~ DONE ~

Friends, I need some encouragement. Is there anyone (of the 3 that read my blog) who ever gets discouraged and just wants to throw in the towel? Do any of you ever feel like you’re not worthy of the many blessings that God has given you? And you know that the only way you landed the blessings was because of God’s grace – because alone you’re nothing? I could contribute some of my emotion to the new medication that I’m taking (due to my inability to get pregnant) – that’s a story for later. BUT I refuse to place blame on the medication or the doctor who’s prescribing it, but I’ll blame myself! There are a thousand reasons that I can give you for my emotions and feelings, but I'll spare you the gory details. But, friends, I don’t feel like getting up one more morning, going to work one more day or exerting my energy to breath. I’m at the bottom – I’m done.

I know that I do have some AWESOME prayer warriors that read my blog and girls I’m counting on you. Will you please send up some prayers for me? Will you help a friend get out of a funk?

~ More Highlights ~

(or less in this case)

As many of you remember about this time last year I decided that I needed to color my hair. And many of you told me it was addicting... I should have listened. I visited a new salon this morning and had a very dear friend of mine try her hand on my hair and I must say she's won my business. She listened to my concerns, we talked about what I wanted and how I wanted it to look. I just had it cut and colored about a month ago, but I had one bad dye job, it was spotted and a very brassy shade of blonde and I just was not in love with anything about it. So, Miss Melody fixed me up today. It is much darker than it's been in a long time, but she did put some blonde highlights back in it and I think it looks much better. What do you think (if you need a reference go down 2 or 3 posts and see the before)?

Here's the end result:

~ A Bloggy Update ~

I promised that I’d keep you up to date on my new job and all the changes that are happening so fast in my life. I’m happy to report that after only 2 days on the job I LOVE IT!!! All of the teachers and faculty are so nice and they’ve all welcomed me with open arms. The 2 counselors that I’m assisting are great. We were very busy today with registration. We registered about 20 kids (and school doesn’t start until Friday). I am ready to get into a routine, have my own desk and have a feeling of being settled, but I know that will come soon.

Thanks to all of you who have been praying that thing would go well and that I’d like this job. I’ll keep you posted. I’m going to try my best to get back into blogging daily and asking you to hold me accountable on some things… but more on that later.

Have a great evening and I’ll see you tomorrow!

~ News ~

Let me start by saying that Blogger tells me this is my 100th post and I know there is a bloggy rule about doing a “100 things about me” post, but I have bigger things to talk about today. The 100 things post will come later – I promise.

I’m not sure exactly where to start… Oh, let me just tell you the good news and then I’ll tell you how it came about. I’M STARTING A NEW JOB TOMORROW!!!

As some of you know I was/am working at the church that Jay and I attended. Well, on June 1st our church split and we were on the leavin’ side. This is a whole story in it’s self, but I grew up in the church, I’ve attended services there for 28 years. It was a hard decision, but God, on more than on occasion, confirmed that we should stop attending services there. This obviously put a strain on my working there and with the relationships of those who stayed. My title was Pastor’s secretary, well the reason the church split was the fact that some didn’t like the pastor and they pretty much backed him into a corner and made him resign. Anyway, to make a long story shorter, I decided that I would most likely be next on the chopping block (oh, did I mention that we were 84,000 over budget at that time?). So, I started praying about what God had in store for us and where He was leading me to work – I just kept coming back to the idea of going back to school and getting my teaching degree/certificate. I talked to several of my friends who are teachers and they encouraged me to apply at some local schools, just to get my foot in the door. So, I did and for 6 weeks I’ve been putting applications in at schools, county/government offices and any other place that I qualified for their job and NOTHING. As of Monday of this week I had put in maybe 12 or 15 applications (I lost count) and had had NO call backs. So to say that I was discouraged was an understatement. Meanwhile, for the last 6 weeks I’ve been trying to lay low at work and just go with the flow – even though the flow has been very inconsistent and there have been numerous talks about pay cuts (totaling between 7 & 12 percent), cut in hours or even some of us being “laid off”. It’s been a very emotional few weeks. Finally on Monday of this week I got a phone call from the assistant principal of Clements Middle School in Covington asking me if I could come on Tuesday for an interview. Let me give you a disclaimer here – I don’t like middle school aged kids – they have big mouths and they are just weird, I prefer the ones who are cute and under the age of 5!! So, to say that I was apprehensive about this interview – another understatement, but I went and the interview went well. I had applied with the Newton County School System for a parapro position, but the job I interviewed for wasn’t actually an “in classroom” type position. I will be the assistant for the registration office, right up my ally… I will make sure that all the kids who transfer to/from the school have the documents they need and have complete information in their file. Mr. Stephens called me yesterday to offer me the job and I start tomorrow!!! How awesome is God’s timing.

I’ll check in with you tomorrow and let you know how my day went and how AWESOME my new job is.

I just realized that I left you hangin’ on where Jay and I are attending church… The 150+ of us who left the old church started a new church. We have about 140 – 175 people each week and we are back to “havin’ church”. Check out our website Berean Baptist Church. If you are looking for a church in the Covington area please come join us.

~New Summer Dos~

Jackson and I have donned our summer dos. I've been sporting mine for about 2 weeks and Jackson just got him this week. Tell us what you think...

Jackson First:

Before:

And After:

Now it's my turn:

Before:

(this is an old picture, but it's the only one I could find. My hair was down past my shoulders!)

And NOW!!!

This cut makes me feel SOOO sassy. Excuse the huge purple shirt, it's my sleeping shirt. These are horrible pictures of my, but it's all I have for now. I'll try to get some that are more flattering soon!!!

A Big Week Ahead!

This week 2 things will happen on Tuesday.

#1. Jay will turn 30.

Baby Jay

14 month old Jay

This is 30 year old Jay!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY -- I LOVE YOU!!!!!

#2. Sassy will turn 1.

This was taken in early August, the day after we brought Sassy home.

She weighted almost 4 pounds...

This was taken right around Christmas, Sassy was about 6 months old and weighed in at about 10 pounds.

Here's one taken last week. She was playing in my chair with a new toy. She now weighs in at 14 pounds. I'm sure glad she a miniature!!! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SASSY -- WE LOVE YOU!!

Alive & Well!

I'd love to tell you that live has been so exciting and busy that I just didn't have time to post, but that wouldn't exactly be the truth. The truth would be that I'd been too lazy to post. I've been reading alot of posts and even commenting some, but I just haven't put the energy into writing my own. So here are a few things that have happened around the Henderson Homestead.

Jay and I went to Charleston, SC over Memorial Day weekend. I didn't take to many pictures, but here are a couple:

This picture was taken down by The Battery. The wind coming off of the water must have been blowing 70 miles an hour. You can see that my hair and shirt are blowing, it was so bad, Jay actually had a handful of my hair and was holding it down so that it didn't look so bad in the picture...

Here's one of Jay and Jeff "playing" in the ocean. There are NO pictures of me and Andrea throughout the whole trip. Go figure.

This is a Carnival Cruise ship that passed right by the beach as we were hanging out on Monday.

We had a wonderful time away and really enjoyed ourselves! Thanks to Ms. Vickie and Mr. Randy for letting us stay at their house.