Day 2119 – Life Lessons In A Box…er…Boxes Of Pens

Posted on April 30, 2015 by 365 days of marriage

I would say I finished unpacking today. We were pretty much unpacked on the first day, but there were a few boxes to go through. Well, today Bret had some stuff to do after work and I REALLY wanted to finish up! So, I pulled EVERYTHING out, turned on Interstellar (second viewing) and went to town. I got about 3 boxes of trash, a crate of shredding and put everything else away. I even went through ALL of my pens. Now, this is a big deal, because I had a lot of pens. A big drawer, a little drawer, a little cup, a big cup and random ones laying around. Friends, I got the pens down to a little drawer (just for pencils, colored pens, sharpies and highlighters) and a big drawer….that previously would not close.

WHAT?

But here’s what I learned. If you tell yourself something and believe it, you can do it. What did I tell myself? I did not like writing with pens that have a cap. So I tossed them. Some pens write funny, I tossed them. Some pens DIDN’T write at all and I had kept them in the past! I tossed those too. I probably threw out half of my pens. But you know what, it feels really good. I know that what I have actually writes and I enjoy using them to write.

So set your mind to something, believe it and take the action you need to take.

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Day 2113 – What I Have Learned In A Week Of Living Here

Posted on April 24, 2015 by 365 days of marriage

I can’t believe we’ve been here a week already! It was just about this time last week that I got the keys and started the task of moving everything in. So what have I learned since being here?

– The porch is worth any additional amount we had to spend. We LOVE it out there. I can’t wait for this cold to pass so I can spend more time out there again.

– Living within minutes of Wal-Mart is a blessing and a curse.

– I’m not sure why I haven’t walked to Dunkin Donuts yet – seriously, it’s SO close.

– Sleeping on the floor has been fantastic.

– Our neighbors seem great so far. You can tell they care about the place. In some ways, it feels like a suburb neighborhood and not an apartment complex.

– I thought I got rid of a lot of stuff until I started unpacking. Thankfully, I have a lot to get rid of and plans to get rid of more.

– Living light means (to us) having what is important to you and not just keeping a bunch of stuff. Case in point, we bought a TV. A huge 40″ TV. I can plug in my laptop to play movies (hence no need for a DVD player)…this also means that I can do my work on a 40″ screen. I did in fact spend about 2 hours doing just that yesterday.

– I am so thankful for God’s timing and how it is not our own.

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Day 2111 – Habits Form Canyons

Posted on April 22, 2015 by 365 days of marriage

This morning, I FINALLY caught up on the current sermon series at my church. (Sunday’s message was exceptionally good too, check out the Luke 6:37-42 sermon about not judging others. I honestly think it may have been one of the best sermons my pastor has ever preached.) In the middle of listening, I posted on Facebook asking friends for suggestions on other sermon series/pastors to check out. One of the things I’ve been trying to do is listen to a sermon or two a day. It gives me a chance to put together a puzzle while I listen, thus meeting two of my needs – the need for godly wisdom daily and the need to clean up a mess of something and put it into order. My senior pastor’s wife suggested that I check out Levi Lusko of Fresh Life Church. I picked a sermon series called Creature of Habit. Oh friends, I found myself in tears through the sermon and very convicted. It’s a great message, so I won’t belabor you with the details. It caused me to think about habits I have, both good and bad. It caused me to delete Farmville off my iPad (again). While, it can be a good thing and does bring me a lot of joy, there are times when it can bring vicious distraction and waste time. I strive to be honest on this blog, and here it is – I spent about 3 hours playing last night. Instead of reading, instead of cleaning/going through things, instead of working, instead of writing. I lounged around for THREE hours playing this game. Now, don’t get me wrong, it WAS enjoyable. I crafted the crap out of things on my farm. But I ended the day feeling empty and under-productive. How timely was this sermon!

I spent a good bit of time after the first message writing down all of the habits I want and the habits I don’t want. What was cool as I went through was that I could think of verses that went along with these habits. I could think of the tiny ways you can choose a good habit. People make comments about our marriage from time to time – how cute we are, how encouraging as a couple, how we trust in God. But these things in us are first and foremost a gracious gift of God. But they are second habits in our life. It is a daily choice to encourage each other instead of putting down. It’s a constant choice to trust God. It’s saying – “God will provide” or “I can’t wait to see how God will work in this situation” instead of saying “How will we pay the bills?” or “What are we going to do?”

The Grand Canyon was made by years and years and years of water forming the great depths. Friends, remember that your tiny choices throughout the day add up to great things….or terrible things. What tiny change will you make today for the better?

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Day 2109 – A Tour Of Our New Home And An Introduction To A New Way Of Living

Posted on April 20, 2015 by 365 days of marriage

I know our move took a lot of people by surprise, including us. We’ve been thinking about moving out for about six months, we’ve had God impress upon our hearts to move, but we kept finding excuses. After a conversation with dear friends, we knew it was time. A mere two days after our conversation, we visited an apartment complex that had really stood out in our search. There was an apartment available, we filled out the application, were approved and able to move in 3 days later. Conversation on Sunday, apartment visit on Tuesday, move in on Friday. Friends, it still surprises us that we’re here! So, to all of those who were surprised by our move, sorry for not telling each of you personally, but it’s been a whirlwind of a week! lol, for practical reasons, I figured a Facebook post and a blog post would let most everyone know. Oh the impersonal nature of our current age!

Another thing we’ve been thinking about recently is “living light” and being sojourners in this world. We believe that this world is not our home, just a place to journey through to get to our ultimate home with Christ. To that end, we’ve been thinking that we don’t want to have a lot of possessions. While we were talking about moving over the months, I mentioned that maybe we should try to only have things that fit in my Honda Civic. I think that we’ve done pretty well at this new lifestyle. To be honest, we are SO excited about it! Let me give you a tour and show you what this looks like for us.

First, we have a low table with cushions for our dinner table. We tested it out last night!

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After dinner, we cleaned up and set up the laptop and curled up to watch a movie.

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I am CRAZY about my new kitchen! Everything that we have fits (I even took my 7 boxes of kitchen down to 5)!

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This corner in the kitchen is empty and I have no idea what to put here…if I even will. Any thoughts?

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Having a washer and dryer in the apartment has been very convenient too. What we do is put our dirty clothes directly into the washer, saving us from needed a hamper.

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My bathroom that isn’t Batman themed (yet) but has my box of Frozen kleenex.

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Here’s where we will probably lose most of you. We’re sleeping on the floor. We don’t have a bed, just a bunch of blankets. It has been a great night sleep, I’m not going to lie!

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