Tuesday & Christmas Music!

So on Tuesday, I read Cindy's blog about the joy of Christmas music. I LOVE Christmas music! It was funny reading about her mom loading up the stereo with the Christmas records (record - what's that?!?!? LOL) and then flipping them over. My mom had one of those same stereos and she would do the SAME thing! To this day, I remember those albums and just the other day downloaded a few of them from iTunes. I have the german Christmas albums, the Ray Conniff Singers, Heintje, Andy Williams, and a few new favorites - Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Barbra Streisand, etc. - all of them in my iTunes on my computer. Now, I just need an iPod (I guess that one will have to wait now) so I can take them with me wherever I go! Sure, I can burn them to CD, but there are so many songs that it would take a ton of CDs!

There is a special spirit that fills our home when we celebrate the birth of the Savior. Playing Christmas music is the one way we are able to keep a touch of that spirit all year long without having to keep a tree up gathering dust. I always get teased about playing Christmas music in July, but it is a small motivator that keeps me going through the Arizona summer and reminds me that the truly most wonderful time of the year will soon be here. Are you ready for it yet? Let me know by taking my poll to the left <----------. And...to get you in the proper SPIRIT for Christmas, take a watch of this video before you read on...



So, Clint had his interview with WM today. He said it went really well and he is essentially hired if he passes the pee test. Once again though, I am ashamed of myself and how I am reacting to this whole working for WalMart thing. But, the money issue is what's bothering me. He will be making $7 an hour less than he was at the hospital. That is a lot of money for us not to have coming in anymore. Plus, now I have to add him to my insurance and that is an extra $100 per month versus what we were paying for him before through his work. We have our homeowners and car insurances through his work too and the rates were awesome. Now, we have to go through my work and it won't be as inexpensive so that will also impact our finances.

We have written down every thing that we pay each month and the one thing that I am so grateful for is that we have NO debt except our house and my truck. He was insistent when we got married and sold his house that we paid off all of our debt. I am so happy we did. Otherwise, I would have been totally freaking out by now. I did do one thing yesterday though that I have done everytime this has happened to me in the past - I immediately made a list of all our monthly obligations and netted it against my income. There was a big difference though in the order things were listed this time, however. In my PL ("past life" with Rex), I would never include tithing and fast offerings because there was never enough to pay all the bills AND those. And, I didn't have enough faith then to force myself to pay those and rely on the Lord to help with the other things. Clint has really helped me with that one. I KNOW those things need to come first and again, as Cindy said, "the Lord will fill in the gaps." I KNOW that Clint is getting a job so quickly because of our faithfulness. I mean, seriously, he was without a job for 6 hours! However, he hates that I've put us into "survival mode" until he starts bringing in money again. FYI - survival mode in our house means NO extemporaneous spending - no going out to dinner, no unnecessary purchasing, no Sonic drinks, etc. He keeps pointing out to me that even without his income, we still have X number of dollars left over. I know that, but it's certainly not as much as before!

Back to the job issue...I have been having issues with him working at WM not only because of the pay, but because it's WM and I despise WM. I just hate going into those stores. They are dirty and unkempt. Their produce goes bad quickly when I buy it. They never have enough registers open and the checkers are incredibly slow. Honestly, why on earth would you ever install 46 registers and only have 8 open? Just for Black Friday? Whatever. Anyhow, he is HAPPY to be working there. He likes WM. He likes the value. He's excited for the opportunity to do something new. He's excited that there is a WM Neighborhood grocery store opening just around the corner from us in a few months. He is excited about the opportunity he might have to transfer to that store and maybe become the produce manager there. The good thing about the store he'll be working at is that it is the biggest, cleanest, most financially productive store in Arizona. He is just happy to be out of the Big BM. There is a renewed vigor in him and it is nice to see.

C is happy. That is all that should matter.