An Answer to Prayer

 If you haven't already heard or read,

we've decided to move to Arizona!

 After talking with one of the women in the Catholic homeschool group

in the Phoenix area, we decided on these cities:

Mesa, Gilbert or Chandler

The homes listed in those cities alone, weekly,
 is overwhelming.

How do we decide?

Where should we move to?

How will we know, all the homes are awesome, there are tons of parks,
there are Catholic churches all around.

Calm down Jamie.

During my holy hour, during Adoration,

I was kind of spazzing like that to Jesus.

My mind racing.

Then, I remembered, I should ask Jesus where HE wants us to move.

OK

"Jesus, where do YOU want us to move?"

The rest of the hour, all I heard in my head was Gilbert.

Nonstop.

(because God knows I need direct, clear answers)

And a sign.

I need signs.

I asked, "Gilbert?"

"Why Gilbert?"

"That is not the one I would have picked."

"OK, but I need a sign"

(because "Gilbert" going off in my head for an hour is not enough)

"Please give me a sign"

 For all of you wondering why we are moving.

It is the sun.

THE SUN, FOLKS!

Yes, we know it's hot there.

That is why we are moving.

 Plus, if we ever miss the snow (Hahahahahahah)

we could always drive up north a couple hours and see it again

(this picture is in Flagstaff, AZ)

So, after getting home and feeding my family,

I decided to check on the parishes in Gilbert.

They were amazing!

The faith seemed so alive, it was very exciting to know

that I could go to daily Mass, confession and Adoration whenever I wanted.

(this is my number one thing I look up, when looking at cities)

St Anne's Catholic Church

during the school year, has Confession available from 6:20am-6:20pm 2 days a week,

and is also available 3 other days for like an hour and a half!

Plus 3 daily Masses.

(their summer hours are different starting June 1)

And 24 hour Adoration!

St Mary Magdalene's Catholic Church

has daily Confession and Mass and Adoration after morning Mass

from 9am to 9pm

I was excited.

Now, for the normal person,

this probably would be enough of a "sign", right?

Not me.

I wanted a sign, that only I would know was for me.

 The next day Simeon wanted to wear his "shark shirt"

We got it in Texas. 

It's his favorite shirt.

I knew there were types of sharks on there, but never really paid attention

until what he asked me next.

"Mama, read the shark's names!"

"What?"

"OK, Hammerhead...."

"No mama, their names!"

Me: "Oh, OK"

(I had not realized they all had names)

"Sammy, the Hammerhead"

(reading from left to right, top to bottom)

"Bubba, the Blue Shark?"

"Tony, the Tiger Shark"

"Marky, the Mako Shark?"

And

Brace yourself.

"Gilbert, the Great White Shark"

I froze.

I laughed.

I yelled.

(to everyone in the house to come see!!)

Everyone made fun of me.

So, I asked for yet, another sign.

I went to Confession and ran into a friend,

Simeon's godfather, and he told me that Gilbert is a great saint!

Who knew?

(not me!)

Sure enough!

See HERE

"OK, God, Gilbert it is!"

3 more reassurances happened this week,

Gilbert, Arizona, was listed as number 2, in the Top 10 safest cities over 200,000

See HERE

I saw my cousin at his grandmother's funeral.
He'd flown in from Arizona.
I didn't even know he lived in AZ til this past year
when we became friends on Facebook.
He was in the process of moving from Queen Creek, AZ
to....
Guess where!!
Gilbert.
Yep.
 

And last, but not least,

My good blogger friend,

that I knew lived in the Phoenix area,

actually lives in GILBERT!

Hi Deb!

The kids found a favorite house in Mesa, that has everything we are looking for,

(including lots of citrus trees)

It is located on a corner, the street on the side of the home is "Gilbert Street"

Hmmmmm....the kids are trying to talk me into this being the house,

even though, it's in Mesa.

On Gilbert Street.

God is Good and answers prayers.

I have no doubt He will lead us to where He wants us to be.

(whether that be in Gilbert or in Mesa on Gilbert Street)



A Prayer Request, An Update and Decluttering!

First a special prayer request for this little Sweetie Pie!

Bridget here is 4 1/2 and I am suspecting Type 1 Diabetes in her.

I started noticing last week, frequent urination, from the unquenchable thirst she has. 

I've noticed irritability, moodiness (mostly to a whiney mood) and she's been very lethargic.

She has funky breath too.

(it's not sweet, but funky)

I have been a Type 1 Diabetic since I was 10.

At 10 I understood what was happening, I could take care of myself.

(I'm not saying it was not hard, because it was)

My prayer these past few days has been, 

"Please not now Lord" 

And since yesterday, it has been "Lord give me the grace to handle this"

Because at this age (4 1/2)

It will be all me handling it.

