Another stumbling block today

I didn't sleep very well last night. I woke up in the middle of the night with chills. I went to the kitchen and took some ibuprofen. When I laid back down, I got as close to Leo as I possibly could. Oh man did his body heat feel sooo good! Unfortunately for Leo, he doesn't sleep very well when I am touching him, so I inevitably shared my restless night with him. Sorry hunny!

When I woke up in the morning, I wasn't really feeling much better. After a few minutes (okay probably an hour) of being stubborn, I called the nurse/doctor's line. I actually do not have a thermometer in the house, so there was no way to know how high the fever was, but if you touched me, you could feel serious heat radiating from my body and I was shaking uncontrollably and freezing from my head to my feet. The doctor called in a couple of prescriptions, one for an antibiotic and one for a better pain medication and a little while later we headed to the pharmacy. While at the pharmacy, we went ahead and picked up a thermometer. I checked my temp in the car on the way to get lunch and it was at 102.5! I took the medicine as soon as I sat down for lunch and within an hour I was feeling much better.

Today at 3 p.m., Leo, my mom, Holly and I went to the Funeral Home to make the cremation arrangements for Brooke. It was very interesting trying to explain to a 4 year old why we were where we were! I know that she doesn't really understand it and she has been such a blessing to not ask more questions than I can handle right now. The meeting went well and I was able to keep my composure, unlike most of the rest of the day.

Needless to say with the combination of grief and sickness, today was a very emotional, heart-wrenching day. There is still so much I don't understand. There is still so much that breaks my heart. But I still stand strong in my faith. My Lord, Jesus Christ is suffering right along with me. At the same time, He is providing comfort and support that is unmatchable. He is catching all my tears and exchanging them for love and comfort from the people around me. He WILL be glorified through all of this, and I cannot stop singing his praises.

Right now I am waiting to go to sleep but unfortunately the medicine does not feel like it is working like it did earlier. I still have two hours until I can take another pain pill, and I am still feverish and uncomfortable. I have parked it on the couch for the night, because I usually sleep much better here when I am not feeling good. Plus, my mom is right here with me so if I need her in the night, she won't be too far. It is so comforting to have my mother close. I can never thank her enough for being here right now. I know there is nothing a mother won't do for their child, but I never want to or mean to take that for granted. I am truly blessed to have such a loving and caring family and friends. I look forward to seeing many of you at church tomorrow. I am ready to worship and praise the God who created this world and all the things in it. He is truly worthy of our praise!

Home and resting

Brooke was delivered at 1:30 a.m. on July 30th. It was a long couple of days leading up to the delivery. On one hand, I just wanted it to be over with, and on the other hand I cherished every minute I was allowed to have with my baby. God provided me with some much needed love, support, and peace during this whole time. Thank you all so much for the outpouring of words of support and caring.

Leo and I are home now and it feels great but strange to be here. I am definitely looking forward to resting in my own bed, but it also signifies the first steps in moving forward. I know that life will go on, and I actually find a bit of comfort in that, but it's hard to walk through the first few steps. I know that God will continue to carry me through this time.

Thank you again for all of the love and support that has been shown to me and my family. God bless you all!

Very difficult times right now

Leo and I found out on Tuesday, July 27th, that our precious unborn baby had passed. I would have been 23 weeks (or almost 6 months) pregnant. I am rocked with such grief and confusion right now. I know that God is good, and I know that He will carry me through this time. I know He has a plan and a purpose for this. My impatient side is a little put off that I will have to wait for heaven to discover it, but I know that He loves me and is with me always.

Sometimes it is still so hard to deal with the reality of the situation. I will never get to hold this baby, who's name is Brooke Elizabeth Leffert. I will never get to feed her, or change a diaper, or calm her when she is upset. I may never even know what she looked like.

So I sit in the hospital, waiting to deliver this baby who was gone way too soon. I'm scared for the future and so, so thankful for the time I have been given with my daughter that I was able to carry to full term several year ago, Holly. I have been shown amazing love and support from my family and friends.

