I didn't take him to the doctor last year for a checkup. I guess I just forgot to. He wasn't sick last year so he hasn't been to see his doctor in almost 2 years. I can't believe it's been that long! Before we went I told him he was probably going to have to get a tetanus booster since he was 12 yrs old now and I thought that was about the time he needed one. Turned out he had to get three shots! Yikes! Sorry buddy!
Three shots, a finger prick, and a 30-min ear irrigation later we were FINALLY able to leave - WOW - needless to say, my young man wasn't in the best mood the rest of the day.
FYI: If your child is acting like they can't hear you, maybe they can't. Dakota failed his hearing test they did until they irrigated his ears. You would not believe the nasty, junky stuff that came out of there! Once they did that, he passed with flying colors.
Three shots, a finger prick, and a 30-min ear irrigation later we were FINALLY able to leave - WOW - needless to say, my young man wasn't in the best mood the rest of the day.
FYI: If your child is acting like they can't hear you, maybe they can't. Dakota failed his hearing test they did until they irrigated his ears. You would not believe the nasty, junky stuff that came out of there! Once they did that, he passed with flying colors.
Hummingbird Garden
My dad is an avid gardener. Now that I have my own house I have been getting gardening tips (and plants/cuttings) from my dad. He gave me 4 shrimp plants to start off my own hummingbird garden. Amazing thing - when I was sitting in my yard the other day contemplating where to put my garden - a hummingbird was flitting around. There's already one out here flying around!
Yesterday Greg and I worked on getting these into the ground. There are only 4 shrimp plants in there and you can't see them over the white fencing but they will grow and multiply quite nicely (or so I hear...if I didn't screw anything up! LOL)
This is what the shrimp plant looks like when it blooms...kind of neat isn't it?
Yesterday Greg and I worked on getting these into the ground. There are only 4 shrimp plants in there and you can't see them over the white fencing but they will grow and multiply quite nicely (or so I hear...if I didn't screw anything up! LOL)
This is what the shrimp plant looks like when it blooms...kind of neat isn't it?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Hurricane Ike
Have ya seen this monster??
We ran into our Pastor and his family out there at the beach. We stood and talked to them for awhile while Dakota and their kids played in the sand. Their son and Dakota are best friends so they were thrilled to have run into each other.
The lifeguards were not allowing anybody (including surfers) to get in the water. It was totally off limits...they wouldn't even allow people to get down close to the water because rogue waves would come up real high every once in awhile. We had one of those waves come up on us while we were standing along the shore talking - everybody scattered and started running for the sidewalks. We were actually standing pretty far back too! It was shocking how far up the water came. It knocked my shoes off and my pastor's shoes! We were both scrambling trying to grab up our shoes before they were swept back out into the ocean.
This picture is close to sunset. I took this to show you the water line. See where the sidewalk is at the bottom of the picture? See where the people are standing? That's about where we were all standing talking...it's pretty far from the surf as you can tell. Between those people and the sidewalk there is a dark line - that is where the water came up when the rogue wave attacked us! LOL
This is how far back the lifeguards were making everybody stand. If anybody got any closer they made announcements to get back away from the water.
This video was taken at 8:00 am this morning at Pensacola Beach....pretty amazing considering how far the water is from these picnic tables!!!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Works For Me Wednesday: Elance
I recently shared with you about I got a work from home job through Elance. I've received lots of emails and inquiries from people asking me questions about this so I thought I would address it in this week's Works-For-Me Wednesday. For more WFMW tips & tricks, head on over to Rocks In My Dryer.
When we bought our new house last week my husband and I knew before we moved in that I was going to have to pick up a part-time job or increase my work from home income quickly to help out with our bills. I'd been praying about this and what direction the Lord would have me go in since I still homeschool our 12-yr old as well and didn't want to be away from him during the day. Last month I applied at several retail stores which are open 24 hrs a day 7 days/week and put on my applications that I could work nights and weekends. Not really what I wanted to do, but for the time being I was willing to do it to build up our savings/Emergency Fund.
When I heard about Elance two weeks before we bought our house I decided...what the heck? I have nothing to lose, I will try it. I signed up under the $9.95/month paid membership - knowing I could cancel at the end of the month if I didn't have a job so I wouldn't be losing anymore than $9.95.
When we bought our new house last week my husband and I knew before we moved in that I was going to have to pick up a part-time job or increase my work from home income quickly to help out with our bills. I'd been praying about this and what direction the Lord would have me go in since I still homeschool our 12-yr old as well and didn't want to be away from him during the day. Last month I applied at several retail stores which are open 24 hrs a day 7 days/week and put on my applications that I could work nights and weekends. Not really what I wanted to do, but for the time being I was willing to do it to build up our savings/Emergency Fund.
