Thursday, March 26, 2009

Vacation pics

I don't remember if I mentioned this or not, but Will and I went to stay at a cabin in Eureka Springs for a couple of days this week while everyone was on spring break. The kids went to stay with my folks. It's the first time we've been anywhere without the kids since Dana was born, but we felt like they were all finally old enough to be without us for a couple of days. We had a lovely time.

We stayed in a private cabin about ten miles out of town. We were right on the edge of a valley (that statement pretty much describes our location no matter where we went, LOL) and I bet that later in the spring when the trees are green and blooming it's really beautiful down through there. It was so nice and relaxing to sit out on the porch swing and listen to the wind blow through the trees.


Here's a picture of the neighboring cabin, looking out from the right of our wrap-around porch. See how some of the trees have limbs that are snapped off and/or damaged? That's from the ice storm last winter. The damage up in that part of the state is staggering. In some places you would look out and almost every single tree - no matter how big - had the top snapped out of it. It's no wonder it was months before all the power was restored in some of those areas.


Here's a picture of our heart-shaped jacuzzi tub. Ahhhh. I miss that tub.


While we were there we visited the Christ of the Ozarks.


Next to the chapel there is an actual section of the Berlin Wall.



Very powerful to stand there and touch something that held so many people in bondage for so long. Loosely translated, this section of the wall says: And it goes even into the darkness. I have no anxiety! Psalm 23.


My husband, as some of you know, can't go anywhere without geocaching at least a little. Here are some deer who really wished we'd just move along already.


And here are a couple of pictures where you can get an idea of the ice storm damage.



This is the last 'vacationy' place we stopped at, the War Eagle Mill. We had a fabulous breakfast there (I had a whole grain waffle with blueberries and whipped cream - YUM) and then bought a bunch of yummy slow ground corn and wheat products, cherry butter, pumpkin butter, raw honey and sorghum, toys for the kids...lots of stuff.



OK there is a notice that blogspot is performing maintenance in a few minutes, so I'm going to post this while I can. Thanks for looking!

Wedding pics

You may recall my sister got married this past weekend. Just thought I'd share a few of the pics. :)

The ceremony was in my parents' house. There was probably 50 or so people there. Everything looked very nice.






One of her friends made the cake. It was fabulous, and I'm not much of a cake person. I wish now that we would have brought some of it home, heh.




Here's the minister, Bro. John, and the groom, Russell.





And here comes my sister, Pam, and my dad, Charles. (That's my oldest brother Robbie there to her right. And the picture on the wall behind him is my grandmother, who passed away in '92.)






Here's a picture of all of us together. L to R: My dad Charles, brother Robbie, sister Pam, me, brother Victor, mom Marie.



And here's a picture of Will and me under the arch. Nathan took this one, I thought he did a really good job.

All in all, everyone had a great time I think. I spent the night there Friday night so I could be up early Saturday morning helping them get the food and stuff together. We served finger foods - sandwiches, pigs in a blanket, fruit and veggie platters - along with the cake and punch. I told Will to be sure to get there on time, but not to be too early because I didn't want the kids tearing up the house, LOL. The pastor's wife and son did all the flowers and decorations. He owns his own floral shop and has such a great talent for it. They did the flowers for my wedding too.
Ha ha, after the ceremony I told Pam that she now holds the title in our family for the shortest wedding ceremony. Will and I walked in to ours at 2 pm and were walking back out at 2:10, but they managed to beat that. Just my kind of ceremony! Heh.
I'll post pictures from our vacation next, I want to make sure this all posts right.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Will applied for a Voluntary Severance at work yesterday

They had been hoping that work would pick back up in March (he has only worked a full week once since before Christmas - the rest of the time he's worked 0, 1, or 2 days per week) but it's not looking any better than it was, so they started offering a voluntary severance package. Based on the length of time he's been there, if he gets approved for it he'll get ten weeks of full pay with benefits before he's officially unemployed. That puts him at having a steady, full time paycheck again until after he GRADUATES IN MAY, plus he won't have to pay back any of the tuition reimbursement he's received (if he was to get another job and leave, he would have to pay it back) so we really feel this is the best course of action for us right now. The dept manager spoke with him for a while yesterday before he turned in his paperwork, and said they could work something out so that he could come in and work two nights steadily during the week (the reason his work has been so hit and miss is because he works the weekend shift and they just don't have enough work to keep it open right now) but he couldn't give him any kind of timeframe for when work would pick back up and he could get a full week's hours in again. So he'd actually be getting paid more by taking the severance package than by working.

