:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

As of this evening my beloved Jeep will be gone!

I am having some serious mixed feelings about it so I just want to get the less happy parts out so I can move on and just be super thrilled for Erik and I!

Um...

I'm selfish.

I guess that is the only problem in this scenario, huh?  Ha!

Now that is over...HOOOOOOORRRAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

God is so wonderful.  We have been trying to sell that dang Jeep for MONTHS!  Seriously!  For several thousand dollars less than KBB. Not a single response or serious inquiry in all that time.  So Sunday we had enough and relisted it for considerably more than we were hoping to get out of it and guess what?  Within a few hours, someone emailed!  WOW!  Said potential buyer was from Texas looking to get a Jeep for his son and ours was pretty much the best bargain he had found.  (Seriously?  Even after our jacked up asking price??  LOL)  After a few emails we found out that he was taking a trip to OKC for work already and wanted to take a look at it and maybe for a test drive.

That is when panic set in.

Uh, we have a serious buyer who is going to travel a couple hundred miles.  This is getting real.  Where the heck did I put the title???

You would have thought that in the MONTHS we have had it for sale that one of us would have thought to locate said title.  Um, no.  We didn't.  So after hours of looking through things while I was refusing to take cover during the crazy tornado laden weather I came to the conclusion that it was just lost.

Really??  Really?!?!  A quick Google search and I quickly knew that it would take 3-4 weeks for me to file for a lost title and get it back.  No way was this guy going to wait that long.  No way was he not going to think that we were some crazy crooks trying to swindle people into buying stolen title-less vehicles.  Crap.

So in defeat I typed up a quick email to him telling him that in all my airheadedness, I had obviously lost the title when I moved in with Erik after our wedding.  I apologized profusely and quickly hit send truly not expecting to ever hear back from him.  (Because that is what you do when you encounter crazy people, right?  You run???  Ha!)

Within minutes he emailed back.  He didn't care.

Say what now??  I suppose in Texas, the lien holder keeps possession of the title until all debts have been paid and then it is released.  So since he is getting it financed through his credit union, he didn't care!  It won't cause any problem with him registering the car or anything.  He called his financier the next morning and so long as we have proof that we filed for a lost title and sent it to them when it arrived, they were fine with it!  WOW!

Only God could have planned it like that.  He found a buyer for us out of state who was already traveling here anyways who was kind and sweet and wasn't trying to cheat us into selling the car to him for as cheap as possible.  (He offered us a VERY fair price which was more than we were hoping for.) He came from a state that has laws that fit perfectly in with my forgetful flawed nature so that everything would work out despite my inability to appropriately file important paperwork.  He brought us someone who offered us a price that would not only pay off the car, but leave enough cash to pay off my only credit card (not a small number embarrassingly) and STILL have enough left to fix the body damage and the air conditioning in the car I will be now driving.

So tonight.  Tonight it leaves.

A quick tally of the math and after we pay off the Jeep,  Erik's Yukon, (which is now my Yukon...lol since it is what I will be driving) pay off the credit card, and include all the smaller things we have paid, we will have paid off over $22k in debt over 4 months!!!  We should be completely debt free (besides our house!) by the end of the summer.  It feels like such a big girl step (or big boy in Erik's case) to be making and I am so entirely proud of us.

My selfishness-wanna-keep-it-cause-its-mine-and-I-do-what-I-wanna attitude can get over it because this feels awesome.  :)

Have I mentioned I love my husband?

Because I do.  So very much.  :)

Last night I was looking through the different children available for adoption through Reece's Rainbow (like I do every week!) and came across the sweetest face ever:

This is 'Helen' - more information about her can be found here.

And of course, I instantly fell in love.  (I am blessed to fall in love quite often!)  What a sweet girl!  

So I tell my lovely husband who is in the next room watching television that if she is still an orphan by the time we are able to adopt (January 2012 at the earliest!) that I think we should go get her.

