Today we visited the World of Energy at the Oconee Nuclear Plant.  I learned a lot whether my kids did or not.  I love the homeschool outings where there are 3 moms and 12 kids.  Oh, the looks we get!!!  Here are some pictures from today….

This is how thick the wall are that surround the containment building of the nuclear reactor.

The mama toad we found.  We think she was getting ready to lay eggs.  We played for a while in the cold mountain stream.

This one is for Julie Persons!!!!!  You go Julie!!

2005 Objectives continued:

Communication:         Exceeds All Expectations

Julie is an excellent communicator. You never have to guess how she is feeling, which most people find refreshing. Recently, Julie very effectively communicated her open dis-pleasure with our neighbors and how she prayed that God would relocate them with a great job.(We have unfriendly neighbors that I want to move so a family with a boat load of kids can move in…purely selfish motives) Julie also has grown in expressing her love and admiration of her less than deserving husband.

Compassion:               Exceeds All Expectations

Julie has a rapidly growing compassionate nature. She consistently demonstrates compassion to her children and pets. The true measure of compassion can be observed by the love and adoration seen in the eyes of her children and spouse.

360 Degree Feedback Section

This section of the evaluation provides specific feedback from clients

Son#1:  “I like playing with Mom. She’s really cool. I also like it when she gives me lots of sugar.”

Son#2:  “I like it when Mom spends special time with me.”

Son#3:  “I like having special time with Mom, especially when she gets me a toy! I like going out with Mom to get a new pen and eraser.”

Baby Girl:   Note:A professional baby talk translator was required for this section.

“Mommy, you’re the best! I’m so glad there is another girl in the house. I’m so over this whole Pee Pee thing. I don’t get all of the fuss. I look forward to long weekends with you spending most of Dad’s money. I love what you did to my room. It’s so me, with a special mommy touch that only you can give. Thanks for teaching me how to be a strong, sensitive southern girl.”

Sparky (our dog)  I love Julie. She seems to love me too. She and son#2 picked me! She organized a posse to rescue me from certain death, complete with a cool poster and everything (Sparky got lost once and so we had to do the whole “Lost Dog” thing). I’m a bit high strung, but she consistently protects me from the wrath of the Alpha Male. Thanks Julie!

Little Kitty (our huge yellow tabby cat)  Julie has allowed me to eat my way into the fat cat that I am today. She encourages me to get on the counter and eat the Alpha Male’s BBQ chicken as often as I want. She also coaches me on quick escape maneuvers that have certainly extended my life span.

Louie  (our normal to skinny sized yellow tabby cat)  Julie feeds me and cleans out my litter box routinely. She encourages me to eat more due to my frail appearance. I’m the elder pet and Julie gives me special allowances. Although she acts like she doesn’t like it, I think deep down she is proud of my ability to catch and eat small animals.

Peanut (foster cat)    Does anyone need a cat?????  Julie, much to the dismay of the alpha male of the house, has embraced my presence in the Worthy home. In fact, there is a high probability that I will become a permanent resident. The Alpha Male has offered free rides in his truck to an undisclosed location, but Julie has counseled me to avoid such invitations. Thanks Julie!

Fish (name unknown)  For the most part, I like Julie. I can’t speak for my friends because they are no longer with us. She feeds us most days and cleans out the fish poop. Yeah, she’s alright in my little fish book.  (I've killed all the other fish that have come into our house.)

Overall Assessment:  Julie is the hardest work mom and wife in the universe. She deserves more adoration than I am capable of giving. She is a God-given blessing to my life and all who meet her. She is the MVP for the Worthy Clan. She could never be replaced and the whole operation would collapse without her.

Signatures:  (Here my husband had everyone sign the evaluation and did stamps of the dog and the cats….it was so cute)

Hubbie-Self appointed President of the Worthy Clan

Son #1- Emotional, loving clone of hubbie

Son#2-Designated family negotiator

Son#3-resident Rascal

Baby Girl- The Chosen One who brings balance to
the force

Little Kitty- Fattest cat in Liberty and possibly the state of South Carolina

Louie- Sickly looking cat

Peanut- Foster kitty living on borrowed time

Fish- Nervous looking aquatic creature…and for good reason

Jesus- CEO of the Worthy Clan. Unavailable for a signature, but loves Julie with His life

As promised here is Part One of my sweeties anniversary gift.  If you remember my pity party you'll see just how thoughful this is.  I'll post the rest at a later date since it's a little lengthy and I like short blog entries.

