A New Year and some of Sarah's reflections.

Okay, so my Merry Christmas was a little belated and my Happy New Year is a few hours too early but what they hey! I'm in a good mood. Today is a great day and I'm looking forward to the new year! Why am I in such a good mood? Several reasons, in no particular order...

1.) I don't work today because I'm on a 4 days on, 3 days off schedule right now. I'm hold up in my house because it's snowing again! Yipee! And it's absolutely gorgeous outside. Here's what it looks like.2.) Also, when I went outside to take pictures, I also snapped this one: And it made me stop and realize, once again, what a wonderful husband I have. Because you see, somewhere pile deep beneath that pile of white is the truck that he drives. And here is the car, which I generally drive: So my considerate hubby, without a second thought, parks his vehicle outside to be buried by each new snow storm while mine remains warm, free of snow, and ready to drive at a moments notice. Isn't he great?

3.) Furthermore, I took these picture with the new camera we got for Christmas, which we are thoroughly enjoying. I feel like we've moved into the 21st century as far as electronics go. We got a new camera, I got an Ipod and Jason got a nice new GPS. It's been fun learning how to use them and I'm sure we'll continue learning long into the new year. Thinking about these gizmos and all of the other wonderful gifts we received (like the super soft sheets we enjoy each night) just makes me stop and marvel at how fortunate we are to have the luxury and comfort of all of these things. It's so easy to think about what we don't have. But seriously. We have SOOOOO much! Especially compared to so many people around the world. I'm awe struck when I stop to think about it. So that puts me in a good mood as well and makes me so grateful!

4.) But mostly, as this Christmas season winds down and the new year gears up, I don't want to forget the one gift that brings meaning to this life amidst all of the material posessions. And of course I mean the gift of our Savior! Seriously...what good would that digital camera be if God's creations was not there to have it's beauty captured in a picture? How much sweeter are the songs on my Ipod because most of them are ones that I can lift my voice and praise Jesus with. And what good would any sheets, even the most luxurious ones, be to fall asleep on at night if I couldn't go to sleep knowing that I'm forgiven and can rest in God's grace and wake up to a purposeful life the next day? Today has been a good day to reflect and I pray that this persepective does not dwindle in my heart tomorrow or ever!

So here's to your new year! Wishing you, not necessarily prosperity, but the peace and purpose of not only knowing who God is or that He exists, but having a relationship with Him!

Merry Christmas to All!

A little belated, but Merry Christmas! Hope Everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We did Christmas Eve at our house with my family. Jen and Chad's furnace broke and they thought they might not even make it! But never fear, crisis averted. It was a minor carbon build up. They were soon on their way to our home, better late than never. We ended up missing the Christmas service, but I had cooked up a creative way to get everyone involved in reading the Christmas Story from Luke Chapter Two in order to start our night off remembering and reflecting on the real meaning of Christmas. We had a nice meal, opened presents and visited.

Christmas Day was spent with Jason's family. It was great to visit with them, and especially see Adam who we haven't seen in a very very long time. Although it was a bit hard to pull him away from his video game :) We ate food, opened presents...opened presents...opened presents, ate food, played cards, ate food and then returned home. Hunter was thoroughly impressed with the whole ordeal ;)

I went back to work the next day, but all is well because I really enjoy my new work. It's much more relaxed. I love the clients and the co-workers. There is little to no stress involved, I don't take work home, and if I work overtime I choose if I do and I get paid time and a half. Jason likes me new job a lot too. He's on break until the 2nd and has been a busy little bee getting things done around the house and also taking multiple days to fish. The Christmas Tree has already come down in order to move the couch back to it's normal position and make room for the elliptical to come upstairs. Time to work of all those goodies we ate :)

5 things

My momma tagged me. So now I get to write five things about myself. This is good because I was having a hard time thinking of something to post. You see, I love my new job and life is quite relaxed and uneventful these days. Which is great, but makes for kind of boring posts. So....I'm trying to decide if I want to go for 5 normalish things, or 5 things that may shock you a little and leave you going HUH? Maybe I'll do a little of both.

