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We’re back from the beach. It was a pretty good time. Pretty relaxing. We didn’t try to fit too many things in and yet were still out every day. We stayed busy but weren’t stressed about it. Which is good. SIL only had two little “episodes” but didn’t involve anyone else except her husband. We did the usual, up in the morning, beach for an hour or so, lunch at the house, out for shopping and then the evening at home. Late night at the beach/ice cream/putt-putt. The weather was awesome. Stayed about 85 and breezy.

We left Saturday morning to make it to my friend’s wedding. It was so good seeing him and other people that went that I used to work with. It was a really pretty wedding and everything went smoothly. They make a really great couple. I’m so happy for him. I have to say it was a little bittersweet though. It was a little bit of a goodbye in some ways. Him and I haven’t talked much in the past few years and I REALLY miss our old talks at work and even after I left, through email. Both of us have gotten really busy the past few years so I understand but something about Saturday was in the back of my mind was almost like closing a chapter. I’m hoping the four of us can get together sometime and get to know each other better and catch up. But part of me knows too that we probably won’t ever talk like we used to. And I’ve known that for awhile now but I guess the wedding was a reminder and it made me sad. I hate growing up!

My birthday is tomorrow. I will be 28. Still hanging on to my 20’s!! Nothing planned really. I think my mom is going to make me a cake. My favorite chocolate cake/chocolate icing. I don’t think I like this getting older thing. I feel like I just am getting comfortable with myself and part of me wishes I could go back to 15 or 16 and try it all again. Not that I regret anything, I just think I could have made more of it.

Scott turned 31 on Saturday. Still can’t believe he is 31! I’ve been with him since he was 18. There was a couple that celebrated 69 years of marriage at my church this week. I can’t imagine 69 years but then I think Scott and I have been together for 12 and sometimes it seems like the blink of an eye.

Sheesh, I’ve got to get off here…so much work to do after a week!

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Tomorrow morning we head to the beach. I have yet to get really excited about it. I think I’m more excited about the girls getting to go than myself. I think I’m going to try to concentrate the activities more around them than us. I want to take Emma to the pottery place and paint one day. I think they would like going to the Alligator park which we haven’t been to in years. Hopefully the girls will all like the beach and we get to spend a lot of time there. One thing I am hopeful for is working on my tan. And shopping of course. I had to balance the checkbook today to see where we stood so I would know how much we could spend. Tonight I’m stressed because I still don’t have all the clothes cleaned and Scott didn’t do a THING while I was doing last minute shopping at Target. So now, it is 10pm and I still have 2 more loads to finish. AND I forgot my favorite bathing suit at my Mom’s tonight. I had hoped to go to Sunday School in the morning before we left but now I’m starting to think I’ll be running around doing errands in the morning. Boo!

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I need to vent a little. Sometimes at night, right before I go to sleep, I have these inspired little thoughts, commentaries or whatever in my head. I usually don’t make myself write them down thinking I’ll remember in the morning. 99% of the time I don’t and I regret it. Sometimes during the day I try to pull up biblegateway.com just to get the verse of the day. Cause really, that’s all the effort I make sometimes. Today’s verse is “ As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. ”- Psalm 18:30 And I thought, hey, that’s a great verse to show people that God’s word is true and nothing in it is erroneous. If something seems wrong, it’s us not seeing the whole picture or looking at it the wrong way. I truly believe everything is in the Bible is true and accurate and in there for a reason. It was inspired by God even though men wrote it. If the Holy Spirit has never spoken to your heart and you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that’s what it was, then you probably have a hard time grasping how the Bible is written by men and still flawless. That sounds REALLY harsh, but the Bible also says people that are not God do not understand the things of God. So it all makes sense. ANYWAY, that’s not really the point I thought of when reading that. The thing I thought about is if someone is skeptical of the Bible and say, well, what if THAT phrase was the ONLY one that wasn’t true. That God’s word isn’t flawless. If any part of the Bible is false, then it’s all false to me. How can I base my entire existence, creation and eternal life on something that’s sort of right? And I think that’s what a lot of people think. If the Bible is just a historical book written by sinful men then why the heck would they trust their entire life to the man that was written about in it? So my only thought about this is I do believe and to someone that doesn’t believe, you can spend your life fighting about what to believe and make that your life story. We only get once chance at this life and is it going to be spent fighting God and everything He’s about or is it going to be about believing in something so much you center everything around it. I for one plan on believing to the core for the rest of my days and that will be MY life story.

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MIL ended up not coming to get the girls yesterday because she had to work late. We took them over there during church though while we went to youth group. The band played again together and they sounded so good. And the message actually gave me chill bumps at one time. He was talking about Jesus being our provider and feeding the multitude and how he broke the bread once, gave it to the disciples and then the disciples fed the people. That is a picture of how Christ’s body was broken and now we are his body to go out to the people. I hope I explained that right. Anyway. It was good.

