A Maxwell 101

(photo: Rod is his new "WORK" clothes! He's holding his official Microsoft badge.) We did Friday school registration today. Got there at 8am, left about 2:15pm. It went relatively flawless. Rod normally works the door and calls numbers. We really missed him today because he was at his new job! We got Tami to fill his shoes, and she had big shoes to fill! She did a great job! She even thought to get out the PA system to call out numbers. (Rod & I have talked about it in the past, we didn't think we had permission to use it! - Yay, Tami!)

I took both of our monitors (19" & 22") to use so that as we are inputting kids classes and data that parents can verify and follow along as we input the info. I've been doing this the last two terms. Well, since Rod got his monitor last month, we realized that Traci could use his and do the same thing. It was instant confirmation of a great idea... SHE LOVED IT!


(Photo: Julia & Leah. Four girls played dressup while we were at Amanda's tonight. I got these two on camera. Beautiful!) What I love about helping at registration is the chance to be excited to greet each Mom as she comes through to register her kids. I love seeing their faces when I call them by name (people have told me that there's no way I know all their names, I do know most... because I've chosen to. People love to hear their names. It's Maxwell 101!) I truly believe that relationships are one of the most important things to God!!!

When you have a chance to make a first of the term impression by being excited to see someone, I really believe it makes a difference. I don't just input classes - I love on the people that I am inputting classes for. Is that hard? No. When the Lord puts you in a place that you are supposed to be, I really believe that it often comes naturally for you. For now, this is where I be!

(Photo: Julia and Jessie. Jessie tells me frequently that Julia needs a baby to play with! Love you Jess!) The boys were to go to a birthday party afterwards & Mechel took them over. Later I picked up our boys and an extra (his mom picked him up after she got off work.) Then Rod came home from work. We took the Jos & Jed over to Dana's for an overnight birthday party. On the fly - Amanda called & invited us over for pizza & salad... 5 adults & 9 kids. It was really good to get together! Although, after not seeing Rod all day, I can say that I struggled getting together with others instead of spending a quite evening together at home... The girls played dress up. You'll see Julia & Leah in the pix.

Rod brought home his laptop from work today. His boss said that he could load his Adobe software (which means he won't have to carry his laptop from home!). Our kids will be thrilled! They can use dads computer for stuff during the day. Woohoo! OR maybe I can just take my laptop down to Fry and see if they can check into a couple things for me. (bad headphone jack & my SD card reader doesn't seem to be working today - it was yesterday...)

I'm incredibly thankful for a group of friends that I enjoy getting together with. I know that they would like me to be available more on a spur of the moment basis, it just seems my life is busy and it's easier when I plan. They get me, and I'm trying to stay in touch with them on more of a day to day, phone call and check up on them basis.

(photo: Julia in her dress up tutu. Something that I would not ever have the confidence to wear. Might as well go bungee jumping!!) Then for while Rod's working, we were thinking of loading music onto his work laptop. I asked him if he'd like to use my Zune instead. All it needs is speakers (we have those if needed) and he can listen to whatever is on my Zune. There's tons of music and some books on tape too. I imagine next week he'll see if that's viable.

Rod has the weekend off. So, i'm hoping we'll have some good times together this weekend. They boys are starting to look like they need some Daddy time!

We were settled.

(Photo: Fanfest 2009. In the dugout - we take this picture every year!)

Today was a day off of sorts. Didn't really have much that needed to be done. Those days are nice.

Rod had a good 2nd day at work. Strange really, him being in a completely city from where I am! I can't just go down to where he works and have lunch with him or ask him to run an errand on his lunch break. I just itch to give him a call - but don't. I hear traffic reports and they perplex me - I've never had to pay attention to those highways and roads down south when I listen to the traffic report! Until now.

Rod reminded me today that I am supposed to do something for someone to show love today (small group thing) and told me that I should call and catch up with Janet - who I wasn't able to finish a conversation with yesterday. Did that, it was a call well spent.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not much of a phone person. I wish that I had never set up the voicemail on my cell phone, because I don't like to listen to the messages. Strange I know. Probably just a personality flaw :D

Today, I spent so much time on the phone that I felt like it was glued to my ear! All my peeps should be proud! Anyway, Jessie and Janet will be.

All I wanted to do tonight was to sit on the couch with Rod. Didn't see him all day and then busy in the evening. I've been taking all of our time together for granted! Yes, I'm still being a sap and I missed him so much.

Instead of snuggling on the couch, we were supposed to meet others at EBC to prep for friday school registration. Rod met me at home and we zipped over to EBC and helped get cords and tables etc. hooked up. Also did the paperwork for the registration helpers.

