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More house sitting

7/27/2011

Well, we finished one house sitting gig yesterday and are in another house until next Thursday! Isn't that wild? The boys had a lot of fun swimming today, and then tonight after Tim got home from counseling we all sat on the couch to say prayers and we were having so much fun just being together we took forever getting to the praying part! At one point all 6 of us were doing the 'wave' and then Nathan grabbed a pair of monkey ear muffs and put them on to drown out our 'fellowship' so Nicole snatched her camera and got a great picture of him and the remainder of the die hard wave participants. We were all just cracking up. It reminds me of the verse, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity" Psalm 133:1.
On the home buying front, the workshop I went to on Saturday for the mortage we are looking into went very well, but I can tell this is going to be a long, drawn out process. Our first meeting with a mortgage consultant isn't until September 20th! I'm going to try to have that moved up, but even so,we started talking again about renting some place until we can close on a house. But after a couple of days of researching what's out there we came back to the same conclusion as before that it is really not smart for us to pay $1500+ on a rental when we can stay in our camper so much cheaper. We checked out a campground in our area today, and we can stay there, with full hookup, for less than 1/3 of what it would cost to rent a house. So anyway, we are trusting in God's perfect timing for everything.
My job is going well, and I'm really enjoying it. It seems to fit nicely into our family schedule, so that's good! Tim has had no more symptoms since this past weekend's fiasco, but I'm really proud of him for following up with the cardiologist. Once the doctor's office gets Tim's records from Tampa General they will schedule an appointment with him, so we're hoping that will be within the next couple of weeks. Thank you all so much for your prayers and calls and well wishes - it meant a lot to us!
Well, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from the day today. Enjoy!

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"I'm experiencing a little chest pain..."

7/24/2011

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So, we're in our church service last night, and it is getting towards the end and Tim leans over to me and says, "I'm experiencing a little chest pain - I'm just going out to the lobby to get some water". I say, "OK". Now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes, but as the minutes tick by it occurs to me I should probably go out and check on him. So I go out to the lobby and he is nowhere to be found. Finally, my phone rings and I barely make out, "I'm in the green room". So I make my way back there to see him hooked up on oxygen (which explains why I could barely understand him) and find an ambulance has been called! He had been having pretty sharp chest pains but after having baby asprin and oxygen they decreased. Our amazing friends, the Perrella's, took the kids, gave me their car keys in exchange for our van keys, and said, "Go!" So I went to Tampa General and was immediately escorted to him in Chest Pain room 7. After 3 rounds of blood tests 3 hours apart (which all came back normal), numerous normal EKGs and finally a stress test (that was to take place between 8-12 this morning and finally happened around 2 this afternoon) where the result was "equivocal" (which they said means it looked mostly good but it was slightly questionable) we were free to go, after a few stern warnings to follow up with a cardiologist. We walked out of there somewhat dazed and said to each other, "Now what was that all about?" Tim's father died only a few years older than Tim is now of congestive heart failure, which Tim attributes to copious amounts of coffee and cigarettes, but since there is a family history, no one wanted to take any chances. In that short amount of time we were overwhelmed by phone calls and texts - what an incredible blessing to feel the care of others. Please continue to pray for wisdom and healing. Blessings!

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NACA workshop

7/23/2011

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During our last house hunting trip with our realtor, she gave us some information about NACA - I believe it is a mortgage company. They have mortgages for 4.125% with no closing costs. I have to attend a 4 hour seminar today in Tampa to find out more about it, but I thought I'd put it out there if any of you who are reading this blog know anything, please comment! I've read some reviews and it sounds like they may be difficult to deal with, but those who have gone through the painful process are very happy. We're thinking it may be worth it to have a low interest, no closing costs mortgage. So again, any light any of you can shed on this would be great!! Blessings!

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Counting it all joy

7/18/2011

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We arrived at our new house/pet sitting place last night to some pillows that were torn up by the dogs here and the fragments left all over the bed, along with all beds needing to be made (after we spent all day cleaning and making beds at the other place), and dinner still had to be made, and then as I went to vacuum up the mess I accidently hit a button that released all the dirt in the vacuuum cleaner everywhere - so we started right away putting the sermon we heard at our church Saturday night into practice - count it all joy!! It really does help when we obey God's word! Like this morning when I arrived at work for my first day of a real job in over 5 years! I was a little nervous but also excited, and I had a garage door opener to get me in since the boss is away. I arrived right on time, but the garage door opener didn't work. So I thanked God and rejoiced and didn't stress about it and drove to our camper at the Perrella's where there was a key. As I was getting back to the place to use the key my cell phone rang and it was my boss letting me know the code for the alarm system!! Had the garage door opener worked I would have set off alarms all over the place! Whew!! I feel like this has been a life-long lesson God has been trying to teach me forever. Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds (big, little, whatever!), knowing that the testing of your faith develops perserverance, and perserverance must finish its work so you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything (I did that by memory and I think I may have jumbled a few different versions together, but it is the same idea out of James 1). Paul said he had learned the secret of being content in any and every situation in Philippians 4. I have argued that concept in my mind reasoning that God wouldn't want us to be less than authentic. But I'm learning that it is not fakiness that is being espoused - it is choice. Choosing to believe something that we can't see. Having faith that God can use all things to work together for our good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose as he promises in Romans 8:28. It sounds so simple as I write it out here, but in that moment when everything in me wants to whine and complain it can seem impossible! The good news is that His mercies are new every morning, so tomorrow I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to count it all joy! :-)

