Mother daughter time.

My mom and I are in the midst of a trip to South Carolina to visit family. Her father, my grandfather. We arrived yesterday in the late evening. We flew in and were scheduled to be in right around 10:00 pm but with a series of events including weather and airplane issues we finally landed at 11:30 pm. That's not too bad, I've suffered through worse delays...

My grandpa will be turning 76 on Tuesday so it's really neat that we get to be here to help him celebrate. Although I'm not so sure he is really looking forward to celebrating :).

It has been a pretty lazy day for our first full day here. We got up had the $.50 garden tour and really just sat around and visited. We visitined some family members that I haven't seen since I was very little and got to use a hot tub... it felt surprisingly good in the middle of summer!

We will be here until Thursday morning so for now we are just here to be present with them. I have not seen my Grandpa and Grandma here in over 4 years. So far so good. I will have to take hold of my short attention span, reel it in a little and get over being away from my love for almost a week!

This week I am focusing on being present in relationships and conversations with others. I want to see my mom and I enjoy each others presence and come out of this trip closer than we were when we took off of the run way in Cedar Rapids, IA.

Pretty boring post, no pictures. Perhaps a later post this week will lend you some pics of the scenery.

No more clear now than then...

So, I have finished more than 90 days of my commitment to prayer and reading the bible daily. I was not entirely successful in praying and reading every day but I have noticed much more of a commitment to put forth an effort. I have a "day by day" bible and it really guides me through. I find enough time most days to get through the reading for the day and find that my thoughts are more directed towards prayer throughout the day. Overall I am in a much better place for taking this challenge even though I didn't fully complete the challenge. God is good.

Matt and I are in transition (which seems like a constant state of our lives and is becoming quite exhausting). Matt was planning on starting a missionary aviation school in Colorado in September but in mid July it was cancelled because of health reasons of people that would be teaching Matt to learn to fly. We had moved out of the home we were renting in June and moved into his parent's basement because we were planning on leaving. Now, Matt is going to continue with leaving his job, either when he gets replaced or we find our next step... And we have no idea what that is. We have leadings but we are really wanting to know it's going to follow through before we step out again...

As of right now we are planning to stay in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area and we hope to be finding a place to live by September... we have really appreciated Matt's parents for letting us crash with them for a while but we so desperately appreciate our independence and are excited to be there once again.

There are lots of other things going on but that's the main highlights... Summer has been good to us. We took a trip to the Czech Republic but that's another story that maybe i'll get to take a part of this week... :)

Praying for the rest of my days....

Starting with 90 days.

Today I made a commitment to myself and my Jesus to pray for an hour a day for the rest of my life. That sounds huge. But I believe with all my being it is doable. In the past few months my daily prayer life has been fairly close to non-existent. So, it is safe to say this is going to be quite the culture shock for me.

I really feel this is a challenge I need to take. I have the choice of doing it or not but I feel that the choice to sit back and continue to do basically nothing in my spiritual walk with Christ is close to spiritual suicide. I would be letting myself miss out on so many things God has for me and I would be missing the point of my existence.

It's interesting in the last few days and weeks I have really been struggling with how to meet with God and how to hear him and at times was even wondering if all these things I claimed were really things I was willing to give everything up for (as in going into missions full time... I want to do it but I have been struggling if I am really willing to give up everything now, not really knowing what is going to happen).

Through a series of unpredictable circumstances, I was able to go to a Women's conference at my church last night and today... Honestly, i saw the advertisement for the conference and I gave no second thought to it. I had a big misperception and a bad attitude about paying money to go to an event that is meant to feed Christians that are already saturated with information on how to meet God on a weekly basis. i wasn't interested in spending some of my free time with a bunch of older ladies from my church. Nothing against them, I just felt like it wasn't something I would be the least bit interested in.

I had the opportunity to attend last night which with my job normally on Fridays that would be impossible because I have a client until 7:00 that lives 30 mins away and the program started at 6:30. Yesterday it so happened that he didn't have school and so I jumped at the opportunity to take him earlier in the day. Then my husband had a need for someone to run slides for the music. I was like "well, i'm not going to be doing anything else important, so why not?" So I went to the program last night.

