A Little Encouragement

I am now completing the second week of school schedule, which means that CC and I have seen each other very little! And on top of not seeing him during the week, I had a very busy Saturday with a baby shower and a bachelorette party, both things CC could not join me for. Needless to say, it's been a little lonely. It's been hard. It's taken some work and creativity to communicate to each other without getting frustrated with the lack of time for communication.

To help me out, I looked up some verses to help encourage the situation. God has put this situation before us for me to trust and turn to Him.

Psalm 28:7 - The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.

Jeremiah 17:7 - Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.

James 5:11 - Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

James 1: 2-4 - Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Bad Night

I started school back on Monday, so CC's hours are a little bit opposite of mine. Needless to say, we haven't "spoken" to each other much this week, rather just text messaging when possible! I think we're going to have to up my text message limit soon!

Anyway, I've always been a fairly independent person who can get things done by myself pretty well. Living in a house in college allowed me to learn several things about being alone and fixing things here and there. CC and I are also big "Do-it-yourselfers" so I have become very handy with tools and such. Mostly, I am very impatient so I learn to do things on my own so that I don't have to wait for someone to do something for me! (I think that's the best explanation, actually)

I was out shopping for a baby present yesterday, and I get a weird phone call. "This is your home alarm company calling to inform you...." (First of all, if any of you have home alarm systems, you know that the only reason they call you on your cell phone is to let you know your alarm has been set off. They have our house number for all other purposes.) My heart sank...not knowing what to expect to come after that statement, "...that we are getting a low battery signal from your alarm system". Phew. No one is breaking into my house and burning it down (Since that is usually my first thought that someone would do if they broke in to my house.)

When I get home, everything seems normal. Until....beep........beep......beep......beep......you get the idea. Every 10 seconds or so, a beep. I press a few buttons, nothing happens. No lights are flashing, so sign that anything is wrong....just beeping. So, I go look at the alarm box in the closet. hmm....lots of wires, and big fat battery. Not just your typical AA, or AAA, or even C, or D, or 9 volt. A big, fat, miniature car battery looking thing.

Now I usually let the boys deal with the electrical stuff. That is one thing I have never had any desire to deal with. It has always been too dangerous for me to even think about doing. I tend to gain a lot of patience when it deals with something that could fry my hair forever. Unless....it beeps every 10 seconds. Since there is power coming from the wall somewhere, to truly power the alarm (the battery is only for backup - which why it was dying, I have no idea) I couldn't just let the battery run out and it would stop beeping. I got the idea that it was just going to beep until I replaced it (similar to smoke alarms that beep at the strangest times - usually while sleeping).

I got online and started researching where I could find one of these wonderful batteries that could save my sanity for the evening. Called the local home store, and of course you have to order them online, they aren't kept in stock. I needed to go to a "battery" place. Hmm...which just so happens to be closing in 40 minutes, and I live at least 30 minutes away. Alright. I'm going to do this. I grabbed the camera to take a picture of the battery to make sure I got exactly what I needed. Little did I know that it was still connected to the computer. And boom. It jerked out of my hand and fell flat on to the tile, shattering all of the little crystals inside of the display so you can't see anything but broken black stuff. Great. I guess I'll try my phone. Apparently, cell phone cameras that I can afford, don't have the great pixelization I needed to get all of the words where they were legible. About 7 minutes pass, and I'm out the door with a piece of paper and some numbers that I have no idea what they mean.

I drive. Almost like a maniac. I'm sure if a police officer had seen me, I would've been pulled over. I think what made this worse, was the time. All of this had to happen at 5:30 in the evening. Now, I live in a suburb of a fairly large area, where people drive. And if anyone has any brains, you know you don't go out on the road at 5:30 in the evening unless you ABSOLUTELY have to, because it's kind of like chaos in rush hour traffic. On top of that, you usually have to add on at least 10 minutes to the normal time to get somewhere even if you're going "against" traffic (which I was). Apparently I forgot all of this as I'm driving "against" traffic (if you can call it that) and going on some of the most travelled roads in the area. I get all the way to where I need to be, and sure enough, it's 6:02. They are closed. I don't have my battery. What do I do? Call a handy friend.

Praise God that He put this friend into our lives, because he has been so handy and wonderful to help us through all of our house projects, our life projects, and our entertainment in life. So, he tells me I can go somewhere else, gets online and tells me how to get there, and luckily, they don't close for another hour. Only catch is, it'll cost a little more.

Finally, I arrive, I tell the guys what I need. Luckily I had written the numbers down, because I definitely would have bought the wrong battery since it's not your "Standard" alarm battery! Of course. Unfortunately, it's double the price of the batteries I had found online. But, after quickly contemplating my frugal dilemma, I decide to choose my sanity over waiting for one to be shipped to me a few days later.

