after Thanksgiving

I took Alissa back to BJU on Monday. But before that was Sunday. Anyway, on Sunday she went to our Sunday School class (for married couples). We've had guest before who weren't married so it cause no problem. We are studing about raising children. The services were good.
On Monday we went to a semi-empty parking lot and Alissa practiced driving. She is doing well in my estimation. I showed her where I work and then off to Greenville we went. The road up and back were good.

I do have to say that it seemed a little lonely at home when Jesse and I got back on Monday.

Thankfulness

1. I am thankful for God.
2. I am thankful for Jesus, my Saviour.
3. I am thankful for godly parents.
4. I am thankful for a wonderful, godly husband.
5. I am thankful for my siblings.
6. I am thankful for my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews.
7. I am thankful for my in-law relatives (be it married in on my side or on Jesse's side).
8. I am thankful for a wonderful church.
9. I am thankful for a bed, house, refrigerator, dishwasher, etc.
10. I am thankful for the garbage truck.
11. I am thankful for the mail person (in our case it would be mail lady).
12. I am thankful that Jesse has a job he loves.
13. I am thankful for my friends at church.
14. I am thankful for my cats.

I am thankful for many things. I just wanted to list a few here but this list is not inclusive.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner

I started working on the meal on Wednesday. The mashed potatoes and the gravy were all that I got done for the meal. While making them I also made sloppy joes for supper Wed. night. Then on Thurs. I got the Cornish hens all washed and seasoned (salt and pepper) and got them into the oven. While they were cooking I made more gravy (didn't think there was enough), made the stuffing (or is it called dressing?), corn, peas, and rolls. We had a wonderful delicious meal. About 3 or more hours later I all of the sudden remembered "I FORGOT THE CRANBERRY SAUCE!" Oh well, we'll have it tonight with leftovers.


Happy belated Thanksgiving.

Trip to Greenville and back

On Tuesday I dropped Jesse off at work and then headed on up to Greenville. Right away even before getting on the interstate we all (on my side of the road) had to cram into 2 lanes instead of 3 because of a fender bender. Ok, so I will give them some credit... the front left light was smashed. After get passed that little time waster I was on my way again. In Columbia it was all cloudy but as I kept traveling to Greenville the sky started getting blue and pretty. (Now "pretty sky" is very subjective here with Jesse and me. For me "pretty sky" is blue and clear. For Jesse "pretty sky" is cloudy and stormy.)

I made it to Greenville is ok time. Normally it takes about 1 1/2 hours but this time it took closer to 2 b/c I was driving slower. I used cruse control the whole time and it was FUN.

I called Alissa to say that I might not make it to her class but I did. I made it by about 5 minutes. :)

Jesse called telling me to be careful driving back because it had begun sleeting. He was also worried that I had been driving through it but I told him that it was a blue pretty (my pretty) sky.

I got to go to two of Alissa's classes. I know both her teacher. Had one in fact in school and the other I met when I was in Elementary school.

We ate at the Dining Common. I called my former supervisor and asked her if there was someone who would like to take me to lunch. So one of my former coworkers let me in on her visitors card. Saved about $5 or so.

After lunch Alissa had to meet with some people so I went on my merry way. I visited the people at the Jr. High where I worked for 7 years serving food. And then I called on of my teachers who was also my advisor, supervisor, teacher, and a friend in school.

I then had to go meet Alissa at a predestinated place. Just right before 4 we started on our way to Columbia.

The trip started off well. We saw around 3 or so accident, well, the aftermath of the accident. Then about an hour down the road it started raining. The sky turned dark. I drove around 50 and 60 mph in the 65 and 70 mph zones. Cars were passing by me but I felt safer driving slower and staying on the right.

We had to stop and pick up Jesse's suits and pants. We then went home unloaded her stuff and went to pick Jesse up. Then we all headed off to the Tue. night Thanksgiving service.

Praise the Lord we had a safe trip.

Saturday and Sunday

We went to Goodyear on Saturday to get the oil changed. They were recommended by a mechanic from church. I think many people from church go there. We were told that there was going to be a 45 minute wait so we went for a walk. Jesse put on his weights but mine were here at home. It was a nice walk and a nice time just being together. We met 2 people from the church on our walk. When we came back to Goodyear (35 minutes later) the car was done and waiting for us. What a pleasant surprise.

Sunday (today, or yesterday considering the time) we had a good church service. Not to say that we normally don't have a good one. Anyway the preacher spoke on the "what, who, where, why, when of Thanksgiving". The text was out of Ps. 118 O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, because His mercy endureth forever. This is paraphrased and not quoted.