And he just looks at me and says, "Okay."  Okay, I think?  Just..."okay??"  I would love to say that I responded with the poise and grace befitting the fact that I am speaking with my dear beloved about something so important.  But no...no my friends.  This was not my shining marital moment.  Patience is a virtue that I struggle with frequently daily.  So I look at him in all my indignant glory and am like, "Uh, do you even want to see her??" And it is sooo obvious by the tone of my voice that I am offended that he brushed me off so quickly.

And then he said something that completely broke my heart in such a fantastic and necessary way.  Oh my.  My husband.  He just looks at me and says, "Does it matter?  She needs a home."

BAM.  Straight through my heart.  Of course, I am immediately guilty for getting annoyed with him so quickly.    But wow.  It just caught me completely off guard.  So rapidly blinking away tears I ran over and hugged him tightly since no words could top the absolute and unconditional love that he had just so casually uttered.

Goodness.  I am just endlessly blessed.  My crazy husband, who is rarely serious about anything, just taught me such an important lesson about what it means to truly love.  And I doubt he even knows it.  :)



Oh.  And I definitely hope that Miss 'Helen' is not still an orphan by the time we are looking to adopt.  I hope she has a family tomorrow!  I just want her to go to a family!



::EDIT::  As of today (Monday the 9th), Miss Helen has a tentative family!  WOW!  God works quickly!  :)

Things I love today:

-My dear sweet husband who took time out of his day to bring me lunch.  Just because. 

:)

Wouldn't ya know?

Isn't it always when you have a plan to do something and get so excited about it something seems to go wrong!  Ha!  Erik and I have still been trying to sell my Jeep.  We wanted to sell it privately, but if nothing came of that soon we were going to just bite the bullet and trade it in for less than what its worth...but we would be done with the dang car payments and be saving so much on interest.

Well...last night Erik backed into my poor pretty Jeepy with his big fat truck.  Nice, huh?  So now we have to get pretty much the whole passenger front quarter replaced.  Its not enough to turn it into our insurance we don't think...so there goes the money to put into a new cheapy car for me!  Dang!  Hopefully we will get a quote soon and it will be less than we are thinking, but we aren't counting on it!

But it is all good!  God is good and he will provide when the time is right!  :)

For now, we are going to get my poor baby Jeepy into the body shop.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring??  :):):)

Heart Breaks

It is the most crushing feeling that this sweet girl doesn't have a family.  There are so many orphans...so many...but this girl...every time I see her face I feel so broken.  I wish there was something I could do for her. I wish I could run the 5,700 miles to her and tell her that God loves her and soon...very soon...her family will find her.  And they too will love her.  

As I write this, a family is preparing for you.  In their hearts, in their homes, in their lives.  I know it.  I know God has great plans for you, little Vanessa.  You turn two this month.  I wish I knew the day.  Maybe next year you can celebrate it with a Mama and Papa of your own.  :)

Reece's Rainbow

How do you know?

This is what I have been thinking about for a few days now.  Specifically, how do you know you are ready to become a parent?  I'm not sure how the thought really got into my head...but now it is there.  And has burrowed.  Now it is the constant and all consuming thought in the still moments of my life.

Where did this shift come?  Since Erik and I have been married I have been adamant that I was definitely not ready for a baby.  I was not ready to be a mama.  I wanted to be selfish and think of only myself, my husband, and my marriage.  But somewhere...somewhere it has changed.  Maybe it is all the cute growing bellies I see around...maybe it is the dear friend of mine that just found out that he and his wife are expecting a tiny little surprise 33 weeks from now...maybe it is just something in the dang water.  Either way it has me thinking.

Is it something you can really decide?  It is a major realization that I had after the first sneaking appearance of this thought that most of the parents in my life became that way on accident.  They didn't have time for the what if questions that I find myself plagued with.  It wasn't a part of "the plan" but they made it work!  And that is how Erik and I have been all along.  We aren't planning on getting pregnant anytime soon (it is an ambiguous maybe in 5 years or so whenever anyone asks) but we know we could happily make it work if we found ourselves in the situation.

I know the church-y answer would be to pray about it.  (And believe me, I am!)  God will provide the peace I am needing.  But anyone being real about it knows that a lot of the time sometimes, you don't get the answer you are looking for and sometimes you don't even get an answer at all!  And I am okay with that!  Sometimes you just have to have the faith to know that everything will be okay.

