Author Archives: 365 days of marriage

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About 365 days of marriage

I started this blog in April of 2011. At the time, Bret and I were wedding photographers and it was a way to share how marriage is more about the day to day and so much more than the wedding day itself. For about 5 years, I blogged about the joys and sorrows of the Christian walk, marriage, work, family and friends. I’ve blogged every day since a few weeks after I started. In May of 2015, we photographed our last wedding. Now, I have become passionate about simplicity, particularly in marriage, Christianity, business, travel and life. For a number of reasons, we have become minimalists. I’ve found that having simplicity makes life so much deeper, refreshing and joyful. I hope that this blog will help others see the benefits of living simply.

Day 2045 – A Great Restaurant Rebrand/Upgrade

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Sorry for the backdating of this post. I do feel bad if I fall behind in my posts and have to post a few back to back. Ah well, if you follow my blog, you probably don’t mind. 🙂

So! Today we started off our mini-trip going to Chili’s. We haven’t been in a really, really long time…but boy were we missing out! They have a new tablet on every table that totally blew our minds. You can reorder drinks, order desserts, pay your bill (even down to splitting the tab!) AND play games! Bret and I did really well on Plants Vs. Zombies! After we left, Bret commented on how it seemed so fast from the time of ordering our food to when we got it. We were really impressed!

Check out our Plants Vs. Zombies name. 🙂

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AND check out how awesome the food was presented too! Love it!

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Day 2044 – A Little Financial Encouragement

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Today while doing the bills, I was just completely humbled and in awe of how awesome God is and how He’s used different financial situations to bring us closer together and closer to Him.

If you’ve read our blog for any amount of time, you know we’ve had our struggles, including, but not limited to:
– Bret losing his job when I wasn’t making a lot from photography
– Moving back in with my parents
– Having to go two years between visits to Bret’s family
– Not going out with friends because of tight money

Over the last 3-4 months or so, we’ve had an incredible shift in our finances. Now we have:
– two steady incomes, give or take a few bucks here and there
– a 6 month emergency fund
– two savings accounts that would essentially give us another 3 months in said emergency fund
– a very large friends account (For a long time, we’ve set aside money to do things with friends and/or take trips together. So when we offer to buy someone dinner, we can legitimately say, dude, we HAVE money to do this, we love you and want to bless you)
– the ability to take trips. We’re even taking a mini getaway tomorrow for the 8 year anniversary of meeting….now before you think I’m straight up crazy about remembering dates….I met Bret 2 days after the huge Valentine’s day snow storm that shut down the state. It’s just an easy date to remember. I couldn’t tell you the day we started dating. The only reason I can remember the day he proposed is because it was the beginning of the financial year at a previous job. 😉
– the ability to actually get a lobster dinner (it’s silly, but this is one thing I’ve been waiting a long time to get!)
– the ability to realistically plan a trip to Disney World. I cannot tell you how long I have been wanting to go.

I say all this not to say, wow! Look at us and our amazing money skills! But to say, wow, look at how much God did through us and taught us over the years….and look at how much He’s blessed us! It’s truly humbling!

So fellow traveler in this fallen world, take heart, God will care for you and give you your daily bread….even if it doesn’t look like what you think it should be.

And just for kicks, here’s my lobster dinner again. 🙂

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Day 2042 – Business Productivity Tip

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I’ve been trying to do one thing in my business and work life recently that I think has really, really helped my productivity.

It all centers around my desk.

Each night, before I go to bed or when I leave my desk for the night, I clean up.

I stack up my client work in one pile.

I stack my calendar and to-do list in another pile.

I take the dishes upstairs.

I put away anything else.

I even close all of the windows AND Outlook on my desktop.

Then, when I sit down in front of the computer in the morning, I have a space for work and productivity already created. Having a spot for everything is HUGE.

I also keep important, but not “have to be soon” task items on my keyboard drawer.

It’s worked for me, maybe it can work for you!

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Day 2041 – How Do We Define Freedom?

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Today I thought a lot about freedom.

My first thought of freedom was the freedom of sleep I’ve crafted. I have always wanted the freedom to create my own schedule. I wanted to work when I wanted to work. I wanted to sleep when I wanted to sleep. This morning, after Bret’s alarm went off, I told him I wanted to sleep in. He said something about wishing he could sleep in. But I replied with, well, I chose a job where I can sleep in, if you want to sleep in, change your job. Truly, I feel that it’s THAT simple.

But, when I finally woke up naturally (which is the best way to do so, I think), it was nearly 12, and I felt bad. Man, I slept the whole morning away, what was I thinking? I should have set an alarm. But instead of continuing to berate myself, I decided to embrace that I chose this. I wanted this. My business has the flexibility to sleep in. I would also not get ANYTHING done if I just kept beating myself up.

So, I took the next step in my daily routine. After I get my cup of coffee, I either settle down in my bed to read and journal or I start a sermon and put together a puzzle. Today, I was listening to a sermon series by John Piper on marriage. I found myself just humbled by the fact that there is such a wealth of sermons and resources online. I mean, there is SO much out there. And I thought, WOW, what a freedom of religion! I can sit in my home and listen to someone talk about Christ and my relationship with Him! There are places in the world today that is far from possible. Just humbled dude.

So what does freedom look like for you?

Only because I don’t really have a “freedom” picture, here is one of today’s coffee and a delicious truffle that one of Bret’s students made. 🙂 We can call that freedom to eat truffles.

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