My mind is made up and Happy Birthday

Okay well a while back I wrote about changing positions at work. Very shortly after that I was informed that the amount of money I had been told would be the difference in the two salaries was WRONG! Long story short, the amount I was told was pretty much way off. So after prayer, discussion, and thinking long and hard I have made my decision. I am staying on as Secretary. I was looking forward to LESS STRESS! But I didn't feel like I could turn down that much money. (Not that it's a lot of money total.) Believe me it's NOT! But originally I was told my check would only go down about 35 dollars a pay check. I could definitely have handled that. But that is not the case. So anyway, I will continue to do what I have been doing for the last several years. I know that God is in control and that I can do all things through Him, so that is the plan.
This weekend we got to go see Avery. She is doing a little better. This is while she was enjoying some delicious sweet potatoes. She is still coughing unfortunately, but was more back to herself. As long as she is coughing she has to continue the breathing treatments. Pray that she will be well soon. Even though she has had to endure all this sickness she smiled and was sweet while we were there. She helped her mommy open her birthday presents. We celebrated Casey's birthday this weekend but actually it is this Wednesday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET BABY GIRL! I really cannot believe she is 24 years old! Man twenty four years! Wow I remember that day 24 years ago, which certainly does not seem that long ago. I had been in labor for a good bit of the day. We had played cards and such at my moms house. When the pains started getting stronger I went home and showered and did my hair and makeup, LOL and off to the hospital. No point in the hair and makeup thing, cause she wasn't born until 9:00 am the next morning. No more makeup left, and the hair, well... I remember being so glad all that pain stuff was over, but they took her away so quickly. It was much of the day later when they finally brought her to us. Todd had been out in the hall lurking, waiting and watching for them to bring her. I had buzzed and buzzed asking "When are they bringing her?" But finally they did and she was so completely beautiful. We were so blessed to have her, and we still are 24 years later.

Recipe Post

Tonight's supper was GREAT! So I thought I would share it with you! I may do a recipe post from time to time. I love to cook and eat. :) I love to get new recipes so here are a few of mine.

My Menu? ..... Grilled Pork Chops, Party Mashed Potatoes, Old Style Corn, Mozzarella Salad, & Peanut Butter Blossoms. Oh by the way, I didn't say anything about it being LOW FAT.Party Mashed Potatoes
1 15.3 oz Box of Instant Mashed Potatoes
5 Cups Water
1 1/2 Sticks butter
Garlic Salt, Onion Powder
1 Cup Milk
1 8oz pkg Cream Cheese
16 oz Sour Cream
Paprika

1. HEAT oven to 350`. Spray a 9 x 12 baking dish with cooking spray. Set aside. Heat Water, butter, seasonings, to boil in large saucepan. Remove from heat. Add Cream cheese, milk and sour cream, stirring until smooth.
2. Stir in potatoes. Mix well. Spread into baking dish.
3. Sprinkle with paprika and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour until golden brown.

Old Style Corn
3 Slices Bacon
3 Cups frozen Corn
Ground Pepper
2/3 cup Heavy Cream

1. Cook bacon in heavy skillet over medium heat until crispy. Drain bacon on paper towel. Add corn to skillet. Add pepper. Cook stirring often until corn begins to brown.
2. Add cream and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat. Simmer 15 minutes. Crumble bacon and add to corn. Stir well and serve.

Mozzarella Salad
Mozzarella balls packed in water or string cheese sliced in chunks
Sun dried Tomatoes in Oil
Fresh Basil Leaves
Splash of Balsamic Vinegar

Mix all ingredients together and allow to sit for a few minutes.

Peanut Butter Blossoms
48 Hershey's Kisses
1/2 cup Shortening
3/4 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/3 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Light Brown Sugar
1 Egg
2 Tbsp Milk
1 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
Sugar

1. Heat oven to 375` Remove foil from kisses.
2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl. Add 1/3 cup sugar and brown sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla and beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.
3. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 minutes. Immediately press a chocolate kiss into center of each cookie. Cookie will crack around edges. Allow to cool.