The evening service we had a service of praise. There were about 10ish people who gave a testimony of Thanksgiving unto God. Some things were of this year but others were of stuff from the past. The testimonies were the message. It was so wonderful to see the blessings of the Lord that has come from trials.

My sister will be here for a week. I'm not sure if I will write any while she is here.

So if not... Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

shopping

Friday night after work Jesse and I went out to S & K and got some new suits, pants, ties, and shirts. In total he got 54 outfits. If you count the little handkerchief thing that goes in the suit pocket then he got 108 outfits. (he he he).
After that we went to Ross' and found a dress from me. I wore it today at church and got complements. Jesse's grandma was very kind in offering to pay for the clothes.

We were also going to go to the grocery store and get stuff for Thanksgiving. We're planning on have our own Thanksgiving here alone with Alissa. Instead of a turkey we might do Cornish hens. I hope I (we) do a good (or should I say decent) job with the meal.

what Chapel was about

Since next week is Thanksgiving, I had a Thanksgiving theme.

I talked a little about Thanksgiving with the pilgrims and how it is different than how we do Thanksgiving. We don't eat the exact same food also we do eat with the same people. Some are with close family, others extended family, while even others are with friends.
One thing is the same though and that is the "Thankful" part of Thanksgiving.

Next I explained to them that Thanksgiving was an "American" holiday. And I told them a little of what I remembered of Thanksgiving while growing up.

Finally I had a little story about an ugly pumpkin. The moral of the story was that you shouldn't judge people from how they look but by how they are inside.

I enjoyed it but am glad that it is over with.

I feel like Lucy

Yes, Lucy as from "I love Lucy".

Today I spoke in the kindergarten chapel. I was suppose to take 15 minutes. I got there early ... like 15 minute early. The kindergartners were seated early and did a little Christmas practicing. Hence I was introduced early and had practically 5-8 minutes extra then what I was told I would have. Well, with that I ended early. I will tell what I spoke on in the next post.

Now onto why I feel like Lucy.

After chapel I went to pick up my paycheck at the day care. Then off to the bank to deposit. I check things out at the ATM and went off to WalMart. Zip through WalMart and was the first in the "under 20 items" line. Got all my groceries in the cart and checked my purse for my card. Uhoh... where is it? Look look look. Maybe it is out in the car. "I'll be back I promise". As I run out to the car, I call Jesse. Can't fine card in car. Ummm, I left it in the ATM. Drive to bank. No card. Go into bank. "Did anyone drop off a card?"

I am told that there might be a possibility that it is in the ATM and so-and-so can get it. If it is not in the ATM then they will cancel my card. Yeah, they found my card in the ATM. Off to WalMart again and get my groceries. I told the cashier what happened and she told me that she thought I might have had to go farther than my car.

Well it ended alright (doesn't Lucy end up well too?) but I don't want to experience that again. Next time I will be more careful at the ATM.

Voting ballots and Florda

So, what is up with the voting ballots and Florida? First there was the recounting of the votes for days, or even months on end when Bush and Gore were running against each other. Now there is a rare stamp in a sealed ballot box in Florida. I wonder what next is going to happen when voting occures in Florida again.

Changing the blog around

I thought I would go for a major overhaul on the blog. Well, I don't know how all you other bloggers do it when you change your blog around but I lost all my "extra" items I had on my blog. After both Jesse and I fiddled with the blog, he found a cached version of my blog from about a month ago. From there I was able to copy and paste what I needed. Then I got to play around with the colors. That was fun!! I don't know if I am done with the remaking of my blog, as it was quite frustrating but quite enjoyable all at the same time.

soccer has ended

We had a good game. Everyone on my team was there. I wanted to take a picture of the whole team together BUT I forgot the camera. boohoo. Anyway, I brought doughnuts for snack and a parent brought the juice.

I think we played well. One boy on my team stopped the ball two times with his hands (inside the lines). We called hand ball both times. The first time it was on the side away from the parents. I told him that he is not suppose to touch the ball with is hand. The second time he stopped the ball was right in front of all the parents. I not sure who all did it but I think mostly the dads booed when he touched the ball. I again told him he wasn't suppose to do that. He walked away and then I noticed that he was starting to cry. I hugged him and let him know what a good player he was. He's really the best player the team's got. His mom came over and told him to get playing again. I tried to encourage him by telling him that I REALLY need you. The next time we had a thow-in I had him do it. After that he did fine.

