Living In God's Exquisite, Miraculous Sufficiency

I had some rice leftover from 2 different casseroles I made Monday, so yesterday I thought I might make Cilantro Lime Rice. However, we were eating leftovers and there wasn’t a lot of rice that would fill everyone up, but maybe with the chicken casserole I made the night before, that and the rice would be good. It was.

I added to the cilantro rice bacon, chorizo, garlic and sea salt . . . in addition to the white rice, cilantro, and lime. I tend to really LOVE lime. We added 2 Mexican limes, but my husband said it was too tart. Next time use one 1 lime or 1.5 limes. I’ll use the rest in my rice as a side.

I’m now really craving this rice again and the chicken mini tacos as well. That would be a great meal, don’t you think? Maybe sometime next week?

The first couple months my husband, then boyfriend/fiance, he was here in the U.S., it was really rough when things were heated between us. While in Colombia, it was rough, too, as we did a lot of relationship cleanup with me, getting rid of people in my life that were not good for me.

I’ve written about the different people here on 43T, and have since deleted many of the posts (sorry to those whom lost cheers due to this). I do have a tracker on some of my blogs and can track the people I’ve gotten rid of.

I didn’t explain to those individuals I was dropping them from my life. I just did it. It was coming to that and needed to. I just disappeared, blocked their phone numbers, emails, and any mode of communication they could communicate to me by.

However, with my cell provider, they provide 5 free numbers I can block up to 3 months at a time, then I will have to reblock to keep that block good. A couple times, I forgot to do this and found them texting and calling me. I never communicated back in any form, or acknowledged that I got the calls and texts.

A part of me wanted to, but I told myself that I would not ever communicate with them again. I promised my husband that. These were people whom I felt were some of my closest and dearest friends. But, if I looked at it honestly, that really wasn’t the case.

I won’t go into the gory details, but they were unhealthy relationships. I no longer feel this unhealthy connection. The times they have attempted to communicate with me, or go to my blogs, I tell my husband. He would be upset before, but now, he trusts that I won’t communicate with them and I won’t ever.

I don’t want to go back. I don’t have any unhealthy relationships in my life, or at least close ones. That’s great. That leaves room for good stuff to come into my life, as we should.

There have been a handful of people that have completely disappeared from my life and when I tried to contact them, they did not respond ever. Maybe they were doing the same to me and it was time for them to get rid of me and move on. It’s alright. No ill feelings.

I have a wonderful husband and marriage. Not going to screw it up with allowing any relationship to mess that up. He’s a great father, and I feel blessed beyond measure that God would move Heaven and Earth to bring my Love to me.

So, for those who have trouble getting rid of yucky people or unhealthy relationships, I’m praying for you that God give you courage to do what you need to do, and that you be strong to do it!

My husband has 2 last names – one is his mother’s last name and the other his father’s last name.

First Name – Father’s Last Name – Mother’s Last Name

in that order. But, he does go by First Name – Father’s Last Name.

When he got his fingerprinting done, I filled out the form and did it as using Father’s Last Name. Somehow when he went in to get fingerprinted by the school, they crossed out his father’s last name and put his mother’s last name.

No one told me this, so each time when I checked with the school using his father’s last name, they said his clearance wasn’t completed. It was supposed to take a couple weeks and over 2 months later, it still wasn’t done.

I learned today, after I left a really frustrating message to HR at the central school, that they said it’s been done, but I’ve been asking for the wrong last name. Well, when I filled out the form, I asked for that last name, not the name they changed it to without my knowledge.

Uggh, so my husband has missed quite a few opportunities he wanted to volunteer because of this. Well, we not have his clearance ID and now he can volunteer.

Tomorrow will be the end of the year school party in my son’s class and we will both be able to be there. Praise God!

Seriously, when melding 2 first borns who are engineers and love their ethnicity and countries, to not come upon conflicts would seem unreal.

