Saturday, April 27, 2013

Ahhh......

It has been an exciting, crazy two weeks at our house. We love having company and have made a marathon event of it. So, as much as I love company and my family, I am looking forward to a little down time.
My sis and her hubby was here on the 13th and 14th, that visit seemed so short, but it was good to see them. My father-in-law and his girlfriend came on the 17th and just left the country yesterday morning. When they come they stay out at the state park in their motor home, so they come and go. Unfortunate to the timing was the fact I had a big meeting yesterday so I worked late on several evenings that they were visiting. We still had a good visit which included dinner out last Friday night, Breakfast Saturday morning, lunch Saturday, a trip to the outlet mall at Tuscola and several homecooked meals from us and from them. It was a good visit.

Now to settle back into the thick of things here at home. I wanted to play in the dirt today and get flowers set out and my yard to looking better. I have so many plans this year and I want to get started. One of the ladies at work yesterday saw that we have freeze warnings again for late next week...not good, so my flowers wait AGAIN, I did actually go buy a new rose arbor last night and I hope to get the old dilapidated one out and the new one in as well as clean up my roses, tulips, iris, and peonies patches. I also need to bag up the pea gravel in my long bed and get ready to replant it. That will be a start.

We bought a new tiller so I am ready to get the other ones going, and next Saturday is already booked so now I am shooting for two weeks from today to finish the beds.

So, this morning I still get to play in the dirt a little, this afternoon we need to go to Terre Haute, Andrew is wanting a new pair of boots for his new job.

Wednesday he got to meet the staff and just seems to think they are all remarkable. He has finished all the paperwork and is now waiting on the drug screen and background checks to be done. We know he's good there so it is just a matter of waiting.

Funny thing is, when he was hired, he was told he would probably have to go to Springfield for a few days of training first. On Wednesday, they said they were shooting for May 6th to be his first day of work. Neat thing is, I am leaving for the IACAA conference on May 5th, in Springfield. So, if he has to go to Springfield for a few days, we will actually be in the same time. Yep, I have already asked permission to have a man in my room :-).

That Friday, the 10th, my baby boy graduates from OCC with an associates in applied science and his Automotive Tech certificate. He is hoping to find a job in his field from there so this is probably his last of college. Of course, he is PRAYING he gets to keep his job at NAPA. He loves it over there and it is a job that uses his knowledge. He could do that daily and work on friends and family's cars of an evening, which would just be a great balance for him. He took the El Camino to school and of course, it will be coming home in a couple of weeks too, hopefully with all the wiring redone. He has done a lot to it but has a ways to go.

So, as we look into May, seems we have a lot of bright futures here at the Browning house. I thank the Lord every morning for this awesome life and truly can't believe He has given it to us.

Have a wonderful, blessed, Saturday!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The moment that made my day

FINALLY!!!  After 12 weeks, I got the scales to really move!  As many of you know I started my Weight Watchers journey back in July. By Christmas I had lost 35 lbs and I hit 40 lbs in January. Then I went to the hospital, and I have struggled to get back to actually loosing weight. Part of me is proud of the fact that I was at least able to not gain a bunch and I even had my doctor trying to explain to me why now that I am "better", I couldn't get the weight to start coming off again. I had been on the prednisone before I went to the hospital and was losing so what made this so different? My body was healing, getting healthier than it had been forever and it (according to Doc Peterson) needed to hold on to every bit of food it was getting because it was rebuilding. He promised me that if I stayed on task that when my body really started liking where I was at, medically, I would start losing again. I went off prednisone three weeks ago, the first week, I lost .4 lbs, the next .6. knowing I have close to 100 lbs to lose yet made the prospects of half a pound a week seem unattainable. it would take me 4 years to lose the 100 lbs. I knew I had a good week, but the last two weeks, Monday mornings looked a lot better than Monday evenings. So last night when Janet said I was down 2.4 lbs, it made my day, heck, it made my year!

