Moving Week

Howdy all!!

Since it is moving week, I am going to take a short break from blogging so that I can get everything done!!  I will blog short posts just to keep you updated with the process, but otherwise I will be back next Monday!

See ya then!

Guest Post Movie Review - Rise of the Guardians

***Farm Hunting Update - Wow!  Yesterday was sooo crazy!  I told you how AcCOWntant's dental crown broke and he had to get it fixed on Thursday, well, yesterday at lunch the temporary crown broke.  So...he headed back to the dentist's office and they put on another temporary crown.  When he finally got back to work he took a bite of a soft sugar cookie and it broke again!!!  :)

At that point we just had to laugh!!

The mortgage company keeps calling us asking us how they should do certain things.  How in the world would we know??!!  Crazy day!

Then to top it all off, last night DD's 3 and 4 snuggled with me in bed as we all fell asleep.  I awoke to #4 throwing up all over #3!  We had the biggest mess I had ever seen!  Honestly, we all ended up covered in it...YUCK!!  I should have grabbed my camera to document that one!!!  :)

And again, we just had to laugh!!

So we are still waiting to hear from the appraisal and the mortgage company is still trying to obtain a piece of paper that should be extremely simple to get.  But...my God is still in control!!***

Guest Post Movie Review - Rise of the Guardians

We have a guest post today!! My oldest daughter is heading off to college next year to study her passions of math and science. 

But she is also a brilliant writer and avid movie watcher so here is what she thought about Rise of the Guardians....

Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians is an enjoyable story with a creative perspective on classic characters. It has many beautiful messages and touching moments. It teaches about self-sacrifice, laying your life down for others, and overcoming fears; and granted everyone in our family a few laughs.

The villain, his nightmare horse minions, and some of the scenes could be frightening for children. Also, religious overtones are blended with mythical characters (Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.). These religious aspects include references to listening to the Man in the Moon when he speaks, the Man on the Moon giving Jack Frost his magical abilities and bringing him back to life, and the mythical characters watching over the children of the world. Though the mythical creatures guard the children of the world, they can only do so if the children believe, because, if they stop, the they will lose their strength.

These are the only issues that our family found with the movie. Despite these,  and with a little clarification for the younger set, our whole family found “Rise of the Guardians” to be an enjoyable and appropriate family movie with deeper lessons as well.

Plugged In Movie Reviews offers more in-depth reviews at pluggedin.com, as does Dove Reviews at dove.org.

One of THOSE Days!!

Ever have one of THOSE days??  Yes?  Me too!  In fact, I had one on Tuesday :)

You know how the day went........

I woke up already feeling a bit off kilter.  Less than two hours into the day we had spent $200 to have a garage door fixed that we did not even know would need fixed. 

It seemed to get better, but then halfway through the day Farmer Willie calls to inform me that as he was eating lunch, a sandwich no less, a crown on a tooth cracked in half!  So he was heading to the dentist that afternoon.

Dentist says we need to fork over $300 to get it fixed!

Then realtor calls, while hubby is in the dental chair, and says the mortgage company forgot to order the appraisal!  Now, they had told our agent on Tuesday of last week that it was all taken care of and they told us the same thing last Wednesday!  FRUSTRATING!!

Then the mortgage company sends us an email saying that they can't get our VA certificate of eligibility and we need to call the VA.  Of course we got the email at 5pm, when they closed!!

At this point I was done and ready to just crawl into my bed and try to pretend the day was a dream! 

But then I thought, if I let my bad day end this way, where is His glory?  How am I showing faith and obedience by crawling into bed and pretending that the day did not happen?

So....I tried to focus on the blessings that became more apparent because of the trials! 

Here is how I saw God during that yucky day!!

• We had the money to get the garage door fixed.  We might have had to give up a couple of fun things we had planned, but thank the Lord we were ABLE to have it fixed.
• We found a nice and fair priced man to fix it for us and he was able to fix it early in the day.
• AcCOWntant actually has a job to go to and eat his lunch at, even if that lunch broke his crown.
• AcCOWntant had food to eat for lunch.
• We have good dental insurance, so instead of paying $1000, we only had to pay $300. 
• Again, we had the money to pay for the dental work.  May have had to give up a couple more fun things we had planned, but my hubby has his tooth fixed and is not in any pain.
• Though they told us that the appraisal could take up to two weeks after it was ordered, our appraisal officer called later that evening and did the appraisal yesterday.
• We are still working on helping the mortgage company get the certificate.  We can't get it ourselves because the VA requires the lender to do it, but we are staying in touch with them to make sure it gets done.  But we are THANKFUL for the VA loan program that gives veterans help in purchasing homes.

So in the end, many of the issues were solved before I even went to bed that night!  The ones that were not....well, I will remember that even though I don't really have a lot of faith in our lender at this moment, I do have faith in the Lord and He is the one I look to!!

Menu Monday!!

***Farm Hunting Update - This weekend was a weekend of destruction!!  Remember the wall that started like this?

 

Then when we knew it had to come down, it became this...

Our great graffiti wall!!

Well, this weekend it all ended!!  We put our goggles on, grabbed our hammers and went to town!!

Some enjoyed this more than others....

