Forgiveness

Life has been a struggle for me to say the least these past few months. I haven't been where I should be in my walk with Christ because I have been holding on to this anger and bitterness in my heart. I have been terrified of forgiving Dusty for the reason of each time that I have forgiven him in the past I have always just let him right back in and then here we are once again. So I was holding on to my anger and almost refused to forgive him, but God says:

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

Matthew 6:14, 15

also

"And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

Mark 11:25

Reading those scriptures bring tears to my eyes because of how stubborn and fearful I have been. I have now forgiven him and I must say, I feel this HUGE sense of relief. Like a person gasping for breath and then all of a sudden they can breathe normally again. Forgiving him brought this huge breath of fresh air but at the same time I was rather emotional about it. Once letting go of all that anger and hurt.. it almost felt like he left all over again. It's hard to explain.

I have changed a lot these past months.. some good and some not so good. The whole seperation/divorce thing is a really hard confusing time. It is unlike anything I have ever experienced before in my life. My parents have been married for 30 years. I had hopes of being married that long when I married Dusty. I never thought that it would get to this point. It breaks my heart.. but like I said in my last post, there comes a time where you have to let go and let God take care of it. I can't change it, I just have to be faithful with what he is telling me to do now.

I am thankful to have so many loved ones praying for me and my family. Everyday I feel peace knowing that God loves us and will take care of us no matter what the future brings. Although, this has been hard and painful, I am thankful for it because it has made me a stronger woman, and shown me areas that I need to change. I am such a ugly wreched sinner. It amazes me that God hasn't thrown his hands up and turned away from me by now.

I don't ever want to go back to life I had before this has happened. I want a new life. A life devoted to God.

Please be in prayer for me and the boys. We need the strength to just keep going..

Ch- Ch- Changes

As you can see, it has been quite some time since I have posted anything on here. Not for lack of stuff to write about but for lack of motivation to write about it! I'm almost ashamed that it has been so long.. but then again, I have been extremely busy.

Well, I guess I should start out with me. I don't really want to get into a lot of details at the moment but I will tell you that Dusty has chosen the same lifestyle that he has ever since I met him.. so in other words we are going separate ways. I have done everything that I can do.. now I'm just going to step back and let God have control and do what He needs to do. It has been a tough road but I am so happy right now. I do have moments of sadness but I am really happy. The kids and I are so well taken care of and I am grateful! I have a job now that I love. I am a secretary of a small heating and A/C company. It's fun but at the same time it is a little stressful because I take the boys with me. They sometimes play good and quietly.. but, haha, they are boys. They can only sit quietly for so long. They do great for the most part though. I am just happy that they are able to come to work with me and I don't to find childcare. I have been singing a lot lately. Not in church or even in public for that matter.. but at home and in the car! ;) I love music. It is a lot of who I am and I always love to find a song that I can relate to, or that can speak about the current situation that I am in at the moment. I have always loved to sing.. but haven't always loved to sing in front of people I get so nervous and just clam up and forget the words or I can't hit the notes cause I am so tense. Hmm.. what else? I'm still a plant fanatic! This is how bad I am, ok. My grandmother in law was given a bouquet of plants for mothers day just recently. She of course loved them but at the same time she didn't want the hassle of planting them and then taking care of them so she decided to give them to me. YAY! haha. There were 6 plants in that little basket. I went to Wal-Mart the next day to buy some pots and some potting soil. While I am there I am not only looking for the pots but also for those plants that were in the basket because out of the 6 I only knew what one was. So while I am looking I saw these beautiful petunias. I picked one up and thought about it for about 2 minutes and finally I snapped out of it and said "Are you crazy girl?! You have more plants at home that you know what to do with as it is" haha.. So I set it back down and go to outside part of the Wal-Mart where all the plants are to look for the plants that I have at home so I could find out what they are. There were more petunias and there was this one that was almost perfect. It was beautiful and it sucked me in! lol. So yeah.. I have a petunia now and I am so so happy that I went ahead and bought it cause it just makes me so happy whenever I see it. It is the only plant that I have that has flowers and I love flowers so seeing it really brightens my day. Okay.. sorry about that. I get alittle detailed when it comes to my plants these days. I recently thought of a great idea to do with some of my plants but I will save that for a future post (hopefully) seeing as I have already put some of you to sleep. ;-)