I keep going back and forth between deciding that I am psycho and am waaaay over thinking life and the other side that I am not thinking about it enough!  I know part of it is my very well founded and biologically reinforced fear that I won't ever be able to conceive...so what if Erik and I are wasting what may be precious time not trying.  What if we do wait 5 years to decide we want kids and it takes us another 3-5 years for it to work???  (If it ever does at all!)  I don't want to be 30+ and just starting out with our first little one.  I was hoping to be nearly done at 30!  (With the exception of any adoption opportunities that present themselves.)  What if we wait so long that our kids don't get the chance to know our parents?  (Erik's parents are in their 60's and not in the best shape health wise so that is a real possibility if we wait too much longer.)  It was such a stab in the heart when Erik's papa died to know that our kids will never even meet him.  He was such a loving and remarkable man.  (Miss you, Papa Bloom!)  What if we always find another excuse as to why we should wait?  I know it is a selfish thought, but what if I never get to do all the things I had always planned on?  (School...travel...getting out of debt...whatever!)  I mean, I don't really think that I child would inhibit me...but that is what EVERYONE keeps telling me.  "Don't have a baby yet, you will never ________."  You can fill in the blank with whatever.  It is usually about school when I hear it though.  ;)  The what ifs are driving me crazy.  But this is Erik and I's life.  We have to do what we believe is right.  I just...I don't want to wait for some ideal situation to come about for us to think it is the right time.

What should go into this decision?  If anything at all???  Oh gosh.  This shouldn't be so hard.  ;)

Gotta stick to it.

Woke up this morning with considerable less resolve about selling my car.  The spoiled selfish perfectly flawed human in me reared her ugly head and decided I should keep it. 

I was driving to work thinking, "But I love my car.  I don't want to sell it.  It is my car."

And then it hit me.  It is not my car.  Never has been.  The lovely people at my credit union own my car.  Not only that, but they own my car PLUS 8.999% above that!  I have negative ownership in that car. 

So now I am in search of my car.  One that is truly mine and not just in my posession.  I know that I will find something that I love and that God will send me the perfect one regardless of any cosmetic and mechanical issues it has and I will be more than content because it will be PAID FOR!!!  So, God, Erik and I are on the prowl for the new Love family vehicle!  (Which may or may not have room for a bit of growth in our little family!  Who knows!)

:)

Commitment.

Erik and I are jumping in with both feet.

We decided to get out of debt and here is where the big leap has to be made as to where we are on the commitment level.  So we are going for it.

...we listed my car for sale this evening.

We were blessed enough last summer to be able to pay cash for a truck for Erik but we still are making payments and will be for the next 3.5 years on my Jeep.

We aren't in a desperate position really.  We can keep making the payment ($350/month) until it is paid off just fine, but this dumb car payment comprises the bulk of our debt.  We could keep comfortable...keep driving it...sacrifice nothing.

But our desire to be out of debt outweighs my need to drive such an expensive car!  I wish I would have known back then what I know now!  But Erik and I are excited!  (He is also listing his project truck for sale, so go Erik!  We are doing this together, baby!)

So hopefully we will sell it, pay off the balance, and pay cash for something cheaper!

Hooray for sacrifices!

Homes

It is so amazing to me that knowing that a child has found a home can be such an emotional experience.  

I do not know these children.  I do not know their families.  But I do know their Father.

It makes my heart so happy that they will learn what it is to love and be loved.  It is such a fantastic feeling!  Every single time I see one of those sweet faces moved over to the "My Family Found Me" page, it is so hard to hold back the tears.  Especially when it is a little one that I have spent hours praying over.  Two kids this past week that have held a special place in my heart and prayers have been found.  All I can say is that God is good!

Reeces Rainbow is such a blessing in my life.  Maybe it could be for you, too.  :)

Why is it so difficult to say no?