We had award (trophy's) after the game. Every single kid gets a trophy's for playing. I gave them a "surprise" for learning the verse. A little squishy soccer ball, big gum ball, 4 sport chocolate balls, and 2 tutsi lollipops.

After the awards were handed out we went into the snack shop area and had our doughnuts and juice. Practically all the parents came up and thanked me for coaching their children. I enjoyed it. BUT I am glad that next week we don't have soccer.

I am alive

It has been a long time since I have written anything. I don't write much since I have a hard time thinking of what to write. Anyway, to give some updates.

I feel like I'm working full time right now but I don't mind. A friend of mine had an operation and has been out since October 10 until after Thanksgiving. (that is suppose to be 6 weeks). They thought it was cancer but when the test came back it was OK. Praise God.
I'm working with the little babies. I requested that since I think I would go crazy with the older kids.

Soccer has begun and will end this Saturday. I had 8 players on my team but one broke BOTH arms. She got to one practice and one game. I had everyone memorize I Corinthians 10:31 and told them to learn it and they would get a surprise on the last day of soccer. Ummm, what is the suprise? I am still thinking, got any ideas these are 4-6 year olds. 5 boys and 2 girls.

Pastor Kelley passed away Oct. 28th. He had CJD. You can read what I posted about him and CJD here. There was a viewing, a Celebration service, and a graveside service. The viewing was from 4-8pm. The line was practically 2 hours long the entire time. The Celebration service lasted for 2 hours. They canceled both school and day care. The graveside service was in TN since that is where he had already gotten plots for both he and his wife.

AWANAS. I am having a blast being in Sparkies. I am on the GREEN team. Yeah that's my favorate color. (I actually asked if I could be on the green team.) I get the hispanic bus kids when they come since I am the only one that can talk to them well. Today I just talked about John 3:16 and what it means. I didn't get that far into the verse because the attention span is NOT that big. Two of the 4 boys almost learned all of John 3:16. The reason I was doing this paticular verse is that I was following the Spark's Gate test.

It is getting colder here BUT I heard that it is suppose to be getting warmer the next few days. Wahhhhhh. I don't want to be hot anymore.

Oh yeah

I forgot. I better let you know or else someone I know will be disappointed.

This post is to inform you that my wonderful husband downloaded and installed KDE on our computer. This post and the last two post were written using KDE's internet page. (or something like that).

Now KDE is part of LINX. Don't ask me any questions about it. All I know (and I am not really sure if I am right about this) is that LINX is suppose to be better then Microsoft.

I am told that I can not use Microsoft internet (or whatever type of internet or computer thing) anymore.

Anyway... I don't see much of a difference.

crazy people

Along the road home are some railroad tracks that run parralle to the road. We don't have to cross them. We were at a stoplight when I noticed that the railroad bars (or whatever they are called) were down. Now correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it wrong to deliberatly go through the bars. I saw 4-8 cars go from our side of the tracks to the other side of the tracks while the railroad bars were down. I call that an I d 10 t problem. I am glad that there weren't any accidents (at least I didn't see or hear of any).


SOME PEOPLE!!!!

We have a car...

After are little (or should I say big) water incident with the car, Jesse has declared that he does not like rain. Well, I don't really think he means exactly that but puddles of water mean something different to us now.

People at church helped us out a lot. We were given rides to church (we were in the midst of our revival services). One nice thing that happened was that we got to meet a nice, older couple from our church. Actually, they have been sitting on the other side of the pew all this time but we had never talked to them. We were introduced to them when I asked a friend for a ride to church. This couple live right outside of our housing development (2 blocks from our house). They gave us a ride to church every night.

We went to the Saturn dealership and looked around the lot. The vehicle that we chose was Chevrolet. We really wanted to stay with a Saturn but the ones in our budget were not good. We also wanted to upgrade since we had to get another vehicle. So it has 4 doors, 7 seating capacity (4 of which are captian chairs), and OH did I say it is a van, a 2003 Chevrolet Venture.

Update on our car

Our car is totaled. The water got into the engine, transmission, electrical system, etc. So Jesse and I are needing to see about another vehicle. Dad, Mom, my siblings and their families all came down to go to the zoo and other places yesterday. We were just about done with the zoo when Jesse called me about the car being totaled. Dad, Mom, and I went to the car and took all our stuff home. It was a HUGE blessing that they were here. I possibly would have been able to find someone else to help me but it was nice to get it over with.

Today at 9:30, a friend, is going to take me to Jesse's work and then take both of us to the insurance place.

Flash flood?

Yesterday Jesse worked all day. I took him to work and then went and picked him up from work after church. It was raining hard and I mean hard. We had the windshield wipers going at full speed.