I also confess, I've been praying, 

"Please Lord, no more suffering, I can't take any more"

I'm selfish and it becomes all about me doesn't it?

It's not about me

Lord, please give me the grace to handle all of this.

I'm begging for prayers from you.

For her.

She has an appointment at 3:45 today.

I'll update when I can.

 

 

These ducks have been in our yard since Sunday!  

(It's been raining since then!)

 

 Onto the whole moving thing.

The selling of my husband's business fell through.

Way too long of a story to go into

but I will say that we've gone onto PLAN B

My husband's goal is to try to get his business running without him 

there, so we can eventually move.

That may take some time with all the Obamacare crap changes.

He's looking into his options now with all that

Our ultimate goal would be to list the house by Fall

(Plan A was June)

and move before winter comes again

But if that doesn't happen by then, we will try 

to leave for part of the winter this year

and list the house in the spring and move then.

The good thing is where we move is up to us.

(well, God of course)

But it doesn't depend on a job anymore.

Because he will still have his business here, in Minnesota.

We are still hoping to move to Arizona or Texas.

But now, we are leaning towards Texas.

San Antonio, Corpus Christi areas...someplace warm 

and closer to the ocean!

Arizona is not out, it is still a possibility.

It's hard for me to not have a concrete plan.

I'm a concrete person, I have to have goals, I have to have a plan

SO our Plan B will have to suffice for now.

(as vague as it is)

Onto

DECLUTTERING!!

 

Remember that broken dresser I told you about?

Well, this was our solution:

 My 7 year old loves yellow, and this is her dresser.

It's bright, but it looks way better than the other way...

Doesn't it?

(we changed the room around too)

 This is another Goodwill pile.

I'm calling it "Goodwill" but we actually donate to a place called

"Treasure Chest" they give all proceeds to  help Birthline,

 a pro-life pregnancy help place

I go to garage sales, but will never have a garage sale.

It's easier to give it away

and we give EVERYTHING away.

(with the exception  of one thing, I'll show you later)

 Baby blankets and that is my "Boppy" pillow

(I'm washing the cover)

Only used for one baby...sad to let it go

Baby blankets, sad to let go too....

I decided to go through them and only keep the homemade ones

to give to the kids when they have babies someday.

(and they are treasures)

More about baby stuff later...

 We've gone through CD's, Games, Tae Kwon Do equipment

and given it all away.

 I took down all school posters and art work hanging on the walls...even in the school room!

(I took down those hooks later, and that bag over there is gone to Goodwill too)

 I forgot to take a "Before" picture, but this is my schoolroom cupboard and shelves

all organized.

Trust me, they were much more cluttered "Before",

 with things piled up on top too.

I have to admit, school stuff and Art supplies are the hardest for me to 

give up.

I'm not giving it all up, this is what we've kept.

When decluttering, it has helped a ton,

to say to  myself:

"Do we want to move this 1500 miles?"

"How often do we use this?"

If the answer is "no" or "never" 

It's gone.

 I have to admit, the snowpants and boots were easy to give up!

With the exception of keeping enough for one more year if we need to.

 Although, Tom gave his coat to Bob here.

I looked all year for a coat for him!!

His specifics were:

Blue or green

Snap up (no zipper)

Big pockets, big enough for his hat and gloves

Easy, huh?

NO

There are no SNAP up coats with those specs!!

Then, I saw him wearing a spring coat with a zipper one day.

I asked him if he could zip the zipper, 

and sure enough he could!

(one of his arms is partially paralyzed)

SO he tried Tom's coat and he LOVED it

If we are here next winter, Tom is out of a coat!

 My wedding dress.

Yes, I decluttered it.

I heard about this organization:

HERE

They take wedding gowns (used)

and turn them into gowns for babies that pass away at the hospital.

Parents are unprepared usually

 and this gives them something beautiful to bury their baby in.

 It really wasn't hard to give away

(a little wrinkled here)

with that long train, I am hoping they get a few outfits made out of it.

I asked myself, "Do I really need my wedding dress laying around in a box?"

I want the girls to get a dress in their own style when they get married.

 Old bouquet...gone

(I made it)

Why did I keep this anyway?

 My veil...will be used again for a First Holy Communion!

 I had one daughter who said she will want to wear my dress when she gets married.

She's also the one that wants to be a nun.

I told her with those puffy sleeves, she will NOT want to wear it.

 Here's the address if you are interested.

I'm not very sentimental, am I?

I have pictures.  I'm sentimental about pictures.

 Tom got rid of his baseball collection!

This was HUGE

This he did SELL.

