More than Blessed

With the new year comes new beginnings, fresh starts, and a chance to do what you didn't accomplish the year before.  I am so overwhelmingly happy with the heart my children have for others.  There is a specific teacher at the daycare that is there in the afternoon to watch the school-aged kiddos.  She is not the friendliest, and I swear she has something out for Declan.  She loves to tell us when he gets in trouble without giving him a chance to explain himself.  Pat and myself have had some difficult authority issues with her, nothing bad, just her telling our kids to do things when we're trying to tell them it's time to go.  Anyway, Pat was telling me that the other night when he went to go pick up the kids, Declan started walking out of daycare and said, "OH WAIT".  He ran back in and told this particular teacher to have a nice night and a great weekend!  After doing so, he told Pat that his New Years Resolution is to tell her that every night before he leaves because it just might make her happy.  You have no idea how incredibly happy and humbled this made me feel.  Sometimes I feel as though we're given children to teach us what no one else can.  Declan definitely has compassion and at the young age of 8 knows that a smile, compliment, or encouragement can totally turn around someone's day!  I am so proud to call him my son!!!

YIKES...

So I totally slacked on the days of thankfulness in November.  Here we are, at the beginning of a new year where everyone makes resolutions that typically are given up on about 2 weeks into the new year.

As most of you know, I fell on Christmas Eve and REALLY hurt my foot.  I am just now starting to really be able to walk without a walker.  Before that, I was planning on walking daily as we now have a treadmill in our room along with eating better and cutting out soda.  All of these things together are goals for the new year.  I thought I'd jump on the resolution bandwagon and so here it goes:

1. I am going to quit drinking soda for an entire year.  Water, milk, tea, and juice will be my drinks of choice.
2. I want to run a 5k all the way through by September 30, 2014.  I am going to start walking on the treadmill once my foot is healed and gradually work my way up to running.
3. I am going to focus on eating smaller portions and making wiser choices in the foods I put into my body.  I have a HUGE sweet tooth so this is going to be difficult for me.
4. I want to spend more time with my kids sans electronics.  Whether it's playing games, coloring, making things, I want them to know that I love them and love spending time with them more than I love my computer and phone.
5. I want to lose 50 lbs between 1/1/14 and 12/31/14.

I hope you all have a blessed and wonderful 2014!  I am looking forward to GREAT things this year!!!

Days 4 and 5

Day 4: I am thankful for the ability to be a blessing to others.  It wasn't that long ago that Pat and I were on the receiving end of people's generousity and it can be a very humbling thing.  I am grateful that God has blessed us with much so that we can help out those who are in the same spot we remember so vividly.

Day 5: I am thankful for my job.  When I first started at Citibank I knew nothing about mortgages or the process.  I have now been with the company for almost 2 years and although there were some parts that were challenging, I am grateful to have a job and for the opportunity of growth within the company.

A month of gratitude

Since everyone else is doing it, I'm going to as well.  I am going to post something I'm thankful for every day until Thanksgiving.  I am a few days late but here we go:

1. I am thankful to have a God that loves me enough to take care of me in every circumstance of my life.  I am thankful to the people the first shared God's love with me and to those who I've looked to for leadership and guidance when God seemed to be so far away.  I know that God is love and I am grateful that he is a generous God that gives way more than we could ever ask.

2. I am thankful for friends.  Some of our best friends we met when Pat and I first started dating and even though they haven't lived close to us for a little over 8 years, when we see them it feels as though they've never left.  I love their kids as my own and couldn't ask for a more sincere friendship in them.  I know that when I need someone to talk to I can always rely on her to give me what I need to hear and not just what I want to hear.  I am grateful they they are God-loving friends that have helped steer Pat and myself down the right path numerous times.

3. I am grateful that we live in a state that we can experience all 4 seasons.  Sure, I like some of the seasons more than others but each one I like for different reasons.  I love winter and the cold.  I love how pretty everything is covered in a blanket of snow and how quiet everything is.  I love that everything is decorated so pretty for Christmas and the ambiance of the holiday season.  I love spring because it signifies new life.  I love how green and fresh everything is, the flowers are in full bloom and make the spring so colorful and beautiful.  I love summer because of the long days, the extra time I get to spend with the kiddos, and of course swimming.  Fall is by far my favorite.  I love the cool nights and mornings with the warm days.  I love the colors of fall, fall fashions (even though I'm not fashionable), the smells of fall with the pumpkin scents and the smell of fire pits.  I love the crunching of leaves that have fallen to the ground.

Everything happens exactly as intended!