To make a long story short - the car got stalled in water when we "hit" a wall of water. Water came into the passengers side about 1 or 2 inches. Jesse climbed out of the passengers side window (I grabbed his work phone before he made it all the way out, it's notorious of getting lost or something) and started pushing the car. 2 guys came and helped Jesse push the car while I steered it to higher ground and out of the busy highway. Only that car stopped to help us.

We sat there for a long while and in the mean time Dad called. It was nice to talk to him during this time. I was praying the whole time. We finally had to call for a tow truck and we also were trying to find some one to take us home. After racking our brains and call some people to no avail, Jesse shouted out one of his coworkers name. He called him and the coworker "B" came with his wife and their truck. They are letting us use their 2nd vehicle for as long as we need it. We would like to give it back ASPA.

I called every family member up that knew about our predicament (Jesse's grandma, aunt, and Dad).

I am glad we were not hurt and that we are fine.

Family gathering

We had a family reunion Saturday. Dad (Grandpa) and Mom (Grandma), my siblings, and my nieces and nephews. Oh and of course myself. Jesse had to work both Saturday and Sunday so he wasn't able to come. Instead Dad, Mom, Robert, and Alissa came to see us. It was a very nice visit but unfortunately Jesse had to work until 7pm so he wasn't with them for long. Everyone got to see where Jesse works and then we went to the house. Mom, Alissa, and I had already made supper. I had planned to have a chicken and rice casserolel but we changed it to something else that I had never heard of. Mom and Alissa called it Hawaiian Stacki upies. I possibly spelled it wrong. Anyway it consisted of: (Mom please correct me if I don't have this right)

Rice
cut up chicken
gravy
cheese
pineapple chunks
raisins
tomatoes chunks
celery diced
nuts
coconut

You place everything is separate bowls and then people go and fill up their plate starting with the rice and then chicken. They put what they want on it. I believe there might be more that can go on this but I can't remember. All I know is that it was very good.

Alissa stayed the night with me and we stayed up until 3AM talking. I took Jesse to work by 9:00. Around 11 Alissa and I left to go to Greenville where the reunion was going to take place.
We stopped at a near by parking lot and I gave Alissa the chance to drive a little. She did an excellent job. I had her park in a parking spot away from all the cars. She parked the car better than many people at least that is what I think.
We got to Greenville shortly after 1 and then I drove Mom and Alissa to the eye doctor. After everything was taken care off we went of to see the wizard. No ... I mean to the reunion. My 6 1/2 niece came up to me and said "I am almost as tall as you and I am only 6 1/2". Well, how am I suppose to take that. She wanted me to give her a piggyback ride too. She's about 6 inches or so below my shoulders - I am 5 ft. 2 1/2 in.

We visited, ate, and then went out side to take pictures.
I had to leave early (6:30) to pick up Jesse from work. But really didn't leave until 7pm. While on my way home he called to tell me someone had driven him home.

It was nice to be with family.

Update on Pastor Kelley

In a few weeks he will be resigning from our church and moving to Charleston in order to receive the care he needs. The CJD is progressing and he needs daily care. Please pray for him, his wife, family, and the church. He is loved by everyone.

Pastor's 15th church anniversary

Today the church celebrated Pastor's 15 years at this church. I realized that I never told you his name which is by the way Dr. Bob Kelley.
The church service was different than normal. They had a "burning the note" ceremony also.
There were 3 dignitaries that attended the service in order to honor Pastor. They did this all on their own and contacted the church to tell them that they wanted to do this for Pastor's anniversary service. One presented the Order of the Palmetto for patriotism which is South Carolina's highest civilian award. Another one presented a flag that had flown over the State House. All 3 spoke high praises of Pastor Kelley and mentioned that he would often give them advice both when asked for it and also when they didn't want it. :)

The assistant pastor preached on integrity from Psalm 26:1-2 and 11-12. He talked about Pastor living day to day with integrity. Every aspect of our life should be the same both in church, at walmart, on the road, and in our homes.

After the sermon we had a reception in honor of Pastor. We had cheese balls, crackers, miniature chix nuggets, ham quiche, cocktail wienies, croissants, sandwich meats and cheese, variety of fruit and veggies, cream puffs, miniature chocolate muffins, brownies, cake, lemonade, and tea. There might have been more but I either don't remember or didn't see it. Pastor and his family sat at one table. There was a line of people going by to talk to Pastor during the whole meal. (I wonder if he got to eat?)

As I get information about Pastor I will pass it along.