It was worth 8000 bucks

He could have gotten that if he had the time to list and sell them on E-Bay.

(he doesn't)

And that would have taken a long time to get rid of them, like months.

 So he sold them to a card shop, all as one whole set for 

1500 bucks.

 He'd been collecting since he was a young boy.

 He did not get rid of the Star Wars book though...

 Our dress-up box

I have to go through this but I want to give it all away.

I'm going to admit here, that I actually HATE dress-up.

I hate saying that, but I do.  

I feel like I'm preventing my kids from being creative or something by saying that, 

and by not having dress-up.

But, I hate when they do get it out, it is all over the house, and we find pieces for days after.

It's just a BIG mess.

It's a big box that takes up a lot of space

And I don't like it.

I can get rid of it, can't I?

I never had dress up.

I turned out OK.

Right?

What would you do?

 Goodwill run

Stamps...I gave those two middle boxes full of stamping stuff.

(Stampin' up to be exact)

Even the lady at Treasure Chest was like,

 "Wow, you are giving all these beautiful stamps away?"

 I told her I still had one whole large bin at home that I was saving.

This holds everything though, card stock and envelopes

chalks, markers, lots of stamps and ink pads....

 Now onto hard things.

Baby stuff.

OH, my goodness, this is 15 full bins of baby clothes up to my youngest 

boy and girl.  

15 bins waiting in a certain area

I'm holding onto them til right before we move.

I'm 44 1/2 now and have not been pregnant in over 2 years.

It's hard to give up, because there is still that hope for one more.

I'm keeping my high chair (always good to have a high chair for company)

My stroller (I think)  I guess, if we move next spring, I'll give that up then.

My baby Pack and Plays (I have 2) I'm keeping)

My baby bath, now that is so hard to giveaway...why? 

Is it because I love baby baths?

Is it because I loved that actual tub?

Proving to be a hard one to give away.

 Keeping all  homemade items

Like this beautiful knit sweater, 

knit for Little Red, from Jenny!

Someday his wife will use this for their babies.

Gave away all old shoes already...like these, now why were these hard to give away?

They are so dang cute that's why!

I'm also finding that the girl clothes are harder to giveaway than the boy things.

Why is that?

 I have a ton of extra empty bins now...

I went through all the kids clothes and got rid of a ton 

that either we didn't ever wear or whatever

but I have 6 bins in the sizes 6-8

Most of them are 7-8 size.

(with another whole bin of jammies)

Having 3 girls that overlapped sizes for a while 

and all different body types and personalities 

left my 4 year old with the pick of the crop!

I don't know how to lessen this....

Decluttering is a struggle from within.

But once it's done, it feels so freeing.

Once it's done, nothing is missed. 

If you have any questions, please ask!

I tried to get this out quick and probably did not do 

a very complete job of explaining the whole process!

Austin

Does anyone know anything about Austin?

Update!! (Finally)

First of all, 

I'd like to thank you all for praying for our family!

Your prayers have given us the grace to handle 

whatever comes our way.

I'm going to try to explain 

in simple woman's terms

(I am the simple woman)

Thanks to the new healthcare system 

that is being forced implemented, 

my husband's business and many others like it will need to sell,

find another way to do billing, or close down.

My husband runs a drug and alcohol treatment center

(halfway home)

We've known big changes were coming since last fall.

Basically, treatment centers and half way houses 

will fall into the blanket category of "Healthcare"

and will need to be billed by a "healthcare facility"

since they technically are not a "healthcare facility",

they cannot bill as such.

Let's just say that once this is all said and done

(after October 1, 2014) 

There will be a lot of people needing treatment, 

and they will not be able to get it.

Oh, as long as everyone gets "Healthcare", 

Thanks Obama.

WE HAVE BIG NEWS THOUGH!

We decided in January 

that this could be an opportunity.

An opportunity to move to a warmer climate.

We won't want to move away from our kids 

when they grow up and move out,

yet, we do not want to be shoveling snow when we are 80.

 Think yellow....

 Phoenix, Arizona has become our first choice

(thank you Deborah!)

San Antonio, Texas is our 2nd choice

(Thank you Patty and Neen for selling your state!)

I have lots of other friends in Texas, but had to keep this on the 

"Shhhhhh.....don't tell anyone yet" 

So they are the ones I asked for information about their state 

and homeschooling information, all that stuff!

1. He will look for a job
2. We will be remodeling our home and listing it as soon as we can after the business is sold.
3. We will move when the #2 and #3 are done.

Thank you for all your prayers for our family

We trust in God's will

(I will try to blog the whole process)

Love to you all

I'll post my Thankful post tonite!

(SO you can link-up)