New year, new leaf

I've decided that I want to live a simpler life. I am going to quit my job.

I know times are hard and jobs are hard to come by. But I don't like the kind of mother and wife I have become. Dinner around here consist of canned soup and a grilled cheese. And my house is a mess. It's never company ready. We live in chaos around here. I go to work at 7:30 am and by the time I get home, it's 9:30 pm or later. I get off work and then pick my kids up from my mom's and we have to go straight to practices, ball games, or academic meets. It is so hectic! I just don't want to live like that anymore.

My husband and kids are beyond excited that I am quitting. I just hate to give up the extra money. But I know that I can make a few changes in our lifestyle and we won't even miss the money. I can start making dinners from scratch rather than using instant foods. For instance, I can make home made mac n cheese rather than buy the easy mac. And it will be healthier to boot! :) Just little changes like that and it will add up.

I also hope to have time to start working out. I have gained some extra holiday weight and I won't be able to get it off at the rate things are going now. But once I don't have to work, I won't have anything keeping me from getting a work out in each day. I am going to take it day by day and see the changes I can make in my life.

And who knows? I might even have time to start crafting again. I might even be able to make a few extra $$ off of it.

I have nothing but high hopes here. Say a prayer that I won't regret this decision.

I thought I'd post some pics of my Christmas tree. We decided to go with the real tree this year. And I love it. The only thing I don't like, is that it is too big. When we got it, we didn't think about the stand adding height. The Hubs kept saying he'd cut the bottom of it off so it wouldn't be too tall. But between working extra hours and his Mom being sick, he just didn't have time. And I was anxious to decorate it. So I just went ahead and decorated it. Even though it is too tall. LOL You'll see what I mean in this pic.

Over the years, the boys have all had a teacher that does the CUTEST Christmas craft with the whole class. She was the best teacher. We all loved her. She even married into our family a few years ago when she married my husband's cousin. :) Anyway, the ornaments are just a plain shatter proof ball ornament. The kids dipped their hands in white paint and made a hand print on the ball. Then, they would paint the 5 fingers into a snowman. You'll see what I mean in the pics. I tried to get all 5 snowmen in the pics, but it was hard to do. And since we have 5 in our family, these are really great.

And attached to each of the ornaments is this tag...

If you can't read that it says:

These aren't just five snowmen

As anyone can see.

I made them with my hand

which is a part of me.

Now each year when you trim the tree,

you'll look back and recall

Christmas 2005.

When my hand was just this small.

These ornaments mean more to me than any other I have. I'm grateful for Mrs. Teacher taking the time and having the patience to do this with my kids.

It's finally starting to feel like Christmas

We have been so busy around here that I just got my holiday decorating done. I actually put my tree up last week. It was an old artificial tree. I had it for years. I put it up this year knowing it would be my last year using it. I was hoping to find a new one after Christmas when they all get marked down. But my tree looked so sad and pitiful, I couldn't wait until next year. So I un-decorated my tree on Sunday morning. Then Greg and I went to visit his mom (more about her in a minute) in the hospital. We were driving by the Catholic church where they were selling real Christmas trees and wreaths. We decide to stop by and get a live tree. I am so glad we did. I LOVE it. It's a bit bigger than I wanted, but it looks so much better than any tree I've ever had. And it makes my house smell WONDERFUL! I am really in the Christmas spirit now. :)

Okay, about my Mother in Law.... She lives in a town about 1.5 hours away from us. My BIL called on Friday night and told me he was taking her to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing. I knew it was something major wrong with her, or she wouldn't have went to the ER. She would have tried to just gotten through the night and went to her regular doc the next morning. So I knew she must have been really bad off seeing as to how she wanted to go to the ER then. I called Greg at work and told him I thought we should go down there. By the time we got to the hospital, they were just admitting her. They still didn't know what was making her so short of breath. She was to the point of nearly passing out if she even stood up. If she just sat really still and didn't talk, she was okay. Still breathing really hard, but she was okay. But if she moved around, it was like she was gasping for breath. They started doing all kinds of testing on her heart. The found it all to be okay. It wasn't until the next morning that they found out the problem. She had a blood clot travel to her lung. Apparently she had DVT for a while, but she hadn't been diagnosed with it. The doctors said that nearly 99% of people that have a blood clot go to their lung dies from it. So we are lucky that she lived through it. I guess God has a plan for her. :) So remember her if you pray. We aren't sure when she'll get out of the hospital. She is so ready to come home.

I still have presents to wrap. My boys will be excited to come home from school and see all the gifts under the tree! I took a different approach to the gifts this year. I told my boys that since Baby Jesus had 3 gifts, they were getting 3 gifts. But of course, I couldn't stop at 3 gifts each. But they DO only have 3 presents under the tree. I put several things together in one box. I know that was cheating, but still............ LOL

I never write in this blog. I started it months ago, but I've never gotten around to posting. So I thought that this cold, snowy day would be a perfect time to sit down and do it.

I have enjoyed this long weekend so much. I don't work on Monday's so I have the day to myself today. I have been cleaning all day. When my family is home for a long weekend, it seems like my house gets so junked up. Nothing is in it's place. I hate that. So I've been straightening up and doing laundry all day.

I had hoped to get the tree put up after the boys get home from school today. But I just got a phone call from the school saying that Chase and Trey both have an academic meet today. It's an away meet. It complicates things greatly for me. LOL.... I will have to run to the school to pick Trey and Trevor up. Chase will stay after school because he has basketball practice. Then Trey, Trev, and I will drive 30 minutes away to the academic meet. Then when that is over, I will have to drive back to the school to pick Chase up for his meet. And while I'm there, I will have to leave Trey there to get ready for his basketball game. Then I will have to drive BACK to the school where the meet is (yeah, 30 minute drive again) to drop Chase off at the Academic meet. I will leave him there with my friend and she will bring him back to the basketball game when it's over. After dropping Chase off, I will rush back to the school to watch Trey's game. When will they have time to eat? I guess I will have to hit the drive thru at some point. I hate it when it is this hectic. They love being on the basketball team though. So I'd never want them to give that up. And they like being on the Academic team.

They originally weren't going to be on the Academic team this year, but the coach and principal practically begged them (which made me SOO proud!!) to do it. I like the Academic team better myself. I am so proud of them when they answer questions that I don't even know the answers to. LOL.. I don't know where they get their intelligence.

I'm so proud of my boys. I know I'm blessed to have kids that are good kids. I have friends that have kids that are always in trouble, or get bad grades. So I know I'm lucky that they are like they are. I hope they stay on the path that they are on now. They will end up good, successful, and productive men if they do. They are growing up so fast. Sometimes when I look at Chase, it is hard to believe that he is the little baby that I learned so much from. I didn't know anything about being a mother when he came along. I was so young. I was only 6 years older than him when I had him! I was 20 years old. What was I thinking? LOL. I don't regret one single thing in my life up to this point though. I just hope my boys have an education before they settle down and get married.

Wow... I just re-read what I had written. I think that is a random post! LOL.. I kinda rambled on. But I didn't have anything in particular to write about. Maybe next post, I'll think about what I'm going to write about before I do it and it might not come out so random. ;)

Please bear with me as I am trying to figure out the best look for my blog. That is until I can figure out how to make it look the way I want it to look. Does anyone have any advice about how I can customize it?

Thanks for stopping by, btw. I'll introduce myself later.

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Okay, I think I like this one best...

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