Lackadaisical towards Change

I just love that word, it sounds so much better than just saying I am lazy. Fact being I am a world renowned procrastinator with lackadaisical tendencies at times. Millions of Americans put forth their cry for change back during the presidential election and boy are they starting to see it, but that's not what this post is about. I need change and have been lazy in taking the first step. My last post was right after the death of my mother-in-law and I haven't returned since, but I am BACK NOW!! To brighter and better days!!

I decided that with the starting of a new year this blog needed a fresh start, hence the new title. There are so many things I enjoy and want to learn, funny how most of my ideas are developed during my showers. There are new goals developing, new adventures arising and to whomever that reads my blog, if any I hope you enjoy the ride!! This will be a step by step process but I have to start somewhere.

First thing, well not quite sure how to put this but I am not where I need to be with my Heavenly Father. I acknowledge that now and need to do something about it. I need a relationship with Him that I don't have and know that He longs for me to spend time with Him. Second goal is to lead a healthier lifestyle, thirdly to simplify and be more organized. My house is still very disorganized and cluttered even though we have been in it now for two years. My sewing/guest bedroom is still a disaster from all the stuff that was my mom-in-law that we brought back from OK after the funeral. I was blessed to be given all her sewing and craft stuff that I look forward in this year being able to put to good use. People talk about their New Year's resolutions but I have decided that they will be my New Life Resolutions!!

. Pray more, read scripture daily and spend time with Him who gave His life for me!!
. Getting my house in order, organized all around.
. Planning out my garden, with hopes to not have to purchase much from the grocery store. We have been blessed with an abundance of land and I intend to use my time wisely in taking care of it.
. Finishing projects that I have started.
. Start new projects and finish them
. Focus becoming more proficient as a Dental Assistant.
Well there are so many more things that I want to do but this is a good start for now. I look forward to what this year has in store for me and my husband. What are your New Year's goals?

Don't understand...

I guess I may never know this side of eternity, but trying to cope with another loss is more than I can handle in my own strength. We received a phone call this past Sat. in the wee hours of the morning that my mother-in-law (Mom) had been rushed to the hospital. From what we know at this time she apparently didn't feel well and then all of a sudden collapsed. She wasn't breathing, 911 was called, CPR was performed along this defibrillator to shock her heart back. Arrived at the hospital with blood pressure continuing to drop, no means of medication was helping. She was put on a machine that breathed for her keeping her alive, but Mom was already gone even though some may disagree. Her body was stabilized allowing the medical staff to get a cat scan desperately trying to find out what was wrong. Cat Scan showed that she had multiple broken ribs on her left side, collapsed lung along with some internal bleeding. No outward signs of any kind of trauma. For any of you who know me, it will be only three years this October that my father-in-law passed away due to complications from his tragic accident. Mom had only been moved back to OK to try to move on with her life about a year and a half ago.

We knew that my DH needed to get out there as quickly as possible, so we bit the bullet and got him on the next flight out. Within 10 minutes of his arrival to the hospital her heart rate went from 80 to 0. They tried to save her but even if they had been able to they would have only been saving her body. The doctor's even told my husband that they weren't doing her any good because she had had no brain activity at all since her admittance. Mom was gone!! Even as I write this I can't portray in words the pain I numbness and pain that I feel. Not withstanding how my husband is coping seeing as I haven't been able to be by his side as of yet. I will be flying out first thing in the morning by the blessing given from my church in the form of a plane ticket. Please pray for me and my family as the this is going to a very long hard road of grievance and recovery. We still don't know a cause to her death but through a medical autopsy that was performed today hopefully all those questions will soon be answered. I miss her sooo much and can't grasp the fact that she is really gone. It feels like I am in a horrible dream and just need to WAKE UP!!!

And several months later.....

Ok, I give up I love so much to read other people's blogs and find myself never updating mine. Since I got off work early today, and am procrastinating about getting out in this heat to cut grass, I figured now is as good of time as any!!

Well let's see I am officially the BIG 30 as of June 8, and oh how I was dreading it but whether i like it or not here I am!!! I must say I have so many more goals and aspirations at thirty years old than I ever did in my twenties. Right now I am working on getting my RDA(registered dental assistant) license with an online degree program, then highly contemplating moving to a degree in dental hygiene. I love my job and the opportunities it holds.

