One year Anniversary

Our one year anniversary was June 28th, only, I'm just now getting the chance to write about it! In short, It was amazing and I LOVE my husband!

A few days before the grand event, I knew DH had something special planned, only, he wouldn't tell me what it was!!! It didn't matter how I tried to guess or bribe, he was not letting any clues slip. So the morning of, we exchanged little gifts with each other. Since we had decided to buy a canoe as out "official first anniversary present" we limited it to 10 bucks....we both ended up getting each other a coffee cup of some sort. Hehe. He'd spotted a batman mug a while back that he mentioned he liked and I wanted a travel thermos cup (the sort that look disposable but aren't And we just hung out at the apartment for a while, taking a slow morning, having fun together.

It wasn't time to go to the surprise date yet, so we went to the book store, which is our favorite hang-out and looked at books (this is because we are insanely cool and interesting people!) and drank coffee. I had this excited giddy feeling in my tummy. Its so fun to just hang out with my hubby and so fun also to think "a year ago today..." sort of thoughts.

Finally DH told me it was time to go to the surprise date! We got in the car and started driving...we got on the highway...and after a few minutes, I saw a familiar bridge! I knew where this man was taking me, why to the best Vegan Restaurant in the world of course! Not just any vegan restaurant, BUT the restaurant where we had our first date :-D It turns out, that he had even made reservations for us!!! It was so special. We hardly ever go out to eat and when we do, we usually split a meal to cut down on costs (strangely enough, that is usually plenty of food!) but today we decided to go all out and not only each get our own meal, but an appetizer too. The food was sooo good! We sat either at or near the table we had for our first date there. We couldn't remember for sure because we hadn't been back there since cus its kinda pricey...anyways, it was fun to remissness about our dating months while we enjoyed our first anniversary meal together. :)

After that, we went and walked along the side of the lake, which was nice because we had the PERFECT weather, We were also enjoying planning what we were going to do with our canoe, where we were going to take it.

In the days that followed, we got our canoe and I made carrot cake because thats what we had at our reception, but were not able to save any for our first anniversary. It was kinda special! I don't know how we forgot to take any pictures for the event, but we did totally forget. haha. Here is a picture though of our new boat!  

Crazy-eager to start our family!!!

I have the WORST baby fever right now!!! I want to be pregnant, I want to have children, I want to cloth diaper their little bottoms and homeschool them and play with them all summer long. Sigh.

We are officially NOT trying- and trying to NOT. I know we are not ready for a baby right now. And we are not in the position to foster right now either. Neither of us have our degrees. We live in a one bedroom apartment with a commitment to remaining debt-free (That means we don't want to buy a house till we can pay for it.) We are not what I would describe as struggling, but money is tight and I don't even have health insurance right now and haven't for a year.

I used to get bad baby fever sometimes before I was married and it was relatively easy to ignore, or so far from a possibility that I felt content to just day-dream...but it is soooo hard now that I have a husband to ignore it!!! I find myself looking at the photo listing of waiting children on adoptuskids.org and wanting to pick up tons of kid/baby stuff to start our stash (which I have so far not done as we have very little space and it would probably get ruined before it was used anyways)

It does NOT help that like  6 of my close friends are expecting this fall/winter. Grrr!!

Okay, BUT, I am trying to appreciate all the things I can do right now in this season of my life that i will not be able to do in that season. I'm trying to focus on growing closer with my husband and with God so I can be the mother I one day hope to be. Im really TRYING to be patient. Its just so hard!

Thank God that REALLY eating healthy is so cheap!

My husband's income is tied directly to his school enrollment so the summer is a lean time for us. Unfortunately, this year we were hit with several maintenance costs on BOTH of our new (used) vehicles that we were not really anticipating. Breaks needed replacing in my van, all tires and break/similes and wheel assembly on the car needed to be rebuilt. Thankfully, my very skilled hubby was able to do most of the repairs, saving us HUNDREDS, maybe even as much as a grand. But the costs of parts and tires and tools etc still set us back well over 1k which not only depleted all of our emergency fund but also ate into the money we had squirled away knowing that summer would bring a drop in income. My husband is still taking very intense summer courses, so he really cannot work. My summer load is not intense, plus I'm used to the stress of full-time school and full-time work anyways so I am continuing to work while I take summer courses.

