Without even thinking (which I occasionally do), I failed to mention that Billy and his team made it to Ukraine around 6:30 a.m. this morning. (Sunday) They were originally supposed to have left Springfield on Thursday afternoon, but due to plane mechanical problems, their flight was cancelled. They rescheduled for Friday afternoon, and once again, the flight got delayed. (not sure what the problem was this time) So knowing they would no longer be able to catch their connecting flight in Detroit, the airline booked hotel rooms for them and they spent the night in Detroit, then caught the next flight out on Saturday afternoon. After an extra connecting flight or two, they made it to Kiev.

Please continue to keep them in your prayers as they minister to the people there. They will return on January 11th. I will try to keep this updated as I hear from them.

I must say it's been a busy week. But also a stressful one.

You see, a job opportunity opened up in my office a couple of weeks ago; one that would have given me more money, and a position just under the Circuit Clerk's job. But with all those 'perks' would have been more stress, more responsibilities....was just the extra salary worth it??

So I applied at the encouragement of not only my immediate bosses (which included the Circuit Clerk) but also a lot of my co-workers. They all thought I should get that job; I mean, 17 years experience should be enough, right??

So the whole time I'm thinking, could I really handle this job? I was doubtful, but applied nonetheless.

They had interviews on Friday; I was number 3 of 4 who applied. One of those 4 was a woman who has worked in the court system for over 20 years. But I didn't think she had worked in as many areas of the office that I had. (For years the office she worked in was separate from ours; it wasn't until recently that our offices "consolidated".) And I had never worked directly with her, so I really didn't know just how much she 'knew'. And she had just recently been promoted to one of the 2 office manager positions as well.

Long story short, I didn't get the job. The woman I just talked about did. Am I bitter? A little. Let down? Somewhat. You see the boss who encouraged me to apply was on vacation last week and was not involved in the interviewing process. Would that have made a difference? Probably not. There were 3 Judges doing the decision-making, and not sure my boss's endorsement would have been enough. I was told that one of the deciding factors was that she had a college degree. Not sure in what, but just that she had one. (she is also about 7 yrs older than me) I didn't go to college. So I don't have a fancy degree; I don't have ANY degrees.

Then again, I have to remember that God is always in control. For some reason, He didn't want me to have that job. Perhaps I will learn why soon, perhaps it will take years for me to know. So when I go back to work on Monday, I will continue to do my job the best I know how. I will respect their decision and work the best way I can with this new manager. I do have another opportunity to apply for one of the office manager jobs that will be vacant at the end of February, so all is not lost.

I knew there was going to be a lot of changes at my workplace, but had no idea it would be so much, so soon. The next few months are bringing a lot of new people in, and others are leaving as well. I just hope that I can continue to trust God to prepare me for whatever job advancements those changes might bring.

Christmas Pictures

Here is a picture of my 2yr-olds Sunday School class; I thought they looked really cute in their Christmas outfits!!


Here are some pictures of Sydney opening gifts:









And Annabella just 'laying around':



Great-Grandma with Annabella:

Uncle Chris and Uncle Adam helping out with the new toys:

Merry Christmas!

We hope everybody out there in 'blog-land' has had a great Christmas Day; we started out our day with my Mom visiting, then our daughter and family and Danny's Dad & one of his brothers came by. By 12:30 we were heading down to Billy's parents (they live a whole 2 blocks away) for Christmas with his side of the family. We enjoyed a spiral-cut ham, great salads, bread, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken and dumplings, green beans, and some awesome desserts. (I kind of felt bad that this year I didn't have a Christmas dinner, but just couldn't find the time.)

I got some really neat gifts, but I think the great-grandkids came away better than anybody else! Annabella had no idea what was going on, but she got lots of hugs and kisses from grandparents and great-grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents!!

As I looked at the almost full moon tonight, I wondered if the sky looked the same that first Christmas night; or perhaps it was moon-less with that one Star giving off most of the light that guided the shepherds. Either way, I'm sure God put on quite a light show in the heavens that night!!

And I can't leave this blog without putting in a picture of one of my fondest memories of Christmas with my grandparents; their 'open house'. For years they opened up their home to friends and family for some good finger foods and good conversation. So here is a picture of me and my sister (she's going to LOVE me for this!!) and 2 of our cousins posing for the camera. I would say this was around 1973 or 1974. (check out those knee-socks!!)


I will try and get some more pictures posted of Sydney and Annabella soon. Merry Christmas everybody!!

BABY IT'S FOGGY OUT THERE!!

This is a photo from a traffic cam just down the street from my office; it's downright thick as pea-soup out there!!!

Birthdays and snowstorms....

Last Sunday we had lunch at my Mom's. We had gone out to eat on her birthday, but had a lunch at her place on Sunday to also bid a 'farewell' to my sister who left on Monday for Florida to begin her cruise nurse job once again. My sister had bought my Mom balloons:


Here is Ashley, Billy & Sydney discussing matters:

Christopher playing an electronic Sodoku. (could never catch on to that...)


Sydney posing for pictures:

Well, they forecasted a possibility of 5-10" of snow for today , but we managed to only get about 2". Here are some pictures as of around 9:30 p.m.




The heaviest snow started around 5:00, which stuck on the roadways quite quickly. Billy & I headed out to do some shopping and saw quite a few accidents. The roads had only been wet until that time, so I'm sure people were not ready for the slick conditions.

