Peace that Surpasses Understanding

It never ceases to amaze me how God can bring upon me such an overwhelming peace in the mist of my darkest moments. In that moment when it seems like the waves are gonna overtake me and swallow me up.... I look up and see the rock. He is my stronghold. He is steadfast. He is unmoving, unwavering, even among the violent waves. In his parent like nature he never completely removes me from the storm.. but just lifts me up high enough to see the shore. Enough to remind me in whose hands I lie. What an amazing God I have.

Why can't I ever keep up with this Blog?

Once again it's been like a year since I've blogged. Craziness! We've had another kid since my last post.. that's how long its been. Well, we had David Patrick Kiernan on the 6th of January. He's pretty cute. After a month of being born he ended up in the hospital because of a blood infection he got from the hospital... don't get me started on military doctors.

Let's see. Josh is deploying this July and we're going on vacation to Florida in May. We are going to be at Disney for a week, thanks to Uncle Sam. See... being military has it's pros and cons. "Hey.. our medical personnel isn't all that great.. but you get a good deal at Disney, wanna join."

What else.. Washington isn't all that bad. I kinda like it here. If Josh doesn't sign another 2 year contract we just might stay here. I am starting my Master's Degree in the fall. MA in MFT. I can't wait to get started. I truly miss being in school.

Maybe this is why I haven't blogged in about a year... there's not much to report. All is going well with us. We are healthy.. thank God, and we have established ourselves here in Olympia. We love our church... Capital Christian Center (go2ccc.org) and we have met some pretty cool people here. I am glad we were stationed here.

The Subject of Waiting

I went through Jack in the Box drive through the other day getting my Bacon Ultimate fix and I happened to order a fruit cup for Caleb (I know that seems hypocritical that I eat a fattening burger but I order my kid fruit, but in my defense he doesn't like burgers, he prefers fruit). The window girl (I don't know what to call her, worker) starts getting my order together and I see her looking for the fruit cup and when she can't find it she yells in back, "where are the fruit cups"... no response, but she keeps putting things together. I get my order, my drink, and she tells me, we're just waiting on the fruit cup. I'm like okay, whatever, I look at the clock, it's been like 3 mins since I drove up to the pick up window, so, no big deal. Then I see her putting together other orders and I look behind me and there are like 3 people waiting for their food. She has all their bags up and then she looks up at me and says, "oh, your fruit cup" and starts to look for one in the same place she looked before. Okay it's only been like another 2 mins, so a total of like 5 mins but, for some reason, I'm getting frustrated. "My fries are getting cold," I think...so she yells in back again, "where are the fruit cups"..."we're out," was the response from in back. So then, with out even telling me their out and if I want something else, she calls for a manager to come and refund me the money, but, my kid still needs to eat and we all know I wasn't going to make him food, so I ask if I can just get a kids meal since they're like the same price. The manager is like, um.. okay, but can you pull over so we can keep the line going. So, by this time, I'm pretty upset. Not only did she waist time by not really finding out where the fruit cups are, but now they are gonna push me aside and make me WAIT longer...it's been like 6 mins now. Reluctantly, I pull over and wait. I look at the clock and say, "I'll give you one minute before I go in and complain." After 2 mins, I decide to get out and go up to the counter and tell them what I think. "I shouldn't have to get out, it was a drive through order," I think to myself. I was about to shut my car off when the girl came out with my kids meal. I'm thinking, "finally." Happy to have what I need I make the drive home and I start to think, man...8 mins to get my food and I'm upset! LOL What is it that makes us feel we shouldn't have to wait, or that we shouldn't have to get out. Lord forbid I do some exercise! The crazy part of it all is that I am most positive I will be back next week and do it all over again..

1st Duty Station

So, the army finally gave Josh his orders and he's been stationed at Fort Lewis, WA. It looks like we'll be there for at least 2 years. The possibility of deployment is still there, but, we're just gonna take one day at a time. Moving back across country is step number one. The best part about making a military move is the movers that come and pack up your house and load up the moving truck for you. It was pretty nice. They got to our house at 8 AM and were done packing and loading up the truck by 12:30PM. It was pretty nice. I felt weird just sitting around watching them pack up our stuff. Don't get me wrong, I got used to it real fast, but, it feels kind of weird at first. Another cool fact is that the military also contracts pet movers to come and take your pets and they move them for you. We found out too late and we are moving our Beta fish whose name is none other then Caleb Fish, our selves. He's doing pretty good so far, we'll see if he lasts the trip. So, I'll keep you all posted on our moves and our fun military adventures as we go along.

