Helpful Cleaning Hints from Brendalouise

If you are in doubt as to whether it is time to clean your house, take a paper towel and wipe it on your TV screen. If you get this.....

.... it just MIGHT be time to clean your house.

I Must REALLY like this purse....

... because I bought it twice.

One of the days when the rest of the family was gone to Ohio, I decided I needed a new purse and so I went to Kohl's. I spent about 1/2 hour there looking over the selections, picking them up, opening them, trying them "on" in the mirror, trying to decide which one to get.... Finally, I settled on this brown bag with a long strap. I got home and when I was looking the purse over, something about the material on the inside made me think it looked kind-of familiar... so I went back to my closet and looked and there it was! The same purse! I bought a purse I already have! This might make some sense if I was a person with like 50 purses or something. I'm not. I only have about 5 purses.... so how I could forget and buy the same purse twice, I don't know. Either I REALLY like this purse or we finally have the proof we needed that I am losing my mind. :-)

The good news is that I get to return it and save the $$$ because apparently I already have a purse I like just fine!

My New Favorite

**UPDATE** I found his other CD "We Were Here" at the library (looked on a whim!) and I wanted to withdraw my recommendation because there's at least one really bad word on that CD. :-) Still good music- listen at your own risk.

I can't remember the last time I bought a CD for myself that wasn't Christian (probably John Denver), but I bought one today! This is my new favorite singer. I'm not good at music classification- but he sort-of reminds me of Paul Simon... only better. He's a very talented song writer... I love his lyrics. And he's not ugly, either! Hee hee. Check him out on You Tube. I think his other CD "We Were Here" is probably a little better, but they didn't have it at Best Buy, so I took a chance on this one... and am not unhappy. :-) And, truthfully, any CD can be "Christian" if you just think about God while you're listening to the lyrics... not hard to do here because his are mostly love songs.

Saturday's Simple Life

Okay... back to two columns and some new wallpaper... :-) Such a good feeling. It was funny- I really wanted a quilt background, but when I searched for that, only found some weird thing with horses... which was not at all what I was looking for... I'll have to keep looking, I admittedly didn't look very hard. But I love this one, so it's probably here to stay a while. :-)

With my fam gone to Ohio without me (I felt it too soon to ask for a week off work to go with them)... I am spending some quality time with my house instead. I made a list of all the chores I want to get done this weekend and have started crossing them off. I am hoping by the end of today, I'll have most of it crossed off. And what's left, I will do tomorrow.

I thought about some "before and after" pictures of my cleaning, but do you really think I am going to take pictures of my filthy house to embarrass myself? Um, decided not to. I could only bring myself to take a picture of this, which happens to be the messiest room in the house (you can see I have already stripped the bottom bunk and have washed the sheets)...


And a new FEATURE on my blog.... "Libby's Camera Exploits". I have mentioned before I always find pictures she has taken when I download my latest pictures... I've decided to start posting them for entertainment. This week's isn't so bad... just her new school bag. (Cute, huh?)

Back to cleaning.... and thinking. I don't get much time to THINK (i.e. meditate) these days... which, in some ways, is a good thing because generally if I have too much time to think, I end up depressed. But.... a little bit of time should be good as long as I can stay focused on God and what is good...

Now I'm off to clean. More later.......

What Have I Done?

What I've done is messed up my blog by switching to 3-columns, which I thought I wanted, but now realize I don't. It'll have to stay this way until I have time to fix it. Which is not right now! :-)

Did you know, though, that there are people who will turn your blog into a published book?! And just when I was wondering where this would all end... do I just keep my blog online for all eternity? Until it's like 4,000,000 pages long? No.... periodically, I have it published into a book I can keep on my shelf for all eternity... or at least until I die... and then my grandchildren can have it. So cool.

http://blog2print.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/cutestblog/index.html

De-Lish

You (whoever you are!) are going to want to go directly to the grocery store and buy these Hershey's Cinnamon Chips.. trust me... I found them when I was browsing through the baking chips the other day and I noticed this wonderful-sounding recipe on the back of the package for Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies... so I came home and made some. SOOOO yummy! Unfortunately, I threw the bag away already without copying down the recipe, so you will have to find it on the back of the bag like I did! (I did NOT include the raisins in mine).
Here they are before they went into the oven:

And here is Sarah with a plate of the warm cookies... everyone loved them.
And finally, I didn't get to post a great picture of our new kitchen floor, yet, so since I was out there with my camera capturing lovely pictures of cookies, I took one of the floor. Isn't it beautiful??? :-)

The Office

This is our annual company photograph. Really, I swear. Okay- I'm sure you didn't already guess it, but not really. Ha. I just couldn't convince everyone at my new office to stop and pose for a group picture so I could talk about them on my blog (not sure why!!!) And a blog entry with just words is so lacking. Besides, there are five of us just like in the picture and I am the only female, just like in the picture, so it sort-of fits... just use your imagination and picture Pam as me, Jim and Ryan wearing dirty jeans and t-shirts and looking all hot and sweaty from being out at jobsites, Dwight much older and dressed the same as Jim and Ryan but walking much slower, and Michael with no suit jacket but occasionally a tie. Then picture a layer of red dust on EVERYTHING in the office. Then you about have it. :-)

Here are the answers to your most Frequently Asked Questions......

Do I like the job? Yes, it's okay.

What do I do? Some things I do are to take dirty, crumpled field reports and enter them into the computer and make them pretty, type letters, reports and invoices, answer the phone, clean layers of dust off of everything, clean the bathroom, vacuum, water the office plant, occasionally play Minesweeper and Spider Solitaire.

Are the people nice? Yes, but, it gets kind-of lonely and quiet (not quiet in a good way), as the rest of them are out on jobsites or back in the filthy lab alot of the time.

What hours do I work? More than I had really wanted to, actually. I have worked just short of 30 hours each of the four weeks I have been there. I have enjoyed the few days when I have gotten off at noon and tolerated the ones when I stayed as late as 4:30. (But- I won't be able to tolerate that forever). I really meant it when I said I wanted a part-time job.

Is it weird working outside the home after all this time? Yes, it sort-of is, but I am adjusting pretty well. I think it has been very good for my mental health to have something to get up and go do every day. But, I am often tired when I get home and it is hard managing home AND work.

How are the kids adjusting? They tell me about daily that they wish I wasn't working and they want me to be at home. Tim does things differently than me, that is the bottom line, and he is with them most of the time. I think once school starts and we get into a routine, all will be well. I do enjoy being missed, though. And I miss them, too. One thing that is hard is when I get home, I am often tired and just want to lay down and take a nap. Or I am irritable and just want everyone to go away. I am not getting any real time to myself, which is something I require for optimum mental health. I don't like being away from the kids all day and then coming home and telling them to get away and leave me alone. :-) I *think* this will resolve itself once school starts, as well, as I hope to be out of work in time to be home most days 45 minutes to an hour before them and that "down time" will really help.

Is it fun getting a paycheck again? Yes. It was amazing seeing my name on a paycheck after all these years. :-)

And that's about it. And now, as my Sunday is winding down, I am going to go relax some more before it is time to get up tomorrow and start another work week!

Cool Symbolism

The teacher in Sunday School this morning shared something kind-of cool that he said he had read on the internet. Now, I can't verify his facts (I spent 1/2 hour searching, but came up with nothing), but I think it's good whether the facts are true or not.... so I'm sharing. Does this look like your front door or any of the doors in your house? This is what all of our doors look like:

The teacher says that this is a six-panel door from a Puritan Architectural style, and it served as a visual reminder upon entering (or leaving) that Christ was victorious on the cross over death and also fulfilled the law. See below for my "visual" of this....

Cool, huh? So, if this didn't come from the Puritans, but rather from Home Depot... (ha ha) when you look at the doors in your house, be reminded of what Christ did for you!

Jacob

I guess blogging's going to be a weekly thing for me now. :-) Some time this weekend I'll try to get on here and post something about my job. And I also have some pictures of Libby that I found on my camera today that will thoroughly embarrass her, but will definitely entertain the rest of us... so I may post those, too. Ha ha. Anyway, for now... last Sunday, Jacob was at the pool and bumped into a metal ring of some sort and busted his head open above his eye... had to get six stitches.

This morning, he got them out. He was so brave both times! :-) The stitches were put in REALLY good, so they didn't come out so easily. But he was a trooper. And the doctor gave me the stitches to bring home and put in his baby book. Um.... thanks. First I'll have to FIND his baby book, if indeed he even has one!

That's all for today! More later........