Hokay, So...

Hokay so,

It has been such a great week! I got a new job, my first "professional" job. I will be working at Sunflower Bank here. I will be starting out as a Teller. The good thing is that they have a map of how you can move up in the company. They promote from within, when possible, and everyone has a positive attitude about being there. I think that it will be a good change of pace and I will enjoy being there. I'll start there December 2, so extra prayers that day would be great!

School is going well, starting to pick up pace/wind down all at one time. I'm ready for the semester to be over and to get into some different classes.

John is headed out of town tonight for the first time since we've been married. I'll be in the house all alone, hoping nothing goes wrong!

Job, Java, and Jesus

I feel like things are starting to calm down (finally) around here. John got a job this week. He had his first day yesterday. He is working for someone from our church that owns a lawn care business. John seemed to really enjoy working yesterday. He has always loved being outside, so getting paid to do it is great for him! Gary, the boss, has told John that he'll use him as long as he can, but it should be at least until John can get shipped out. It was kind of nice to see John tired, but happy, at the end of the day yesterday.

I started my weekend job yesterday at the Coffee Club. It is wonderful! The people who own it have their heart set on Christ, and their priorities are straight for sure. It's nice to come into work and the people have a real interest in you, as a person, more than you, as an employee. I enjoy getting to socialize with people, so it provides a nice outlet for that as well. It's only Friday and Saturday nights, so it will be very low-key and low stress!

Now that John's working again, I feel like we're settling back into a routine. John got up this morning and went to help with some stuff at church. I got up and went to the gym. I'm home now for some breakfast, then I'll be running errands and cleaning, lunch with John. This afternoon we're working the concession stands for a softball tournament, then I go to work at the Coffee Club. Tomorrow we have church and then we start the week all over again. I know that it doesn't sound like it, but it is wonderful. We are truly blessed.

Relaxing at Last...

This week was crazy! I found out that to get into nursing school I need to pick up yet another class for this semester. That would put me at 16 hours of just school. I also came up with my official 'Plan B' just in case I don't get into nursing school.

Last weekend we went down to TX to visit my parents. We had a great time! We got to hang out with some friends, drink some TEXAS beer, and visit with family. I really miss the days when we would just hang out with family all weekend.

At work the boss of our department is on maternity leave. Everything had been running smoothly until we had to fire the guy right under her, our night supervisor. Needless to say, it's made for a crazy, busy week there.

This weekend we're down in OK visiting John's family. It is nice to have nothing to do, just hang out! Well, the grocery store is calling, more when we get home!

August Work Weekend

This weekend was our August Work Weekend with John's parents. They came up from Oklahoma to help us get some things done on the house. We had a "small" list of goals that we had for the weekend. My biggest goal was that I wanted to get our bedroom painted. When we first moved into the house our bedroom was a terrible pepto-pink color. One of the walls had tissue paper put on it before it was painted. Well, Jayn (my MIL) decided that if we were going to be re-painting, we should just do the re-decorating as well! It looks AMAZING! Here are some pictures of the during and after result of our bedroom.





And the finished project...





We even got some organization done! It is perfect. It's much better than anything that we could have imagined.


As you can see, no longer pepto-pink! It is our own personal retreat from everything!

John's big goal was to get some electrical work done out in the barn. Doug (my FIL) and John worked so hard and got everything done out in the barn, plus a bunch in the house as well. Things work now! It's wonderful! They also built an enclosure for our dogs in the barn. This will be great for the winter! It's complete with outlets and lights.

I am so grateful for their help and support of this project, our house is looking better every time they come up, and our wine selection appreciates it too!

Summertime

I remember being young and my dad taking us fishing during the summers. And when we got to visit him, my grandpa took us fishing too. It was a great time. We would catch the fish, Dad would get them off the hook for us, we'd be thrilled that we had just caught a three inch long perch. It was pure bliss. One of the first acts of kindness I can recall was Dad and Grandpa went fishing one day and were not catching hardly anything, and they'd been fishing for our dinner! They got to talking to the guy fishing next to them and he was catching much bigger fish. He ended up giving Dad and Grandpa a bucket full of fish to bring home to us. Anyways, John and I have started fishing together a lot lately. Last night when we were fishing we had a perfect sunset to go with it.





