Monthly Archives: March 2009

Lexi Love

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So, tonight is the first night of Puppy Training. I’m rather excited. Although, from the picture below, we have pretty much trained her how to sit and stay. Hopefully, she doesn’t embarass the other puppies too bad. I mean I’m already a bit concerned that she’ll steal all of the attention from the teacher as she is the cutest dog in the world. The poor thing is still sick, so hopefully, she will be back to normal in another week. Thankfully, she doesn’t need any more medicine. Jon is coming to the realization, she might be an “expensive” child to have. We have been through one bag of dog food in almost 3 weeks, and he thinks that’s bad, and when I say one bag of food, I mean a 6lb. bag of food.

We had small group at our house on Sunday night because our host family was at a wedding. It was a lot of fun, and it’s so funny how small our house feels with lots of people, but how huge it feels with just Jon and me. I guess it’s a good thing we like to entertain.  I started tearing down the ceiling in the hallway on Saturday, so I’m pretty excited to get that finished. Jon’s office (currently, Dan’s bedroom) is next on the chopping block for remodel. It’s going to be his b-day present…which is kind of fun because he told me I can use my “Creative genius” to decorate it, and he won’t see the colors and what not until I’m done.

Work is going well. Audit season is over, and tax season is moving into the less stressful stage. Basically, anyone that we haven’t filed their return yet has been extended until October, so we can work on them at our leisure. Studying is not going so well. I found out that I did NOT pass my second section. I failed by 7 points. Wow, what a miserable feeling?  I have my next exam sometime in May, and I’m extremely nervous because it’s supposed to be the hardest exam, and I’m only 11 pages into the book.

I start official marathon training tomorrow. I’m nervous, but excited to start getting into shape and hopefully, meeting my goal of finishing a marathon. Well, that’s all I can think to update you on at this point. Have an awesome week!!!!

Lexi Love

Lexi Love

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The economy is not bad…..

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My view on the economy is a simple one. We have sin nature, and we are all greedy. I know some may read this and back away saying “I’m not greedy.” Okay, so maybe you’re not greedy, but are you content? I’ll give two examples why I think our country, myself included, are greedy, discontent people.

 

Jon and I make it a habit of reading through the sale ads in our FREE newspaper on Wednesdays. I was reading through the Bi-Lo ad, one of our local grocery stores, and noted an interesting page. The sides of the page had the word essentials written on it. Let me list a few of the “essential” items that were there: Ice Cream, Ice Cream Bars, Coke, Pizza Rolls, Crinkle Cut French Fries, Cocoa Puffs, Master of mixes (alcoholic), Martini Gold Cocktail mixers, and much more. NOW, those are not bad things…well a couple of them may be, but my issue is when did Ice Cream become an “essential” in our world. Why aren’t we just thankful to have meat on our tables rather than just rice? We have lost sight of what we need. I have a very hard time hearing people complain about how poor they are, but they have the new I-phone or some similar expensive toy. I’m guilty of this as well. Frequently, I see a car that I may want to replace my Buick, but the key word of that sentence is WANT. I don’t NEED a new car….yes, it would be nice, but it’s not essential to my survival.

 

So, you say, “I don’t fall into that category.” Well, now to you, how many of you in the last six months have said “this weather is miserable?” I sometimes wonder what God thinks of us…Take for example, two weeks ago, we had some AWESOME weather that started on Monday, and when I say awesome I mean it was mid 70’s, light breeze, birds chirping, sun shining weather. The meteorologists were calling for rain Friday through Sunday. I did not hear one person say this weather is gorgeous….you know what I heard “the weather is supposed to be dismal this weekend.” I think God sometimes sits in heaven going, “What do they want?” They complain about too much rain, they complain about too much sun, they complain about too much this they complain about too much that.” I’m thankful God doesn’t get tired of our complaining, and when I say get tired, I mean he doesn’t kick us out the front door and say FINE you do it and have it your way.

 

So, I’m not sure what prompted me to write this, maybe a boiling point of frustration at complainers in our world, or unwise spenders, or greedy discontent people, but BE THANKFUL. We are all blessed far more than we deserve even in this “bad” economy. Without God, we wouldn’t have ANYTHING, but somehow, we are so quickly to let even simple complaints about the weather come off our tongue.

