We leave in the morning!

Our truck is packed. The missionaries who we have fed 2-3 times a month and consider to be our family here, were the perfect loading crew. And I actually got to direct and plan where I wanted everything to go to use the space as wisely as possible. If you can believe it, we had planned to drive a 26' truck and a 17' truck with a tow dolly attached to tow the car. WE GOT EVERYTHING IN THE 26 foot truck with plenty of room to spare because of packing it right. We moved from Vegas in the same size truck and we had 2/3 of what we had today and barely fit. I love spatial reasoning and feel I have a knack for it and it paid off today. We get to cancel our other truck and dolly and just drive the car and one truck to Florida in the morning. I have to work from 10-12 and then we have to make a run to goodwill and then we will be off. Let's hope it doesn't take that long to get out of here.

We are so grateful for the friends who have helped us at this busy time such as the Manley's (packing, rides, cleaning), Taylor's (cut all our hair and colored mine), West's (babysitting), and Kay (t00k the girls to the park and brought us pizza). We are grateful to have known them for such a short time, contributed to their lives and they contributed to ours. We are SOOOO excited to get back to our "home" again. Panama City Beach here we come. Then on to Hilton head for a short beach stay. I AM EXHAUSTED!!, because I have had to do most all the packing myself, like usual. But this time it was because Luke was in Utah for 3 days because his dad got remarried on Nancy's birthday, April 14. Happy Birthday Nance and Congrats to Rick. Welcome Michelle to the family! I can't wait to be chillin' on the beach, playin' with my kids, and at peace because we have a job. Many blessings have come our way.

So I have written this blog post so many ways in my head...

...but I don't know which way I came up with was the best or the shortest to explain all that has been going on.
Good News... WE HAVE A PLAN!
Bad News... WE HAVE TO MOVE AGAIN!!
Warning... this post is very long but cathartic for me to write, share, learn, and move on. Maybe read in chunks!! ha ha. Skip to "final plan" if you don't want the summary.

Luke quit his job after 2 weeks back in February before it would get to the point that he thought they would fire him. He just couldn't learn as fast and be independent as fast as they wanted him to be despite working long hours, shadowing another therapist, and studying at night. He thought when he interviewed that they understood he was coming from no experience and that they would give him time to learn. Bottom line... he learned that working in a medical setting is not for him.

He made a couple of mistakes, not life-threatening, in charting and in staffing meetings which doctors and corporate people witnessed, and he was seeing a patient with a family member who was looking for any reason to sue. His mistakes had to do with not knowing the dysphagia diets off the top of his head (food textures and thicknesses that are allowed at different levels to aid safe swallowing and prevent aspiration= choking= pneumonia= death= a big deal) and writing that a person was oriented to other people but not herself - which doesn't really happen because the first thing you become oriented to after strokes/brain injuries etc. is yourself, environment, and then other people. Luke has an explanation for this because of the terminology used but I can't remember specifically.

Anyway... it is all in the past and it doesn't matter now. I don't know why we were supposed to come here to Greenwood and maybe we will find out in the future, perhaps not. Ever since we left Las Vegas in June 2010, we have been struggling to make ends meet. We chose to move to Utah to help Luke's dad with his new business after losing his job, and to care for and be close to Luke's mom while she struggled to live with Lou Gherig's Disease. We were able to pay the bills and live comfortably even though we needed medicaid for Gracie's broken leg and to have Katie born. We were very grateful to have it, but hated being on it.

After Lenna passed away and the business never turned a profit, Luke quit in August, got offered a job in a school, but he could not see himself going back into the schools as an SLP. Then we were going to go work in China but decided not to, which is a good thing because everything went South there after a few months and we would have been stranded, not to mention out money, time, and effort. I did not get the home-health job I interviewed for in SLC. I got a job in October working about 20 hours/wk for Connections Academy doing online therapy from home. It is hard to juggle being a mom and working from home. I do not recommend it but do it if you have to. Luke considered working for a internet marketing company in an entry level job and interviewed but then decided to try the medical setting one last time before leaving speech for good. He chose not to shadow a medical SLP first and flew out to Greenwood for an interview. He got the job and we moved in 2 weeks and had Christmas with my brother's family in KY on the way here. We spent some money anticipating the new higher salary and the sign-on/relocation bonus. We shouldn't have!

