Merry CHRISTmas

Merry CHRISTmas everyone!  The time of the year we celebrate our Savior's birth. I am so very thankful that God sent his son to earth. I am even more thankful that Jesus died for my sins, conquered death and is in Heaven today, guiding my steps here and waiting for my time to come and join him.

I have been promising for weeks that I would get my decoration pictures up.  Here are a few, I decorated a lot like last year, so the main things I will put are things I did differently.

This was one of my favorite "new" pieces. It had been an autumn decoration that I converted to a Christmas one. Here's the thing, At Hobby Lobby, arrangements not nearly this nice were selling for almost $100. I bought two $20 swags that were on sale for half off, which made them $10 a piece, wired them on, fluffed them and then added three tea light electric candles. The picture isn't as pretty as the real arrangement. I LOVE it!

This actually just got added yesterday, the canvas is my Christmas gift from Sheila King, my program's assistant coordinator. I love it as well, it will be one of my favorites for the rest of my life.

This is the guest room, I don't think I posted any pictures of it last year.

I got a new nativity this year, at Sheila's parent's auction. It has a really nice stable with it, but I liked it up here, so I didn't use the stable this year.

Part of our guest bathroom, I don't think I put anything here last year either.

My Christmas tress.

And my front porch....

So, here it is, Christmas day, am I ready for Christmas? Finally. Good thing too since it's here.

I will post another post over the next few days with more thought, but for now, going to leave you with the crafts I made this year....

I made nine of these, probably going to make many more to sell at craft shows, I am really happy with how they turned out.

Made these for Robert's coworkers, tp snowmen. The card says, "Money is tight and times are hard, I got you this instead of a card, something to use, something to share, so Bottoms Up because I care. Merry Christmas!" They were well received.

I made 39 snowmen, should have been 40 but they are made out of socks and who would have thought that out of two 10-pks of socks, one would have a whole in it. These were for co-workers and a few friends.

This is sweet trash, I took for coworkers.

and whipped Chocolate Orange Body Butter that I made over three times before I decided it was okay, still needs some work on the recipe.

Made these for the AWANA kids I worked with, one of the offices made these last year for all of us and I knew our kids would think they were great, and they did.

Merry CHRISTmas Everyone!!!

and into December

The playing catch-up seems to be a never ending story right now. I am actually sitting at my desk over my lunch hour, quite frankly, where I was when I made my last post. Just thought I would give you a quick update.

We had a good thanksgiving, the guys worked at the farm, I went to Mom's, looked through some things she wanted me to go through and then the guys came and had lunch with us. Very simple but very nice. The snow was falling and it was just a good day. The year my dad died, it snowed on Thanksgiving. We went to my aunts for lunch that day but not before the Fulton boys came down on the snowmobiles and we got to have some fun in the snow. I'm still a fool for snow much to the disliking of some of my family, friends and coworkers. I honestly love living in Illinois. We truly get to have 4 distinct seasons. When we lived in Pennsylvania, we had two; Winter and August. It was either really hot and dry or really cold and wet, there was no middle ground. There truly is no place like home.

After lunch on Thanksgiving, Robert took me down in the bottoms to cut greenery and weeds. There is a place down in there that seems to be a million miles from anywhere. I love it, God's country for sure. I tried to capture the feeling with pictures but it just didn't do it justice. The snow was ever so gently falling. This was truly a place where there was peace on earth.

Andrew also turned 50 on Thanksgiving, we celebrated on Saturday though so he still had his own day. He got a new air compressor for his birthday, I guess it was what he wanted but I find it the equivalent of getting a vacuum for a present, but oh well, he is happy.

We also took in a little shopping on Thursday evening. Robert had wanted a tv for his bedroom at the farm and I was wanting one for over the fireplace. I didn't think I would ever do that but I can't seem to get anyone to just go sit in front of the fire so maybe we will use our living room more if there is a tv. I know I will at least on Sundays when I have had enough of NASCAR or football.

