One step closer

To California!

We received an offer for our house, sent a counter offer and they accepted it! We will be closing May 21st, we asked for a lease of the house for a couple of days (feels weird to "rent" our own house)...so in those extra days we "load up tha truck and move ta Beverly" Okay, not really Beverly Hills...a bit south...

I was on the phone with a Realtor in San Diego discussing housing options. We will be renting for a while while the market comes down a bit and we get a good idea of where we'd like to buy... So this very nice Realtor suggested Craigslist.com as a place to find rentals, then sweetly offered to take some photos and send them to me of any listings that don't have pictures...and give me a feel for the neighborhoods.

This triggered a very interesting thought... see a couple of weeks ago I got sort of freaked out, I was backing out of my driveway and a man was driving down the road, stuck his hand out of the open window and snapped a picture of my house.. This was really odd to me, I somehow felt violated...what could his motives be?

I thought nothing of having the Realtor in California take pictures of houses that really mean nothing to me... but was totally freaked out by some random schmo snapping a picture of MY house. Emphasis on MY! A house is a real home when you live in it, and make memories there, As a woman I think cleaning it somehow helps build this bond.. you have to care for a home...in Texas you even have to water it so it does not crack! After a while it just takes a place in your family! So I can see why some random house, that I don't even know the owners would not be any big deal for me to get pictures of it... but the thought of someone taking pictures of MY house.. I felt some sort of violation... almost like a stranger taking pictures of my children in public..


The Lord blessed us with this house for nearly 9 years, we've made scads of memories and it will be sad to leave. But we are uber excited for the next house and the memories it will hold!

3 years ago

Well it's 2:30am and I'm finishing up a little birthday project for my sweet Natalie. I am waiting for some things to wrap up and so I got to pondering... 3 years ago right now I had just woken James up and told him he needed to start timing my contractions for me... a few hours later we headed to the hospital... and she Arrived at 12:07pm on April 25th!

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Whatever...It's Tax Day

What is the appropriate greeting for tax day? I don't think "Happy Tax Day" or "Merry Tax Day" sound very appropriate. or even "Have a great Tax day", "Felice Tax Day" Nope those just seem wrong... I think it should be "Whatever... it's tax day" Life never stops changing, and this "tax day" has proven this true once again.

Each year we've always gotten a check in the mail or better yet, deposited straight to our checking account. Not this year... we are getting a refund... BUT we reluctantly checked that box that says "apply to my 2008 taxes." I always saw that box and thought that it seemed silly to check it... I thought "oh heck no, I don't want the government keeping my money for a whole year extra" Well, see, there ya go, life changes. James is working mostly contract work and we either apply this refund to our next year's tax bill or face some penalties for not paying uncle Sam this year...no happy refund for us...

"whatever...it's tax day"

Retail is for suckers!

That's the new slogan/logo for Divine Consign and I love it and I think quite possibly my favorite new saying! DC is a twice yearly consignment sale that is everything baby/kid/maternity. Clothes, toys, baby gear, mommy gear, you name it they have it. I've been faithful volunteer/shopper that I am now staff. They don't pay staff with money, but rights to shop FIRST. We get the pick of the lot. A week ago I headed to Grapevine for that event. The spring sale is over, but make plans for the last of August because if you have small kids you won't want to miss it! The Plano sale has about 55,000 items, Yes Fifty Five THOUSAND things to choose from...

So on that note, I am in desperate need of some new to me threads too. DC does not sell clothes for non-pregnant mommies, so wanting to be thrifty and not pay retail I decided to check out a local thrift store. (Hey it's almost Earth Day, why not try some recycled clothes!)The last time I was in a thrift store I was looking for a costume for a play 14 years ago. Why did I not think of this sooner! Here I am with my new to me jeans... they were $1.99. They sell used on eBay for $15. Oh and the T-shirt I got for working Divine Consign it says "Retail is for suckers"
On my trip to the thrift store I picked up 2 pairs of jeans 4 pairs of shorts 2 capri's for me, 5 pairs of shorts for Natalie and 2 pairs of shorts for my husband. All in great shape, mostly name brands, for a total of $40! RETAIL IS FOR SUCKERS!

