Two down...

I had decided to take a shower at 11:30. At 11:29 one of the other credit cards called and settled for a $50 payment for today and will see what we can do next month. WOOHOO!

Good and Bad

The dreadful phone call and it was not too bad. She listened to my problems and reduced my payments to a reasonable amount that I may be able to borrow from my parent's for the next two months. Then for six months my payments will be half of that with no interest.

Now I have two more calls to make to two other cards that are lower amounts.

I will never be in credit card debt again after all this.

Prayer

I am requesting prayer tonight for myself.

My financial situation has caught up with me. I have to deal with a creditor to a credit card company tomorrow in which I owe a significant amount of money. I have no money to send them. I have no job right now. Please pray for me tomorrow with that situation and with finding a full-time teaching position.

I already talked to the company twice and made arrangements with lower payments but could not afford the lower payment anymore. I can not afford anything right now. I received my last check for the school year for substituting and it has to last me until September unless something comes available first.

I have all intentions of paying all my debts when I get a job but can not fulfill my obligation right now. You may ask, why did I get in so much debt. Well 99 % of it is from awhile ago and it was so much I just could not get ahead ever.

To say I am scared is an under statement. I just want to go in a hole and hope it will go away but I know I have to deal with it.

PLease just pray.

Day 1 of Free Babysitting...

Like every summer, we are the free babysitters for my 7 year old nephew. Today he has amused me with two comments so far.

1- He was putting on my pink bra. I told him that boys do not wear bras. He said " Well on me this is not a bra , it fits like a vest." Yes, everyone I have a big bra.

2- He just beat me to the one bathroom in the house. He then called me in there and said. " If you really need to go to the bathroom, you are going to have to go to the neighbors because I am going to be awhile."

And the third remark that just occurred.

3- He emerged from the bathroom said. "You may not want to go in there for awhile. "

No doubt after comments two and three that he is all boy because the putting on that bra really had me wondering.

A little of this and a little of that...

I CLEANED MY CAR OUT TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is a big accomplishment for me. It is not vacuumed but all the junk and trash that has accumulated between myself , my 7 year old nephew and his buddy has been trashed, YAYYY!
I found two pairs of my shoes in there too.

I made a lazy dinner tonight that ended up being pretty delicious. I mentioned earlier in my post today that I had made part of dinner. Well the house was hot so I decided to use the crock pot and not the stove and oven for dinner. I took two packages of pepper stir fry mix from Save-A-Lot, you know I am the Save-A-Lot queen. Basically it is just frozen cut peppers and onions. I chopped two packages of kielbasa and put all this in the crock pot with a little garlic on low for six hours, four would have been fine. About two hours before this was done, I was concerned about what to serve with it. We have had pasta and rice out the ying-yang lately. I was just about to boil some potatoes but was doing it reluctantly because of the heat when I remembered I had two cans of sliced potatoes in the cabinet. I added those cans into the crock pot and let it cook in with the sausage and peppers. I must say, it was rather good for a no-fuss dinner. I would do it again with maybe some fresh peppers and onions also and maybe some chopped tomato too. I love to experiment with food. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong. Tonight was a right night. I did this the other night on the stove with ground italian sausage. That was awesome over rice.

Isn't it funny when you ask God for some help and the help keeps coming. I am a greeting card queen. I love to send cards to people to bless them. Unfortunately with my own stress and family tragedies this has fallen to the wayside. Tonight at around 10, I was determined to write cards to some people that were on my mind. It started off with just two people. I ended up with nine cards to send to people. God just kept putting more and more names in my mind that needed some encouragement. It is amazing. I know when I go to bed that some more names will come to me . Also tomorrow in church more names will come. I just love sending cards. You know you can not always go visit or call but you can send a card. Sometimes I have specific cards but today they were all blank which meant I had to work a little to get the message across. It does not matter what you write. If someone had surgery, all I write is Praying For You and sign it. Goodness, just writing those cards has blessed me and I really want to bless others.

Oh, I also have to tell you about my spoiled outdoor cat. She gets fed twice a day and she knows her schedule. If we are behind, she will jump on the wooden rail and try to look in the house at me until she gets fed. Well last night we had salmon patties. We saved the juice for her but she would not eat it. She smelled it then looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. I went in and brought her out some fresh food. Here is the kicker, she would not eat it because the salmon juice was still out there. She walked away but when I took the salmon juice back inside, she walked up and started eating her plain old food. This flabbergasted me, I figured an outdoor kitty that catches rabbits and mice would eat anything. Nopers , not her. By the way she does not eat the bunnies or mice, nope, just brings them to me but she leaves the birds alone. I just can not figure her out.

Well that is enough of this and that for now.... Still needing a lot of prayer, still discouraged on so many issues right now.

Home Alone...

I am never home alone. I am currently residing with my parents and one of them is always home. The problem with never being alone is you never get real quiet time to think . Today I had the house to my self from 9-3:30. I did not do anything crazy. I simply caught up on a lot of things that I have been meaning to finish but the house is never quiet enough.

