Rejoice in the Lord

I was going through some music tonight and I found this song. I thought it was very appropriate for what is going on in my life right now and offers some encouragement! (Read previous post if you are confused) Here are the lyrics:

Verse 1
God never moves without purpose or plan
When trying His servant and molding a man
Give thanks to the Lord though your testing seems long;
In darkness He giveth a song

Chorus
O rejoice in the Lord
He makes no mistake
He knoweth the end of each path that I take
For when I am tried and purified
I shall come forth as gold

Verse 2
I could not see through the shadows ahead
So I looked at the cross of my Saviour instead
I bowed to the Will of the Master that day,
Then peace came and tears fled away

Verse 3
Now I can see testing comes from above,
God strengthens His children and purges in love
My Father knows best, and I trust in His care
Through purging more fruit I will bear

Preparations and Good Food

We have been so busy trying to clean the house and starting to pack some things away. Last week was the final week to do A LOT of cleaning. Probably anything you can think of to clean, we cleaned it, more like scrubbed it! It was a lot of work, but I'm glad that its done and now we just have to keep it up until the house sells. The realtor came out on Thursday to look at the house, it went really well! She thought everything looked great! The only thing she wanted us to work on was to get our closets cleaned out, to give the "illusion" that we have so much space that we dont even use all of it. I finished cleaning out my closet tonight and man oh man, it looks SO bare! It hardly looks like anyone is living in it, except for the clothes in the closet and a couple things in there. Its really starting to become more and more cemented in my mind that we are moving. The more we do things to get ready the harder it gets. This week our house will be put up on the market, happy or sad occasion? I couldn't really tell you, mixed emotions with that one. I know that a house is just a house, but I have lived in this house for 14 years and there are sooo many good memories, most of my years growing up have been in this house, its just going to be really hard to part with it. I'm sure that you all know what I am talking about if you have moved before and parted with a house that you have lived in for a long period of time. Mixed emotions is really all I can say about that.

On a lighter note, on Saturday Kali and I made dinner and dessert,  it was delicious if I do say so myself!! We did an Asian theme with Mongolian Beef w/ rice, Sausage Dumplings, and Lettuce wraps! It was very delicious, lots of work but it was well worth it! We also made Brownies with Nutella as the frosting, YUMMY! If you like Nutella you should try it! Its delicious!

So I can't end a post without some pictures, so here are the pictures of Saturday's meal!
                                       
                                                                 Before:

After it was attacked:

Princess Maggie

The past week and a half has been absolute MaDnEsS!! With 4 nights of Bible Institute and the weekends taken up by getting the house ready to be put on the market, my life has been crazy! Constantly doing things and if I came home thinking it would be a nice relaxing evening, it did not turn out to be that. Yet, I am very pleased with how much we have been able to get done in the past week as far as getting the house ready, f.y.i. we have a meeting with the realtor next thursday for her to see the house. Also, even though having Bible Institute makes for a really busy week, its always worth it!!

THE YELLOW ONE IS THE SUN!!!!

My mom has been saying that for the past couple days. If you have ever heard of Brian Regan, a comedian, he said that in one of his jokes and my mom has taken it and run with it! AHHHHHH!!!! She is haunting every part of my life with that phrase! Randomly saying it when we are talking or texting it to me during the day! Good Grief! So, Kali and I have texted her the same thing to get her back for doing it so much, but in turn she said she loves it, so I guess our evil plan didn't work out as we hoped it would. Oh well, we will find a way for her to stop irritating us with that phrase all the time. I wish you all could hear her, "The yellow one is the sun!!" Get me out of here!!!!!
                                                                  Love You Mom!!

Today was such a nice day, so I was able to wear a nice flowy skirt AND flip-flops!! It did turn gray for a little bit in the afternoon but then warmed up really nicely later in the day!! I loved it!! There is this little 2 year old boy at work who always comes up to me saying "Maggie!!!" when I enter the room and gives me a great big hug!! *very sweet, I'm melting* Apparently today, a teacher told me, that when I couldn't go into his class with him he was crying for like 5 minutes because he wanted me! Poor thing.... This morning, I came in with my nice flowy skirt and he looked at it and I could tell that he thought that it was a different skirt then what he usually will see me in, e.g. jean skirt or kaki. So he just kind of looked at it weird and then he said, "Maggie, Princess!" Aww.....I'm a Princess!!!

A New Haircut!

On Wednesday night, Alyssa and I were going out to DQ after church. Alyssa mentioned that she wanted to get a haircut, something different then what she has. This soon turned into a plan to get our hair cut together! We both had long hair and sometimes that can feel kind of boring and just hanging on you, so we went online that night and found hairstyles that we liked. We went to a salon the next day after work and got our hair cut together. (Which may sound kind of weird getting it cut together, but we wanted to do something like this together, especially doing something that involved chopping off several inches and doing our hair different!) So here are the before and after pictures, we both love our new hair, feels so light and fluffy after having such long hair!!!

Tired or not Tired?!

Do you ever have those nights where you are up and you feel a little tired maybe, but dont really feel like going to bed?! Well tonight is one of those nights, so now I'm going to blog a little to take up some time and hopefully by the end of this I will be feeling a little more sleepy and ready to head to bed...haha..hopefully!