I really shouldn't type long... must finish pulling computer gear and packing for friday school registration tomorrow. I take our new fangeled monitors, so that people can see what I'm typing in as I register their kids in classes. Most everyone loves it of course! I'm taking Rod's too so that Traci can use it.

With Rod working we are going to have to be on a completely different schedule. He's leaving early, tomorrow at 6:30am so that he can be there about 8:00am give or take. So I gave him a kiss and sent him to bed (much earlier than we've been going to bed for the last few months). Ya'll know I'm a night owl. Hoo Hoo!

I feel like, to some extent, we are back in the real world. We've been living in a strange fantasy world for the last 7 months. Although, it's been somewhat of a roller coaster fantasy world. Up's, down's, twist's and turn's.

This time last year, Rod had a comfy job that basically paid our bills... that was 8 minutes from home. We were settled. Now - he's going to school, on unemployment, working at Microsoft, completely unsure of where we will be this time next year or who he will be working for. Unsettled.

This time next year, He should have a couple of certificates and possibly an ATA from Skagit... but all else seems so uncertain. For now, I have a peace about it all - and there's only one place where that could come from!

Logically speaking, there's no reason I should even be sane with what we've gone through the last few months. For the first time since we've been married, I truly believe that we are honestly trusting in the Lord for many many things - income, family time, schooling as well as day to day things.

God Has a Sense of Humor

Kids went to the Dentist today. No cavaties. It seemed like I was in there forever this time! When they were done with cleanings, they asked if they could pull one of Josiah's back molars. I guess to help the permanent one come in straighter. Then they asked to put a sealant on one of Jedediah's molars. New toothbrushes, stickers and balloons.

Went to History club which is usually at the Souths. Today it was at the Dahls. We heard lots of good history today. Monthly, I am amazed at how great the kids do with their history projects. Josiah did his on Paul Revere's Ride. Jedediah and Jaden took part by riding stick horses in front of the group and saying, "The British are coming!" They enjoyed that tremendously.

I am continually amazed at how much Josiah is like Rod. His confidence in front of others, his ability... I really enjoy watching him talk about what he learns. Here soon, we're going to have to help Jedediah get into it, because I know that he'll also do fantastic.

Went to Jessie's after history, cause I said I would stop by. Didn't want to go home - missing Rod too much. Timmy invited Josiah to boy's small group and Jessie invited me to the dinner/bible study.

When I talked to Rod while he was still in Redmond, I asked if he would be willing to meet me at the church. That I would hold a plate for him. He said sure. A few funny things happened thereafter. Most everyone knows that Rod and I haven't been going to church consistently since we left Smokey Point. Yes, we know we need to be in church, but which one?

Ironies of the Evening:
♥Jessie invited us - and we were available.
♥We sat down at the young peoples table - important later
♥Went out to watch the bible study video - it was 40 days of community
♥This was the first week of the study - on a "hot" topic of mine, that relationships are one of the most important things to God! NO ONE but Rod really knows how strongly I feel about that!
♥40 days of community was the bible study that we wanted to do when we were at SPCC and didn't get involved in b'c I was pregnant with Julia. Always wished we had.
♥We have been thinking of getting involved in a local church -wishing we knew some people first
♥Went to the small group - the people we ate dinner with!
♥In small group - connected with a couple of people that we could easily become friends with
♥Two people in our small group work at the church - in the last few weeks, Rod and I have thought about asking if we could use the facilities occasionally for First Class but lacked the church connections

What's the point? God has a sense of humor. Awhile back, we went to CTK MV and I thought we should be there. We hadn't made a committment to going back. Rod & I realized that we need to get back into the church scene. We know people all over and we just don't know which church to get planted at. Looks like He figured it out for us! That's an answer to prayer!

So, it looks like we will be participating in their Wed night group, will be able to make friends and then see them at church. If you would have asked me last night if we were going to be a part of a small group, I would have said, I don't think so!

Rod met me there, saw what I had gotten us into - and was a fantastic sport. (He was a site for sore eyes!) He's such a great guy. Daily, I am so blessed that we got married. Not many people I know would have walked into the frying pan and came out with a smile. Yet, that's Rod. We both knew we were *supposed* to be there. He truly knows how to go with the flow.

Afterwards, the youth leaders seemed as if they really liked Josiah. He told us at story time tonight that the youth leaders were super impressed because he piped up and said he'd say the blessing at the beginning of the night. (We regularly have the kids pray at dinner - never too early to get their practice in praying in front of others! I guess it paid off tonight :D)

Came home, read the kids a story and got them to bed. Then Rod and I sat and chatted about how his day went. I suppose there are aspects of his job he isn't telling me about or even going to tell me about. I'm okay with that though. His commute was
just over an hour each way. So glad it isn't longer!