Bored

I'm watching FRIENDS, waiting for 1:30 to come so that I can pick up Caleb from school. It's so weird not having anything to do. House is clean, I'm not working, Caleb is at school, Josh is at work, and well, I have no one to tend to, or anything to complete. Weird. I suppose I should catch up on my reading, or start re-packing the boxes with stuff I opened when I moved here, but I really don't want to use while I'm here. I also started a project sanding down this little bookshelf I got. I plan to paint it when it's all sanded down. I cut myself with the sander about a week ago, so, I am kind of having a hard time getting back to the sanding. At any rate, I'm bored...

Driving Incidents

Let me just start by saying that I have always been a fast, but safe, driver. I am quick and I know my limits when it comes to weaving in and out of traffic, or driving with my knees as I file my nails, or put lotion on. I have never gotten a speeding ticket nor have I ever been in an accident. I was pulled over once for an "illegal lane change", but, considering I had a good excuse (my son who was 2 at the time was screaming his lungs out and I had one hand on the wheel and the other hand was looking for his chupe somewhere in the back seat when I realized I was kind of in the other lane, so, I decided I might as well switch lanes, and I just so happened to be switching lanes in front of a police car, oops) the officer let me off with a warning. Most likely because Caleb was still screaming his lungs out due to the fact that he's stubborn and I still hadn't found his chupe, which by the way was lodged underneath the seat. Anyway, I say all of this to tell you about my first car accident and ticket. A double whammy.
Josh got to Fort Gordon safely and upon arrival found out he had the weekend off. So he calls me late Friday night to ask if I would drive down the next morning. Well, my car had been having some problems, so, I really didn't want to drive it 4 hours when it needed to be worked on. Josh, not being able to take no for an answer, called up a friend, and within 20 min I had a car I could borrow for the weekend. It was a little two door pick up that had a grip of papers stuck in the visor so I couldn't use it or all the papers would fall out. So, there I go, Caleb is in his car seat up front with me and we go off on our trip. I am in a hurry because I want to spend as much time with Josh, but I got up late and I ended up in major traffic in Atlanta. They have these "traffic bases" where the cops slow down a whole portion of the freeway to a stand still for about 20 min and then slowly let them go. But, not being from the area, I thought there was a major accident or something. About the time that I was cursing at myself for not getting up sooner, Josh txt me to see where I was at. It was like the 100th txt he had sent me that morning trying to hurry me up. I was pretty upset, the sun was in my eyes, and we weren't moving, so, I decided to txt him back while I was driving. Something I have done a million times, especially with this new phone I have that is like a computer. Well, needless to say, as I was txting, the traffic slowly moved, and I let up on the brake. I thought I had enough space to roll to a stop, but as I looked up into the sun, I slammed on my brake too late, I hit a little red car. At this point, I was so upset at myself, I am sure my blood pressure was up 3 times the normal amount. I was red (if possible for being brown) and I felt my chest hurting. We pull over and I get out to see that my truck was fine, but the front licence plate of my truck left a dent in the little red car. I try to talk the guy into letting me pay him for the damage with out our insurance getting in on it because it isn't my car and not my insurance. But, he was a real peace of work, and he said he wanted a police report. Well, we waited for the police, but with the traffic base, it took an hour. As I'm sitting in my truck, cursing under my breath so that Caleb doesn't hear, I see the traffic move surprisingly quick. And I think, well, that's good, at least the traffic is gone. But about 30 min later, it all comes to a stand still again, it is at this point that the cops show up, and not only give me a ticket for "following too close" (I'm sure they don't have a "txting while driving" ticket), they put the accident on my friends insurance, and, he tells me I'm gonna have to wait for the next traffic base to pass in order to get back into traffic. BOOOOOOOOO that's all I had to say.
The only good thing about this story is that I made it to Fort Gordon and I had a great time with my family, all together again, and, let's be honest, thank God it wasn't a terrible accident.

I love technology!

My cell phone bill for the last 3 mths has been outrageous. So, I decided it was time to get a house phone. Charter has this offer for unlimited long distance and local calls for 29.99 a mth with free installation. So, I wanted to set it up, but, I didn't want to waist minutes calling the company and setting it up over the phone. And the last time I tried looking for a pay phone, I spent more money on gas than I would have on my cell phone bill. So, I noticed that they have this online chat option. Yep, I ordered a phone line and they did a background check and installation date over a chat conversation. Crazy, huh? It was kind of scary because of all the identity theft issues, but, it all looked and seemed legit. I guess we'll find out, huh? If they don't show up to install my phone and all my bank accounts are wiped out, I guess I goofed.