the stork is everywhere lately!

i've been thinking about one of my dearest friends a lot lately. she lives far away, so i haven't gotten to see her in a long time, but i think about her a lot. the other day i had a feeling that i needed to call her because she might be pregnant. i thought, how silly, then i got distracted, so i never called her. well, yesterday, she called me and guess what she had to tell me... she's pregnant! i'm so excited for her. she's going to be such a great mom. she said she goes from being excited and happy to freaking out and scared a lot. gosh i miss her. i wish i could be there with her as she goes through all the exciting and not so exciting changes. i think i might have to save up so i can go visit when she has the baby. i can't wait!

vacation!!!

in 1.5 weeks, we are going on vacation. i have been wanting to do this all summer. i can't wait!! :-) we are going to hot springs for some luxurious r&r. i found a good deal online for 2 nights at the arlington hotel and mineral bath and massage for the two of us. :-) it will be so wonderful. we're also going to the mid-america museum and the national park. we don't really have much else planned, which is great. we're just going to relax and have some fun. i'm so excited!

old age

i like my job. i take care of old people. i love sitting around and hearing their stories and listening to their wisdom.

i like to hear about what they did when they were younger. sometimes it's kind of sad to hear, b/c they're not like that anymore. for example, one lady i take care of once a week at a nursing home has alzheimer's. she used to be a very active woman... hiking, camping, rock climbing, traveling, tennis. in fact, she won a tennis tournament when she was 76 against a forty-something-year-old. her body didn't loose much of it's ability, but her mind has forgotten how to stand up. she used to play the piano and sing too, but her mind has forgotten how to make words. in fact, her mind has forgotten how to do almost everything except sleep and exist. pretty soon she'll forget how to eat, then how to breath, then how to pump blood. it's morbid, i know. but it's true.

it's not always morbid. sometimes it's inspiring. one lady i take care of in her home a few days a week also has alzheimer's. she still remembers how to stand and have simple conversations, although she sometimes forgets that she's home and who her husband is. the thing about altzheimer's is that you forget how to control yourself. some people who were admired for their generosity when they were younger turn cranky and mean, but i think they're still admirable b/c that just shows that those things weren't necessarily natural to them before and they had to work hard to be so lovable. this lady isn't that way. she's naturally kind and generous. i think that says so much about her character. kindness and gentleness are so much part of her, that she can't forget how to be that way, she just is. she's my favorite.

sometimes, when people age, they start to lose control of their life. people that love them, start telling them what to do, for their own good (usually). sometimes it bothers them. one guy i check on a few times a week refuses to take a shower and his insulin when i'm not there because his family is always nagging him about it. i don't really have to say anything usually and he does what he needs to do. but then his wife started talking to me in front of him about how i have so much control over him and can get him to do things... it's been going downhill since then. he's been more reluctant to take his insulin and his showers. even though it's hard to get him to do those important things, his wife nags at him about shaving his beard. they don't even sleep in the same room, so i know it's not for intimate reasons. she just nags. (i refuse to ever become that kind of wife.) who cares if he shaves! he won't take his insulin and his blood sugar is through the roof! anyway, a few days ago he was getting agitated with me because i asked him to take a shower for me "so my boss won't get mad and tell me i'm not doing my job." i asked him why he's been refusing to take showers lately and he got really defensive and yelled that he would just take a shower if that would shut me up. when he got out, i could tell he was feeling bad because he was avoiding eye contact. i asked him when he would prefer to take a shower, mornings or afternoons, because he shouldn't have to work around my schedule... he's a grown man and should take them when he wants to and i don't want to annoy him by trying to get him to do something he doesn't feel like doing yet. he said he likes it when i come in the morning. even though nothing changed, it was still his choice and he's back in control. he still doesn't shave though. i'm not going there. i'd rather put up with his nagging wife. that's the one thing in his life that he can rebel with that isn't bad for his health. if he wants to grow a beard, let him.

so far i've learned a few valuable lessons from working with these people:

• i want to be healthy now so that i'll be healthy later.
• i want godliness to be such a part of me that, even if i lose the ability to make myself that way, i will just be godly.
• i want to be the kind of wife that bullies my husband but the kind that emboldens and encourages my husband.

this is a good job for me.

Leap of Faith

When we got married, I looked for a job for at least a month before I even got a phone call. Finally, a woman called asking me to work in the nursery at a church on Sunday mornings, Monday evenings, and Wednesday evenings. The pay was pretty good for the job and it was the only job I had been offered up to that point. The only problem was that the church wasn't OUR church. This meant that I wouldn't get to have fellowship with the church that my husband has learned a lot from for a few years with people that have helped him mature in his faith. It also meant that I wouldn't get to attend any church or Sunday school very often. Another thing was that I wouldn't have as many opportunities to be involved in church ministries. If you know me at all, you know that this isn't the best scenario for me, but at the time, it was the only one we had to choose from, so I took the job.

I've really enjoyed working with the kids in the nursery. I've also really enjoyed my other job working with elderly people in their homes. However, we need more money to get out of debt, health insurance, and I need to be involved in church/ministry. So, when we got a call a few weeks ago about a paid, full-time ministry opportunity for me, I got really interested. I would get to work with the youth group and help the youth get more involved with the rest of the church. However, the church wanted me to also be like an associate pastor who is preparing to be a lead pastor someday... um... I don't know if I'm quite up for that kind of responsibility. I told them I'd pray about it and talk to JJ and see what he thinks. JJ was super supportive of my desire to be in church and in ministry. But he also wanted to make sure I was interested in this opportunity for the right reasons. Did I really want to be a youth pastor/associate pastor? Did I really feel like God was calling me to do full time ministry right now? Or, did I just want to do some kind of ministry and be involved some how? Were there other ways to fulfill that desire where I am right now? Have I heard God telling me anything regarding this position? If not, what was the last thing I heard God tell me He wanted from me?