Tuesday, my family met me at work after I got off and we went to the City Council meeting. Most of you probably dont know this but an individual in our city is trying to set up an "adult" club. (I will not go into all of the details of it but I will let you know that it is completely vile and wrong.) So, my family and some other people from our church went out to the meeting, some of our people took the opportunity to get up and talk about why they think its wrong and that they dont agree with it whatsoever. (My dad even made it on the news!) The messed up part is the fact that even though the mayor and pretty much all the council members dont want this club going in, if we dont allow it to come into our town, the town will be sued. That is just a sign of how horrible the laws and things like that are now. Why is it impossible to keep something as horrible as this to come into our sweet, innocent little town without getting sued for it?! Its pretty messed up if you ask me! So, it was a pretty cool learning experience as far as that goes, I have never been to a City Council Meeting and it was actually pretty enlightening! Although for a little while they were talking about the fact of whether or not to repo. a boat....booorrrrriiiinnnnggggg......they spend so much time talking on this subject that you just had to laugh when they made a comment that would further prolong the process. Then you have the issues of other council members not agreeing that you should repo. this boat and bla bla bla bla bla.....but I guess you have to go through the boring stuff to get to the interesting stuff!

My question is, Why do we call it an "adult" club or store? I know that only adults are allowed in it, obviously. Yet, you have to wonder why it is ok for adults to view questionable material and things like that if its not ok for the kids. I know that this is from the world's point of view, but seriously, if its not ok for the kids, why should it be ok for our eyes? Sad........

Well, I am feeling more tired now, so I will probably head to bed, so thank you for listening and helping me feel more sleepy! Sweet dreams!

Randomness

This week was a pretty mellow week, considering all the busyness of the past couple weeks! It was nice to be able to relax in the evenings after work, instead of having to rush off to do things. Its not until you have some cRaZy busy weeks that you realize the importance of giving your body (and mind) rest once in a while!

Wednesday night held some very random things, I have to share them with you because I find them very funny!

Earlier that evening before going to church, Kali was trying to convince me to go to town with her after church. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea, so she proceded to try to continue to convince me, over and over again...hehe. So, being the good and nice sister that I am ;o), I finally gave in and went with her. She had to go to the gas station first, so we pulled up and she went to get out her wallet to get her debit card. Much to her dismay, she forgot that she had taken out her wallet and never put it back in! BUHAHAHAHA!! Just in case your thinking that I took it out and hid it, no I didnt think of something as ingenious as that, she took care of it all by herself. So, she was very frustrated with herself while I am chuckling in the passenger seat, we get to go home! haha On the way home I was put into kind of a weird mood and then proceded to go into all the reasons why I dont like blonde jokes, I think I got up to number 9. To which, Kali chuckled and found it very amusing I'm sure, some of the reasons were very silly. After we got home, I was still in that weird mood! I sat next to my mom and for some reason it popped into my head to tell her that I thought I was stronger than her! hehe So, to prove that, we went into this arm wrestling competition. Much to my grief, I dont think I won any of them! Well, I guess now I know, Mom is stronger than me! haha

Thursday I was in the mood for a smoothie, so I went to our local coffee stand and asked if they could do a strawberry pineapple one, or something like that. She said that she could do a strawberry pina colada smoothie, so I decided to give it a try. Guys (or Girls), you need to try this smoothie, it is SO good! I have had two more since that day, which is saying alot! I know, I am needing to practice some more self control, but seriously, its at least a little healthy right?!?! Here are some pics with me and my smoothie....*sigh*

If you all havn't figured out that I'm a dork yet, this should confirm it.....

Happy Anniversary, to me!

Today marks the one year anniversary for working at my current job!!! Wow, it seems like I just started, but at the same time I've been working there forever! Hmm...how can I some up the past year? Here are a few words.....fun, frustrating, loving, funny, tiring, upsetting, joyful, puzzling, and wonderful. All these words describe how I have felt in the past year, about the children I work with. I would like to share some memories with you all, to show you what I am around all day!

• When I first started working there, there was a group of children surrounding me asking me to help them zip up their coats. Which proceded into a "competition" of who could give me the best compliments. LOL. It started with, "I like your hair", "I like your shirt", then even proceded to "I like the button on your shirt", lol, the things they come up with!! That cracked me up and to this day I get a kick out of it! I love those kids....
• One little boy 4 years old, is set on marrying me, he will say, "I want to marry you", which I will tell him that teachers dont marry their students, but that doesnt really work very well....
• I have ruined two shirts with bleach doing the laundry there....
• Multiple snot and saliva smears on my clothing..yeah...not pretty...
• A couple of little 2 years olds refer to me as "my maggie", how precious!
• The love you feel for them when they come rushing at you when you come through the door yelling, "MAGGIE!!!!"
• I have had kids ask me if I was married, that I should get married and even asked me if I was pregnant! Good grief....do I look it?! jk...dont answer that...
• I have had many, many rocks, flowers, coloring pages, given to me....so sweet....
• Learning many different fun songs....like Toney Chestnut (Toe-Knee-Chest-Nut) if I live near you, ask me and I will do it for you, if you are interested...such a fun song!! hehe
• I will not go into too many details, but when you change a poopy diaper that is way past the diaper....lets just say I would have rather stuck that boy in a bath if I could have....no fun....
• When you do some movements like sitting down a certain way or crossing your arms...to look down and see a little shadow of you.......
• When they give you a huge hug for nothing.....telling you they love you...that alone just melts my heart...

There are so many other stories I could share, but I fear it would be a dreafully long post, much more than it already is! So, if I think of more that I feel are worth mentioning, I will do a little post about them. I know there is SOO much more that I cant even think of...

I praise and thank the Lord that He so openly provided this great job for me....God truly knows what He is doing!