We are getting better at handling our conflicts, as I’m learning to not push so hard and he’s learning to be less extreme. We’re definitely not there yet, but we are handling conflicts far better and in more constructive ways and not letting them get out of hand.

We both work from home. He sits facing east. I sit facing south in a small area that is the size of a smaller cubicle between the two of us in our bedroom at different desks. He has one big screen, while I have a laptop screen and a large screen.

I need to feel physically cool. He doesn’t. He cannot handle the fan blowing on or near him, while I can’t handle working when I’m sweating like a pig. I work with no noise, he listens to music. We both have our own headphones on.

We have different work styles. I can keep working straight through, while he takes little internet or guitar playing breaks. I do the majority of cooking. We all pitch in to do different levels of cleaning. He is really good at decluttering and the deep cleaning, while the kids and I do the normal surface cleaning & laundry on a regular basis.

I am learning when not to push my husband, but I’m not always successful as I tend to want to resolve right then and there until it’s done. He doesn’t. I am learning to give in here to let things cool down, but he likes to sweep it under the rug and I will eventually, when things are cooled off, deal with it.

He is very disciplined in things. I am less, but I am a great perseverer. He is not, so he can learn from me here, but I can learn from the discipline. We both have great positive energy, but it’s displayed differently.

Anyway, I’m tired. I love my husband and am super grateful that God brought him to me. He is an awesome man, but sometimes he does drive me crazy and I’m sure I do the same to him.

This movie turned out better than I thought. I don’t care for this James Bond, but this wasn’t too bad. Although, the bad guy, died in a cheezy way.

• Turned in all my work from yesterday and today.
• Bought cherries & rice, and some greens.
• Called Milano’s and Brindley’s for quotes.
• Pitted cherries (kids did).
• Took care of headache.
• Took out trash (kids did).
• Helped son study for test (daughter did).
• Date with husband.
• Caught up on cheers as much as I’m going to.

• Call Guitar Center & The Music Store for quotes.
• Solar screen stuff.
• HOA stuff.
• Water & Ice.
• Finish watching Skyfall.

Yesterday when leaving WalMart, I spotted two shiny quarters and since my hands were full, and my husband’s . . . we asked our daughter to get them. Then, we shouted, “We’re money magnets!”

I felt the Lord was saying to me that instead of the pennies which we think are worthless that we usually find, He was going to give us many times more than that, that there would be a newness to things, and He will doubly bless all our efforts.

God is very good.

When I was making 6-figures, I griped and complained about this and that. Now I make WAY less and in fact, probably what I make in a day or 2 is about what I made per hour before in engineering. And, compared to what I did in engineering, I work way harder now.

There are some frustrating things about what I’m doing, but I do feel grateful that I can do this from home, no commute, and be with my husband and children (soon, as school gets out in 2 days) for the summer.

However, though it’s not physically demanding, sitting here at the computer and needing to be 100% focused, at least while I’m working, is taxing. I didn’t appreciate that I normally didn’t have to be 100% focused for my work before (except for the writing job).

I haven’t even had the time I thought to do all the trading I’ve wanted to do. However, I really am grateful that I will be getting a paycheck on the 5th next month, albeit a small check.

I’ve gotta start somewhere and there are many good parts to this job. I get to work with some really great and wonderful people, so that is a huge plus. They are here to support me in making me successful.

So, I must overcome some of the challenges I have now, and learn to relax. So far, my performance is at a 93% average, which is good. I’ve had scores from 86% to 100%, so hopefully as I get better, I can get up to 95% average, and be able to produce more.

Thank you, God, for this job. But, doing this makes me realize I do need multiple streams of income.

I think I’d better work on some EFT stuff to help me deal with the stresses I’m facing here. But, it does feel good to be earning money.

My husband has been wanting his Takamine guitar for quite some time, as he couldn’t bring 2 guitars from Colombia (excess luggage). His sister got her Visa approved, but didn’t have the funds to come to AZ, so she went to Miami, where she has been staying for the past couple weeks, with some relatives of their’s.

