A New Book

I love when friends suggest a book or an author that they have been reading and really think I will like as well. I LOVE finding new books and authors...there is nothing quite as thrilling as reading a good book, as I have stated in SO MANY of my other posts. I LOVE to read. Sometimes a friend will suggest a book that just holds no interest for me and I will trudge through the book out of respect for that friend's thought that I might like it.

I came across that very issue these last few weeks. An author was suggested in a friend's post on facebook and that friend recommended I start with this one book (that is the first in a series). I saw it was a bit much to download (I have a Kindle that I LOVE), so I got it at the library.

It started off as a bit of a yawn. A girl with a bad mom and a loving dad. It took me a couple weeks to get through the first 1/4 or more of the book...I had no desire to read it (but I kept renewing it hoping something would click).

As the book went on, something happened that rarely happens. I was reading, in a sense, my own story. The girl in this story was me and I felt her pain, her depression, her blind searching for meaning to life. It was quite amazing.

I, like this character, was abandoned by my mother (well, not initially...long custody battle....dad won....mom left and I saw her twice from age 3 until....well.....now....and now she is no longer living, so all opportunity is gone). My father tried his hardest to make a good life for me....though many things stood in his way. Like the character in this book, I was an outcast in school with little purpose or direction. She had a best friend she loved, a boy who lived close by, who, in a sense, abandoned her when he went to college and fell in love with a girl there. I had a best friend who was my only friend, whose family moved away. I was robbed of any chance of regaining that friendship...she died just before turning 16.

This character decided to shake the dust off of herself and went to college determined to be exactly the opposite of who she had been...trying to fit in the best she knew how.....though she found social life hard and thought so very little of herself. This was so much like when I arrived at college. I took off for college alone and watched as so many families dropped off their daughters (I was in a girl's dorm) with tears and hugs. I walked into the common area and began chatting with the only other girl that was there. It was so hard and exhausting to be that open, friendly girl and not that shy, awkward girl I had been (especially hard since I had just had jaw surgery and my teeth were wired together....not the best first impression).

The character in this book went on a path I did not, though I could still relate to her feelings and awkwardness. I had friends who cheered for me when the wires got cut and my jaws were free. We ordered pizza and had the first real conversations I had had. We laughed and talked and it was wonderful.

It is interesting to read a book with a girl who has raw feelings and emotions...a girl I can more than relate to, I can feel. It has had a real impact on me. I am not even sure why I am writing about it. I just felt the need to!! The book "After the Leaves Fall" by Nicole Baart is not a great book, in my opinion, but I am anxiuos to see how she deals with what life has before her. She is seeking God, though she is not sure how or why or what to do when she finds Him. It is so surreal to have such a parralel life to this fictional character.

The second book starts off with this dedication "For Mom: Because Janice is entirely a work of fiction. You are everything she is not and more." Janice is the mom who abandons the main character, Julia. This sent a jolt of electricity because I did not have a mom...or at least not one that was there for me and it has been my everpresent goal in life to break the cycle, to "be everything she (my own mother) was not and more."

Summer End + School Year Beginning = SCREAM!!!

Like any other summer, this summer seems to have been a flurry of activity that caused the end of summer to come much faster than the year before. School starts two weeks from tomorrow!! Where did the summer go? And where will the school year take us??

Sierra: Sierra has had quite the summer. She started the summer with her birthday...she turned 12 and is very excited that her next birthday will be her entry into the teens. Her birthday this year was overriden, though, by the trip she took to Alaska for 2 1/2 weeks. She could not believe she was getting to travel, by herself, to the incredible state of Alaska. She would be able to go to camp with her best friend and be able to hang out in the cooler, more beautiful area of Anchorage Alaska. She came to think of it as home...in fact, she announced to me before she came home that she would be returning to Alaska in December. I can assure you she will not.

July was a slow month for her. A couple sleepovers, trips to Splashtown, and other odd things here and there. She finally, after years of us trying to perssuade her, finally learned to ride a bike and she realized that she really, REALLY loves it. But, lucky girl that she is, she got to experience another summer vacation in the form of a beach. A friend of mine who turned 40 wanted to go to the beach for her birthday and wanted us to come along...and so we did. Sierra had a fantastic time, basking in the sun and riding on her boogie board.