This morning I get up and I am down again!  Yep, life is falling back into place and my doctor, once again, proved himself right because I knew I was doing everything exactly like I was supposed to and thank the Lord, I didn't give up on myself or my body.

Next week, we are supposed to have show and tell at Weight Watchers. We are supposed to take a picture of our anchor. Of course, my anchor this time is my Chrysler 200, it is still up in the air if it is a convertible or not but it is what I am taking.

I am back to sitting goals of 5 lbs every 2 weeks, that is more than a lb a week but less than 2 lbs, before Christmas, I was making the 5 lbs most of the time in 2 weeks but I don't want to get over zealous. I know there will come a time when I will go back to the 1/2 pound a week, as long as it doesn't happen until I am less than 50 lbs from my goal, I will be fine with that because honestly at that time, I should be looking decent anyway,

So, here's to the next goal of 45 lbs by May 13th.....bring it on!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Our God is an Awesome God

On April 12, 2012, our lives changed forever. You can venture back through my posts and find out that I can't say it was bad. It was bad for a few minutes until God got my head on straight. We started that day praying and making the decision to follow whatever God leads us to and not question why. We just kept holding on to the fact that he was holding on to us and we have had an adventurous year.

On April 12, 2013, once again, our lives changed forever. Andrew got the "unofficial" call that he would be getting the "official" call on Monday. Today, as promised, he was offered the position of Store Manager for our Effingham Goodwill Store. Please remember that Goodwill is a not-for-profit, focusing all its profits on improving the lives of people who are in crisis.  I can't tell you how thrilled I am that we both work for organization whose goal is to make life better.

We hadn't told many people because it wasn't really relevant but Andrew was laid off last December. If you remember, when he left Walmart, we set everything up so that if Andrew never ended up going back to work, it would be okay, but it became clear very soon thereafter that he didn't handle staying at home. He decided then that he would love to do something that helped people. He had looked into Habitat for Humanity but there were no positions close enough. Of course, he worked as a security guard for Menards from June until the layoff in December. The layoff was supposed to be a transfer to Ameren but poor timing left him without a position. Ironically, it caused him to be able to draw unemployment. Even more ironic was the fact that he hadn't worked for Menards three quarters so he was drawing his unemployment off of his Walmart wages, which made him getting more in unemployment than he ever brought home from Menards. As I said, God takes very good care of us. On top of everything else, he didn't complain but the Menards job was really getting to him. Being that close to retail and having no say wasn't fun. Security was never Andrew's calling.

So, Andrew starts looking for a job and not finding anything. along about the middle of February, he was getting really down. As I said, we were financially fine but his state of mind had me worried. I started praying that God would do something about this. Then the Tire place across the road went up for sale. God wasn't pointing anything else in our direction so Andrew started working on the business plan to buy the place . Through this, he started getting his self-esteem back. It was feasible and the guys had talked a bit about opening their own place, really, Robert opening his own place and when Andrew retired, helping him out. So, we thought maybe God wanted to do this sooner.  After talking with a few people it was clear that even if we started a business, it wasn't going to be in the building across the road.

 About two weeks ago, this job came up. He was really excited because it would mean he could use all those years in retail to help others....exactly what he wanted to do.  Anybody who thinks looking into the buying the business was a waste of time doesn't know what they are talking about. Andrew had his pride back, which is probably what sealed the deal on this job.

After the first interview, he came home and said, "I want to work for this company". After the second interview he came home and said he would be crushed if he didn't get the job and that Brian had told him he would let him know, either way, on Friday......Friday......April 12th.......do you see the significance?

At around 3:30 Friday afternoon the phone rang, Brian called to tell him he didn't have the details all worked out but that he wanted to let him know that he would be calling him Monday to make the official offer, and he did.

So as of this evening, he has a new job, he has a new job that he wants to do. To say that God takes care of us is just the understatement of the year. God is good, all the time.

His love for us in sending His Son was all we ever needed, His blessing us with our jobs, our family, our home, our animals and every other thing in our life is just nothing short of Awesome.



