Another Week Gone By

There were quite a few days this week that I didn't want to get out of bed. It seems as though life just keeps getting harder for us these days. Just when I think things can't get worse, they do. Jeremy was laid off on Tuesday this last week. At the time, I really didn't know what we were going to do. And to be honest, I still don't really know. On Wednesday he went to apply for unemployment. When he told me the amount we qualify for (if we are approved,) I started doing some figuring. The unemployment will take care of rent and our electric bill. We still have to worry about food, phone, internet, gas, etc. Our tax return isn't looking quite so big anymore. Especially if he won't be able to find another job for a few months. If I knew it would only be a month or two, I could relax and plan accordingly. But it's the unknown that really has me down. So if any one knows of any graphic design jobs that are available, please let us know!

We did get our computer back on Wednesday this last week. We were able to enjoy 3 days of a working computer before the hard drive crashed on us AGAIN! So we are now going to buy a new computer. Once again, we know people with connections, so we will be able to get a new computer for a good deal. My problem is that I feel so guilty spending money on a new computer when I know that will make our tax return money run out sooner rather than later. But we can't survive without a computer. The internet is the only way to apply for jobs these days. Sure we could use the internet at our local library which is just a few blocks away. But that means we can't reply quickly to emails concerning job interviews and things. Also, since Jeremy is a graphic designer a few job will send him mock projects for him to do as part of the interviewing process. Without his Adobe Creative Suite, he won't be able to do any of those.....
So we have our new computer ordered, taking a deep breath, and moving forward with the faith to know we'll be taken care of. We are already seeing so many blessings coming our way. For example, Jeremy's brother, Michael, offered to loan us one of his laptops while we wait for a new computer. Considering our track record with ruining hard drives, that was a HUGE blessing for us. Even the computer we were borrowing from Jeremy's cousin left our house with hard drive issues. But at least we have internet and a borrowed computer that will meet our needs until we get ours. Thanks again Michael, we really appreciate it.

We have had good things happen to us this week. I've had to focus on those a lot these last few days. Jeremy gets to play with us a lot more now that he's spending more time at home. I've loved having his help around the house.
We do qualify for unemployment, which is a lot better than not having an income at all. Jeremy had a few interviews this week, which is a good sign. Also, as soon as friends and family have found out about our situation, they have been sending us a lot of job leads, which is great.

It spread around the ward on Sunday that Jeremy had lost his job. When a neighbor learned of this, she immediately offered to bring us some food. She ended up bringing boxes and bags of food. She filled the trunk of her car and brought it over. I couldn't believe how generous she was, especially since I know they struggle themselves. Her generosity inspires me to be better.

When I went in to get a crown put on my tooth, the dentist decided to let me wait for the tooth to break. He thinks that if it does break, it won't be as bad as what he thought at first. So we were able to save a few hundred dollars there this week.

I've been seeing an increase in the amount of people who need a math tutor. So I've been working more hours than I have in a long time. I work about 2 hours a day instead of 2 hours a week. I've also been able to get some baby sitting in as well.

I have a friend who does testing for a company who makes tests. She gives the test to people and gives the results to the company so that they can make better tests. We get paid to take these tests, and it just so happened that she had tests for both Jeremy and Clara to take this week. So that even brought us some extra money.

And of course our biggest blessing is our little Clara. She is always so happy and so oblivious to our situation. She has caught me crying a few times this week. When she does, she'll climb up on my lap and in a very concerned voice ask, "Happened?" When I tell her that Mommy is just sad, she says, "Mommy happy!" She will then grab my cheeks and pull so that my mouth is forced to smile. That does make me laugh and hence smile. She really is such a joy and I'm so glad we have her in our home.

Valentine's Week

Clara decided to celebrate Valentine's week by getting pink eye! Who knew she could come up with so many ways to "wear" pink in honor of this wonderful holiday! This is how she looked most of the week: Sleeping and having her hands cover her eyes. This little girl would sleep for 14 hours a night, be awake for 3 hours, sleep for 4 more hours, be awake again for 3, and then be ready for bed for the night.