Although, him working is such an adjustment. I missed him ALL day. I tried to keep telling myself, to chipper up. I know I need to be grateful that we are married, that he wants to be with me and the kids. I was just glad that I was busy ALL day. I shouldn't be a baby, a friend of mine, her husband died last year. Another friend of mine, is getting a divorce. Another, her husband is on deployment for 6 months. Rod is after all, just going to a normal job! Now, I'm off to make Rod's lunch, get stuff together and ready for tomorrow. He'll be out of the house at 7 AM - quite a change from our "normal" schedule!

I got 16!

At 7am this morning we went to the free breakfast at Denny's with Amanda & kids, Jessie & kids & the Hill kids & our family. There were 16 of us. Four adults, 12 kids. We got there first, got a set of tables lined up. Most of us sat at 3 tables connected, and then four big kids sat at a table a bit away. It was quite a bit of fun. I've found out in the last few weeks that I really enjoy eating out with friends!

We ALL at the free grand slam breakfast. There were 16 breakfasts on one receipt, all 0.00. That was too cool. The cashier hollered at the manager "I got 16." I think they were hoping to get a large number of free meals on a receipt with nothing else on it. (We bought us three girls coffee & Rod hashbrowns = $7.50). It felt so wierd walking out of Denny's without paying paying.

Then we came home. Rod went to the store to get me something to settle my stomach and to go run a couple of errands. When he got home, I had been taking a nap and Julia was sleeping on my lap. Last night she woke up at 4:30am and coughed for over an hour. Gave her cough medicine, but it didn't really seem to stop until she fell asleep. Needless to say, 7 am came quickly!

Rod still hadn't heard from the temp company, so he gave them a call. Someone talked to him that he hasn't spoken with before. He asked what the hold up was. The temp agency has been trying to get ahold of someone at OfficeMax for a job referral... uh, he hasn't worked there in 11 years! We looked up his old managers work number and gave it to the temp agency. His old boss works at Kohls in Burlington!

Anyway, so they sent him a confirmation email. Said that he's officially hired. And - that he starts work in the morning. He has to go in to the temp agency and take in paperwork and then he heads over to the office building in Redmond where he will be working for a few months.

I feel so relieved that we actually know what's going on... and now I can make plans!

He's not going to be able to help out at registration for friday school, so we are trying to find someone to do his job. Two people have told me no... One's not going to do friday school this time, the other is just too busy. I finally called Polli and gave it to her. I have many things that I really need to get done... I don't know if I have the time to dig someone up.

So we went and got Rod a few new clothes tonight. We personally haven't bought clothes in awhile. No real need when you're not working and there's not much money. Unless it's a need, we haven't been replacing anything. While we were out, we found a sweatshirt, some cool striped green & black socks and a new pair of jeans for Josiah. Rod I think will enjoy what we got him as well. I think though, that I may be the wearer of Rod's new sweatshirt! :D

Although, I must say, when we usually go clothes shopping (I should have taken pictures...sometimes I just miss opportunities!) for work... I'm buying dress shirts and ties.. khaki pants and dress shoes. I felt like I was shopping for a Garrett's first day of school, not Rod's first day of work. Rod's been told that the dress code is hugely different than what he's used to... and we took it literally.

Then, shopped out.. we had to get home and get Josiah's History Club project done. We've been putting it off already. We officially did it on the last night at the 11th hour. We kept him up about 1.5 hours past his bed time for him to work on it and rehearse his presentation. I enjoy watching him give his presentation though. That's tomorrow at 1pm. I'm off to make Rod's lunch then off to bed!

Miss Spontaneous

You may be asking yourself *why* I have a photo of JRR Tolkien's LOTR ROTK!? I had had a set of old LOTR books on my shelf. When we had the FC Teen Christmas Party last December, we did a white elephant gift exchange.

I had found the boxed set on my shelf, minus ROTK. Because it had one missing, I thought it might be fun to give as a white elephant gift. A boy got it, Nicholas, and he was actually happy with it. I asked if I found the other book if he would want it. He said Yes. So, when I cleaned out my shelves (note below) I found it! Now, I just have to remember to get it to him. Nick, if you see this... here it is!

Grumpita. That should have been my name today: Little Grump!
For some reason, I just want to know whether or not this temp job for Rod is going to go.