After the program I honestly wanted to come today but still wasn't willing to pay the money or ask anyone about it. Then it turned out the person that was going to run slides for today's session wasn't going to be able to make it... and they asked me to help... How funny. I jumped at that opportunity and brought my laptop to take notes...

Amazing. And I can honestly say the speaker, Becky Tirabassi, is not who changed my heart. But God totally met me at the conference today. I was really placed there because he had a purpose for me. My heart was in an open place and I was (and still am) willing to try most anything because I am desperate for some intervention from the one I have placed my trust in, Jesus.

So, long story short, Becky Tirabassi has this company called Change Your Life Inc. and doesn't give you answers on what God wants from you or what you should do with your life but teaches you how to pray and gives you a plan of organization. And she encourages you not to do it alone, which I am officially held accountable to pray every day by one of my wonderful sister-in-laws! :)

The recommendation is that praying every day will not really become an inherent part of you until you've been doing it for about 90 days. So we are committed to e-mailing daily for 90 days and I am hoping, but not certain it will happen, to invite the blog world in on my beginning journey. Although I doubt it will be terribly interesting because i don't know how much i'll want to share. I'm thinking it's more an accountability thing for myself to blog and have it known out there, even if no one really reads this that I have made a commitment to myself and God...

I want to pray an hour a day for the rest of my life!

It's a picture day!

This is of Matt at Christmas time. We had a lot of fun at his parents house. Being able to see all of the family is always a blast!

This is some of us just after we sang happy birthday to Jesus. A tradition that will live on now that there is grandchildren in the family... only it won't be fully real until Jacob can talk and sing! Also, this picture tells me that Jacob is not going to have any problem eating his birthday cake come February... :)

The grandparents were sure to start outfitting the grandchild with John Deere stuff... He will grow into it. Still a little big for him.

This is our house after the 7.5 inches of snow that came last night and after Matt spent an hour shoveling! I offered to help but i was a little sick yesterday so he told me not to help... I think he'll want me to eventually!

This is our house after a lot of snow but before the latest drop in snow... It was actually this past Monday because we got 3 or so inches then! It's been a snow-filled winter!

Finally I got some pics up!! :)

2009!

Since the last update a lot has happened! We have really been very busy up to this week. I finished my internship and then just decided to take the rest of December off as far as not looking for a job. I have technically been working though because i have been contracted to work for my mom. The job is getting close to being done and I don't have a 'real' job yet. I officially started looking this week and have only heard from one place out of about 7 that they have a position for me. The catch is that the position they have to offer is only part-time. I'm not sure if that will cut it. I am really ready to work full time but as of right now there have been no openings. I am hoping to get some phone calls next week!

Track back a little; December 20th i graduated from UNI! I wasn't going to walk in the ceremony but I did because my parents asked me to and I actually had a really great time. i saw some people I had previously had classes with and had some good time of thinking about what it was like to be in class.

The week before graduation we began to move into a house! We love it! We officially finished moving in on the 20th!

Then, we had Christmas!! It was a lot of fun this year. We worked all 4 Christmas Eve services (1:30, 3:30, 5:30, and 11:00) by helping with the tech aspect of things, and inbetween the last 2 services we had dinner and Christmas with my parents and brother. We didn't know where our camera was because we had just moved but were not yet moved in so sadly we don't have any pictures... but other family members do so maybe we can snag some...

We proceeded to have 3 more Christmas parties in 2 days and played a lot of Ticket to Ride (our new favorite board game).

Then we went to the next week and rang in the new year with some of Matt's friends. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about going to this house for new year's eve but it turned out to be a lot of fun even for me. OH! On new year's eve Matt and I broke down and spent a large chunk of money......... we traded my 93 geo tracker that i had had since junior year of high school and bought a 2002 Ford Escape!!! It is such a nice car in comparison to the tracker! the only down side to the new vehicle is that it seems to use a lot more gas than either of our cars we had previously. It gets about 200 miles before a fill up... which is about 13 gallons I believe.... we're not used to that... one more reason why I need to get a job... :)

This past Monday I officially started the job hunt. I think the economy around this area is generally doing pretty well in relation to other areas in the U.S. but I have heard a lot of 'no, we're not hiring at this time' so maybe because I am looking for jobs primarily in the human services field that tend to be funded by the government, the money just isn't there. I know there is a place for me though!! We'll get there! I have found it is not worth worrying about because it's not going to make it better one way or the other. I just need to pray and get myself out there. The more places I put my resume in, even if it's a job I don't think i want, the more likely I am to get a job... (I hope)!!!

