Personality Quiz

My dear friend Joelle posted this quite interesting personality/career test. Although it doesn't perfectly mention insurance agent, it does mention office manager, bookkeeper, and clerical supervisor--which are all close enough to me. It also mentions homemaker as a potential career so this is fantastic. My full results are below. The only issue I have is that the first trait it mentions is quiet...What?!? Anyone who knows me (or my family), knows this is absolutely untrue! However, most of the other traits are pretty right on. Click here to try it out for yourselves.

Your personality type:
Quiet, kind and conscientious. Can be depended on to follow through. Usually puts the needs of others above their own needs. Stable and practical, they value security and traditions. Well-developed sense of space and function. Rich inner world of observations about people. Extremely perceptive of other's feelings. Interested in serving others.

Careers that could fit you includes:
Interior decorators, designers, nurses, administrators, managers, secretaries, child care/early childhood development, social work, counselors, paralegals, clergy, office managers, shopkeepers, bookkeepers, homemakers, gardeners, clerical supervisors, curators, family practice physicians, health service workers, librarians, medical technologists, typists.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

Oh how that quote sums up our weekend. Crazy, and nothing like what we had planned. In the end, we have a huge financial decision to make and we're both exhausted from stress. Let's start from the beginning, Nick had to be in St. Louis for work obligations at 10:00am which meant leaving our house at 6:30am. No big deal, he was busy from 10-3ish and I was going to enjoy some much needed shopping at the various malls. I had a great time, found some great deals, took care of some early Christmas presents, and some very belated birthday presents. I was to pick him up at 3:15...well I go to leave our hotel to pick him up and our car will not go into reverse. I tried everything...we had plenty of power in drive...but no backing was allowed. I called Nick, he got a ride to the hotel and we determined the transmission was having huge issues. Transmission issues at 110,000 miles?!? I thought this happened so much later in a car's life...Keep in mind we are 3.5 hours from home, and had great plans for a nice short trip to St. Louis. After a few tears, curse words, and a lot of calls home, we determined there was nothing we could do so we rented a car, enjoyed our evening at the Cards game and tried to enjoy ourselves. Saturday came and we drove home, at 65 mph on the interstate, and brought the car directly to my parents' house so we could borrow one of their extra cars.

The rest of the weekend involved us waivering back and forth between: Do we spend $1400 and fix the transmission? or Do we just buy a new car? This might seem simple to some, but there are so many factors involved...the main one is: We only have 8 payments left before his car is completely paid off!!! AHHHHHH!!! Frustration doesn't even begin to describe it. We've had lots of opinions and lots of discussions and we still haven't decided exactly what to do. So...right now we are just praying for wisdom from God. I know God has this all worked out and this is such a simple bump in the road for us--however, it seems quite large at the time. At this point, I think He's just trying to teach us that no matter how much we have things planned and analyzed to the point of perfection...no one knows what the next day holds but for Him. To trust & have faith in him during every situation is such a challenge, but I know we will be better off in life if that's exactly what we do. Hopefully in a few weeks, or months we'll be able to look back, laugh, and be thankful for what God taught us during this decision.

Nick with our disabled car (the black one in the background) & our rental, or Ladybug, as I liked to call it. ;o)

At least we were able to relax and enjoy a nice fire outside on Saturday night...then we didnt' have to think about anything at all.

Oh, and the devil dog...don't you love his glowing green eyes?!? On top of the car issues, we come home and he is limping badly on his left front paw. However, it doesn't seem to hurt him and he still wants to go for walks...so hopefully it's something simple and he'll be better soon. ;o)

Puppy School: Lesson #2

Well, puppy school went quite well on Monday evening. Nick is the main trainer and I just sit off to the side so as not to be a distraction--however, I'm not sure how this is considered an issue with 10-12 untrained dogs in a small space. This week's lesson involved more sitting, laying down, staying, and walking on a loose leash. I think Nick might be a little disappointed in Bogey's progress, but I think he's doing great. I got him some new treats and I definitely think he's liking those much better. The instructor always seems to pick Bogey for demonstrations...I'm not sure if it's because he needs the practice or if he's just too darn cute to ignore. Hopefully he'll continue to get better and better! This morning I was actually able to do 2 pushups (one pushup is a sequence of sit and down). I think this is a huge accomplishment for a 60 lb ball of fun (& slobber) !

Mind-Numbing Monday

So I sit here at work with practically nothing to do, sure I could go and search something out...but what's the fun in that? Besides it's less than an hour until I get to head home. You would think with it being Monday and our office being shorthanded today that things would be absolutly crazy, oh how wonderful that migth be! Things have been really slow and just dragging on. So, I've taken advantage of the slow afternoon to continue blogging and searching other blogs. Tonight is our next Puppy Obedience School so stay tuned for details. Happy Monday!