When I heard about Elance two weeks before we bought our house I decided...what the heck? I have nothing to lose, I will try it. I signed up under the $9.95/month paid membership - knowing I could cancel at the end of the month if I didn't have a job so I wouldn't be losing anymore than $9.95.
Profile
The hardest thing was setting up my profile. I spent hours one day looking at other people's profiles (in the area I chose to work) and I picked out about 5 profiles that had skills/qualifications that matched mine and I used those profiles to help me build mine. I didn't copy theirs...but theirs just helped me to word mine more professionally and to know what to say.Get Certified!
After I set up my profile, I took some certification tests. You can take two for free with your monthly fee. Anymore after that will cost you $4.00. Once again, I perused the profiles to see what kinds of skills the top paid people were certified in and I noticed a couple of skills that nobody seemed to be certified in so I took the tests in those areas and I scored in the top 1% and top 10% in those two areas. I paid to take another test - but I didn't do so well on that one - no problem though because the "bad" grade doesn't show up on your profile! LOLLet the search begin.....
Once I had all of that in place, I started looking through the jobs. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of jobs available. New ones are posted every single day. The bidding process is a little tricky to understand at first. I got declined on my first few bids because I bid too high...and I thought I was underbidding! Now, I SPELL EVERYTHING OUT in my bid proposal! I write it all out...how long I am available to work, how much I am willing to be paid, how my skills/abilities will enable me to get the job completed, how I'll get the job done, etc.I got hired!!
Within one week, I got a job. I am a virtual assistant to a man in another state. He sends me tasks to do via email and we talk through Skype once a week to check in. We communicate via email on a daily basis. I am scheduled to work for him through March 2009!
Best thing about this is I am working from home on my own time!! This is WHAT WORKS FOR ME!
All I can tell you about Elance is if you think it's worth the $9.95/mo to give it a try then try it. If you don't have that money right now, there is a free program you can sign up for too. I just don't know the particulars on that to be able to tell you about it.
Best thing about this is I am working from home on my own time!! This is WHAT WORKS FOR ME!
All I can tell you about Elance is if you think it's worth the $9.95/mo to give it a try then try it. If you don't have that money right now, there is a free program you can sign up for too. I just don't know the particulars on that to be able to tell you about it.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
My name is Elisa...
and I'm afraid I'm addicted to Peanut Butter Caramel Cookie Dough Ice Cream from the new Hershey Ice Cream store in my town. Oh yummmmmmmmmm, it is so good!!
Dakota and I made a run to the store last night around -- ummm, let's just say it was about 9:30 and I was in my pajamas already!
Have ya tried the stuff? To die for!
Dakota and I made a run to the store last night around -- ummm, let's just say it was about 9:30 and I was in my pajamas already!
Have ya tried the stuff? To die for!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Gifts
I am feeling tremendously blessed these days! Oooey, gooey, sappy mushy blessed to where Greg & Dakota are tired of hearing me talk about how happy I am. I know this because Dakota told me so last night. Hmmph! I'll just sit by myself and blog about it then and my two or three readers out there can listen to my sappiness! LOL
We have a couple who we are really good friends with. The man works at Lowe's. He is always picking up great deals for their home on clearance...really awesome clearance! We had asked him awhile back to keep his eyes open for us for a shed - because we need somewhere to keep our outside belongings since we don't have a garage.
He called about a month ago and asked if we needed lamps because they had just marked down lamps to a ridiculously low price and if we needed some we better come in and get them. This was the weekend we were staying out at the beach house which was really far away from Lowe's so I asked him if he could pick out a couple pairs for us. I told him I'm not picky - I just need lamps and he said if we didn't like them we could return them anyway. His wife thought this was hilarious because he has never picked out lamps for their own home, much less for somebody else! But she said he took great pride in choosing our new lamps!! When we went to go pick up the lamps a few weeks ago (and pay for them) they would not accept our money - instead they gave them to us as a gift.
I think he did a wonderful job picking out our new bedroom lamps (which is temporarily sitting on my printer until I purchase a new desk/hutch combo).....
and our new living room lamps (yet another temporary location...the floor amidst boxes)....so what do you think? He did a nice job didn't he?
This weekend Greg was on call. He didn't have to go in to work Saturday but he got called in at 4 am yesterday and had to work until about 1:00. After Dakota and I got out of church we went by to pick Greg up and he told me we needed to run by his parents house because they had something for us. We went to eat lunch first and they called again to see where we were...they said it looked like it was going to rain and our "gift" was outside and they didn't want it to get wet.