Its all delicious. You should try it. If you do, let me know!!!

Wordless Wednesday-Blast from the Past

Quick Answer

Thanks for the prayer. We already know all is good. I am too tired now to give the long explanation so I will do that another day but Thank you for your prayers. We are soooo thankful for the good outcome of Averys tests today and for the quick answer to our prayers. What an awesome God! More later.

Prayer Request

Just in case there is anyone out there who doesnt get my e mails, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pray for Avery. This is not about the RSV. She is doing ok with that. They took some x-rays today. We will have results tomorrow. Without details, it sounds serious. Again, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pray for Avery. Thanks so much.

Weekend Happenings

Wow, there is a lot going on. First of all and most important our sweet little Avery Grace is SICK! Really sick. Casey (who is sick too) took her to the doctor this morning. She unfortunately has RSV! The thing you try the hardest not to let them get when they are preemies. Thats the whole reason for no daycare, no big crowds, and no Sunday School. But despite doing everything right, she got it anyway. Thankfully though, they caught it early. She has to take breathing treatments twice a day and some other medicine. They will go back to the doctor on Tuesday and see if it has gone away. PLEASE PRAY IT WILL BE GONE! We are thankful she didnt have to go into the hospital and are praying she wont have to. Since Casey is sick and they dont want us to catch it they told us not to come there. So unless they need us to we are staying here. So a little bit after hearing that news, I walked into the kitchen and heard water running. I knew it sounded like the ice maker. I opened the freezer when water began pouring out of the freezer and splashing on my feet. Looking at my feet is when I noticed the water on the floor!!!! YIKES! The ice maker had gotten stuck and was just running and running. We had to sop all the water from the bottom of the freezer. Wow my hands were cold!!!! Then we had to take out the drawers and sop all the water out of the bottom of the refrigerator! Then mop up the floor, then move the refrigerator out and clean that nasty wet mess up from under it, then put it all back. That was a big job. Sooooo thankful we hadnt already left before finding this little problem. It would have then been a BIG problem! This is balloon race weekend. We did finally get out to see a few balloons this afternoon.

While we were there we met up with some friends and enjoyed watching their kids play. It was sweet seeing their excitement over the hot air balloons.
We even met up with Josh while we were there!

It was a beautiful day. Finally a little cooler. We went on over to get us some grub. Nothing like that food you can get at those things!
Chicken On A Stick
Bloomin Onion

We enjoyed us some fresh squeezed lemonade and really had a nice time. We weren't planning on going this year. But I am really glad we did.

Secretary - Paraprofessional

Okay, after blogging about winning Secretary of the Year, now I must confess that I am moving on from that position. If the award had come before hearing about this position, I may not have been brave enough to do this. Maybe I should say I would have been too embarrassed to go through with it if I had gotten the award first. But the ball was already rolling when I was given the award. This is what happened. A position came open at our school that I checked into. The position is for para-professional in the special ed department. This was not a position I previously ever thought I would take. When this job became available, I looked a little harder at it. I told my boss (Happy Boss's Day) that I was interested. He checked into the difference in pay for me. the difference was a whopping $400 per year! Now for the $400 less per year, which is like 33.00 less a month, I don't have to be at work until the bell in the mornings, and can leave at the bell in the afternoon, as opposed to coming in at 7:30 and staying till 4. I am off all summer, as opposed to working 2 weeks after school is out, and coming back 2 weeks before school starts, and also coming in 2 or 3 days in between to pay bills. Most importantly I dont have the stress of auditors, financial reports, principals reports, deadlines, and doing the tons of things at one time that I do. I can almost feel the release of pressure now! At first I was so nervous about the change. (I blogged earlier about change when I first found out about this.) But now I am not so much nervous as excited. I am feeling guilty though. I am trying not to. But I seriously want the next secretary to be good. I want her to be helpful to my principal. I know it will take a while for her to get in the swing of things. That is one reason that I took this job, so that I can be there to help train her. I was not given that luxury when I started. So as much as I am looking forward to moving out of my position, I am also concerned that whoever comes in will do a good job. SO PLEASE PLEASE PRAY FOR WHOEVER SHE IS! Thanks :) I really think this job change will be good for me and my family. It may even mean more Avery time.