He's got a lot of resumes out there for an engineering position, and has been to several interviews, but so far hasn't gotten an offer for anything. But, many places have expressed interest and are just waiting for him to GRADUATE IN MAY, so we aren't too worried about his ability to find something else. If worse comes to worse, we'll have most of the tax money in the bank still to tide us over for several weeks.

It'll be nice to have a semi-normal schedule with him again, instead of having to wait until Wednesday or Thursday to know if he's going to be at home on the weekend. The kids behave sooooo much better when he's here on a regular basis. He has daytime and evening classes both this semester, so even though he doesn't have many classes he's gone a good portion of the day and evening during the week.

He should find out next week if he was approved.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

So if your tax e-file is ever rejected due to a wrong birthday on file...

...after almost a month of dealing with this, I can finally tell you how to take care of it!

First, go to your local social security administration, with your birth certificate, and have them correct the date. Be sure to ask them what the incorrect date on file is.

Then come home and e-file your taxes, using the incorrect birth date, because it's going to take several weeks for the system to update, and the only thing they use the birth date for is verification purposes. (This was the advice given to us by the IRS, by the way. And it worked.)

Voila! You're done!

FINALLY got our taxes approved by the IRS this morning. Hopefully the refund will deposit next Friday and they don't change the date on us.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

For Jackie

I know it will probably be a few days before you see this, but I just wanted to share the lyrics to this song with you. It always brings me great comfort in times of loss.

The Valley Song ~ Jars of Clay

You have led me to the sadness
I have carried this pain
On a back bruised, nearly broken
I'm crying out to you

I will sing of Your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

When death like a gypsy
Comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face
But I fear you aren't listening
Because there are no words
Just the stillness and the hunger
For a faith that assures

I will sing of your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

I will sing of your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

Alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia, alleluia

While we wait for rescue
With our eyes tightly shut
Face to the ground using our hands
To cover the fatal cut
And though the pain is an ocean
Tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
Higher mountains have come down

I will sing of your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

Alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia, alleluia

I will sing of your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Just rambling

I'm bored. Most of the time I like not having TV anymore, sometimes I hate it. Tonight I hate it. I just want to go sit on my bed and watch something fluffy, and we don't have any new movies in from netflix yet and I've watched everything we own at least half a dozen times. Nothing's going on at any of my boards, Will's not home, and I am BORED. I guess I could go find some good X-Files fanfic to read.

I saw the dietician Wednesday. As I suspected, she didn't really have a whole lot of info to share that I didn't already know. She suggested 1600 calories a day for me, but since I make so much of my stuff from scratch it makes it very hard to keep up with exact numbers, so she said I could try to focus on having no more than 45 grams of carbs per meal plus one snack, and 40 grams of fat or less per day. I've been keeping a food journal to see how close I can get to that. So far (two days of journaling) I've not done too well with the fat (though much of the fat in my meals is from EVOO or canola oil, and nuts for the snacks, which is all good for you so I have a hard time making myself cut that out, kwim?) but the calories and carbs have been pretty good. She wants to see me again in two weeks to "see how I'm doing". That last part makes me bristle because I don't like being made to feel that I have to please someone by what I eat, but if nothing else I can take my daily journal with me so she can see just what kinds of things I normally eat. I find that people have a really hard time believing that someone that looks like me actually knows how to make healthy food choices. She already knows that I refuse to use artificial sweeteners or things that are so chemically altered they no longer resemble anything found in nature, so that battle has already been fought. Heh.