And now, we are getting ready for...ba ba bummmmm...7th grade. Jr. High!! It lacks the drama one would normally anticipate with their child going to Jr. High...seeing how she will be homeschooled. I have never been more convinced that this is the right choice than now. We are both very excited about the new curriculum she will be using this year. Boy, curriculum is EXPENSIVE!! We have her curriculum on layaway now...it is costing us close to $500...I doubt we will get it out in time to start on August 22, but we will get it out. We have a backup plan... The main thing is, it will be a GREAT year. Among other things, she will begin to learn French!!

Also, we were going to get a membership at an athletic club for her to get some PE in...but now that she can ride a bike, I am going to buy one for myself and we will bike for PE. She LOVES it so much...and so do I!

Daniel: His summer was not as action packed for him as it was for Sierra. No big trips across the country for him. He did get to go to a great VBS while Sierra was gone and he has gotten to spend a LOT of time with his mommy. I so enjoy my son and would give anything to hold on to him and his innocence for that much longer. He is just such a great and sweet boy. He thoroughly enjoyed his trip to the beach, too. He would play in the waves and than dig in the sand, and play in the waves some more. He never wanted to leave to eat lunch or dinner. Both kids loved the beach so much, I decided that it was of vital importance that we plan a family beach vacation soon!! I am anti-sun, so I enjoyed staying out of it under a nice big umbrella....just watching my kids frolic in the salty ocean.

Daniel also learned to ride his bike. In fact, he learned before Sierra and took great pride in knowing how to when Sierra did not....I think this is what boosted her into learning how to. Daniel loves his bike and takes any and all opportunities to ride it.

Daniel starts 1st grade this year. It is so funny to me to say that. First grade!?! To me, he still seems so small...but at the same time, he is so smart and far more advanced than the average 1st grader. He is still attending public school...though I do want to wrap my arms around him and keep him at home. Matt believes he should remain in public school for the time being. He said if we come into loads of money, than we will talk. lol Daniel is a special kid who has come to realize just how much he LOVES the piano over the summer. The piano has always been his favorite instrument, but when he first started lessons, he decided he hated them (the lessons, not the piano). Over this summer, though, a switch turned on and now he LOVES his lessons. His teacher has remarked at how great he is doing and she can tell he is really getting it. He says that the next instrument he wants to learn is drums (heaven help me). He enjoys reading and is reading through a series of books right now called The Magic Treehouse...a book series about a couple of kids who travel in their treehouse to different adventures...many historical. He is so excited about the series. I can't wait to see what this upcoming school year will be like for him.

So, school starts 2 weeks from tomorrow. I still need to finish up Daniel's school supplies...buy him some clothes and shoes...and get Sierra's curriculum out of layaway. The level of stress is high, but the faith in God is also high. He will provide, as he always does. It will be a momentous year.

Skin Cancer Scare

I am a red head...truer than true...I come complete with freckles galore. In my almost 37 years of life, I have suffered many sunburns complete with horribly red skin, hot skin....many with gigantic blisters. I remember several where I had to wear my bathing suit for days and would get little to no sleep as I tried to find that cool spot in my sheets at night. I have always been prepared for myself to get some form of skin cancer.

A couple weeks ago, I had a weird sort of blemish appear on my forehead. It was unlike any pimple I have ever had and was not a burn. I thought it looked strange, but I was suffering from a sinus infection at the time that was causing me a lot of pain. I ignored the sore that appeared on my forehead. When the sinus infection cleared, I realized that the sore was still there and as weird as ever. I had a friend look at it and she confirmed that it was very unusual looking, which only furthered my thought that something wasn't right.

So, I did a search online...what does skin cancer look like. I knew that any new moles should be looked at...especially any exposed to sun. I had had a couple moles removed and tested as a child...no cancer. I, also, knew that some forms can look really gross...black and oozy. But could any look like mine.

Well, Basal Cell Carcinoma can take on many forms and my little sore on my head looked an awful lot like one of these forms. I compared the images on the computer with what had taken residence on my forehead (I was looking on the skin cancer website...not some webmd site). The sore had been on my forehead for over a week and showed no signs of leaving and I pretty much decided that this must be skin cancer.

Now, if you are going to get skin cancer, this is the one to get. It rarely spreads anywhere...not on to the rest of your skin or to your soft tissue. It is easily removed and rarely reappears. I was never very nervous about HAVING it...as I said, I have been burned BAD so many times in my life and I am a red head with green eyes. I was, though, very anxious to know what it was.

