House Hunting

Hello again, friends!  I thought I would update you on the newest adventure Michael and I are taking on...  We are searching for a house!!! 

Our lease isn't up here until the end of May.  The plan was to begin looking for houses in April (I know, we're a couple months early).  But as we were randomly perusing the houses on the internet, we found one that caught our eye.  We emailed the realtor and asked for more information.  When he told us the master bathroom only had a shower, we decided that house probably wasn't for us.  The realtor then asked what we were looking for in a house.  Now I considered telling him that we weren't seriously looking until April, but then I decided, hey, why should I do all the work looking for houses...  Why not let someone else do it?!?!  So I told him what we would like in a house:

4+ bedrooms
3+ bathrooms
2,200+ sq ft
Basement (walk-out if possible)
3 car garage
Nice master suite
Nice kitchen
No hard wood floors
Wichita

So he did some looking and sent us a list of houses (all with walk-out basements) that met our criteria.  He said it was about all he could find.  We looked through them and found about 5 that we liked.  One of them has gone under contract, so someone else is already in the process of buying it.  The other 4 we are looking at tomorrow evening.  :)

Now, since we're looking so early, we're going to take this time to be EXTRA picky.  We want to get a house that can grow with us and eventually a family.  We want to find a house where we will be comfortable for the next 30 years or so.  And if we're going to pay so much of our hard earned money, we're going to make sure we LOVE the house.  So don't expect to heal that we're closing any time soon.  We do have a decent downpayment saved up already, but we want to have a bigger one and we want to see lots of houses to make sure we pick the right one.

So please keep us in your prayers as we start this exciting new adventure of house hunting.  God has been so good to us giving Michael a great job and keeping us more than afloat the last few months.  I'm just praying He continues to bless us and make the way easy as we look for the perfect house.  :)  Thanks everyone!  We'll keep you posted as we do more searching.  Love you!

-Jen

Full Time!!!

Hey there!
Couldn't remember if I updated the blog and told you guys, and I'm too lazy to look back and see, so I thought I'd write a new post saying that I am officially full-time at Belden's!!!!  Woooohooooo!!  What this means is that I will have to average 30 hours/week over the month, I will begin accumulating paid time off and vacation time, I will have benefit options (including a stock option in Sterling Jewelers, the biggest jewelry company in the United States), and I will have the option to enroll in company insurance!  Pretty sweet, huh??  :D  The reason I really wanted to go full-time is because of the insurance.  Our company offers some really nice insurance and the insurance Michael and I have right now is basically like not having insurance at all.  Here's the difference in the plans, for those of you that care:

Current Insurance
$150/month
$5000 deductible
80/20 after deductible
Maximum out of pocket: $20,000
Beldens Insurance
$185/month
$1000 deductible
80/20 after deductible
Maximum out of pocket: $4,500
Vision and Dental included

So, as you can see, the new insurance will be much better.  After having to have my Gallbladder removed, I'm leary of having bad insurance.  But I just couldn't keep paying $400/month on school insurance when they ripped me off so bad after I did have to get my Gallbladder taken out.  Stay away from Prefered Health Systems!!

Anyways, I got my sales up and have been doing well, so our district manager finally agreed to let me go full-time.  I think he's worried that I don't have much sales experience, but I am learning quickly and am going above and beyond my goals.  So I think I will do just fine in a full-time position.

Because I'll be putting in 30+ hrs/week at the jewelry store, I won't be subbing quite as much (Until March).  I will go ahead and take jobs for people who put them in early, because I can request evening shifts for those days if I know plenty in advance.  Between the jewelry store, subbing, and Pampered Chef, I'm sure I'll stay plenty busy!!  Not to mention, I might be doing a little babysitting here and there....  :)  One of the girls at work has a 4 month old baby boy and her and her husband's schedules vary quite a bit week to week, so they might need someone to watch William here and there.  :)  I can't wait!!!!

March-May is going to be interesting and very busy!!  Sis is due March 28th, and I will be her long-term sub.  That means I'll have to work 40+hrs/week at school, then still average 30+hrs/week at the jewelry store in order to keep my full-time status and my insurance.  It will be quite the juggling game!  So don't expect to see me much during those 3 months, because if I'm not at one job or the other, I plan on being asleep.  ;)

Well, this has gotten way too long, so I'll sign off now.  Hope you all are enjoying 2012.  :)  I know this year is going to be an excellent one!

Pampered Chef

Well, many of you know that I had a Pampered Chef party yesterday.  I was a little worried about how the party would go.  I'm in kind of the wrong age group to be hosting a Pampered Chef party, because all of my friends are young and just out of college and none of us have any money.  I understand that!  We haven't had money for so long, I was starting to forget what it looked like!  But Amanda assured me not to worry and to get excited about my party.  I had only family show up (again, my friends are poor, I understand), and Cathy invited her friend Tony who loves to cook and loves Pampered Chef.  Well, turns out that having just family at your party can actually work out quite well for you!!  Everyone bought LOTS of stuff!!  Which meant that I got LOTS of FREE stuff!!! 

I decided that 2 jobs isn't enough for me, so I went ahead and signed up to be a Pampered Chef consultant!!  :D  I'm very excited about it!!  It cost a little money to get started up, but I figure that with all the perks and free stuff that the company gives away for being a consultant, that I'll never have to spend my own money on the products again!  Plus, I'll get great deals for friends and family and plenty to give away as gifts!  So what I need from all of you, is to host a party!!  There's no cost in hosting a party, just invite your friends, I will come and show the products, your friends buy, and you get tons of free stuff!  (I got $190 in free products from my party, and that doesn't include any of the extra bonuses of being a consultant!!)

So if you're interested in hosting a Pampered Chef party, please let me know!  I will travel to you to make things easier for you to have your party where you live and close to your friends.  Just tell me when you'd like to have it and I will work it out with my schedule!  Can't wait to get started!  Thanks guys!!

Michael's Birthday!!

Hi Friends!

I've been dieing to update the blog and tell everyone about Michael's birthday, but of course, since it was a surprise party, I couldn't!  Now that it's over, here's how it went!  We had 18 people there celebrating Michael's birthday!  Thanks everyone who was able to show up!  Michael loved seeing all of you!  A big thanks to all those of you who came from out of town, we appreciate you giving up your evening and traveling so far.  :)  We had people from Manhattan, Topeka, Kansas City, and Wichita all there!!  It was a great success!  THANK YOU!!!

I thought I was pretty sneaky about the whole thing, turns out, I wasn't as sneaky as I thought.  Michael started getting suspicious when I told him we had reservations....  4 days in advance...  Oops!!  Didn't even think about that!!  He also thought it was a little strange that I was cleaning so extensively for my Pampered Chef party.  Then, after Glenn and Linda had come down for the afternoon and taken us out to lunch, Michael didn't really feel like going out to dinner the same night.  I had to twist his arm a little.

He was very surprised when we got there and everyone shouted Surprise!!!  He was really excited to see his friends who live out of town who he hadn't seen for several months.  It was a great night!!  Thank you all for helping to make Michael's birthday truly special for him.  :)