I get home, peacefully, since it took me so long and most of the rush hour traffic had cleared. And I go into the closet....now what? The guy at the store told me I couldn't mess it up unless I'm color blind, which I am not. I stare. I stare and tug. I run to the garage to try to flip off the power. There is no breaker marked "alarm". Hmm. I go back in. I stare. I tug. I walk away. I stare. Finally, I just tugged really hard knowing I had good reflexes in case I started shaking from electric shock. *My life flashes in front of me* It's off. Now, I have to figure out if it's safe to pull the black one off too. Because, I always remember my dad telling me when I have to jump my car, be careful to make sure they get taken off in the right order. You know, the black one before the red one. Or is it the red one before the black one? I don't know. But what i do know is that you have to do one before the other. What if it's too late? What if I was supposed to do the other one first. Oh dear. So, I just tug. And TA DA! Everything is done! So simple. After all of that worrying, I just face my fears and pick up the new battery and just plug it in. And there you have it. No more beeping. A new battery for a few years.

(After typing all of that, I realize I give way too many details in my stories, but, you had to live it out with me. )

The whole gist of what I was trying to get across, is that through all of this stress, this is one time I really wish CC could be here. He may not have known any more than I did, but he's a guy. He does this kind of stuff. But, now, being the lonely woman I am, I am left to deal with this on my own. Even if he had been with me in all of this stress of driving and beeping and breaking, it's always nice to have him here to make me laugh, or make me realize it's all going to be okay. I think every woman needs someone that can do that for her. For me, it's my husband. I need him. (And sometimes I think he needs me too, but that's not the point!) I know it will get easier. But, it's finally been put into my eyes that I am not as strong as I would like to be. Every day will give me strength to be the mom (one day) and a wife to a husband that is serving our community and serving people to make a difference in this world.

Flexibility...

1 1/2 months into this, I've learned one thing......I have to be flexible.

Not just flexible to the point that a few hours here or there are compromised, but literally being flexible with my whole day's plans being tossed upside down! I think our dogs are going crazy because they have no idea when Daddy is supposed to be home! Just this week, CC has worked 3 different shifts...and it's only Thursday! :)

I'm extremely thankful that God provided me with a job that is predictable and stable! Otherwise, who knows how we'd be managing!

Free Time Solution

So in my last post, I expressed how I was having trouble filling my free time without focusing on CC being gone. Ironically, my mom came in town last week (which was wonderful!) and she actually brought her old sewing machine that she was waiting a long time to give me! So, I am in the process of learning to sew and make different things. I'm just a beginner, so it takes quite a bit of time (and usually many times) to get it correct, and perfect (as I seem to be one that likes everything to be perfect..). So, I think this will help out with some of my time issues! Oh how fun! Does anyone else sew??? Any easy patterns??

CC hasn't really had any change at work, just the same ol' stuff going on. Nothing really exciting has been going on either. I think most of all, he's really learning how to use the radio, which supposedly some people have trouble with! He just ordered the TX Penal code, which he has been studying already. There is hope of a shift change in the future, with other guards being hired, but nothing this week (at least right now!) This is my last week of summer, so maybe, miraculously, his shift will change when I go back! We have figured out a little plan though in order to manipulate some time together. I have almost an hour and a half for my planning and lunch period before noon, so a couple days a week, CC might come up during that time to enjoy lunch together, and then he can go work out at the gym in the mean time before his shift starts! Hopefully that will be a little bit of time that we can enjoy together!

I do love the post from copswife at Married to the Law on fear and reality. I can relate a lot, but I also think I covered this in my very first post. I know God has a plan for CC's career change, I just need some help dealing sometimes!!

Free Time

CC has had some time doing the worst shift (for us at least, not necessarily on the job) these last few weeks. I was in Grad school for the first few weeks of this shift change, which was nice because we could still be on the same sleeping schedule. Right now, as a teacher, I'm still on summer break for 2 more weeks. But, with CC being gone most of the day (especially when he works a 16 hour shift in one day), I've been searching for ways to make the day go by faster and to not concentrate on the fact that I'm all by myself! We have a wonderful group of friends from our church that have been very supportive of our family, and especially me! Just this weekend, I got asked to go to dinner by our dear friends, even though my husband wasn't with me! It was so great to have that feeling. I'm so thankful that I'm still included in get togethers even though CC isn't there. We do so much as a couple (even though the girls and boys usually split up into different rooms and we do separate things) that I was afraid no one would invite me for get togethers. Luckily, so far so good. I feel very included, and a lot of people continue to check on me and how things are going.

But, I don't like a lot of monotonous things. So, I'm just curious as to what everyone does to keep them occupied while their husbands are working those wonderful opposite shifts. I of course know about the chores and try to get as much stuff done as possible that needs to be done before he's home, but what about the free time? Have you taken on any hobbies? I also know several of you have kids, so that changes things a little bit, but what did you do before you had a family?

I'm looking for some new ideas so that I'm not sitting on my rear end on the internet all night! :) (Not that I don't love reading all of your blogs!)