She brought the Takamine from Colombia to Miami and last Tuesday, she finally shipped the guitar from Miami to us. We just got it and now my Love is tuning his black Takamine.

It cost us nearly $100 to buy the box and ship from Miami to the U.S. My husband was frustrated with his sister regarding this, but I told him to let it go. I am grateful that we had the money to pay for the shipping. But, it was far less expensive to ship from Miami than to ship from Colombia.

Praise God she is here (the Takamine). My husband is going to get it ready to teach me to play on that, our daughter will play on her Jasmine, and my husband on his Taylor.

I’m happy for my husband that he will have 2 guitars to use to play. I look forward to learning, though, when I was a kid, I took lessons for a whole year and didn’t do well with guitar. I’m a keyboards and woodwind gal.

• Tracked my husband’s guitar from Colombia to here.
• Got tracking # from UPS store for guitar.
• Enrolled kids for karate.
• Canceled my derm. appointment for next week.
• Rescheduled derm appoint for mid July.
• Did a BUNCH of work for my sub job.
• Went to sub job training – final training.
• Made dinner for the F family at our church. They had a baby 2 wks ago.
• Donated money for son’s teachers’ year end gift.
• Taught Sunday School class.
• Made some solar screens.
• Drilled holes & installed window clips in front of house.
• Did lots of laundry.
• Went Grocery shopping.
• Had Pest control this morning.
• Found the #s I need to reblock and reblock with my cell provider.
• Reduce emails in gmail and hotmail, as well as yahoo.
• Work instead of goof around on the internet.
• Got gas for the car.
• Called HOA regarding do I need my neighbors to approve the solar screens & security door.
• RSVP’d to BBQ this Saturday.

• Need to send in the form to the HOA via email or fax.
• Take pictures of solar screens and security door.
• Get neighbors to sign approval of solar screens & security door.
• Finish making the solar screens for the front of the house within the next week.
• Catch up on belated birthdays on FB.
• Catch up on my cheers in 43T.
• Go to Water & Ice store.
• Return DVD to library.

I’ve been working a lot, actually doing things that are making me money. Since it’s been awhile, I feel that I need to focus on that and haven’t been to 43T, FB, or much the internet, except for what pertains to what I need to do for my job.

So, I’m so behind on my cheers and hope when I have some time and am not plumb tired, that I will cheer back. Thanks for the support.

Our printer finally came a couple days ago. We were expecting it sometime next week, so we got it earlier than the later they said. My wonderful husband setup the printer, and it did take some time. It wasn’t as easy as my old HP printers, as there are a lot more features with this one.

It was on sale at Costco for $90 +tax. It turned out good and had good reviews by most people. What is important is durability and that the ink cartridges don’t cost an arm and a leg. Most of the reviews that talked about ink said the cartridges were very inexpensive.

This Brother does fax, copy, scans, and prints duplex! I really love the duplex printing as that saves paper. My HP did do duplex printing, sort of, if you flip the paper over and sent your pages in the manner that it could do it (basically, if I had more than 1 page duplexed, I didn’t do it because I could never get the numbering of which went when correctly and ended up wasting paper each time . . . more than if I had done 1 sided.).

I am keeping one of the HP printers for just in case, but donating the other printer and fax machine. So, this one machine replaces 2. My kids are excited that it can copy. It also prints color.

This is my first new printer ever. Both printers I had and the fax machine were used when I got them.

It’s not really a super speedy printer, so we’ll have to see when I need a lot of pages printed, if I don’t like that. It’s a nice, sleek black machine and is sitting where the fax machine was, so it is out of the way of where my husband’s desk area is and mine. It’s in a neutral area so the kids can get to it without bothering us, but we can still see what they are printing, so they cannot get out of control with printing.

Thank you, God!

