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.

1st snow day 2013

Today was our first snow day in Arkansas! Supposidly they usually dont get much snow here, just ice, but we got about 8 inches of snow. We took A. to the doctor this am because one of his eyes is read. And of course he has pink eye. Luckily there are eye drop antibiotics so we dont have to give him oral antibiotics again. Hopefully soon he will be done being sick for a while. After his nap we decided to go out and play in the snow. We had to be a little creative though. We had snow overalls, winter coat and hat, but no gloves or snow boots for A. I remembered I bought some girl boots a while back and luckily they were his size. For gloves we used A's socks. Yup, Id suggest 2 pairs for each hand though.

A. did good for about a minute then he was done. Hopefully it will warm up a little tomorrow and we can try again and make a snow man.

Chilly Deals

I have a few dish posts I still need to do, but today I got some great deals so I have to share them!

Today was our first wintery weather in Arkansas. It was supposed to start around 6 am but didnt end up starting til around 9 am. Because of this delay I was able to go to Potter House to get some stuff. Today all the colors changed and there was some stuff in the new 50 cent color that I wanted.  I got a high chair (missing its chair cover) and a child's table (just needs a few coats of paint :) ) I also got a bunch of baby clothes! Yes there is pink in there.... just hoping that one day God blesses me with a girl. I probably should slow down on buying girl stuff but when its cute and so cheap its hard not to.

Dish #6 & #7

Dish #6 Bacon and Cheddar Grilled Cheese Sandwhich

I love making "grown up" grilled cheese sandwiches. These had bacon and cheddar cheese in it.


Dish #7 Spare Food Casserole

I made this casserole with a bunch of food I had in the fridge and in the cupboard. I didnt want to go out and buy groceries to be able to make dinner so I came up with this casserole. To my surprise it tasted really good, even as a leftover.

Here are the ingredients I used:
3 eggs (they didnt really seem to show up in the casserole so I may use more next time)
1 can of broccoli cheese soup (do not add water...I almost ruined it by doing this)
3 slices of bacon (its all I had left)
1 can of green beans
1/4 of an onion
tator tots
cheddar cheese (i mixed cheese in and put it on top of the casserole towards the end of cooking)

Because of the water I added to the mix I ended up stiring the tator tots into the casserole to help soak up the water.

Dish #5

Dish #5 Loaded Chicken and Bacon Tator Tot Casserole
Sooo good! Tator tots on the bottom, then chicken, bacon, onions, green onions, and cheddar cheese. It wasnt great as a leftover because the tator tots where too mushy but it is delicious the first time around.

Dish #3 & #4

Here are two more dishes Ive made in the last week.

Dish #3 Garden Stuffed Crust Pizza

I had to use some canned tomatoes because I didnt have enough fresh ones, so that made the pizza too salty, but without the canned tomatoes this wouldve been a really good pizza. I dont have my cheese grater right now so I had to just cut slices of cheese.

Dish #4 Chicken Bacon Ranch Tortilla Pockets

The tortilla has chicken, bacon, corn, onions, green onions, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, and ranch flavoring in it.

Mom's group frustration!

Ive been wanting to contact our new church to find out if they had a mom's group but I kept putting it off. Finally a couple days ago I emailed the church. I told them we were new to the parish and I was wondering if they had a moms group? This is the email I received back "There isn’t a mom’s group at this time.Thank you." I was a little bumbed that they didnt have a mom's group, but not surprised. What really annoyed me was how unwelcoming the response was. No - welcome to the parish, no- here is some great mom's to get in touch with, etc. 

Tonight I decided to see if there were any church's in the area that had mom's groups. So far I have not found any, just women's groups. I did find a MOPS in Rogers, but it is mainly for SAHMs, so they meet during the day while all the working mom's are at work. There seems to be so much focusing on supporting the SAHM but what about the working mom? What about the parents who only get to see their children 2-3 hours a day.

My old youth minister thinks I should start up a mom's group at our church. Ive been thinking about it today but I dont know if I have the energy for it. There could be so many obstacles I may run into trying to start a group at the church. Some parishes you just need the ok from the pastor to start a new group, others it needs to be in the pastoral council vision, or you may need to fill out paperwork and the pastoral council has to approve of it, etc. I was hoping that I could at least find another mom's group in the area that I could go to to see how they do things. 

The realization that there isnt really a lot or anything for working mom's make me think there is a great need for a moms group for all moms but especially for working moms. Now to think about what the purpose for the moms group should be and how to avoid talking to the lady at the church who responded to my email. I feel like having a little talk with her about how to make people feel welcomed in the church and so forth. 

Halloween deals

Love this shirt! It was $5 though so I didnt get it :(

I got tons of stuff at Target today! All 90% off. Lots of projects for the DC, some pj's for future babies, and some stuff we will actually use for halloween. Total before discount $173 .... total after 90% off.....

