What's New With You

As for us:

Jessie is no longer employed at The River Grille on the Tomoka. Good riddance, but I wish it had been under our own choice more than it was. If you're not "in the know," this place of employment has been a pain in the keester for some time now. The "big boss" is not the best of characters and worked hard to manipulate and generally just treat Jessie poorly while he was still the Executive Chef. Jess made it to 18 months in that position, which is about three times longer than any other in a similar position under the "big boss". What does that say about "the man"? Well, I won't even go there, unless you'd like to call and see what I have to say. Surely you can imagine it's not the kindest of stuff.

Yet, we have thanked the Lord for an steady source of income enough to pay for food and gasoline. And now, no more as of Friday.

But then... the Lord steps in. Seriously. God is GREAT. Jessie has a meeting/interview at the work place of a friend's and to our best understanding, he will have a job there with the strong probability that he will be able to work 40 hours per week AND get paid as much or more (hourly) than he was making at The River Grille after he was demoted to a line cook and until yesterday. So, even though it won't be a long-term position (Chef job), he'll be a line cook, we'll be better off than we have been by at least a little bit! Isn't God awesome!?? He turns the bad the world intends, around to the benefit of those who love Him. I BELIEVE this and we have experienced the truthfulness of it over and over. What a GIFT to have such a loving and Faithful Father as our Heavenly Father is!!!

Do not mistake all this praise for a doubtless daughter. Unfortunately I endure darkness of mind and doubts galore. Yet I struggle to argue the deceiver down and out and strive to remain faithful to our Lord. I'm so not terribly successful, but I keep on keepin on... at least. :)

Ria is plugging along with her studies. She is still studying: Language Arts (spelling, parts of speech, how to write, etc), Math, Spanish, Piano, Handwriting, Science (Botony currently), and History (Greek). Hopefully we'll add in an art class soon. Oh, and, of course, she reads daily.

Kat is almost through with the How To Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons book. She's on lesson 88 as of Monday. How exciting, right? She's actually a very good reader and should really be finished by now, but she is a VERY determined little lady and she has wanted for quite a while to NOT learn to read.... So, we couldn't very well make much progree without her participation! ;) What changed? She wanted to learn to write. She started to sort of try to teach herself by tracing letters from books (like Ria's Math book). She did this for a couple weeks. Then I showed her that I had a special HANDWRITING book just like Ria's and all she had to do to be able to do lessons in there with me was to do a reading lesson each day. And what-do-ya-know... Kat WANTS to do her reading lessons now! Amazing, right?

So, just this past week (Wednesday, I believe), Tea decided that she was not going to be left out and left behind. It took me a couple days to understand what the fuss was all about, but Wednesday I finally got it. She was determined that SHE should also do reading and handwriting classes JUST LIKE KAT. She is just SO tickled when I sit with her and work on doing school with her. She is now in lesson 4 of the 100 lessons book. She is two years old, by the way. UH-ma-ZING, right? ^_^ Fun stuff.

As for me... I'm enjoying the movements (STRONG) of our newest addition. I'm very much looking forward to welcoming this one to our family. As of tomorrow, I'm 25 weeks... so I still have a bit to wait. I definitely have enough to keep me occupied. Between my number 1 calling: wife, my number 2 calling: mother, my number 3 calling: compassionate service leader... and then still trying to be a friend, visiting teacher, and so forth.... Well, life is pretty busy.

I'm super happy to have a Washing Machine as of today. An angel had it delivered by two fellows this morning. We were out a wash machine for a couple weeks cause the one we were given soon after we moved here completely died in a way Jessie could not resucitate it. ^_^ Let me tell you, I've been SO very VERY thankful for the "over"abundance of clothing the Lord has seen fit to provide for my kiddos (especially Kat and Tea cause they run through clothes like I don't know what!).

Your turn. What's new with you?