I’m also glad for reviews people write on Costco.com and on Amazon. I poured through LOTS of reviews of about a half dozen printers between Brother and HP. Though I hate HP computers and laptops, I do like HP printers. I feel they make great printers.

Originally I was planning on paying around $150 +tax for a printer, so I’m ecstatic I paid about $95, total, which is probably a $65 savings. I also love Costco as I know if anything goes wrong, they will make good on it without any questions asked.

• Took kids to school.
• Brought LW back from the hospital.
• Did my health insurance stuff.
• Did my sub con jobs and turned in.
• Made dinner (hubby, son and I) instead of eating out.
• Scheduled dr’s appointment for tomorrow regarding cough.
• Took meds/supps.
• Did hair stuff.
• Renewed books for son & daughter.
• Mailed C to ask for work for the weekend.
• Converted BY videos to audios for iTunes.
• Resolved issue with parents & G. I stirred up everything. Ugh.

• Get water at water store.
• Take kids to karate.
• Go to dr’s appointment.
• Rest.
• Do sub con job and turn in work for Fri.
• Enroll kids in karate for the summer.

Today I worked so hard at my sub job and when I broke down how much I made an hour, it wasn’t hardly anything. I began to gripe and complain. I told my husband when I was making 6-figures, I’m not even coming close to making in a day what I made in an hour before at work. Sort of sad.

He said I do have to start somewhere and honestly, though I can work from home, and parts are easy, such as I get to choose my own hours, work from home, no commuting, get to write off things like our phones, internet, office supplies, the printer I just bought, computers, and some mileage, it doesn’t turn out to be a whole lot after all that.

I’m not being paid by the hour, rather by how much I do. So, it’s more a production thing. I must become faster and hopefully I will learn tips on Monday that will help me do this faster.

My husband pointed out that before I wasn’t making ANY money, but at least now I am making something. Something is better than nothing. I don’t mind doing the sub contracting job, but definitely, it’s not going to be something that I will do for a super long time, I don’t think.

But, I do have a 3 month commitment or I owe the part of the licensing fee that I did not pay back to the company. Right now, I would be in a loss if I quit anytime before 3 months.

My first paycheck, which is in 3 weeks, isn’t a whole lot because I wasn’t given a lot of work. They want to gradually ramp the new people up and I’m glad it’s gradual and not totally thrown into the fire pit so quickly. I am getting more used to things and I have gotten a variety of things from really easy and good stuff to really hard and I never want to see those jobs again.

So, I am not going to complain for the opportunity to make money. I hope to be able to devote more time this weekend to trading, as that’s an area where I can really make money, but I still need to build up the capital.

• Took kids to school.
• Went to 99 Cent store to get some stuff.
• Went to get some stuff at the Latin store.
• Got gas.
• Cleaned the windshields (sort of).
• Did my sub job. Today was not good work. I got very little pay for all the work I did.
• Turned in my sub job invoice for the first half of the month. It’s not a lot of pay and I initially had to put money to get my license to do this job. After the paycheck, I will still be in the negative by $160. Won’t receive that until next month on the 5th.
• Made my family dinner (frozen raviolis from Costco).
• Setup new Brother printer (okay, I did almost nothing and my husband did everything).
• Setup new printer on the 3 laptops and 1 desktop wirelessly. We are all connected now (I did nothing here. My husband did it all.)
• Took my heart meds/sups.
• Did my hair stuff.
• Cleaned out the shower drain.

Okay, I would not normally write about this, but I’m going to. Today my husband and I were in McDonald’s grabbing a quick lunch. Yes, I know, not good, and worse, I’ve been sick and still am sick. They had Fox News up on one of the TV monitors and they were talking about the IRS Scandal.

This guy, with his son comes in, and watches the TV while he orders, then he comes near us to make a comment in passing, “I really hate Fox News. They are so racist. They are always bashing Obama because he’s black.”