On the way over there Greg said "I bet they got me a lawnmower" - he keeps borrowing their lawnmower.
I said "no, they wouldn't worry about that getting wet, I bet they got us a piece of furniture."
Greg said "Really?? You think so??"
TA-DA --- they blessed us with a dining room table set!!!!
The table is sitting out kind of far from the wall right now because I wasn't expecting to have a table here so soon and I had all my Albums and scrapbooking supplies in the Dining Area. So now my project for today is to move all of this.............Oh geez...why do I have to have so many albums?? These things are sooo heavy! I was hoping to leave them there until I bought a cabinet or bookcase to put them in and move them ONE time. Doesn't look like that's going to happen now - I don't want to take the chance of food getting spilled on them. Say a prayer for my back today! :-)
We have a couple who we are really good friends with. The man works at Lowe's. He is always picking up great deals for their home on clearance...really awesome clearance! We had asked him awhile back to keep his eyes open for us for a shed - because we need somewhere to keep our outside belongings since we don't have a garage.
He called about a month ago and asked if we needed lamps because they had just marked down lamps to a ridiculously low price and if we needed some we better come in and get them. This was the weekend we were staying out at the beach house which was really far away from Lowe's so I asked him if he could pick out a couple pairs for us. I told him I'm not picky - I just need lamps and he said if we didn't like them we could return them anyway. His wife thought this was hilarious because he has never picked out lamps for their own home, much less for somebody else! But she said he took great pride in choosing our new lamps!! When we went to go pick up the lamps a few weeks ago (and pay for them) they would not accept our money - instead they gave them to us as a gift.
I think he did a wonderful job picking out our new bedroom lamps (which is temporarily sitting on my printer until I purchase a new desk/hutch combo).....
and our new living room lamps (yet another temporary location...the floor amidst boxes)....so what do you think? He did a nice job didn't he?
This weekend Greg was on call. He didn't have to go in to work Saturday but he got called in at 4 am yesterday and had to work until about 1:00. After Dakota and I got out of church we went by to pick Greg up and he told me we needed to run by his parents house because they had something for us. We went to eat lunch first and they called again to see where we were...they said it looked like it was going to rain and our "gift" was outside and they didn't want it to get wet.
On the way over there Greg said "I bet they got me a lawnmower" - he keeps borrowing their lawnmower.
I said "no, they wouldn't worry about that getting wet, I bet they got us a piece of furniture."
Greg said "Really?? You think so??"
***********************************************************
TA-DA --- they blessed us with a dining room table set!!!!
Greg and Dakota assembled it (while I grilled hamburgers and hot dogs)
The table is sitting out kind of far from the wall right now because I wasn't expecting to have a table here so soon and I had all my Albums and scrapbooking supplies in the Dining Area. So now my project for today is to move all of this.............Oh geez...why do I have to have so many albums?? These things are sooo heavy! I was hoping to leave them there until I bought a cabinet or bookcase to put them in and move them ONE time. Doesn't look like that's going to happen now - I don't want to take the chance of food getting spilled on them. Say a prayer for my back today! :-)
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Yearbook Yourself
This is funny - go try it - Yearbook Yourself
Leave me a comment and let me know if you do this on your own blog - I would love to see YOUR pictures!
1950
Just an FYI: If you do this and you download the pictures to your computer you need to actually type in .jpg behind whatever name you assign to each picture or else it won't save them in the correct type of file.Leave me a comment and let me know if you do this on your own blog - I would love to see YOUR pictures!
Furniture for our house
When we moved into our new house this last week we had our bed, Dakota's bed, 2 desk chairs and a dresser for Dakota. With the move we decided to get rid of our Entertainment Center, Large Desk/Hutch and a couple of dressers - all of which we have had for about 8 years.
Needless to say, we needed furniture. We also needed lots of kitchen items and just regular everyday household items. Over the last six years we have given all of our belongings away to the kids as they have gotten their own homes or we sold stuff at yard sales or we just gave it to Goodwill -- so now we are starting over. It's been a lot of fun this last week going shopping everyday!
Last weekend we got caught up in the "spending" and ALMOST made a big mistake - something we said we were not going to do. We know what kind of dining room table we want. This is the picture of what we are looking for -
We have an idea about the living room set but we thought we would look around at different furniture stores to price couches, etc. We went to Rooms To Go. They had this table there!! It costs $700. We also found a sectional/ottoman we liked ($1500) so we talked to somebody about how much it would cost to get both sets.
After the saleslady did her figuring she came back and told us we could pay taxes and delivery charges only ($440) and then we would have 90 days interest free to pay off the balance. After the 90 days of course the interest would be something like 18%...I don't remember exactly now.
