No, really, a little less excitement PLEASE!

As you may remember, a few months ago, Ande's work changed how he gets paid. The changes, coupled with a lack of overtime, have resulted in Ande's pay being reduced by around $250 or more each week. That doesn't sound too horrible, until you start adding it up - that's around $1000/month, or $12,000/year. YIKES!!

This morning, I was crunching the numbers on our (estimated) income for the remainder of the year. From what I can see, if we ONLY spend money on bills - NO going out to eat, NO birthday/Christmas gifts for ANYONE, NO extra ANYTHING...we'll be in the hole at the end of the year. If we had one more month's worth of income without having one more month of bills, we would be only slightly better off. Of course, that's not reality. Now, granted, I only estimated how much Ande will make over the next few months, so we may not be in as bad of shape as it looks right now. I tried to be prudent with my numbers, hopefully I went low and we'll at least break even. (Prayin' for some overtime!!)

So, I was telling Ande about it during his lunch break today, and he said, "Remember when Emily (our niece) died?" "Remember how that all worked out and it was so exciting?"

For those of you who don't know, my brother in law and his wife (the ones who visited recently with their 2 daughters) lost a daughter to premature birth in 2004. Of course, Ande and I were heartbroken for Ben & Tracy, but there was no way we were going to be able to afford to fly to California for Emily's funeral. I had let our church family know about Emily's birth so that they could pray for Ben and Tracy (as well as the rest of the family). Little did we know what God had planned.

God had laid it heavy on our pastor's family to help in any way they could, and through a series of events that I still can ONLY attribute to God's grace, we were able to attend the funeral. There are, of course, a lot more details, but hopefully you get the jist. We had a need, and God worked through our church family to provide it. It was (and still is) a very exciting thing for us to share with others.

You know, it's fitting that I share this story now...Emily would have been four years old on Thursday, September 11. I can't wait to get to meet her in heaven someday!

Anyway, Ande was reminding me of how exciting it was to watch God work through various people during that time to provide something that was so very generous and truly appreciated. Ande told me, "I'm excited to see how God works this out!" He's very much an optimist.

I, on the other hand, could use a little less excitement in my life!! I'm a worrier by nature. Even though I KNOW IN MY HEART that God will provide for us...I just can hardly stand wondering and waiting to see HOW. Not only am I a worrier, but an IMPATIENT worrier at that! It's silly and stupid.

God has blessed me with an amazing family, and I am constantly humbled by His mercy and grace. I really shouldn't want for anything more, should I? Could you all pray for me that I would be able to let go of this situation and just be a good steward of what we have? Thanks!!

New Updates...

So this weekend Ande and I went to my cousin's wedding. My baby cousin. Who really shouldn't be old enough to be getting married. But he IS, and he DID. You see, I forever think of him as this silly little boy who used to follow his older brother and sister (and me) around, begging to play with us. Of course, being kids, we pretty much ignored him, or would only let him play so we could torture him...LOL

Anyway, Stan and Lindsay were married this weekend, and it was a beautiful wedding. There was a little bit of awkwardness when we were seated at the same table as my mom (who's in denial) & my stepdad (who won't speak to me). I tried to make the best of it, but I was pretty relieved that Ande and I had to leave fairly early in the evening to pick up the kids.

One great update came from that night, though - my Aunt Kathy was there. I previously blogged about her here, here, and here. She is still pretty thin (she lost about 30lbs while she was sick), but she was smiling and said she feels pretty good. She told me she spent 46 days in the hospital, 21 of which she was in a coma. Her pulmonologist told her that he had not thought she would survive. At that point, I told her that there had been many, many people praying for her, and she made the remark, "It must have worked!" It would be great if you would continue to pray for her salvation, and for me to have more opportunities to talk to her about it.

Everybody seems to have recovered from the "funk" that took out Puckey, The Jib, and Ande last week. I am SO thankful that I got away with only a mild sore throat...

Ande's job has another change, starting today. His route (the car dealerships he regularly visits) has been changed. It's a little sad, because he had made a few new friends on his route, but it's also very good in that he will now be within about 5 minutes of home ALL DAY EVERY DAY! Each dealership he has now is located within about a 5 mile radius of our house. Closer location equals less miles to drive equals less gas to buy! It also means he can come home for lunch, so that will save on "lunch money".

The kids are getting ready for camp...Bubber leaves on Saturday, and Bug and Nans leave 2 weeks after that. I'm praying that they have a great time, and wonderful fellowship with Godly men and women who will help them build a better relationship with Christ.

