Coveting & ....

Coveting & Gossip...

two things that you wouldn't really think of together...

but they have been on my heart as lessons I'm learning

so I thought I would share my little lessons today & tomorrow.

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God and I have a constant battle/conversation over the things I want but do not have.

I suppose that technically this would be called coveting although not in it's conventional form.

Sometimes I just get so caught up in the future and the things we are working for now that we won't have until then (whenever "then" may be).  The one I struggle with the most is a nice, big home.

 

I have had to take my "Dream Home" Pinterest board away from myself. 

It amazes me, I'm happy with what I have one day,

but then I look at these ridiculous things that I will in all honesty probably never own

and it makes me sour towards the blessings I do have.

God and I were having a conversation about this exact thing the other day when I was driving through an unfamiliar neighborhood in an unfamiliar town.

The houses were quite nice and it seemed like such a cute neighborhood.

I came upon a house to my left that caught my eye.

A family had clearly just moved in to this big, nice, pretty home.

As I drove closer I noticed that the children had drawn banners and taped them to the garage door,
"Happy 18th Anniversary".

18. I don't know that family, and I don't know their story.
but I do know that John and I have only been married a year and a half.
It's silly to assume we're ready for a home that would cost more than what we've ever even earned.

Sometimes God speaks in quite voices...
other times in loud.
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My Prayer:

God, I know you have a plan for our lives.  You know my desires and you also know my needs.
I pray you grant me patience to wait and see your plan unfold.
I pray I have a grateful heart for the things you have provided for me.

I have a roof over my head, food to eat and a healthy family to love.
Thank you for these things and for your abounding grace.

Meet my new friend!

Hi! I want to introduce to my lovely readers one of my very favorite bloggers!

Christa Waldrop is the author of Significance or Nothing

When I found her wonderful blog I smitten with her title.

Significance or Nothing.

So succinct and wonderful!

Then as it turns out her blog is much more than just a great title.

I enjoy her honesty and refreshing posts!

I've also gotten the opportunity to "get to know" her some and she is so sweet and kind-hearted.

I am very pleased that she agreed to post here today!

You guys should really go check her out and give her some blog loving!!

Without further adeau... Christa!

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 via

Hello new friends! I am Christa & you can find me at Significance or Nothing. First, I want to thank Rebekah for asking me to grace her space on the WWW! Happy to be with you today.

I want to talk about something most of us can relate to: girlfriends. Perhaps I am jumping the gun here, but I feel like it's a statistic (fact check, anyone?) that most blog readers are female with the occasional splash of a male reader here & there.

Girlfriends are a connection I hold near & dear to my heart & one that I think you should, too. I am not specifically talking about your best girlfriends. Of course, they are very important, but today I am simply talking about girlfriends in general.

Define: females who find they have something in common, can connect and/or chat as if they've known one another forever after first meeting. I am talking about the woman-to-woman connection on a very general level. Those "oh my gosh, me too" & the I never knew anyone else felt that way" moments.

Those very things that can bring us together. Those BAM moments when you realize someone is going to be a new friend. Maybe some would call these girl crushes... I'm really not sure?  

I think they're fabulous. I think we're all pretty fabulous.

This connection is extremely prevalent within the blogging community. I am not even sure how I first found Rebekah's blog, but I did & for that I am glad. I left a comment on one of her posts & received a sweet e-mail back about how we had a lot in common & I've been reading ever since.

I liked Rebekah's blog because she's funny, she's real, & I can tell she loves life. She also loves The American President, which I can quote in its entirety. You see, this is why I love blogging. Meeting people from all around the world you have little things in common with & can form an instant connection. A girlfriend connection. 

Perhaps I am a bit biased & men actually connect this way, too, but I choose to think we're special. Being a women is extraordinary, isn't it?

Come by and say hello sometime. I'd love to meet you. Obviously it's my thing.

Journey to Financial Freedom

John and I have been working toward getting debt free for a while...

...pretty much since we got married!

We've made a lot of progress but feel like we needed more direction and definite plans on how to get from where we are now to being Debt Free! So, we thought about it for a while (it was honest to goodness laziness that we put it off for so long... that and the lovely denial stage) and we have started the Journey to being Debt Free with Dave Ramsey!

I wanted to share a few thoughts with you on what I've learned so far and things that stand out to me!

If you're on the fence - maybe this will be the push you need!

"It is human nature to want it and to want it now; it also a sign of immaturity"
Can I just be honest and tell you that we really struggle in this area!  It is so hard to make yourself understand and commit to the program when you want or "need" something but the money just isn't there and won't be for a few months!
We're working on growing up.

One area where we are a tad bit stronger is something we didn't even know we were doing "right" in the Total Money Makeover plan!  I drive an old clunker of a truck.  It was a nice truck in its hay day...17 years ago! It runs fine (most of the time) and gets me from point A to B just fine.

Dave Ramsey says that your friends and maybe even your family won't understand this concept - the things you do to save money and become financially free.  He wasn't kidding! My friends don't get  WHY we do it - explain as we might, debt is so normal to them that they don't understand why we won't just take out another loan.

I now have an answer that I didn't before!

The Rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender.

Proverbs 22:7 

  

Are you on the journey to Financial Freedom?
Anything you're surprised by?
Any lessons you've learned recently?

Time Management: My System {Part 1} Blog

I enjoy having a very full and active lifestyle.

{I sound like I am a retired grandmother right now}

Part of that "full and active" lifestyle includes times that are crazy busy and I don't have time to go eat much less stay on top of other less demanding tasks.  

I want to share how I keep up with my blog.

