Thanksgiving is approaching

So I'm sitting here wasting time on the internet when I have a million things to do. But I figure I need a few minutes to just sit down and relax and vent a bit. Thanksgiving in only a day to two days away and my parents and my sister Tina and her family will be coming down for a few days to visit. I've tried to keep my house pretty tidy (with the girls and a MAN, it's been difficult). So tomorrow I will be doing most of my deep cleaning like sweeping, dusting, moping, scrubbing, etc. I've gotten all the bedding changed and cleaned and I will be finishing the laundry well into the late evening hours. I still need to go make dinner and then I have to sit down and figure out something to keep my guests entertained while they are here. Plus I need to go through my freezer and find out what to cook for lunches and for dinner on Friday. Thank you Mike and Marsha for opening your home to my family and I for Thanksgiving. We will be having a feast! Six different families (about 35 ppl) will be coming and bringing all sorts of good stuff! Of course, Jeremy will be cooking a ham (yum) and the turkey (yuck). Actually my handsome husband left at 5:30 this evening to go to his baking class until 9:40p and then he heads over to his work to start the long night of preparations for his Thanksgiving meal there tomorrow at lunchtime. I can't believe it's almost Christmas!! AND I don't even have my Christmas decorations up yet!!! I need to get on the ball and get stuff done. Till next time..... GG

Where did the days go?

Wow. Well it's been over a year since I last posted anything to this blog. I can't believe how fast time is flying by these days!

Jeremy has had quite a time with his job. Just recently his dietary department consisted of 2 workers and himself. He had to work 3 weeks straight and most of those days were double shifts! Talk about overtime! Plus he started school on Aug 20 so it's been a wild ride...

Rhaelynn started Kindergarden on Aug 6th and is progressing pretty well. I'm having to really help her at night though, going over her letters, numbers and sounds. She is also doing kids zumba at her school for 45 minutes before school starts. She loves it! Lexi is learning that she can't always have her sister with her. She did well for the first couple of days that Rhaelynn went to school but then started always bugging me for one thing or another. In the past week or so it's gotten a little better. (Funny story) So I'm in my room this morning texting my friend Marsha and I hear a noise. I went out to the kitchen to check on Lexi who was supposed to be eating her breakfast and this is what I found...

As for me, well I'm hanging in there. It seems like time was going fast already and then after Rhaelynn started school, time just flew by even faster! I can hardly believe we are already into fall! I've been cleaning like I never have before. It's soo much easier to do that with only one child here instead of two. I also started babysitting for a family that has a 4 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. But that's only a couple times a month when she needs someone to cover until her husband gets off work and she goes to school at night. Also we've been having a regular Sat night scene every other weekend. So our band, Enter Mission, has been having 2 practices a week. Plus there's the drama team that has practices once a week. I also play keyboard for church and so I try to keep up my practicing on that. To add to the chaos, Rhaelynn will start soccer practice next Tues and will have regular practices every Tues and Thurs evenings. My plate seems to be getting pretty full! As for my health, well I'm proud to say that since the beginning of 2012 I've lost 36lbs and since Feb 2011 I've lost 70lbs! I just had bloodwork done a week ago and the Dr called and said my cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugars have all come down to just above normal! And my A1C (which is an average blood sugar count over 3 months) went from 8.4 down to 7.4! I can tell you it has been a fight and it's very hard but I am starting to feel accomplished being on Weight Watchers! A special thank you to Bill and Phyllis for helping me in this journey! Well that wraps up this session. Until next time.... Gwen

A good decision

As posted in my last blog, we just recently moved into a new house.

We love it! I'll be posting all the other home photos on my facebook page so hit it up and view them there.
Jeremy is back in school again this time to 3 classes for the first 8 week session. He's taking Eng102, Spanish101, and a Cake Decorating class that they teach on Ft. Huachucha.
We just had our first outdoor scene with the church. It was great! We had a young man who was rapping in English and Spanish and then our drama team did 3 skits, and a movie at the very end. We had fun and 3 people gave their lives to Christ!
I am still waiting to find out what the surgeon wants to do about the hernia(s) and then I can go see another Dr about the other issue to fix that.

The girls are still as mischevious as ever. I'm still trying to figure out if I can get Rhaelynn into a preschool for free. Having a hard time, but maybe something will work out.
J's getting ready to do school work so I need to jet. Update more later.

Life never stops

Hey friends! Well it's hard to believe that it's already August. Seems like one day just rolls into another and the weeks and months fly by. I thought I would have a break and time to relax in between the summer and fall semesters of Jeremy's school. But, no. We decided it was time to move. We like our landlord at the old place but when safety is an issue -- it's time to move. Plus with all these crazy health issue and dr visits, it's better to be closer to town. It's easier on the gas back and forth plus the house we found is WAY better. We have a swamp cooler that has ductwork to each room with ceiling fans in each room as well. Jeremy and I have our own full bathroom with his and hers sinks. There are hardwood floors throughout the whole house (except bathrooms) and there's a dishwasher(woohoo!). Yes the new place is smaller but we have a huge fenced in yard for the girls to play in. I will have to take some pictures and post on here or facebook.
As far as my health. Well I'm managing the diabetes and high blood pressure for now. I have to go get an A1C (avg blood sugars for the past 3 month) lab done but we sorta ran out of money until his next paycheck. But we're selling a freezer and a double stroller in the meantime so hopefully that'll help a bit.
I did get an MRI done a couple weeks ago (an experience I don't want to do again) and the results came back. I have a hernia in my abdomen. I didn't get a real clear idea of where it was or what was going on. I know it's on my right side near where I had my appendix taken out at. But I have a consultation with a surgeon on Friday morning to see what he's going to do and when I will have the surgery.
That wasn't even the reason that I went to the Dr in the first place. That issue will be taken care of by another kind of Dr. But I'm going to wait until after Friday's appointment to see if I will make an appointment with this other Dr or wait until after surgery. We shall see.
The girls are growing so fast. Jeremy and I have talked about possibly trying for a third, but with everything that is going on, I'm not sure we will. It would be nice to have a little boy, but well, I'm leaving that in God's hands for now. Time for bed. I'll update soon!