1.) I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I then lived in Texas, Maine, Michigan, Maine, Michigan, and Maine all before the second grade. But Maine is where I landed, where I live and I LOVE IT!

2.)I have been a ski instructor, waitress, convenience store clerk, cocktail waitress, missionary, and social worker (support worker, case manager, child protective worker, in home family therapist,). My friend's favorite stories are from my time as a convenience store clerk where I also got to tag and weigh dear. Maybe I'll share that with you sometime.

3.)I met my husband in a geology class at the University of Maine. He waited all semester to ask me out. It's a really cute story but I'm sure glad he finally got up the nerve! We've been married for 4 years.

4.)My immediate family consists of my mother Cheryl, sister Jen, brother in law Chad and my hubby. And then on Jason's side is his mother, father, sister and brother.

5.) Oh, and I once dated a male gigalo. (Let me explain! I think it was our second date that we got to discussing previous jobs and that's when I found out that he used to be a male escort. Upon digging a little deeper with some questions I determined that he was not just a male escort but actually a male...ahem...we'll say gigalo.) Shortly thereafter he called and asked me out on another date. I told him I didn't think it was going to work and oddly he seemed shocked!

Jason's Birthday!

I know it's been a while. I thought I'd update you on what I did for Jason's Birthday in attempts to make it as special as he made mine. I started the day off by getting up and making him coffee (he's usually first out of bed) and gave it to him in a new starbucks coffee mug....the kind that you can put your own pictures in. I had put pictures of him an I in it to replace the one I made him a while ago. (It was his favorite mug but it broke.) So he really like the replacement.

Next we headed off to church. He teaches a Sunday school class. I had sneakily given a Birthday Basket of sorts to a friend of ours a few days before. The basket included a loaf of his favorite lemon blueberry poppysead breakfast bread, happy birthday napkins, forks, candles and a lighter. The instructions said that it was Jason's birthday and to put candles in the bread and sing him happy birthday and enjoy the treat together. She dropped it off in his Sunday school room and it had instructions for anyone but Jason to open and follow. His class did just that and he was suprised and couldn't figure out how I got the goodies there without him knowing.

I took him out to soup salad and breadsticks lunch at Olive Garden and then headed home and let him open his card and present, which was a new LLBean rain jacket that he needed. Then we just relaxed together until his mom, dad and sister came up to visit. We went out to dinner at the Sea Dog and then back to the house for White Chocolate Raspberry cake that I made. (I think next time I'll make it with chocolate cake, but he must have liked it because that's all that's left:) It was a good day! Happy 29th!

Deck the Halls!...and other odds and ends.

We've decorated the inside and outside of our house and I certainly am now living in that winter wonderland I was hoping for! Here's what she looks like like all dolled up!
In other news...I did not sleep all day as I told you all I had planned. I was actually rather productive on my two days off. I cleaned and ran errands and took Hunter for a nice long walk (He just LOVES the snow!). We had a long overdue dinner with some friends of ours. And I also planned/shopped/baked up a storm for Jason's Birthday which is tomorrow. I've cooked up some good stuff (no pun intended) to make his day special. I'm not sure it tops or potentially even matches what he did for me but it'll be a great day and he'll love it! Now I'm off to Portland to try on bridesmaids dresses as I am a bridesmaid in two of my best friends upcoming weddings!

Puppy Love

A lot of my friends have blogs with tons of pictures of their babies. This will have to do for now.

But seriously...how CUTE is this animal!? Our babies will have to be like little gerber models if they want to be able to steal our attention away from this guy!

Free at Last!

Yesterday was my last day at work! Wahoooo! It was not what I expected.