But with having suddenly such a small sum in our bank account we are feeling slightly nervous and reevaluating which costs can be cut. We are both rather frugal people (how else would we be able to save up for the months of summer, and pay off our debt all during the school year?) but there are still some areas we can tweak. One of those areas is groceries.

Thankfully eating healthy is rather cheap when you are fond of cooking (which I am.)  Unfortunately a few factors combined to get us in the habit of eating certain convenience foods which I am normally not accustomed to (Including adapting my menus to my hubby's palette during our first year of marriage and my suffering a bout with my chronic health issues from about January-May.) But this new situation is stretching me to dig deep and get back in the (tiny) kitchen!

When people first hear that I am vegan, invariably one of the first responses is "I could never afford to eat that way!" Which would probably be true of most people if they bought all the commercially vegan products on the market! One way I'm stretching out our budget by going back to making meals based around the dozens of dried beans and lentils I can buy in bulk for less than a dollar a pound at the grocery store. There are endless possibilities with these: black bean burgers, lentil loaf, lentil pot pie, chili,  hummus, jambalaya, pasta-bean salads, "meatballs" made of beans and seasonings, and my husbands favorite- Bean Burritos!  I also like to keep some made up in the refrigerator  to throw on salads and stuff. Plus I have dozens more recipes I am dying to try.

Aside from that we always do grains from scratch (which we mostly buy in the bulk section) including:brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, oatmeal and barley...I haven't been too creative with this yet an mostly just serve them as sides or for the quinoa make a salad.

For fruits and vegetables, I have  that BJs has really inexpensive organic apples and oranges.And I am hoping to make it to the farmers market this week. We don't do 100% organic due to costs, but we do consistently buy certain things organically such as greens and other things highly affected by chemical pesticides. I attempted to garden this year and was sadly disappointed. There seems to be a learning curve to gardening in pots as I now have to do living in an apartment. but I'm not willing to give up on that yet as I both love to garden and know it will save us money. Although we steer clear of canned veggies for the most part, i like to buy large packages of frozen fruits and veggies at BJs and incorporate those into dishes that wont be hurt much by not using fresh. It saves us money on produce for sure. We're also gonna try to start making our own organic soy milk and bread. Those things fell to the way-side while I was sick.

One thing I am very weary of is that I don't want to go crazy with saving money on food and stuff and end up eating boring stuff or get sick again (Its very easy for me to become malnourished due to my health condition) For example, I HATE buying fruit juices!!! It seems like such a waste of money. My parents didn't buy them while I was growing up for the same reason. However, my dietitian has asked me to drink juices throughout the day because it is a way to both sneak extra calories into my diet and keep me hydrated. I have a really bizarre and random fear of drinking things- including water which leads to chronic dehydration. I'm working hard to get over that phobia, but its not easy and for some reason some of these juices go down easy. Thankfully, I can buy a 40 pack of 100% juice individual servings at BJs for less than $10.00 so that is what I am using for now.

Anyways, so that's the deal! This week my NOT eat breakfast cereal for breakfast but to instead opt for something like oatmeal or make a big batch of muffins and soy-yogurt to eat for breakfast. It will be healthier and cheaper!

Whats your best tip for saving money on groceries???

A bleeding heart

Sorry, my spellcheck isnt working! Good luck!

Ive been badly negecting this blog, which is unfortunate. I think in part I ignore it because I dont think it is ever read and in part because I dont know what the dirrection of the blog should be. The former has never stopped me from writing before. Ive been writing since before I knew how form my letters and its only been in recent years that I have had an oppertunity to put that suff where people can see it. LOL. I used to keep a blog about a health condition that I struggle with. I did that for four years and built an incredible support system that way, but in the past year or so everybody has migrated away from that site My health is also much better right now and I dont identify myself as much by my illness anymore. Anyways, not knowig the dirrection of this blog IS a problem. Initailly I started it as a way of doing homework assignmetns for a sociology class...I had to find things around me that reminded me of problems in society and give my opinion of it. (Yeah that was an easy class!) But then I wanted to kinda continue that but put in more about my personal life/intersets and aspirations. I also want this to be a possitive blog, which is sometimes hard because I have a hard time always being positive (dirrectly related to my health issues.)