And here we are. We have been trying to figure something out and make it work here over the summer so we wouldn't have to move but the closest job was 90 minutes away. And to add to that, the job he interviewed for in a school next year here, decided they wanted somebody local. We waited for a month and half to hear if he got what we thought would be his Dream Job. It was at EATON working as an engineer despite having no engineering degree with 50% travel, but not working as an SLP. We knew the hiring guy and so he pulled some strings to let Luke at least interview. They grilled him for 2 hours and we got really good feedback. They loved him and he interviewed well. WELL, we didn't get the job or the second position like it because the top boss changed his mind that he DID need an engineer.

So this week has consisted of a different plan pretty much everyday until Wednesday when Luke interviewed for a job as school SLP in a Hilton Head till the end of the school year. I have been going nuts with the changes. I just wanted to pick a plan, whatever it was, and stick to it. I came to grips with moving again. Our plans involved lots of different scenarios to get us through the summer and to a permanent SLP job next school year. I will not carry on about all the different plans but just know that they included starting a garage door company, starting website consulting business, installing security systems in Virginia and somewhere else after training, living in extended stay hotels, or living separate, storage units, working at Lowe's, doing online therapy, and moving to Florida, or Texas, or anywhere!

FINAL PLAN **SUBJECT TO CHANGE**:
1- Pack our house with 7 days notice while still working
2- Pay out the nose to break our lease
3- Move in 2 trucks and tow car on Wednesday Apr 18 to our home that we still own in PCB FL. (Currently going through deed in lieu of foreclosure - basically where you give the bank back your house and you are forgiven your loan. We are not going to go through with it anymore and try to get a workout option instead. We are going to try and save our house and save our credit. It will feel so good to do both of those even though it will be smaller than we are used to. 2 bed/2 bath townhome with garage! IN A PLACE WE LOVE with people we LOVE and being able to actually save money again. We have got to put back the money that is almost gone or will be gone once we get there!)
4- Unload truck and drop off Saturday. Drive back up to SC to new place in Hilton Head SC - on the beach. It looks like we have found a 2 bed 2 bath furnished house for short term rent for 800/mo - cheaper than staying in an extended stay hotel. YAY. Hopefully it is close to the beach because we still only have one car. Maybe we will take Luke to work everyday. Hmmm. That would be okay. Turn us into early birds hopefully. ;)
5- Work in school in Hilton Head until first week in June.
6- Interview for Bay County school job in May to start next year (county our house is in).
7- Move to our home in FL to work summer school for the month of July for Washington County schools (where we worked before an hour away)
8- Interview for Washington County job who also has a job for next year as back up plan.
9- Decide if we don't get either job we will be good to do whatever job to stay in PCB FL or consider taking a job in Houston to be near my brother's family.
10- Continue working on HomeSpeechHome.com and other side endeavors with patience and hard work with the hope that OVER YEARS it will allow Luke to quit. :)

THAT'S the plan Stan! And whether we like it or not we are moving! I am not sad to leave Greenwood - several things we don't like here, but sad to leave a ward that needs a lot of help and people that we might have become good friends with. We will certainly miss the missionaries here for sure and the investigators I have become friends with. We can do the same in FL though. Even though it is a patch, I think we will have fun having a little vacation in Hilton Head on the beach with nothing there to compete for my attention. Just me and the girls, and dad after work. Who knows, maybe I will actually get to read a book for fun? I still have to work while we are there because I don't want to quit this close to the end of the school year but I have consolidated it to 1 hour/day. It should be an interesting summer. ;)

These challenges have been so hard, but we have always had our needs met. I can think of and know of a lot of people with a lot harder challenges. There are a lot of people who don't know where there next meal is coming from, and I can't imagine that. I feel so blessed and I am grateful to have my family. I love them so much. I know that we have grown closer together, we have learned what it is like to be unemployed, and that you can be happy without a lot of things and it is nice just to be able to pay the bills. We have learned how much we value stability. And most of all, it has helped Luke feel what it is like to not have stability, and extra money, and insurance, and he will continue working as an SLP in a school and love it because of how it takes care of his family and what it allows him to do. He will still keep working hard on things he is passionate about but never at the expense of taking care of his family again. :) I love that guy!

Re-doing those chairs, still not done but here's a preview

I got these 4 chairs when we first got here. Thrifted, black, blue, and mauve, grody, stained cushioned chairs. Super sturdy, great detail, and cheap!
The bench I haggled down to $15. I pulled off 4 eras of fabric with hundreds of staples and sore hands. Then Luke cut the balls off the top for meand put them on the bottom to match the table legs and then the tops would match the chairs.