Reflecting on my married life, I often wonder if we got married too young. I remember

telling one of Pat’s friends the week he proposed, “If he’s planning on proposing, tell him

to forget it, I’m going to say no”. Pat and I met when we were 18, got engaged at 19,

and I was 21 when we got married. We had our first baby when I was 22 and our second

when I was 24. I love Pat with all my heart and sometimes we talk about how everything

came about and wonder if we still would have gotten married, or even stayed together for

that matter if we hadn’t felt forced to get married so young. We have been married for

almost 9 years now and believe me, we have definitely had our struggles. Often times

people tell us we “work well together” or we make a great team. Pat says he doesn’t like

that phrase or that saying, but personally I love when people tell us that. I feel like we

know each other better now than we did 12 years ago and we’ve grown closer through

the struggles that we’ve had. Being married is hard and it takes a lot of work, dedication,

and sacrifice. You ever heard of the 7 year itch? Yeah, that’s totally accurate. We had

been together for 7 years when we started having some serious problems. It was right

after Alaina was born. I felt trapped because I was at home all the time, babysitting

and being with my kids, which I am grateful I was able to do, while Pat was able to be

out working and talking to other adults and going to school. We started having major

problems, some that people know about and some that people don’t. Through that time

it was rough, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it. I have learned so much about love,

forgiveness, mercy, grace, sacrifice, and gratitude just from being married. I realize now

that even though I wasn’t sure if we got married too young, God was always there by our

side. He got us through the difficult times, taught us how to love each other more than

we ever imagined we could, and we have matured, forgiven, loved, and had more fun

together than we could have hoped for. I can’t imagine my life without Pat. He is such a

great father, a fabulous husband, friend, and coach. I am so happy he chose me and look

forward to spending the rest of our lives learning, loving, growing, and enjoying our time

together. I love you Pat, more than you could ever imagine.

I know I can't be the only one

Have any of you ever felt like you're going through something that will never end?  You just keep thinking, it can't last much longer because you feel like you've been going through it forever.  Pat and I have had many hard times throughout our marriage whether it was financially, spiritually, relationally, etc.  We know what it's like to go through rough patches and it always seems like it will last forever when you're going through it.  Once it's over though and you look back on it you wonder what you were freaking out about because it either doesn't seem that bad after you've made it through or it wasn't didn't last as long as you thought it did.  I know we can't be the only ones like this.

It started a year ago, in October of 2012.  We were doing well for ourselves, God had blessed us.  We were both working great jobs, we were able to finally start saving money for the things we've wanted since we had gotten married.  We had started building a house and I was so excited about my dream of having our own home was finally going to happen.  At the end of October, Pat lost his job with Monsanto.  We were still blessed as he was able to stay home with Alaina and spend more time with her, he learned how to cook, he was keeping up with the housework and doing everything he could at home while I was working hours and hours of overtime at work.  We were still optimistic.  One month led into the next and the next and the next.  FInally we got to the point where our savings was drained and he had been searching for a job for 6 months.  Nothing changed, we were still going to church, praying, serving, trusting in God's plan for our lives.  We got the news that we were not going to be able to get the home that we had built, and I was heartbroken, devistated.  I had to change my perspective and realize we are in fact still blessed.  We have a happy, healthy family, a nice house within our means, and God is still taking care of us even if we can't see it.

Finally after 6 months of searching, he finally landed a job.  He's been with Ascension since March of this year and we were so excited for him to start working again.  Somehow though, things haven't seemed to turn around.  For an entire year it seems like we've been strapped, stressed, and overwhelmed.  What's changed?  Nothing!  We apparently changed our perspective at some point in time and forgot to count our blessings and look at the things we should be grateful for.

For the remainder of the year, I am going to choose to focus on the positive.  To be grateful for the things we have instead of wishing or wanting the things we don't have.  In Novemeber I'm going to do the things I'm thankful for each day up until Thanksgiving.

Jeremiah 29:10-14  - I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.  “When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.
“When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.  “Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.” God’s Decree.  “I’ll turn things around for you..."

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Volunteering

So as most of you know, I work for Citimortgage.  They offer one day off paid per year to volunteer.  You can sign up for an organization through them or you can volunteer for one on your own.  With being so incredibly busy last year I was unable to take advantage of this opportunity.  I decided to use my volunteer day this year since we have slowed down a little.  I decided to sign up to help out at the Crisis Nursery.  The description stated that we would be stuffing backpacks with school supplies for them to hand out.  I thought to myself, that seems easy and it will be air conditioned.

The thing about volunteering is it often changes the person volunteering more than the ones being helped.  I have consistently been volunteering in church since I was 18 and I have mainly worked with children but I have done a little of everything: cleaning, office work, praise band, teaching, greeting, etc.

So there were supposed to be 12 of us volunteering for the Crisis Nursery and only 10 of us showed up.  It was hot, stuffy, little room to move around, and they had more work for us than we expected.  Two of the girls left early so that left 9 of us to sort out clothes and go through about 3,000 canned goods from a recent canned food drive.  Did I mention it was hot?  All I kept thinking about was how thirsty I was and how I couldn't wait to be finished.  So we finish sorting and marking all the canned foods and ask if there is anything else to be done.  The director asked us to throw away all the expired cans and then we could go.  We finished an hour early!  When we were leaving one of the other volunteers said, "this was such a joy!" With a smile on her face.  It made me think...when did volunteering become a "job" for me?  When did it lose its feeling of doing something kind for someone else without needing/expecting something in return?  This has been on my heart all week, to remember why I choose to volunteer and its true significance.  It's not about me!