I was so glad when she started getting back to her old self. She still has a cough, but at least she is willing to play by herself and doesn't need mom to just hold her all day.

I love how Clara doesn't take her toys off the shelf to play with them. Instead, she kneels in front of the shelf and just plays with them there. Oh how she makes me laugh.So Clara was putting her 2 hands together forming a roof to a house. So I started singing "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man." It's a song she sings at church about a wise man building his house upon a rock and a foolish man building his house upon the sand. It's taken from the scripture story found in Matthew 7:24 - 27. Anyway, as I started singing that song, Jeremy joined in. We were doing the actions along with Clara and when the song was over she said, "Good job guys, good job." Oh how I love the praise of a 2 year old! :)

We were also able to celebrate Valentine's week by attending the sealing of my old roommate Keri and her family. I used to baby sit Keri's little girl every day. She now gets to work from home, so I don't get to watch her little girls as often. But I was still so excited to be able to see that family sealed for time and all eternity. It was such a special day, and I'm so grateful that they invited me to share that day with them. As soon as Addi saw me, she tried to run right over to me. Then, she tried to follow me out of the sealing room as I was leaving! I'm also glad to know she still likes me! :) Congrats again Banbury family. I'm so pleased you finally made it! I know it's been a long and hard journey, but hopefully you can now understand how much it was worth!I was also able to attend a baby shower for a dear friend who moved to Wyoming a little less than a year ago. I miss her, and was so excited that she made a trip back to UT so we could have a baby shower for her! It was great to see you again Steph and Ty!Jeremy and I decided to keep Valentine's Day simple this year. We both were needing some things that were somewhat pricey, so we gave those to each other. Since they were practical gifts, we still wanted to get something fun for each other, but it had to be something little. Jeremy made my day by getting me my favorite kind of chocolate and a small rose! Thanks Jeremy!I also want to just thank him for how wonderful he is. I am so grateful that in almost everything he does, he thinks of me. My happiness is truly his first priority. I am so grateful that he takes care of me. I know he's not perfect, but he has such a good heart that I can't help but over look anything negative that he does and I only see the good. I was talking to a friend on Valentine's Day and she is having some marital problems. At one point she asked me if I considered my marriage to truly be "blissful." I felt so grateful that I could honestly answer yes. Thanks, Jeremy, for always giving 100% of yourself to me. It means a lot to me and I'm sorry I take you for granted sometimes. I do love you more than I love anything else!

Crazy Week

So this week has been another week with lots of great growing experiences. So as I relate each "growing experience," I will also include the great blessings that have come with them.

On Wednesday, I decided to tackle filing our taxes. I was pleasantly surprised with how much the government is going to pay us this year. One hour after reveling in how much our tax return will help our depleted savings account, our washer started to make a funny noise.

I had 2 loads of laundry washed and the 3rd (out of 4 loads) was in the washer. All of a sudden, our washer started making a strange noise and it no longer started draining the water out. Since we don't know anyone in the area who is handy with washers, we set up an appointment for Friday to have a professional come and look at our washer.

But as I was stressing about how I was going to get the rest of our clothes cleaned, I thought about my good friend Aubrey. She was going to come to my house that night to get some sewing done. I called her and she graciously let me come to her house instead and bring my last 2 loads of laundry with me. I was so grateful for her willingness to open her small apartment to Clara and I just so that I could use her laundry facilities!

On Thursday, Jeremy found out that he didn't even get a 2nd interview at the job he so desperately wanted. This was a big blow to us, especially since Jeremy was really excited about this opportunity and we thought his interview went really well. Since we knew it would be a big let down if we didn't get that job, we planned to go to Nickel City (a cheap arcade) if he didn't get it. That way he could still have something to look forward to if he didn't get the job. So on Thursday we also found out that we would get to have a wonderful night out as a family at Nickel City!