My sweet 5 year old Dylan. He has had his ups and downs lately.. especially since Dusty has been gone. He gets really angry sometimes. One minute he is just as sweet and happy as he can be, the next he is so angry and he makes this mean face that I can live without. We are working on it though. It has been a rather difficult adjustment to not have their daddy around. He rough housed with them all the time and did "guy" things with them.. I'm just a boring girl! I am thankful for my dad though. He has been great with the boys. I had planned to homeschool Dylan for a long time now but with everything that has been going on lately I just don't see how I can do it. When I did do it I ended up getting frustrated with him because he just gave up so soon on something that I knew he already knew. He would get frustrated and I got frustrated.. it just wasn't very good. He and I both dreaded it! so instead of making him hate school I decided I would enroll him into kindergarten this fall. We went and he met a kid named Mason that has the same birthday that Dylan does. September 22, 2003. Dylan had a great time playing with Mason and when we left he was telling everyone that he already has a new friend when he goes to school. He is really excited about it and I figured it's better for him to go to school and have fun learning instead of stay at home with mean, boring, cranky mommy. lol. He is so smart, I think he will do great!

My not so little anymore ball of energy Jaden is also doing good. He is crazy and when he wants to be he is sooo sweet. He will tell you that you are his best friend in a heartbeat. Jaden just loves animals.. not sure that the animals love him... but he sure does love to give loving to any cat or dog that he can get close to. He attempted to write his name today and he didn't do to bad at all. I guess he has just been watching Dylan so much when he writes him name that he is picking up on it! I'm really excited about that.

I am so blessed. It's not been easy but it just amazes me how awesome they are and how much they do help me. It's like they know that there is a void there so they try to help out. They want to learn how to do stuff.. CONSTANTLY asking questions.. which can get alittle irritating at times but thats how you learn so I need to be better about not letting it get to me.

We all got to spend some much needed time with Kourtney last weekend. She was my best friend in high school but when she went to college we got together a couple of times. We have really been out of touch with each other lately. She texted me last Friday and said that her and her husband were on their way to visit her parents and if we could get together. Saturday we spent the evening there. She hadn't seen Dylan since before Jaden was born and her and Jaden got to met. We also got to meet her sweet husband who Dylan fell in love with. He had such an awesome time rough housing with him. Dylan really needs that! We all had a great time just spending time with her and her family. I would have liked to be able to just sit and talk to her again like we used to do when we were kids though... mine were flocking around so much we didn't really have a chance to get deep into conversation. We went over and spent Sunday evening with them again. Again, we had a great time. I'm not going to let it be so long again! She is a lovely girl.

I just recently got a new cell phone. The BlackBerry Storm 9530. It's awesome. I had to cancel my old contract and get a new one so I was able to get the Storm at a good price. I love it! I hate that the data plan is so much but it is great to get my e-mails and being able to get online. It's nice cause my internet doesn't always work that great at the house. It certainly does make life a little bit more convenient.

I was going to post pictures but now I have rambled on so long I don't really feel like it! lol. I hope you all had a nice weekend. Mine was good.. in a way I am looking forward to getting back to work though. It's harder on the weekends for me. Working keeps my mind occupied which is what I need. But it is really nice to relax as long as I don't let my mind wander to those crazy thoughts and feelings that can cloud my vision.

Well, that's all for now. I will try to be better.. TRY! lol.

Work and Sick Kids

Things have been a bit busy these past couple of weeks! Dusty and I have been working on a couple of side jobs he has together!! It's been crazy! My dad wants this lean to built to park his tractor under and asked Dusty if he wanted to build it.. of course he said that he would considering he doesn't have a steady job because of how nasty the economy is right now. We started it like a week ago and then had another job to get finished up real quick! I have been with him everyday helping him. The kids come most of the time too! lol. They are great kids. I must say.. I have really enjoyed it. It has been HARD work and definitely work I'm not used to at all but it has been great fun all of us being together, working together... building together! It's been awesome. Dusty has a couple of jobs lined up and I just started training today at my mom and dad's office to learn the business. Mom has been a little overwhelmed with the amount of work she has to do and so I am going to try and lighten the load. My dad also has this great idea of getting some parts for units to sell on e-bay! lol. My dad has become an absolute fan of e-bay these days. So God is good! In a scary time when we weren't sure how the bills were going to be paid from month to month God has just shown his glory in our lives once again. I'm just amazed how all of it happened, and not only is He paying the bills but He is drawing all of us closer together as a family!

