Wait for your cheeseburger

Dear Sister,

I know that right now you are sad, lonely, pregnant, emotional, and in desperate need of a strong pair of arms around you.  Couple all of this with an incredible lack of sleep and a constant foot on your bladder and no one blames you for your actions :O)  However, no matter how sad or lonely you get, you should never settle. Settling for less than you deserve, less than you are worth is asking for trouble. Life is hard enough with someone you love and want to be with forever.  Throw in "settling" and it makes it unbearable.  You have the arms around you at night, but you still have the emptiness.  It's like eating a salad when you really want a cheeseburger.  Technically the salad is food and it's in your belly, so you should be full, but it doesn't satisfy you.  With every bite, you just think more and more about that cheeseburger.  You see cheeseburgers everywhere, your salad becomes even more tasteless and bland. It's not filling you up.  Your hunger for the cheeseburger actually deepens while you're eating the salad.  The salad makes you sad, you know it will never satisfy like the cheeseburger.  So wait.  Wait for the cheeseburger, don't settle for the salad.  Don't subject the girls to a salad, they deserve a cheeseburger too.  We all do.  I don't know why every one's cheeseburgers come at different points in their lives.  That's a God question, all I know is you're hungry for a cheeseburger, so don't settle for a salad.

Love,
Big Sister

Frustrated

I'm super frustrated at work.  In April I will have been there 2 years and I'm still at the same hourly wage.  I've had bonuses, but no pay increase.  I talked to my boss about it a couple of weeks ago and pretty much got no where.  He said he looked at the bonuses as a raise, b/c they were more than he would have given me if he'd given me an hourly raise.  I told him I thought the bonuses were performance bonuses and didn't realize they were meant to be in lieu of a raise.  In addition to all this, he expects SO much of me.  Which honestly I'm OK with, it makes me a better person.  However, while I'm the highest paid staff member, I only make more than the 2nd highest by .25 per hour.  My boss doesn't expect near as much from that person as he does from me.  In fact, he's looking to replace that person.  This week he was out of town Sat-Wed, I busted my ass to keep stuff off his plate to keep everything rolling smoothly, and we were busy!!  I took on tasks that I normally don't do so he wouldn't have to work remotely.  To me, that's the above and beyond that deserves to make more than .25 more an hour than a part time collage kid.  Add that to the fact there are NO benefits, and I'm nearing my wits end.

What keeps me around you ask?  I LOVE MY JOB!  95% of the time that is :O)  I love what I do, I love the people I work with, I even love my boss most of the time.   I hated my job at Countrywide.  So would much rather make less at a job I love, however a yearly cost of living raise would be nice!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE orange.  For Valentines's day this year Jason bought me an orange sapphire ring.  I LOVE it.  It is SO me!  I have actually started wearing it on my left hand in lieu of my wedding set.  It's exactly the kind of engagement ring I would want if he were to propose again.

It's extra special b/c it was unexpected.  We don't normally do gifts on Valentine's day and I had nothing for him :O(  Jason has become an awesome gift giver over the years.  He's come a LONG way from our first Christmas together, and my gift of a lady razor...LOL!

Hmmmmm

I feel like blogging, but I'm not sure what to say, so I shall just begin and see where my rambling take me!  Today was almost 80 degrees!  It was so beautiful out.  I was out a little bit running errands for work.  It was great.  I wasn't able to run, but I did walk with the kids to McDonald's.  They both did awesome at their parent teacher conference.  They are doing very well.  Jonathan more than likely will be placed in advanced math next year.  Savannah is reading at almost a 6th grade level!!  Although she may like to reading to much, b/c she rushes through her work, so she can get back to reading.    They are both lil' talkers, but that's not surprising considering who their mother is!!

We received an e-mail stating our Taylor tickets have been printed!! Whoo-hoo! I can't wait to get them in the mail :O) I need to book our room for our night in KC too, but I just haven't had time.

Today Jonathan was playing football at the field with a bunch of other boys.  They had all put their stuff on the side lines while they played. Some punk or punks thought that it would be a great idea to STEAL the phones of a bunch of boys!  3-4 boys had their phones stolen.  Can you believe that?  Jerk off kids.... I called Verizon and since we have insurance it will only be $39 to replace it.  Jonathan has had his phone almost 2 years and never lost it, broke it, nothing.  While I was on the phone with the rep suspending his service, I was almost able to get my iphone!  Their was something wrong with their ordering system, so she's going to call me back on Tuesday :O)  Technically my upgrade isn't available until March 3rd, but she was gonna work some magic for me! We'll see how it goes!