Why? Because I have plans that need to be made, that should be done in a timely manner, that I cannot make. Teens from the teens group want dates. I need to know if I can go to the FCHM Leadership conference or not (working could affect whether or not He can go). I would like to know if it's going to interrupt Friday School. Will he be there for Registration or do I need a replacement helper??? Do we need to get a little commuter car with our tax return? (we do need to replace a car anyway) I'm sure I could think of a few more if I sat here long enough.

Funny thing is... I think it would be a great experience for him and honestly I would be a tad disappointed if he doesn't work for them, but all in all, I just want to know. Apparently, I'm not much of a waiter (we've been waiting for about a week). Would you like Coffee or Tea with your WHINE???

Off on another note, lately I've been working on the clutter condition of our home. The other night I totally redid our bookshelves in the living room. I moved the kid's schoolbooks so that they are easier to put away. I went through everything in all of the baskets. I put the electronics out of sight (baskets are my friend!). Now they are neat, neat, neat and I love 'em.

Tonight, I did something that I've never done. Bought one of those online programs that "supposedly" fixes your computer. My computer, whom I shall call, Miss Spontaneous (MS), has been spontaneously shutting off at odd moments. MS has been doing this for about 10 days.
(photo: Zindra's laptop, MS) At first, I just thought the battery died. What else would you think? Then it happened twice in one day. MS got SO bad that it took 2-3 times to turn her on. yah. So, Rod got to digging and found it could be registry errors. Apparently, according to my new program, I had 1700 of 'em. Paid. Fixed. Now it's wait and see if it's going to work or if I get my money back :D

Something I really am excited about - my photoshop program. I really can just scrap pages like digital scrapbooking or paper scrapbooking and use them as a base for my blog! That is just super neat! Tonight I changed my blog again! I'm really loving it! If you get this via email, take a look at my blog - you'll see what I mean! I'm sure at some point i'll get over it :D

Superbowl Sunday

(Josiah's Lincoln Log creation from yesterday.)

I'm so excited!!! I found a place online that explains how to create your own blog backgrounds! Yay! I'm super tired of the boring ones that blogger makes available. And ones that you find to put in your blog often don't work properly. I was a bit skeptical. Now, I'm totally loving it.

Bascially, I scrap a page in photoshop, leaving a certain amount of space for the blogpost area, and voila, I have a fun background. I've been trying to figure that one out for months! So, you'll probably see me change it pretty often.

Today a couple of things happened. First, this afternoon, Rod met with the guy from Microsoft to talk about the in's and out's of working there. Rod felt a lot better afterwards. Rod asked if I had any more questions, and I don't. Many things will get figured out along the way. Hopefully tomorrow, we'll find out if he actually gets hired. It will be nice to know, one way or the other.

We were invited a few days ago to a Superbowl party. We took our Xbox and spent some time with some good friends from Friday school. Met a few new people, ate some great food (I had a shrimp, and yes I am still allergic, bad zindra) and got caught up with a few old friends.

It's surprising to realize how much you really do have to catch up on when you haven't seen someone for awhile. We watched the game. I got introduced to the World of Warcraft game and watched teens play Halo 3.

Most close friends won't be surprised when I say this, but it wasn't that long ago that Rod and I didn't get invited over to friend's houses for parties! (Sometimes it takes awhile to get over getting hurt.) And we wouldn't have been comfortable at them either!

Nowadays, we love parties. Getting the chance to meet people, love on people, learn about people and encourage people. I always take the chance to ask people about things that they are interested in and/or things that they are extremely good at. I may not understand, but it's great to see peoples passion about the things they love to do.

We got home later than we had anticipated. Rod was supposed to get some homework done (he has to get a certain amount of work done by the 9th.. hopefully most of it done before tuesday) but when we got home we just had too many things to do.

(Julia took a picture of her hand with my camera.) Julia was burnt on the stove a few days ago. It hasn't gotten infected and most likely won't scar. Left forearm. Rod's been changing her bandaids for the last few days. Since bandaids actually weren't staying on well, we went to haggens and got gauze & tape. It worked much better. Tonight we realized that we are going to have to go back to bandaids. The medical tape is irritating her skin badly! Making it difficult to take the tape off. My poor baby girl!

So Rod put bandaids on it and she wasn't satisfied. It's been so well covered with gauze and well protected. After many tears and explanations of why we were bandaging it differently (that didn't work), I rocked her.

Then I realized that we have an actual bandage. One you put over a sprain. Rod has a favorite one that he has used many times for cellulitis. He took his favorite, cut it down to Julia's arm size... and wrapped her arm. You should have seen the relief on her sweet little face! She was so happy to have a protective bandage over it and cheered up immediately. Then she said something about Mommy and Daddy taking care of her. Sweetie, we love you!

It's looking much better. I'm looking forward to when it's healed healed.