Being Used of God

Sometimes it's the smallest of things that have the biggest consequences.

An email received, an email passed on.

But the biggest blessing of all to not only KNOW one was used by God, to be able to see and touch the results of your use. And yes, I like the acknowledgement of my part. And yet -- anyone could have done it. There was nothing special or unique in him choosing me. It is my blessing that God chose to work through me. I am very thankful that another couple in my class who has deeply desired to have a child, will. And that another child will grow up in a committed, loving, Christian home.

The hard part -- is to be used of God in those times when you never see the results of your use.

Keep me close to you, God.
Help me to be a better child.
Keep me open, molded into the shape of Your will.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving

From Mental Multi-vitamin, a quote that particularly struck me as true in my own marriage:
"Thank you for an enduring marriage. They say it’s part luck, part work. Thank you for my good luck and his hard work."

Which led to more thoughts of my own:
Thank you for my wonderful, surprise, 30th-birthday-present husband.

Thank you for a husband who gives me way too much credit than I deserve, and is determined to see things in the best light possible.

Thank you for letting us be DONE and OUT of our house, and let's not think about the next move.

Thank you for a job where I am appreciated and needed.

Thank you for profit on the house that enabled us to get out of debt.

Thank you for a husband that doesn't overspend.

Thank you for loving parents that cared where I was growing up.

Thank you for good friends that acted as parents in locus -- plus friends, when I moved so far away from home. And that will take us in at Thanksgiving when we have nowhere else to go.

What is God trying to tell me here?

Spiritbee has been having problems finding a house to buy lately. To the point where she's decided that God didn't want her buying a house right now.

We sold our condo fine. And found a new apartment -- but now we are having trouble getting people to be reliable at helping us out with the things we can't do on our own.

We had a start date for getting into the apartment AND we rented a UHaul based on a friend saying they could come this one day to help out with moving the big stuff. Then he got called into work that day and couldn't come. And tonight, we had someone ELSE helping us -- and they haven't contacted it and it's getting late.

So. What exactly is God trying to tell me by all this now, is what is going through my head. What am I supposed to learn from this situation?

No. I don't have an answer (yet) either.

For the girls of Common Room

For the Common Room girls who think Galadriel's dress would make a good wedding dress

My Lord of The Rings wedding Dress (I am not a real big LoTR fan -- Read the books three times through and still like The Hobbit better. But my husband is. And I had just spent Christmas 2002 looking at wedding dresses with my sister and mother, finding NOTHING I liked in the store. Then, after Christmas, my Boaz and I went to see the second Lord of The Rings film. And Eowyn came out onto the the overlook in my wedding dress! It was love at first sight. I have NO idea what happened in the rest of the movie because I was trying to decide how to make that dress.

Then I came home and talked to a friend. And she offered her mother as a seamstress and designer. (we modified an existing pattern to get there) (Said mom who ended up making the wedding dress plus all the bridesmaid dresses is the one on the floor in the Wedding party picture. Her daughter died unexpectedly a few months before my wedding. And I asked her to stand in her daughter's place, and she accepted.)



Wedding party:

My new place

After class last night, I went over to the new place, created a floorplan (not to scale) and took these pictures.

Here is a link to a photo album of the pictures (there are 44. They are captioned, don't worry!)

Click on "View Photos without signing in" and you don't need an account.(smaller type underneath the big yellow Continue button)

Click play at the top to automatically go through them, or you can use the arrows to move at your own pace

I need to learn CSS...

So I can read what the code is doing here and find something that won't mess up when I put a too-big picture in.

Talking about Pantries

The Headmistress over at The Common Room thinks she is the only one thinking about pantries right now.

Well, last night my husband and I went over and signed the lease on the apartment we will be living in for at least the next 6 months.

Which means I have to figure out what I'm going to do for a pantry. This place definitely has more cabinet space than our condo... But we'll see if it's enough. (And apparently no more counter space -- and without the bar that I could use to put things up on in the condo. I'm a bit concerned that the lack of pass-through is going to make it difficult to be part of things when I'm cooking -- which is not going to help me want to cook.)

Ideas for pantry space:
Sauder Storage Cabinet -- two-door cabinet like what we had in the trailer growing up. Can be used later for other purposes. (My dad still has that one in their house in South Carolina. It has computer stuff in it now.)

This 2-bin one would be cool for potatoes and apples -- but would it hold enough stuff? It might be more useful on wheels...

OTOH,
An O'Sullivan microwave cart could get the microwave and some staples like flour and sugar off the counters, making more room for making stuff. AND we could put our good silverware in the drawer to use in the dining room... Perhaps


And of course, there is always open shelves (though I'm not overly fond of the idea. I don't like the look of messes.

While I am posting...

1. I am in the last weeks of selling a condo, and this is one of those questions at the top of my head.

This is the first place I ever owned for myself.

It is also the place my husband and I spent the first 20 months of our marriage.

What pictures will I wish I had 20 years from now?

2. The Headgirl discusses the jejune class she is taking. (And I get to use a new word!)

3. I can't post and go anymore. It seems like, anytime I post, right away a spammer adds their 2 cents and I have to clean up after them to keep my blog good. So I sit and wait for the inevitable email.

Unfortunately, recently, I've had a couple of attacks on old posts. Right now, my blog is small enough I can go back and find the mess... (I wish blogger let you know which post was commented on! Or provided a link!) but I can easily see it getting out of control.

A new home!

(Not a house. But as I think I mentioned earlier, that wasn't in the offering)

After looking around, we found a place about halfway between where we live now and where we were originally looking for just $100 over what we are currently paying in mortgage + condo fees (+ tax + PMI) (for twice the space! Literally! So we can cut the storage space out entirely. That accounts for about $50 of it.)

Then I've been reading all these Larry Burkett and Motley Fool books on budgeting, so I sat down to budget given the new reality of our life -- I got a job so I'm making more money than we originally budgeted for. Plus this extra rent. (and taking out the storage units we will no longer be needing.) PLUS the no more credit card payments AT ALL. (BTW, Common Room children. Don't do like I did. When you get credit card, never ever let yourself put anything on them that will disappear before the debt did! The only reason I'd use credit cards at all is to build up credit for when you want to buy a house or, perhaps, a (used) car. In fact, I heartily recommend going to a Dave Ramsey sponsored money seminar. My husband and I were given tuition to one within 6 weeks of our wedding -- and it is directly responsible for us being out of debt now. We finally got serious about paying off the debt.)

And I have to wonder -- we were working with a budget before (but not paying that much attention to it, I must admit. Though we never ran out of money and WERE managing to put it into savings, etc. Thus this effort to do a double-entry bookkeeping system in hopes of making it work better.) And somehow I can't figure out how we were making it before as it seems we're spending more money on paper than we make! (And certainly more than the his-income-only that I would love to be budgetting on. As soon as he gets a 40-hr-a-week job... Please pray.)

I'm sure glad we didn't take one of the places that would have been $1200/mo though! (Even if it WAS just down the street from my best friend :( ) If we're having problems making ends meet at this level, that would have been completely unworkable!

I find myself thinking "I want curtains" "I want a comfortable chair to read" etc... but then again, we are signing a lease for only 6 months because we don't know how long we're going to be here! So it doesn' really make sense to buy a bunch of stuff (as well as the lack of money to pay for it without raiding savings or something)

The table is necessary though. I saw something that would work at Goodwill for $30. and I need a place for 4 people to sit around and eat together to serve Christmas dinner when my parents come up (Plus for other entertaining afterward. I have a space big enough, I want to invite people from church, etc over on occasion!)