Well, today I am just going to write soemthing that has been on my heart. Im currently in pre-Nursing school. Its a long story why Im not in Nursing School yet, and Im not going to tell it now. I have my pre-requisites done for the most part, but amd gonna retake a few of them becasue I got some Cs in the anatomy and physiology classes and I need higher grades to get into other schools (I have all As besides theose A&P classes and math classes.) So, sicne it has taken me so long to get this far, I have also been working on my associates in social work. So here is the deal, I want to be a missionary. Thats all Ive ever wanted to do, but Ive always felt lead to do medical missions and have been trying to get my nursing degree since I was 18. Im actaully a pretty good student but finances and my health has made this a slow road.

My husband, who was once very open to missions is now- not really into it at all. He wants to make money and have nice cars and live in the suburbs. There's actually nothing wrong with this. Lots of American's feel this way, but its not at all how I am oriented. As I began to discover these things I was gripped with a crushing depression. Its litterally been since before Kindergarden that I knew I felt called to missions. I selected my husband VERY carefully with this goal in mind. I actually turned down marriage proposals from nice, godly gentlemen simply becasue I wasnt willing to pass on what I felt was my God-given calling. Before we were married, my husband spoke of wanting to be involved in the ministry but that he didn't know in what capacity. He said when he met me, he felt like it was Gods way of dirrecting him to the ministry he had planned for him. He siad that he felt called to marry me, and that  becasue I already had a calling in my life, then he knew that was also Gods calling on his life (since God was bringing our lives together.) Ministry was a HUGE focus of our premarital counseling. We also were in a Missions class together before the wedding that concluded a few weeks after the wedding last summer. When that class ended, so did my husbadns interest in missions. He no longer likes for me to talk about missions. Sometimes when he starts talking about all the material goods he wants and I ask when missions will fit into the plan and he seems exasperated with me. Like I say, as this stuff started unfolding, I really was over come by depression.

In recent weeks I have been doing better, depression wise. I guess for a while I felt really confused. I felt like maybe I had msunderstood God, either about Missions or about Marriage. But the more I think about it, the less I believe I got that wrong. I know Im supposed to be my husbands wife. I prayed a lot about it and really felt it was the right decision. And I love my husband. What I am now trying to do is figure out what I want to do with my life- what Gods dirrection form my life is. I want my life to be something that will bring glory to God, something that will call those who have been astranged from their heavenly father to a knowlege of his saving grace. Nursing was always my prefered means of doing that. I knew that with nursing, i could minister to somebodies physcial needs and it would nto matter if I could speak their language. I longed to provide medical care to those who had no earthly hope to access such care. Thats where my heart as ALWAYS been.

I LOVE people. Ive been accused of being a bleeding heart more than once or twice. Do you ever just drive by somebody random on the street and just start thinking about how wholey and completely they are loved by God? That Christ DIED for them to have a realtionship with them. This happens to me A LOT. I've been known to just become overwhelmed by emotion at this thought that i sttart to cry and pray for that person. i cannot watch the news because its really too heavey for me. I feel like I sometimes feel the actual pain of the people described. As a write, I have to a be a good empathizer. As somebody who has suffered much pain and loss in this life, its not hard for me to tap into these feelings when I see soembody hurting. I beleive God designed me this way on purpose. I belive he WANTS  me to do soemthing with it. The truth is, if I am going to be stuck here in the US, I do NOT want to be a shift nurse. I see ZERO point to it. I have no passion for it.

