Tag: grateful

A Girl and her Doggie

A Girl and her Doggie

February 19, 2020

Sometimes you choose a pet. You know, you excitedly go to the shelter or the pet store and the perfect friend snags your heart instantly.

Sometimes you are fostering a litter of puppies and one looks up at you with a connection that will never break.

(Christina and Primrose: Pretty sure this was the day she decided to keep her!)

This was the way with Christina and the little black puppy that became our Primrose (Primmy, Prim, or even Primrose Everdeen Tart – when she has chewed something).

Prim has been in our home for two baby births. Until Lucas was about 2, he was her little pup. She followed him around, protected him, and I used to say if dogs choose their people, Prim chose Christina and Lucas. The second birth she’s been here for is Theadora.

Thea loves Prim. She gets excited when Prim snuggles up next to her and squeals “my doggie!” and will either pet her gently or snuggle her whole little face into Prim’s soft fur. Thea also feeds Prim everything… if it tastes really “yummy!” then a bit of it gets dropped over the highchair after “doggie!” gets yelled. Prim knows that means – come get food.

It’s hard for me to get these as pictures because Thea knows what a phone is. If I try to take a picture while I’m sitting next to her, she drops what she’s doing and grabs said phone!

Lucas has grown away from Prim and animals – he likes things with wheels right now. He gets super excited about small animals like helping with the Guinea Pigs or Minuit, but big ones are pillow to him, that’s it.

Prim is a pillow or sleeping buddy for anyone on the couch – although she isn’t supposed to be there; she just took up Sheba’s lookout position. At night, she snuggles curled up in a little ball on the end of Christina’s, Lucas’ or Jillian’s bed. She loves her people. She’ll snuggle next to Thea’s baby pen if Thea’s sleeping there – nestled under the table but up against the baby pen.

We went to visit a friend & they had a Jack Russel puppy. When Thea got home she grabbed Prim in a hug and stroked her saying softly, “my doggie, my doggie.” My baby is thankful for her special doggie.

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

House Hunting 101 – Lesson 1 – Location

June 10, 2019

House Hunting 101 – Lesson 1 – Location

We’ve been planning toward our next step – home ownership.  We are grateful for the place we are currently renting, but because of the black mold infestation (it’s under control, but we don’t own the house, so can’t remove it) we are actively looking for a place to own.  Somewhere that hopefully, we are smarter about and keep (I still miss my grapefruit trees that had just started fruiting after 7 long years!) forever.

Right now, we are still in the “finish paying off debt” stage, but with end-of-business debt down from over $14K to $800, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after a little over 2 years.  (Yippee!!!!)  Next step is to have 6 months of expenses in the bank.  Then we start saving for a home.

We’re being really picky this time so it will be a while, but it is fun to discuss, think, and plan!

We have learned that the primary item isn’t size or neighborhood, but location.  Driving isn’t pleasant for Louis (I don’t like the “wasted time” either, but I use it to dream up stories, interview fake people in my head, and pray.) so we thought about what type of location did we want.  We wanted to minimize driving.  But what are the constants in our life?

Not work… (Although I hope I keep these jobs until I retire – my plan as Operations Manager is to eventually shift to a few hours in the early mornings or two or three days a week and be available the rest of the time remotely.)  Remote is awesome.  I get more done in the mornings (like now, at 5am) and I really can’t stand being gone from my family this long (9.5 hours for my 8 hour day – 1.5 driving).

Not hobbies… because we love beach, tennis, walking, bicycling, surfing, swimming, watching nature, growing things… anything active and we usually make those things happen depending on what is around us or in our own yard.

Not even church… seriously, that’s once a week and most of our lives we spent driving an hour or so one way to the church we were called to.

School was it.

Don’t laugh!  Yes, we homeschool.  I mean St Johns County.  The kids will be going to college at St. Johns River State – Christina and Becky are active now, but based on normal college-bound years, we will be driving to and from that campus for 20 years (if we aren’t blessed by any further editions of Tarts).  We love St Johns County (yes, it’s extremely pricy and super hard to rent or buy land here, but it has been awesome home-schooling here and we love the people!).  St Johns County has a fascinating, amazing array of trade school and college opportunities for our children – I mean, seriously, our teenagers are college-course-takers.  Christina’s credit hours mean she’s entering her sophomore year of college as she enters her junior year of high school!  Several young friends I know have graduated FCTC and entered directly into the job force at 17 & 18 years old.  Two make more than me!  So, educational opportunities are our standard constant that won’t change for quite some time.  Plus St Johns County puts us equidistant from Embry-Riddle in Daytona and University of Florida in Gainesville (the goal schools of the first three).

This means, proximity and ease of driving to and from the campuses of St Johns River College and First Coast Technical College is the “location” part of our choice.  SR 207 out to Hastings, up behind Masters just along the city boundary, over 16 and north along US1 to the old trash road east of Palencia: any open-rural or agricultural property in that range is fair territory.