My answers: not really, not sure, YES, yes, no, and "go to China and marry JJ"

I pretty much made up my mind that the youth pastor position wasn't right for us right now before bedtime, but I wanted to go ahead and sleep on it before I called them back up and said no. But it did get us to talking about our current situation. The things we were sure of were that there are ways for me to get involved in ministry and that I didn't have to do anything extremely drastic to do it. However, it would take one change. I really need to quit my job as a nursery worker. The thing is, it pays pretty well and we could really use the money. But, we could still be even more careful with how we spend our money. Right now, we waste money on eating out and just spending a few bucks here and there on stuff like pops or candy. We also make too many trips to see family. If we cut out the eating out and the extra candy, we'd save probably $100 a month, and probably loose a few pounds of extra fat. And if we took turns between parents and only saw one set per month, we'd probably save another 100 bucks a month. That would take care of most of the money we'd be loosing from my job. And, then I'd also be free to work more hours with the elder care job without having to work during church times.

It's definitely a leap of faith. We're trusting that God will give us the discipline to use our money carefully and that He will provide us with the rest. But He has already shown us that He will take care of us. I gave my notice at the nursery and the next day, my other job called to offer us very affordable health insurance even though I haven't been working quite long enough to qualify (I didn't even realize they offered it). Now that I've given my notice, I've been brainstorming of ways to get involved at OUR church. Maybe the worship team, but it seems like there's already more than enough help with that. Maybe get more involved with the youth, but they also seem to have enough help. Maybe I'll just have to sit back for a little while and watch for an opportunity that no one else has seen yet. No matter what, I know God wants me to get involved and join this little part of His family and He will bless us through it.

good times

the past couple weekends have been a lot of fun for me. the weekend before last, i went to siloam to see a few of my favorite friends. we had a great dinner at Marketplace... yum! then, we went bowling in our fancy/goofy outfits. it's so refreshing to spend time with old friends. the next day we went shopping and i got to go to the dogwood festival and ran into even more fun people. then i got to go back again this past weekend for a friend's birthday. i also got to have lunch with a new friend here in fort smith. and sunday night, JJ took me to red lobster and treated me like the most beautiful princess in the world. then last night, we had only my favorite kids in the nursery and it was a blast. today, i'm going to another get together with some fun people i don't really know very well, but hope to. friends are so important to sanity. i'm so glad i have such great ones.

Uuuggghhh!!!

will the car problems never end?! if we have one more car problem, i think my head will explode!

let's hit the road...

this weekend, jj and i are going with the church youth group to a conference. i'm kind of excited because, jj said there's going to be great preaching and we don't really get that at our church. there's a lot of good things that are going on at our church, but the preaching isn't one of them. on sunday mornings, i'm usually trying to either stay awake or not laugh out loud b/c jj and the people we sit with are making sarcastic jokes about the poor guy chasing rabbits at the front. it's pretty sad. so, since i've always enjoyed listening to good preaching, i'm looking forward to the weekend. i'm guessing there's going to be some good worship music too (which is another area our church could improve on). another thing i'm looking forward to is the fellowship. i haven't had too many chances to get to know people b/c i work on wednesday nights during the discipleship groups (which is something i really like about our church, but don't get to experience enough). going on a trip is always a good way to get to know people better. please pray that this will be a spiritually encouraging weekend for me and that i will grow closer to God through the sermons, the worship, and the fellowship. i need it right now.

TAXES!!! dun. dun. dunnnn.....

i've always been a procrastinator, and will probably always have that tendency. but since failing out of college for that reason, i've tried to overcome that. i even started talking about doing our taxes as soon as we got our w-2s this year. however, b/c of the percieved complications with marriage, moving, and job changes, jj thought it would be best to wait and have a guy from our church do them. i agreed that it might be helpful, but i didn't mind doing them online, since tax act online pretty much holds your hand the whole way through. well, february went by, then march, and all of a sudden, it's april 8th. we couldn't find one of jj's w-2s or something, so he suggested filing for an extension. i thought we needed to just find that thing. so, we tore up the apartment looking for it. he finally found it two days ago and he wanted to go talk to the guy from our church... are you kidding me? there's no way he's going to be able to do our taxes for us when he has a million and one other people who are paying him to do it. so jj suggested an extension again. i finally did them this morning and it took less than 2 hours, even with all the extra stuff that could have been complicated. i really wish we had done them sooner, because we're going to get a nice refund, but it feels so good to have that off our backs now. now we have the money to fix my car and his motorcycle and pay back our parents for helping us out with all our other car problems that we've had in the past month (which have been more than the allotted amount for an entire year). i vote that we put the rest in savings, after we take a cheap little romantic getaway for a weekend.

i've given in!

so, i've given in and made the switch. i was getting a little bored with xanga and no one was reading my blogs anymore (not that many people read my xanga anyway). a year ago today, JJ called me to see if i wanted to "hang out." i'm excited because april and may are going to be full of anniversaries of "firsts." like, in a few days will be the anniversary of our first kind of date, then later will be our first official date, then later will be when we had our first dtr (define the relationship). anyway, it doesn't feel like it's been a year since he called me. it was so out of the blue, cause i hadn't seen him since february, i was pretty shocked. it was a very exciting night because Sadie was in labor that night too. i wanted to call her so bad because i was so excited, but, she was a little too busy talk. :-) a year ago today was the beginning for us. wow!