Black Friday was a first for Andrew to be on the other side of the cash register. I was really leery of how he would behave but he did great and actually outlasted my old partner, Robert. We left at 4:30 Friday morning and got home at 5 Friday evening. We just really had a good fun day. I LOVE the fact that he finally is his own boss and can take off when I have a chance to so we see each other more.

Saturday is our 23rd wedding anniversary, we are going to Evansville to the Acropolis for dinner, it is our favorite place. I was just in Evansville on Monday with Mom for a doctor's appointment and I think that is what caused us to want to go.


About time to get back to work so I will close with a couple of notes (okay, so I totally ran out of time and now it is 9:15 p.m). I have picked this year's theme song for Christmas...Holly Jolly Christmas. It is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's 50th Anniversary, of course we have special ties to Rudolph because Sam the Snowman, who narrates Rudolph was our very own Burl Ives. We celebrate Holly Jolly Christmas here in Jasper County every year, tonight is our first night. I chose this not only because of the anniversary but because of Andrew's business, we joined the Chamber of Commerce, which is responsible for Holly Jolly Christmas. And I chose it a little bit because John Cougar Mellencamp's "Small Town" isn't a Christmas song. I am so very, very proud of my hometown, while the world was going crazy just two short hours from my house in one of my favorite town's to visit, we had a 9 year old member of our community fighting big battles on the medical front. Ironically, he is in St. Louis in the hospital. His name is Jack and I have known his family for a long time, his aunt is married to one of the Fulton boys mentioned earlier in this post. Jack and his parents spent Thanksgiving in the hospital. The morning after, Jack had major surgery. The amount of support from this little spot in the world has been priceless, not only to his family but to us standing on the sidelines cheering them on, holding them up and bringing them before the Lord.
I learned a long time ago, when we were what seemed to be a million miles away, again, there's no place like home.

So, we are well on our way into the Christmas season. We have already had our Christmas party at work and I feel officially behind because my house isn't finished. I am hoping by the time I go to bed Sunday night I will be there. I am, as usual, making many of my friends homemade things for Christmas. The only thing I have completed is these little sock snowmen, thanks to Pinterest. I leave you with our little contribution to #jackattack, my snowman army and at least one random picture of Gibbs

Gibbs is giving Robert a wet willy. Robert is his second favorite person in the house. I think he will always remember that Robert (and Garrett) is the reason he is alive.

.

Oh, trying to play catch up again.....

It has been almost two months since I have put up a new blog post. It feels like it has been a year. How can so much happen in such a small amount of time? The last time I blogged, Andrew's Dad and girlfriend were still here. We were on our way to Lincoln Log Cabin for the Fall Follies; that was a great day!  We picked up sandwiches at Subway and Robert grabbed a sandwich after work and met us there. We had a picnic lunch in perfect 70 degree weather. That along with the fact that watching all the crafters, I realized one of them was Cathy Grafton, who used to be the LIHEAP Coordinator for the Bloomington area. I got to have a nice visit with her so that was an added bonus.

I have made many more trips to Springfield, spoke at several parent meetings, worked on many (TOO many!) computers, ran the furnace program (and ran out of money on it) all in the last 50+ days. There were a couple days I thought I was nuts. There was one day, I had a come-apart and thought I was stupid for thinking I could do all of this. God shows me in big ways, I am doing what I am supposed to be though. On that particular day, I had work, a parent meeting at 4:30 in Chrisman, and was supposed to be at AWANA at 6:15. I was to go to Springfield the next day, and I knew by the agenda of the meeting, there was something I needed to do some research and studying on. I got it all done though, and was ready to say what I wanted to say at the meeting. This was the second time in two weeks that I had stuff heavy on my mind about decisions being made at the state level. On the 8th, I had most of a page full of talking points. Funny, I go to Springfield, I sit at a table with 7-10 people that I consider friendly, most of them I consider friends. There are 7-10 people on a video conference from Chicago, same thing; if they aren't friends, I don't consider them the enemy.....for the most part anyway. I have never been so scared to death to speak my mind in my life. But I think what I said on the 8th got a lot of support and what happened on the 16th started a chain of events that, after me sending an email this week, actually got things changed. That's why I go, that's why it's important. I made a difference, a difference to the workload of some of my colleagues, but most importantly, a difference to the confusion factor for our clients. So, this last couple of months have been worth it.