We serve a creative and intentional Lord!

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I know I haven’t written in a long time, but it’s because I have been busy enjoying life. Work is still a bit crazy at times. I have been doing a lot of tax returns. I have been doing individuals, corporate, and partnership taxes. Did you know that the Internal Revenue Code is confusing and convoluded?  I’m in the process of my last regular audit this week which is kind of excited. It means I have almost survived my first audit season and that I will be getting my Saturdays back soon.

As you know, Jon and I have been working hard on our gardens. Jon planted most of his veggies today and a couple of my flowers. We had also bought some marigolds to keep the bugs away and some petunias for my hanging basket and around the mailbox. We had also bought a new bench for our swing because it was anyday that someone would fall and break their neck because the old bench had rotted. WELL, Jon was creative enough to make the bench of the old swing useful in our veggie garden. He made the seat portion a wall for the beanstalks to climb up. I think it looks really cool in the garden. I want to make a sign of some sort for the top of the bench, but who knows.  Hopefully, you like the pictures. Spring is such an amazing time of year. It’s been SO much fun to watch these little seeds or bulbs that God made grow into plants and beautiful flowers.

Lexi has been doing well. She has developed a very fun personality. She likes to play outside with Jon and me, and she does this cute little bark if she isn’t included in what you’re doing. We’re still working on the potty training. Accidents are very few and far between, it seems to happen only when she is being watched by a male…. She only spends the day in her cage other than that she is out playing with us which is a ton of fun. She likes playing fetch with a golf ball which is a bit strange, but she likes it. She just learned how to go down the stairs today. She learned how to come up the stairs last week , but if she wanted back down, she would just stand at the top and wimper until you came to carry her down. She got her first set of shots last week and the vet said we need to bring her back often because she is so cute. On Saturday, we took her to the dog park that is in downtown Greenville. I was a bit nervous since she is still so small, but she did really well, and she was the star of the park. She doubled her weight in one week according to the vet…Jon is hoping that is not a regular occurence. 😉

Well, I better get going. I need to do a bit of work tonight, and I would like to relax…I know it’s  foreign term, but I need to start studying this weekend for my next exam so I better take advantage while I can.

Some more pictures of our daughter….

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We have really enjoyed our first two nights with our beautiful daughter….I went to work this morning and missed her ALL day. She got to go to the puppy salon and the vet for the very first time. Everyone raved that she did a wonderful job, and she was the star of Petsmart….everyone wanted to come pet her. We also had everyone over last night, and she does so well with the kids. Enjoy our little girl…..

Blizzard to Spring in 5 days

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Today it was high 80’s, and it was beautiful!!! Yesterday, I left work a bit early to enjoy the beauty. I called my sister (who was staying at my mom’s) to see if I could come play with the kids. She said yes, and she actually left me with the kids while she and mom went shopping. While they were away, we all sat/played in the back yard and tried to get some pictures. It was so fun to be with them. Afterwards, Jon and I went to play tennis with a friend of mine from high school and his wife. We went to dinner together and then we went to play some more games. It was a great night of fellowship.

Jon and I spent this afternoon working on the house. Jon scrubbed down our porch and hung some shingles on our roof while I battled this giant bush we have…it’s a pompass grass bush so it’s miserable to deal with, but it looks much better now. AND, of course, our babies got to sit in the sun for a bit today. Look at how much they have grown…..

More pictures…”Blizzard” 2009

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In random order…..

Do you remember the excitement about Spring???

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Well, winter came. This is our first snow/ice of the winter season. It started at 3ish and has NOT stopped…it’s actually getting heavier. Here’s a progression of the snow fall.

Also, in my last post I forgot to tell you about the garden Jon and I started. We planted some veggies and some flowers in some cups in the house. We have been watering them faithfully and some are already sprouting up.

The remaining pictures are of my mock trial team that competed yesterday. We didn’t do too well, but we did 1000 times better than last year. Since it’s our 2nd year in the program, I woudl say it was TRULY successful. Enjoy the pretty pictures.