To all of my friends and family reading this, please know that God is good and He will be glorified in this whole situation, I am sure of it. I pray for each of you that your relationship with Jesus Christ will be strengthened through this situation. I pray that if you don't know Him, that you come to know Him because He is the ultimate Comforter and Healer. I can't imagine having to go through something like this and not having faith in Jesus to rely on to get through it. Without a doubt, He is carrying me as I live through these past few and next few days.

I love you all!

Worst Showing Ever

Today has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. (On a side note- if you haven’t read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst you really should!)

Well okay, I guess I should state this afternoon specifically has been the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad part. What happened you ask? Well I’ll tell ya….

Today at 10:30a.m., while at work, I got a phone call from the realtor’s office (for those that didn’t know- Leo and I are trying to sell our house) and someone wanted to look at our house this afternoon from 2:30-3:30. YAY!! No biggie….except for the fact that the house was not exactly “show” ready. But no need to panic, there was my lunch hour to fix that. Right after I got the call about the showing, I called my mother-in-law to make sure I could take our dog to her house for the afternoon. My intentions were to straighten the house, gather up the dog, take her to my MIL’s, and then head back to work. I left work at lunch and hurried home. Thankfully, the house wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Everything was going swimmingly. All the horizontals were dusted. All the dishes were either in the dishwasher or washed, dried, and put away. All the junk was stuffed in any spot I could find put away in their respective places. All window treatments were opened to flood the house with beautiful sunlight. I mean this house was looking awesome for only having a couple of hours notice to whip it into shape. (Having a lovely and rambunctious 3 ½ year old makes it nearly impossible to have it always in “show” ready form, you see.) Then I noticed that the back porch needed to be shoveled since we have had a bit of snow lately. It was about 1:20 and I still had a few minutes left so I figured I should go ahead and get that done before heading out. As I put on my winter coat and donned my gloves, I decided I better take my keys and phone out of my pockets so they don’t get in the way while I was shoveling. I set them down on the corner of the dining table (right beside the back door). I went to the garage and got the shovel. I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. I got the porch shoveled off to the best of my ability desire. I propped the shovel up against the side of the house because, this is Indiana, and I’m sure we will need it again. I grabbed the door handle and went to turn it and it didn’t budge.

Oh no….oh heck….oh crap….what the….NO WAY….this can’t be happening to me.

Yep, you guessed it- the door was locked. See, this door has a lock on the handle itself, and then it also has a deadbolt. We don’t typically lock the handle itself, and usually just use the deadbolt from inside (we do this specifically to keep from locking ourselves out). But, as I mentioned earlier, we are trying to sell our house and we have had several showings already. Sometime, during one of those showings, the door handle got locked, and I didn’t even notice it. So there I stood on my back porch, staring at my keys, my phone, and the dog. Every door was locked. The garage door was down and the car was in the garage. I do not have a numeric keypad to get into the garage (yet). Every window was locked. Darn!

So I went to a friend’s house that lives a couple of houses down from mine, because she runs a daycare from her home and I knew she would be home. As I was walking over there, I realized that the kids in her daycare would be napping and I felt terrible that I might wake them up. I tried knocking softly, but I don’t think my friend heard me. I tried again, still nothing. I tried another neighbor, hoping maybe they would be home. No luck. I tried several more doors and no one seemed to be home. I went back to my back door and peered through the window. It was 1:45. The soonest the realtor would be at my house was 2:30. I tried to get the dog to jump and hit the handle (it’s a lever shaped door handle). No luck. OH MY GOSH! So I tried going to my daycare friend’s house again. This time I got bolder and rang the doorbell. Still nothing. I hesitantly rang it again. Still nothing. WHY, WHY, WHY ME?!!