We were able to have our Children's choir rehearsal today, which went well. The weather tomorrow will be sunny, but cold. I guess Winter is here!!

Well, we dodged the ice storm last week, but looks like we won't be so lucky with the storm coming this weekend. We are expected to get 6-10 inches of snow by Saturday evening. I would much rather have snow than ice however!! I will hopefully be posting some pictures of our first snowstorm of the season.

Our Children's Choir Christmas program is this Sunday evening, and we have a dress rehearsal scheduled for Saturday morning, so I hope the heavy snow holds off until after noon tomorrow. We had to miss our practice last Sunday because of the ice storm, and we got to practice on Wednesday but we really need tomorrow!! It's called "The Grouch Who Found Christmas" and has a really cute storyline. I'm sure the kids will do their best with or without the extra practice.

So I will try and update over the weekend about all the happenings going on!!

Baby, It's Icy Out There!!

This is an image from one of our traffic webcams. Yep...it's kind of icy out there! So far our power has stayed on, so hopefully that won't change anytime soon. The roads are just wet, so that's a blessing too.

Time To Make The Goodies!!

I decided to do some Christmas "goodie" baking today. So today I made:


Cornflake Cookies

Magic Cookie Bars
Peanut Butter Fudge

And of course, sugar cookies!!

Our area may also be in for another bad ice storm beginning tomorrow (like the one we had in January). I guess if our power goes out, at least we will have cookies and fudge to eat!! The good thing is we do now own a generator, so at least we will have heat!!

Putting Up the Tree

We started putting up our Christmas decorations on Saturday; at first our tree looked like this:




Billy & Chris got into the attic to retrieve the rest of the tree, and the decorations. Before I post our 'post decorating' picture, here is a 'vintage' photo of a Christmas not too long ago in my family:



This was my grandparents house sometime during the 70s; the house is all decorated and there is snow!! Isn't it funny how it seems it snowed almost every Christmas when you were a kid, but it doesn't seem to snow much when you are grown up?? Yes, their house was pink; they did put siding on the house in the 80s, which made it more of a rust red color. I sure do miss that house. Here is one of their tree decorated ( I think this must have been during one of their 'open houses' because their dining room table chairs are set up):



I'm still looking for other pictures, and will try to get them posted. I'm actually trying to find some bells that my grandma used to hang up on her patio door; there were 3 of them and they blinked. I always liked those bells.

On another note, this past week has been quite eventful for us; we told Ashley & Danny we would help them get their car fixed (the driver's side window would not stay up and they couldn't turn their heater on), so we gave them my car to drive until it was fixed. We went and rented a car for a couple of days. Last Sunday afternoon on the way to work Danny slid off the road and into a ditch. Thankfully he wasn't hurt and the damage isn't as bad as we initially thought, but that left us with just one car for the 3 of us. Their car was done on Wednesday, but looks like mine won't be done until next week some time. If ever there was a week to get a stress headache, this was it and boy did I get one!!

Here are some pics of our now finished tree:





We have a Christmas "village", but don't always put it out every year. This year Billy decided to try a new place for it:



I inherited some of my Grandmother's holiday 'mugs', so we decided to display those as well:


I've started somewhat of a 'Angel' collection, so decided to put those on my piano; the small ones on the right side are from my Mother; she used to put them on the same piano when it was still at her place, so I decided to continue the tradition:


We let Sydney help this year too; and like with my Mom's tree, she tended to put a lot of ornaments in the same area:





I'm always glad to get some decorations up, but taking them down is another story!! Billy is taking a group of students to the Ukraine over Christmas break, which means my tree may have to remain up until at he gets back which will be the middle of January!

My job remains busy and sometimes stressful; they have been hiring new people and I have one starting in my section on Monday. When did I find this out?? Why last Friday, of course!!! Sometimes communication is not the best between upper and lower management! At least the poor girl will have a desk. At times it's been hard to keep a good Christian-like attitude, but God has been showing me that it IS possible!

Thanksgiving 2007

Okay..finally, here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving feast. First...we have the 'naked truth':



The bird ready to be roasted!!



The my lovely 'assistants' washing off the plates and cups we used.


The set tables!



Digging in! We had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, mixed veggie casserole, stuffing, brown AND white gravy (for my hubby who doesn't care for brown gravy), black olives, pistachio salad, 5-cup salad, corn, a spicy rice dish and sweet dessert balls made by a couple of the students from India, and rolls.







The 'after-effect'.



My mom dishing out the desserts: pumpkin pie, pumpkin-praline pie, apple crumb, and coconut cream.


Sydney with a new friend.



Sydney enjoying her dessert.


Two sleepy-heads.



Sydney just trying to keep from being bored.


Post-dinner dominoes game. You are supposed to play from 'double-twelve' all the way down to 'double-blank', however, they got all the way down to 'double-ones', and found it was gone!! Guess we've never made it that far so we had no idea it was missing from the game. Either that or it is somewhere in my house. It was fun nonetheless.

All in all we had 17 including Sydney. We had a new one this year from China; her name was Alice. (she is the one in the white jacket playing dominoes) Most of the rest came last year, and actually wanted to come back this year!! I wasn't feeling the best (I think I caught Sydney's cold while she was here with us), but luckily K-Mart was open so I was able to get some medicine. (by the way...Zi-Cam is really good and works, but kind of expensive) We all had a good time and ate some good food. Thanks to my Mom and sister for helping with the food and the clean-up! Good thing we only have Thanksgiving once a year!