Greg was ready to go ahead and do this until he found out that:
After he thought about it some more he realized the same thing...so now we are back to paying for everything with cash.
We have picked up matching dressers for Greg and I, a new desk and shelving system for Dakota and we found a resource for discounted living room furniture. I went by there the other day and checked prices and was extremely impressed with what he had to offer so when we are ready to pay CASH for our sectional I know where to go for the best price in town.
Needless to say, we needed furniture. We also needed lots of kitchen items and just regular everyday household items. Over the last six years we have given all of our belongings away to the kids as they have gotten their own homes or we sold stuff at yard sales or we just gave it to Goodwill -- so now we are starting over. It's been a lot of fun this last week going shopping everyday!
Last weekend we got caught up in the "spending" and ALMOST made a big mistake - something we said we were not going to do. We know what kind of dining room table we want. This is the picture of what we are looking for -
We have an idea about the living room set but we thought we would look around at different furniture stores to price couches, etc. We went to Rooms To Go. They had this table there!! It costs $700. We also found a sectional/ottoman we liked ($1500) so we talked to somebody about how much it would cost to get both sets.
After the saleslady did her figuring she came back and told us we could pay taxes and delivery charges only ($440) and then we would have 90 days interest free to pay off the balance. After the 90 days of course the interest would be something like 18%...I don't remember exactly now.
Greg was ready to go ahead and do this until he found out that:
- the table was not in stock and wouldn't be available until Sept 9th
- they were charging separate delivery charges for each piece even though all pieces were coming to the same house! (This really irked Greg! LOL)
After he thought about it some more he realized the same thing...so now we are back to paying for everything with cash.
We have picked up matching dressers for Greg and I, a new desk and shelving system for Dakota and we found a resource for discounted living room furniture. I went by there the other day and checked prices and was extremely impressed with what he had to offer so when we are ready to pay CASH for our sectional I know where to go for the best price in town.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
My Surprise
I told you last week that I had a surprise to share with you so here it is. A friend of mine was talking about how she had been making money on Elance writing articles for people so I thought I would check it out.
Elance is a really awesome website. You can set up a profile and look for "freelance" jobs in these areas:
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of jobs posted and you have to bid on the ones you are interested in working on. I bid on 7 jobs within the first week.
I got hired! It's a job as a Virtual Assistant until March and it's enough money per month to pay all our household utilities/groceries! It's only 10/hrs week too so I could easily pick up another job on there as well.
So if you are looking to pick up some extra cash and you have some extra time to work from home, check out Elance. (I dont' get any kind of credit for this or anything - I am just happy at how quick I picked up a job.)
Elance is a really awesome website. You can set up a profile and look for "freelance" jobs in these areas:
- Administration & Support
- Legal
- Web & Programming
- Design & Multimedia
- Writing & Translation
- Sales & Marketing
- Finance & Mgt
- Engineering & Mfg.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of jobs posted and you have to bid on the ones you are interested in working on. I bid on 7 jobs within the first week.
I got hired! It's a job as a Virtual Assistant until March and it's enough money per month to pay all our household utilities/groceries! It's only 10/hrs week too so I could easily pick up another job on there as well.
So if you are looking to pick up some extra cash and you have some extra time to work from home, check out Elance. (I dont' get any kind of credit for this or anything - I am just happy at how quick I picked up a job.)
Final Closing
In the midst of Hurricane Gustave...(and our tropical storm warnings) we got moved in! Praise the Lord! We are still looking at THIS MESS in our living room but at least the pile is reserved to our "living room only" now....Let me just tell you NOTHING went as planned on Friday but we still got moved in AND we received some tremendous blessings in the midst of the storms. I just have to share what happened!
This was our agenda for the day...see how easily it flows and how nicely it should have worked??
When we got to the U-haul place at 7:00 our truck wasn't there and didn't get there for an hour and a half. I can only assume the manager of the place thought we were going to be angry and feared for his life because he immediately had a horrible attitude and cut us off as soon as we announced who we were and that we were there to pick up our truck.
He quickly told us the customer who had our truck just called and said she was filling up with gas and was on her way. Greg started to ask him a question and the man cut him off again...literally stopped him curtly in mid-sentence and said "I don't KNOW when she is going to be here! Your truck is NOT here!" Greg was going to ask if there was a larger or smaller truck available so we didn't have to wait. But after this outburst from the manager, Greg lost his temper and threw our reservation paper down and said "Well aren't you just a jerk this morning!" and he walked out the door. I stood there in shock at what had just happened. Greg doesn't lose his cool like that with people so I wasn't quite sure what happened. He refused to deal with the man anymore.