I finished three job applications which all needed a paragraph of something written and all on different subjects but all related to education.
I ordered my nephew's birthday present.
I folded a lot of laundry.
I prepared my sunday school lesson.
I prepared my children's church lesson.
I fixed my mom's blood sugar meter. SHHH! I took my blood sugar too and was not happy with the results.
I put part of dinner in the crockpot.


Now, it is 4 PM and I need to get out of my pajamas, shower and run a few errands. I am dreading that because I know it is hot, hot , hot outside. The house inside is reading 79 and it should be 73 in here.

By the way, I did not substitute the last day of school. I had a terrible time the next to last day of school. I called the office for security. Ten minutes after my call I got the janitor to come help me. Yes, the janitor. There are three security guards and one police officer on duty all day and I got the janitor. Nope, not enough money to face these kids on the last day. Unfortunately though, I am now among the unemployed and can not collect unemployment because I was basically an independent contractor. Yes, I will pick up a couple of days at the family business but not enough. Needless to say, I am quite scared financially. Pray for me.

Three in 30 days....

I wish I could post that I had lost 3 pounds in 30 days. That really would excite me considering my weight loss journey is kind of on sabbatical right now.

The three in 30 days was funerals that I have attended. Two were both in the last eight hours. May 20 was my grandmother's funeral. Today at noon was a precious lady from our church. The one I went to visit several times recently in the nursing home recently. I always went to bless her but walked away being blessed myself. Now I am just getting home from my former neighbor's funeral. That funeral was quite different. He did not want a casket. He was laying up there in a bed. I was flabbergasted.

I know it comes in three's and I have to say, my three are over. I am done with funerals for awhile, hopefully. Yet knowing they all were Christians makes me smile because I know who they are with and one day I WILL see them again.

Blame THE OUTSIDERS...

Yep that is the movie and book that I have to blame for my sudden urge and craving of chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

You see I read the book one day while subbing for a class. The young brothers always had chocolate cake for breakfast after their parents died because it was a forbidden breakfast food when the parents were alive. I read this in the book that day, it did not phase me.

This week I subbed for the same classes who were now watching The Outsiders. We watched it yesterday and re watched it today for a refresher for a quiz. The problem is I subbed for three different classes which meant I have watched The Outsiders six times. That is six times of watching the breakfast and chocolate cake scene.

So in my oven is a chocolate cake in which in an hour or so I will partake and enjoy.

By the way if you have not seen the movie, it really is pretty good. Well any movie is good that has the young, muscular, " make you commit the sin of lust" Patrick Swayze in it. Not just him either but Rob Lowe has a scene of showing his young body too. I suffered through all six times of the movie with no shame :)

Discouraged...

I am really discouraged with things right now in my life. Here are a few things on my mind that need prayer.

• Discouraged with my job search.
• Discouraged with my weight.
• Discouraged with decisions that people are making in grief and stress.
• Discouraged with not having local Christian friends to talk to and hang out with.
• Discouraged with my finances.
• Discouraged with parts of my family that cause me stress.
• Discouraged with my church.
• Discouraged with not having a paying job this summer.
• Discouraged with being taken advantage of.
• Discouraged with not having medical insurance.
• Discouraged with my children's Sunday school attendance dropping.
• Discouraged with people who can say what they want to you but you can not say anything to them because they get offended.
• Discouraged when I have to be the one to tell my nephew some bad news and then he takes it out on me and I was not in the situation.
• Discouraged with people acting ugly.
• Discouraged cause I am hungry right now but too tired to fix anything or go get anything.

I am just plain discouraged right now but I keep on plugging along trusting God.

Today I was at my Alma Mater. I heard there was a car being searched in the parking lot. Knowing these kids and the zoning , drugs immediately came to mind. Nope it was a concealed gun in a locked car trunk. There were different articles stating different things about how this was discovered. My favorite.... K-9 dog finds unauthorized car in WHS parking lot. K-9 dog finds gun in backpack in locked trunk. WOW! What a K-9. It can find unauthorized vehicles in the teachers lot. How can a dog find an unauthorized car? Do unauthorized cars have a scent? This K-9 can also get into locked cars and then open backpacks too, what a dog.

The truth about the K-9. Today was a day that security and the police do a narcotics search. They send the dog in the lot to smell for narcotics. Well, guess what? This car had the scent of some narcotics which lead them to the car for the police to search it and go into everything to find the concealed gun while looking for narcotics. It is then they discovered that the car did not have teacher's decals and was unauthorized for this lot. Great work to the K-9 but don't give it human capabilities. I know k-9's are good but I don't think they are good enough to know a car does not have the authorized decal to be in a teacher's lot. That had to be done by a human.

Great job to the K-9 because his great nose found a no-no on public school property. It may have stopped a potential situation. As for the press and the reporter... please proof read and really think about what you are reporting about. This K-9 was awesome but not capable of human capabilities. If so , promote that K-9 to Homeland Security.