I made an appointment with a dermatologist...they cannot see me for 3 weeks. I thought, oh my...I have to sit on this for that long. BUT, an amazing thing happened. It started to heal!!! It is, at this point, almost gone. This is exciting news...I think it must be a wacky sore and not skin cancer...I can deal with a wacky sore.

I am not willing to do cartwheels (not that I know how to). I am not completely out of the woods. It is not uncommon for the sore to appear to be healing only to come back. I am not cancelling my doc appt yet (I have time) and I am being cautiously optimistic that I was being ubersensitive to my skin. I take skin care VERY seriously now, as an adult. I coat myself and the kids with sunscreen (I can't get Matt to wear it) and I try to limit my exposure to the sun.

So, am I out of the woods, yet?? Not quite. I am 89% sure I do not have skin cancer. I will feel better when this thing is completely gone and stays gone for a period of time. But, for now I am breathing big sighs of relief. Hey, it is fading daily!!

Homeschooling.....Bart Simpson??

My kids love The Simpsons. Some of you may shudder at hearing that and, believe me, I shudder, too. We dvr it, though, and Matt carefully chooses which ones are "clean" and which ones are just raunchy. For the most part, they are clean fun...not much different than Spongebob.

The other day, Daniel was watching one where Bart was up to his usual nonsense ways at school and seemed to finally go to far. The Principal immediately expelled Bart. This gave Bart great joy as he felt that this was a release from school and he could lounge on the couch daily watching cartoons. Marge, his mother, quickly let him know that she would take over his schooling at home.

I rolled my eyes as this unfolded, waiting for the writers of the show to take this opportunity to make fun of homeschooling. However, the opposite was true. She set up a classroom in the garage, complete with blackboard, desk for herself and desk for Bart. She got him to actually READ a book....in one scene, his favorite tv show was on and he sat on the couch, completely engrossed in the book. She had a guest speaker come to talk about the war and took him on a field trip. Homeschooling Bart made him, well, smart.

By the end of the episode, the Principal was impressed with the new Bart and welcomed him back to the school....and, of course, future episodes show Bart being back to his old ways. But, I thought it was an interesting episode.

Since homeschooling Sierra, I have seen many changes in her. She makes better grades. She has a better understanding of her subjects. Math has become her best subject. Her self confidence is higher. And, possibly more important, she has more time to concentrate on areas of her life that she wants to pursue for her future like sewing and art.

Homeschooling is definitely the best way to go with schooling, if you ask me. The education is tailor made for the individual kid and can go at a pace better suited to that kid. If your kid needs to slow down a bit, so be it. If he/she needs to spend more time on one subject and less on another.....so be it. If he/she is accelerated, than that is good, too. I am SO TOTALLY sold on homeschooling.

So, why not homeschool Daniel? Well, I guess it just isn't the time yet. The time is coming, there is no doubt about it. Whether it be this year...or the next....or even the next....it is coming. I sat with Daniel today to do some reading and math and it is all to clear how easy it would be to school him.

If Marge can homeschool Bart, than anything is possible, right?

**If only it were cheaper!!**

Whose fault is it anyway?

For the past several weeks, we have been doing a fascinating series on Gideon in our Sunday Morning class. One of the things I love best about this particular teacher, he always pulls out the unexpected. Gideon...a favorite story of mine from youth, but never have I had such a rich understanding of his life as I have these past few weeks.

Without going into the backstory, though, our teacher, Frank, posed the question: Is it the parent's fault when our kids (grown up) go astray? Now there is a brain tickler!! He quoted to us from 1 Timothy, 3:1-5: Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer,[a] he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)
Now, this has been used in many leadership meetings I have been a part of in church settings and I agree to what most of it says. We discussed that sometimes this is taken too literally (if a pastor's son is grown up and has a dwi and kills someone, should the pastor be expected to step down).

As a parent, this fascinates me. I have a lot of control over my kids now, but when they are grown, my control ends. I know it is my job to shape them as best as I can (with God, of course, guiding my hands) so that when they are released, they will be who God wants them to be. In the here and now, I would say that it does fall on our shoulders if our kids do not behave as they should. Under our guidance, they should show respect for their family, others and the Lord. But what about when they are grown? Am I to be held accountable for their poor choices?

