Family "Emergency:

I've had a minor family emergency come up last night.  I will be leaving today to go stay with my Mother-In-Law for a while.  I'm not 100% sure if I will have internet access or not, and I will have to postpone my upcoming reviews and giveaways that I had planned to do this coming week.  If I have any internet access then I will be trying to get them posted in a timely fashion or at the very least trying to post at least once or twice this coming week.  If not then I may be able to get a hold of Ange and beg her to guest post for me. 

I'm going to try to check my email, so for those of you who have it feel free to use it.  I feel SO badly about having to postpone my reviews and giveaways for Jagger's Event.  I'm seriously beyond bummed out about this.  I'm going to do my best to take my review items with me and still get as many as I can done this week if at all possible. 

This family "emergency" is a mixture of good and bad things.  I will post about it when I get a chance, because God knows I need to get this off my chest because the bad is far outweighing the good right now.  But I will say that the good involves Justin taking a job that will be paying at least 400 dollars for 3 to 5 days of work.  But the bad is more on an emotional level and can not be summed up right now because I'm running very short on time.

If you pray I humbly ask that you please keep my family in your prayers right now as we are trying to work out a lot of things.  Pray that somehow my fathers heart can be changed towards me, because at this post I'm not sure that it is in God's plan for that to be so, but I surely do hope so and either way I have faith that He has a greater plan for me and my family.  We are hoping to be able to iron out a plan this week that will, hopefully, allow for us to move out of my Fathers house, which would truly be a blessing, and have our own place very very soon.  So please keep us in your prayers, and as always you all will be in my thoughts & prayers as well!

Request for Thoughts & Prayers....

I've got a favor to ask each and every one of you before I post up my GC winner for eUndies.  My very bestest best friend in the entire world's name is Leila.  She's been my best friend since I moved to West by God Virginia in the 6th grade.  We were in History class together and we both walked up to each other and said hey and then at the exact same time we both said "I like Michael Jackson" to each other.  Crazy, right?!  But it's true, that's how we met.  I know it's probably weird to think of two 24 year old women being in the 6th grade and randomly blurting out that we both have love for MJ, since we're pretty young and that was at the time when he was dubbed Wacko Jacko by the media, so he wasn't really at the height of his success then, but he made amazing music that we both loved none the less.  I love my Leila, we've been through everything together, and she's always been there for me through the roughest times in my life.  We've had fights and made up a few times, as all High School and Middle School aged girls do, but we've always stuck by each other through the hard times.

Life is a rollercoaster on a battlefield...

If pop culture has taught me anything it has taught me that love is like a roller coaster, baby and that love is a battlefield.  I used to believe that, at least at certain points in my life I did anyway.  You know, when it fit the description of something I was going through anyway.  I'm not so sure anymore though.

I think they've been lying to us.  Or at least to me anyway, I don't know about ya'll.  I've developed a theory that the people who wrote these songs had some kind of odd, undocumented speech impediment that makes it sound like when you sing the word life it comes out as love.  Then they sang the song to someone, in the hopes that they would want to record it and make them loads of money, the singers misunderstood what they were saying and replaced the word life with the word love.  That's my theory, so whaddya think?

Why do I so fervently believe this?  I'm glad you asked, and even if you're among the people who didn't ask I'm still going to tell you.  Because life is like a rollercoaster and it sometimes can be a battlefield.  Remember when my husband lost his job awhile back?  He went and he fought for that job and he won.  That's when the rollercoaster went back up the hill, and we peaked at the top, triumphant!  We sat there for a while, drunk on glory..well not glory, but happiness and contentment that my husband was working a good job that he moderatly enjoyed with people that didn't annoy him to no end for the most part.

I must have fallen asleep while we were idling at that high point of him getting to go back to work though.  Because I never felt the engine pick back up and the sudden drop down.  We learned yesterday that my husband was getting laid off.  Until next summer!  My husband had no indication that this was going to happen at this point.  He knew it was a possibility that it may happen at the end of August, but not July.  He was going to start putting in other applications next week to start looking for another job, because of the uncertainty of his then current job.  Now we're both going to end up putting in applications next Monday, not because of the uncertainty though, but because they abruptly and with no notice or warning laid some people off.

Aiden is about to start full day pre-school in September.  We've been slowly buying his new clothes for school and for Fall and Winter.  Apparently we should have been buying them quicker, instead of just picking up a few things here and a shirt or two there.  Because now we have to try to finish by September on a much much tighter budget.  That is IF unemployment doesn't make him wait 6 weeks before we start to draw any money from them.  I know they do that if you quit or get fired, but what if you get laid off?

We've also been getting Jagger a few things here and there, when we could, the same as Aiden because of him growing and most of his clothing being destroyed in the leak/black mold incident.  So I'm going to try asking around to see if any of my friends know of anyone who has a little boy and see if I can maybe get them to sell me a bag of clothes for Jagger for yard sale or thrift store prices or something.  I hope that I can find someone, or figure out something else.  I'd appreciate it if any of you who pray would pray for my family at this time.  I'm hoping one of us can find work in this extremely tiny town.

What would you all do if you were in this situation and you had to get your 3.5 year old some decent school clothes and your 9 month old some clothes as well?  Any helpful ideas or suggestions for me and my family? 

Just an update!

I've been a bit neglectful of my blog recently.  I don't intend to be, but I've been really sick and then everything else just seems like it has went to hell as well.  I am getting better now, finally! 

On Thursday we found out that there was a leak in the play room here.  The floor is now rotten and has to be replaced.  Which of course means that we have to put down new carpet or flooring as well.  Great!  My husband was preparing to take the carpet up and inspect the damage when we pulled up the corner of the carpet and discovered that there is black mold under there.  My husband is allergic to mold and has asthma.  So we have to hire someone else to deal with that. 

Hiring someone to take care of the mold and the new floor normally wouldn't be a problem, but on Friday when he went in to work he got his paycheck and there was a letter in it saying that they were terminating his employment.  So yeah, he got fired.  Which puts us in a horrid situation because we need all this work done.  There is also another problem.  Since having Jagger last October the Playroom has been used as storage for the massive amount of baby clothes and things we have for him. All of his clothes have ruined.  Completely ruined.  So now after he grows out of his current size he has absolutely no clothing and we have to buy new.  Which wouldn't normally be a problem either.  Except that my husband has lost his job and we live in a very small southern town, and it's hard to find work here.  Jagger is already starting to need some size 6-9 months things, so it probably won't be much longer until he outgrows all of his 3-6 months clothing.  He's just started to catch up, since he was born early and was just a little over 5 pounds at birth. 

So now we have to find a way to basically renovate the play room, buy the materials, buy new carpeting or hardwood and buy Jagger all new clothing as well.  I've been down about this and have taken a few days to just soak it all up and take it in.  I haven't figured out how we're going to be able to do all of this yet though.  I don't work so we were dependent on the income that Justin gets totally.  Now that it has been taken away without warning I have no clue what we are going to do.  He already has applications in everywhere because he went and applied all day Friday and all day Monday.  There are a few places that are thinking about hiring but no where that is currently hiring.  It's just been a trying time for us.  We're trying to stay positive, but it's really hard sometimes with the weight of all of this on our shoulders.  We have each other, our health and our beautiful baby boys though, so that is definitely a good thing.  If you pray then please keep our family in your prayers if you don't mind!

I have several amazing giveaways coming up for you all!  Including an awesome flat iron, a onesie or outfit of your choice from an great online store and several other great prizes as well.  I will be announcing the Sweet Dream Candle winner tonight after my children go to bed.