Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Amazing things happening

Some really cool and amazing things have been happening lately and I haven't had anytime to blog!
Here are the highlights of the last two weeks
-Block Party ( I missed most of it, but heard it was a big hit!!!)
-VBS (my kids are still talking about it)
-Nichole's baby shower
-Cook out/kick off for Small Groups
- lots of really cool things going on a CP!

And here are the cool things that have happened in the last week
-RAY WAS SPEECHLESS!!! (PRICELESS)
-First Small Group meeting
-Contingent Anniversary Party
-Reds game
-we prayed for my cousin Katy at our Small Group and she was released from the hospital the next day!
-Danny's surgery went well (We are going to see them tonight)
-Things have been going a little bit better at work
-Got to spend some time with my grandma this past weekend
-my friend Jen was able to make it to our small group meeting last Sunday. She liked it so much she is coming to Church with me on Sunday. (She is curious to meet this amazing Pastor we talked about on Sunday)
-We have a great group that made her feel really welcomed. She enjoyed hanging out with these complete strangers!

This is just some of the cool things that has happened. A lot of not so good things happened as well but looking back....... I am so blessed!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Quick update

Not much time to blog anymore. Things have been hectic at work and a lot going on with the Church as well. Today is the last day of VBS. My kids are having a blast. The kids that came down are a great group of kids and have done an amazing job with our CP kids! I have tons of pictures that I hope to upload soon! Please pray for me, I have some things going on at work that is really taking a toll on my home life.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

So much to celebrate!

Things are much better! My on call disaster has ended!!! I have the next 3 days off and pumped up about the block party on Saturday!! I only wish I was going to be there longer! Scott and the kids surprised me a work today with some flowers, boy did that make my day! I love my fam, they are the best!!! So many cool things are happening and will continue to happen at CP and I am overjoyed that I am a part of such an awesome Church! Ray is an awesome Pastor who loves his church and puts so much into it. How blessed are we to have him! Thank you GOD for Ray and all he does for all of us!!!!

VBS is 4 days away!!!

I am off to start the weekend! See you all tomorrow!!!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

A much needed night!

Well I complained enough in my last post that I thought it would be nice to post something good!
We had most of our small group over at our house tonight for a cook out/get together. Wow did I need it! They may not know it but they really cheered me up and I ended up having a great night and even learned a little bit more about everyone there. The ideas were just pouring out of everybody. We are going to have an amazing group and I am completely excited. Oh and I think we might just have a date this Friday at the Lake with Patty, Jeremy, and Andrew!

One other piece of possibly good news...... CNS may be hiring a second shift person. We would still have on call, however it will be less hours. Instead of being on call 24 hours one week straight, it would be split shifts. I am not sure of all the details or if it will happen, but we have a meeting tomorrow. I will let you know then!

Less than a week until the KICKOFF!!! Are the guys at CP ready to be dunked!!! Last time I looked my hubby was in the lead... That would be thanks to my girls at work! and Robin of course.... ha ha

Stressed!!!

I am so glad this week is ending! This was my second week in a row on call and I am burnt out. I have barely gotten any sleep the past two weeks and I am exhausted. I have been working since 8am this morning and I still have one tech on site (2am) and another one that will go on site at 4am in Hawaii. I cant lay down because I will miss the call, and I am extremely upset because I will most likely be missing church tomorrow. The on call weeks have been way to much for one person to handle anymore. I tried to talk to my boss about it, but it was pretty much blown off. She basically told me that we need to not have a life the weeks we are on call, that we must plan only to eat, sleep and work. That's the thing, I haven't sleep because calls are coming in like crazy through out the night and tracking dispatches late at night and early morning. As far as eating.... 5pm today was the first chance I got to eat today and actually I shouldn't have stopped because I had 3 emergencies I needed to schedule and 3 off site notes to send and 1 work order I needed to make. So it's pretty much just work on my on call weeks! I am feeling so overwhelmed with the tons of extra hours. It bothers me that I cant even have a conversation with my husband. Every time he calls me, I cant talk because I have to schedule something or I have a tech on site. Even late at night, it is like that. I tried to talk to him tonight around 11:30 and I couldn't get five words out without my phone ringing or emails coming through. I haven't really seen my daughter in 2 weeks other than our morning kisses and hugs, and nightly prayers. I need a vacation and I still have four months to go.... I do have the whole day Friday off this week! I think it is going to be a mother/daughter day! I miss my family, and I know that I am so awful to them when I am on call. I continue to pray and believe that God will provide me with the strength that I need.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

