Friday, February 19, 2010

Craziness

It has been a crazy last few days. We found out that Jeff's unemployment benefits ran out last week. He tried to file for unemployment, and it was denied. We had been told that his previous company would pay unemployment for a year, and then he would file for unemployment through the state. Well, the year thing wasn't right. It was stopped after 7 months. He was able to file with the state (praise the Lord for that!), but the time limit is pretty short. So it is crunch time now. Instead of looking in our area, he is now looking nationwide for jobs. As of today, he has sent out close to 500 resumes. Wow. Unless he gets a job here in the area by March, the house is going on the market in March. I'm okay with everything. I know God has a great plan, and a great job. I'm actually okay with moving too. I have no idea where we are going to be, but I know God will take care of us.

We are trying to have some sense of normal during all of this. We took Evie sledding the other day, at the same place where I broke my rib last year. I was a bit nervous going down the hill, but went down an easier one this time so it was better. Evie had a blast. She found a group of kids there (one was homeschooled too), and she had fun sledding with them. Jeff and I got to sit in the warming house and watch her :).













On a funny note, I wanted to share this picture. Yes, I know, it is just a bunch of shoes. If you click on the picture, you will notice one thing they all have in common....they all have laces that are half gone. Our kitten (who is almost a cat) Daisy is a sweet little thing, but has one weird habit. She loves chewing on shoelaces. Not just chewing them though. She EATS them! I went to exercise the other day, and found my tennis shoe had 6 inches gone from the laces! We have had to buy 3 pairs of laces in the last few weeks. So we are having to hide our shoes from her. Whenever I have caught her chewing on them, she has this look of ecstacy on her face while she is chewing them. Kinda like she is getting her drug fix for the day! She fits in with all of our other strange pets. Like Dolly, who drinks water with her paw and meows at you like she is talking a blue streak. And Sierra, who will bark at everything that moves outside, but if a stranger comes to the door she just wags her tail. Yep, Daisy fits right in!

7 comments:

MicheleStitches said...

Oh, I hope he finds a job soon!

I replied to your comment on my blog, but I was not sure if you would see it, so here is what I wrote:

"Jen, I wish I could have you over for tea and knitting lessons. (of course, that could be arranged if you are interested in relocating!) However, I highly recommend knittinghelp.com. They have good quality, free videos on their site that show you just about anything you need to know to be a good knitter.

The hat pattern I knit has only a few elements you would need to know: knit stitch, purl stitch, increasing, decreasing and doing cables."

As for the kitty eating shoe laces...too funny! I have heard of people training cats by spritzing their kitty with a spray bottle filled with water whenever they catch them doing something naughty, but I have no personal experience in that area.

Unknown said...

Thanks! We are just praying hard. I never ever thought it would take this long for him to get a job. We have really wanted to stay in our area, which has been part of the problem. We are in an area that has been hit so hard by the recession that parts of it look like a ghost town, from all the closed businesses. He is an engineer, and when a job becomes available, about 1000 engineers apply for it. It makes it quite a challenge! Thank you for the link about the knitting! I will have to check that out. I do know knit and purl. It is increasing and decreasing I'm not sure of. I learned how to knit in a knitting group of Christian ladies (it was SO fun!). When we moved to be closer to family, I really missed it. Seeing your blog always motivates me :).

SchnauzerMom said...

Wow I hope he finds a job soon. It would be tough to relocate but it might be necessary.

Liliana said...

I use that site to learn knit stitches. I watched the ones for increasing, decreasing, and yarn over, and watched over and over again real slow till I got it. The videos help and if you still don't get it, go to YouTube and you can watch the same stitch being done by someone else. Sometimes it helps. I had to do that for casting off. I don't know purl yet. lol. I know it's easy, but I haven't done any purling yet.

Daisy has a duperly cute knit hat on her blog too.

When we have had hard times it all boils down to this for me - I tell my husband where ever he is, that's where I want to be. lol. All the rest if fluff; nice to have but not gotta have. But I'm always waiting for the second shoe to drop and most wives aren't like that.

You're in my prayers for sure, for sure.

Unknown said...

Thanks SM. I'm just trying to be open to whatever God wants.

Lil, what you said was so true. It comes down to the fact that we are a family, and if we are together, that is what matters. In a way it is a bit exciting thinking about living wherever. In the past few days, he has applied to jobs everywhere from Colorado to Arizona to Wisconsin, and lots of places in between. Thanks so much for your prayers. I really appreciate them!! Thanks for the knitting advice too :).

April said...

You have a good attitude Jen. Facing hard times takes faith, but what is faith without "tests" now and then? It's easy when life is easy. I've had my share of heartbreak and hard times and faith is what got me through. You guys will be fine and in the end, it might be obvious why all this is happening - even though it's hard to see right now. I think of your family often as you know - and send off little prayers.

That crazy cat! Zena - our almost grown cat, is similarly nutty. She has a thing for socks when they're rolled together y'know. Mike used to keep his in a basket on the floor in his closet. We got home one day and there were about twelve sock sets all over the house. They were everywhere. It was kinda cute a first, but then we had to put the socks under lock and key because she kept doing it and we could find out socks when we needed them! We gave her an old skein of yarn one day to make her forget the socks and when we got home from work at the end of the day, the yarn was up and down the stairs and her 13-foot scratching post many times and in my fiscus tree and it was totally crazy! It was like she'd pulled the yarn out like that! No more yarn for Zena! lol...

Unknown said...

Hi April. Sorry I am so late in replying! Thank you so much for your prayers! I was laughing at your description of Zena and the yarn :). I think you did a blog post about that with pictures. So funny! Our crazy cats :).