On our way to Alabama we have decided to stop in Memphis!  That should be fun.  Both the kids love music and will be excited to go to Graceland.  It'll be a fun little side trip on our way to the Wood's place.  We've been shopping around for vans.  It looks like we'll be able to get a good used van with our tax return!  I just hope it comes in time.  I do not want to drive to Alabama in our little car.  I will if I have to, but I really don't want to!!

So much....

So much to blog about this time around!  I hope I can get it all in.  Sometimes I wish I could speak my blogs, they'd be much more lengthy!

First, VA.  On Tuesday we got a wonderful surprise deposit into our checking account.  After some checking, it was a GI Bill kicker that VA owed us but never paid.  So they back paid for the 19 months Jason has been in school.  Which paid themselves off AND gave us a little extra unexpected money :O)  Whoo-hoo!  That unexpected money allowed me to buy......

TAYLOR SWIFT tickets!  Double Whoo-hoo!  She'll be in KC on Sept. 24th.  We got pretty descent seats too!  I'm so excited.  We will be taking the big kids and making a weekend of it.  We are hoping for a Chiefs game the next day, but I doubt that will happen since Taylor will be playing at Arrowhead the night before.  We can hope though.

Last night I received my first Pay it Forward.  Savannah and I went to see the JB movie.  We walked up to the ticket cage, asked for 2 tickets and the guy asked if I'd like frees tickets. Um, sure!!  So he pointed to a man standing off to the side, next to a video machine.  Savannah and I cautiously walked up to him...  He explained he has a special needs daughter and he had bought the tickets to see the movie with her.  She changed her mind and decided she didn't want to see it, but he didn't want the tickets to go to waste.  As along as I agreed to to Pay it Forward and do something for someone kind he'd like for us to have them. Talk about a WOW moment.  I teared up, asked him if he was sure.  I'd gladly pay him.  He refused, smiled, handed us our tickets and walked away.  I tried to burn his image into my brain. Derby is such a small town, surely I'll run into him in the future, but except for a carhart jacket, I don't really remember...  It was an awesomely, humbling experience.  I can't wait to Pay it Forward!!

The JB movie was great.  I'll be honest and say I never really gave the kid a second thought.  I skip his songs when they happened to come up on the ipod and indulge Savannah's crush.  After seeing the movie, I have a lot of respect for him.  He has worked heart to get where he is, and he is very humble about it.  The girls in the movie were WILD!  Screaming, singing, dancing...it was like being at the concert!  I'll admit I wasn't excited to go to the movie, I did it for Savannah as part of our mother/daughter night. I ended up having a good time and gaining new respect for a young artist.

Today my parents and little sister came down to do our very late family Christmas.  It was a good time.  I wish we lived closer to my nieces and nephews.  They are sweeties!! I'll post some pics soon.  I've been really bad on the picture posting lately.  I guess cause I know ya'll see them on FB.

Crazy, but I love it!

Tonight I have NINE children in my house(10 if you count the 1 I married!)  Jonathan loves to have friends over, and for now, they love to be here.  That makes me happy.  Jonathan has 3 friends that are at our house almost every weekend, and if they are not here, he's at their house.  I love that.  I prefer they be here. That way I can monitor what's going on and get to know his friends better.  Occasionally they get loud, but for the most part they are all good boys.  I think they like the little bachelor pad that Jonathan has set up in the back.  Savannah gets upset b/c she doesn't have friends over as often.  I tried to explain to her that Jonathan didn't have friends over like this when he was in the 3rd grade, but that normally doesn't make her feel better.

Tonight Jonathan has 4 friends over and Savannah has 2, that's 8 children total!!  So far, so good.  The boys are in the back and I haven't heard them(yet) and the girls are in the living room watching 'Adventures in Babysitting'.  We'll see how the night goes...


ADDED LATER:
Well, one of the boys is getting ready to leave in tears b/c Jonathan was being a jackass.   One of the Core Four.  A boy I like alot.  There are 2 "new" boys here tonight.  I don't know if that has something to do with the friction, but either way Jonathan has just proved he's not ready to have 4 friends over.  As I type this, he's calling his mom to not come get him. I'm glad he's staying.  If we have another meltdown like that, they are all going home...  Amazing that the girls are getting along fine, and boys are having the catfights :O(