Here is how they look now. Only half way there! I finally got me a staple gun so re-doing these cushions was a cinch.


Luke had the idea to replace the broken wicker backs with padded fabric backs. Genius. We are going to put copper nailhead trim around the backs as well.
The bench will have matching fabric and nailheads as well. I am also considering making a removable pad that goes the whole length of the bench so it will be easier to clean since it is where the girls sit.

Why am I stuck at this point?
Well, I still can't decide if I want to keep them pure white or antique/distress them to make them look worn like originally planned. Your thoughts? I have to decide before I can put the clear protective coats on. Still a ways to go, but they will get finished. Here a little, there a little. Then onto the table.

1 year, I mean... 18 month photos!

Finally got Katie's 1 year photos done... about 6 months late. Finally made an appt. at Walmart and then 2 days before the appt. I decided that that morning was better and became a walk-in customer. In the end, they printed me 3 extra prints in black and white in addition to what I ordered (you know the gimmick) and they priced them at 10.00 total, a fourth of what I paid for my original 3 sheets, so of course I bought them. I loved it so much that I replaced our wedding photo frame with the girls which kinda makes me smile sheepishly. :)

And we didn't get the fantastic job we were hoping for.

Still no job, but we are going to be okay. I have no worries about that! It is just a cloudy future. We just don't know the whens and hows.

More details later on what the job was and what happened and maybe what we are going to do now.

I know you are all thinking of us. Just don't worry. There are many other people who are going through much harder trials than ours. Mom/Dad/Lisa/Kevin/Karl n fam/Amy n fam/Rick/ Scarlett/and many more to list. We are grateful for our own.

Compilation on Fasting

Back in Feb I gave a talk on fasting which I learned a lot from. I wanted to record and share what I learned because I greatly increased my understanding and appreciation for fasting by compiling everything I could find from the scriptures and prophet’s talks. No longer will my main thoughts on fasting be going without food!

What is the History of Fasting?

· We don’t know exactly the circumstances under which fasting originated in ancient times. We do know it was associated with serious heartfelt sorrow for sin, mourning, and other occasions of strong emotion.

· We know Moses and Elijah, before Christ’s time, fasted to communicate w/ God.

· Public fasts were held for deaths of Saul & Jonathan and for assistance w/ wars.

· Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount that we “should be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance,” in other words be sincere. He fasted 40 days and 40 nights

· BOM prophets fasted too. Nephi fasted to give thanks. Sons of Mosiah had great success for 14 years of missionary work with Lamanites – they had much prayer and fasting so they had the spirit and taught w/ power and authority of God.

· After Christ’s time things were corrupted. You could be excommunicated for not fasting when ecclesiastical rule said to.

· The earliest members of this church fasted in secret when they needed close communion with HF. Prophet JS received revelation recorded in DC about fasting. DC 59: 13-14.

· Fasting did not become a regular thing in the church until after the Kirtland Temple was built and then they did it on the first Thursday of every month.

· Then finally in Nauvoo, they started fasting to provide for the poor like we do today.

· As the church grew, fasting on Thursdays caused a lot of people to miss work or close their shops to attend fast and testimony meeting so they First Presidency officially made “Fast Day” be the first Sunday of every month starting in Dec 1896.

· Members may fast any time they have a need, but the First Sunday is when we have a Fast and Testimony meeting and donate a fast offering for the poor and needy.

How Should We Fast?

· We don’t eat or drink for 24 hours or “even to even”- which means going without 2 meals. So if we eat dinner on Saturday night, we would not eat or drink again until the evening meal on Sunday.

· Sincere prayer at the beginning and end. If not we are just going hungry! Be cheerful, don’t do it to impress others and don’t advertise your fast!

· All those who are physically able should fast.

· Children after they turn 8, should be encouraged to fast. Gospel Principles: “If we teach our children to fast, they will develop the spiritual strength to overcome greater temptations later in their lives!”

· Take the Sacrament.

· Strengthen ourselves and others by bearing testimony.

· Give a generous fast offering of at least the cost of the 2 meals that your family did not eat.

I always forget this part of fasting – that we are doing it to help people who are in need. We are making ourselves feel hungry and what it is to want which is just a small taste of how some people who need our help might feel. I never thought of that it is GOOD for us to feel hungry on Fast Sunday!