I found this poem today. This is a poem about a man that is fighting his addiction to drugs. I am not posting the name of the author, but I am asking that if you are reading this that you pray for him. He lost his fight and now is into more dangerous drugs. I think often we forget how hard the fight is and we judge way to much. I have a degree in Chemical Dependency. I lost two very important people one to drugs and one to alcohol. Friday on the 4th of July as I seen all kinds of people that I went to school with, my heart broke to see what their life has become all because of drugs. It breaks my heart even more to know that these people may never feel the love of Jesus. They may never know how great our GOD is.

My Fight with Drugs
As I lay awake at night
it seems all I do is fight
to get my sanity back in my mind
I've go to stay calm and kind
My fight with drugs is going to be long
It seems my life at birth started wrong
only I can change my way of thought
All it took is for me to get caught
I know now life can be good
All I had to do is get help with my hood
The hood of drugs and insanity I need to remove
to myself and to my friends I need to prove
I can stay sober and clean
To my daughter I can say this and mean
To stay sober is a real bad fight
with this and all the help, I hope I sleep tonight
D.C.
5-1-03

Friday, July 4, 2008

A look back at the last 7 months!

I was reading through my myspace blogs and realized for the first time EVER, I am working really working on reaching my New Years resolution. My New Years Resolution this year was to be closer to God. I am still working on that one, but I can now see the change on myself.

Here's a look back at the last seven months.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The past year Current mood: hopeful Category: Life
A lot has happened this year. I moved back to Blanchester, started a new job,my mom moved in with us, my baby started Kindergarten, one of the biggest and happiest moments was Nichole and Dave getting married! It's still hard to picture my little sister married. There was a lot of rough bumps we hit over the past year as well. When things looked like they couldn't get any worse, they did. But somehow everything worked out the way it should be and it brought my family closer together. Scott and I are still trying to have a baby, we haven't had much luck, BUT we are not giving up! We are still hoping to have a little one by next Christmas. My goal this year is to be closer to GOD. We owe HIM everything! What an amazing life HE has given me, even though there were the tough spots, it made us learn and grow from them and in the end the good ALWAYS out does the bad......


Monday, March 31, 2008
Running on empty Current mood: rejuvenated Category: Life
I went to a friends church this weekend and wow it was like I was meant to be there. He preached on running on empty. I felt like he was speaking right to me. That is how I have felt especially these last few weeks. Going from 5 people to 2 at work and the extra hours put in, plus the lack of sleep. I felt for so long I have been stretched between work and my family. I miss them even when I am with them if that makes any since. My day went as he described, wake up, go to work, come home and I would still be working, help Julie with her homework, feed the girls, clean up, maybe watch a 1/2 hour of TV and lay down and attempt to fall asleep. Since Sunday I just got like this voice in my head saying It’s going to be ok, things are going to work out. I feel like I am going to be able to balance the two. I laid in bed for hours last night, praying and thinking of what I can do to make my life better. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. The one thing that came to me was I needed to better my relationship with God. I truly believe if I start there everything else will come together. I want a relationship with my Heavenly Father like the other girls at Dove have, like my grandmother has. I am a newer Christian and there is so much that I don't know about the Bible and Jesus that I want to know, I want to learn. I have taken on so much these past four months. I am raising a teenager, and boy when I asked God for another child. I never imagined it would be my 15 year old sister. That is a challenge itself. But I love it, I love her so much. I am a step mom and for anyone that is a step parent knows that often step parents are not treated nicely. I love my lil boy soon to be teenager, and I don't doubt that he loves me, but it has taken a long time for Austin and I to build the relationship we now have. My husband is driving a truck over the road again and with me working the hours that I do it puts a lot more on me. I miss him first and foremost and my daughter misses him. My demanding job and feeling like a single parent of three sometimes has left me feeling empty and exhausted. With this said, I have no doubt that things will turn out the way they should as they always do. I have no doubt that God will provide me the energy I need.