My excellent, handsome fishing partner:


I think it's safe to say, it's easy to see that there's a God, and he's smiling down on us.

"I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun, not because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else." ~C.S. Lewis (brilliant man)

Painting Mess

It has been a busy time for us! We have recently acquired a new member of our family, my sister Elizabeth! She is going to live with us for the next year or so. This has proven to be challenging and fun. It's odd trying to find that balance between being her sister, friend, and parent. We spent a good chunk of the past month with a family from our church living in one of our apartments upstairs. They were having most of their home remolded, so we let them stay with us during that time. It was nice to have people up there using the space again. It's odd, when we bought the house we prayed that God would give us the family to feed, the laughter to fill it, and a welcoming atmosphere to do His work in our home. We had an idea of what we wanted it to be, but God has once again proven that His ideas are bigger than our own. I never would have imagined that we could have helped people while getting their houses done, or that my sister would live with us. We had ideas of children, and family dinners. I'm loving what He has chosen to do with our space!

We've also been working on doing some projects around the house. Since Adam moved out earlier this summer we had turned his room into a storage/hobby room. Then Elizabeth decided that she wanted to live in that room, so we ended up converting and repainting it. Here are some pictures of the room now!





Our other project these past few weeks has been the kitchen. Thanks to my wonderful husband, this is actually happening much faster than I had expected! We picked a historic paint color, one that is found in and on buildings as old as our home, and used that for the kitchen. John has been in the process of refinishing all of the woodwork so that it contrasts and matches our style. Here are a few pictures of the kitchen, I'll try to get better ones up as soon as it is finished.








It's very nice to see that our home is finally coming together to suit us! I love seeing the work that we put into it. Our prayer for our home is this, that God will use the space as "safe space" for our friends and family in need, that He will find a way to do ministry within and from within our home, that He would bless the people who enter in, and provide us all with peace.

Lemonade

Sometimes, life gives us lemonade right off the bat. Right now, our house is crazy! This past week we lost a pet, a baby kitten that we had found in our yard. It was a sad loss, but we've all recovered. On June 5, we got to be a part of our two best friends wedding, Kelsey and Adam! It was a wonderful celebration, and, all in all, a great weekend.

The whole wedding party!
From L to R- Dan, me, Michael, Trina, Adam, Kelsey, Matthew, Emily, John, Bengy, and Aaron. The kids are Micah and Maddie.

For throwing together nine gal's and guys that have never all been in the same room before, most of whom had never met before, we had a great time! The night of the wedding 8 of us went to the park in our dresses and tuxes. It was great! Then 7 of us had a campfire and slept out in the tent at Benny and Jolene's. It was so nice to not have to worry about anything, just enjoy time with friends and family.


On the flip side, John lost his job last week. It's a bit nerve racking to look at all of the bills and hope that my paycheck covers them all. Right now it's comforting to know that God will take care of everything. The hard part is keeping that trust there, even when things are looking dim. We did get some exciting news this week, it looks like it's a strong possibility that my sister, Elizabeth, will be coming to live with us next year! The best part is, that it's all for good reasons. She's a senior in HS next year and I hope that she does get to live with us! Oh, how wonderful that would be. She's such a neat kid and I would love getting the time with her, even if it's only a year. I know that some people are curious as to why two newlyweds would take in a HS kid within their first year of marriage, but I promise that there is a method to our madness! When John and I first talked about buying a home a little over a year ago we set out "qualifications" for our house. We knew that we wanted something that was close to the church, had a big yard, windows in the kitchen, was old, something that needed to be fixed up, and something that had lots of spare rooms. You see, we knew that if we had the extra space, God would find a way to fill it. As always, God has provided! When John first got the house he had two roommates and we were able to rent an apartment to a girl who was in a bad situation. Then we were able to provide a comfortable home to Adam until his marriage. What we also knew was that we wanted family here within a year, in our minds that was (hopefully) a child, but I think that God has blessed us with my sister instead.

Overall, things are great. I couldn't have asked for more this week. We've had great time with friends and family, and seen the value of the love that God has given us for each other, and for Him. Sometimes it's crazy to look at everything and know that for some reason, God has decided that we deserve all of this. I guess that's why we were made to praise!