But in the end, we found the garage door!!!  (though we did not find the ceiling rails or track :()

So to summarize our update.....1 Wall + 4 Girls with goggles and hammers = FUN day!!!***

Menu Monday

Monday Breakfast - Whole Wheat Banana Muffins/Eggs/Melons
Monday Lunch - We usually meet my mom for lunch on this day!
Monday Dinner - Sandwiches/Fruit (We have deep cleaning as a family after dinner on Mondays. We have found that if we all work together, we can get it done in about 1 1/2 hours and then we have a special "clean house" dessert!!)
Monday Snack - Mix of nuts, seeds and chocolate chips

Tuesday Breakfast - Eggs/Whole Wheat Biscuits/Hash Browns with Peppers/Citrus Fruit
Tuesday Lunch - Tomato Soup/Grilled Cheese
Tuesday Dinner - Chicken Enchiladas/Brown Rice/Black Beans/Avocado Slices
Tuesday Snack - Sonic Happy Hour Run for Slushies

Wednesday Breakfast - Whole Wheat Waffles/Peanut Butter/Strawberries
Wednesday Lunch - Cheese Quesadillas/Salsa/Tortilla Chips
Wednesday Dinner - Fettuccine Alfredo/Green Beans/Salad
Wednesday Snack - Peanut Butter Balls

Thursday Breakfast - Cinnamon Bread/Cream Cheese/Strawberries
Thursday Lunch - Sandwiches/Fruit
Thursday Dinner - Egg and Turkey Sausage Burritos/Fruit
Thursday Snack - Peanut Butter Balls

Friday Breakfast - Yogurt/Granola/Fruit/Nuts
Friday Lunch -Turkey and Cheese Wraps/Carrot Sticks/Grapes/Organic Chocolate Bar
Friday Dinner - Baked Chicken/Steamed Broccoli/Mashed Potatoes
Friday Snack- Popcorn with Fresh Mozzarella

One Month - Roll With It!!

Mornin'!!!!

I can't believe that it has been one month since I started this blog!!  And I can't believe that in that month we went from deciding to start looking at property to buy to packing up to move in less than two weeks!!  It has been a crazy whirlwind!

We are still waiting for the VA to come and decide to do the appraisal, but as soon as that is done, we are closing and wrapping it up!

In the meantime we are packing.  Ummmmm, not so fun!!

For the first couple of days, we were smitten with packing.  The big boxes all around, the noise of ripping the packing tape off of the roll.  Yes, we were on a moving high.  Now....not so much!!

Remember how awesomely organized I had our back room?  It was full of beautifully labeled boxes.  There were some Christmas boxes pushed to the side, but all in all it looked like we were packing pros!!

Now it looks like this...

I kid you not, about half of the boxes have now been UNPACKED!!!!  We will remember something that we need and oops!  I already packed it!  Then we go dig through the boxes :)

The nice stack of empty boxes waiting to be used has now become the things that forts are made of!!

Yes, packing is fun for a day or two, but then life resumes and it becomes a bit of a pain!!

We have had a nice month though and I have already learned some lessons!

1. Be careful that you don't pack things you need :)  Whatever made me think I could get through our last two weeks of school without our schoolbooks??!!
2. When you are moving, you must be okay with a messy house!!  The first week I tried to keep everything neat, but it eventually started to drive me CRAZY!!  So...now if you come over, you might find a box set aside in the bathroom that is only half packed because life interrupted me!
3. Casual entertaining!!!  This is a biggie!  We love to have people over and did not want to give that up just because we are moving.  So, we had a caroling party last night.  It was very informal, but soooo fun!!  My house was a mess and I asked everyone to bring their own words to the carols and a snack to share.  It was a great time of fellowship and no one went away mad because my house was not up to par!!

     4.  Did I mention don't pack things you need??  :)
     5.  Patience!!  NOTHING seems to happen on schedule when buying a house.  Or should I
          say NOTHING seems to happen on my schedule when buying a house, but I rest in the fact
          that it does happen on God's schedule and His is perfect!!
     6.  Learn to live life around the uncertainties and incompletes.  I usually don't function well when
          dealing with uncertainties, but I had to learn! Otherwise I would have a month of uselessness!!
     7.  DON"T PACK THINGS YOU NEED!!!  Oops, did I mention that already??!!

Along with these lessons have been some sweet moments...

• DD #3 has been trying to wake up before me (which is pretty hard because I tend to get up early!) and pack boxes.  At first this was frustrating because she was not doing it "my way."  But I had to stop and look at the blessing that she was bestowing upon me.  And I can figure out what is in the boxes when I unpack them at the new house (or possibly here if I keep packing things I need!).
• We are converting our garage room back to a garage so we are knocking down a temporary wall that we put up.  This has allowed us to engage in the art of graffiti!!  Sooo fun!!

• The town we are moving to has a legend of an alien ship crashing nearby.  To commemorate or move, my hubby bought us this ornament

These are just a few of the sweet moments that have occurred in the chaos that we are now calling life!!

So, my overall lesson for the month is to roll with it!!!  When you know God is in control, the best thing to do is to just hand Him the wheel and sit back to visit with him!!