Both of Louis’ grandmother’s houses are in this range (Wouldn’t one of those be so awesome?  To live in your grandparent’s house!) and the house we currently live in is just off that perfect spot, but close enough that yes, we’d buy this land if we could (build a cozy house in the other corner of the land and knock this rotting thing down, but we love the land!) and I like Wildwood Drive.  While driving Christina to CAP one day, we saw a “for sale” sign in the yard of a beautiful concrete block house off of Lewis Speedway & Woodlawn on a bit of land.  Nice location.  Louis pointed out that one was near CAP, which three more plan on joining.

Anyway, location, location, location: OR or AG in easy driving range of St Johns River & FCTC.

The realization that we will be driving students back and forth from one of two college campuses for 20 years… wow, just wow.  That’s pretty cool.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

My Knight

Okay, seriously, just me bragging on my amazing man of God! 🙂 Yes, I think I am allowed to do that a little.

February 4, 2019

My Knight

“Mom, can you stay working and Daddy stay home like this, I like it!” Kimberly says.

I smile. That’s always the result of Louis being home during the day!

He’s an amazing chef – turns regular food into culinary masterpieces that the children like to eat!

He doesn’t get stuck in writing or multi-tasking like I do – he has a finish-the-job mentality so cleaning tasks actually get completed in minute detail.

He knows how to make everything entertaining or hilarious – this leads to lots of children working without realizing they are working!

He doesn’t second guess himself and when he feels like taking them somewhere fun, he just does it! (That freedom I haven’t figured out yet.)

Louis hurt his back so is supposed to be “resting” for six weeks. (He’s been doing stay-at-home-Dad who drives occasionally when he thinks his back is better…) I’ve been working at two outside jobs lately: I leave before 7:20am, basically dropping in after job one about 1:45pm to 2 or 3pm for lunch (which is always ready and amazing), grabbing the corresponding gymnastics student, and sprinting off for the next job. I come home to an immaculate house after 8:30pm (sometimes after 9:30pm if I picked Christina up from CAP or Cyber Patriot). I’m constantly impressed.

Louis has been making my coffee-shakeology and makes sure I have water and eat (I will totally forget to eat); little things that make me feel so loved and cared for. I feel like I’m always receiving at this snapshot of time. I ended up with a cold I misunderstood as an asthma attack because of the way it attacked my breathing – so not only have I been fighting a cold, but I’m allergic to the emergency inhaler so I had almost six days of allergic reaction to let it “run its course” along with the cold (so far both of the colds I’ve caught since asthma have turned into upper respiratory infections) and my weakened immune system wanted a few days of nothing-but-sleep, but you know, life = bills and work! (And, yes, I’m so grateful for my jobs!)

I’m so grateful for simple things like running hot water and modern plumbing.

I’m super grateful for my loving, giving husband who’s always looking out for me.

I’m thankful for our amazing love!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

New Routine

New Year, New Work Routine! I’m feeling so blessed!

January 20, 2019

New Routine

After so many years of not being officially employed, in my job search I often felt like the only way I would ever get a job was purely if God made it happen. (I know, running one’s own business is employment, but even the government doesn’t see it as that! Because we rolled almost all our income back into the business trying to build it, the government was like, “no W2, you had no job” oops.) No one was looking at my strange resume (last 5 jobs… including my “co-owner of…” went back to my second teenage job – Disney!) and thinking, “cool, let’s hire this person.”

At least, that’s what it felt like for 2 years – well, a little more than two years, but let’s not get technical.

Then I answered an ad to what I assumed could be an office position at a gym. Big surprise – and dream job! I’ve been there since late October 2018 and have become the Preschool Director – I love coaching! I’ve been working with the preschool teacher and coaches to help reorganize the educational aspect of the Preschool Program. (Lucas loves “going to school” when he gets to tag along – three hours three times a week of preschool learning plus gymnastics coaching plus lots of fun! Coach Bailee is so awesome at that!)

I felt a nudge to answer another part time ad. Now I’m the Operations Manager at Dog Face Electrical Contractors… a awesome business with a positive future. I’ve only been working there for going on two weeks, but – my word – do I love discovering and learning! I’ve been testing my skill at learning to read electrical building plans, understanding the electrician’s jargon, and forming expandable options for efficiency as this business grows. I’m so excited to be a part of it!

I’m just one of these people who say “my gym” and “my office” and I want to see the businesses I am a part of grow and flourish. I want to be an integral part of their team. I want to never have to leave the places I’ve chosen to work.

Strange in this day and age, maybe, but that’s how I feel.

I know God has put me in these positions at this time. I want to shine my light wherever I can! Positive attitude is everything. I’m feeling a little tired (driving is 30 minutes to either job one-way) but I use the time to talk to God and worship, but am totally blessed and in awe of how perfectly God lined these amazing jobs up for me in the perfect timing!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

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