I Am Married

Genesis 2:22-24

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.  The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, ' for she was taken out of man."  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

 

August 27, 2009 I made the best choice I might have made in my life, second only to accepting God as my Heavenly Father and Creator. At the time I was 19 living with my current best friend. She and I worked at a restaurant and were fairly active in our social lives, going out or hanging out with another friend or two practically every night. As she and I got dressed for the night, I checked my facebook one last time. I noticed that my first high-school crush was online. I had added him the day before and really thought that never would there be a day he would even remember me. Well, long story short I stayed home from the party and messaged him back and forth until my fingers nearly fell off. We did not stop talking, texting, messaging or hanging out for the next month.

I have now been with my sweet-heart nearly four years. I have followed him throughout his military career from day one, dropping him off at his recruiter to go off to MEPS. We have been through a deployment, we have a two-year-old daughter and two puppies. He and I have been through a rugged beginning, including incidents that possibly only occurred because we hadn't known God's love for us just yet. We can both look back now and be thankful for the hard times.

The bible verse above is the basis of a series called Marriage On The Rock that my husband and I host a weekly group for out of our church. This book (also a dvd) teaches so many principles that many married people never realize. I highly recommend you look into this book, whether you are married or not! MOTR helps one to understand oneself as well as other people. It can definitely be used as a tool for any relationship, but it is based off of God's plan for marriage.

The main thing I have learned in our time together is to out God first, my husband second, my children third, and all the rest will follow.

Procrastination

Procrastinate (vb)

-to put off or defer (an action) until a later time.

Well, once again I've taken an eternity to update you on my eventful life (no sarcasm intended)! I have been extremely busy. First it was my nighttime job throwing everything off, then I quit that job so that I could put my husband and family first, and ever since then I've been busy keeping everyone happy. On top of this, I've been helping a friend get through some tough times and we have taken her and her (newly) one year old into our home. This past week I attended Unique and Unstoppable Women's Encounter at Capital Christian Center. Needless to say, hectic sums up my whole past month. I enjoy blogging tremendously, and practically every day that I have not blogged, I've day-dreamed of tuning the whole world out for a few moments to type my life away on here. I decided to take some time late in the night to get back at it. No more procrastination.

When I was in school I excelled in English/Literature and have many a time thought about Journalism as a major, so I really need to make this more of a priority and figure out just how much I really like this, as well as find out what people think of what I have to say. To help get me into the habit of blogging, I am attempting a 30-day blog-challenge shortly.

Let me know what you think!

Genesis 28:22

"...and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth".

Wowza, did I learn something yesterday or what?!

Let me fill you in on some things before I tell you the importance of this bible verse.

1. I've been job searching for about 3 months here in lovely Washington.

2. I've come close to numerous jobs.

3. I've been super hopeful in getting a job at a gym of any sort.

4. I've been waiting to hear back from L.A. Fitness for 3 weeks, when they had told me they needed someone A.S.A.P. at the time of my interview.

5. I have trust issues.

6. I'm still learning a lot about my faith.

7. My husband is currently our only household income, and I worry about making moves monetarily when he isn't sure about something.

8. I have a church back home that I miss dearly, and a church here that the husband and I are not too sure about.

9. I come to random conclusions that could have made just as much sense if I'd figured them out months ago.

10. God's timing is the only timing that matters.

Anyways, I was reading my bible yesterday (I'm trying to read beginning to end, as well as doing a "Bible in a Year" app on my iPhone). As I read I came across this and those three words hit me hard. "you give me", meaning God gives us all we have, it's only fair to give Him what He asks so that He doesn't take away all we expect when we don't always deserve it. 
I sent a picture of my highlighted (in two colors) and underlined three words to my husband. All of a sudden, as soon as I hit send, I had an idea! Neither of us are too sure about the church we are currently in but we know God wants us there right now, so it's been hard to give let alone a full 10% financially that God asks for. I asked my husband if he is ready to deal into God's hands starting this check and that if he wasn't comfortable with us tithing to our current church then we could send our tithes to our home church if that made him more comfortable. He agreed and said we need to just keep the faith. (P.s. I love what God is doing to us personality wise. We are learning so much and gaining faith every day!) 
So once I had the go ahead from the head of the house, I began re-budgeting. I put our tithes at the top of the list; above rent, groceries, all bills, "fun" money (non-existent most checks). LITERALLY the moment I got done budgeting and just left our money issues to God in my head, I got a cal from LA Fitness saying I had been hired. 
Three months of job searching, three weeks of hearing nothing from LA Fitness. All I did was do as my creator expects, I PUT HIM FIRST. Maybe to some of you this is just some coincidence, but whatever it is, it makes me want to keep doing as my heavenly Father wants me to do.
I'm just blown away.
Dare you: Tithe in your full 10% so that God can bless you the way he wants to!   

