That time you remembered that God is why it's possible.

I want to begin by saying that God. Is. Awesome. 

Everything that's happened in the past month or so has not just been luck, but true direction and opportunity from the Great Almighty.

Check out God's light shining down on us...literally.

I'm behind in blogging. Admittedly, I haven't been keeping up with the 100 or so blogs I frequent. I haven't read. I haven't written. In fact, I can barely find time for sleeping in between work and homework and family and church. BE GRATEFUL! I'm staying up way passed my bed time in order to get this post out.

David (finally!) has a job. With me. Which is perfect (thank you, God) since we're now a one car household. I was afraid we'd be spending so much on gas and that our schedules wouldn't work. But now we commute together, I still don't have to see him all day because I'm in the office and he's in the field, and even though he usually works longer hours than I do, we only live 10 minutes away; making it convenient to pick him up after I've already gone home. David's first week was paid daily in cash. That, with the birthday earnings from the previous week, was just enough to get us gas, food, pay bills, and whatever other necessities we needed to make it through the week.

He's happier. It's pretty obvious.

I've already worked overtime my first week...which I believe is going to be a reoccurring thing. My boss has considered moving me to salary to avoid having to pay me $200 extra dollars a week because I end up working 10 hours a day, and working a few extra on Saturday. We're busy, busy, busy!

Speaking of church, we've started going to Providence Road Church of Christ. I love it! The service is perfect. Lots of singing, lots of worship, lots of friendly people, lots of community outreach, and plenty of women holding prominent positions in the church. All of it was strange to see at a COC, but I enjoyed the change of pace. God really directed us to the perfect fit.

As an update, all of our stressful nonsense seems to have worked out. We ended up having to sign the title over to the wrecker company that towed David's crapped-out Xterra during the move. The few places in Georgia (where the car was broken down) that gave money for parts/scrap metal were only offering us about $300. When we discussed the "storage fee" with the wrecker company, we would pretty much break even, so we agreed to swap the title for the fees and just break clean and start over. It saved us from having to do any traveling and left the arrangements up to them. It was a bit of a loss because we're down to one car, but I hated that ugly (in its defense, it was David's fault that the car had an ugly mug), sun-screen-smelling car anyway.  All that means is that we can get a newer, safer car that can fit more than two people...if you catch my drift. Not that that'll happen anytime soon, but I'm glad I don't have to trade my Mustang for another car. It all works out in the end.

And! I'm back on the homework wagon. This is my last week of this session, followed by a two week break, and then new classes. I really screwed up my GPA this quarter by missing two weeks of assignments, but I did what I could. All I can say is that I'll do better next week. It won't be as exciting as having a 4.0, but damn it, it's been a rough month. And here we are. Alive. Maintaining. And happy.

Unfortunately, all this 50-hours-a-week-ing and homework and other exhausting stuff has made it nearly impossible for us to run. My body is aching to eat good food; begging me to get my behind on the pavement, but it's just been too difficult. I'm getting up at 5am, dragging home anywhere between 5 and 9, and after dinner and homework, I'm DONE! Once everything slows down, and our schedule falls into a pretty solid routine, we need to start back. We're eating crap because it's convenient (though we've managed to successfully stay away from fast food...with the exception of our two nights at CookOut), and too poor to eat like we used to. Being an adult is HARD.

Hopefully, I'll get caught up with everyone else in the next week or so. Thanks for sticking with me, folks! It's been an insane few weeks. Much love to those who have stuck by us from the beginning. "If you were absent during my struggle, don't expect to be present during my success." Thanks, Will Smith, for some words of encouragement.

xoxo, Lovies.

The incredibly long post that describes my terrible pre-Easter Saturday.

School starts today.
South Florida in 4 days.
DB and David and Miami in 9 days.
Wedding in 11 days.
Busch Gardens in 12 days.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter/Passover weekend. Mine was absolutely ridiculous. Let me recap for you:

Saturday, David and I brought my car in for an oil change. Yay for knowing the manager and getting $20 off of my service (for a grand total of $18.60).

In the midst of making sure I have everything I need for the wedding, we headed to Ross to shop for a dress for the rehearsal dinner. After dragging David around for a little under an hour, I finally found four that I thought would be winners. Less than five minutes after I tried them all on, I realized that I had left my phone in the fitting room and went back to retrieve it...only to find it empty. Panic set in after trying to remain optimistic about the loss, but after making several calls to my phone, the "finder" (that sounds so much better than thief) turned it off. Lost forever.

As a side note: Friday night, David and I found a phone on a bench at the lake where we run. Despite his protests to just leave the phone where it was, I called the numbers on the recent call list to locate the owner, and was able to return it. You'd think I'd have stirred up some good karma, right?

Anyway.

I left my information with customer service, and we headed back to the house so that I could activate an old phone that I had before my Android. Weirdly enough, this old phone was apparently "tied to another account" that was not mine. It would take at least 24 hours to investigate. Needless to say, David and I made a trip to the store to get a new phone that I didn't have the money for.

After that was taken care of, we headed to the mall to take pictures with the Easter bunny as a favor to my mother (a long standing tradition that she cannot survive without). I would post it if I had thought to scan it in before work. My hair looked absurd (and had--very obviously, if I might add--caught in the bunny's costumed hand...sigh) and we have our thumbs up like idiots. But much appreciation to my wonderfully supportive boyfriend. He stood in line for a whole hour while nap-deficient, rowdy kids swarmed around us like flies. We rewarded our patience with Auntie Anne's pretzels. Also a tradition.

