The Kitchen I was standing in...

I happen to be reading a friend's blog, who has my blog on her page, when I noticed I had not updated in 5 weeks! How did that happen? I have had at least 5 blog ideas but obviously they never got done. Some of them I will still write about, and some I won't. For those of you that follow me on Facebook, you probably know that in the last couple of days, something is up with me. While I am not ready to discuss specifics, there are alot of changes happening in my life right now. Big decisions are being made and I need all of the prayers I can get right now! If you don't know me personally, I don't like change. I think things to be the same day in and day out, I love knowing what to expect the next day, and I have a really hard time handling things if they don't turn out they way I had pictured them in my head. Needless to say, change is HARD for me. I am hurting right now and trying to to one foot in front of the other. I am thankful for the wonderful people in my life and am happy that even 1 person reads my blog! I promise to have a better update soon, as well as posting about some blessings that have come my way recently, I may even explain the title of this blog. Thanks in advance for the prayers!

Answers to Prayers

Have you ever prayed and prayed about something, feeling like God wasn't answering you, and then you wake up one day and realize he has been telling you what to do and you haven't been listening? What was I praying about? Money, finances, stability. I currently have two jobs, both work at home. One is a non profit job that I love with my heart and soul, but there is just not money in it and it has slowly become a volunteer job. The second one is a very cool job with a local child welfare agency, writing profiles on children eligible for adoption through the state. This job is a contract job and I only get paid when the file is done, which takes about 6 weeks. I love both of these jobs and am thankful to get to do them, but there is just no money there, literally right now! So, I've been asking God for guidance on what to do next. Should I get an 8-5 job, put my son in daycare and just be miserable? Should I go back to teaching and make very little money for my time? (Nothing wrong with teaching, but I could only get a job at a Preschool, because I am not certified and Preschools don't pay).

All the while I have been thinking about all of this, I have also been wishing that I had a business. Something that I was in control of and loved to do. My mind kept going back to Arbonne. Back in 2007, I signed up to be a consultant with Arbonne. The week I signed up, I had a miscarriage. I really lost my drive after that. Shortly after that I got pregnant with Henry, and life just got busy. However, it has always been in the back of my mind. It is such a great company, with great, natural products and their compensation plan tops any other Network Marketing Company out there! I just kept thinking, God, I don't want to sell stuff. But you know what I did? I applied for a work at home job in advertising sales! I did not get it, because I have no experience in advertising, but one day it hit me: I was willing to work selling something for someone else, but not for myself? DUH!

So I contacted my close friend, Krystal, who recruited me to Arbonne originally. What a God thing it was because she had been thinking about the same things as I had and just told her husband about it! The more I let myself think about it and believe it, the more I realized that God had been smacking me upside the head with it! What it finally came down to for me was this: My kids are worth it. Why was I letting other people dictate how much money I made? How much work I had? I am jumping in feet first and ready to go! I know it will be hard, and it will take time. But this company has proven over and over again, that if you work, you will reap the benefits! In the book, The Millionaire Club, Maureen Mulvaney wrote about the success of 21 females who earn as much as $20 million a year through home based businesses. Three of these women are with Arbonne. Can you believe it? Those are some great odds.

If you are interested in talking with me about how you can change your life with Arbonne, hear about the products, or book a party leave me a comment! Is your success in your hands? Mine is!

Duckie

Yesterday, we went to say goodbye to our good friend Duckie, Donald Broughton. Duckie was killed when his motorcycle hit an SUV head on, late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Angela Halford, who was a passenger on Duckie's bike, was also killed. They were in an unfamiliar area and got turned around, and ended up going the wrong way on the highway. He was laid to rest on Wednesday, September 3rd. Duckie was one of my husband's best friends. He left behind a 2 year old son and Angela had twin daughters. It is such a tragedy. They were both in their mid 30's.

