Closing quickly approaching

Possibly a week until we close on the house. Crazy! We have been waiting for a while to close (at least it seems like it) and now all of a sudden they are saying "ok we are closing next week". It is going to take a while to make the house the way I want it, but Im excited about all the different ideas Im finding. I dont think Andrew is going to be excited about all these ideas though. Ive already made a long list of all the things I want to do, including painting every room. The walls are tan and I love color, so the tan has got to go. Im excited to paint the laundry room. Its small, but the laundry room was the only room in our last house that I never painted.
Since this isnt my dream house, especially in sq footage, I told Andrew that I get to pick all the paint colors and he has no choice. :) Its going to be really annoying if I make some color mistakes, which is very possible with all the colors im thinking of.
Im really exited about A.'s bedroom. I am going to do a train theme but Im not sure yet what that will entail. I havnt decided if I want to do a train bed, train mural, or what! I have a feeling it will be one of the last rooms ill be able to finish it. The tough part will be to stay focused and finish a project before starting another.
So one or a few things at a time, I think we will "bomb" the house so we kill any bugs, clean the carpets, and tackle this ugly chandelier! Im pretty sure I can save some money and create a modern chandelier by spray painting it, and getting some new glass shades.

I am getting lots of inspiration from pinterest, here is one of them.

Sister Minister

This morning I was thinking about youth ministry. Why? Laziness. I enjoy my job but being lazy I just want to sit at home and watch tv, surf the web, and relax all day. So I was trying to think of what job would be good that would allow me to enjoy my laziness. Answer: Youth Ministry. Yes YM's do a lot of work: planning, late nights, and lots of weekends working because of youth group and other events. But overall most of our day is spent sitting at a desk surfing the web, watching clips of movies, getting your favorite snacks for youth events because you cant afford them all the time, playing wii or other games with the youth, going out to eat and  chatting with youth. So yes youth ministry is an active laziness that I loved, but definitely not wanting to go back to it any time soon.
A YM never stops thinking about YM. I watch movies, hear a sermon, see a clip and think "This would make a great small group discussion/talk". There is so much great material out there, its never ending. Thinking about all this I was thinking about my younger sisters tonight. They are teens who dont go to youth group and usually never go to Mass. At times they have a desire to do these things but their dad does not support these desires. I obviously want them to grow up having a strong faith and love for the Catholic Church but living a thousand miles away it is hard for me to do anything. As I was looking at links to stories and videos on FB tonight I realized there is something I can do. I can be a YM to my sisters through the internet. There are so many wonderful short clips that I can send them on FB or through their email. With these clips I can send them discussion questions that we can discuss on the phone or online. Oh Ive been slacking in sharing the faith with my sister.
Oh religion class will be so much fun in our house if I home school. Of course since parents are the first teachers of the faith to their children every day should be a mini religion class.

singing and learning

Happy New Year! I cant believe 14 years ago we entered 2000 AD. This morning I went to Mass in tontitown and the priest said to remember that this is 2014 AD... in the year of our Lord. We need to live this year remembering it is the Lord's year and He is going to do wonderful things.
Tonight at dinner A. was repeating some of the words I was saying. I decided to start singing different things to see if he would repeat them... lalala, bababa. A. repeated most of the things I sang. It was such a fun activity to get him to learn to pronounce different letters. Only 12 more days until his 2nd birthday!

Big kid decisions

Time to make some major decisions. Last week started looking at houses. Only 3 so far but we already need to make a big decision. The first house we looked at was a total no, but the other two we liked. The ones we liked are in Bella Vista. We like Bella Vista cause we can get way more house for our money and the whole town is safe. The problem... its a retirement community ruled by POA. They have tons of rules, some not a big deal but stupid- you can only paint your house certain colors; others a bigger deal for us - you can not have a trailer or a boat sitting out on your property, so ours would have to be hidden in a garage or behind a fence where hopefully no one will see. You have to submit plans to put up a fence, or really to do anything to the outside of your house.
So do we keep looking in Bella Vista because we can get a nice house, or do we avoid BV because of all the hassle it can bring us in the future. I understand wanting to have a nice looking city but at a certain point it just gets ridiculous. No wonder homes are so much cheaper, no one wants to put up with all the rules. Ugh! I told Andrew we could move out to the country if the house is really cheap, but even then it probably wouldnt be worth it having to pay all the extra gas.
And the worst part of it all... there is no Texas Roadhouse in this area.... just saying.

God and the Workplace

What a busy week and its only Wednesday. This morning was our office Christmas brunch. So much fun. All the people I work with are awesome and we all seem to get along. Some people believe that you need to work in a religious environment to really get along with your coworkers and have the same values but I dont believe that is true. Not everyone I work with believes exactly the same as I do (being in AR probably none of them believe exactly the same as me) but they are pretty much all awesome people with a desire to help others and have a love for Christ.
Its interesting thinking about all the different people Ive worked with in many different environments. I think for the most part I have had pretty good experiences in all my jobs, except for St. Vincents of course. There has been many conversations about God and religion. Some of them annoying and some of them pleasant. No matter where Ive worked, Walmart, Campus Ministry, Catering, Home Health, Church... Ive always have had opportunities to grow and share the love of Christ. I remember in high school at Walmart a lady started opening up to me about her dying dog because she saw the Mary medal I was wearing. I always loved the Catholic events while catering, especially the seminarian reception. Those always offered opportunities to teach the non-Catholic servers about the Catholic faith. Someone usually had a question about something going on.
A lot of times I dont think we think about how we can affect other people spiritually in the work place. We may put on a nice face for our customer/client but then the face our co-worker sees doesnt show kindness or Christ's love. For some people it can be scary thinking about bring up God to a co-worker, especially if they think they will get fired for it. But doing something as simple as wearing a cross, not saying anything negative, and giving your 100% at work can really have an affect at work.
Well this is a rant I wasnt expecting to go on tonight but hopefully it touches someone, and helps remind me to not be negative at work.... or even as a customer in stores this Christmas season.

Dish #8 Thanksgiving dinner

A little late but Im finally getting it posted. Thanksgiving dinner! This year we had ham, cranberry sauce, mashed potatos and gravy, rolls, stuffing, and cranberry apple spritzer to drink. The big challenge was the homemade rolls! It wouldnt of been too bad if I had our mixer but it's in storage. I also added some honey to the recipe. They came out pretty good! For Christmas Im thinking about cooking a turkey, Ive always avoided cooking it because I prefer not cooking things that look like the animal, but I miss eating cold turkey sandwiches the day after a holiday... so yummy!

 A. really enjoyed the food. He even made sure his panda bear got some to eat.

Snow day activities

With the first winter storm of the season we had a lot of time at home. Luckily I only had one full day of no work, but several days of only working a couple hours each day. The kids here had 5 snow days in a row! With not much work A. and I had a lot of time at home. A. made an angel. It was supposed to be made out of a paper plate but I didnt have any so I used a Kohls gift box (free).

I found some fun snowman ideas on pinterest and i decided to try this one. Andrew wouldnt let me do the head around the mailbox itself. Hopefully the mailman enjoyed it.

 Andrew and I built a little hill for A. in the backyard. At first he didnt care for it but when I compared it to a slide he loved it.