Okay, my husband and I had been sitting there watching this for probably 10-15 min. I honestly didn’t see any racist comments made by Fox News or anyone for that matter. What I saw was a scandal and it shouldn’t have occurred.

I think the President was going to be shortly addressing the nation in this scandal. I don’t even get where racism comes into play, really.

If someone voted for Obama because he was black, I really don’t think that is a valid reason. If Obama were a green woman, I also don’t think that is a valid reason because it takes more than the color of one’s skin to a run a country. Heck, I have trouble running my household, so I would hope that people vote more than on someone’s ethnicity or the color or their skin, rather for what they have done and can do for the good of the country.

I have heard that if you didn’t vote for Obama, that you are racist. How is that? I know black people who did not vote for him. Does that make them racist?

The IRS doing what they did, I think is intolerable and some people should be fired. I think that is happening. I don’t totally know the whole story, so I’m not going to get my panties in a ruffle about it. But, all who pay taxes, we should be concerned that if they target people with certain beliefs, even if not yours, how do you know they won’t come after what you believe?

I think I’m about as non-racist as they come. I’m Chinese, married to a Colombian man. Our kids are half Chinese and half black. My former ex-husband is black. My first former ex-husband is white. My first boyfriend was Asian Indian.

Let’s see, I’ve hit Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, and North America in my relationships and family. I vote for the person whom I think will do the best job that reflects my own personal views, beliefs and values, as well as look at their track record. I personally think everyone should do similarly, whether they believe what I believe.

On a different note, when my husband, kids and I go to the library, a certain library, there have been for the past several months a petition to remove Sheriff Joe Arpaio from office. When approached to sign the petition, I respectfully decline. We say that we love and support Sheriff Arpaio.

Yes, he is crass and maybe not that personable compared to other sheriffs. Yes, he does make criminals work and sometimes some embarrassing things like wear pink boxers and live in tents. I guess the thing here is that we feel he upholds the law. I don’t really see anything wrong with that.

I checked on some stats to house a prisoner in AZ and the stats were from 6 yrs ago. It cost about $23K/prisoner. So, in my family of 4, that would be $92K/yr and yet, we live on sooooo much less than that. Yes, we have freedom to go where we want, but….it seems absurd to spend that much.

So, I think a prisoner, though locked up, they get paid, they get healthcare, they get food, they don’t have to pay rent, etc. I’m definitely not saying that going to prison is good, but what, they want prisoners to get free massages in prison, have spa days?

My gosh. I digress.

I really wish that some people would be more considerate. If the ad is no longer valid, then they should pull the ad down, rather than just ignore what they told people to do, which is to call or text.

There was something I saw on CL and it said not to email, rather call or text any time. I called at normal hours and when I did, someone picked up and hung up on me. Then, when I texted, no one answered. Seriously, that’s just rude.

If you post an ad on CL and it’s not longer valid, pull the fricken’ ad! Have some courtesy or at least answer back and say it’s sold.

Okay, so I had a bag of mini-corn tortillas in the frig waiting to be used. Today I made homemade chicken soup as I bought a bunch of chicken breasts on sale, as well as chicken thighs. I boiled 2/3rds of a package of chicken breasts. Wasn’t going to eat the whole thing for chicken vegetable soup, but figured I could use the breasts for chicken salad or some other chicken dish, like enchiladas.

I put in the soup celery, onion powder, garlic powder, garlic, cilantro, carrots, and water. I boiled and simmered for quite some time and had the soup for lunch. Since I’ve hardly eaten anything in 2 days (weight is going down obviously), I was still pretty hungry afterwards, but opted to not eat more.

When we got home, I thought, what if I used the chicken to make some mini chicken tacos. Went to Pinterest to try to find a recipe, but to no avail. What people called chicken tacos were really mini chicken bowls. They were not chicken tacos.