Bad Week...

This week has not been very conducive to my well being. Today my cat died. I've had him for just about two years, since he was six weeks old. That upsets me. He was attacked by a dog and even after the vet, didn't survive. :( He was a very good cat, despite how it looks in the picture!
While I was driving home from work today, I heard a funny noise and checked, and my tire was flat! Ugh. And, of course, there's not currently enough money to do anything, and that includes getting my tire fixed! AAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Sisters, Husbands, and Bills!

Sisters, husbands, and bills. What do all of these have in common? A lot, I promise! All three are very trying at times, but all three often offer a sense of accomplishment.

My sisters are two amazing girls! I love them both to pieces! They are very different in their own ways, and all three of us are complete opposites! At the same time though, we're all just alike. If you line us up next to each other you'd be astonished at how much we all resemble each other in even the way we stand. Most of all, I miss them a lot. It is so hard to be this far away from them all the time. Mary is practically unreachable, and EK is so busy that she can't get up here either.

For anybody who already has a husband, or is close to it, you know that they are the best, most beautiful, most trying gift that God can give us. My husband is a wonderful man, the best musician I know, quite handsome, and loves God. What more could I ask for? I couldn't ask for anything more than John as the rest of my life! Although, there are things that he does that I don't deal with very well. Many times I feel like he should be the one to change, but I know that if I pull myself closer to God then I will find the patience to deal with life as it comes to me.

Bills. Bills. Bills. Whenever two households are joined everyone rejoices. I think they forget to tell you the difficulties that will follow. Today as I was going through a box of things I found a stack of bills. Ones that I was unaware of. Thankfully, I realized that some of them were ones that belonged to people who don't live here. I also realized though that we need a more effective way to keep up with bills and cleaning. Then today I got a bill completely paid off! WooHoo! I had a little party in my chair for that one!

Anyways, prayers for patience and peace in our home and safety for my sisters.

A PS to the previous Post...

I miss Mary. A lot. I know I'm not, but I sure feel as though I'm the first person to ever have a sister sent to a war zone. It is not very fun at all. I can't call her, I can't talk to here whenever I want. It is hard. And now, getting married without her, NOT a fan of this idea. She's such a good kid, and it's not fair that she's over there. Don't get me wrong, I'm so very proud of her. She's fighting for something that not many truly believe in anymore. She's fighting for a country that she loves. And for that, I love and respect her more than anybody.

Stress Much?

I'm at the point where I'm getting stressed out. I have a lot coming up and I'm not quite sure how to deal with it all. You know what the biggest stress-er is though? I'm concerned about losing some of my friends. We're all getting to the point that we're getting married, some having kids, some getting divorced. We're settling down. No more random (or planned) road trips. Now there's so much more that we have to do then just worry about ourselves and call our mom's on our way to nowhere. Is that a silly concern? I just can't imagine my life without some of my friends, and I'm worried that our common interests will disappear once we're settled in our own lives. Sigh. I sure hope not.

Home Again...

Such a bittersweet thing. Who knew that I could miss John so much? Well, I do. But 62 degrees F was wonderful today!

Meh...

That's how things feel right now. Just meh. This is probably a rant that is really me just preaching to the choir, but I'm not happy right now. Bills are piling up higher than our ceilings. People can't seem to figure out how to pay rent on time, which just throws us WAY off our budget. Also, the people that ordered MK stuff haven't paid either! I'm supposed to go home on Monday to see my seester before she gets deployed to Afghanistan. Now it's not looking like I'm going to be there near as long as I had thought because we'll hopefully be getting some more money in this week so we may be able to afford me going home. Plus, this wedding is getting to be SO expensive. With Mom and Dad paying for M to get all of her stuff done so that she can be deployed, they can't afford to help us out as much as they had planned. So now any and all of our extra money is going to the wedding, leaving us way broke. We have to go pay a photographer today so that we actually get one. Ugh. I'm just not very happy about all of this. John's working as hard as he can and trying to get things together for us, but poor guy, isn't 60 hours a week enough?!?!?!? Praying that God brings us through this, and that I can get home to my family soon.