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Puppy, pool, and pics

7/15/2011

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Well, the dog is not a puppy, but I just had to do the illiteration thing! We've really enjoyed our time here house and pet sitting. The family dog is very sweet and easy going. The pool has been a major hit with the boys, and today Tim entered the fray which they all enjoyed playing water games together for about 4 hours!! Nicole and I are cautiously entering the world of couponing - and the only reason it is cautious is because we have so little room to store things. But since we're house sitting for 10 days here and then another 9 days at some other friends' house we thought we'd get our feet wet with the BOGO's and wyb's (when you buy) and manufacturer coupons on top of store coupons. It's been great to save $50 both last week and today! It's also been nice to be in Tampa as I still have many friends here and have been able to hook up wtih a few of them this week - only 5 - 10 minute drives as opposed to 45 minute drives!! We've been out looking at houses with our realtor back in the Brandon area both last week and again this past Tuesday. We've found a neighborhood we really like, but are still unsure if that's where we'll end up. One house in that neighborhood was a real heart stirrer as it had something for everyone (4 bedrooms, 3 baths, with a pool on a lake) but it is really out of our reach at this point. It has been on the market since November, so maybe they'll come down, but we're not thinking it would come down to our neck of the woods anyway so we're not feeling led to put an offer on it at this point. I'll be starting back to work next week part time, Monday-Friday 9am-12pm working for the family we had our camper parked at for a few months when we first came back. They're a great family, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to be with them and hone my computer network skills again. We are still working with the local church that God opened the doors for and know we are here for now for a reason. Well, this was just going to be a quick update, so sorry this ended up being a book! Hope you enjoy the pics of the dog and the pool and game night tonight. God bless!

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We have a minivan!!

7/8/2011

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We finally found exactly what we were looking for, and were able to drive away with it today, thank You, Lord! It is a 2006 Town & Country. We found it on craigslist, and it just happened to be right around the corner from the house in Tampa that we are house sitting at for the next 10 days, which is also just a few miles from our credit union. So we were able to take care of everything this morning. Thank you for your prayers - everything went so smoothly. And we're so thankful to be house sitting in this wet weather!! I still have so much I like about living in our RV, but being in days of rainy weather isn't one of them - so this is really great. They have a pool here, so the kids are out there swimming around in the rain since there is no thunder or lightening having a ball. Tomorrow afternoon we're hoping the weather breaks a bit as we will be spending the afternoon with our real estate agent looking at houses, so please be in prayer for that. Thanks again for your prayers for us - they are priceless!! Blessings to all!

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Happy 4th of July!!

7/4/2011

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Well, we hit the ground running when we got back from the conference a week and a half ago. We've been weeding through the MANY houses that our realtor is sending us, and went and looked at a few last Thursday. I kind of liked one, but Tim was not happy with all the cracks from settling. None of us felt like we have found 'the one' yet. I've also spent almost as many hours on looking for a 2nd vehicle. I went on Wednesday to look at one and it was exactly what we've been looking for, but the dealer wouldn't let us take it to a mechanic to have it checked out....hmmm...I wonder why?? So much for that one! Our main criteria is: 1) Minivan 2) We'd like it to be under 80,000 miles 3) Around the size of an Odyssey, a Town & Country, a Sienna, or a Grand Caravan (not something small like a Caravan Sport - our Mazda5 is too small for us - we don't need another too small vehicle!) 4) Under $8000 Our smaller criteria would be 1) Stow and go 2) 8 passengers 3) DVD I think that's it. I really thought it wouldn't be that hard to find this, but it is proving much more difficult than I imagined! So - that's been a huge time consumer over the past few weeks.

We never made it down to Port Charlotte for Father's Day since we were leaving the next day for Dallas and had too many things to take care of that day. So we went down yesterday and had a lovely visit as usual. We did the all American burgers and corn on the cob for dinner, and while I forgot to take pictures of that, I did sneak in a picture of Tim and my mom and Nicholas playing rummy, and then Nicholas trying to make friends with their cat, Bailey (see below):

Here are some pictures of us taking some time with Tim on Father's Day:

Last week there was a beautiful sunset that Nicole and I just had to go down to the water here at the Perrella's and watch. She grabbed her camera and snapped this shot. Isn't it gorgeous?? Like I said, this week has been pretty busy. The Perrella's were gone on vacation so we took care of their awesome dog, Dorgy (not sure if that is the correct spelling but isn't that a great name for a dog?). Today we cleaned their house like we've been wanting to do for awhile now but haven't seemed to find the time. And then this Thursday we are going to house sit for some former IBM co-workers of mine in Tampa for 10 days, and then we're house sitting for our former baby sitter's parents in Litha for 10 days. We were REALLY hoping to have a 2nd vehicle by the time we did all this house sitting... we still have a few more days to go - maybe we'll find something before Thursday! Either way, we know the Lord's timing is perfect, so we don't mind waiting on Him. Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!! Blessings to all!

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Tim & Jodie

Tim and Jodie have been married since Nov. 5, 1988. Tim is a retired Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and retired city of Tampa Firefighter. Jodie is a happily laid off IBM/AT&T 21 yr veteran employee. So I guess you can say they're both retired, but still super busy! They have four wonderful children: triplets Nathan, Nicole, and Noah born 11/16/97 and Nicholas born 5/16/99. Nathan is at Trinity College, Noah is at Florida Polytechnic University, and Nicole is at USF. Nicholas is an EDM (electronic dance music) creator and hoping to make a living from that! We love and are so proud of our kids!

More house sitting

"I'm experiencing a little chest pain..."

NACA workshop

Counting it all joy

Puppy, pool, and pics

We have a minivan!!

Happy 4th of July!!

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Tim & Jodie

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