  

Toddling with a Toddler

I just wanted to share some photos from mini-me and I on our walk yesterday. We took advantage of the briefly nice weather and these awesome things my sweet girl found.

Pine-cones "cone-cones".

Flowers "Fwowers".

A fire hydrant.

And she decided to give me her first self-allowed "cheese" so that I got a good picture.

I just love her. She is growing too fast.

Church, Family and The Job Hunt

Procrastination

Well, I've done it again. On both of my blogs, I've not logged in months but feels like years. Adjusting to having a full family of three again is proving to be a task. Arranging time as best as I can and there is still not enough time in a day. If my kiddo doesn't need me then my husband does, and if he doesn't then the house does. If it's not one of the aforementioned, then it's our dog, grocery shopping, or a church function of some sort. E.X.H.A.U.S.T.E.D. I love it every day, but am definitely no expert at time management.

Lovebug and I have found a temporary church for our remaining time here in Washington. We attend Capital Christian Center. We've signed up and are about to send in for our certification for a program called Prepare & Enrich so that we can be marriage mentors to our first Small Group focused on Marriage On The Rock by Jimmy Evans. Prepare & Enrich is a program designed to help couples prevent and deter common issues that often lead to divorce that are avoidable when you take the time to prepare for a marriage based on more than just love. Once we get our certification back, Lovebug and I would be happy to try out being your facilitator and help you learn how to better your relationship!

https://www.prepare-enrich.com/webapp/pe/overview/template/DisplaySecureContent.vm;pc=1362446557769;jsessionid=244AE626F7BE9D83750C0111F0AC0C45?id=pe*prepare_enrich*introduction.html&emb_org_id=0&emb_sch_id=0&emb_lng_code=ENGLISH

http://www.marriagetoday.com/

Our church has twenty-five couples who attended certification classes for this program to help marriages within the church, and around our community. I am elated each time that it is announced at church or spoken of within ear shot of me! Sign-ups began this weekend and we have already got two couples in our group which is astounding to me since we are not well known within this church yet. One of the couples IS my husbands friend/co-worker as well as our roommate and his newlywed wife. The fact that we have the chance to change things for people here is enormous. Families, marriages, children and communities will be forever changed through this beginning. I encourage everyone (single, married, divorced, old, young etc. to read Marriage On The Rock even if you cannot get into a small group devoted to this book. I plan on keeping everyone updated on this process.

I'm thinking about getting these for everyone in my group, not sure just yet.

 

My little family has been consumed by church here lately, and I just love it! We are learning and growing so much, I am just humbled by what we were not noticing before accepting Christ as our Savior! Our God is good, so good.

My mini-me turned two at the end of February and has made great advancements in speaking sentences and showing us her interests. Right now she is into Cars, Dora & Diego, Princess', Care Bears and baking! She gets the beat of the ABC's and even gets some of the letters right! When she first began "counting" she would say 2, 9, 2, 9, 2, 9!  Next it was all of her even numbers when we would help her count aloud, but for it has changed to 4,7,8! Today she got her first official hair trim and her curls are more bouncy than ever. She has even been riding a bike! She melts my heart.

(Now mommy wants a bike like this one!)

 

My husband did own a truck for the past month, but it was quite the beater. a '76 Chevy Cheyenne to be exact. It had a "mexican rebuild" for a motor that ended up blowing out on him a few days ago. While we had two cars in the family it was very nice! I started my job search and have been on quite a few interviews and now am not sure what this means for me quite yet, but I have not given up hope that I can enter the working world again.

We're trying to decide on quite a few things about our PCS to Fort Hood. We will be there by the end of July and I cannot wait to make it there! Being two hours away from familiarity and his family will be amazing! Hopefully he can fall in love with his unit so he doesn't find bad days running him over as often as what we have experienced so far. We shall see.

Maybe I should get this thing!