As it stands right now the LORD has not seen fit to bless me with any children, so I am learning to be content. I am blessed a husband that makes me aware of how much I long for him to know the LORD, and with two loving four-legged kids, that are great companions!! I am also truly blessed with an earthly piece of a promise land, literally...I love our land and all the possibilities it holds.

My parents were up this whole past week helping my DH start tearing down the A-frame that my father-in-law built. Praise the Lord!!! 1/4 was able to be torn down and also it didn't fall on our mobile home!!! It will probably take us the rest of the summer and into the fall to completely get it down. I am so proud of my DH in all the hard work that he and my dad put in everyday. They were able to accomplish much and my mother bless her heart helped me out tremendously with the work on the inside our mobile home. I felt guilty that I wasn't able to be of much help seeing as I wasn't able to take off work. God has truly blessed me with loving, godly parents, that even though we don't always agree I know how much they love and care for me.

Personally the thing that I was most happy about was that i now have a sewing room/guest bedroom!!! I must take some pictures to share, my mom rocks and did such a great job on painting the room and setting it up. Now to just get the living room and master bedroom finished. For any of you that don't know DH and I purchased a 1994 mobile home from an individual 1 1/2 ago and moved onto the property in order to get out of the A-frame. Needless to say it needed bit of freshening up so we have painted all the walls and ripped out almost all of the carpet. We have been doing a bit at a time seeing as we haven't been able to afford much. It is slowly but surely coming together and becoming our home. We are looking forward to that day we are able to build a real house, but for now I am content with my little
"trailer". I am truly blessed even though the road is hard at times my God is there with me all the way. Well guess this is pretty good for the first post in a long time, I pray all of you are blessed as much as I am:)
...over 40 ft tall and what a challenge to get down!!

Come on Spring!!

So yeah it's been a month later and I am behind on posting. One of my goals this year was to keep up with my blog a bit better. I know doesn't look like I am doing so hot, but I'm trying. A lot has gone on in the beginning of a new year, for starters I have a brand new job in a completely different field. I am super stoked about it!!!! Last July I got hired on at a water heater plant working in the cafeteria, which was o.k. ya know familiar. Cooking has always been second nature for me to those of you who know me, but unfortunately it was just a job and not one that held much opportunity. October rolled around and a lady at my church text me saying that their was a business assistant position at the dentist office where she worked that had come open and wondered if I would be interested. Of course I said yes but I had no experience so I submitted my resume and left it at that. Set up an interview with her boss, it went well but I never heard anything back so I just assumed the position had been filled. The week before Christmas I got a call asking me if I was still interested and that she wanted me to interview at a different office. Set the interview up for the Monday after Christmas, interview went well and she wanted me to come after New Year's for a working interview. The day before I was to go for the work interview she called me back and said that she was sorry but didn't feel that I would be a good fit for what they were looking for at this particular office, but she really liked me as a person and wanted to know if I would be interested in going in a different direction.

She thought it would be a good way for me to get my foot in the door by starting out as a sterile tech and working to being trained for a dental assistant. The most wonderful thing about it was it was at one of their dental office's that is only about 20 miles from my house versus driving all the way into Nashville. How awesome is that, right? So she set me up for the interview a couple days later and PRAISE GOD the dentist hired me on the spot!!!! I put my two week notice in at the water heater plant ( by the way they were not happy at all that I was leaving) and last Thursday was my first day at the dentist office. To say the least my mind has been completely boggled but I love every minute of it. It has been incredible to be blessed with such an awesome opportunity for a professional career and being trained for it on the job without having to go to school for it.

O.k. enough on the new job, I AM SO READY FOR SPRING!!!!!
I've gotten several seed catalogs in the mail that I've been drooling over and I can't wait to get my hands dirty. I did make a batch of laundry soap oh I guess it's been almost a month ago that I was going to share some pics of...
After I shredded my soap I added it to my borax and washing soda. This batch I used ivory soap but you can use Fels Naptha as listed in the recipe below. I have been using it like powdered detergent but if you follow the directions below you can make as liquid.

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder
~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~



Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

I must say it is very cost effective and cleans the clothes just as well as any store bought.

Well I started this post a couple days ago, and seeing as I didn't have to go to work today because of the weather I am taking opportunity to finish it. Looking out the window of my bedroom as I type this and enjoying the white winter scene that even only an inch of snow has created. The earlier part of this day was not so much.
Guess this is what I get for trying to combine two posts into one. Needless to say my husband's car got stuck coming down the driveway last night when it was pouring rain, we tried to pull him out with my truck this morning and got it stuck as well. Yeah I can laugh now, but at the time there was nothing funny about it. My husband had called in that he wouldn't be able to come in to work, but that was not resolving our problem.