Many times, you can look at the upbringing of one who shows a complete lack of morality or is going down a terrible path and see that yes, they lacked that man and/or woman of faith that is to sit at the potter's wheel and shape them into a man or woman who loves the Lord, loves their fellow man, and has respect for those around them. I know parents who did try their best to raise up good Christian men and/or women, but something just seemed to go terribly wrong.

Of course, in today's society, it is easy for us to look outside of ourselves to find out who caused us to go down the wrong path. It couldn't be of our own choosing. So many of us look for answers and dig into our past (painful or not) searching for someone to place the blame on for their own screwed up life. Maybe we, as parents, do play a role, sometimes, into the failure of our children....but is it our fault? Or do we, as adults, need to have some ownership in our own choices? The truth is out there, and we should pursue it, not run from it.

I am guilty, myself, for looking to the past and saying...if only this hadn't happened in my life, I would be a better person. Matt brought it up in class...maybe God meant for this to happen in your life so that when you overcame it, you would be a testimony to your parents and the world that is hurting. This is true. How many of us have a relatable story that, when someone we love who feels that it is hopeless to believe God could love them can turn around and share their story and show the grace God provides and thus be a shining example. How else do we bring hope to the hopeless??

Someone else brought up freewill. Is it our fault if our kids express freewill in their decision making process? I know that I stress all the time the need to be honest with my kids...but one of my kids will often choose to lie rather than be honest. I have spoken in love and tried to hammer it in that dishonesty is unacceptable in our eyes and in the eyes of God, but the child still lies (not often...but once is often enough). So, am I not doing my job? Or is freewill an everpresent force.

And lest we forget the enemy who is against good, Christian parenting. He wants us to fail and he wants our offspring to fail. He does not make it easy on us to make that choice between right and wrong a clear choice. He often muddles the lines between the two making the decision very unclear. Of course, our job as parents is to try and open the eyes of our kids so that they can make that discernable choice...will learn to lean on God to guide us in even the most mundane of decisions, but if our children grow up and choose the wrong choice, who gets the blame.

Of course, God doesn't need to play the blame game. He does not care who is to blame. He cares for the heart of us and our children. His desire is that our children will turn from those ways and back into His arms and our arms.

So, who is to blame? It is so gray...like much in life, this is not a black and white subject. But, we as parents are tasked with one of the greatest responsibilities of life. We are raising up a generation of people who may or may not follow the path we have laid before them. As Frank said, we can put up the guardrails for their path, making it clear, but as soon as they are old enough, the guardrails are gone and we must release them to possibly crash or turn off the road, pursuing a road that they should not be on. While our kids are on the road with the guardrails in place, we MUST love them, guide them, teach them, and, yes, LOVE them (yes, I repeated love twice). In our unconditional love of our children, we mimic God's unconditional love for them.

The Transformers Franchise!

As a kid, I remember coming home and watching the animated Transformers series. I loved it. I was really excited when the new Transformers movie came out a few years ago.

My thoughts on the first installment...WOW!! I mean, sure, there were a few scenes that I thought were a bit ridiculous and made me uncomfortable. The mother's interaction with Sam was VERY inappropriate and Megan Fox was overly sexualized, but the movie itself was so great, I thought I could over look the rest.

Then the second installment came out and I wished I could not only take back the couple hours of my own life, but those hours in my kids life. It, too, was oversexualized and added to it were gangster robots who were annoying AND very inappropriate in their use of language. I found myself flinching throughout the movie and Sierra was made to feel very uncomfortable (Daniel saw only robots and action). It was just awful!!! We had been warned, but did not heed the warnings and came away feeling disturbed...not to mention how AWFUL the story and movie were.

So, it was a no-brainer to say we would be skipping the 3rd installment. I read article after article about how the director, Michael Bay, likes to cater to the overly-hormoned teenage boy by presenting sexy women for their fantasy pleasure, and lots of violence.

But, we also read lots of articles that said that the people who made the 2nd installment admitted that they made a mistake with the movie and were going to totally revamp the franchise. I was optimistic, though I became more and more concerned...especially to find out the new female lead was a Victoria's Secret model. The idea was to wait for reviews and than make our decision. The reviews have been read and the decision is clear....we are officially giving up on the franchise.