While I was in Springfield on the 16th, we had a major issue going on in our office, our accounting system stopped working correctly. I am horrible at talking someone through how to do stuff over the phone. Most of the time, I just do it, I need to work on that. I dealt with that Thursday evening after I got back, all day Friday and most of the day Monday. Friday afternoon, I talked to the people who run the software, we worked for 2 1/2 hours, thought we had it fixed, only to hang up the phone and 10 minutes later, find out it quit working again. It took most of another week but we finally got it all together and figured it out, I don't want an issue like that to happen for a long time!

 Andrew has had a very good start to his business. God is good, all the time. Scary is an understatement when venturing out like this but he has only went one full week without work. Next year, we will have furniture to repair, restore and resale for when this time comes. We had a goal for the first real month, and we met it, we went a whole $7.00 over that goal but I decided I just did a really good job of setting the goal!

I hate that I basically have lost that month and a half, I vow to do better about blogging, I WANT to do better about blogging, it just gets out of hand and then there is so much to say....

I guess the big thing that happened in October was going to Covered Bridge, where I finally found Robert's cabinet at a bargain price no less; it needs redone, but that's what we have Andrew for :-).

We also got to see my Uncle Kenny and Aunt Nancy as they were set up for a flea market at Mattoon for one weekend.

November, we got to go to my cousin Tracy's wedding reception, they got married on a cruise, so we celebrated when they returned. Her mom, Nancy (different Nancy than above, this is my COUSIN Nancy Glosser, the one above is my AUNT Nancy Glosser) brought me a braclet from the cruise. IT is one of the add a bead ones and I had wanted one forever. I am very proud of my braclet but just how cool is it that you go to a wedding reception and come home with gifts?

My mom celebrated her 75th Birthday and Andrew is celebrating the big 50 on Thanksgiving day.

Mom has been having some heart issues and we go Monday to Evansville to see one heart doctor and Tuesday to Olney to see another one. Hopefully, they are very fixable issues and we can get her back on the straight and narrow soon.

Robert is good, Chrissy, Liz and Gibbs are good.

So, as we come into the Thanksgiving season, I am very thankful for all of the above. I didn't do the thankful posts on facebook this year because some people either made fun of them or took them in a way I didn't intend. God has been good to us, this is true, but I never mean for it to sound like I am boasting. I could very well sit down and tell you all our troubles and worries but the deal is, I KNOW God is gonna take care of me so why do that?? IF I have something I seriously need prayer for, I ask because I believe prayer does change things. Otherwise, why not be thankful for what God blesses us with. With all of this being said, I think that day to really focus on one thing to be thankful for each day up to Thanksgiving has truly been missed for my own blessings. I thank God everyday for all I have and I normally name them, piece by piece but there was just something "adventish" (sp?) about doing the thankful posts. I have really enjoyed my friends who have done them and I truly do take them in the light they are intended.

And why we are on the subject of being thankful, I will close with this little thought. God tells us that as we grow in Him, we will grow in the fruits of the spirit. Those are  love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Prosperity isn't one of them. This was in one of the devotionals I was reading this morning. God doesn't promise to make us rich because we follow him. He promises to take care of us, and he always does. Somehow when you stop dwelling on money, the rest falls into place. I'm not saying that anyone can go without money, I work in the wrong business to have my head in the sand like that. I am saying, if God tells you to do something, I don't think you should worry about the money part, I think you should concentrate on doing what He tells you to do and I believe you will watch the rest all just fall into place. The epitome of having faith.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I will update soon!

Another eventful week

Life is moving along at the Browning house. Andrew's Dad, Bob, and his girlfriend, Janette have been visiting so we have enjoyed some down time this week that we haven't taken for a while. I had really planned on all of us watching a movie last night but by the time we would have started it Bob thought they would only get through half of it before they would want to go back to their motorhome. When they left and Robert went to bed, we stayed up, popped popcorn and watched a movie just the two of us. Neither one of us even fell asleep in the middle of it. I don't know when that happened last.

