IT'S OFFICIAL!

Today is my official hire date for the City of Lubbock. I signed most of my paperwork Friday, with the exception to the benefit package. At orientation I will sign all the benefit stuff. It's so great to know that I have the job, after 3 months of being a temp! Everyone seems to be excited that I'm on board. Unlike some of my other jobs, there isn't any drama with someone not liking someone because they don't do their job right or the clash of personalities. Everyone seems down to earth, laid back and very friendly.

JP has had an interesting few weeks at work. Things are continuing to get better! With him working 10-6 I've seen him a lot more than the 2-10 shift. I've really enjoyed it! His sleep schedule is still off but hopefully it will get closer to normal when he gets a set shift, next month I think. He has started cooking breakfast or bringing something home. It's quite nice to wake up to him rather than the alarm clock!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

RELIEF!

This weekend was pretty rough! Friday night laying in bed I began to twitch...again. I knew the rest of the weekend was pretty much shot! I woke up Saturday morning feeling ok...not great but good enough! JP came home and wanted to go eat breakfast. WONDERFUL! I love me some Ihop...strawberry stuffed french toast YUMMY! When we get home it's nap time right after all it's 7 am after all is said and done. After waking up from the nap I felt a shot to the head! I was pretty weak! I crawled back into bed but the pillows over my eyes, which felt amazing, and went back to sleep. I know it sounds horrible to sleep all day but with these migraines I can't do much else. We got up and found something to eat for supper and got a few movies to watch. During the movies the nausea and sharp pain/pressure in my eyes started, some of the many perks of migraines! Sunday was not much better. The sharp sudden pain to the right side of my head brought me to my knees many times and the twitching came again Sunday night. Today I decided enough was enough and went to the doctor. He told me he though it was a combination of tension headache, migraine, and muscle spasms. He gave me Frova for the migraine and then a shot of cortisone and zylacane in my shoulder to relieve the tension. Almost immediately I felt relief, then weakness (I'm a fainter)! It was amazing that in such a short time I didn't feel the knots in my shoulder! I wonder how long it will last? They also had me on some oxygen. The lady went out to get JP before they gave me the shot and told me she was going to tell him it was something really bad. He laughed so hard when he saw me with the oxygen on! After working at the assisted living center I wonder how those ladies and men deal with being on oxygen all the time! It would drive me nuts!
I'm so glad that JP was there! He cracked me up the whole time! I would have been a mess without him, plus they wouldn't have given it to me!
Hallelujah for medicine and a good husband!

It's been a while...

Life in Lubbock has been anything but normal this week! It was good to see Parkerson/Norris/Barker clan last weekend! We definitely had a good time cooking and catching up some! Thank you for leaving all the desserts in my refrigerator! I see them ever time I open the door...they scream eat me! :)

JP started working midnights this week. He has gone in early a couple of times for overtime which is good and bad. Good because well obviously more money, but bad because he goes in around 6 close to when I get home. I'm kinda partial to seeing him everyday for more than 10 minutes. :) It's taking a little while to get adjusted to going to bed without him. I've tried to get the dogs in the bed with me, Tucker will but Gunner won't. Tuck will curl up against my leg and start snoring,literally. During the day Gunner will love all over me eating up the attention he gets. But at night he will get on the bed while the light is on, but as soon as I turn it off he jumps off and crawls under the bed. JP claims that Gunner is a one person dog and I'm starting to believe him. Last night I got scared, silly little sounds. I grabbed their pens and brought them into the bedroom. Gunner roamed around the floor for a while until I took one of JP's under shirts and put it into his pen. He crawled in and fell asleep. Good thing they can't talk or they would be telling me how crazy I am!

Wednesday Ashley and I went and grabbed some foil for my night owl to sleep during the day. We taped the foil to the windows to blackout the room. It was so funny/odd to wake up Thursday morning and not see any light in the bedroom. I almost turned around and went back to sleep until I looked at the clock and decided I needed to get up to get ready for work. This week is supposed to be the week I can start working as a real city employee. Hopefully everything will turn out the way it's been planned, by both parties. I don't want to have to look for another job! :) but I know everything will work out for the best!

On a last and funny note, I rented Hotel for Dogs tonight. Gunner and Tuck started watching it with me. As they watched the dogs started barking in the movie. They ran around the house, barking, trying to find them and then to the door as to let them in. :)

James 4

This week we are to read over James 4. Some of it is hard to swallow. I know I had read it before, but now it really makes me think about things that are going on, not only in my live but the world as a whole.