Speaking of building a better relationship with Christ...a friend of mine from church, Susan, has asked me to do a Bible study with her. We decided on Tuesday evenings, as that's one of the few nights I don't have other obligations. If any of you local readers are interested in checking it out, we're going to meet at church (don't have a time ironed out yet, but I'm sure it will be reasonable). It's a Beth Moore study on Daniel. The book is $15, and I believe we will have a DVD series that will go along with the study. Anyway, if you are interested, leave me a comment or send me an email to let me know!! We haven't officially started yet, so there's still time to get involved!

Another cool thing relating to building a relationship with Christ - a guy who works for one of the dealerships that was on Ande's old route was in a triathlon this weekend. Ande has been sharing his faith with Trevor, and Trevor has been pretty receptive. So, as a way of showing how much Ande (and the rest of our family) support him, we went on Sunday morning to encourage Trevor and some of his co-workers and family who participated in the race. Trevor was absolutely bowled over that we would come down to support him, so I'm really glad that we went.

I was amazed at some of the people I saw who were in the race. There were some people who were pretty old (I heard the oldest participant was 73), and one kid JUST met the age requirement (13). Some people were extremely fit, while others looked quite out of shape. I have to give everyone who was involved credit. I got winded carrying The Jib back to the car when we were leaving, I can't imagine doing the swimming, biking, and running...

Also, thanks to all of you for the compliments on my hair!!! I'm thrilled with it, and your comments have only made me feel that much more happy about it! For Cindy, I go to CC & Co. in Fenton, and have Bridget Shea cut my hair. I've known her since I was 11 (wow, that's 22 years!), and she is definitely my stylist of choice. She's also a Christian, which is an added bonus...

Floods and Broken Power Cords and Holes in Pools, OH MY!!

Yes, so those three events, along with many others, have contributed to my absence from blogland over the last week or so.

First, the "GREAT FLOOD of '08" hit. It was Friday, June 6. Bubber had gotten suspended from school for 2 days because he called one of his teachers "retarded". Well, that wasn't the ONLY reason, more like the straw that broke the camel's back. Anyway, I had to go to his school to pick up his assignments, and had to get into his locker to get a couple of books. In his locker, there were about 8 or 9 sweatshirts (which I hadn't seen in MONTHS, to give you an idea of how long they'd been there). So later that afternoon, I asked Bubber to put the ones that stayed here (about half of them belonged at his dad's house) in the basement so I could wash them. So, being the "obedient" (read with a splash of sarcasm) son, he stood at the top of the basement stairs and tossed the sweatshirts down. They splashed when they hit the floor. Not good. Apparently the power cord for the sump pump had a small cut in it, which was causing it to short out. Which eventually caused the breaker in the circuit box to flip off. Which in turn cut the power to our back-up sump pump (say that ten times fast). The water table is pretty high here, so it doesn't take long for the water to start rising. Fortunately, it was only about 3 inches deep at it's deepest point when we discovered the problem. We got all of the water drained, and spent the next day hauling everything out of the basement to dry. We didn't really lose anything important, as most of the stuff I had down there was packed up in plastic containers. Unfortunately, we (still) have all of that stuff sitting on our front porch, so it looks like we either A) are having a yard sale, or B) got evicted. I want to paint the walls in the basement before we put that stuff back down there, so hopefully in the next couple of days I can get that done.

Our next incident was on Saturday, June 7th. We had a tornado watch (or warning, I can't ever remember which is which), plus severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, so we were in the basement. (Yes, the basement that had flooded the previous day). To help keep track of the weather, I brought the laptop down there. It was running on the battery and we have wireless internet, so I didn't have to worry about being electrocuted or anything... After the watch (or warning) was over, I just put the computer back on it's stand and didn't think much more about it. Then Ande wanted to watch a movie or something, and noticed that it was still unplugged. When he went to plug it in, Ande noticed that the pin inside the connector for the power cord (where it plugs into the computer) was bent. In an attempt to "unbend" it, Ande broke it. (OOPS) So...we had to get a new power cord. (THANKS MOM!! Ande's mom bought it for us. She spoils us...) We didn't get the cord in the mail until yesterday, but it's (obviously) working well for us.

Last Wednesday (the 11th), I finally got to visit with my friends Amanda, Cindy, and Marcy. Amanda was visiting from Oklahoma, Cindy is Amanda's mother-in-law, and Marcy is a mutual friend of all of ours. So we (and a total of 9 kids, including Amanda's cousin(?)) met at a local park for a few hours. I'll be posting some pictures of that later. It was fun to get to visit with other moms and get out of the house for a while!