Andrew's business is starting to take off. God has a sense of humor and shows me where I err in my ways. I first started praying that Andrew's phone would ring. On that day, it rang twice, both times a wrong number. So then I prayed that we would get phone calls, then he got one that when he went to do the estimate on, it needed to be handled by someone bigger than him. So I finally started praying that he would get jobs. He has gotten a few to get him started and has leads on more. We never planned on him having anything at all in September so this makes us feel like what everyone has been telling us is true, it is something that is truly needed. By the way, we are focusing on both Jasper AND Cumberland counties, so if you know of anyone looking for a handyman in the Greenup area as well, please tell them to call us, or direct them to our facebook page. Starting Wednesday, we are going to have a spot on the radio, 8 times a day, from noon until 5 am Monday-Friday and all day on Saturday. This part is all a little surreal but a life long dream of Andrew's is starting to come true and I just absolutely love it for him, and love that I get to help make it happen. This week, I am planning on getting an ad to the paper as well. That part is all my responsibility, so it has to be fit in there with my REAL job, :-).

My job is, of course, crazy busy right now with the start of a new program year. I am now an invited guest to the Policy Advisory Council  and am a member of the PIPP steering committee. I went to Springfield on the 18th for the PAC and will go to Springfield on Tuesday for the steering committee. I love being involved in the decision making process and fell like that is part of what I really wanted when I was still an assistant fieldworker in the Olney office and knew I wanted to do more than take the applications. One of the best parts though is I get to spend most of those days traveling with my friend, Kathy, who serves in the same capacity as me in both instances.

I also have been doing lots of computer work lately, getting the last of our Windows XP machines switched out to new Windows 7 machines. I have done 4 in the last 8 days and have two more to do out in the field, hopefully next Friday. There is one that needs done in our office as well as I am trying to find new laptops for a couple of people in our office. Seems the days of that being simple are over.

Gibbs is great, growing like a bad weed. I got him a harness so he can enjoy the front porch and the back yard.

He has lived with us 7 weeks now and should be around 11 weeks old. I have taken at least 200 pictures of him, so see how many you are spared???

I put his little cat bed in the window on my desk, he LOVES it there, he can lay in it and look out and watch the squirrel that is almost always out there. For the most part, outside still kinda scares him, especially if there are any loud trucks go by. He seems very content for living in the house. I am still sad for him that he lost his family but I am hoping maybe he was little enough he doesn't remember, though he sucks in his sleep, so there is some memory there. We are very thankful and happy that he came into our lives.

He is about to grow out of his baby bed. I have a friend that is opening a new pet store this week here in Newton (Perfect Paws and Claws (www.facebook.com/perfectpawsclaws)--how sweet is that?) Anyway, I am hoping to get him a kitty condo there, one tall enough that I can set it by my desk and he can sit on a perch and sleep and still be able to see out the window. I am afraid by the time he reaches adulthood, he could take up a good chunk of my desk.

Today we are taking Bob and Janette to Lincoln Log Cabin to see the festivities going on there. Hopefully, Robert will join us for a picnic lunch (I took the easy way out, we are taking the cooler and stopping at Subway).

Here is a couple of pictures from our adventures last weekend, we took them to see some of the covered bridges in Parke county. It's kinda nice to see them without the Covered Bridge Festival going on, but I am STILL very excited for it to come up, come on October 13th! On top of everything else, it is the first time in almost 23 years of marriage that I don't have to wonder up until that morning if Andrew is really going to get to go with me- I still love that, we get to plan without waiting for the no word to come up.

(doesn't he look happy?? This makes ME happy!)

Browning Home Repair- the birth of a business

Today is here, finally! And we are ready. It has been a long summer, and a busy one but I truly believe this is the next step in the journey God has planned for us.