We stood out by our vehicle and I called around to other rental places trying to find another truck to rent. I had FINALLY located one at Budget (an hour later) when the manager came outside and told Greg the woman customer had just called again and was 10 mins away - she was having a hard time finding somewhere to get gas. This was probably true because of hurricane Gustav, people had been filling up gas tanks and gas cans and stations were running out of gas. The manager told Greg he would only charge us $9.00 for the rental instead of $29.99 and 1/2 price on the mileage - for our inconvenience. Great!!
Okay, so on to the house to start loading. We get the truck loaded, dog dropped off, truck dropped off at the house and grab a bite to eat on the way to the realty company where we are going to have our closing. We get there at 1:15 and we sit and wait until 2:00. Then we are told to come back at 3:00 because the Title Company is not ready yet - tying up lose ends.
We leave and run to Walmart and buy some hurricane supplies (ice chest, grill, etc) because we aren't sure at this point where the hurricane is going to go yet. We get back to the realty company at 3:15 and we sit and wait until 4:50! Finally the lady from the Title company shows up and in about 15 mins we have all our paperwork signed but then we had to wait for the sellers to sign their paperwork because.....we got a refund!! Whooohoooooo!!! We got a refund of almost $600.00 on what we had paid out. We had to wait for them to finish signing their paperwork before we could get our check. That was wonderful!
When we left there we went back to the house and Greg and Dakota started unloading the truck and I went to go pick up our dog. We ended up not finishing up until after midnight and we just threw our mattresses on the floor with some sheets on them and crashed that night - from complete exhaustion.
This was our agenda for the day...see how easily it flows and how nicely it should have worked??
- Breakfast at Cracker Barrel 6:00 am
- Pickup U-haul at 7:00 am at scheduled reservation time
- Load U-haul until 12:00, drop it off at new house fully loaded.
- Drop dog off at groomer's so he is clean when he enters new house
- Grab a bite to eat on the way to closing
- Closing at 1:15 - 2:15
- Go back to new house and unload U-haul (allow couple of hours to unload)
- Return to old house for remainder of large items (allow couple of hours to finish loading)
- Grab dinner on the way back to house and finish unloading, set up beds and turn in for the evening.
When we got to the U-haul place at 7:00 our truck wasn't there and didn't get there for an hour and a half. I can only assume the manager of the place thought we were going to be angry and feared for his life because he immediately had a horrible attitude and cut us off as soon as we announced who we were and that we were there to pick up our truck.
He quickly told us the customer who had our truck just called and said she was filling up with gas and was on her way. Greg started to ask him a question and the man cut him off again...literally stopped him curtly in mid-sentence and said "I don't KNOW when she is going to be here! Your truck is NOT here!" Greg was going to ask if there was a larger or smaller truck available so we didn't have to wait. But after this outburst from the manager, Greg lost his temper and threw our reservation paper down and said "Well aren't you just a jerk this morning!" and he walked out the door. I stood there in shock at what had just happened. Greg doesn't lose his cool like that with people so I wasn't quite sure what happened. He refused to deal with the man anymore.
We stood out by our vehicle and I called around to other rental places trying to find another truck to rent. I had FINALLY located one at Budget (an hour later) when the manager came outside and told Greg the woman customer had just called again and was 10 mins away - she was having a hard time finding somewhere to get gas. This was probably true because of hurricane Gustav, people had been filling up gas tanks and gas cans and stations were running out of gas. The manager told Greg he would only charge us $9.00 for the rental instead of $29.99 and 1/2 price on the mileage - for our inconvenience. Great!!
Okay, so on to the house to start loading. We get the truck loaded, dog dropped off, truck dropped off at the house and grab a bite to eat on the way to the realty company where we are going to have our closing. We get there at 1:15 and we sit and wait until 2:00. Then we are told to come back at 3:00 because the Title Company is not ready yet - tying up lose ends.
We leave and run to Walmart and buy some hurricane supplies (ice chest, grill, etc) because we aren't sure at this point where the hurricane is going to go yet. We get back to the realty company at 3:15 and we sit and wait until 4:50! Finally the lady from the Title company shows up and in about 15 mins we have all our paperwork signed but then we had to wait for the sellers to sign their paperwork because.....we got a refund!! Whooohoooooo!!! We got a refund of almost $600.00 on what we had paid out. We had to wait for them to finish signing their paperwork before we could get our check. That was wonderful!
When we left there we went back to the house and Greg and Dakota started unloading the truck and I went to go pick up our dog. We ended up not finishing up until after midnight and we just threw our mattresses on the floor with some sheets on them and crashed that night - from complete exhaustion.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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