A New Year, a New Resolution

Last year on my blog, I wrote that I had one simple goal for the New Year: to write more. I would give myself a C+ on reaching my goal. I did in fact write more, but not in the capacity I was imagining. My goal was to write more regularly on this blog and also to do some free-lance writing. Neither of those things happened, but I did end up writing a lot of lesson plans and email communications with a part-time teaching job I took this past June. The writing has helped to keep my fingers flying and my mind mentally challenged. It's been a gift, and I am thankful. 

This year, my New Year's Resolution is to read the bible and pray with Rob everyday. Along those same lines, I feel convicted that I need to prioritize my role as a wife above other things in my life. Rob and I were talking about our goals the other day, and we decided it's like this: our relationship with each other is the second most important relationship we have next to our personal relationship with God. If our marriage relationship is not going well, it doesn't matter how any of our other relationships are doing; we will be silently suffering.  

We are entering a season of intentional prioritizing. Rob works pretty long and intense hours and comes home beat. I work fewer hours, but fill up each space of my day with activity so that I am equally as tired by the time my head hits the pillow. It is time for a change.  

I am not sure how to set milestones or objectives for this resolution of prioritizing my role as a wife, but I think it is going to include a lot of passing on extra-curricular activities. Instead of saying "yes" to lots of things that sound good and are interesting to me, I need to reserve a bit more energy for taking care of things at home and being more available (mentally) for Rob. It is going to be a challenge for me, but I am convinced it will be worth it! 

And what better reminder of my New Year's goal than this song by Tenth Avenue North which pretty much sums up my prayer and resolution for 2015. 

Helpful Websites

Recently on the road to happily ever after, Rob and I have discovered some bumps. I am not talking about baby bumps. I am talking about communication and expectation bumps. I am still learning that my time is not my own even if I think it should be. In addition, I am learning that just because I may have carefully planned out my week-end, I need to be flexible and willing to embrace change.

Rob and I tried to start meeting with a few other couples to have fellowship with other couples and hopefully learn from each other. However, our schedules have collided like bumper cars, and our meetings have been sporadic at best. So, today as I was thinking and praying about our relationship, I came across a few really helpful websites that I want to share on here (for married and single people alike):

1. The first website is Family Share. This website is really helpful because it has articles on nearly every topic I have ever wondered about in marriage (The Secret Truth about Your Husband's Man Cave for example) along with other topics such as Growth, Health, & Money.

2. The second website I have found really encouraging is Relevant magazine.com. This website has really challenging articles written by a variety of authors. One topic I found really encouraging was called 'It Meets my Needs' and Other Bad Reasons for Choosing a Church.  Since Rob and I have recently felt called to a different church, I have been asking myself if my reasons for switching churches are legitimate ones. This article challenged me to be honest with myself in why exactly we are choosing to switch churches.

3. The third website that has been helpful in marriage and in life in general is by Dale Partridge. The website is called The Daily Positive, and it has helpful advice on financial planning, marriage, life outlook, and of course, staying positive. It is not  a self-help website as the author is pretty clear that his faith in Jesus Christ is his motivation in life. The blog contains a mix of humor, research, short videos, and feel good stories. I recommend checking out his site.

marrWhat websites do you find helpful in life?

Happenings of a Year

It was Rob's 30th Birthday a few days ago. As I wrote out his card that morning, I couldn't help but remember how far we've come this past year.

 Last year, around this time, Rob started to mention that he thought the time was here for him to buy a new car. His 2004 volkswagon was a gas guzzler and required expensive repairs and upkeep. I, in trying to be a supportive wife, said I thought that was a good idea, and suggested we should go car shopping together.

 We found a car that we both loved! It was a 2012 Camry SE, leather interior, and it drove as smooth as melted butter. Of course, it was a couple thousand dollars more than we had planned on paying, but when you fall in love, what can you do? So we financed the car and drove it off the lot on Rob's 29th Birthday! It was a beautiful day! We proudly drove our shiny, new car to Minnehaha Parkway and walked beside the river. We even found $20 on our walk. Finally, we ended the night listening to live music and enjoying a delicious meal at the Icehouse.

About one week after this beautiful week-end, we sat down and looked at our finances. Together, we had a large amount of student loans. I had been unaware of the exact number, and the grand total hit me like a ton of bricks. "All my dreams are shattered." I said, showing my immaturity in its finest form. I started to cry; I played the blame game. It was a horrible memory, and its effects have stayed with me like a nasty cold I can't quite recover from.

That entire month, Rob and I were at each other's necks. Only one month into marriage, and true to status quo, we were fighting over money. But, we started to read Dave Ramsey's book, Total Money Makeover, and it started to give us hope that we could turn the ship around. We created a budget and did our best to stick to it. We started living below our means and started throwing all our extra money from the month toward our smallest debt to begin the debt snowball. In March, we decided the financing payments for the car had to go. We paid cash for Rob's parents 2000 Mazda protege and sold our beautiful new car back to the dealership. We took an initial loss on the value of the the car, but we knew that we would make up for the loss in the long run and have that much extra cash per month to put towards loans.