Sunday, April 7, 2013

A Dog's Life

Today was the girls' "spa day". Those of you who don't have animals will roll your eyes right now, but facts are facts. Our little divas get so excited about spa day. I made the appointment a week ago last Wednesday and came home and told them. LAST Saturday morning, Andrew took them out to go potty, they were BOTH sitting at the car doors. They thought it was last week. Smart girls.

So today was the day...


Our "Before" picture, waiting patiently to get on the road.
 

 
In the van....hopefully there is a McDonald's stop for BACON in our future!


 
Lizzy all done and with a ton less hair. She only gets a haircut once a year but it always makes her look like a puppy again.
 
 
 

 
Chrissy, being miss primadona again, she is so sophisticated when she is first done and she acts like it too.
 
 
Our second McDonald's treat of the day (this is the only day they feed us like this) we are on our way to split an order of french fries!

 
Waiting for the french fries to be cool enough to eat.
 

 
Back home, pretty as a picture--our official "After" shot.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Foodie Friday

Some have asked about my menus that I do each month. I get things like "How do you have time?" and "Why do you bother?"  Well, the first thing is I DON'T have time to wonder what's for dinner so I do this. I actually started doing monthly menus when Robert was in High School and we had a million places to be every evening. My guys both cook so whoever got home first started supper, with a menu, it's pretty easy because if any meat needs laid out, I did it that morning. This also saves tons on groceries. I make my menu out on the last Saturday of the previous month. The first week includes anything we were supposed to have in the previous month and didn't and if I noticed something on sale at the store that week. Example: last month our Sunday out was Joes, we all brought home half of our meals and decided just to have them for dinner--I didn't make the pizza that was on the menu for that night but I already have all the stuff to make it so we fit it in to this month. I make a shopping list with everything for the whole month on it. I make a space (I make the list on my phone) between what I had to have for the first week and what I need for the rest of the month. That way, if anything I need for the rest of the month is on sale, I go ahead and buy it, if not, I wait until the week I have to have it, or it goes on sale. It is funny how often I get the stuff on sale.  I normally don't have the same meal twice in one month but if you look at this, we have hamburgers down twice. They aren't the same hamburgers. The Wednesday night ones are my premade hamburgers I got when we had a cow butchered. The Monday night ones are better. I always do quick stuff on Wednesdays because we have AWANA and need to get back out the door. Anyway, for those of you who wanted to see it.....
(click on it to see a bigger version) 
 
I also have all my "go-to" recipes printed on card stock in my recipe box, easy for anyone to get to. I am "planning" on sharing some of those this month, we'll see what happens.
 
Happy Friday!
 
P.S. I just got asked about the veggies and sides. I don't always put them down and maybe I should have for this post, we have most of our veggies canned and frozen out of the garden so that is where we get to the "whatever we feel like" part. We usually do pasta, rice, potato, corn or peas and then a lower calorie veggie with it.


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Progress....slow and steady wins the race

It has been a roller coaster week already and this morning, I feel like I am in a huge valley. I had good news on Monday as I was finally DOWN A POUND at weight watchers. First week off prednisone and I am starting to lose again, it was about time. I still have 2.6 lbs to lose to get back to "pre-hospital" weight but I will get there eventually.

The downer is I have had some backpeddling from being off the prednisone. I called Doc Monday and asked if we could up the Azathioprine 50 more mg. Things aren't bad bad, just not as good as I would like. He agreed and I started that yesterday. I didn't sleep well Monday night, because the UC was acting up and now it is day 2 of not sleeping. I have lots to do at work or I would stay home but not going to guarantee I will make it through the day. I am more scared now about getting down because I know I already have basically no immune system and lack of sleep causes you to be more susceptible too. That is what started my last bout that ended with three days in the hospital so if things are so I can, I will probably come home this afternoon.

The worst part is I have so much to do here at home too. It's spring cleaning time and I need to get at it, I just can't. Hopefully Saturday.

That's that, hopefully better news later in the week.

Happy Wednesday.