I went home to try to give the dog another door opening lesson. Needless to say I was not successful. (I will have to work on that later!) I had already decided that I was going to have to ask the realtor coming to show my home to unlock my door for me, but now my concern was letting my boss know where I was and that I wasn’t going to be making it in, after all. I decided to start trying houses again to find a phone. Thankfully, I had success at the first house I tried this time. I called my boss and went back to my house. I found a very sunny place on my front porch and sat down to wait. It was 2:45, and I had now been outside for an hour and 25 minutes, when the realtor showed up with the potential buyers in her car. The look on her face was pure confusion and when I explained who I was and how completely embarrassed I was to be in this situation, she was very understanding and cordial. Thank you realtor lady for saving my day….but my mortification still wasn’t quite over.

As I mentioned a minute ago, we have a dog in our house….not good when trying to sell your home, but such is life. I quickly tried to get the dog to the garage so I could get out of the house and out of the realtor’s way. Well the dog was not cooperating and I was getting panicked. I grabbed her collar to help her into the garage and she peed right there on the kitchen floor. DANG IT! I finally got her in the garage and ran to get paper towels to clean it up. Nobody saw anything. No harm, no foul! Well, as I open the garage door to go out there with her, the dog jets past my legs and runs into the living room, right where the people were. I run after her to keep her out of the way and I must have scared her, because she started peeing again….right in front of the potential buyers people looking at my house. I finally got her out of the house and into the garage, and the mess cleaned up. I stayed out there with her while the people continued to look at the house. It only took the people about 15 minutes and then they were out of here. They were very friendly and I was uber apologetic. Needless to say, we will still own our house after this showing and I have a million lessens learned for the next one!

Oh, and I forgot to mention…it was 14 beautiful degrees outside this afternoon!

Hope this posts helps!

So I say I'm going to revitalize my blog and then I go a week without posting. What can I say? ***Shakes head and shrugs shoulders***

I'm sure you were all on the edge of your seats in anticipation anyway, right?!! : )

Well- part of my reason for not writing is because I have been working on homework. I am currently taking a Business Communications class and my final project is due soon. The final project consists of a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation that is recorded and then mailed to my instructor. The downfall to this is the work necessary to get it done...the upside is that if I start my presentation and am fumbling badly, I get to stop and start over! You can't really do that in a normal classroom setting, so I am very thankful for that!

Another reason for my absence is because of a new passion I have discovered. That passion is known as the art of couponing! I seriously can't get enough of this newly found hobby. I search and scour and print and clip and my little heart just flutters! Oh the thrill of finding an awesome deal and saving a bunch of money! You have to try it to see what I am talking about. There is nothing like going into a grocery store and getting over $60 worth of goods for $12 dollars. That was my most recent success at Meijer and it made me happier than a pig in poo. Seriously!! ; ) My husband was very skeptical and annoyed with me when I first started researching this hobby, but became a believer when we purchased over $100 worth of things from Marsh for less than $40. Since then, he fully supports my money saving habit....He's so frugal! (Love you, honey! )

So, I would like to give you a couple of the links that I most frequently use to help me in my money saving endevour. I hope these will bless you also!

*Be careful; the frequenting of these resources can become very addictive!*

www.centsablemomma.com
www.macombmoneysavers.com
www.moneysavingmom.com
www.faithfulprovisions.com

Happy Shopping!

Has it already been a year?

Well, it's been quite the hiatus, but I've decided to revitalize this ol' blog!


Can you believe a year has already passed since I started my "new" job?!! I'm still there and still enjoying it, too. Every now and then I get the urge to look for something new, something a little more challenging. I've prayed about it (and will continue to do so) and I know, with God's perfect timing, the opportunity that He intends for me will open up.


Speaking of God, have I told everyone lately how awesome God is and how fully dependent I am (trying to be) on Him? Well, He is and I am trying! (I say trying because my pesky human nature takes over all too often and I try to do things myself!) When I was looking for a new job a little more than a year ago, a verse that was given to me at a previous Women's Retreat became my focus verse. The verse is Proverbs 3:5-6 and it says "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" (NIV). Oh how true those words rang for me then...and honestly still do now.


