Restless

I am off work for 2 weeks. I have been real excited about it. We had the Councils spend the last 2 nights and that was nice. I got to wrap most Christmas presents today (as the kids get older, the presents get fewer and that bums me out, but that's another blog).....
I have been sitting here surfing the net and realized I was in a restless mood. Have I forgotten to relax? hhmmm....

Fred got the official 'in writing' papers from the Tx job. He will be starting on Feb. 1st. I think we can now breath a little easier knowing for certain that we are going. We won't really do anything till after the Christmas break, but then we will get with our realtor and Fred will put in his notice at work.

I am ready to start packing!

But it's not time yet. I guess instead I can pack for our NC trip. We are leaving Saturday to visit with the Stancos in Asheville and then head to my brother's place for New Year's. I am SO looking forward to this trip! I love getting on the road with Fred and leaving everything behind, even for just a week.

AND if we get to see snow, boy! that would the icing on the cake!!

LIfe Group Christmas party

I am going to be more diligent at blogging now that my life is going to have a lot of 'firsts' and 'lasts'.

We hosted our Life Group (Sunday School class) Christmas party this year.

It was the main motivation to get our house painted.

We have a wonderful group of folks in our class. They welcomed us in to the class as Fred took the teacher's responsibility. The class was actually compiled of 2 separate groups who lost their teachers. Earlier this year, another class had their teacher step down because of job responsibilities, so we gained them too. It has been a transition, but we have come together well. They really appreciate Fred's teaching and are always ready to give input in the lesson, so our class is always very interesting.

Fred shared with them last week about the job in Texas. It was a very hard thing to do as the class has gone through so many changes in the last couple of years.... After he finished speaking, the men stood up (Fred thought they were leaving) and came to him and prayed for him. The ladies in turn came and prayed for me. It was a very touching moment and as Fred said, it was making it hard for us to leave.

Today, one of the guys gave Fred a pair of boots. He just put them on and they look good! It's funny, Fred has never worn boots in his life! haha

This has been a very rough year, and since February, I have been saying that I can't wait for the year to end and SURELY 2010 will be better. I had no idea what God had planned for us. And as I look back, I know that HE had everything under control and that Fred and I have grown a lot because of it.

It is crazy how we can sit back and see God's hand in all this. God is allowing Fred to get a new job that will challenge him, financially sufficient for him to walk away from his current job of 20+ years, and putting us closer to his brother in a smaller town environment. And it continues: Colleen Ross has an uncle that has lived in Texarkana for many years and she is trying to connect us to him. One of the men in our SS class knows the commander of Red River Army Depot and he is going to contact him on behalf of Fred. Before we even get there, there will be people to help with all the changes we will be going through!

So let the adventure begin!!

Texas Bound

Fred was offered a job in Texas. The job is at the Red River Army Depot. That is near Texarkana, the northeast part of Texas.
After praying and weighing in the pros and cons, we have decided he should take the job. It is what he has been looking for the last 2-3 years. It is about 30 minutes from his brother, it's a rural (slower pace) area, and the job is going to be more challenging than what he's been doing for the past 23 years.
The pay is less, but with the cost of living comparison, it's actually a raise.
A lot of things were considered: Andy and Steph, we are concerned they don't quite have their heads on straight, and coming with us to Tx is definitely NOT an option for them. But we figured it's time for them to be on their own. (Steph has been in Orlando for a while, but we have always been here to 'help' her) Mom, we have encouraged her to come with us. I truly don't think she can be left here by herself. She is not well and she is getting more and more forgetful and confused. (though she will deny it) She said she will think about it, but I have a feeling she is leaning towards staying back.

I am excited about the move, though, ideally, I was hoping for Tennessee, Texas is nice too. And Fred has been wanting to move closer to Tom for a while. Tom seems real happy about our move...he has already sent us 2 silly videos welcoming us to Texas. lol

There are SO many things that will need to be taken care of. The biggest is that Fred will need to start work with them on Jan.18th. I will stay back and sell the house, so I will be here for a while, I presume. He is concerned I will fall apart by myself. I will be the first to admit that there will probably be days when I just want to run and hide. But I don't think he gives me enough credit. When push comes to shove, I can handle things. I will be making a lot of lists to keep me on track. And I appreciate the time to help the kids get on their 2 feet before we officially leave them.

Yes, this is going to be a bit scary, but we have prayed for this opportunity for a long time. We are very comfortable here in Valrico. We have a wonderful home, a great church, I have job that I like MOST of the time, and Fred's is a secure position. But I think it would be a mistake to stay here because we are 'comfortable'.

One of the many good things about this move, Freddy will be 6 hours away. Not that we will see him regularly, but it will definitely be cheaper and easier to see him. Becky & Tym are heading to San Antonio as soon as their house sells, so we can maybe plans for vacation time to see them.

And after saying all this, Fred still needs to go through a physical and a background clearance before it's 'Official'. But I don't think he has any skeletons in the closet and he is quite healthy.

