I stumbled across a new blog today. Wish I hadn’t. But glad I did.
I’m speechless. And you’ll see that Bill O’Reilly was too. Click here to watch a video of O’Reilly interviewing Jill Stanek, nurse turned activist, about preborn and postborn abortions she witnessed.
This just blows my mind.
Read more on her blog.
Bran Muffins as a litmus test for love? It’s possible. What isn’t with marriage? One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that grace and goodness can be shown to your spouse in the kitchen.
Think about it. Where else do you intentionally make crazy messes, struggle to get exact measurements, fight to multi-task, break, spill and burn things, realize you’re missing ingredients, and completely wear yourself out? And then have a mess spanning wall to wall to clean up afterwords?
Or is that just in our kitchen?
So for the last several days Jason has been talking about desperately craving homemade bran muffins. One of the things that I love about my husband is that he is completely self-sufficient. Not only does he iron all of his own clothes, but he can do every household chore like a champ. I’m not saying that he loves them all, but he knows how to do them and he will…without complaining. I know. I’m blessed. Additionally, he’s a great cook and a talented baker.
So today he came home from work ready to make long awaited bran muffins. I wasn’t feeling well again (nauseated ALL day from messing up my medication), so I was asleep on the couch.
All of a sudden I heard him exclaim,
with frustration and discouragement (okay that’s not what he said, but I rated this blog G). Jason gets very easily frustrated with himself. I think he demands perfection and accepts nothing less.
One of the things that I have learned as a wife is that it is not my role to swoop into a situation like that and tell my husband what he could have or should have been doing (not that I know anyway). So I gave him some space.
A few minutes later another loud
Followed by a few
I decided it was time to get up. For the next several minutes, my goal was to respect my husband and work with him to solve the problems he was having. Usually I am controlling and bossy. This time I tried something different. I built him up. I complimented what he was doing. I told him that he was a good cook and the mistakes that had been made were not a big deal. The few dollars of food and ingredients that were wasted were not a big deal at all…especially because it was the first time he was trying the recipe.
What happened next was a blessing to both of us. I watched his countenance soften and his shoulders broaden. His eyebrows lifted and his frustration with himself started to release. We worked together to finish the recipe, and I didn’t say one negative thing. I didn’t criticize his temper-tantrum (who wants to be scolded in that moment anyway), I didn’t advise, take over, or direct. It was HIS project and I let him finish it. But I just stood by his side as his partner. His partner that believed in him.
The end result?
Delicious bran muffins baked by my baby. Made all the more delicious by the lessons learned.
The kitchen? A laboratory for love-learning! 
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
-Ephesians 5:21-28
Check out the delicious recipe here!
…I am what I am. (1 Corinthians 15:10)
So I stumbled across Lisa Leonard’s handmade jewelry line today. I saw this necklace, and it really spoke to me.
The back says “I am what I am.” I ordered it and got free shipping from “(in)courage.” Click this site to order. (Free shipping code: INFREESHIP)
So this morning I woke up to my phone ringing. When I picked up it was the agent from the University Place property. I was so excited she called! I began to explain our situation to her and then asked some questions. Come to find out, we will not qualify to rent this house because you have to show proof that you make 3x’s the amount of the rent each month (4x’s if you still have a mortgage).
I was so discouraged.
But I’ve sat here and thought about it for the last two hours and I’m letting go. My real estate agent made a good point. He said that we should stop looking until we find out that the bank has approved the offer. Once we start moving toward closing then we can look for a place. Makes sense. It’s hard. But it makes sense.
So I’m letting go of the two properties we found. If they’re meant to be perhaps they will still be on the market in a few months. If not, God has something else for us out there. Of that I am certain.
The other rough part to the morning has to do with something pretty personal.
This summer I was diagnosed with clinical depression. It’s hard for me to write this and just stick it out there for anyone to see. I’m a person who is bubbly, energetic, and outgoing. People who know me would never believe that I am on medication for depression. But after a whole mess of issues these last few years I’ve sort of lost myself.
I’m just now getting healthy again. I’m reading my Bible. I’m back in church. I’m talking to God again. All of that feels really good.
So the rough part of my morning was this: Since we are trying to conceive, I really want to go off the Zoloft because I do not want to be taking any medications when the baby is conceived (or during the pregnancy). Two days ago I totally forgot to take my medicine. So I (foolishly) thought that I’d just use that as an opportunity to discontinue using the antidepressant. Yesterday I split the dose to 1/2 and today I was going to do the same.
Well I was feeling pretty low last night and then this morning I found myself crying for no reason at all. I’m frustrated, because I can see that I can’t just go off the meds like this. I can see that I still need them. I didn’t want to be dependent on them. I didn’t want them to control my life. I don’t want to have to put off conception because of a problem I have.
So there you have it. Me in my weakness. I don’t know what to do. I know that I need to talk to a doctor. I know that I need to figure out the best solution for both me and any future child we may have. It’s just humbling.