Mom & Dad are headed back up to MD this weekend until Tuesday. MIL and SIL are having a yard sale this Saturday. I think I’m supposed to participate but I don’t know if I will or not. Why? Because we’re leaving for the beach Sunday morning and I’m having someone to deep clean the house next week and I’ve got to get it to some sort of deep-cleanable state. AND tomorrow night we’re going out with all the youth leaders (excluding one older couple) to eat and to see Pirates of the Carribbean. Yay us! 8 is a crowd for Scott but hopefully we’ll all have fun together.

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Does anyone else feel like it’s Monday? All day yesterday I was thinking I was going to wake up and go to church and this morning it feels like a Monday, not a Wednesday. But that’s good! Cause that means I’m halfway through the week! MIL should be coming to pick up the girls and only two more days of work and then I’m off for another week for the beach!!

So, what’d we do yesterday? Emma spent the night Monday with MIL. I woke up at 7:30 yesterday morning to find that the crockpot was overflowing watery lard onto my floor. It was nasty. I straightened up the house until Lexi woke up at 9:30. Scott’s family came over for lunch and ate really yummy bbq. They stayed for a little while the girls played in the little pool. We stayed home with Carla and Dwayne while Lexi napped. Then we headed over to Mom’s and swam all afternoon. The water was 88 and it felt SO good. Perfect temp. After dinner Carla and Dwayne left and we went over to J&J (WHY do all my friends have the same initials!). Most of the youth workers were there having a picnic and we stayed for about 2 hrs. just chatting with everyone. It was really nice actually. So the kids were really sleepy after that and I didn’t try to keep them up to go watch fireworks. Lexi saw a few in our neighborhood and the boom startled her at first but then she was ooo-ing them. Emma didn’t want anything to do with it. She wanted to go back inside.

So I’m working on the youth group’s web site. I stayed up late almost every night this weekend working on it. I don’t know if it’s what he’s looking for or not. I know I am very graphically challenged and I know in my head what I want it look like but it’s not coming out that way. So I’m just doing the best I can with what I know. I really want people to look at it and say, wow, that’s cool. And teenagers sometimes are your worst critic so I’m trying hard. I’ve gotten some advice and help from a guy at work. He does some really cool side work for people so I’m trying to take his advice but I just don’t know how to do some of the stuff he suggests.

I got REALLY burnt this weekend. I decided to lay in the girls’ 5 ft baby pool while Lexi was playing in it and I guess the water kept me cool enough that I didn’t realize I was being scorched. My stomach and chest are like so pink, i’ts l almost purple and it hurts even to put aloe on them. It’s getting better now and tanning instead of peeling thank goodness. So I think I’ll have a base tan going for the beach which is what I was trying to do. No pain, no gain I guess.

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caffeine, caffeine, caffeine. i can’t concentrate on much after my white mocha this morning.

AND the big news i just received is that the land has been sold. we’re not going to get it 🙁 major disappointment. but part of me knows that everything works out and there have been at least 3 places we’ve thought seriously about buying and were SO glad they didn’t work out. part of me likes when decisions are made out of my control. i don’t have to waver about whether we made the right decision. and i just said to scott yesterday i was thinking it wasn’t the right place for us. on the other hand i was really starting to get excited about it and think i would have really liked it. i guess there are other plans for us.

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Scott just called the land owner. He said he was waiting on a call from the guy. But the contract was over at 12 today. So if we wanted to get technical, the land could be ours if we pushed it!!

Ok, breathe, trying not to get too excited!!

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Stayed tuned for updates about the land. Supposedly we are going to hear an update this afternoon.

Last night we went out for hamburgers with Carla & Dwayne and went to Target afterwards. Somehow a trip meant to replace a pair of $6 sunglasses turned out a bill for $120. Ugh, that’s why I try to steer clear of there and Wal-Mart. I wasn’t even going to go for the glasses but Emma really wanted to go somewhere after eating. I went to the gym later in the evening. That’s 3 times this week. Yippee! I would feel great if I could get there one more time.

Today has been crazy. Scott is working. The girls are being pretty good but I’m doing too many things at once. Our youth pastor wants me to get our youth group set up on a new web site of our own. So I was talking to him about packages and domain names and talking to my hosting provider about getting another (free) account set up with him. On top of that, I went to our reunion meeting Wednesday night and for some odd reason I volunteered for SOMETHING ELSE. The girl getting the bank account set up has not done so. So since MIL works at a bank, I told her I would get it set up. So I called them and if I set it up under my social, I have to pay interest income on it and be responsible for any overdrafts, etc. She told me to get a TaxID number from the IRS. So I actually called IRS’s 800 number–which I thought was a scary thing but they were REALLY helpful–and had a number within 10 or 15 minutes. So the bank lady that MIL referred me to supposed to call me back. I really hope she does it today so I have that out of the way. We’re supposed to get up with the youth pastor about the domain name tonight. I want to get it set up under his account so again, I don’t have to worry about charges, etc.

Mom is planning to come get the kids later today and MIL is having to work the yard sale at our church tonight and tomorrow so she’s not getting Emma. She’s supposed to get her Monday night. Whew, I’m worn out again just talking about all this stuff. Later.

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