We have had a long history of having God show us things beyond our dreams. I can't seem to get one of the most trying times in our married life off of my mind this morning. We were living in Pontiac IL; Robert was 4, I was a stay-at-home mom and Andrew was, of course, working for Walmart. We had moved into an apartment that was beautiful, it had just been completely remodeled. However, it was the 1st floor of an old Victorian home and the electric and gas were seriously eating us alive. I had started seeking out things I could do from home to help the income situation. I had seen an ad in our local paper for a work at home job, when I sent my resume in, I got paperwork back that they wanted me to SEND THEM $79.95. It was the final straw for me that day. We were in a strange town and I didn't know a lot of people. I called my sister and literally sat and bawled. I couldn't believe God was telling me to leave my son with strangers while I went and worked outside the home. I got off the phone with her and prayed. The phone rang again. It was so quickly after I hung up the phone with Sis that I thought it was her calling back. It was Andrew. We were being transferred to Southern Indiana. Average cost of rental houses was $300, half of what we were paying for renting our apartment. God is good, all the time.

So, back to today. As many of you know Andrew ended a 27 year career with Walmart in April of 2012; or Walmart ended it for him. If you don't know the story, go back into my posts and search April 2012, it's all there. He decided then that he wanted to go to work for himself. God just hadn't made it clear what we were supposed to be doing yet. Andrew had spent 4 years of his Walmart life running the Tire and Lube Express. The building across the street, which is a tire place was for sale, so we started looking there. Lessons learned from that: making a business plan, searching out legalities, and the fact that even though he was thinking him and Robert, we realized Robert needed to find his own way, this needed to be something just for Andrew. The Goodwill job came along and that coupled with a couple other doors shutting, seemed to be the answer for now. He was disillusioned with Goodwill from the start. I don't want to go into the details but he had not been happy there for quite sometime. He stated weekly that he wanted to quit. The woman that he was working for wanted him gone too. Just a week before my trip to Kansas City for work, that Andrew was supposed to go with me; they changed his schedule and cut our trip short. He wanted to walk that day and I begged him not to. Things actually came to a head on the day before our trip and he ended up leaving that day. That was a little lesson to me, I should have had enough faith that God would take care of us to say okay when they started messing with our plans. The way it ended up, we still had to cut our trip short because I couldn't get reservations for the last night at Brookfield again.

So, we started looking to God to see what He was thinking now. When the Walmart deal happened, I looked toward Dave Ramsey and made sure we would be okay if Andrew never got a job again. I had loosened the reigns a little but nothing so drastic as to the fact we wouldn't be okay. We are working on a major project with Robert's house but all in all, when I looked at the books; I told Andrew we would be good to go until October without even really making any lifestyle changes.

His first thought was to go back to school, he knew he couldn't handle the 12-15 hours a day that retail management required and he just plain out didn't have any desire to go back there. One day my mom called and was having a problem with the water pump at her house, Andrew went and fixed it, like he always does. It dawned on me what he needed to be doing. I told him that night I felt like he should look into being a handyman. He told me he didn't figure there was a need. I am going to tell you, he has always been good at this stuff and so we never have to call anyone else. (Our siding and roof was done by Dale Milliman, that one was too big for the time frame we had and Andrew was already working on rebuilding Robert's house).  We are both DIYers, and love it, but I truly believe there are people out there who aren't. After I went to bed that night, he started looking on the internet and realized maybe there really was a need.

The next morning, he told me he planned to start a handyman service. I was ecstatic. When I prayed about it, it was just right.

One morning shortly after that I was at our Weatherization office working on their computers. I told Denny, our head of Weatherization, what he was planning. I asked him what we needed to be legal. Denny said there are no licenses for contractors or electricians but that we needed to get his lead certification. He pointed me in the right direction for that and we got Andrew enrolled in the class.
(Plumbers and Roofers have to be licensed- Andrew will only do very minor things to do with either of these, but if someone needs a new roof or major plumbing lines, he cannot do that, which is fine because we have fine licensed professionals around who can). I texted him on July 24th and told him we needed to plan on starting the business on September 18th because the fall festival parade was scheduled for the 13th and we could hand out information there.

