Grow Old With Me

After commenting yesterday how glorious it would be if it would rain... God sent rain this morning!  Our whole house is starting to cool off at last, and I can almost hear the flowers clapping their petals.  It's a great sound.  What makes this cuddly day even better is that I get to share it with Matthew!  We're praying the rest he gets will heal his leg.  Jack also threw up last night, so I'm praying those germs stay away from everyone else!  Our bedroom looks like a sick ward!  Sometime in the night, Elsie came in "scared".  After cuddling her for a few minutes I just couldn't take her little kicks and wiggles any more, so I put her on the floor on a blanket with a pillow.  She loved it and is still sleeping up there.



Then Jack wandered in to say that his throat feels all better now (it stung from throwing up) but his tummy still hurts a little.  "And my legs are really slow!"  I know the feeling!  So, I made him a little bed on our floor where he fell back asleep.


He is absolutely adorable when he sleeps.  It's hard to see my warrior boy weak, though.  We'll see if we can make his legs go fast again!  Enjoy the rain!

So on Saturday morning Matthew ran 10 miles... well, later on his leg started to hurt, and it's gotten steadily worse.  He took Monday off work hoping it would heal.  Now today it's still really painful, so Dr. Beck told him he should rest it for the remainder of the week.  That's almost like telling a fish to stop swimming.  It will be fun to have a few daddy days, but unfortunately not for the best reason!  Sometimes God tells us to rest and He will take care of the REST.  Those things we think we need ourselves in order to accomplish.  Maybe He just wants us to really depend on Him.  Isn't that every day?  So, I'm thankful for an opportunity to be cast upon an unexpected moment to trust Him for provision, strength, and faith.

Yep.  It's been a bittersweet story for us.  So much blessing, but a lot of mistakes as well.  In November we will have lived here 5 years... the longest place we've lived at one time, married!  In short, we really couldn't afford our house from the beginning and made it work by putting other necessities (and non-necessities) on credit, so we could pay our mortgage.

The day we moved here, Matt bought a really nice truck... with payments attached.  Yes, he needed a truck for work, but as we found out a year later, God can provide with no strings attached!  He was gracious and when we knew we had to sell his truck to get rid of those horrible monthly payments, he was able to sell it for the exact price he bought it for the previous year.  Matthew paid cash for his current Toyota truck, no extended cab, complete with rusty spots and a constant ticking sound and really loud muffler.  It's been going strong for three years now, almost at 200K miles.  Well, maybe strong isn't the best word... but last week when it needed to be jumped numerous times in order to start, we were thankful that it only cost about $3 to fix it.  Oh, I could write a few chapters of funny stories about that truck...  let's just say, it's been going! =)

Anyway, back to the story.  It was about this time in our financial down-slide that we discovered a small group in our area doing a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class.  We hooked up with them, which led to us going to Gateway Church in Parkesburg.  This alone was worth everything we experienced, as it has been nothing but a blessing for our family: spiritually, emotionally, and financially!

Since taking this class, we have paid off close to $40,000 in consumer debt.  We can almost count on one hand now, how many more thousands to go, and are really really excited to be completely debt free.

One of the ways we kept sinking lower, was to put 50% of our take-home pay towards our mortgage.  This had to stop and we spent the last couple of years tweaking, but not successfully lowering our budget to fit the other 50%.  We worked with our mortgage company to see if we could refinance or do anything to help make it possible to keep the house.  The best they were able to do was make it so it was about 45% of our take-home pay.  This wouldn't work either and we worked on actually paying our bills with cash and starting to chunk out our debt.  We tried to sell our house but it just didn't sell.  Eventually, our mortgage went into default and we are now facing foreclosure if our house doesn't sell.  Are we proud of this?  No.  It's rather embarrassing, actually.  There's nothing like making a bad choice which leads to awful consequences that everyone can see.  We've all done it.  It wasn't easy for Matt to trade in his dream truck for something that is about as far from manly as you can get.  It isn't easy to live like you can afford something until reality comes marching at your door and shows you otherwise.  We're not proud of the decisions we made which got us to where we are.  But we are thankful for the chance to grow in wisdom and in closer dependence upon God.

