Where Have I Been???

It seems like I haven't touched my blog in a week!

We spent last week at mom and dad's for Spring Break.  We did a whole lot of nothing, which was great!  But, I managed to gain 4 or 5 pounds.  Gosh .. I can't believe I couldn't maintain by doing nothing but sitting and eating!!

We came home yesterday afternoon.  I was so excited to sleep in my own bed, and then ended up tossing and turning all night!  I was so disappointed!

This morning we went to church and then came home for an afternoon of work.  Rick worked all afternoon in the yard building flower garden boxes around the side and back of our house. This required moving lots of dirt, so he is exhausted tonight!  I started going through Brynne's closet and getting her outgrown summer clothes marked for the JBF Owasso sale that is next week.  That took a couple of hours.  Since I am employed by JBF, I also had to get organized with my volunteers.  Being out of state last week had me a tad confused with my volunteers, so I spent the last part of this evening straightening that all out.  Dawson spent the afternoon at Braden's (because he hadn't seen him all break) and Kyndal had a friend over.  They washed both the Suburban and Rick's car.  That was nice!  Eli and Brynne found a bucket of 101 Dalmation toys and they played with those and one of those antique Fisher Price treehouses and barn.  Then Brynne tripped outside and fell and was so distraught that she stripped down to her panties, got in our bed, and slept the rest of the evening.  She had been really cranky today, so I think she was still fighting the tail end of her virus she had this week.

It's 10:00 p.m. and everyone is in bed, even Rick.  I'm ready for it to be Monday tomorrow so I can get back into my routine.  I am a routine girl, that's for sure!

One last thing ... as many of you know Rick and I made a change in our spending this year 2009. We made a conscious decision that we were going to work to pay off all of our debt, except our house.  To do that we were going to have to REALLY tighten our budget.  He basically stopped spending any money and has been taking his lunch to work.  I tightened up our grocery budget and have really been working hard in that area, as well as not spending any money outside the budget.  We have slowly been paying toward our debt, about 1% a month.  At that rates, it's going to take us a while.  And we were prepared for that!

Last year we had gotten complacent and started living above our means.  We were very ashamed of that, and wanted to get back on track.  We truly felt it was a turning back to God, and allowing Him to dictate our finances again.  That obedience has paid off!!

Although we weren't excited about it taking a very long time to pay off our debt, we were willing to do whatever it took for however long, and not be bitter about it.  Rick's company did give them their bonuses this year, and we are extremely grateful for that.  (Especially in light of the fact that some in his company have been laid off, and no raises were given this year).  We had a number in our minds of what we "needed" to do what we "wanted" in regard to our debt this year.  We got our income tax returns back from our accountant yesterday.  We are getting a total refund that is over 3 times what we were expecting!!!

Immediately we have to give all credit to God and to thank Him for blessing us in our obedience!  What we will be able to pay off with that money gets us quickly closer to our goals! And it allows us to make a few adjustments to our budget and do some landscaping that we desperately need to do (so the HOA letters can stop coming!!  If you don't know, we just built our house a little over a year ago  and the work that has to be done to our property is overwhelming!)

My point in this super long story .. God is faithful!  God is good!  And we need to remember that!  I don't want to disappoint Him when He has entrusted us with this money to do good things with it.  Obedience is so key!

So, tomorrow it's back to the regular posts, with all the extras I throw in.  I'll have a menu planned for tomorrow.  Wait .. I guess I'd better get to that.