So, the last 6 weeks have been a flurry. Andrew found a man who is a seasoned handyman. He has made a fixed price list as well as a guide to getting his business started. We bought Andrew uniforms, had business cards printed, magnets for the truck and then I made brochures and ordered refrigerator magnets. I bought shirts for me and Robert for today and just did the logo with my cricut for them. Thursday night we had a "brochure party". My mom and I worked from 4:30 to 8 glue-dotting magnets into the brochures (the brochures got here Wednesday). The guys came home at 8 from working at Robert's and helped us finish, which we did at 8:30. Last night was the first night in ages I don't remember having something to do for the business. But we are ready.

Today is the day. I have on the calendar that Monday the 18th is the "First Day of Business" but we actually had our first paying job last Tuesday.
 That was really just a little positive that I needed because even though we are being met with tons of encouragement and excitement, it set in last week that this is just a little scary.

I got the facebook page up and running last week and I hope to eventually get a website. I have been just a little busy at my own job though so I will do what I can when I can.

He wants to stick to small repairs, home maintenance and home improvements, as I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of reputable, great contractors for your major projects, but a lot of times, they do not have the time to run and do little jobs when they are in the middle of more major things. Andrew wants to fill in that gap as well as do the maintenance things that just needs done to keep your house healthy.

So, here we go, truly a new chapter of our lives.  Hope to see many of you at the parade!

Happy, happy start of your new business Andrew!

Attempting to catch up--Bullet style

I cannot believe Monday is going to be the first day of September, where has the summer gone? Where has the YEAR gone?? Somebody said yesterday there are 18 Friday's left until Christmas.

I am so far behind on blogging, with good reason, but still, so far behind. Thought I would wrap up most of August in one fell swoop. I don't know if I can even remember what all has happened!

I am wanting to do a big post on Andrew's (and mine too really) new business. Exciting but LOTS of work on it this summer and so far, that work has been on my side of it.  As I said, bigger post to come.

Things that happened in August:

• August 2nd, we celebrated my birthday early at the Japanese Restaurant in Terre Haute.
• August 9th, Mom and I went to Sis and Richard's for the day.
• August 10th, Gibbs came into our lives :-) (If you don't know about Gibbs, see the post below, but I am fairly sure EVERYBODY knows about Gibbs).
• August 14th, made the monthly trip to Springfield with my friend, fellow LIHEAP coordinator Kathy Walk. 
• August 16th, I turned 47. Since we had all celebrated earlier in the month together, Mom and I went on a Walmart run that afternoon and Andrew and I had a movie date that night. Saw And So It Goes.
• August 21st, left at noon to go back to my sisters for some Balloonfest fun.
• August 23rd, got to witness the last of my friend Patty's biological daughters marry the man of her dreams.
• August 24th, my one and only baby boy turned 22.
• August 26th, spoke at Head Start preservice, wearing the IT hat.
• August 29th, had a day-long training for LIHEAP, gearing up for the start of the LIHEAP season this coming Tuesday.
• August 29th, Andrew took an all day class near St. Louis to get his lead certificate.

Today, I go get my hair cut and this evening , we are helping a wonderful couple celebrate their anniversary. Robert was on vacation last week so they made a lot of progress on the house and are inching closer to being through with structural work. That will leave all the electrical and then the cosmetic. When we hit cosmetic, it will go faster AND I will be able and probably expected to help more!

A few pics to close the deal and then off to a busy, wonderful life that God has blessed me with.

On our way to my birthday dinner on the 2nd, my mom called and told me to stop by on our way home, she made me a Lemon pie!

Smith's Botanical Gardens :-)

Mom, Richard and Sis

Gibbs

Robert had ice cream cake on Saturday and Pineapple Cheesecake on Sunday

Robert's birthday present, what he asked for, more tools. Go figure.

My 12 pints of homemade spaghetti sauce, with my own fresh basil and garlic. Love getting to still do some of my own canning, even when life is crazy!

  

Happy Saturday! Have a BLESSED day!