Here are some excerpts:

"Director Michael Bay may possess the sensibility of an over-caffeinated twelve-year-old, but he really shouldn't be making movies for kids - who, let's not forget, are the intended audience for the TRANSFORMERS films. While kids will obviously love every destructive second of the film, the film opens with the panty-clad butt of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), the most punch-worthy protagonist in American cinema since Andrew McCarthy's oozed his way through the WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S films. The first punishing hour of setup nonsense would be fine if dispensed with quickly, but Director Bay has fiendishly decided that Sam's job woes are the hilariously surreal stuff of a Coen Bros. movie. So we get John Malkovich dishing out bizarro line readings as Sam's tyrannical boss, and Ken Jeong scurrying about as a nutjob coworker with wild conspiracy theories literally stuffed down his trousers - and you better believe there's a zany men's-room confrontation that results in Malkovich believing he's interrupting a rough bout of toilet-stall sex between LaBeouf and Jeong.

And then there's Bay's treatment of women, which is yet another reason to keep the young ones away. It's one thing for Bay to shoot the girlfriend as the lingerie model she is in real life, but quite another to have Sam's mom blurt out "What a nice box!" the minute her son lays eyes on his true love for the first time (this really happens). There's a nasty misogynistic streak running through all of Bay's films. Like those 80's-era films, Bay views women as either trophies or impediments. Sometimes they're both. Rarely are they useful. When I saw TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN theatrically two years ago, the audience roared with delight when Bumblebee slammed a woman's face into his dashboard (this was before they learned she was a Decepticon). At least in his R-rated efforts, Bay amplifies this hatred/fear to the point where you're laughing at him; when he smuggles it into a family movie, it's just flat-out repugnant.

As I walked out of TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, a friend asked me "Where does Michael Bay go from here?" Six years ago, I thought he was ready to become the next James Cameron. That didn't work. Then he tried to become the next Spielberg. That really didn't work. BAD BOYS 3....that's where he's headed."

And by Plugged In Online:

An early scene features lingering, exceedingly close-up shots of Carly's backside as she's clad in skimpy bikini underwear and one of Sam's shirts. We watch as she climbs on top of him and straddles him in bed. Though we never see the pair in bed together after that, a sexual relationship is clearly implied between the couple. And even though they're apparently living together, both agree that they're not yet ready to say "I love you."

Carly's physique, including her long legs and cleavage-baring outfits, get regular attention throughout the film, though never quite as obviously as in the scene described above. Dylan has eyes for her, and he compares her curvaceous figure to the sensual curves of a vintage automobile in his collection. Someone makes a joke about wanting to frisk Carly, and a scene with her involving licorice is played suggestively.

Sam's mother offers him an explicitly titled book about female orgasm and says he won't be able to land another beautiful girlfriend unless he's well endowed and knows how to pleasure a woman. A male colleague corners Sam in a restroom to give him secret information, but a scuffle breaks out between them instead. Their melee (played for laughs), ends up with the man straddling Sam with his pants down in a men's room stall—something that looks like a violent homosexual tryst to Sam's boss, who happens to walk in as they stumble out. (His boss later mentions the encounter again, stressing that he doesn't care about what his employees do with others in a bathroom stall.)

Women frequently wear revealing tops, while skirts and dresses display a lot of leg. An office worker dubs a colleague a "hoochie mama" because she wears a very skimpy outfit. Sam and Carly kiss twice, as do one other couple. One character fondly recalls a secret tryst with a woman and makes a suggestive comment about her backside.

The massive worldwide success of the Transformers franchise, despite the critical drubbing of the two previous installments, has apparently given director Michael Bay license to do whatever he wants. Because of that, Transformers: Dark of the Moon clocks in at a staggeringly indulgent 154 minutes—that's 2 hours and 34 minutes for those keeping score at home.

The last hour delivers a nonstop apocalyptic conflagration so unremittingly intense that my CGI-numbed mind struggled to process the chaotic carnage onscreen. And I'm not the only one who felt that way. Bill Goodykoontz, of the Arizona Republic, wrote, "As if realizing he's spent all this money on such spectacular effects, Bay pulls out all the stops in the last act in an orgy of cacophony, pitting shrieking, grinding metal against metal in one incoherent battle after another. By the time it's over you'll be beaten down, pummeled into submission."