In our spare time we have been watching "Little House On The Prairie". My mom has all ten seasons on DVD that she let us borrow. Even the boys love to watch them. We just all sit there as a family and enjoy a bowl of popcorn while we watch a couple episodes! :)

We are on the 3rd Season! :)

We had a pretty big scare not long ago! Let's see I guess it was Sunday, January 18 that I noticed that Dylan's middle finger on his left hand was red and slightly swollen. Lately, Dylan has been picking up my horrible habit of picking at my fingers! ugh..! So when I saw it I asked Dusty what he thought of it. He said that it was probably an ingrown fingernail and that is why it looks like that. I said "Okay" and didn't really think anymore of it until it started looking worse. By that Wednesday the swelling had gone to the bottom of his middle finger and was really red. I asked everyone at church what they thought it could be and why. I can tell ya, I heard so many different thoughts. Some thought it could be a spider bite and some thought he might have shut it on something and many others. Dusty and I just wanted to wait and keep an eye on it before we were to hasty to going to the doctor just for them to charge us all this money just to say that there was nothing wrong. Sunday comes around again, January 25 and now the swelling is no longer in his middle finger but it is in his pointer finger and his ring finger! It looked awful! He had a couple of red spots on his hands as well. It was really bothering me and we said that we would take him to the doctor Monday morning. That night, Dylan started running a fever. A bad one. It was up to 102.6. We were still at church at this point and everyone was hovering around Dylan and I just looking at his hand, feeling his forehead and asking if there was anything they could do, and if we decided to take him the the ER that they would be behind us 100%. Becky (my sister) suggested that we all pray for him right then. The entire church (which isn't very big) just stood around us and prayed for sweet Dylan to get better. Afterwards, I call the pediatrician and ask her what I should do. She thought that I should take him to the ER because it has been going on for a week and that it could be an infection. So right then Dusty and I get in the car, leave Jaden with grandma and granddaddy and take Dylan to the hospital. That was a really hard ride! We get there and we sign paperwork and all that.. we wait for 2 hours in the waiting room and then we go into the back. A nurse takes Dylan's blood pressure, takes his temperature which was 101.7, and she types his information into the computer. She also gave him a Motrin to bring his fever down. Then she takes us into a room where Dylan can lay down on the bed and she then tells us that the doctor will be in shortly. Considering that there was hardly anyone in there we figured it wouldn't take that long. After being there for another hour we look out the door and she this mom with a baby saying that she isn't going to wait anymore. She was really mad... Dusty and I were a little upset ourselves. When the mom passes I ask her how long she had been waiting. She said that she got there at 8pm and had been waiting for 3 hours. She has a 5 month old and the poor baby had some sort of sores in his mouth and all kinds of things wrong with the poor guy and nobody had been in to see her yet. We had been there since 8:30pm. We waited for about 30 minutes more and we went ahead and left too. I hate retelling this story! It makes me mad! Anyway, the next morning we go to his pediatrician and she wrote a prescription for an antibiotic. She said that if his hand wasn't better by Friday then Dylan would have to see a hand surgeon! Talk about scary! Especially when you don't have health insurance! The morning after taking the medicine though I noticed that his hand was looking a lot better. Praise the Lord! I was so worried about his hand. lol.. Jaden was so funny during this time though.. he would run around and let everyone see his fingers. I guess he figured since everyone wanted to see Dylan's fingers they would want to see his fingers too. :) He's cute!

This week poor Jaden has been real sick! He has been running a fever and coughing and sneezing. The first day he started with this he threw up a couple of times. It has only lasted about 2 days now and I think he is getting over it now. I hope so anyway.. it is no fun having sick babies! Although, I don't really have babies anymore! Jaden is going to be 3 this Saturday!! THREE!!!! I can't believe that! Where does the time go?

I have been consistently reading which is unlike me! I usually can't read the same book all the way through.. about halfway through I just get tired of reading. Not because I wasn't enjoying it's just I would rather be doing something else rather than reading. I have been reading this book by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, "Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free"

I am halfway through and I am just loving it. It has really seemed to help me a lot.. because my mind has the tendency to believe more lies then the truth and this book is helping me to listen to the truth more than the lies! It is helping me realize the things in my life and heart that need to change. Areas where I just haven't really tried or thought I needed to change. I try to read it every night and then I get up in the morning and read my Bible. :) My life is much happier when I am doing what I am supposed to do!! :)

Oh! And we just bought "Fireproof" last Thursday! :) Haven't watched it yet.. but I'm happy that we got it! :D

Catch Up

Wow, I just haven't really known what to blog about lately! Of course there are a ton of things I could blog about but they aren't really interesting or funny. :) Oh well.. here is a little bit that I can tell you about.