Ive considered pushing and pushing my hsuband, manipulating him into agreeing to do Missions, like he did before we were married, but I dont think that would be God-honoring. I have to find a way to honor God in this situation. So I am asking myself, what do I want to do? What tallents has God give me? How can I make an impact here? I dont think missions had to be to far away lands (although I always THOUGHT I was called to serve over seas) Maybe God has a plan for me to be a missionary right here? I long to do foster care and adoption. Ive always wanted a huge family and adoption is how I want to make that happen.In particular, I want to be able to foster/adopt sibling groups.That will certainly impact lives, but I think I can do more than that. I want to homeschool- my vision was always homeschooling on the missions feild, but I've also considered teaching. I know in public schools you are very limited to what you are allowed to talk about so that could be limiting too. So, Ive considered somehthing like a private  Chrisitan montisori school, but I dont really want to minister only to kids from Christian homes. I am close to having my associates in social work- I've thought about working with DCYF- but if I do get the chance to do missions in the future, well, thats not really a transferable skill. Ive wondered if my husbadn could ever be pursuaded to be house parents to a childrens home. I saw some on missions websites before down in the south. But i dont know- that might also interfere with our ability to have children that we get to "keep." I've also though about doing somehting in therapy and working with children recovering from trauma and those with attachment issues, the mom I nanny for (who has her masters in Psychology and three adopted children from fostercare) said that is a hopeless career and the therapists who work in that feild are not able to fix the children or do much to make them better. But what if God was involved in the therapy? .... What else? I love agriculture, but again, mostlty envision that being useful to missions. I could see practicle applications for it in the inner city, but my husband doesnt want me to work in the inner city because he is afraid Ill get hurt. Ive considered pursing the nursing and planning to work in a not-for-profit but agan, with the inner city issue. I cannot imagine doing anything with my life that would not be working to make other peoples lives more bareable.

So in short, I have lots of ideas and Im excited to figure out how I want to make this work. Of course Im never going to give up praying for God to turn my husband's heart back to Missions, Im never going to stop praying that my hsuband's heart will be softened towards the people God loves. But I also need to figure out who I can serve God here, where I am. I need to have the best attitude about this possible, as if I was doing EVERYTHING as if unto the Lord. So, trying to figure this all out has been kinda stressful, if you happen to have read this, please pray as I decide what to do. Ask God to revel his will for my life-- or at least the next steps he wants me to take. And pray for my attitude all the while!

Wanting to try vegan Once a Month Cooking

Ive been toying with the idea of doing Once a Month Cooking. Of course, since we are pretty much a vegan household (hubby does eggs and heese, butdoesnt cook, so he eats mostly vegan) we will have to do things slightly differently..google searches have yeilded several good results for freezable vegan meals.

Im not sure when I will try this as we have some medical stuff going on that needs addressing and my interest in coking is like sometimes a negative 10...other days its a plus 10. IDK...it just takes a lot of planning and prepping and doing and I have so little energy these days.

Has anyone tried OAMC, especially as a vegetarian or vegan? How did it work for you if you did?

The seemingly natural instinct/desire to make my house a home

You know it's kinda odd, Ive lived away from my family's home for about 7 years now, and in all that time I never really focused on making my living space homey, for lack of a batter word. Sure, I would coordinate colors when I bought things for my bedroom or whatever, but I think I always felt like I was passing through, like I was on somebody elses territory maybe- the college dorm, my grandma's house when she was in the nursing home, I had room-mates, etc. I'd set up my space to be functional rather than warm and welcoming.

Now that I am married, its been kinda a turn around. Pretty much immediately I wanted to do everything I could to make our apartment warm and inviting. I want colors to coordinate, I want things to seem warm, fresh and attractive. I try my best to keep it clean, but that isn't always good enough, the mess seems to get away from me sometimes.

 Whats strange about it is not the act of making the house "cute" but the feelings I have surrounding the issue. I feel duty bound to do it. Like, it says something negative about me as a woman and wife if I don't try to make my home a space that my husband and guests will love to be. Yet, its not a fear or obligation that keeps me cleaning, sorting, organizing, decorating; rather, I get a sincere JOY out of making my house look nice.

We are on a very tight budget and we are trying to keep out possessions to a minimum since we plan to move when our lease is up in about 6 months. As a result any beautifying has been a very sloooooow process. Unfortunately, my husband does not see the value in making the place look nice and any attempts I have made to express to him why I feel the NEED to make it homey have fallen on deaf ears so I feel silly trying to do much to help it look better. However, for my birthday my dad sent me a gift card to a big, evil box store for 40 bucks. I decided to use it to buy a few things Id been desperately wanting to do. I got area rugs for the bathroom, a pretty shower curtain, a step can for the bathroom (we have not had a can in there since my dogs would get into it) and some curtain rods to hang some curtains that somebody gave us in the living room. I got some good deals and even had 3 dollars left over. As soon as I got home, I set up the bathroom. It looks AMAZING! I love it! Then I put up the curtains. They are about 6-8 inches too short for the window, but whatever, I'm okay with it. I think it looks nicer than just the mini blinds we had for privacy.