 

I really want to get back into school. We both think this marriage mentor thing is awesome. We've also found out we've both spoken with friends separately about being counselors of some sort. Assuming this is our forte, I'll eventually be going to school to get my degree after a long awaited approval from the man upstairs on my career path and dreams. Thank you God for the affirmation and determination! First thing is first, I have a loan to pay off from school before!

Well, here is a little of what has gone on lately:) Enjoy!

 

A Long Time Gone...

Ello Love!

I've been gone for a while, with reasonable cause. However, since I don't have to explain myself to this cyber world, I'll give you just the important points.

My husband has returned home from deployment!

What a glorious feeling. I have him home and in my arms. There are not many feelings that top this past few days that he has been home. Our relationship has developed over his deployment and we are off to an amazing start. Our daughter is so joyous at having her "My Daddy" home to love on. The first day she had him home she didn't want a thing to do with Mama, and wanted to hold Daddy's hand 99% of the time. She also said "I lah you dada" after everything she said. Oh, I'm in pure bliss having him back in good ole' 'Merica with us.

Our relationship was rather rocky when he left, and thanks to us both finding God over the time we were apart, our world is completely different now, and in what a great way! We have shared more, laughed harder, smiled bigger, loved stronger and tried harder this past week than I think we ever have. The Lord is so wonderful; I just LOVE MY GOD!

We are still in the process in finding a new church, as during the time I've been MIA from Blogger, I have returned to Washington state which is where my husband is stationed. I've been here about 3 weeks now. We are praying for guidance in finding the right church for us while here, as we have many needs in a church right now at this vital point of learning and experiencing Christ around us daily.

In an attempt to help better our marriage, and our family, my husband and I have deleted our Facebook's. For a couple young 20's away from most of their friends, this becomes an interesting task at times. It's strange how addicting the internet is. It pulls away from relationships and families. Instead of reading a book we become engulfed in other peoples non-sense business. Ideally my next task would be to say bye-bye to internet as a whole, but it really is a valuable resource as you can find so much information on the inter-web. Also, in this century, there are many things you simply cannot do without the internet. From there, ideally, TV would disappear as well. Right now, deleting Facebook has been shell-shocking in itself. Baby-steps.

 Other Changes

For my move I hired movers to bring our furniture from Texas to Washington... and we have yet to receive our furniture. It was supposed to arrive at the latest a week ago, and they finally e-mailed me two days ago. This was only after I filed a complaint with the BBB and had my husband begin calling to attempt speaking with them. I would not be nearly as upset with them as I am had they answered or returned my calls over the past three weeks. If they would have just informed me of the status of our furniture even just once within the time limit we discussed when they picked up my furniture. I am very livid over this situation and pray God helps me deal with this properly. 

I am in search of work. I had found a very reliable job before my husband returned home, but was unable to accept it because the hours conflicted with me having a family. I think that was a test from upstairs to see if I put my family or myself first. I am simply aching to get out and work again. I miss making friends and helping others, as well as being able to help my family prosper. I've even applied at fast food chains, I really just want to work! This might have something to do with having so little in our home right now since our furniture has not arrived, as well as many of our boxes. All of our crafts and what not are in those boxes, leaving my toddler and I to use a LOT of imagination lately.

Recently I did a cleanse from GNC, and it was awesome. Definitely felt myself go through the detox, but it was a good cleanse. Drink some stuff twice a day for two days, had a very vitamin taste, but I plugged my nose & chugged so I only had to deal with a little after taste. Once a day for 7 days you take 4 different pills. I'd definitely recommend a cleanse for anyone who has begun a New Year's resolution.

Mine was geared toward women, helped with bloating & kidney function. Much like the cleanse below.


Get your hiney's in the gym. Love your spouse. Do something fun with your children. Make this a great year, for you and all!!!

Tata,
Smiling Fool

New Shoes

TENNIS SHOES, PLEASE!

I recently bought these Nike's at Famous Footwear at the Paragon Outlet Mall in Grand Prairie, Texas & they are very light weight & definitely breathable. Best walking shoes I've found yet! Now my problem is, I do not know what shoes to get next. I've been burning through tennis shoes since I found out that one should get new shoes every 6 months or so (assuming they are used regularly/2+miles a day).
I used to be addicted to buying heels, but now I cannot get enough of tennis shoes!!! Maybe it's because they are much more practical for a mom who is always on the go. Anyone have any recommendations for my next running/walking shoes? Or do you have a favorite brand for any certain reason?