Erik and I have been going through a ton of exciting changes lately and couldn't be more excited about them!  :)

To start off the new year, dear husband and I decided to shed the uh...marriage weight have accumulated!  So on came the diet with about 150lbs between the two of us that we aspire to lose.  Yikes!  But less than two weeks into it we are doing well!  25lbs cumulatively!  Woohoo!  Thank you, South Beach diet!

So there is the beginning of us saying no.  No thank you, we would not like to grab some pizza after the game.  No self, you do not need those tasty looking dinner rolls.  No I do not like those vegetables...what else on this blasted diet can I eat?! 

Whole big bunch of no. 

But honestly that isn't the most difficult no we have been faced with.  So here comes the second big change!
We are getting out of debt!  I know that isn't the most exciting news...but it is for us!  We came to the very sobering realization that we were limiting the blessings that God could provide if we were constantly struggling trying to pay off things that should have been taken care of LONG ago!  So it is our goal to pay off everything we owe (with the exception of our house...we don't make nearly that much!) over the course of the next year.  Which it will definitely be a challenge -- we have cut back our budget to only the bare minimum.  Bye bye cable!  But we are so excited about it that it feels more like an adventure than a burden. 

But that brings us to the difficult part of the 'no' process.  Saying it to other people.  Erik and I have gotten pretty good about telling ourselves no...but when it comes to saying to other people, "No, we just really can't afford it" it seems like we are having trouble.  It isn't because we are embarrased to say it...I really don't care what people think...lol.  But it is the dissapointment that is becoming so hard to deal with.  Somehow it is offensive to people that we are choosing to buckle down for a year.  A year.  I mean we aren't being so crazy as to run around like bandits snatching lightbulbs from their sockets in an effort so save money on our electric bill and no we aren't sitting in the dark.  We aren't abiding by the philosophy that showering every third day is a viable option to free up some extra cash.  Neither are we forsaking our obligation to Tithe or cut any money from the giving that we enjoy so much.  But somehow...when we say "no, we can't go the movies" or "no, we can't afford to go out to dinner" it is coming across as insulting to the recipient of said phrase.  I so hate dissapointing people.  But I really wish there were more people that were excited for us and could understand that just because we can't go out and blow the equivalent of a weeks worth of groceries on one meal doesn't mean that we don't want to spend time with them.  When did the world become so that you can't spend time together unless it costs?  Hm.  Something to ponder.

I know that it is not everyones conviction to spend less and save/pay off more.  But it is ours.  How could God possibly bless us with a child (through adoption or biological means) or the ability to move to a new home if we can't even work with what we have now?  So we are clearing a path.  :)
And hopefully by next year, we will be a clean slate for God to open up all kinds of opportunity for us!  For the very first time I am so over joyed about the possible changes to come rather than being reserved about it.  So yay!

Prayers on all "no" fronts would be appreciated!

If only, if only!

Precious precious little boys!  If it were a year from now, these adorable babies would be coming home to me.  What sweet little faces these babies have!  I pray they find loving homes soon.  :)

Happy Birthday, Erik...yesterday!

Yesterday was my dear sweet husbands birthday.  He is now the ripe old age of 24!  I know, he is ancient right?  Hehe...
It has been a milestone I have been looking towards since we started seriously talking about adopting.  365 (now 364) more days until the magic 25; the age that at least one of us has to be before we can actually make a commitment to bring a child into our life through the gift of adoption.  :)
It is a scary thought.  We both know that we have heard the call of adoption.  We have been directed to a ministry and know the long road we have ahead of us.  But wow!  In a year...it could all begin.  All of the requirements on the blessed preliminary "list" will have been satisfied and there we will be...waiting for God to reveal a specific child.  Our child.  It may be a year from now, it may be ten years.  But just to know that the possibility is out there...it makes me so anxious.  I know that Erik and I will never feel financially ready, or feel like it is the perfect time...but isn't that the wonder of God?  He knows better.  He knows how it will all work.  And he will give us the means in which to bring it all together.  We have already started an adoption fund.  :)  Right now, it is just a piggy bank...but I know that through prayer, sacrifice, and diligence that it will grow into more. 
So here we are...(unofficially) counting down!  Hooray!