Precisely. And let's place extra emphasis on the word "incoherent." When cars speedily morph into clashing robots, for example, it's often difficult to differentiate between the scrapping metal personalities enough to tell who's who.

Just as Plugged In reviewer Paul Asay mused after viewing Revenge of the Fallen in 2009, it dawned on me as I sat through this installment's unceasing explosions (not to mention Bay's shameless objectification of Carly, played plastically by newcomer and former Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) that this is what Hollywood believes people want to watch.

And given the billion-and-a-half dollar box office tally of the first two films, this probably won't be the last Transformers film to assault our senses and sensibilities. As Goodykoontz concluded, "Bay's hammering technique works, in a commercial sense. Executive producer Steven Spielberg is the richer for it."

Unfortunately, audiences won't be.

So, that is that. I will not support a movie like this.

Kia, Alaska, and Buick Oh My!

June, what a month this has been for us. It has been crazy in many, many good ways and crazy in...well...sort of bad days. I have written many times about our lovely car, our Kia. Oh, what a joy this car has been for us. In the short time that we have had this car, we have had plastic melted on it (driven off the lot like this), we have had a sliding door get stuck open (and due to the dealership's unwillingness to come tow it though it was only a few months old, we had to drive it down the freeway with said door stuck open in a HUGE rainstorm to said dealership), had to have all door handles replaced, and many, MANY more issues.

The latest is simply an unacceptable issue when you live in the area of Houston...our air went out. Now, it went out several months ago, but it took a while for them to diagnose this latest issue in the ever growing list of problems. Diagnosis? Well, something to do with the condenser and a hose or whatever....I stopped listening when they quoted $1000+. It should be noted that they originally quoted about $350 stating that seemed to be the average cost of most cars with this problem....not so with Kia, though.

Now, the Kia is almost to 100,000 miles and the ultimate thing would be to trade it in, but we are still a bit upside down on it...this particular model has practically no resale value. So, the wiser thing to do would be to hang on to it until we can pay it down and than trade it in, but the resounding opinion of most was NOT to put $1000 in repair on this car.

For 12 years, almost exactly, Matt wrecked out 2nd car ("technically" his fault and only insured with liability). This was when we went down to 1 salary and it wasn't much of a salary at that. So, for 12 years, we have had only one car. We have not made the wisest of decisions in this respect, but it is what it is and I have been a taxi driver. For 12 years, I have taken Matt to work, done errands around town, picked Matt up from work. I have had to revolve everything around him and his schedule, often cooking dinner in the morning hours just so I could not run into issues with when he gets off interrupt the cooking. My menu for each week has to be planned accordingly, which has been quite a stress. His work is between 20-30 minutes away and often he would say he would be ready at 5:30, but then I sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes waiting. It's crazy.

So, with this latest a/c issue, my in-laws, graciously, offered to give us the second car they had just acquired from Matt's grandmother. OH MY...this is an INCREDIBLE blessing in so many ways. Matt can drive the van to work and back...I can drive the car where I need to go (mainly in my small world I stay in within 5 miles of my house). I mean....WOW!! It did not take us long...ok, we did pray on it for a few days...but we accepted this generous gift. And, my father-in-law being the type of guy he is, offered to drive it to us from North Carolina to Texas because he knew how stressed Matt was at his job. He drove it in....he cleaned it, had it inspected, oil change, and title and than flew back to North Carolina. In my garage right now, there it sits...our second car. It's a 2001 Buick Century and it is wonderful. Today, Matt drove himself to work...and I didn't take him!! Today, I got in my car and drove around to get some errands done...tonight I will make dinner at my leisure.

It has been our life for 12 years and it has worked. It has been stressful...church Wednesday nights has been one of the worst...dinner, Matt's work, and getting there....Oh, the scheduling issues!!! No more!! We will save tons of money on gas (the van is a GAS GUZZLER), save loads of time (mostly mine), save loads of stress on Matt (trying to get out earlier than he really needs just to pacify me and my own duties), and many more benefits.

So, what about Alaska?? Well, I may just have to blog about that another time. BUT, I will say that while the majority of this was going on, Sierra was in Alaska. In fact, she missed seeing her grandpa because she was in Alaska having the time of her life. Oh yeah, I must blog about this at a later time!!