Dylan has been doing great with homeschooling. It hasn't been so easy but it is SO awesome to see him learning and being able to read stories by himself. It thrills my heart to be able to be his teacher so that I can see how much he is progressing day by day. It is such a blessing! At times, Dylan really gets frustrated and wants to just give up.. that's when we stop and pray and after we do it's like he is fully regenerated.

My boys are such a blessing to us. This morning Dylan prayed a beautiful prayer over breakfast. It almost brought me to tears. He prayed, "Thank you for this day and thank you for this food. Bless it to our bodies. Help daddy not to have a bad day and help granddaddy not to have a bad day. Help us to draw closer to you and forgive us for our sins. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen." Isn't that awesome?! :) I certainly think so. Then Jaden had to pray seeing as he has to do everything that his bubba does. He prayed, "Thank you for mommy hugs and Dylan hugging me and daddy hugging me, and grandma hugging me and bless this food and amen." lol Jaden is famous for saying "and" these days.

Well, finally after 25 years I did something I was born and raised for (I'm not really serious). My dad has a backyard full of junk (old air conditioners, air compressors, etc.) and you will never guess what I did the other day AND today... my dad was proud, lol, he said that he was already proud but even more so now. Dusty has been working out there every day breaking down the steel, the copper, and etc. to take to the metal yard. Times are hard for everyone and at the moment Dusty's boss doesn't have any new houses to build until further notice so at the moment he is working on the metal and I have been helping.. A LITTLE! :) It has actually been fun though.. except for the cold! Brr..

Ugh.. speaking of cold.. I just remembered that I am mad! I was hoping so badly to have a nice snow storm to play in and enjoy on Tuesday. The snow started here at about 8:30am and by 11:30am there was barely even a trace of it. It was so crazy! The ground was covered white.. and shortly after the sun came out and melted it all away.. boo whoo hooo! I was so upset almost to the point of crying! Seriously! :) I know, I know, go ahead and laugh, but I love snow. I enjoyed it so much growing up. We had a nice one just about every year and now we barely have any snow at all. :( Very sad.. my poor youngins. Although, I think Dusty and I were more upset then they were! lol. We were acting like the kids about it. :)

Cali (our cat) has been a pain lately! Crazy cat! Every single morning just about between 4am and 7am she comes in the bedroom and meows. Sometimes we throw pillows at her but she just comes back. We have shut her out of the room at night but that doesn't help either because out bedroom door has a vent in it and she just meows at the door. Most of the time I get up and feed her but then after she eats she is back in there again meowing.. so then I put her outside. Lately, instead of feeding her I just put her out.. if I can catch her. She runs straight back to her bowl which is on the other side of the trailer.. So a few nights ago, Dusty and I were talking about how sick of it we are! How absolutely ridiculous that cat is to do that every night. Then he thought of the perfect solution. He decided that we would shoot her with the water bottle. lol. It was the funniest thing! She was sitting at the end of the bed and started hollaring as usual, I picked up the water bottle and shot her with it. She took off like a lightening bolt! hahaha A little bit later she was back and then Dusty shot her with it. I didn't hear anything else out of her for the rest of the night. Later that morning Dusty said if it wasn't for still being half asleep he would have busted out laughing about how fast she took off. That was 2 nights ago.. I haven't heard anything out of her since. :) We still love her!! --Hope we don't get accused for waterboarding.. ugh..

Anyway, that is about all I can think about for now. See ya in about a month! lol.. I will try to think of something sooner then that.. (don't count on it though!) :)

Happy New Year!