Enjoy!  Julie

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Employee:  Julie Worthy

Title:   Princess of our home

            Director of Homeland Operations

            Queen Bride & Mother

Date of Hire:  March 2, 1996 (when we got married)       

Review period:  January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005

  EMPLOYEE EVALUATION

2005 Objectives

 Maintaining Homeland Operations: 

 Overall rating:           Exceeds All Expectations
 Comments:

Julie consistently operates at a high level. Her ability to run home operations is second to none. She consistently ensures that finances are in order and that major home catastrophes are avoided and/or managed. She is truly amazing. Rarely are lives in danger and if they are, Julie always encourages the family that we will all be in heaven anyhow.

 Provide nurture and care to home residents:
Overall rating:           Exceeds All Expectations

Comments:  Julie’s caring nature makes everyone smile. She consistently provides loving care to the children and pets, maybe with exception of the family fish, which no one really cares about anyhow. She rarely forgets to feed the kids and up to this point, has not followed through with death threats. Additionally, Julie sings to the kids at night with a voice like that of an angel.

Overall rating:           Exceeds All Expectations

Comments:

Julie demonstrates excellent ability to develop support systems that help her meet the demanding requirements of being a stay-at-home mom. Everyone who meets Julie walks away impressed with her honestly and geniuses. Julie is also an outstanding blogger. As blogging goes, one can rate one’s blogging ability based on posted comments and Julie averages 5.687 comments per blogg entry. This is a very impressive trend and one that is envied by all.

Multi-tasking:

Overall rating:           Exceeds All Expectations
Julie is off the chart in multi-tasking skills. She recently managed to cook dinner, paint the house, pick up kids from school, fight with her husband, fold a thousand pounds of laundry, dress herself and the rest of the family, tolerate her husband and kids in the bookstore, restrain herself from throwing sharp edged objects with the intent to do harm to her husband, all within the span of two hours…amazing!

 Courage under fire:   Exceeds All Expectations

Julie is very steady under fire, which happens on an hourly basis. Julie routinely squares off with incompetent computer technicians, resulting in brand new replacement components. She also fends off all and any people or forces who mean harm to our family, which usually means drawing clear boundaries against intrusive and over-bearing in-law types.

in honor of randi's post THE REAL ME here's my mess this morning…

three loads waiting to be folded and piled in the hallway….

my unmade bed and my middle son wondering why in the world i'm taking a photo of it…

the dining room table which is where EVERYTHING gets piled as we walk in the door or clean off the kitchen table for dinner…(and yes, i'm redoing the chairs)

and here's the kitchen near the stove where everything ELSE gets piled…(note wall patching stuff, dusting stuff, gummie bears and “welcome home” flowers all there)

and here's middle son again trying to act like he's asleep with Louie (one of our cats) and my Dell where i type to all you wonderful fellow bloggers…

so there you are.  my messy house. 

the bed's still unmade. i haven't had a shower.  3 more loads are on the bed ready to be folded, i spilled the plaster we were mixing tonight all over the kitchen counter top and while I was cleaning up (because it went all over the coffee pot) what i needed hardened (ugh). 

but we did make three loaves of banana bread today.  i managed a 15 minute cat nap.  and my hubbie is snowed into nyc.  it's our anniversary (i was wrong about it being yesterday).  it was 70 degrees here today though.

there's always tomorrow
IN HIM…
julie

Please pray for this family

Urgent Prayer Request

Yesterday Missey went in to get her stress test that she's been getting every 2 weeks.  The test showed that Missey was loosing amniotic fluid and that she had lost enough of it for  it to be alarming. That's when they decided to go ahead and take the baby.

After they lifted the baby from her body, some of the amniotic fluid got into her blood stream and caused a blood clot, which is what caused her death. She never came out of surgery. Her mil said that this only Happens 1 in 200,000.

She said that the girls are holding up OK. She said that they all slept, no clung, together in their bed last night. The oldest got up at one point and asked if little Nathan could also sleep with them, so they moved him into the bed with the 3 girls. She said that Tom is just in a daze. He has gone to the hospital this morning to be able to feed the baby.

Tom and Missey had chosen a name for the baby, but after Missey passed on they decided to name the baby Melissa Kate.

at one point and asked if little Nathan could also sleep with them, so they moved him into the bed with the 3 girls. She said that Tom is just in a daze. He has gone to the hospital this morning to be able to feed the baby.

Tom and Missey had chosen a name for the baby, but after Missey passed on they decided to name the baby Melissa Kate.

How close can we get to the world before the world starts to rub off on us? To this I would answer: as close as we can. Indeed, our faith needs to rub up against the world in order to be strong and get stronger. Faith that is never challenged makes for a pretty weak faith.

I have been around Christians long enough to know that keeping oneself from bad influences can easily turn into an excuse for staying away from the world because it's just too unpleasant being around people who don't believe the same things we do. I understand that old lifestyles and addictions come into play here, but those so often become excuses to stay isolated instead of barriers to overcome.

