I love Swagbucks

You may, or may not, have noticed my sidebar with some Swagbucks information added to it. I was introduced to Swagbucks just a few weeks ago and I am so happy to have finally jumped on the bandwagon. Just by using their search engine, you have chances to win what are called Swagbucks. Usually I just win 2 or 3 times a day whenever I need to do a search. From what I understand, no matter how often you try to search, you will generally only win a few times a day. Usually anywhere from 7-12 bucks a time. But hey, it all adds up. I also qualify for surveys from time to time and I have won several hundred Swagbucks by doing these, which take about 20 minutes.

So in just 2 weeks of doing this, not spending much time at all, I have already accumulated and redeemed enough Swagbucks for 2 $5.00 giftcards for Amazon.com. For doing practically nothing. And hey, I am definitely one who likes free money! It's actually legit. You can redeem your swagbucks for a lot of other things, but I like to buy books on Amazon and so that is what I redeemed mine on. And I am already more than halfway to getting another one. This was honestly the only reason I even joined, was for the Amazon gift cards that my friends kept saying they were winning. And now, after a couple of weeks, I thought I would share it with you all too.

Want to join in the fun too and earn yourself some nice prizes. Just click here: SWAGBUCKS sign up, and start doing the normal searching you would use yahoo or any other search engine for.

Sorry to sound like an advertisement, but it really is nice to win giftcards for doing nothing so that I don't have to spend my own money on Amazon!

"The" phone call

You know what I'm talking about when I say "The" phone call. You know...the one in which the person on the other line tells you you would be perfect for the job and can't wait for you to move there. Yup, that one. For the record, we are still waiting for that call.

We went to Kentucky for a tryout last weekend. Although it was quite difficult having 3 kids in 1 little hotel room, we had a wonderful time there. Everyone was just so nice and we really felt like we fit in there. Faith and Samantha totally hammed it up and walked around and talked to all the women, which is completely UN-Faith-Like. Faith even sat with one of the widows during the dinner they had for us, which was no where near where we were sitting. (And I would just like to add how amazing this woman was...she was 92, she was married for 63 years, she was still driving herself and was one spunky lady...and she seriously looked amazing for her age and would have never thought she was in her 90's).

After the dinner all the men gathered together to hammer Chris (ok ok, they were pretty easy on him). He said there was one question though that threw him off and made him a little mad. One of the men (who was older) asked if he really thought he was qualified to teach our children. It threw him off because it had absolutely nothing to do with the job and just with the way he said it. I tried to explain to Chris afterwards though that he will run into that quite a bit. Maybe I'm just already used to the snide comments about us homeschooling from people who really don't understand what it's about. Chris hasn't dealt with any of that yet. I tried to explain to him that we will run into that a lot, especially in smaller towns that just aren't used to anything other than public schooling. I told him to look at the town we came from and what his thoughts were on homeschooling before we had children.

Still though, everything we really well. From the comments everyone made to both he and I at separate times, it really sounded like they felt the same way we did. That they really wanted Chris to be the preacher there. The only thing was that they had already asked another guy to come this past Sunday to try out as well. He was an older gentleman, his wife was deceased, and he had no family. They made it sound like they were just having him try out since they had already asked him, but Chris was still "the one to beat" so to speak.

But it is now Monday afternoon and we still are waiting for "The" phone call. We both really thought we would have heard back from them this morning. With each passing hour we turn a little more pessimistic. We are trying to remain hopeful, but it's hard. Waiting is hard. Waiting is even harder when you are all but told you have the job, you just have to wait for the official word. Because you don't dare get your hopes up after being battered down by "the process".

So, I guess all I can say is you will hear when I hear.

List of things

I have been meaning to write, things have just been in overdrive lately. I thought things would slow down after last week, but I find myself trying to get caught up on things that have been put off for a long time.

First and foremost...Chris is DONE with school! He is no longer just a preaching student but is now an official preacher. An unemployed one, but one nonetheless. I don't think I have ever been more proud of him. It has definitely been a tough 2 years but he stuck with it.

Some more good news is he will be trying out for a congregation on Sunday. It's not north like we wanted, but if everything is right then that is better than going north into a church that isn't sound. We leave on Friday and I admit I'm a little nervous. It's our first tryout and I'm not sure what to expect.

I had my GTT this morning and got a call from my nurse this afternoon. Thankfully I PASSED!!! I am so glad I don't have to do the 3 hour GTT and even more happier that I don't have GD. Though it wasn't a big concern as I have never had it. I am, however, anemic, and have to go back on iron pills twice a day. I'm so bad at remembering to take pills.

Some really bad news is Chris's brother's health has not been good and he has been battling lung cancer. They thought everything was getting better. He got a call from his mom last night and she said that he now has more spots on his lungs, and has spots on his stomach and his pancreas as well. I had a feeling after she was down last weekend that things weren't good. She was telling me that he hasn't been wanting to eat and is down to 108 pounds. I didn't tell her what I was thinking, but I was hoping I was wrong. Things are not looking good at all. I am so worried about his mom. This will be the 2nd son she will have to bury, if he isn't able to fight it. It will also be the 2nd family member who she will have to watch succumb to cancer. The first being her husband, who died of bone cancer the day after Chris and I were married (like just past midnight that next day). What makes it even harder is that he is still not right with God. Chris is going to try to talk with him again to get him to come back, but every attempt he has made so far has been shot down. He could definitely use some prayers.

4

That would be the number we are now up to of churches that have wanted Chris to come out to try out. That would also be the number of churches Chris has had to say no thank you too because they were not sound. Not only were they not sound, they were not sound on the exact same issue. Number 4 was tonight, which was the church we happened across that I mentioned a few posts below.