Oh but along those lines, I had to stop at Sonic for breakfast yesterday after my appointment. I got a small strawberry/banana smoothie (thinking fresh fruit and nonfat yogurt would be a good choice, right?) along with a junior breakfast burrito and half a kiddie order of tater tots (Jacob was riding back home with me and wanted something too). I got home and looked up Sonic's nutritional info to journal it and about FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR. The smoothie I got - small size! - was almost 500 calories and 113 g of carbs! Just the smoothie! CRIPES. I'll pick up some plain yogurt and fruit at the store tomorrow and make my own blasted smoothies, it'll probably taste better too.

We still haven't been able to file our federal taxes. I called the local SS office today on the off chance that they would let me correct Will's birthday over the phone, no go. Ah well, he'll make it down there some day soon. I hope.

Oh! We did get to go to Date Night after all, the kids were all feeling fine Saturday. Woo! It was fun. The dinner was pretty good (spaghetti and meatballs, salad, garlic bread, cheesecake) and the movie was great! There were several scenes that had everybody in there howling with laughter, and a few scenes that had everyone either cheering or yelling at the screen. Good times. :) Oh and they had guys come out to the car to escort the ladies in, and people at the front door to usher the kids off to their rooms, and a photographer to take your picture (under an arch with flowers and everything, I felt like I was at the prom! LOLOL). They went to a one hour photo shop and had the pictures developed while we were watching the movie so they could be picked up on the way out, I thought that was really nice. The kids got to have pizza and games and a movie. All in all, a very fun evening.

Then the next day we got to go to my sister's wedding shower, that was fun too. Dana and I conspired to snatch a few new towels and the ladies hosting the shower tried to make off with the stand mixer. Heh. I told Will we need to get married again so we can rake in some loot! She got lots of nice stuff. Dana and Nathan wanted to give her something too, so we bought a couple of azalea plants and tagged them from the kids. I thought that was cute. :)

Since we had to head down there right after church, I was wearing my tiechel. Nobody even commented on it, ha. I figured mom at least would ask about it.

On the radio yesterday they were talking about all the security measures taken while returning the KFC hand-written original recipe to the Kentucky museum, it was so funny. A briefcase handcuffed to a guard with the recipe inside and everything. One of the DJ's was saying it reminded her of Plankton on Spongebob and all the lengths they have to go to, to protect the Krabby Patty secret recipe. HEE.

Hey did ya'll know that the earth originally had a 360-day year? (Go re-read the account of the Flood, and pay attention to the dates given.) And that the shift in the center of gravity because of the Flood is most likely the reason that we now have a 365.xxx-day year? And that according to Revelation, the earth will once again be restored to a 360-day year? Like, before the end of the world? That kind of stuff FASCINATES me, ya'll.

Which reminds me - I literally burst out laughing at a guy on Ben Stein's movie 'Expelled' when he said that he can't think of anything more BORING than the human body being the result of Intelligent Design. I can't think of anything LESS boring. What a dweeb.

Ah, Ben Stein. He was lecturing at a university about an hour from here this week. How we would've loved to have gone!!! Alas.

TTFN!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Oh, yippee

Normally Will and I take our taxes to the library to have them filed for free (by retired CPA's) but this year he is having trouble finding the time to go, so I thought I'd bite the bullet and file them through TurboTax. I spent the better part of four hours today wading through molasses and quicksand getting them filled out and e-filed....and a few minutes ago got a rejection email from the IRS. Apparently Will's birthday is on file wrong somewhere and it's tossing it out because of it. UGH UGH UGH. We can still mail them in and be fine, but it'll take up to six weeks to get our refund doing that, versus two weeks by e-file. Sigh.

In other news, I just finished reading Saddam's Secrets by Georges Sada today. WOW. If you still have any doubt that the WMD's ever really existed and the war against Iraq was justified, go find that book at the library (or order it off amazon like I did, it's less than $20) and read it, STAT. I don't know how many times I put that book down and exclaimed "Dear GOD!" I wish I could just go find GWB and give him a big hug and tell him I'm sorry for everything he's had to endure over this.

Will and I get to go to the date night at church tomorrow night...if everybody is well. Nathan stayed home from school today, and Dana doesn't look too perky either. Hopefully everybody will be feeling better by tomorrow afternoon.

WHY WILL MY FOUR YEAR OLD NOT JUST STAY IN THE FLIPPING BED?!?!?!?!?!?!?!