Why I am a "Stay at home Mom" (2nd post for today)

While conversing with a friend tonight about many things including homeschooling I was reminded of why I stay home with my children. When I was 7 years old my mom, (technically my step-mom, but only by a small technicality), was home wtih us that year. She was a very hard worker and was very involved in our lives, but also work most of the time she was married to my father. But 2nd grade was different. We had just moved to a tiny little farm town in western Oklahoma and she did not get a job. I came home from school one day, the house was clean, and peaceful, she was cooking dinner and finishing putting some clothes away in our room. I remember it vividly. I went outside to play and paused at the top of the steps that lead down to our driveway. I thought about how great it felt to have her home and decided right then and there I would stay home and raise my children when I became a mom. My husband and I were married for nearly 9 years when Natalie came along. In that time I finished college, had a career as a social worker and got my masters degree. I really enjoyed working and the work that I did. I always knew when the day came for us to have children I would, without hesitation, stay home and raise our children.

I'm so grateful that my mom worked so hard, often this was our households only steady source of income. I'm equally grateful that she stayed home most of my 2nd grade year. So I could see so clearly my future role with my children.

More Green!

My random thoughts have really focused on being "green" lately... Maybe it's earth day coming up. My friend sent me the cloth diapers and they swallow my little man. I've not left them on him due to not wanting to clean pee or poo up off the floor! So they shall wait until he grows a bit. In the mean time I got some "green" diapers. Well they are actually brown in color. My husband thinks that I get them cheap because they are plain with no cute little characters and they look the color of a paper bag. He's always teasing me and my sweet baby about being so pitiful that we have to put a paper bag on our baby...and mommy won't buy him real diapers anymore. They are Seventh Generation diapers and they are not "bleached" white, so yes they are light brown in color. They work GREAT too. I'm still filling up landfills with my 100 years to decompose diapers...but at least they are not putting dioxin into the environment or on his sweet little boy parts!

Oh and if your interested, in honor of Earth Day, Amazon has a special right now on all their "Planet Friendly" products. spend $99 and get $20 off. using the code Earth408 at checkout. Amazon hardly puts out promo codes so this is a good thing.

I'm about to place my order for some wipes and more paper bag diapers. (nothing like diapers getting delivered to my door!)

God has you right where He wants you

Seems like a cliche to me and a rather trite saying to offer to someone going through some difficult time. But something I've been doing a lot of pondering about lately. Also other cliche's. "Everything happens for a reason" or "In God's timing it will happen" I mean, really where did such sayings come from. They seem so over used by so many do they genuinely mean anything any more. What if we really MEANT it when we said it... AND what if we mean it for ourselves too. It sure is easy to say to someone else but to actually hear it for ourselves... we don't often ponder it.

The other day, my mother in-law was sitting on my couch. She had foot surgery 5 months ago. She was told that the recovery would be 6 to 8 weeks. She is still in a great deal of pain and limping around. Natalie totally loved how they got to ride the cart that goes "beep beep beep" while at Wal-mart... but "Mom-eye" is not thinking it's so funny to still be having such a hard time. I asked her if God was sanctifying her through this time... she looked at me with a blank look and admitted that she had not really thought about it.

This conversation gave me pause to check out the giant timbers lodged in my own eyes. I am getting frustrated with having my house on the market, keeping it SO super clean all the time. I feel like I'm living in limbo land. I can't really start looking for a new place to live yet, I really hate having boxes around so I won't start packing until we get someone to lease or buy this place.

I don't know how long it will take for us to get moved, much less how long it will take to find someone who wants our house.. But God has us right here at this very time for a reason, although we don't see the whole picture I'm sure it's beautiful and I'll rest in the Grace given for today and not fret over whens and ifs. That's a tall order for a recovering control freak!