As Leo and I embark on another year, our financial future looks a little cloudy. Most of you know Leo became a 6th grade English/Communications teacher within Tippecanoe School Corporation earlier this year. He is currently working at the same school where he did his student teaching during his last semester of college and was so excited to take the job at the beginning of this school year. He already had a relationship with most of the teachers and felt that would help him "learn the ropes" his first year of teaching. He has really enjoyed teaching there so far and is currently an assistant wrestling coach and will soon be an (assistant?) track coach. He was really looking forward to investing his time and energy as a teacher to this school (and school corporation) which he highly respected and admired. Unfortunately, that vision is beginning to dim. Due to the trickle down effect of the budget cuts being implemented by our Governor, it is highly likely that he will be bumped from his job due to a lack of seniority as TSC cuts positions like Media Specialists, Art, Music, and PE teachers, etc. My opinions of this whole scenario are many and not very uplifting so I will not go into them on this blog. BUT.....


I know that God is in control. I know that God loves me and will protect me (and my family). I know that I do not understand this whole situation and like Proverbs tells me, I am trusting in the Lord that my family's path will be set straight, regardless of how foggy the future may appear.


So, for all of those who have traveled down a similar road of job loss or uncertainty, I apologize if I ever dismissed or minimized your fears or troubles. I am truly sorry that I did not understand just how stressful and scary the situation happens to be and for ever being insensitive to that. I'm not sure what the future may hold for you or me, but we can rest assured that God is in control and through Him, we will prevail.

New Job Update

Well, it's been a week and a half in my new job and ..... I LOVE IT!

It's going very well. I am learning so many new things and have great coworkers. The atmoshpere in the office is so refreshing. We have hectic times, but over-all the pace is very favorable. There are three other ladies and one guy in my office and they have all been very nice and helpful to me. I really feel like I fit in and am respected. I've been told on several occasions that I'm doing great and that is very uplifting for me. I have a tendency to be too hard on myself and expect things of myself that are impossible to obtain. I want to be an expert at my job the day after I start, even though I know it's not possible. So far, I have done very well at cutting myself some slack in that department.

The most difficult adjustment I am finding with my new job would be the hours. Previously I worked 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. My new hours are 7:50 a.m to 4:50 p.m. Most days I walk into the house, after work, and get started right away on cooking dinner and other little chores that need to be done. It seems like I don't even sit down to relax until 8 p.m. I know that is life for many people and if that is the worst thing I have to complain about than I am doing really well.

To help cut down on the stress of the nightly routine, I have decided to pre-plan dinner meals. My wonderful friend, Jamie, even let me borrow a couple of recipe books that are for slow-cooker and freezer meals. I made a list of all the meals that my family frequently eats (surprisingly, I was able to come up with over 20 meals!) and have made a monthly schedule of meals. This will help me cut down on the time it takes to just think about what is for dinner. I don't know about you guys, but the whole process of deciding what will be for dinner can be quite the production in our house! I was also able to make a "default" shopping list and I know that every time I go grocery shopping I will need x amount of ground beef, chicken, etc. to make the meals I have scheduled. The other benefit to scheduling the meals is that Leo can help me with prep and cooking of meals before I get home to get a jump on meals that may take a little while. I feel more organized than ever and it is so awesome.

I want to leave you with a recipe that I recently found on the back of a stuffing mix box that is sooo good, easy to make, and pretty healthy. The recipe is for "Bruschetta Chicken Bake" and serves 6, with a side of vegetables. Here it is:

1 lb Chicken Breast, cut into bite size pieces
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes with garlic and basil
1 box Chicken flavored stuffing
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Italian Seasoning

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Layer cut up chicken in bottom of 9x13 inch baking dish.
Sprinkle with Italian Seasoning and mozzarella cheese.
Mix the box of stuffing mix, 3/4 cup hot water, and can of tomatoes in seperate bowl.
Layer that mix on top of the chicken and cheese.
Bake for 30 minutes.

That's it! Simple, huh?! And it is very tasty. Hope you all enjoy it, if you decide to make it.