On Friday (the 13th), Nans came to stay the weekend for Father's Day. On Saturday, I decided to (finally) get our pool up. It's just one of those easy-set ones, but it works nice for the kids to splash and play in. So Nans helped me get it ready to fill, and we turned on the hose. A little while later I went out to check on it, and noticed a puddle next to the pool. There was a hole in it. GREAT. We had to empty out the water that remained in the pool and see if we could patch it. We had promised Nans that we could go to the library, and we were also supposed to take Ande's dad to dinner that night, so we got ready and headed out the door. We made a stop at a local pool/spa place and bought a patch kit, then headed to the library. Ande took The Jib upstairs, while I helped Nans & Puckey find some books. The girls found what they wanted, and we headed upstairs to find Ande and The Jib. I stepped out of the elevator just in time to see Ande frantically trying to get the bathroom door open while The Jib was throwing up all over him. Not good. They got cleaned up and we headed back home. We had to cancel our dinner plans, so we ended up watching a couple of videos and hanging out on the couch for the night.

Father's Day was pretty uneventful - The Jib was feeling better, so we went to church and out to lunch with Ande's dad afterward. When we got home, Ande patched the pool and we started the process of filling it. (The patch seems to be working like a champ - the pool is now full and there seems to be no leaking! YEAH!!) Later in the afternoon, we had to make the first of what will likely be our usual Sunday afternoon trips to meet Nans' mom to drop her off. It was about a 140 mile round trip "adventure". Poor Jib cried a good portion of the trip (the sun was shining on her face, and it was pretty hot in the car because the A/C is broken). I'm definitely going to have to get a window shade for her...

Yesterday, Bubber had his first football practice AND a baseball game. It's going to be a busy summer. Bubber's team won the game by 5 runs, so that was a good thing. I know he likes being on a winning team! (Don't we all)

This morning, I woke up to Puckey crying...and throwing up. Yep, whatever The Jib had, Puckey's got it now. I'm just hoping that the rest of the kids don't get it! So I got her cleaned up, and she went back to sleep. Hopefully she'll be back to normal soon. Right now, The Jib and I are the only ones up (and it's 9:00AM!). We're watching a little "Old School Sesame Street", and I'll be making some breakfast pretty soon. I'm thinking pancakes...YUMMY.

Oh, and two last things...

Ande found out last week that his pay structure is changing. There will be no more commission per car, only an hourly rate. His hourly rate DID go up, but it's not going to make up the difference. He's also been working a shorter number of hours (for example, he only had enough work to last him 3.5 hours last Friday), so our income will be taking a major hit. If you could keep Ande's job situation in your prayers, we'd appreciate it. His company anticipates that business will pick up again soon (only a couple of months ago, Ande could work 12 hours a day and still have plenty to do). On a positive note, we will soon have health insurance!! It's been almost a year since we've had it. Thanks to God for His watchful eye on our health, we've not had any serious illnesses/injuries that required a trip to the hospital!

Also, Tricia Lawrenson has been diagnosed with Post-Transplant Lymphoma. Apparently this is a very treatable form of cancer that occurs in transplant patients. Please keep them in your prayers.

WIDE AWAKE

This morning, at 4:15am, I dropped Ande off at the airport. He's flying (in a shark) to Atlanta for a week for work. His plane should be getting ready to take off any minute now.

So....I'm totally wide awake and thinking about how tired I'm going to be this afternoon once the fact that I've been up since 3:00am catches up with me. It wouldn't be so bad if Puckey and The Jib would take a nap at the same time, but the likelihood of that happening is less than the likelihood that I'll win the lottery. Seeing as how I don't even PLAY the lottery, you can see how the chances of the girls' naps to coincide are pretty much non-existent. Although I guess I COULD technically win the lottery if someone bought a ticket for me. LOL

Oh, and apparently there may be some confusion as to how to pronounce Puckey's nickname...I saw my friend (and fellow blogger) Cindy at an event yesterday and she asked me just how we pronounce it, as there has been some debate over it at her house. It's pronounced like "lucky". I first typed "yucky", but thought then people might think I was saying she was yucky...which she CAN be sometimes, I even sing a little song about it - usually when I'm changing her diaper. Anyone familiar with "The Bunny Song" from Veggie Tales?



Okay, so to the tune of that, sing "The Puckey, the Puckey, WHOA I love the Puckey. She sure is cute, but she's sometimes yucky...." Yep, you're going to have that little ditty stuck in your head ALL DAY LONG now! LOL I guess some might think it's pronounced like Pookie (pooh-key). Sorry for any confusion...Hope that clears it up! Thanks for asking, Cindy!!

Wow, Puckey must have known I was blogging about her, and that Ande was gone - she woke up crying just now, and she told me that her daddy was in the road and someone took him away. Poor little Puckey. It only took me a minute to get her calmed down, but boy do I feel bad for her when she has a bad dream! I used to have a recurring nightmare when I was a kid, and I know how terrified I would be when I'd wake up.

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