A chaplain I know at a Christian college likes to turn this question around. “How come we always default to 'the-world's-bad-influence-on-us' position? Why don't we ever think in terms of our influence in the world?” Indeed, this would seem to be closer to Christ's commissioning us as salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16). God sent Christ into the world to save it (John 3:16-17), and Christ sends us into the world to tell everyone about Him (John 17:18).

Remember, it's not about us. And since it's not about us, we need to get over whatever it is that is keeping us from being in the world and becoming friends with those who need Jesus. And I think Jesus can help with this. In fact, He is standing by with all the resources of heaven to keep us in His hand, and to get us to the place where we can reach out in love to those He came to save.

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world,” Christ prayed, “but that you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15).

Apparently, God would rather protect us in harm's way than remove us to a safe place. How about that for adventure?

taken from John Fisher/senior writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals

   
Thank God there are new days.  Today was so much better than the last two.  It began with my ladies bible study this morning, a trip to Stuffmart, home for baby girl's nap, pick up #1 son from school, and then a trip to the park to meet a couple other homeschool moms, out to dinner with them and then home for bath, bed and American Idol.  The weather was perfect.  I could feel my mood lifting all day and by this evening I feel back to normal. 

Here are some pictures from the park.  Thank you for praying for me.  Especially you Julie.

My youngest son on one of the swings

Baby girl on the same swing.  Yep, my hubbie went to Auburn.

My good friend Lisa and her youngest son.  Isn't this a wonderful picture??

My middle son (blonde hair) on the top of the swing set with a one of his pals.

Middle and youngest on a really big turtle!

Youngest son  “CHEESE”

And here's my poor toes after challenging the closet door to a battle of molecular structure today.  (science for the day OUCH)

Thinking I'm back to normal (whatever that is)….
IN HIM
julie

I don't know if today was as bad as yesterday but it was close.  The animosity that began yesterday has certainly carried over to today.  And guess what?  Tomorrow is our 10 year anniversary.  Think Satan's working double time on us?  I do. 

You know, 80% of the time I handle life okay and can find my joy in the Lord.  But there is that 20% of the time that life just is the pits….or seems so.  It's hard to find my joy, to keep my head above water or feel appreciated.

When you work outside the home there is the “atta boys”, the bonuses, the raises, the pats on the back.  When you work at home there's “Where's my underwear?”, “How about singing me a song?”, “What's for dinner?”, “Have you washed, cleaned, vacuumed, dusted, scraped, picked up, said prayers, kissed goodnight, had sex, changed the diaper, fed the kids, and the list goes on and on.” 

It can be a thankless job.  And most of the time I'm okay with that.  Today, I'm not.  Maybe it's because my husband just got a raise.  Maybe it's because everyone loves to hear him preach.  Maybe it's because he's so good at what he does.  Maybe it's because he got an A++ Excellent on his performance review.  Maybe it's because I'm a rotten selfish self centered individual with nothing to do but have a pity party right now.

Maybe it's just Satan trying to ruin our 10th wedding anniversary.  Maybe it's just life.

Heaven.  Jesus.  Come quickly.  I'm not sure I can take much more.

Julie

I spent the day painting the den which started with the hallway many weeks ago.  I'm on my third gallon of paint and I'm almost done.  My house allows for me to begin in one room and then have to paint almost every other room because it's so open.  So, I began in the hallway and I've travelled to the den, then the dining room, then up the stairs to the loft and finally the loft (I'm only halfway up the stairs). 

Then I cooked dinner, we did baths, and decided on a trip to Home Depot and our local Christian bookstore to buy bibles for the boys. 

I think I just did too much today.  My husband and I never fight.  We disagree.  We get mad.  But we don't fight. 

Well, tonight in the CHRISTIAN bookstore it almost came to a fight.  Can you imagine?  Here we are buying BIBLEs for our kids and we're about to come to blows.  I think I almost threw one at him.  The kids were all excited and “Mama, Mama, Mama” was flying at me left and right.  They were pulling bibles off the shelf left and right.  My husband is trying to talk to me and I just about lost my mind. 

Now I'm home sitting on the bed watching The Bachelor.  Love in 5 dates.  Please!!

How do you handle all of the kids needing you, a husband trying to talk to you and trying to think all at one time?  I don't think I handle it very well.  Or at least I didn't tonight. 

My husband asked me if I wanted to talk tonight when we got home.  I guess the reason we never fight is because we always take time to cool off first.  I know how damaging my words can be.  I've used them to wound before.  So, I always make myself cool off first.  He's too important to wound the way my wicked heart wants to at times. 

Mommy overload.  I think that's what I've got.