And just because:

Right before we left the mall, a man called to say that he had found "a phone" in his girlfriend's purse, and saw that David had texted to "do the right thing" with his phone number. I'd like to believe that he was, in fact, doing the right thing, but my Droid became absolutely useless after I turned off the service and flagged it for theft. Then we got the call that it was "found". I'm hoping it was just a coincidence. The pickup was arranged, and I was ecstatic. It was a few moments later that I realized that my new phone was useless...and a complete waste of money.

Dammit.

What we were looking forward to was our Easter dinner plans with Mallory and James. My mother had reserved us a Honeybaked Ham that we were headed to get after our mall adventure. When I called to confirm with her, however, she told me that was supposed to have picked it up before 3pm. Cue aggravation. After arguing with her, Mallory suggested that we go to the store to see if anything could be done.

We went.

They provided.

Yay, ham.

Before heading back, we stopped at Sam's for remaining Easter dinner ingredients. Bravely, I decided to call my bank to see how much money was left from my pathetic paycheck. Did I even have enough to make the drive to South Florida? When I heard the balance, I almost had a heart attack. My new, non-smart phone phone was incapable of bringing up my bank account, so I used Mallory's. That number was no lie. I had miraculously acquired a substantial amount of money. What?? A little more investigation revealed that after two months of waiting for my tax return claim (there was some information that needed to be disputed), it had finally posted to my account. It was all I could do to hold back the tears in the middle of the checkout line. God is SO good!!

Sunday was much less frustrating. Church, nap, cooking, dinner, walking, David's house, Pirates of the Caribbean, home, Airplane, sleep. I meant to take a picture of our superb cooking, but I was too busy being a lard. I ate everything in sight. Yay, diet. We even decided to forego Day 2 of Week 8 in remembrance of the Resurrection Day (ie. we're fat and lazy and needed nap time). Also, most of my nails broke throughout the day. So now they're short and useless. Perfect timing, nails.

Oh, and David and I have registered for our first 5k on May 19th. If you're local, support the cause here.

***

There is still so much to be done before I leave for South Florida this Friday. I'm requesting prayers for David's sanity this week. I suppose for mine, as well. I can NOT wait for this month to be over. Happy Monday, dolls!

He'll never forsake you. Don't be afraid.

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Psalms 1:24

To quickly and painlessly confirm the rumors: yes, Justin and I are separated. No, I'm not okay about it. And if you really want to know, I don't have a problem telling you why I feel the way I feel about where we were, where we are, and where we're going. But I'm not going to blog about it. There's plenty of that going on over here: justinbrown11.wordpress.com

Now that that's out of the way...

I need that three day weekend to hurry up and get here. I don't think I've been this tired in so long. There is no doubt that I am emotionally and physically drained. I want to do something "fun" and "exciting" this weekend, but I fear I'll be stuck in bed, sleeping away my stay-cation. I take a nap almost everyday and yet I still find myself shut-eye at my desk in the morning as if I were back in high school. Fortunately, this week has been a blur of movie previews and presentations of releases that have come and gone: Death Race, Garden State, The Invention of Lying, Four Christmas', Rent, All Dogs Go To Heaven, and a few others I can't seem to remember.

Apparently school starts today. Or is it tomorrow? ... School starts this week for the college kids. It's pretty cool to say that now that I'm graduated. Even cooler not to have to go back. I've heard a few of my friends give mixed opinions about being graduated and day dreaming about their return to school. I hated school. In fact, I've always hated school, so I don't think that is any surprise to my readers. The monotony, the homework, the boring lectures, the ESSAYS, the reading assignments that I could have skimmed instead of read, the studying for tests I would never pass, taking a test for information we definitely didn't have the time to learn in class, fighting for a parking spot, the long walk to the other side of campus because I couldn't find a parking spot, not having internet while I'm trying to get on facebook instead of listen to the lecture.....I can't imagine going back. There are some days that I consider reapplying for graduate school, but then I remember that it's a waste of time.

Valentine's Day 2008

On the bright side, (my) David--not to be confused with David "Don't interrupt my story" Hindman-- will be here in 25 days! I'm so very excited to have been able to see both of my boys this summer. Now if only Lauren would get her behind up here, I'd feel a lot better.

I've also been seriously contemplating another life course. I love that I have a job; a job that I like, in a comfortably close field that I majored in. Despite liking my job, I don't love it. And I feel like my talents and passion is being wasted sitting at an office desk, occasionally answering my phone, and becoming a filing fiend and a copy-machine expert. I am highly considering signing up to do mission work for a Church of Christ ministry. Somewhere outside the US. Somewhere I can be engulfed in a culture not my own. Somewhere I can witness a child's walk with Christ. Somewhere I can spread the Word. Peace Corps was an option until I found out that they're not exactly a Christian-friendly organization. In my opinion, getting fired for talking about Jesus is not somewhere I'd like to be. And though I'm going to continue to pray on this, I'm also going to wait until Lauren gets married. I can't miss my best friend's wedding (movie reference not intended)! I've asked for prayers of discernment, but please pray that I will not make a hasty or unwise decision, but that I will allow my will to be His will.

Also! Last night was my very last night reading Matthew. After a few days of recap and reflection, I'll be on my way to Mark. So exciting! I hope all of you are taking time out of your schedules to get lost in His Word. Bisous!