You see, Sunday morning I came down with the worst sickness I have had since 11th grade mononucleosis! I'm not even kidding....there were multiple times that I wondered if this was the end! I had a 103 degree temperature, knife-like stabbing pain in my throat every time I even thought about swallowing, pounding headache, alternating chills and sweating spells, and so much pain in my joints and mucsles each time I moved an inch that it brought tears to my eyes. Seriously, Jason wouldn't even sleep in the same bed as me because I was so sick and he was so afraid of getting it! But at my work, you only get 1 sick day in your first six months and I had already been sick once so I had no sick time to use. But it doesn't even matter because you can't use any of your sick time in the last 30 days you are there. Crazy I know!

To add to that, we got a monster snowstorm Monday morning. (Which I would usually love, but not in this case.) You see, at our job we travel to our cases. Some are up to two hours away...in Northern Maine. And we don't get snow days! If you don't want to risk your life on the roads you can just go in to the office and do paper work but you have to use vacation time to cover the case time. Which wasn't even an option for me because you don't get vacation time in your first six months and even if I did, I can't use it in my last 30 days! Crazy I know!

So my only other option was to stay home with no pay. Yeah, we probably could have swung it fiinancially. But then we're talking about not getting to see the families and children that I told would see me one last time and have some closure. And we're also talking about leaving the already understaffed team high and dry trying to get people to cover for me. And not to mention the fact that I was afraid of what people would think of me and if they would make me work an extra day or two to leave in good standing. So I took pain killers and fever reducers. I numbed the pain in my throat with a bottle of cepacol spray, armed myself with kleenex, cough drops and fluids and inched my way along the ridiculous roads at turtle-like speeds. All the while only getting through it by praying for strength and telling myself, "Three more days, Two more days, Last day!" And......I MADE IT!

It was such a whirlwind of a last three days that I haven't really stopped to process it all yet. I'm definitely relieved and feel a huge sense of freedom. But I am sad at the same time. I will miss my co-workers. I will miss some of the families. And it will be very hard not to know how some of the situations in some of those cases turned out. I guess this way I can at least make up my own ending and pretend that it's happy. (I know that sounds cinical but it's realistic in the situations I'm thinking of...believe me!)

Needless to say I was/am exhausted and plan on staying in my pajamas and not leaving the house all day while intermittently eating and sleeping...okay, maybe I'll take a couple bathroom breaks too!

Winter Weekend Update

It's time for another weekend update. It seems as if there is a lot of information from our ever changing lives that I've not written about. So here are some odds and ends.

Jason has not gotten a deer. Despite getting a bow and being able to hunt in the expanded archery zone, hunting as much as he could with his schedule in the regular season, and now using the muzzleloader that be begged off of a friend...still no deer. Here's hopin' for one today so he can happy, we can have deer meat and I can be reminded of what my husband's face looks like :)

Jason is loving his classes. He's begun his thesis early and has a great topic. (Don't ask me what it is...I can't remember) He retook his GRE's to get a better score on the Verbal part and scored higher than he even needed to! That means that come January, he'll have an assistantship. Sadly, he will no longer get to roam the halls of the high school looking for trouble makers and he'll be teaching college math courses! Whoah! Way to go honey! Those highschool girls are going to cry into their pillows at night when they learn you won't be back after Christmas break!

I, on the other hand, am continuing along my career path with yet more change. (translation: I'm not really sure what the heck I want to do) I am transitioning to a new job. I'll end my current job next Wednesday and start my new job the following Monday. I will be working with adults with mental health issues, helping them to gain the skills and then be connected with the resourses they need in order to live successfuly on their own. The pay will be hourly not salary, and I will have a set, predictable schedule. I like predictable. I'll keep you updated! I am also considering going back to school for my master's degree come June because re-entering the workforce I've discovered that a bachelor's degree is the new highschool diploma.

The inside of our house is decorated for Christmas and we'll be decorating the outside and getting a tree this weekend. Yay! I'll be happily listening to Christmas Carols and sipping hot cocoa in my winter wonderland by Sunday evening! God must have planned this big snow storm just for me! So I could have real snow to go along with all the other Christmas goodness!