Through dealing with Duckie's death, I have also had to almost re-live the death of my father, when I was six years old. There are many similarities between my father's car accident and Duckie's, and it has been really difficult for me to know that Duckie's son will never know his dad. It will be up to his mother, as well as Duckie's parents, to keep his memory alive for him. This is not nearly as easy as a task as one might think. Now that I am grown, I have realized that my dad's family did not talk about him often because it was just too painful. While I now understand this, it was hurtful when I was younger because I wanted to talk about him. I wanted to know every memory. Even at six years old, I really only had a handful of my own memories of him. Thankfully, my mom, my aunt and some close friends helped me to keep his memory alive in my heart and let me know what kind of person he was. His boss at the time of his death wrote me a letter about what kind of person he was. This letter is so precious to me! I have asked my husband and our friends to do the same for Duckie's son, for when he is older.

My prayers are with his family and his son's mother every day. This is the type of thing you never get over, you just keep moving forward. His mother is very young, and this is not an easy burden to carry. Not just parenting by yourself, but parenting a child without a father, keeping his memory alive, etc. I have new found respect for my mother in all of this. When my dad died, they had been divorced for not long at all, so there was still alot of love between them. My mom had also lost her father almost a year to the day before, and she was still reeling from that. Suddenly she had to raise a daughter with very few father figures in sight. She had to make sure that despite my dad's death that I was still well rounded and loved. She was also only in her late 20's when this happened. She got divorced, lost her father, and her ex-husband in less than 3 years. My mom is not perfect, but I don't think she could have done anything better than how she handled things. Between her and my grandma, I never doubted that I was loved and was the most important person in the world to them. If Duckie's family and his son's mother, can do half as good of a job as my mother did, they will be fine!

If you are interested in helping raise money to assist Duckie's family with the costs of the funeral, and to help set up a college fund for his son, please contact me at crleegrl at aol dot com. I hope you hold your loved ones tight tonight, I know I will! Duckie, you always made me feel special!

Swagbucks

I am always looking for new ways to save and/or make money. I work from home, which allows me to be able to go to school events, drop off and pick up my daughter from school, etc. This is very important to my husband and I so along with my 2 part time work at home jobs, I make it my full time job to save as much money as possible in every way I can. I am also always looking for ways to make money at home. I discovered Swagbucks earlier this year and really love it. It is a search engine powered by Yahoo and Google. When you search, you can earn Swagbucks. These rack up pretty fast and you can redeem them for prizes, gift cards, and now even paypal money! I have heard of many people getting lots of bucks in a short period of time. I know one blogger who used Swagbucks to purchase a Wii (by redeeming for Amazon Gift cards).

Also, when you recruit others to Swabgucks and they sing up through you, you get points for all of the Swagbucks they win! If you would like to try it out, click below to sign up and you will also help me earn points. Then you can get others to sign up under you and get even more points. I added a Swagbucks search bar to my home page so that I can just search and not have to go to the main page. Its a great way to earn money and prizes for doing what you would normally do anyway! Happy Searching!

Terrible 2's

When my daughter (now 5) was my son's age (18 mos), I had someone tell me that the "Terrible 2's" actually start at 18 months and last until 3 yrs old. We some how skipped this with the Princess. She was (practically) born talking and had full sentences at 18 mos of age, so there was very little of the frustration that seems to lead to the terrible 2's. She was also a totally different kind of kid than the Prince is. She never really had terrible 2's, but she had what we termed the "Fearsome 4's". This stage was mainly her testing us, testing boundaries, bedtimes, talking back, asking why 300 times a day, etc. So I was unprepared for the Prince's head first jump into the terrible two's.

A large part of my son's terrible twos seems to be his lack of language. He has some words, but seems unable to use all of them at once. It goes in phases, although his first "real" word (used correctly all the time) was thank you. It was really cute and since we push manners pretty hard around here, it seemed fitting. However, now he has lost thank you and hasn't gained many other words. So his main form of communication is pointing, grunting and stomping his feet! Let me tell you, its a fun stage!