I'm pretty handy and creative, so I have made a few things around the house and plan to make more/improvise more. For example, we have this tacky lamp in the living room that I would love to decoupage over or something, and I want to paint some art for the very, very blank walls. This place could be nice. Ive also been going through tons of our stuff and getting rid of what we don't need. Mike made enough money selling his extra instruments on craigslist to buy a new computer that we have been needing. Ive given things away on Freecycle and we are dropping off a box at the salvation army today. Theres still more to go through and get rid of. We don't need all the clutter! We sold all out coffee tables, end tables and bedside tables for $20 on Craigslist because those things are just a magnet for clutter. The place looks a lot better without them. I gotta figure out what to do about papers, those are my other big clutter problem. We have a file cabinet, but we still seem to amass a LOT of papers....

Proverbs 31:27-30
"She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness,
Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
'Many daughters have done nobley,
But you excel them all'
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD,
she shall be praised"

Oh boy, I still have a long way to go to be like the woman in the 31st chapter of Proverbs! I especially need to work on the idleness, I spend way too much time on the computer. But I want to set these things as my goal, and I feel like it is my calling to minister to my family (which right now consists of just me and my husband) and I feel making my house a home is one way I can do that.

Anyways, I just thought I would share about this strange new experience of decorating a home and the joy it brings me. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this? It makes sense to me, I think God made women to be homemakers, so I can see why he would give us that desire and instinct. Its kinda cool.

A Spiritual drought, at Christmas none the less?!?

I don’t know exactly what has been going on lately, but I have really been having a hard time connecting with God lately. When I pray, I have a very lonesome feeling not much different than when I’m talking to a wall. I want to skip church (but haven’t been) and reading my Bible, although it seems like a good idea, just hasn’t been happening as much as it should. I just feel so, disconnected!




It doesn’t make sense because I know Jesus is what my soul needs. It feels confusing because even as I look forward to the celebration of Christmas, I can’t pull myself out, and prayer hasn’t helped yet. I was skipping around my apartment the other day after M and I put up our tiny Christmas trees. My dogs looked at me funny and I just told them that there was no way they could understand the JOY, and HOPE that is intrinsic in Christmas. Christmas is celebrated at the time of year when Jesus was most likely conceived within Mary by the Holy Spirit. Mid to late December is also the darkest time of the year. So God, who IS light, came to us in human form during the darkest part of the year. The child would grow into the man that would be crucified for our sins, so that WE….so that WE could have a relationship with the almighty God, the maker of the universe. How cool is that????



So then, why am I disconnected from the God who would do that for me lately? I have a few ideas…one is that I have anger, resentment and rebellion in my heart. I don’t want to get into the specifics, but suffice it to say that sometimes, when we are Christians, we think our good behavior, our ability to follow rules (even when done with the truest of intensions) sometimes causes us to believe that we should be spared certain turmoil in life. HA! Imagine that? We think we are so holy that we can somehow opt out of the difficulties of life. It’s laughable when I put it in those terms. But I think that is what has happened to me…and that is basically the sin of pride. So I have the normal (and less-than-normal) hurts of life come along and I feel HURT. But then PRIDE steps in and we add on top of that HURT feelings of ANGER, RESENTMENT, and REBELION and NO WONDER I am feeling disconnected from God! I think I *just* figured out my problem…why didn’t I write this out before?



Thank you Jesus, for your mercy and grace. I know you hate pride. Please teach me to accept what you have for me with humility and joy.

God is giving us plenty of practice with the "in sickess and in health" part of our vows

Well, it started the last day of our honeymoon. I got SOOO sick! My husband drove 8 hours straight through from our honeymoon to our hometown instead of staying the night over in another state like we had planned. We ended up in the ER that night when we couldn't get my fever of almost 104 to break. I had a really bad kidney infection which had me out of commission for a while. Just two weeks into our marriage I got to learn that my sweet husband is a VERY good care taker.

Unfortunately, I kept getting sick! Just a few weeks ago I posted on facebook how sweet my husband was for staying up with me all night, rubbing my back and getting me everything I needed- all the night before a big exam at school. I really am blessed by him.