James 4:1-17
1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is it not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendships with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wished to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scriptures speaks to no purpose "He jealously desires the Spirit which He made to dwell in us?" 6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."
7 Submit therefore to God Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you Cleanse your hands sinners and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will exalt you
11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge the One who is able to save and to destroy but who are you who judge your neighbor?
13 Come now, you who say "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead say "If the Lord wills we live and also do this or that."
16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil
17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

I know there are times I catch myself judging people, when I have no place, wanting what others have when I have great things myself, but desire bigger and better. I have prayed for things with selfish intentions and wondered why things didn't turn out the way I wanted, not even thinking/realizing that God knows MY HEART as well as he knows anyone else's.
Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the divisions of the soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart and there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

It just made me think how often we let things slip by like know one knows what's going on inside out head or 'our world'. God knows...EVERYTHING! Every peep or thought that crosses our mind he knows! Trust in Him. Rely on Him and not things or people of the world. He provides for the birds of the air, would he not do the same for us. He will not give you more than you can handle. Let things happen all in God's good time.

Just a few things that went through my head after my reading. Maybe it can be today's scripture/reflection for you...it's only words unless you apply it.

Have a FABULOUS weekend!

EEEEWWWW.....Yucky Birthday Weather

Today started out such a nice pretty 'Happy Birthday JP' day! Around 4:15 or so one of the guys from the managers office came and told us we needed to go to the basement right away. There had been a tornado warning (one had been sighted) and it was getting nasty outside. We stayed in the basement for over an hour waiting on the weather to pass. Luckily there wasn't a touchdown near us or even in the city. There was hail quarter sized! Driving home I passed several dealerships. It looked like it had snowed on their lots! The streets were flooded, many that should have been closed. I'm surprised that I made it home. JP has been at work since 2 and has said that work has been busy!! I can only imagine! It has started hailing again at the house and the dogs didn't like it hitting the window! More yucky weather to come! I'm sure many pictures of this will be posted on the internet, and I didn't take any, but here is a site that has a few good ones and more to come! I hope everyone has a dry night!

http://www.weathernow.tv/first_pics/thumbs

I am my daddy's girl!

When I was little, I remember dragging out of bed early (6:30 to a 5 year old is ear l y) to eat breakfast before school. Daddy would be sitting in his chair and I would crawl up into his lap wearing a 'meaner than a junk pile bass' t-shirt and sporting a horrible Dorothy Hamill haircut. He would be doctoring his coffee and I would tell him "Inna wine it Daddy...Inna wine it!" meaning I want to wind/stir his coffee. See Daddy likes milk and sugar in his coffee...not black like Momma.

Well yesterday I broke down and got a coffee pot intending to use it to make coffee not hot water like I normally would. Staying up waiting for JP makes me seriously tired during the day, but I need/have to see him so I stay up so I can spend sometime with him....it stinks not having him around the house when I'm home! Anyways...so I got the coffee pot that you can program and since I don't like the thought of regular coffee I got french vanilla. I wake up this morning get in the shower and my coffee is ready when I get out. I took a sip of it straight without adding anything and I almost thought I had made a BAD decision. So I add a little bit of milk and try it...not too bad, but still missing something. I add a little sugar, but it still needs more. Finally I got it to taste the way I wanted and drank the whole pot...not all before I left for work though I had to take some with me. I have been on a caffeine high all day! Tomorrow I think I'll do it again! :)

I've been cleaning and cooking supper for JP when he gets home. The dogs and I miss him! Waiting on the weekend...maybe we can do something exciting!

Bikes and such

For JP's birthday we got bikes. I know it was early but I'd rather be early than late. So after testing them out on the street, we decided to take them to the park. It sounded easy enough, after all they have a road that goes around it. If you know JP, which I should have known better, he wanted to go off-roading. I thought he was going to KILL ME! I haven't ridden a bike since at least high school, if not junior high. Riding wasn't the problem, it was the shifting gears that got to me! I couldn't figure them out...leave it to me. I definately have to figure it out before we take them to Palo Dura Canyon! Sunday afternoons will become our bike riding/park time...so we think!

This week starts JP's 5 weeks of 2-10 shift dispatching. This should be an interesting week! I know when I was working 2:30 to 11, there were nights I couldn't wind down until 2 or 3. Then I didn't want to wake up until 12, unless I had school then 7 am mornings were horrible, with a nap to come after class! So our schedules will be so different. On a good note he will keep his weekends off! We have been so fortunate for him to have them off so we can spend time together! The gym will now be my new best friend, along with the numerous books I have gotten recently but haven't started yet. Hopefully they will keep me entertained, if not the dogs will!

Our dogs are such characters! JP brought home a frisbee the other day from a training session for the dogs. Gunner LOVES it! He has caught it in the air a couple of times and has finally learned to drop it at your feet so you can throw it again. Tuck tries to take it away from him and sometimes succeeds and other times they run side by side both with a part of the frisbee in their mouth. They crack me up!

Hope you all have a great week!