So, I decided to make up something –
- 1 chicken breast
- 1/2 bunch cilantro
- 2 small avocados
- 4 oz lite cream cheese
- 4 oz jalapeno jack cheese
- pinch of sea salt
- 26 mini corn tortillas (about 4” in dia)

I shredded the cooled, but not cold chicken breast that had been sitting in the broth for a few hours, so it was nice and tender. Did this with my hands. In a small food processor, I put the avocados, cream cheese, cilantro, and sea salt and processed away until smooth.

It looked like a creamy green sauce with flecks of green. It was perfectly yummy. I shredded the jalapeno cheese with my new handheld stainless cheese shredder that I picked up at Goodwill for maybe $2. It wasn’t the easiest to use as one person, though, but I shredded the cheese fine.

I mixed the shredded chicken, the shredded cheese and the creamy avocado-cilantro sauce together until well mixed.

Then, I heated about 7-9 mini corn tortillas in the oven to soften them for 43 sec on high. I put about a teaspoonful or more on half the corn tortilla and folded in half like a taco. Did this until all the tortillas were gone.

In the meantime, I heated a 10” skillet with oil on medium high. We fried the tacos in oil and drained them on paper towels.

Let me tell you, these were simply the best mini tacos ever. I almost always have cream cheese, cilantro and some type of cheese in the frig, as well as corn tortillas.

This is definitely a do over recipe and the next time I might add some cayenne pepper or chipotle peppers and we will make a much bigger batch. These really are very tasty.

Though I wasn’t supposed to have any because of my sore throat, I did eat 5.5 of them. My husband had 6.5 and the kids each had 7. Really, I could’ve eaten way more than that, like maybe 15, but there weren’t 15 to eat.

The next time I make these, I will take pictures and post the recipe in my blog.

• Took kids to school.
• Did work for sub job.
• Took meds & supps.
• Did hair treatment.
• Drank lots of fluids (water, hot tea).
• Read some more of Dani Johnson’s book.
• Picked up kids from school.
• Made homemade mini chicken tacos with my husband for dinner.
• Went to Latin store to get chicken.

• Evaluate the 10 stocks I’m looking at.
• Make a stock video (or 2).

For the past 7 workdays, I’ve been getting reviews of how I’m doing my job. I’ve been averaging 92%, with the data ranging from 86 to 97. Today I got a 100%, that brings me up to 92.8% Yay! I’m asking for more work and they will pay extra for that extra work. Yay! I could use the money.

Praise God!

My new printer, scanner, fax, copier is finally being shipped today and I hope to receive it before the end of the week. I’m excited. I’m often under the premise of not replacing certain things until they no longer work. I don’t find myself being a part of the group that whenever something new comes out, I need to have it, and that even includes watching movies.

I’m pretty content with watching movies 6 months, a year, 2 years after they come out. My HP Deskjet 952C is probably worth $2 at a garage sale, but I love that printer and it has served me well. Actually, I have 2 of them. It prints both color and black and white and the cartridges, if you buy refills instead of new ones, are afforadable.

I’ve had these printers since before my oldest was born, which she will be turning 13 in a couple months. Wow, a teenager.

I have an old fax machine that my ex gave me the fax machine I have and though I cannot receive faxes, it’s also served me well. It’s probably a fax machine from the mid 90s. It’s even older than my printers.

I’m excited to get this new printer that will allow me to make copies and scan, so this saves me trips to Staples or OfficeMax, and helps me to conserve paper when I’m able to scan. I used to also have a scanner, but I donated that years ago. Rather than 3 machines, now they will all be contained in 1 machine.

I might just keep one of the printers and donate the other printer and fax machine to Goodwill. This will allow me to consolidate. I love clearing up space.

This new 4:1 machine will allow me to have more space, but to keep better and more accurate track of my business expenses both in my subcontracting job and in the stock market. Yay!

Since Costco took a long time to fill this order and I should’ve received the printer 2 weeks ago, I will call them and ask them for some level of compensation or something.