We have serious issues with our rural driveway that we just can't afford to professionally have fixed and the wet winter weather fights against us. But back to today. David was finally able to get my truck out and to the top of the driveway, then worked and got his car out. Thank God and he was able to go to work only being a couple hours late instead of missing the whole day.

Now I have the adventure in the morning of walking up our 1/4 mile long driveway to my truck... lots of rain turning to snow + even lower temps tonight = ICE!!! Ice is not my friend when it comes to me walking on it. Well I hope all the rest of you are staying warm. Like I said, "Come on Spring"!!!
I leave you with a picture of my "oldest kid" and how he is spending his snow day:)

Updates Part 1

Just wanted to try and get some of these things posted that I have been wanting to share and thought it would be good to do them in segments. Let's see I guess now would be a great time to look back on what has gone on in 2008. If you didn't already know we have now inherited 18 acres of rural country throughout the course of events from my father-in-law's tragic accident and later death. After her time of grieving my mother-in-law saw fit to move back to Oklahoma and start a new life. She has a new found relationship with her sister and is enjoying being a grandma! So where has that left my husband and I? Fall 07 we were able to purchase a used single wide mobile home that needed a little work ( and still does) but is serving as our first home! For the first time it's just him and I. No roommate, no relatives!!

You can believe how much of an adventure this was in getting our home setup. There have been a few rough spots here and there over the past year but I am realizing how truly blessed that we are in what we have. There are so many adventures that I have yet to discover, but look forward to being able to journal about them. Through the giving hearts of others we have a front and back porch, also the skirting is complete. I will have to take some pictures and post them! Without the help of my parents we would not have been able to move in as soon as we did. With the inheritance of our land also came the unforeseen problems which incurred unexpected expenses... new septic system, building permit ( yeah I still want to know what we were paying for with this, we didn't build anything), among several other things. At the time my husband was an OTR driver and was only home three days out of a month...boy am I glad those days are over. Christmas of 2007 my parents came up and spent two weeks helping me somewhat remodel this home. Ripping out carpet, laying tiles, painting...I can't even list all the things that they did. I am so thankful for my parents and everything that they have done to help us. We were also blessed by love bestowed on us through my church family! The weekend before Christmas several men from my church supplied the materials and built both the front porch and back ( which were one of the things necessary for us to be up to code and also in order to move in) Even still we were not able to move in because the new septic system hadn't been put in due to the weather. So my folks returned home after the holidays desperately needing a rest from all the hard work they accomplished in the two weeks they were here.

January's weather came and went with still no septic. I was scheduled for minor surgery at the end of February so my folks decided that they would make another trip up here to help with things seeing as DH was probably only going to be able to be home for one day. We were blessed in that time to be able to get the septic installed and get moved in. DH had to go back out on the road and was not able to actually help with the transfer of things from the A-frame to the mobile home, but there again we were blessed by my parents. I must say though that I was also unable to help with the moving process due to my recent surgery, but how good it felt that first night to sleep in our home that was warm, dry, had walls and even doors!!

Our home is still a work in progress but so is everything else:) In looking back on this past year there have been bright times and some very dark times but we have been blessed beyond all measure!

Happy Thanksgiving one year later!

Ok say this is a truly belated blog that I should have posted ages ago.....Hello my name is Shea and I am a procrastinator! So maybe now that I am starting back into this whole blogging world I will better be able to keep up with my postings and not start one and put it off until I am headed into the next holiday or year whichever comes first! Enjoy even though I am not really sure if anyone other that me will read this..




Figured what better way to start back to blogging than one year later from my last entry. Well Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all. My husband and I spent thanksgiving with his family in Oklahoma. It was the first thanksgiving that the main of his family had been together in many years. We had an awesome visit even got to go out to the wildlife refuge where I saw my first buffalo close up. This was my second trip out there and I still can't get over how that in Oklahoma it's very flat and you can see for miles. I thought it was pretty awesome but when I put it up to the scenery of Tennessee there is no comparison that I am so grateful for my home. I'm going to see if I can post some of the pics that I took out there, we'll see how that goes seeing how rusty I am blogging.

My niece Sunny, this was my first time getting to see her and I still can't get over how much she has grown

I leave you with this picture portraying what I hope one day our lives will be blessed with...

My Boys!