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, “When we fast, brethren and sisters, we feel hunger. And for a short time, we literally put ourselves in the position of the hungry and the needy. As we do so, we have greater understanding of the deprivations they might feel. When we give to the bishop an offering to relieve the suffering we not only do something sublime for others, but we do something wonderful for ourselves as well. King Benjamin taught that as we give of our substance to the poor, we retain “a remission of our sins from day to day.“

So how much should we pay in fast offerings? Elder Wirthlin said, “My brothers and sisters, the measure of our offering to bless the poor is a measure of our gratitude to our HF. Will we, who have been blessed so abundantly, turn our backs on those who need our help? Paying a generous fast offering is a measure of our willingness to consecrate ourselves to relieve the suffering of others.

Elder Marion G. Romney said, “Be liberal in your giving, that you yourselves may grow. Don’t give just for the benefit of the poor, but give for your own welfare. Give enough so that you can give yourself into the Kingdom of God through consecrating of your means and your time.”

“I believe the most practical way to protect one’s self and family against economic need is to make liberal contributions for the support to the Lord’s poor according to the law of the Gospel. I am not promising you riches, but I am telling you that this is the most practical way to protect yourselves and families from actual need.”

What if everyone in the world observed the law of the fast and paid a fast offering? President Hinckley said if they did “the hungry would be fed, the naked clothed, the homeless sheltered. Our burden of taxes would be lightened. The giver would not suffer but would be blessed by this small abstinence. A new measure of concern and unselfishness would grow in the hearts of people everywhere. Can anyone doubt the divine wisdom that created this program which has blessed the people of this church as well as many who are not members of this church?”

So Why Do We Fast and What are the Different Purposes?

1- To draw near to God

2- To worship God

3- To overcome weaknesses

4- To overcome problems

5- For help/guidance for others (Mosiah 27: 22-23)

6- To come to know the truth of things (Alma 5:46 & Elder Lavulo)

7- To help others embrace the truth (sons of Mosiah to the Lamanites)

8- For comfort in times of sorrow and mourning (Alma 28:4-6)

9- To help us become humble

10- To feel closer to HF (Helaman 3:35)

11- To get in tune with God

12- To set aside temporal things to enjoy higher qualities of the spiritual

13- To express gratitude for Him.

WOW! 13 purposes to fast, that I collected out of church literature. I never knew you could do it for each of those personal reasons. And even to just express GRATITUDE. I wish I knew that before because there has been a few times when Luke and I will ask each other what we should fast for and we can’t think of anything anyone or ourselves needs. It’s not just for needs! Just fast to be humble or to say thank you or to get closer to God. So cool!!!

What Blessings Come From Fasting?

1- It’s good for our bodies – improved health.

2- Helps our minds be more active.

3- We feel at peace.

4- Get spiritual guidance.

5- Improves our lives.

6- Adds to our strength against temptation.

7- Helps us live other gospel principles because we are closer to the Lord ex: stop smoking

8- Gain strength of character.

9- Learn to control appetites and passions.

10- We prove to ourselves we have self-control so we are a little stronger.

11- Develop our faith = greater spiritual power like Alma and sons of Mosiah.

12- Increases the power of your words – missionary work and patriarchal blessings

13- Our homes our filled with peace.

14- Our spirit is energized.

15- We get courage.

16- We get confidence.

17- Helps us with our families, work, and callings.

18- Lightens our hearts and we have joy.

19- Prepares us for times of adversity

20- We better understand the needs of those less fortunate.

21- Opens the window of Heaven.

That is 21 specific blessings that can occur when we fast. I don’t know about you but I want my home to be filled with peace and I want my words to be more powerful. I want to be stronger against sin and adversity. I want to be healthier and have an active mind and energized spirit.

After researching this talk I think fasting is so cool. It is such a cool tool that we can use in the way that we all personally need it. And no longer will the hunger bother me because I will remember it is just a taste of what other who need my help feel. I challenge all of us to fast with real purpose to be glad to fast and to give as generously as you can , even in times when you have less, keep your offering the same and I know you will be blessed. We have always paid our tithing and fast offerings even when it was hard and we have always been taken care of. Even in this time of not having a job – we are going to be okay. I gained peace and faith and courage because of my recent fast.

Isaiah testified of the blessings that come when we fast: "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. . . . If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not" (Isaiah 58:8–11).

Just Playin' Around with My Two Bozos

I just kept saying "You come back here!" and they would laugh and laugh and run back against the wall. So fun to just laugh and count my two favorite blessings.