Gibbs

So, at the prompting of one of my coworkers I am spending my lunch hour updating my blog.

I told her that I really needed to do 4 blog posts, that's how far behind I am.

Anyway, I will get one finished, about the infamous, wonderful, mischievous cat named Gibbs.

Gibbs came into our lives on a rainy Sunday afternoon, August 10th to be exact. Garrett and Robert were out for a Sunday afternoon ride when they saw this little blob in the middle of the road. When Garrett got stopped, Robert jumped out to see what it was. They were assuming a baby squirrel. It ended out being a little kitten, soaking wet, and smack dab in the middle of the road.

Since we have never had cats, and Andrew was supposed to be allergic, Robert called my mom, aka a cat lady. He called me and said he was taking the kitten to Nana's. I told him I would go with him. When he walked in the door with this little blue-gray kitten all wrapped in a towel, I was in love.

I wanted to keep him but as mentioned above, figured it would have to be a choice between the hubs and the cat, well, that's a no-brainer. So we get him to Mom's and Mom says she doesn't know what she will do with him, that he is not going to stay in the house, all her other kittens are outside. Andrew at that point told me if I wanted to keep him, keep him; that honestly made my mom happy as well.

About two months ago, we had a stray full grown cat. The dogs went ballistic while he was there so we took him to a friend who has a big farm and lots of room. I was really leery of how the girls would react to the kitten.Lizzie took to him immediately and is very protective. Chris thinks he is an annoyance, especially since he figured out that she had nipples that must of reminded him a lot of his own mom. He only tried that once.

Anyway, I named him Gibbs because well, if you don't watch NCIS, I might worry about you, but I love Gibbs on NCIS, and he is also Gray headed. Gibbs on the show is tough and street smart when he has to be, but yet just a good guy with an air of confidence about him that is just very becoming. My Gibbs is all of those things as well, hence the name.

We went to see the vet on the 13th, got his first shots and found out that he was around 4 weeks old.

That makes him around 6 weeks old today. He has grown a lot. He is faithful about using the potty box and this morning when I cleaned the potty box, I got a clump that was way too big for Gibbs, so I think Liz has decided to use the potty box too, that would sure beat those mornings she wants to go out at 3 a.m.

I told on facebook, I bought him a collar Saturday, I thought it was too big though and took it back off, Monday, he went TWICE and got it and brought it to me, I said I guess the dogs told him he had to have a collar to belong. He had a bath Sunday night, which apparently will help Andrew's issues with him, though Andrew has been around the cats at the farm so long now, I think he has built an immunity.


So, without further ado......

Gibbs:

This was when we were taking him to Mom's, didn't know at this time I was going to get to keep him.

As you can see, Chris doesn't totally dislike him, this was like day 2 or 3.

Week 1

Week2

Week 3, August 26th

Liz thought I was causing him distress sticking the phone in his face--did I mention that I found an app on  my phone for him? It's called Cat Toy and he loves chasing the butterfly. Yep, like everything else in our house, spoiled.

What a Crazy, Happy, Sad, Eventfilled, Blessed Life

I last updated on July 20th, it had been a crazy couple of weeks and things just didn't change much.  The guys were running out of supplies at Robert's house and it was decided that we needed a new trailer. We have an 8 foot trailer but apparently the first trip from Effingham to Greenup with 16 foot 2x10's was not a fun one, for the guys or our little trailer. It about killed the trailer. With Robert's profession as well as his love for cars, a car trailer just made since. We craigslisted away and Robert and I came up with the same one, right in the budget I had set. We called, it was still there, so away we went on Thursday evening, the 24th to get the trailer. The trailer was just what we wanted, it was at Edwardsville and so we had left my office as soon as I got off work. Highlight of the night though was going to Taco Bell in Edwardsville. There were two women in line ahead of us, they both ordered for about twenty people. That was the START of the problem. Then we ordered. Several others came in and ordered and left with their food. After 20 minutes, Andrew got up and went to ask where our food was, at that time, I started visiting with one of the others in line. I told her my main concern was we were three hours away from home with a brand new trailer, nobody was thrilled about what time it was going to be when we got home. At 8:00, the 30 minute mark, I stood back up and said it's time to just get our money back and go. The lady that had been behind me said, "Oh no, you get your money back, but you get your food.", She TOLD the lady at the register, "You give them there money back and give them their food, they aren't from around here and they will have a bad impression of Edwardsville.". Our food came up about the same time, so I sent the guys to eat while I got our money back. As soon as Robert had ate so he could drive, we loaded up and headed home. I really like sweet people, but I think I like sweet, pushy people even better!