$19.94

100 dishes- #1 & #2

The other week there was a story on a daytime show about a lady who was making 300 sandwiches for her boyfriend and then she would get a proposal. The past couple of weeks I have made potato soup (from scratch!) and a yummy pasta. I told Andrew tonight that Im doing 100 dishes til the next baby.
Here is dish #1 Potato Soup with bacon, cheddar, and green onions

Dish #2 Pasta with garlic olive oil, tomatos, green onions, mozzarella, and spinach

First week with a new job

It was the first week of my new job. Things went pretty well until the end of the week when I got in trouble for a bunch of stuff. I hadnt been taking a lunch, I had just been eating within a 15 min break. I was told Monday that was ok, but then on Thursday I was told it wasnt ok, and that it was illegal. I havnt taken a lunch at my past 3 jobs, it is not illegal.  Friday I got in trouble for not turning in my time sheet by 10 am even though I was originally told they were due on Monday. Then I got in trouble for not answer the page on my pager.... which I never received and it seemed to be implied that I would get it when I started going to patients on my own. Just lots of announces and people not communicating and everybody saying different things. Hopefully next week goes really smooth.
I got a bag for work. Its a diaper bag, but its cute and hopefully it will work out well.

The top guys at Andrews work have been watching the video surveillance at the tech shop. They dont like seeing any of the guys having down time, and they are going to send them to work in a department in the store if they dont have enough to do. Corporate guys where here the other week and they said that store managers should not be doing that to the techs, but what are you going to do when the store does it anyways. Its really ridiculous that the managers dont trust the techs. They are making the store more money then any other tech shop. They take on outside work which other shops dont. They have solved on the problems on the tractors themselves without having to call the manufacturer. oh so frustrating!

loving potter house!

This is my last week working part time. Today I went to Fayetteville to turn in some more paperwork for my new job (job #3, but job #2 doesnt count since I havnt worked any hours for them). And whenever im in Fayetteville and I have time I go to Potter House Thrift store. I love it! When I first went I thought most of the stuff was over priced but then I figured out their color system. Two of the colors are regular priced, then 1 color is 25% off, 1 is 50% off, and 1 othercolor is 50 cents! They rotate the colors twice a week. I love the 50 cent items. No matter what the item is (even furniture) if its the 50 cent color then it is 50 cents! Today I got a bunch of dress up clothes and some preschool workbooks. Last week I got a train play table for 50 cents.

My favorite find today was a long winter coat! Ive been wanting one for a while but I didnt want to pay a lot of money for it. This one I got for $8! It was so cute I couldnt chance loosing it just to wait to get it cheaper.

2 down...

A. started crying as soon as we pulled up to daycare this morning. I just hate it. I really hope he gets better in the next couple of weeks.
I got my second job today. They can offer me full time which is nice, but if I do that I cannot do the first job I got. I also got another call today and I have an interview scheduled for Monday. This job is fulltime and Im pretty sure it will pay a lot better, which we really need. But since it is just an interview Im not sure if I will get the job. Most likely I will start with job #1 tomorrow but Im unsure of what to do with job #2. If you dont give them two weeks notice they will keep whatever money you made during that time period. And if I do take their fulltime client then quit I know they are going to be really annoyed. Oh this stinks. And tomorrow another company is supposed to be calling. Ugh
I am defiantly thankful that I have gotten these two jobs but I need something that pays better. And you don't want to loose what you got waiting for something better that may never come.
I pray that God gives me guidance and I dont make the wrong decision.

One job down...

Well I got a job, but thanks to ObamaCare it is only part time. Hopefully in the next week Ill be able to find another part time job. I had to go to the jail to get finger printed... so scary! I decided that if anything went down while I was in there I would probably pee my pants.

We only have 5 more months in our rental so hopefully we find the perfect house in a few months. Hopefully it wont be as stressful as selling the house and moving down here. I am so not looking forward to packing everything up again, at least half of the stuff is still in boxes.

First Monday in Arkansas

Today is the start of our first week in Arkansas. A. started his new daycare and I went exploring. I went to several resale shops and at one of them they had books for 25 cents each! All the resale shops here have a lot of college books.
The lady at the bank convinced us for sure that we do not want to move to Springdale. Traffic convinced Andrew that he did not want to move south of Rogers. So at least our search is getting narrowed.
Now just to find a job this week!

Life's a changing...

Well the house has been for sale for a couple of months, so hopefully we get a good offer soon. Andrew moved to Arkansas a few weeks ago to start his new job at Cabelas. He will be back in a few weeks for his birthday.
A. is 18 months now and growing so quickly. He has been spending a lot of time with Andrew's parents in the evenings and having a blast. A week ago he helped me make brownies.
We went to Arkansas for the 4th of July and A. learned what a cow, cat, dog, duck, and horse says. He got to watch fireworks, swim in a lake, and go on lots of stroller rides.
Ive been busy working. Im looking forward to hopefully a better work schedule when we move, and hopefully being able to spend more time with A.

Busy busy busy

Well its been a while. I havnt thought about blogging for a while but I guess I need to get back on it. A is now 14 months old! Crazy. It has gone by so fast. Life seems to be getting busier, and with wedding season coming up there will be more work.
We are still wanting to move to Arkansas but we need to finish getting our house looking perfect so hopefully we can get top dollar and a quick sell on the house.