Anyway, all of this to say Happy 2009!

It was a random post but so much has happened and it was also good for me to recall it all....

Thankfulness

So Thanksgiving was over a week ago but I had every intention of sharing what I am thankful for over last weekend. Better late than never, right. I look at it this way, at least I've been really thinking about what I'm thankful for over a longer period of time!

I am in such a good place right now. Yesterday I officially finished my internship and this morning I finished all the assignments for it. It feels really good to have accomplished something significant in my life. Really good.

Matt and I have a wonderful caring family. We are blessed with two sides that really want us to be around.

WE have been blessed with housing all of our lives. To me this didn't seem to be a big deal but a natural given. But after working with some families in the community that are constantly moving form place to place or are living with friends because that's the best they can do, it puts a different light on the things i have.

I'm a food lover and so naturally i am thankful for food. I am thankful that this year we embraced Aldi for what it was and began taking control of their prices and started shopping there regularly.

I am soooooo thankful Matt has a stable job. If he wouldn't have, we wouldn't have made it while I did my internship. Now it also puts me at ease to really be able to figure out what is next and not feel rushed to jump into something if it's not the right fit. Don't worry babe, I will be working soon but I am so thankful you have been given the opportunities you have been given. It's pretty amazing really.

Friends. I've learned quickly that life is really not complete without them. Matt and I know a lot of people but really know very few. We are thankful for those of you that are on the inside of our lives. Some of you we've known for what seems like forever and some have become close friends in a relatively short time. The friends we have will always share a special place in our lives and hearts as our lives change. I only hope you know who you are. :)

Well, I must close this post now only because I am being summoned to do something else. Perhaps I will expand at a later time.

Go and be thankful!

We found a place!!!

As a temporary solution to the problem/issue of what we're going to do with our lives, we've found a place we can live that isn't going to break the bank and isn't going to require us to sign a year long lease!!!

It's actually a really interesting story how this all came about. About 2 weeks ago i found a listing on Craigslist for a house in Cedar falls that was a month to month lease because the owner was trying to sell the house but was going to take it off the market for the winter and then put it back on again in the spring. Well, we instantly fell in love with the house. It had a 4 season porch and 3 bedrooms (which is way more space than we need right now) and the kitchen and bathrooms were updated. The only catch was that the monthly rent was about $200 more than we felt we could commit to spending on a monthly basis. We wrestled with whether or not to say yes or to just forget it. The guy renting it said he would give us priority because we are a married couple and he'd rather rent to us than college students because he had just spent a lot of time and money renovating the place. We didn't feel right about making that type of commitment when we are not entirely sure of our working situations coming in the next month. IF we had taken this house it would about double what we are paying now for rent + utilities. We know i'll have some type of job but whether or not it'd be enough to help us save while we're working was a valid question we had to ask.

so, we gave up on that house and were back at square one. Thursday of last week we were talking with a friend and he mentioned that he had a friend that is trying to sell his house because he's moving to an acreage outside of town. We shared how we're really in no place to buy or to sign a one year lease because we are just unsure of a lot of things right now. He said something like he'll see if he's willing to rent. The next day his friend calls us and wants to know if we're interested in renting his house month-to-month at the exact price we had felt we could afford for renting... he will take the house off the market for the winter and then in march/april put it back on...

We decided we would look at it and then decide.... We got home about an hour ago... for how much rent is going to be we wouldn't be able to find anything better. It's really like God is walking us through this time one step at a time. I am very encouraged. This is not all set in stone yet by any means but we left the house feeling like it is really a place where we can spend some time and also be wise about our money. Tonight the owner told us that they had just decided about the possibility to rent it the day before our friend talked to him about us... that is not a coincidence... : )

I feel like this one is really going to work out!! Yay! Now if we could just figure out the rest of our lives... and this isn't a permanent solution by any means but it's going to be what we need for now... and that's enough.