Well, now its my turn! M is soooooo sick. It came on like a cold but got worse and worse/ He missed school today and I finally had to take him to the VA hospital to get checked out...it turns out my sweetie has a bacterial and viral infection as well as a double ear infection. He's miserable. The doctor gave him several medications and instructions to do several things...So I have been trying to take care of M and do all the things on the list. It said he needed HOT fluids, so I bought him teas, apple cider and things for me to cook as soup. Check! It said he needed yogurt, So I got him some Organic dairy yogurt (Hubby's lacto-veg, not vegan like me and the dogs) as well as some soy yogurt. Check! It said to keep the house humid, so I bought and set up a humidifier. Check! It said he needed a special pediatric nose spray so I drove to three pharmacies around closing time in the dark till I found it. Check!

I was feeling so terrible having to drive around to so many different stores to get all this junk! LOL. I just wanted to be home with him, rubbing his back and magically making him feel better. :-(  Anyways...I just made him some "Feel Better Miso Soup." I figure if the probiotics in the yogurt are good then Miso  must be good. I actually halfway feel like his being sick is my fault cus I have been meaning to make Miso Soup to help boost our immune systems. I just haven't till now. Uggg.



Z's Feel Better Miso Soup

Ingredients:
6 cups water
2/3 of a block of firm, organic tofu cut into small cubes
2 cups frozen veggies (Actually I prefer fresh veggies always but this is faster to free you up when you or your honey is so sick)
2 cloves of garlic, minced.
2 cups of cooked organic brown rice
1 heaping tablespoon of VegSal
2 tablespoons of Organic White Miso

Add first 6 ingredients to a pot and let simmer. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Add Miso paste in small increments so it mixed in easy. DO NOT ALLOW THE MISO TO BOIL. Serve hot.

I just feel terrible seeing M so sick. Hes really bad. Im happy though that I can try to help him feel better. I want to take good care of him! He's such a blessing to me.

Okay..now I have to go cuddle with my man. Later!

I got married...

I have taken a looong hiatus from this blog and you may wonder why. Well, the day after my last post, I started dating the man I would end up marrying. I was not looking to date and I certainly was not looking to get married at this point in my life, but sometimes God has other plans for us. Looking back at the last year+ of my life, its pretty clear to me a now that God was preparing me for marriage- I just didn't know it at the time. So I have known the man who is now my husband for over a year, I'll call him "M". He was in the co-ed Bible study at church with me. Its a fairly small church but we have a good number of people in the 20 something age bracket. Anyways, I could tell the story some time if anybody is interested...

Our wedding was June 28th- it was beautiful, emotional, wonderful, spiritual, homey, everything-I-wanted despite being imperfect! My husband and I are absolutely in love and its been wonderful to start this journey together. Now my husband and I are getting used to being married and despite all our premarital counseling, its been a shockingly challenging adjustment! I'm blessed to have a strong Christian woman as a mentor in the absence of my own mother to help me and encourage me along the journey and that is really helpful. I'm realizing more and more that don't know everything I need to in order to be the godly wife I so desire to be. Thankfully my husband is extremely patient with me and we both try to be gracious with one another as we figure things out. :) I think I'm surprised at what a challenge the transition is. I thought that since my husband and I love each other so much, since we both long to put God first in our lives and frankly, because we both tend t be so easy going that the transition would be a easy one...boy was I ever wrong! Now, I don't want anyone to get the impression that anything is WRONG, certainly its not. Its just that neither of us have ever been in this position before and there is a lot to learn. I'm sure anybody who has been married knows what I'm talking about. :)

So far, in the first three months, some of my/our biggest challenges have been:

• Scheduling! Even though I put nursing school off for a year to be able to be at home more, we have a LOT going on. My husband is a full-time student (He's on the GI bill since he's a veteran so he is paid for being enrolled in school- that's where most of our income comes from.) I still go to school part time and work THREE part time jobs. Then we are very active in our church and at the end of everyday sometimes we can hardly drag ourselves to bed, never mind go on dates! I cannot IMAGINE if I was juggling nursing school on top of all of that.
• I've become very emotional and sensitive. I try not to be overly so, and I never used to be but sometimes I just get hurt so easily by comments my husband makes that really shouldn't bother me so. I'm not sure why this has happened. :-/ My husbands a pretty wonderful guy and doesnt make especially hurtful comments, so I don't know what my problem is.
• Learning to communicate tenderly even when I'm in a terrible mood. As a single person I could have taken some time to myself to calm down, and center myself- even when I lived with many other people. I now have to learn how to communicate in an appropriate way when my husband very much wants to be cuddly with me and I'm trying to DO SOMETHING and am feeling very agitated. This happens quite a bit and its tricky to navigate. Its taken me quite by surprise because I've never really considered myself as snappy before. I've hurt his feelings a number of times and its blown up into an argument on more than one occasion. :-( I can see that this could really become a toxic trend if I don't learn to break it!
• My husband has had a really hard time adjusting to life with two large, active dogs. I had two Queensland heeler crosses before we got married and they are now living with us in our less-than-700 square foot apartment with us. Ive had dogs all my life so its not a big deal to me. Although he likes dogs, he never had one before and I think he is suprised by what a handfull they can be. Its been a rough change for all of us because of this, but things are getting better.
• As a Christian couple who was seeking to honor God with our relationship, we saved physical intimacy for after the wedding...Having this new dynamic in our relationship is both wonderful and challenging. I'm OBVIOUSLY not going to share any details here but I do want to say that although I am SO HAPPY we waited, there have been a few times where I have asked God if having us wait is supposed to be some kind of joke. There are so many aspects to adjust to as a married couple and for me, this is one of the most difficult components for some reason. I don't know very many women who had to learn to integrate this part of the relationship AFTER marriage. Most people I knew handled that challenge at a different times in their relationship than right after the marriage and sadly, there have been times I have envied them for being able to break up the many challenges into smaller chunks. I'm terribly ashamed to say that I have even questioned whether I would advocate to my own children "waiting for marriage" considering how challenging that it is....But in my heart, I KNOW that God's plan is absolutely the best plan and even though it comes with added challenges, I think my husband and I did it the right way. I also know in my heart that I could not have handled the emotions that come along with this part of a (marriage) relationship without the absolute assurance and confidence that I was with the person I would be spending the rest of my life with and that it was pleasing to and blessed by God. I also trust that it will continue to work itself out and that God will give us the grace to learn from it and grow together. I will absolutely advocate to my children to save physical intimacy for marriage.

Okay, now some of the TREASURES of our first three months of marriage:

• Waking up to each other every morning and enjoying coffee with the person I love most in the world. :)
• I've been sick a few times in the past few months, first with a kidney infection and more recently with a stomach thing and my husband was SOOOOOOOO sweet and tender to me. Truly the servant leader he's called to me. It touched my heart deeply.
• Having somebody there to share our struggles and disappointments with. The other day I was feeling extremely down because of a test grade I got and my husband was so encouraging and really made me feel better.
• Having somebody there to share victories with. My husband got an amazing grade on a test for a subject at school he had really been struggling with and it was wonderful to be excited for him and proud. He worked really hard to do that.
• Our (almost) daily Bible studies together. Its wonderful to be growing closer to our savior as we are growing closer to each other. We have also started attending a new couples small group at church called "Love and Respect." Its supposed to be very good and we are excited about it.
• I LOVE cooking for my hubby! It makes me feel all girly and domestic and capable. Feeding people healthy, yummy vegan foods is my love language!
• Being called "Mrs. C_____" by the kids during the summer VBS program!!!! :-D
• Reading Dave Ramsey's book "the total money makeover" and making a goal together to get out of debt together (and stay debt free) putting it in place and in just three short months paying off two debts and anticipating having the rest paid off by next September!!! (We both had a few small loans before we got married for school stuff and we had to borrow a little money for the apartment we are renting but we are paying that off TODAY and we paid off our wedding rings last month!)
• Despite it's challenges, the physical intimacy as well as the emotional and spiritual intimacy is absolutely a blessing to our marriage.
• His willingness to sell his truck so I could go to nursing school, my willingness to put nursing school off a year to focus on our new marriage. We both grew to respect each other a LOT from that week.
• Not having to say "Good night and good bye"at the end of the day and just being able to say "good night" as we fall asleep in each others arms.
• His protectiveness over me, his calling the cops when we had reason to believe I was in danger because of a situation at work. And his subsequent refusal to allow me to walk the dogs with him at night during that time because he wanted to keep me safe. <3>
• His playing the guitar for a concert of one- me.
• The way he looks at me when I'm looking scrubby- like I'm the most beautiful creature in the world
• Our camping honeymoon and the dreams we share of living in the country one day.
• too many more to list

So, I'm a happy girl, but I'm definitely a spiritually and emotionally GROWING girl. Haha...I guess now I can start to record that journey!