Blogging seems like less of an overwhelming task when I schedule it and break it down into smaller chunks.  I enjoy it so much that I want to write and not let it become a chore - or worse, let it take over my life. Remember, I should not let the things that matter the LEAST influence things that matter MOST.

To keep myself sane, but to still write and post often I...

• I schedule my posts.  Very rarely do I hit "Publish" and post "fresh off the press" content.
  It is usually something that I wrote two or three days ago (and in some cases even longer ago)
  How far ahead I write posts usually depends on what my personal & family calendar looks like.

• I break writing (most) posts up into 2 or 3 sessions. For example, writing this post, I will do a rough draft - get my ideas out into a general breakdown of what I plan to say, then I will come in and flush out the ideas into complete thoughts. Only after that do I put in the final touches on the post like pictures etc.

•  Task orientation vs. time allotment. I'm not very good at working in a certain time frame. I can't sit down and say "I have 30 minutes to complete this task". Plus, usually if I am online, I am multitasking between work, or other commitments and blogging. So I complete one task and then move to what else I need to do then. I'll have a goal for the day finish post xyz then I break it down into "finish this paragraph or thought, then move on abc".

• I keep a file for {L&&L}.  This is the best thing I have done for myself and blogging!  I knew that somewhere out in the Pinterest world was a template for a printable calendar and other great blog resources.  (Sure I could make my own, but why reinvent the wheel?)
  
  I had been making lists - and putting notes about blogging on top of notes about Children's Choir, my volunteer activities and Thirty-One! - things were getting so jumbled. Now I have a home specifically for my Blogging notes and ideas!

• I don't read everyones blog, every day.  I really struggled with this at first. I love reading my favorite blogs and keeping up with what is going on in everyone's lives - but it's just not realistic! When I was at Mamas Write, Mandy from {Biblical Homemaking} was discussing time management and this exact issue came up.
  
  She put it into perfect terms that make so much sense! Would my husband be okay with me catching up with my girl friends every day on the phone? No, of course not - he would be so aggravated if I spent 3+ hours talking to the girls daily.  He however doesn't mind when I catch up with them once a month or so. So why is blogging any different? Reading everyone's posts would take me more than 3 hours and I just can't sacrifice that time that belongs to my husband on a daily basis.    

I hope that my simple things can help you manage your time in blogging better!

If you liked the post - please consider clicking that "follow" button!
This is post one of a series of time management posts to come, so stay tuned!

Keeping Conversation in Marriage.

One day last week, I had a very nice day - work wasn't too stressful and things were rocking along like normal.

John and I agreed to divide the responsibilities we had that afternoon: that he would go home and let the dogs out and I would run a couple of errands on my way home.

Everything went as planned. Until I pulled into the drive way.

John was in the front yard along with our mischievous fur babies. I could tell immediately by his body language something was wrong.

He had let the dogs out and gone back inside. He swears it was just for a few minutes to take down child gates etc. No matter the time - they had the opportunity to leave our yard and visit our neighbors. 

{I have a love/hate relationship with our neighbors...mostly hate.

Not these neighbors in particular although I'm not particularly fond of them either - 

it's neighbors in general. They're close, and they're nosy and they don't know how to mind their own business!}

Apparently John was yelled at by our darling neighbors, not for the dogs coming over...

but because they have fleas.  That if she sees them (from across her yard) with fleas again she'll call the Sheriff for animal abuse.

(one of our fur babies also has a skin allergy that is flared up right now so he has no fur there - pretty sure she saw that and assumed that fleas were causing that, I promise those are separate issues)

Okay, I get it - fleas are unplesant. However, we live in the country fleas are a part of life.

We wash our dogs a minimum of once a week, they're also hosed off at least once a day.

They get flea treatments and wear flea collars.

Well instead of talking to her and explaining what is an obvious misunderstanding and smoothing things over - he stomps off mad that she had the nerve to talk to him like that.

So now I'm mad at him for not fixing the problem, now it's a bigger issue and I'm going to have to deal with it. And of course in my mind I'm thinking "if he'd just stayed out there and watched them none of this would have been an issue". 

I sat there and fumed, and steamed in my anger for an hour!

I decided that wouldn't work (I couldn't get my blood pressure down!) so I talked to him about it.

It wasn't a fun conversation, but we worked it out.

I felt so much better!

And it was a much more positive outlet than just sitting there stewing and being angry when he had no clue why I was so ticked off. 

I thought by keeping my mouth shut I was avoiding a fight

but who really wins when you're upset with each other and can't vocalize it?

 

*for the record - we washed them that night... we found like two fleas.

Redeemed

Sometimes we just need a reminder!

I had quite the Ah-Hah Moment this morning. Am I the only one who replays mistakes or past idiot moments and feels all the guilt and remorse again?

I was going through one of these "guilt trip" moments this morning as I drove in to work.

I was listening to the radio, a song that I've heard a hundred times playing --

Redeemed: You Set me Free by Big Daddy Weave

-- God must have known that I needed to actually hear the lyrics and understand the words this time.

"Seems like all I can see was the struggle

Haunted by ghosts that lived in my past

Bound up in shackles of all my failures

Wondering how long this is gonna last

Then you look at this prisoner and say to me

'son stop fighting a fight that's already been won'"

Vacation Recap!

This past Tuesday John and I got back from a short vacation!

It was so amazing to get away with just the two of us and spend some great quality time together!

Our first two (and a half) days were spent in Corpus Christi & Padre Island primarily being beach bums!

The second two days were spent in San Antonio visiting Sea World!

We both feel so rejuvenated now that we're back home.

The Vacation came at the perfect time for us!

(especially since life is about to get so crazy with all our fall activities and the crazy season at work for me!)