Bogey Golf, Cider Days, Mighty Mite Football, & Bogey Messes

So with my brother Nick being out of college and finished with his college football days, and my husband Nick being almost finished with his golfing season...we actually had a fall weekend with no set plans. However, that certainly didn't stop us from being super busy with lots of fun activities. Saturday morning we headed up to a fun little 9 hole golf course in Springfield (a little background info: Nick is an amazing golfer and currently if someone asks if I golf, my response is: I have clubs...that's about it--however, Nick is working very hard to teach me to at least be decent so we can enjoy his favorite activity together). Anyways, we headed to the course and I actually played incredibly well. I shot Bogey golf, which is just one over par on each hole. Not too bad, as long as you don't count all the mulligan's off the tee. I failed to take any pictures, but I've included a picture of us playing at another course when we were in Wisconsin with his family back in August.

After the golf outing, we headed to Cider Days...a fall festival in Springfield on beautiful historic Walnut Street. The festival was slightly disappointing as it didn't have any "genuine" cider and there were people everywhere. We left after about 30 minutes and headed back to Republic to gather some fall decorations for our front step at a local pumpkin stand. We picked up 8-10 various pumpkins and gourds and a bale of hay. I'll post some pictures after we've finished with it. It's going to look wonderful. The rest of Saturday consisted of a short visit to our next door neighbor's for their little boys 1st Birthday Party, a visit home to Marionville to have dinner with my Grandma & Grandpa and then on to my cousin's Mighty Mite Football game. Needless to say, we were exhausted after our busy day.

Today was mainly a day with errands and duties as I had a meeting after church, a trip to the grocery store, and laundry on my agenda. On Sunday's we normally leave Bogey loose in the backyard to get some exercise since we're only going to be gone for a few hours. Needless to say, today was a day when that was a bad idea. Nick came home to find that Bogey had managed to pull off the lid to our firepit, pull out the burnt wood and also scatter the ashes all over our patio. As you can see he was quite proud of himself!

We have small group tonight at 5 and I'm super excited for this to begin up again. It's so refreshing to spend time each week with other couples and have fellowship. I hope everyone else had a good weekend--I know I'm ready for a nap!

What in the world am I doing?

Life around the Layman house has been pretty uneventful in the recent weeks and although that might be a blessing for some--It's driving me crazy!!! With Nick studying, that leaves me to decide what I'm going to spend each night doing for 2-3 hours without making a huge amount of noise in order to not distract him. This might sound simple to some; however, spending hours of watching the new 90210, Gossip Girl, & America's Next Top Model is not the most stimulating option (even though I love watching all of them). So, last night I'm sitting around reading and I start to get into a down mood thinking about what I really contribute to anything. I go to work, come home, cook dinner, sit around for a few hours waiting on Nick to get done studying, take Bogey for a walk, and go to bed. What a fulfilling evening! (sarcasm intended) Don't get me wrong, my main task and goal in life is to be a godly, loving, excellent wife to my husband. I just get into these moods every once in awhile and proceed to throw a pity party for myself where self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence really shine through.

What am I doing here? Do I make a difference? Am I a good Christian woman, wife, friend, daughter? Do I like my job? Will I be able to run our family business someday? All these questions pop into my mind and make me stop and think. I talked with my dear husband about it and expressed all of my thoughts...What are you passionate about? he says. Wow, you know I have no idea...I love lots of little things (but money constrains most of those options). This stage in life is full of transitions--life has always been full of activities and duties but what now? So...here's my task...find a hobby, not just something to fill time...but something I truly enjoy. The first couple on my list are to extend a few things I already enjoy--baking (new recipes), exercising (sick I know, but I do actually enjoy this), & possibly silk-flower arranging (my mom and I have come to really enjoy this). God has blessed our lives in so many ways and I know I will be so thankful for these times in several years when I have little munchkins running around our house. Thanks for reading my rambling words, any unique and cheap hobby ideas would certainly be fun to hear about! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I'm Giving In

After several weeks and months of reading friends blogs, friends of friends blogs, and complete strangers' blogs, I've decided that maybe I should start up a blog to fill everyone in on the daily happenings of the Layman family. People have always fascinated me--from their thoughts and opinions, to the daily simple events of their lives. So I'm hoping that maybe in someway this might be interesting & entertaining--maybe it won't, but at least this might be a good place to get my thoughts down so I can try and figure out what's going on in this crazy head of mine. I'll try to include regular updates and pictures so please enjoy!