The plain and simple reality is, we have so much to be thankful for.  We've gone through one of the top five things that cause divorce, and yet our love is even stronger for each other.  We've been humbled and forced to learn that contentment matters to God, not possessions.  I could go on and on about the lessons we've learned.  I could also go on and on about how God has provided for us.  While we've messed up, He's forgiven and strengthened us for the task ahead.

While praying and seeking God's will about where He wants us to move, I got really really discouraged.  I searched Craig's list and came up with horrible dumps that fit our price range, or nice doable houses that fell way out of our price range.  Matthew has a favorite thing that he likes to tell me, "God hasn't provided it yet, because it's not needed yet."  Time and again we are tested on that.  Well, school is starting up again and the Sheriff's sale is quickly approaching.  Through friends at church we heard of a house in Coatesville for rent, so we checked it out.  After we looked through it I thought how perfect it would be.  I was expecting something out of our price range, and when the landlord told us how much I had a hard time not hugging him.  It was as if God was saying, "Go ahead and take it!  I saved this just for you."

So, August 28th is our hopeful move-in date if everything gets finished that we need to do.  We are excited to move on to another chapter in our lives.  I will give more details of our move a little closer to the date.  But I've written enough and I have boxes to pack!

Last night I went in for my 18-week check-up.  Matthew was able to be with me, so it was exciting for him to hear the baby's heartbeat for his first time!  I've been feeling the baby kick a lot!  The picture below is not of our baby, but it shows the size of an 18-wk fetus.  Wow!  I am really excited to have an ultrasound in about two weeks... when we will find out which bin of clothes to pull out of the attic... any guesses?

Last Sunday our music team did an AWESOME job of playing this song... extra cool because I had been listening to it all week in the car...it sounded pretty much exactly like this:



One of my favorites!

Elsie has been mastering getting in and out of her crib for quite awhile now.  Here she is, getting in today.  Crazy girl!

I simply love these photo storage bits of genius!  Last night I stayed up until midnight organizing a huge box of discombobulated photos.  They ranged from before I was born to Elijah's babyhood.  After that we went digital and everything is organized.  I threw away a garbage bag full of photos and rickety albums that were doing more harm than good to my photos.  I am finding that I will be needing ONE more box to complete the project, so I may have to run out today and do that.



Iris Photo Keeper Storage Box 5 12 H x 7 38 W x 8 58 D Clear by Office Depot

I have been thinking that I haven't done anything FUN with my kids for awhile, so today we piled up and drove to a movie theatre with a friend and my sister.  There was a free showing of "Muppets Take Manhattan", so we went!  I hadn't seen that movie since I was ten!  On the way there our van's oil light was blinking so I had to pull over at a gas station and buy oil.  So I bought whoppers and twizzlers too.  Once there, Elsie had to go potty twice, and Jack once, but the twizzlers kept the short crowd happy.  When it finally ended we all drove to Chick Fil A for lunch.  On the way there we had to pull over because Jack had a major melt-down because a mosquito bite got scratched open and there was some blood.  Very unlike him, and it made the trip even MORE exciting!  Once we arrived, we found the entire place was crammed with people and Elsie cried in terrified fright of the giant cow walking around.  It was pretty similar to our experience with Santa Clause this past year.  She became a Klingon and clung to me with her arms and legs while I stuffed french fries in her mouth.  Besides that, it was a delightful time!


This is the video of Elsie at Christmastime with Santa Clause.  Even though terrified, she still said, "Hi", "Thank you" and "bye".  A polite Klingon. =)

Right now Matthew is headed over to the Dr. for his first Rituximab infusion.  It's been over 2 years since he had them last and the Wegener's went into major submission (not remission, but close!) afterwards.  He will have one more infusion in two weeks, then we'll see!  Thanks for praying!  His sinuses have been really inflamed and nasty again. Thankful we can start the treatment swiftly, and trusting the Lord for healing.  We love our daddy!!!