6th file, 6th picture

Hey, I found this on another blog. This is what you do. Go to your 6th file in your pictures. Then find the 6th picture and post it. So I did it. It is interesting to see which of your photos it will be. Here is what I found.

Imagine that, its AVERY! Who would have believed?!

Award

This week I was honored to receive an award! I was awarded as Louisiana's Support Personnel Person of the Year. In other words "Secretary of the Year" Cool! I was so surprised. This is how I found out. Todd had come up to the school to pick up something he needed. A few minutes before Todd got to the school, one of Joshua's teachers had been in Mr. Browns office. This particular teacher had called Josh to his room the day before in reference to something that had happened or been said in his room that concerned Josh in some way. (I never really did get that whole story). Anyway, after Todd got there Mr. Brown called my desk and in a serious tone asked me to come into his office ASAP. So thinking Josh may be in some trouble, I told Todd to hang around just in case thats what it was about. So I went in and that teacher was no longer in there, but Jana was. (our Assistant Principal). So I took a seat a little nervously, and that is when Mr. Brown told me I won this great award! I was so surprised. I asked how I got it. Mr. Brown pointed to Ms. Jana, as Ms. Jana pointed to Mr. Brown. Apparently He asked her to write something about me as a nomination for it. I won! Way cool. I was excited. I walked out to let Todd, who was waiting patiently, know that it wasn't bad news, it was good news! So on Thursday night we had to attend the School Board meeting to receive my "recognition". I worked till almost 4:00 on Thursday and went home. Upon arriving at my drive way, I noticed a red car parked. I wondered who was at our house. Then I saw Casey and Avery standing outside waiting on me! I was so excited (again). Mr. Brown had worked it all out so that they would be able to be at the meeting. It was very nice. Even Josh went! I received a pretty certificate hand signed by the State Superintendent of Education. Also Ms. Jana presented me with a very generous cash gift from the faculty and staff. After the meeting we went to Pearl Street Pasta for supper. It was delicious and Avery did great. What a nice day! That's not all. Mr. Brown gave me Friday off, to spend with Avery and her mommy and daddy. We did a little shopping but mostly just enjoyed playing with Avery. I have attached a video of some of her babblings! So sweet! What a different and special time. Hope your week was wonderful too.


Avery enjoyed seeing us too as you can tell from that great smile!

Trust Him

There are so many important things going on in our country right now. If you really look at it and think on it for any amount of time, it can really begin to worry you. What in the world is happening? Why must everything be like this? What will happen? We don't really know in any detail with is gonna go down. What we do know is God is in control. What we need to learn is HOW to trust Him.
Sometimes it feels like our own lives are in the same state as the Nation is right now. Our lives are busy, crazy, questionable, and unaffordable. We are pulled in one direction after another, after another, after another. Today I came home after a really busy full day. My mind was spinning. I came in and couldn't even sit down. I just kept spinning. I made the bed, unloaded the dishwasher, and started supper among other things. I just continued in the rush mode. After supper about three hours after I got home I finally felt that my head had stopped spinning. Now that was after a day where I was just rushed and on a deadline, and very busy and interrupted. Nothing major or terrible happened though. Actually there are many many days like today. There are other days when major things do happen. Like the day I went to Casey's for a sonogram. It was her first pregnancy. We were going to find out if it was a boy or a girl. What we found out though was that our sweet baby boy was already with Jesus. My head was spinning that day too, in a different direction. What I did know was God was in control. What I needed to learn was HOW to trust Him in it. We did learn how, day by day, to trust Him through that time. We learned to look at miracle after miracle and see how God moved through each thing.
So with the things happening in this country and with our busy lives, we need to trust God. On our calm normal days, and our days when we are spinning like a top, we need to trust God. With the things that happen that we don't know how we will make it through, we need to trust God. He IS in control. We just need to look and see what God has done previously and remember His grace. We need to trust Him day by day, and moment by moment.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5

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Wordless Wednesday