Sunday, April 06, 2008
Struggles and Christ Current mood: focused Category: Religion and Philosophy
When my sisters and I were little we would go to Church all the time, my grandma would watch us at night and we would read the bible. After awhile my sisters and I fought it. My dad and grandma gave up, we stopped going to Church and we stopped reading and learning about the word of God. I realize now at that point the devil won. When I was 18, I met a now very close friend of mine who was the beginning of my walk to find God. Her passion for Jesus was so amazing. I wanted that, but the devil had been controlling my life for awhile then. I found myself wondering and searching to find if there really was a God. I remember talking to Shannon about it all the time. asking or more like begging to show me, prove to me that God was real cause I wanted him in my life. But only if he was real. Shannon tried hard to explain all she could to me and then she asked me to talk to my dad about it. At that time in my life I thought my dad was still the enemy and I didn't feel comfortable. So she suggested I talk to my grandma. I actually called my grandma and made an "appointment". My grandma and grandpa were in tears when I told them I didn't know if I believed. I asked them to prove to me that God was real. I remember my grandma looking at me with so much love and saying "take a walk around the neighborhood and look at the beauty, God gave this to us. It was up to me to believe, she couldn't force me to believe something I didn't want to believe." Those words have stuck in my head for the past ten years. After awhile I kinda gave up searching. I was at a bad time in my life and it only got worse. I blamed God for the bad things even though I wasn't sure He was even "real". I did some horrible things and when things were bad, I prayed and yelled at God, still not sure if I believed. A few years later, I got pregnant with my daughter. I was alone and pregnant and more scared then I had ever been in my entire life. But I really wasn't alone, my Heavenly father was there. I had this amazing feeling come over me one night driving home from work and I just started praying. I heard a voice in my head saying It’s going to be okay. I vowed that from that day on my life was going to be different and it has been. I still make tons of mistakes everyday, but I am not the horrible person I use to be. I was baptized almost three years ago. The day I was baptized was one of the most special days of my life, it really felt like my past, my mistakes, my sins were washed away and I was a new person. Dave and Robin even got me a cake for my new birthday. I was in awe. I tried so hard to be a better person after that, but I realized people don't change over night and I am never going to be the "perfect" person I want to be. My husband was truly amazing. He teaches me and prays for me and understands me when I don't understand myself. So many people led me to find Jesus, but my husband has been my rock and my supporter through it all. Today, I have never felt like anything was more real. I have never wanted a relationship with my God more then I do now. I have been making some huge changes to my life to make that happen. Some have been really hard, like leaving Dove. I have met so many amazing people in that Church. But I felt like I couldn't grow the way I wanted to grow there. I am kinda shy at first and I felt like I had tried to reach out and was ignored. I began to feel as though Dave and Robin were the only ones who reached out to us on a continuous basis. I am forever grateful to Dave and Robin for all they have taught me. For the precious memories I will take with me forever and for always trying to include me. Leaving Dove was a hard choice for me to make and still I wonder, but I believe its the best if I want to grow with Jesus.

Many people may find inspiration by this poem, I know I did.
Footprints
One night I dreamed of walking along the shores of different lands.I could tell that You were with me by the footprints in the sand.As I gazed upon the heavens, I saw pages of my life.It was then I realized that You remained there by my side.When the clouds began to gather and the rains came falling down,I looked to only find one set of footprints on the ground.I said, "Lord, why did You leave me in the troubled times of life?I believed that You would always walk beside me day and night." (Then I heard:)"My precious child, I’d never leave you.I have carved you on the hollow of My hand.It’s then I carried you in My arms,When you see one set of footprints in the sand"Dear Lord, will You be with me as I travel through the years?Will You be there in the struggles? Will You wipe away the tears?As my eyes turn toward the ocean and the shores of distant lands,I’m still thinking of the single set of footprints in the sand. (I heard Him say:)"My precious child, I’d never leave you.I have carved you on the hollow of My hand.It’s then I carried you in My arms,When you see one set of footprints in the sand."Will I hear the angels singing, as my life comes to an end.Oh Lord, I long to see You. Will You be there once again?My eyes turn toward the heavens, along the path of foreign lands,Once more, I’m thinking of the set of footprints in the sand. (Jesus said:)"My precious child, I’d never leave you.See your name carved on the hollow of My hand.I’m here to carry you to your home.You will see one set of footprints in the sand.