Moving up north doesn't look like it will be happening.

What's even more frustrating is it has all been on the same issue. It wouldn't be quite so frustrating if we could just talk to/try out for a sound church at some point. Right now it's not feeling like there are any out there, well that are hiring at least.

2 would be the number of churches that have recently emailed him back to let him know that they received his information but that they had a huge response to the job ad and so it will take a little while to go through. Which I'm sure when you have had that many people apply that someone fresh out of school with no full time experience will be real high on the list.

It's not looking like we will be going anywhere anytime soon.

Now the question is...how do you fit 6 people in a 2 bedroom, apartment? And yes that thought makes me want to cry. I can't even tell you how bad I want out of here.

Another one bites the dust

We were close. So very close. To getting a try-out that is. A church called and told Chris they wanted him to come try out. I thought it was kind of strange that they wanted to take the time and money to fly him out without talking with him more. Luckily Chris started asking some questions. Let's just say I'm finding our hopes of going north to be just that, hopes. I can't believe we are having such a hard time finding a conservative congregation.

I told Chris there is some good news to this though. At least someone wanted him to come tryout! At least he finally got some kind of answer. Hopefully now that he is closer to graduating we will hear more back from people. And yes, he did decline to go out there to tryout.

I did find out something about myself today though. I have realized that I am indeed afraid to fly. Well, sort of. You see, the church obviously wouldn't have been able to fly us all out and were just going to fly out Chris and I (and I would have taken Elijah since he flies free). Just thinking about that though seriously made me start freaking out a bit. Chris and I, together, on a flight. IF something were to happen with us on the plane and our children not...ugh, I think I will start crying again. I know I have talked about it before but since we have no one in our family who we would trust to raise our children in the Lord, it is a huge HUGE fear of mine that Chris and I would both die. HUGE. But I guess that is another post in itself.

Oh, and this was a different church than I had mentioned in my last post. Don't want any confusion there.

To sign or not to sign, that is the question

It's that time...time to deal with our lease. Something we were dreading if he didn't have a job by now. Our lease is up at the end of July and they want our lease renewal, like now. Apparently you have to give a 60-day notice if you are moving. I never noticed that before. So by June 1st we have to give notice if we will be moving. I told Chris though that if we have to tell them by June 1st if we are moving, then we don't have to have our lease in until then as well. We are going to hold off and see what the next few weeks bring.

Here's our options. We can sign another year lease, and then if we end up having to move before the end of that year (which I certainly hope we do!) then we have to pay 2 months rent for breaking it. We also have the option of renting month-to-month and only having to give a 30-day notice. The downside to that is our rent would go up $75 a month. If Chris doesn't have a preaching job and has to find a secular job, 75 bucks is huge, because we will be broke. So we aren't sure what to do.

Chris at least got a phone call today, which was encouraging. They let him know that they got his stuff and were impressed by it and that they would be meeting tomorrow to discuss it. They said they would give him a call back. They also apologized for the lack of communication. He just sent his stuff off to them at the beginning of the week! If they call THAT a lack of communication then that has to be a good sign! Our experience has been most people don't send anything back or call, at least until a month later. We don't know much about the position though so it is still way up in the air. We don't know if they are sound, what they pay is, what their expectation are, nothing. Guess first we will see if they are interested in going any farther.

It's kind of interesting how we came about the position. Chris saw an ad somewhere for a congregation up north looking for a preacher. He applied for it but didn't know how old the ad was. Turns out the ad was really old...like 2 years old...and the position was obviously filled. The guy who contacted him back said Chris sounded like a sound preacher though and would let us know if something happened to their preacher (their preacher has ads out that he is looking to move back down south). A few days later though he sent Chris an email and told him that his aunt and uncle were just at his house visiting and said they had just let their preacher go and were looking. The guy then sent Chris's stuff on to them, which is how the ball got rolling. I know we would be happy in the area it is in as it is a beautiful area, and up north like we wanted, it just depends on a lot of things. They had apparently JUST let their preacher go and were just starting to the process going, and don't even have it advertised yet. Still though, if they have already called him and they are meeting about it tomorrow, hopefully we will hear something within the week one way or another. Fingers crossed!!!

Homeschooling

Our homeschooling is going great so far. Faith's reading is really picking up and she is learning more and more. Just seeing the look on her face when she reads a whole sentence is just priceless. With Samantha she is still working on letter sounds. She is really doing good too. She is actually younger than Faith was when I started with her, but she really wants to be included with the reading. I just don't push it with her and we just do a little bit a day.

We have really been picking up our nature studies since spring has hit and we have been learning about different insects.

And we are of course still doing our daily devotionals. I am amazed at how easily Faith remembers her memory verses. She still remembers verses we did last month.

I couldn't be happier at our decision to homeschool. It is so much fun to be able to teach the girls and watch their faces as they learn different things, and then seeing how well they recall the information later on in the day or even a few days later. It has been such a great experience, and we haven't even "officially" started yet!

Since Faith doesn't turn 5 until October we don't have to officially start until next September. She is more than ready now though and so come August I am going to start her on a kindergarten curriculum. She is going to be starting on the Heart of Dakota program and I am going to supplement what we do and learn with books from the library and with our little field trips. I want to keep it fun and light and don't want to do a "traditional" classroom learning style. I have been really impressed with the Charlotte Mason style and will continue to do my research there. While we are using a curriculum to keep me more on track, help with different ideas, and give me some kind of structure, I want them to really learn a lot from reading books and from being outside.

It's funny but even now I can tell a huge difference in the girls' attitudes when we start letting up on the learning (like when I was in the 1T). They just absolutely love learning!