But God is in the business of humbling. And I desire humility. If this is the route He has to get me there (and I believe it is), so be it.
It is well with my soul.
In order to appreciate this post and the cartoon from CartoonStock.com, you need to know a very important fact.
I am deathly afraid of spiders.
I will scream, run in the other direction, and cry for Jason to come save the day. He gets quite frustrated with me!
I cannot stand girlie girls that do that for attention. Please understand that I am being honest when I say it is a real fear. I think that spiders are the MOST disgusting thing on earth. Well, besides vampires that feed on humans. You know who you are, James, Laurent, and Victoria! New Moon in less than 2 months! 11.20.09!!!
Sorry. Random aside. I’m obsessed.
Anyway. Back to today. Jason and I found two houses online that are listed as rental properties. One is in Tacoma near 6th, and the other is in University Place.
I had found the one in Tacoma online last night and so we decided to drive by today during Jason’s lunch break. It actually ended up being right down the street from Jason’s aunt and uncle’s house. Well when we drove by we thought that it looked pretty adorable.
It was built in 1925 and has 4 bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a bonus room upstairs. The backyard is fully fenced. It’s about 3 blocks from 6th and 5 blocks from UPS. Interesting…so we called the number on the sign and made an appointment to check it out later that night (tonight).
On my way home I decided to stop at Chambers Bay to let Charlie run in the field for a while. He loved it!!!
As I headed home, I was driving through University Place thinking what a nice community that would be to live in. I’ve always thought that as we drove through, but just thought that we probably wouldn’t be able to afford it. I’ve actually been doing searches for rental properties in that area and have come up with nothing. I was driving past one street in particular and literally to myself said, I bet that would be a cute street to live down. I’m usually not the most observant when it comes to street signs, but I made a mental note of that street so I could check it out when I got home.
Literally a few minutes later, my phone buzzed with an email from Jason. It had a link to a rental property with no more information than his one quote: “Interesting.” I couldn’t open it while I was driving, so I waited to get home.
When I got home I looked at it and wasn’t initially that impressed. Then I looked at its location on the map. It was on that exact street that I had wondered about. It surprised me.
Anyway, we headed out to do the first showing tonight at 7. Linda, Angie, Mindy, Tember, Connie, and Rus all met us there. We spent a fair amount of time walking through the house. It was very cute. It’s a craftsman with lots of unique details. It’s definitely an older home, and you can tell that as you walk through. The stairs up and down are very narrow and steep. Closets are small. Things are a little worn down. But there have been lots of updates, paint and new carpet. The backyard is decent sized. And the neighborhood is precious.
Biggest problem:
The downstairs bathroom tub was FILLED, and I mean FILLED with spiders. And when I say spiders, I mean cousins to the tarantula. I’m talking BIG. I’m talking large. And I’m even talking hairy. It FREAKED me out. I think they were dead, but who really can tell? Sleeping spider…dead spider…deadLY spider. Same difference. EWWWW!
Minus that one MAJOR setback, we liked it. But it’s expensive. It’s actually more than what we’re paying for our mortgage right now. We could do it, but it would be tight. So we thanked the agent and said we’d take some time to think about it.
We weren’t sure if we were going to head to the other place, but at the last minute decided to try and check it out while we were driving around. I was blown away. It is so close to so many wonderful things. The streets are wide with great sidewalks and even bike paths! Everything is green and it’s more spread out. It has more of a community feel, as opposed to a city. The house is on a dead end street in a very well-kept neighborhood. The house itself isn’t GORGEOUS from the street, but is still very nice. It is 1700 square feet with an incredible, fully fenced yard. There are 3 beds, 2.5 baths, a formal living room, formal dining room, and a rec room. There is a two car garage and the owner agrees to pay all landscaping/lawn maintenance fees. And the utilities are all included in our monthly rent. We would actually be saving $175 a month with this place and doing a huge upgrade from where we are now.
As you can see, these are two totally different properties!
For the UP place, we made a call and left a message with the leasing company. They open at 8:30 tomorrow morning, so I may call by 9:00 if I haven’t heard from them and try and schedule an appointment.
The whole renting thing is humbling for us after being home-owners. But I guess getting out of this home and getting a fresh start outweighs the negatives. I cannot tell you how nice it would be to live in either home. We do need to be careful about getting into a lease agreement before we get approval from the bank on the short sale. That’s the hard part…waiting. We don’t want to miss an opportunity on a great rental home, but we also don’t want to get stuck paying our mortgage AND rent! Not to mention the fact that we’re not even sure if we’re going to be approved to rent after doing a short sale OR what will happen if the bank sees that we are renting a property for a similar price to what our mortgage was…The bank doesn’t care about the fact that it’s a bad neighborhood or that you lost money on the home. They just want you to make your payments.
We will be praying about where God wants us to be, and will be asking Him to make it clear to us!
