Working Woman

Life as a working mom and wife has really taken some adjusting to. I get up between 5 and 6 every morning and don't get back home until......well whenever I finally call it a day. It is definitely NOT a normal 8-4 job! I must say that I LOVE IT!!!!!! I am so blessed to have this job. Every day I deal with folks who are definitely not in a good spot in their life. Every day I see the worst and best in people. I do admit that I see more bad than good, but I have learned to hang on to the good in order to make it through the day. Everywhere I go people ask me what I actually do for my job. That is such a hard question to answer. My ultimate goal is to reunite parent and child. So, yes, that often involves me having to remove the child from the home in the first place. Besides that, I work cases, provide services, transport, drug test, make home visits, supervise visits, and go to court. I am often a person's biggest fan and WORST enemy all in one day. I have a job where people hate to see me coming. I understand this and try to be as respectful as possible. I cry often, and most would be surprised to know this. I cry when clients do good and, I cry with them when they don't and have to suffer the consequences. My heart and soul has become completely wrapped up in this job. I ADORE the journey that someone takes from absolute despair into a life full of possibilities. And the love of the journey makes up for the long days and emotional ups and downs that come with the job. I am fortunate that my own journey has brought me to this place in my life.

First day of school 2010

The girls were so excited about the first day of school that I don't think either one of them slept much. They were up bright and early anxious to go! Jadelyn is in the 4th grade this year and is super excited about having her own locker. She has Mrs. Mosier. Her backpack for this year is just the coolest. It looks like an old school radio and has actual working speakers. Just plug in your MP3 and your ready to go. I'm sure her teacher is gonna love it!

Madelyn is in the 2nd grade and has Mrs. Morrow. I was surprised that Madelyn is actually getting more into fashion this year. In the years before she couldn't have cared less about what she was wearing.

What a Week!

I don't even know where to begin on the last week I've had. Jadelyn has been sick since Wednesday of last week. I was getting frustrated that we were not able to find out what was wrong with her. We did test after test and visit after visit, but no one could tell me a thing. When I get the call yesterday that she had Colitis I about lost my mind. I mean I have been telling these people since Saturday that it was not the stomach flu. I just knew that something was bad wrong with my child. She was in so much stomach pain that neither one of us got any sleep. I stayed on the couch with her and we got up and down all night long.

 

It was miserable to hear her screaming in pain and not be able to do a thing about it. The week of sleepless nights on top of starting my new job were not working well for me. My nerves were shot! By the time I got the word that we had to take her to Little Rock I was on my last nerve. I started crying and immediately had Tony paged at his work that we had an emergency. He flew to Batesville, and we loaded her up and headed to the hospital. What a scary ride! Here we went with our child that we had no idea how serious her illness was. We sat in the ER for 12 hours while they did all kinds of more tests. Luckily they had a Wii.I think Tony liked it more than Jadelyn. Here she is STILL sucking her finger. I had gotten onto her but she does it without even realizing it. We are really gonna have to work on it!

She got tired of waiting and really wanted them to let her have something to eat. They finally gave her this popsicle and you can tell from the picture that she was not enthused about it.

 

When they still didn't know what exactly was wrong with her, they admitted us. We didn't get in a room until after 1am. I don't think any of us got any sleep. In fact, I was so nervous that I forgot to pack any shoes. All I had was my dress shoes I was wearing. So when the nurse told me I had to go down to admissions to talk to them, I was so exhausted I wore my pajamas and dress shoes. I hadn't showered and my hair was a mess. I didn't really give a crap until I ended up on the elevator with Mike Beebe! Yes, the governor of Arkansas and his entourage showed up right after I pushed the button and insisted that I ride with them. I couldn't believe my luck. Not only was it the governor but also my new Boss at that new state job I was missing back at home! Only me!

Finally this morning the doc had good news......Salmonella. He said the worst had passed and we could go home. She is probably gonna feel a little bad for a couple more days but nothing like she had. I was so relieved! We loaded up and took her to the gift shop like we had promised and then headed home. I am so grateful to all my friends and family. Thank you for fall of your prayers and calls. I am so grateful to be at home with my happy, semi-healthy family!

Julie Got a Job Today...Go Julie Go Julie GO!!!!!!!

Picture me doing a little jig and dancing around the house belly bumping Tony and giving high fives to the kids! Yep That's a good visual isn't it?  I kinda already knew that I had the job Thursday when I was called back to take a drug test. Today I was officially offered the position and told my salary and benefits. I am officially a Family Service Worker for Independence County Department of Human Services. The position pays $6,000 more a year than any of the other positions I have interviewed for. It also has all those great benefits that come with being a state employee. Needless to say, I am pumped! The job is going to be hard and very stressful, but I am going to give it my best try. I hope that I can handle it. For now, I am going to think about the positive and will probably be up most of the night wondering how big my office is going to be and how I will decorate it!
      ( Tony says I might as well go to bed because he is certain they are gonna put me in the hall or maintenance closet to shut me up!)

Fair Time!

Tonight was opening night at the Independence County Fair. The girls have been saving their money for the last couple of months just for this night. Jadelyn started thinking about what she was going to wear as soon as she woke up this morning. The fair is a BIG deal in our house. We live just right up the road and the girls start getting excited as soon as that first truck arrives. Everyday they watch as more and more rides go up so that by the time it opens the anticipation is just killing them. Jadelyn had our day all planned out for us of course. Arm bands started at 6pm so she wanted to leave the house at exactly 5pm. She figured it would take 2 minutes to get to the parking lot at the fair and this would still give us almost a full hour to walk through all the exhibits before the rides fired up. She was right! We stuck with her schedule and it did take exactly 2 minutes...crazy huh? Anyway we looked at all the exhibits and animals first.