The other characteristics of the terrible twos he has started is throwing things and climbing. And the other day, he put both of these together to climb on top of the glass coffee table and throw things off and downward on the glass. I had a small heart attack when I found him like that. He has also started throwing fits, and kicking his feet when I pick him up to re-direct him from a hazardous activity. I know all of these things are normal behavior, we were just spoiled with my daughter's personality because she and my son are SO UNBELIEVABLY different. There could not be two children whose personalities are different. (Except my little sister and I, we are incredibly different also). I guess I stop re-reading New Moon (I have to make sure I know every single detail before the movie comes out) and pull out my copies of What to Expect for Toddlers and The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlers.

Grammar Nazi's: Is it terrible two's or terrible twos?

Changes

I mentioned to my mother last week that I felt like Thursday (of last week) was the first day of the rest of my life. A little dramatic, but I think its kinda true. See, last Thursday, Princess started Kindergarten. Big kid school, not just preschool anymore. On top of that, she started in a great school and is in the Spanish Immersion program. Yep, she's hot stuff! This will be her school for the next 6 years (and hopefully the Prince's too, when he is old enough!). Not only that, but the kids in her class will be her only class for the next 6 years. That means if she has problems with a kid, or I have problems with a parent, there is no getting away from each other! I am very excited and nervous about all of this. This school requires alot of dedication from both parents and kids and to tell you the truth, I am kinda overwhelmed. It has been exciting to know that my oldest is starting a new phase of her life.

One thing that also comes with this new phase, is a new schedule for the Prince and I. We are all getting up earlier, and it is back to just my boy and I at home during the day. It has been nice though, to run errands with only one child and to get to work more often. We are all still adjusting to getting up an hour earlier than we have been, so I have had some tired babies at my house lately. Ben started school last week also, so we have had lots of changes! Ben is going to school for his EMT Basic, which will make him much more desirable to Fire Departments in our area. I am so proud of him for doing this, because Ben doesn't do school. He is probably the most intelligent person I have ever known, but school is not his thing. Most schools and classes are not structured to keep his attention. Its a BIG deal that he is going back to school and I am bursting with pride!

We planned on spending our first weekend of the school year relaxing and prepping for a busy couple of months. We had absolutely nothing planned for the weekend. However, God had other plans. Ben and I ended up spending a good portion of the day on Saturday in the ER due to a very painful kidney stone that Ben had. Thankfully, it was not nearly as bad as his last kidney stone and he is feeling much better.

This week is the first full week of school for both Ben and our daughter. I have a feeling they will both be exhausted this week! I will be spending a day training for my new second job with FCS. I am excited to start this new opportunity and am thankful to be able to help contribute to our household.

All in all, I still feel like, at least this last week has been the start of a new life for us. We are all taking on new opportunities that will change our lives in different ways, all for the better. I am excited to see all of the different blessings these will bring into our lives!

Bunco

Tonight was the first night of my new bunco group. If you know me in person, you know I like to be bossy and am so excited to be "in charge" of the bunco group! One of my bff's, Holly and I decided to put a group together and we some how managed to get 12 great girls, some married, some single, some childless, some blessed with children, and all different careers. We also managed to make sure that there is not a large group of friends/colleagues in the group. Before tonight, there was not a single person who knew everybody. In my last group, 7 of the girls worked together or were close friends, and they kinda dominated the group. It ended up being not very fun!
We had so much fun tonight. About half of the girls had never played before, and one of the newbies won 3 different prizes! I hosted the first month, so I had a good excuse to do the cleaning I never do until I am having company (cleaning the baseboards, dusting, wiping down walls, etc.). Since my husband is about to start back to school and will be gone alot, I am trying to make sure I have some regular activities with other women. I have a tendency to stay isolated, because I work from home, and I will realize after a couple of days that I have had zero social interaction! I have also joined a book club that I am really excited about! Over the next 4-5 months, I am also going to work on forming deeper relationships with some of my friends. Not all of my close friends have children, so its harder to get together.
I would love to hear from other work at home or stay at home moms or even work away from home moms about how they keep up their friendships and social interactions! Leave a comment and I will get back to you!