We are telling our SS class this Sunday. Now THAT is going to be hard. Our poor SS class has gone through a lot of teacher changes. The class is actually compiled of 3 separate classes who lost their teachers. And they simply LOVE Fred, they really do. So Fred is struggling with what he has to do. But again, do we stay here because his SS class loves him? No, God will provide someone to come behind him and love the class.

So to say we would appreciate prayers is an understatement. Pray we continue to follow God's lead and that we will have minimal 'bumps in the road' these next few months. Pray for me that I will handle the new responsibilities as such that Fred won't have to worry about us....

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a quiet, yet nice Thanksgiving Day. Steph came home along with her Bella. Mom wasn't feeling well, so it was just the 4 of us.

Fred made a little different meal. Mom doesn't really like turkey so Fred made some ham and rib roast. He also made a turkey breast for me, cuz he loves me!

I convinced Nina to hang out another day, then another. :) It was nice having her home. I miss her.

We didn't get up early for Black Friday, but Fred and I went out later and had our annual "Black Friday" lunch at Steak n Shake. And, of course, we had to hit Best Buy. But we didn't get much.

Now, to start the Christmas Season!! I got all the decorations from the attic and had every intention of starting the decorating today. But I got one of my famous migraines so that didn't pan out. I have to get busy on it soon, though. Our Sunday School class party is next Saturday and I want the house festive for it. It will be the first party/social we have had in a very long time and I am looking forward to it.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and will slow down and enjoy the Christmas season!!

Here's Freddy!!!

Well, not yet, but he's coming!!! He asked if we would get him a ticket home for Christmas and I jumped on it. He will be home on Dec. 12th and will stay till the 16th. So we are going to celebrate Christmas a week early. I am also going to put the family through the ordeal of the annual Family Picture. The way the family has spread out, I never know from year to year if we are going to be all together for the holidays, so I am not going to pass out any opportunity that may come.
I am thinking of going to the beach this year. I have been looking at family portrait samples online and have gotten a few ideas. I don't want to do the typical "everyone sits with their hands on their laps and fakes a smile" pose. I want to be more relaxed, natural looking.... Steph is all for it, it's the guys that fight it. So we'll see how it turns out.

The picture will be our Christmas card, so expect it in the mail right before Christmas!

Andy's wheels, no more

Monday nights is when Andy goes and hangs out with the 'guys' for football watching... Well, 2 nights ago, the roads were a little slick. He turned left going out of our neighborhood when he lost control of the car and slid into a tree. It's crazy, he hit a small oak tree no more than 1ft in diameter, banged up the passenger front end....


triggered the air bags,

which shattered the windshield,

and the axle, cv joint (?) tore up, fell off, something... it would not go into gear, so we had to drag it home.

The car is completely totaled. And the weirdest thing of all is that the tree doesn't have a single scratch on it. Andy never felt the air bag because he never lunched forward. I don't know how the car can have such damage at such a small impact.

Well, I actually do. God works in strange and wonderful ways (as Johnette put it). He allowed Andy to not even leave the neighborhood that night. See, I know for a fact that the last Monday night he was with his friends, he and another guy raced their cars. I haven't confronted him about it, but I am sure they were planning on doing it again that night. And like I said, it had been raining and the roads were slick. When I mentioned it to Fred, he said, ' it would be stupid to race in wet roads'. Hello!! We are talking about stupid teenagers.... no offense to other teenagers!

So, I believe God protected Andy from himself. This is one of those 'laying my Isaac down' moments.....

Now, the stressful event of finding him another car. We had already told Andy we would match any money he saved (up to $1000) so he could get another car because the Cavalier really was in sad shape. He has saved about $350 so far, so we will have to front him some of the money and he will pay us back. Until then, he will need to drive my car to school and I will have to catch rides to work. Yeah, he needs to find a car soon....

Laying My Issac Down

Ok, our church had a Christmas breakfast last week, but last month there was the "Fall Extravaganza". It was a dinner. Very lovely, lots of ladies, but the best part was the guest speaker.
Her name is Carol Kent and she wrote a book called "When I lay my Isaac down". It was very inspiring. Without going into great details of her life, she talks about times in your life when you have to 'lay your Isaac down'. When you have to take whatever burden you are carrying: depression, marriage problems, financial stress, wayward children, illnesses.... WHATEVER, and lay them at Jesus' feet. Give it to HIM.
But one of the key things that stayed with me was that you don't just do that once. You start with giving it up for 5 minutes, then maybe next time, you can do it for 15 minutes, then maybe 1 hour... it is a constant thing. And that made me feel better. I have been feeling like I haven't been a 'good' Christian because I have struggled letting go of my problems with Andy, with mom, and with life in general.
But I realized it's ok to struggle, just don't give up.

I checked out her book to read. I have loved it. It is now on my Christmas wish list. There were so many things I wanted to highlight so I would be able to go back to it when needed.
I recommend it to anyone who is going through any kind of struggle in their life. This book gives you hope.

http://www.carolkent.org/