Read through the Bible in a Year

Ahhh....New Years Resolutions are upon us. Every year, for as long as I can remember (since like second grade??)...I have had a "new years resolution" to read through the Bible in a year. And every year, I have failed dismally. In order to read through the Bible in a year, I have always tried to read a little each day in order to not have to read like 6 books in one day to get caught up. Last year, i had my reading for the day emailed to me. That worked till about April, when I got so far behind that I gave up on the read through in a year thing. The positive thing about 2009's attempt at reading through the Bible is that I now carry my Bible around with me at all times. So i can read it whenever I have a spare minuet, or if I am thinking of a verse and want to remind myself just how it goes, or if I ma facing a particular struggle and need to remind myself what the word of God has to say about it, etc. But the effects of my abandoning the Read the Bible in a Year plan is; My "quite time" gets reduced to a few minuets a day, a few days a week and my spiritual walk suffers. Its sad. Whats even sadder is that this has repeated itself for nearly two decades, year after year. While I am POSITIVE I have read the Bible in its entirety, I think its important for me to read the whole thing in a relatively short period of time so I can see some themes, patterns and so forth. In addition to the "reading in a year" I also usually do a devotional to help me focus on a specific part of scripture and really just dig in, looking for personal applications. "Better is a little with understanding" as the old expression goes. So, once again I am making it my goal to read through the Bible in 2010. sigh. I have renewed dedication this year though, Over the last several months I have seen some heresy develop in some of my friend's faiths. These are friends with whom I was raised side by side, and fed on a relatively similar diet of Biblical teaching. Ive given a LOT of thought to how this happens and the conclusion i have come to is that in my upbringing, and in my friends upbringing there was a strong emphasis on Spiritual connectedness with God. On the Spiritual feelings and leadings. I am not saying I don't believe these things are important they are, but these things I think were emphasised OVER Bible reading. My friends and I have all probably read through the Bible at some point. We memorized Scripture and some of us still do, but I think the danger came in when we "pretty much know what the Bible says." The Enemy will use any and all opportunities to poison of minds, and even our religion. The blessed thing about the Word of God is that if you follow its teaching and hold everything up against it as a measurement of accuracy, you can scarcely go wrong. I believe its a lack of being entrenched in the Living and Holy Word of God that breeds this heresy and in some extreme cases for people to abandon the faith all together. While trying to determine what to say to my friends who have adopted strange faiths, I realized Im at JUST AS MUCH RISK of believing a false doctrine when I am not studying the scriptures daily. AND, I cannot effectively talk with my friends about the things they now believe that are unbiblical, because I have a hard time finding specifically in the Bible where it teaches contrary to what they now believe. So, Read through the Bible in a Year, take 18 (or so)....

• This year I am going to print out a chart with all the chapters of the Bible and cross them off as I go. I think this will encourage me and help me not fear when i get off track for a few days, because I can pick up again anywhere.
• I think I will also start reading in the minor prophets and the epistles, instead of the books of Moses and the Gospels...just to mix things up....
• I'm going to blog about my reading progress and about the treasures I find in the Word.
• I'm going to once again enlist the support of my Christian Mentor...but in order to do that I have to start working on my devotional again because she believes that was helpful to me when I was doing it before. It really, really was. And, as my Mentor, I respect her opinion on the matter....I need to do a devo with this Bible reading anyways....
• I'm going to look for other people who are reading through the Bible in a Year OR who are working on reading PART of the Bible every day or however many times per week...

Any of you doing the "read the Bible in a year" as your new years resolution? Any old pros out there who can offer me tips? Anyone looking for an accountability partner? I want to make this my New Years REVOLUTION!!!!