 Then we started on rides. I don't do rides at all so I was glad Tony was willing to go with them this year. They rode the swings.

Then Tony decided to ride the new ride they had this year. This thing was Insane! Tony said it was one of those rides that after it started you think to yourself what a stupid decision you made and then hold on for dear life! It went upside down, around in circles, and the chairs you were in spun individually! It was crazy to watch! If you zoom in on one of these pics you can see Tony dangling in mid-air!

After watching Tony, Jadelyn was feeling brave and decided to ride the Bullet.She was psyched about meeting the height requirement to get on but was regretting it as soon as she went upside down. She cried and said she was afraid she was going to die! As soon as she got off she came running out and hugged both me and Maddy....so I know she had to have had a near death experience!

Then they rode a couple of smaller rides together. I think they rode almost everything there except the kiddie rides.

Then they rode this Slime ride.

It is just basically this seat that spins around at a high rate of speed while the whole ride also goes around in circles. Made me sick just looking at it! So, Maddy decided that it would be a good idea to lay down in the ride to really feel dizzy.........and it worked.......and not five minutes later she had this face!

Which is when she learned that there is probably a reason you are not supposed to lay down while on that particular ride. Isn't this just the worst face.....I know its bad, but when I got home and looked at it I just cracked up! She didn't keep this face long..only about 10 minutes. Then she lost her "I wish I had listened to my mom and not laid down on the spinning bucket that was also going in circles face" and got back with the program. They played some games, got snow cones and cotton candy, and then we headed home.Overall, a good night at the fair, despite the awful heat!

Slip N Slide

OK yesterday at Essie Claire's birthday party Randi and Travis had made a huge slip n slide. We decided that we just had to have one at our house. We go camping often so we already had plenty of tarps. It didn't take us long to put it together. We all got on our suits and took turns sliding. Fun Fun Fun! We had to come in when it started to storm, but now I know where I will be spending my days form now on! This thing was a blast!

Essie's Birthday

One of my BFF's little girls Essie Claire just had her first birthday. Randi put on a huge party. The whole fam went to Jonesboro for the occasion and had a blast. I took a ton of pics and noticed how it is so much easier to take pics at someone's party other than for one of your own. I'm just too busy to take a ton of pics at my girls parties. Here are some of the best ones I got.

4th of July Bash!

Tony's older brother Jr. and his girlfriend Angela hosted a huge bash for the 4th of July. They live out in Sulphur Rock so we were able to shoot off fireworks right in the backyard. I shoot off one bottle rocket and I have the police in the driveway in a matter of minutes! (True Story!!!!) Anyway we had an absolute blast. It was a huge bash! We even got tony's younger brother Shannon out for the festivities! I think the whole town was there by the end of the night. We went swimming in their pool (I floated around in the pool and watched the fireworks so I didn't get any pictures of them!), rode on Tony's 4-wheeler and Jr's go-carts, played cards, horseshoes, danced (well some of us did and I won't name any names), visited, and ate ate ate! Here are some pictures of our day.

 

Oh and this one I just HAD to post because it is just too funny not to. Tony forgot his swimming trunks and tried to squeeze his rump into some of Jr.'s! They were Waaaaaay to tight and sorta see-through! Needless to say he did not wear them long. He did pose for me to take what he called his "Mr. Universe" pose before he ran back in the house to take them off! Now if this doesn't crack you up....nothing will! Love it!

Garden Girls

Maddy has become our little garden girl. Everyday she puts on her hat, apron, and gardening gloves and goes out to check if anything needs to be picked.

Jadelyn does not like to help in the garden, but she was very proud of her cabbage. Her little cabbage plant that she brought home from school started this whole thing. Jadelyn does like to show all the neighbor kids and people that come over our garden. She takes full credit for it of course!

Our garden has just grown and grown! We had some complications(Tony decided if a little fertilizer was good then a ton would be even better and burnt everything up) but replanted and things are going great now. We have already had squash produce enough to get several for dinner and have now replanted it using the "hill" method this time.

We have okra coming fast and furious now. We are able to cut okra every day or two now. We have made fries okra, given some away, and have several bags frozen already. We also have cucumbers growing pretty fast right now too. I am going to have to learn how to pickle okra and cucumbers real soon. If anyone has any easy recipes send them my way.

Our green bell peppers are the only ones that are ready to eat right now.

Our banana, habanero and jalapeno peppers are not quiet ready yet but should be soon!

 We have 9 regular tomato plants. One tomatillo plant that has become the biggest thing in the garden, and one zebra green tomato plant. None of them are ready yet, but the zebra ones are living up to their name so far.

We also have melons that have taken over our yard. We did not realize how much they would spread out. What started out as one row of watermelons and one row of cantaloupe has turned into total vine chaos. It is like a treasure hunt trying to find the melons in that mess but we have a bunch!  We even have a couple that  should be ready soon.

Overall the whole garden experience has been great. It was a little bit of hard work in the beginning, but now we are starting to see the payoff. It is so exciting to go out there in the evenings and see what is ready to pick(Geez I'm getting old!!!!) We only had to use a pesticide one time, so they are as organic as we could get without the bugs eating them up! I'm telling you that there is something SO nice about being able to go in the backyard and get fresh veggies! Definitely worth the work!