Ready for Vacation

It's been a while since I posted but I've been trying to relax and work on my stress levels. I stopped taking my blood pressure medicine 3 days ago and my BP has been normal. My mom it might be because I have been loosing some weight. But I think it's also because I have been trying to control my stress levels. Jeremy hasn't had class for 3 weeks and even though for the last 2 weeks he's been working like crazy, I haven't been doing too much. I do the normal stuff around the house like laundry, dishes, cooking and such. But nothing too exta. But Jeremy started back to school this past Tuesday. Chemistry and English. These classes are actually more structured and clear than the other classes he has had before.
Last week we had a scare. See when we called our insurance to change our homeowner's insurance to landlord's insurance they asked us if we had notified our mortgage company about us renting our house out. So I called them and was told to formally write a letter to request permission to rent the house out. I did just that and then last Friday we got a letter stating that we were in breach of our contract because the loan originated as 'owner-occupied'. We weren't sure what was going to happen. We thought we may loose our house if they made us kick our tenants out because that's how we are paying our mortgage now. Well Jeremy called yesterday and the lady said they are required by policy to send that letter out. They actually don't care if we rent the house out as long as the mortgage, insurance and taxes are paid on it. WHEW! What a relief!
As for the title of this blog, well I'm SOOO ready for a vacation. God is soo good. He's always providing. With our house and now with Jeremy's paycheck that's just in time for our little vacation. Usually with his check we can just barely pay the bills. But this time his check includes 27 hours of overtime (@ time and half pay) plus his regualar pay. We are headed to VEGAS!! Jeremy's parents are bowling in Reno, NV for Nationals and then they are driving down to Vegas. Jeremy's brother Aaron and his wife and 4 kids will be meeting up with us there too. I'm soooo excited! It's been 2 years since we've seen his brother's family. And we finally get to meet up with our cute little 1 1/2 year old niece Abby whom I share a birthday with! :-)

May...

Well here we are already into the second half of the month. Time just is speeding by! Jeremy has been working a lot lately. He's had to fire two people, 1 quit and walked out yesterday, and 1 is moving. Plus his boss is going to be leaving as well and a new one is due in. Poor thing had to cook a double today. And will be getting about 16 hour overtime this pay period ending tomorrow. And then who knows how many hour over next week trying to fill in on the shifts. But at least he doesn't have homework! He's on a break until the 31st of June then starts back up with English and Chemistry. Oh boy!
However, I am sooo looking forward to our mini vacation to Vegas in June. We are going up to visit with J's brother's family! I'm so excited to meet my niece whom I haven't met in person yet and who I share a birthday with! :-) J's parents will be up there with us and his grandparents will be driving and spending some of Friday with us.
We actually just got back from a trip up to Wickenburg/Congress. We took J's truck to go get bookshelves from his parents house. What a trip! Lets just say we didn't have the best of luck with his truck. That hunk of metal will not be driven more than 60 miles from home again! We had a good time with J's parents and grandparents on Saturday though. We went to a travel show at the Phx Convention Center. Walked away with t-shirts, a sweater, frisbees, lots of notepads and pens, a BBQ cookbook, a 1 night stay at the Blue Water hotel/casino in Parker, Az (probably won't use), and a 1 night stay with breakfast and a $25 gift certificate to the tackle shop included at a B&B in Alpine, AZ (white mtns). Not too shabby!
The girls are growing too. We are teaching them about gardening and having them turn the water on and off twice a day. They planted seeds a couple weeks ago and J just transferred the seedlings that sprouted out to our big garden. Now we just need to keep all the birds away!
We did finally get renters into our house in NC so that takes a lot of financial stress off of us for now. Our insurance will be taking a big chunk of our checks from now on as our insurance with J's work has kicked in. (Now I just need the cards so I can go to the Dr again.)
That about wraps it up for now. Time for bed!
G'Night!
GG

Back to the drawing board

Well since Easter I haven't been doing the Weight Watchers like I am supposed to. I didn't go too crazy being off of it, but I wasn't counting points. My scale wasn't measuring right so Jeremy's mom gave me hers. Unfortunately, embarrassingly, I'm over the weight limit for that one so we have Jeremy get on that one and then onto the other one to measure the difference and then I get on ours that measures wrong and take the same difference off to get the right weight. But today is the day I start up again.
It's difficult for me to come up with recipes and make sure I have all the ingredients. I need to make time to sit down and plan out the week of lunches and dinners.
I've been pretty busy helping Jeremy plus doing my own housework and such. I had my first of 5 diabetes classes last Thursday. The next two Tuesdays and Thursdays I have the 2 hour classes in mid-morning so Jeremy was allowed to go into work late around noon so he is able to watch the girls for me. This is also the final week for Jeremy's classes and then he is off for 3 weeks! Thank goodness! We need this break - uh, I mean he needs this break!