Friday morning the washer repair man was prompt, which was amazing. He was here a total of 15 minutes, and pulled a sock out of our pump. Apparently I was able to do something that is extremely hard to do: get a sock between the drum and the outside of the washer. There is only a very slight opening at the top of the drum. They have engineered it to make it nearly impossible to get laundry in that opening, but somehow I did it. One of Clara's socks went through that opening and into our pump, clogging it. That sock was in the first load. So it only took one load (the 2nd one) to get it clogged! However, I was able to watch the repair man fix our washer, so I now feel confident to be able to fix minor problems with our washer, if they should happen again. I was amazed at how damaged that little sock was, so I took a picture of the "matching" pair of socks.Clara didn't wake up until 11 Saturday morning, so I figured she wouldn't need a nap. That was a mistake. Turns out that she fell asleep on my lap at a friends house in the early evening. We were planning on going to Nickel City as a family because I knew that Clara would love getting to push all the buttons on the games. However, since we had to wake Clara up to take her home, she was extremely cranky the next 2 hours. She wouldn't leave my lap. I knew there was no way we could take her with us, and she desperately needed to go to bed. I tried calling a few different neighbors to see if they could listen to a monitor while she slept, but no one answered. I then called my wonderfully amazing friend Aubrey again. Her and Aaron willingly came over on such a short notice to watch Clara for us! I was in tears by the time they got here. I was so thankful that they came so quickly. Thanks again Aubs and Aaron for always being there for us!

Jeremy and I had a blast at the Nickel City. We were there for a little over 2 hours! I can't believe I lasted that long. The only other time we've gone to Nickel City, I was ready to go after 20 minutes and Jeremy was just getting started. But I found the game Dr. Mario and that kept me busy for quite a while. I even ended up getting the high score! That is something I've NEVER done before!

Our computer also quit working on Saturday. Luckily, Jeremy's cousin is great with computers. He also knows our computer well because we just bought a brand new hard drive 3 1/2 months ago. So we were able to drop off our computer on Sunday and we found out today that our brand new hard drive crashed! The 30 day warranty has expired, but we were still able to get a new hard drive for just the cost of mailing the crashed one back to Western Digital. It will take over a week to get our computer up and running again, but Jeremy's cousin is lending us an old computer so that we can at least have Internet for this week!

I also took our car into the shop today. We've been hearing a clicking noise every time we've made a left turn. So we spent quite a chunk of money at the repair shop today getting a new CV joint! But, like I said at the beginning of this post, we will be getting a large enough tax return that all of these new expenses will be covered!

Clara has had some pretty cute moments this week that I want to record. I was driving to the store and Clara was chattering away to herself. At one point I started listening to her. She said, "Me sing? Ok." She then started singing lots of nonsense words at the top of her lungs. After a little while, I heard her say, "No more singing." A few minutes later, she again said, "Me sing? Ok." And started singing her nonsense words again. It made me laugh so hard. I'm glad I had such good entertainment in the car with me!

Clara is also obsessed with watching TV. She would watch TV all day long if I let her. The times I do let her watch something, she always gets so comfortable. I have way too many pictures of her in front of the TV, because I love her poses. So here is just one of the many....

Happy Anniversary

Jeremy and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary this last week. So much has happened in these last 4 years. Jeremy has had 6 different jobs and is looking for his 7th. We've lived in 3 different apartments. We've gone from a family of 2 to a family of 3. And there are several other changes. But there are some things that haven't changed either. He still tells me I'm the most beautiful woman in the world. We can still make each other laugh. We can still make each other feel giddy. We can still calm each other down. I'm so glad I chose to marry Jeremy!The other night, we were driving in Lehi. Many times Lehi smells like livestock. Jeremy and I were making small talk about the current stink. Clara, overhearing our conversation, said, "Clara stinky." Usually that means she needs her diaper changed. Upon questioning her further she said, "Mommy, Clara stinky. Daddy stinky stinky too." Apparently she thought were were the cause of the stink. After all, were were the only one in the car! :)

Clara also loves to wear Daddy's hats. Her favorite one is a hat he got from Christmas that has sunglasses built in. I love her poses when she wears that hat.