We are still not there to having our debts paid off, but we are getting closer. We have learned a lot about being content with what we have, where we live, what we drive. We don't spend a lot on traveling, but we were blessed to be able to take a trip to Chicago this summer. Rob has given up buying DVD's. I have given up buying books and Bath and Body Works products (except for extreme sales.) We try to cook more at home; we hardly go out to movies; we still eat out, but we don't go above the budgeted amount for eating out that month.

And our marriage has thrived as a result of being united about money. We still disagree sometimes, but we work through it and compromise. We forgive each other when we mess up. We dream together of financially freer times. We're not competing with the Jones, and we're okay with that.

I love that we are united, not by material things, but by something and someone bigger. I am so thankful for this humble man, full of integrity who I get to do life with! I am honored to be the first one and the last one to greet him everyday! And I can't wait to find out what God is going to show us in this coming year!

Bird Dates

Rob and I are trying to be a little bit creative and somewhat frugal in our dates. We try to ignore the fact that there are so many great bands coming to town this summer and so many delicious eateries to try out. Instead, we are trying to take in the budget friendly activities around us. Specifically, we have enjoyed walking around the beautiful lakes of the Twin Cities and just taking in the nature. Far from boring, it has proven to be quite interesting. The other day we were walking around Central Lake, when we came across this bird:

 

Say what? Yes, that is exactly what we said. Unfortunately, neither of us had our camera with us to document this peculiar looking bird. At first, we were a little scared, but then we were just intrigued. What the heck kind of bird is this you might ask? That's what we asked google. Google told us that it was a black-crowned heron. Apparently this type of bird is common in Texas. What you miss in this photo is how large this bird is and how it virtually has no neck.

On another date night, we came across a larger fowl bird. We didn't know what it was either, but we asked a passerby who was as intrigued as we were by the bird. He said it was likely a blue heron. Rob took this photo with his spiffy camera.

One night, after we had finished grilling, we had another bird join us on the patio. We had some fun snapping senior portraits of this bird. This bird is a regular at Larpenteur Estates; we often hear his high pitched screeching and look outside to see if we can catch a glimpse.  Up until recently, we thought this bird was a hawk. However, one of our neighbors informed us that it is a perregrine falcon. We're still undecided about this species of bid.

Things I've Learned Since Being Married

1. My time is not my own; that's both scarey and kind of nice too. I don't need to worry or plan so much about what I am going to do every week-end night. Our free time is mostly spent together enjoying a nearby eatery, walking around the lake, or kicking our feet up while enjoying a movie Netflix style.

 

2. Decisions need to be made together. Since we've only been married about 10 months, I don't know Rob well enough to predict how he might decide on certain topics or social events. I have learned this lesson the hard way: after over-scheduling a couple of our days off together, Rob told me he was tired. "This is our 'day-off' after all," Rob lovingly explained to me. And since then, I have done a slightly better job of respecting him and making social decisions together.

 

3. Guys eat more than women. Okay, this is a stereotype. I should say, Rob eats more than me. This is a fun challenge, since I never used to cook much. However, now I find cooking a necessity to keep us within the budget while still consuming enough calories to make it through work each day.

 

4. Forgiveness is a must. We do not intentionally set out to hurt each other. But hurt is inevitable in any relationship. In order to move beyond the hurt, we have to be intentional about forgiving each other. If we held on to each little hurt or misspoken word, we would be bitter and cynical towards each other. But in the act of forgiving, we are humbling ourselves and allowing our spouse to see a more intimate side of us. The practice of forgiving has been one of the key things that keeps us together and in love with each other.

 

5. Laughter is a must. Sometimes, Rob just says things that I find hilarious. Did he really just say that? I have to look at him twice when this happens just to remind myself of the strange, handsome, witty man I married.

 

6. Sharing our dreams together is the pathway to achieving them. Rob and I both have pretty big dreams of doing different jobs than what we are doing right now. By talking through them and encouraging each other, I know that we are taking a step to achieving them. Similarly, we believe in each other to accomplish our dreams.

 

7. If I don't spend time with God, I am not a very good companion. It's true; if I have not spent time reading God' word and praying for his peace and guidance in my day, I am more agitated, more sensitive, more aggressive, and all around, more stressful to be with.

 

8. Connecting daily is important. When I don't see Rob for a couple of nights (on his working week-ends), I feel really out of sync with him and vice versa. We have found that the week-ends when he works the crazy hours, we usually get in more fights and feel distant from each other. We are working on a solution for this one, but daily communication and time spent together is pretty important for us especially in this beginning stage of marriage.

 

9. Praying helps us communicate better.  In general, this helps us to be more vulnerable with each other and share the thing that is on our hearts with each other. At the beginning of our marriage, we did a better job of writing down prayers in a little journal. We then went back after a couple of months and could see all the ways God had answered our prayers. I think we need to do this more regularly to be encouraged in God's provisions.  

 

10. Take life stages on your own time-line. The life stages are so set before us: get married, buy a house, have a baby and preferrably do it all as fast as you can. Rob does a good job of reminding me that we are not on anyone's clock but our own. Instead of racing through the stages, we are trying to savor the one we are in.