On our way home, we received heartbreaking news. Ken Beaumont had passed away. He has had a very long battle with cancer and even though it wasn't actually cancer that finally caused his final breath, it was still the primary reason he was in that position. Ken is one of those people that I hated to see him go, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt where he is. Ken was a big supporter of Robert. He was a mechanic so they talked the same language and I think he enjoyed getting to visit with Robert. If you remember Robert putting his car in the ditch to save a turtle; he was on his way to Ken's to look at tools. I have a story to tell you though of something that happened later this week and I know Susie didn't even think about it. I won't go into too much detail because I didn't ask either one of them permission and it was something that just happened as natural as any other day. The Lord keeps working though. The day after Ken's funeral, Susie came to work. That day, one of my other coworkers had tragic news. The next morning, Susie was taking steps to comfort that coworker. As I said, not too much detail but enough to say, Susie's faith in God gave a wonderful testimony that morning and I know that was not even on her mind.

On Sunday, we got to go to our first Brickyard 400, I have to admit what I normally do during NASCAR races on Sunday afternoon; I watch the start, sleep through a big portion unless there is a ruckus about a wreck, and wake up in time to see the last 30 laps or so. The guys were both really excited about the race and I was excited for them but really wasn't sure I wanted to sit 3 hours and watch the cars turn left, turn left, turn left, turn left. I love going to dirt track races, they are short and you either see a lot of near misses or someone getting crunch. Two weeks before Indy, Kyle Busch was hanging upside down in his car, that's a bit much for me. Anyway....The race was really uneventful. Danica broke her back axle and was right in front of us when she couldn't get her car to do anything but smoke. Robert blames me for no wrecks, because I had prayed for such and Jeff Gordon won, which I am not a big Gordon fan but he made history in that he has won the Brickyard 5 times and he is from Indiana which meant the crowd loved it. I am sure there were many people there who had been involved in his growing up, that would be neat for both Jeff and them. Here are some pictures:

All the pace cars from the previous Brickyards were right in front of us.

Honoring the active duty military present

Someone arriving by helicopter, just thought it was cool.

That brings us into this week. I have had a crazy week with computers, I have to get a class in on our new server, I am planning on starting that it September. I found a 5 day class in Springfield, the only downside was the $2800 fee and that was just for the class, no meals, or rooms. I found a $200 class online that I could download but if you just watched it and didn't download it, you get it free. Guess what I am doing??  It's Server 2012 and it is kicking my butt, mainly because we have a Hyper V terminal set up in it and I am just not used to having to deal with it. I am sure I will get it though and a year down the road, I will feel much better about the stupid thing......maybe won't even call it stupid.

Big progress on the house this week too! The west side has all of its walls on the inside moved to where they are supposed to be, all but just a little of the sub floor is also down on that side. Friday evening, they put the new plywood on the outside, this is a big thing because when they started this wall was actually at three different heights, no it wasn't supposed to be and now it is not.
There will be windows of course, and they are framed in on the inside, but they aren't putting the windows in until they have the other half of the house done.

So today, Robert is going to work, Andrew and I are tackling cleaning the house, making tomato sauce and then starting more work on our yard. I was so glad to get the front looking better but we have to keep going. Because of what August is already looking like, we are going to Terre Haute tonight to celebrate my birthday AND to buy a winch for the new trailer. This will bring us one step closer to at least moving Robert's cars to the farm. I am hoping that happens in the next couple of weeks!

Happy Saturday everyone, hope you have a Blessed day!