Sunday, April 27, 2008
Good news!!! Current mood: ecstatic Category: Life
This weekend didn't start off so good, but ended up great! Saturday, Lorna and I went with Robin to meet her brothers. It was the first time she has seen them in person and she was extremely excited. It was awesome. They seemed to really connect! This has been a dream for Robin since she found out about her brothers.
The other good news is Scott and I found a Church home!! We know that God wants us at Center Pointe. We are meeting with Pastor Ray on Wednesday and I am so excited. Its amazing to see what is happening in that Church and I/WE want to be a part of it. Scott and I are both so thankful to Sarah and Danny for introducing us to CP!
Please keep our family in your prayers.


Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Center Pointe Current mood: stoked Category: Religion and Philosophy
We met with Pastor Ray and his wife, Melissa today. I have never met a man so passionate about Jesus. Scott and I are so excited about becoming members at Center Point. If you are looking for a new Church or a Church home in general, check out Center Pointe!! It is awesome! The people there are great and make you feel so welcomed, the band is amazing and Pastor Ray has a way of preaching that really makes you connect. We are so overjoyed to be a part of this Church! Scott and I really want to grow in the Lord and I believe God put us at Center Pointe to do just that! Here is what Pastor Ray wrote about our meeting today
Melissa & I just met with the Smith's tonight. What an incredible couple! They are plugging in to CP!!! We are blessed to have them!!! I love their spirit - they are so excited to join and get busy and told us tonight that they are signing up to lead a small group!! THAT'S AWESOME!!!! Make sure to get to know this family, you will be glad you did!
How cool is that! Scott seemed to really connect and open up to him. I see him growing already! Yes Scott and I decided we want to lead a small group in our home.... so if any one is interested in getting together and learning about the Lord just let me know.
Thanks again to Sarah!!!



Monday, June 09, 2008
A little bit of an update Current mood: blissful
So many things have been going on in our lives. I don't even know where to start! I think I last blogged on finding a new Church! Center Pointe has been a truly amazing experience! We are loving every second of it. We have met a lot of great people!!! Summer is here and we have had some BUSY weekends! Scott and I try to stay as active as possible with the kids on the weekends because we spend so much time working really long hours during the weeks. It appears this year our fams favorite place to be is KI at the water park! Although after yesterday my husband looks like a lobster so that might change! haha!!! Sarah had her beautiful little boy almost 2 weeks ago!!! I was so nervous to hold him! its been a long time since I held a baby that small! Sunday I finally got to see my Isaac, I missed that little guy! One sad thing- Robin is now back at my moms. We are missing her so much! Even though she isn't our kid it is still hard to let her go. Scott and I finally got a chance to talk to Dave from Dove. We are missing everyone there a lot. A visit will be coming soon! Small groups are about to kick off! We are so excited! Let me know if anyone is interesting in coming. Got to go, I have a sink full of dishes calling my name : (



By the way Happy Fourth of July!!!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

What a great night!

Today at work was stressful to say at the least. But man was tonight awesome. Scott, the kids, and I went to the Festival of Bells to see Big Daddy Weave. He rocked Hillsboro tonight. If you weren't there you missed out!! We ran into Scott's cousin David, his wife Angie, and two of their kids. It was nice to hang out with them. We don't see them much, as a matter of fact the last time we did see them was Christmas Eve. We also seen one the old Elders from our old Church, Dove. It is always great to run into someone from Dove. It helps me to remember the great memories we had there and with them. It's also nice to know there is no hard feelings, Dave Hinman tells me that every time we talk to him. I know he doesn't and is happy for us, but its still nice to hear it said. Anyway Big Daddy Weave was awesome. Austin really enjoyed himself. Unfortunately he wouldn't let me take a single picture today so I have none of him. He played a song tonight (I haven't heard the song before so I am not sure of the name) but he dedicated it to the ones that have just been stressed out lately. I know that he was singing right to me. My on calls weeks have been so horrible lately that I am so warn out and stressed. This past week I worked almost every night till Midnight and up at 4 or 5. I am the kind of person that HAS to have 8 hrs or I am just awful! The worst part is, its not over. I switched weeks so that I can be off for VBS, now i have a back to back week. But I know that I will be okay and survive.

Jewels are ready to go!
Mommy and Julie
Big Daddy Weave!!!

Scott's family (I got the back of their head)Julie at the concert