It is really hard to believe that 2009 is already here. I really do not know where all the time goes! The past 2 days have been SO awesome! They were spent with my family and friends. It has been awhile since all 3 of us sisters were together. This is the first time EVER that all of us and our husbands were together in the same room with my parents! :) It was awesome. Last night especially! I started playing with the Wii Fit yesterday cause we had been talking for so long about watching my dad do the Hula Hoop on it. I had never seen it but I had heard stories! I figured that I would try it myself. It was really fun.. but kinda embarrassing when you have all your family standing behind you watching you keep a imaginary hula hoop on your hips! lol. Pretty funny! :) So with me doing it I got others interested in trying it out and we had a little Wii game going on. Later, I broke out some of the classic home videos from when us girls were kids. Some are hard to watch because we don't like how we looked or how we acted.. but there is this one that we all get a kick out of. We are at a friend of my dads who had horses. We went to ride them and I was the first. I was sitting on a blanket and my dad decides that he didn't want the horse to go left instead he wanted him to go right and so he made a right sharp turn.. and then there I go! lol. It was so hilarious! We then decided to play a couple of games of Chicken Foot which is a game you play with dominoes. Of course I lost terribly! My grandmother kicked all of our behinds. lol.

It was just a really awesome way to start the new year out. One that I will not quickly forget. I hope you all had a great safe new year your selves! :)

Time Flies

This picture was taken on December 13, 2001. 7 years ago! That night Dusty, some friends, and I went to a Mexican restaurant called Cazadores in Suffolk. We had eaten there a couple of times before but that night we went to celebrate one of my good friends birthday. It was great fun. They even had singers that night with the little guitars.. I know, I'm messing it all up.. lol, I don't know what they are called, sorry. Anyway, they sang "Happy Birthday" in Spanish and a couple of other songs. Later that night, Dusty asked me to "be his girl", lol.

Seven years later...

Brrr.. It's Cold

It seems to be getting colder and colder these days. It just really hit me last night when I got in bed to go to sleep. I had a sheet, a comforter, and a fleece blanket to keep me warm but yet I was still cold. Mainly my feet. My feet stay cold, especially in the winter, and if my feet are cold then I'm cold all over! This morning, I had to scrap ice off of the car! :s I was NOT dressed very well for those cold temperatures. I had a short sleeve shirt on with a small fleece jacket and jeans. I felt like I was going to freeze solid to the car while scraping the ice off! Oh wow.. it's not helping that I am eating ice cream while I am thinking about being cold! ;) A few weeks ago it snowed!! I think it was November 21. I woke up that morning and saw the snow on the ground! I couldn't believe it! The ground was white, the trees were white, and the sky had that snowy look. It was beautiful. I knew it wasn't going to last the day so I got the kids to eat breakfast and then we got dressed to go outside and play in it. Wow, was it cold, but SOO fun! The boys had a blast throwing snowballs at each other and at their poor mama who was at the time trying to build a snowman. He was just a small snowman but even with all the other snow melted and gone, he stood for about 2 days later! :) I was very proud that he lasted that long so that we could enjoy the snow that much longer. They are saying that it is supposed to sleet and snow this weekend! I kinda hope so.. but then again... I love it cause it is beautiful and fun if you don't have any where to go.. but I do NOT like to drive when it is like that! It scares me... maybe from my past experiences. Oh well.

Well, like the old song goes, It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Lights are going up, I can see the lite-up trees in peoples windows as I drive past, of course the cold weather, AND the CRAZY people in the stores when I go shopping. I mean, really, what is wrong with people these days?? One of these days I am going to go to the store before Thanksgiving and stock up on everything that I couple possibly need and not go back to the store until January 3. lol. That is.. if fiances ever permit that to happen. It is a nice thought though. Everyone knows about the man that was trampled on in a Wal-Mart and thanks to Dusty getting me hooked on Fox News I am hearing all kinds of nasty stuff coming up toward Christmas because of peoples hate for Jesus. The atheist and gay people are doing crazy stuff to show their hate.. not surprising! But what I saw just the other day completely sickened me! I mean, UGH!! They showed this clip, I guess from a music video, of Willy Nelson singing a song about taking weed to the baby Jesus. They showed the manger covered with marijuana leaves and the livestock smoking some while looking into the cradle. Just plain disgusting that someone would think that up!

We have been living here at the trailer in Courtland for a month now! I am loving it here. At night when coming home there are a ton of deer in the field in front of the trailer. Infact, one of my redneck neighbors went out there and shot one the other night. Cali seems to really like it out here too! She has a field full of mice and trees full of birds. She is such a great cat! We have had her for a year in October.

I haven't been taking pictures all that much lately... to much going on.. but I took a few on Thanksgiving that I will show you soon when I get around to it. Well, I'm going to go and try to warm up! My fingers are freezing! :)