Feeling Productive

I'm definitely feeling a sense of accomplishment this week. I like keeping myself busy with little projects aside from just keeping the house neat, going to the store, etc. That stuff gets boring after a while.

I finally got Heather & Alan's wedding video finished and to them. (Still need to burn the raw files to DVD for them, but that's no biggie.) I think it came out pretty well, especially considering that Matt and I are not professional videographers, and it was also my first time ever working with iMovie and iDVD.

I also helped Matt with some of his homework. He volunteered to be project manager and complete a design for a t-shirt that his training program had to create. No one knew how to do vector drawings in Photoshop or even draw a sketch on paper that would be good enough to use. (Matt doesn't really know a lot about that stuff either.) He's in training classes from 8AM to 5PM every day, then comes home and has 3-4 hours of reading to do. His new work load plus everything he tries to do for his Boy Scout troop adds up to a lot. So last night I helped him out by making the t-shirt design his group came up with. I had NO idea how to do this stuff, so I was reading online as I went, trying to figure it out. There are still some things that need to be added, but this is what I did so far. (And yes, they look simple, but I'm still proud of myself. I probably could've done it in 30 minutes in Paint, but in Photoshop this took me like 2-3 hours.)

(FRONT)

(BACK)

I think my next task to accomplish will be making a video of our own wedding. We had someone tape it, and people were walking around with the video camera at the reception... I just need to upload the footage and make it pretty so we can have a DVD of ours, too.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

I should probably start this post continuing from where I left off in the last one. The "situation" I was referring to at the end of my last post was a job offer that Matt had received from a recruiter at Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC. We didn't want to say anything about it "in public" until we knew what was going to come of it. They called him pretty much out of the blue saying they had three positions suddenly open up that needed to be filled ASAP, and wanted to know if he was interested. It was an entry level position for application development, and though that's not an area that was exactly in his comfort zone, we still felt like God was opening this door for us and that he should go ahead and apply/interview. He had to go in for a formal interview, followed by a two hour, timed programming aptitude test. Within a week of getting the initial phone call about the job, we found out that he'd been accepted for the position! Not only that, but he was also the only outside hire! He started there last Monday and seems to love it so far. He got a pretty substantial increase in pay plus awesome benefits, so now I shouldn't need to worry about working outside the home once the baby arrives. What a GIGANTIC blessing for our family!!


This past weekend we had a nice Father's Day celebration with Matt's family. Saturday we had a cookout/pool party at Matt's dad's house. It was me, Matt, Frank, Laura, Malcolm, Malcolm's parents, his sister Brianna, her husband, Clay, their baby, Carter, and Malcolm's brother, Courtney. The four dogs - Rita, Kandi, Izzy, and Béla - were also there. It was a full house but lots of fun and good food! I didn't know what to get Matt for his first Father's Day, nor did I have much money to spend, so I just got him a card and a onesie that says "I ♥ DAD" on the front.  :)  Yesterday we had planned to go to church, but ended up sleeping right through the alarm (the dog included). I think we were all pooped from the excitement the day before, so we took our time getting out of bed then headed over to Matt's dad's again for Father's Day lunch with his grandfather and relaxed around there for the rest of the day.


Today is another celebration - Matt's 30th birthday! Tonight we're going out to dinner downtown to celebrate with his family.  :)  


Lots going on in the last few weeks... So far the summer is off to a great start!

Just what we need.

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
--Genesis 22:13-14


Yahweh-Yireh, or Jehovah Jireh, 'The Lord Provides'.  That's God's promise to every believer who waits on him, to every one of his children who trusts in him.  Many times in our walk with God our faith will be tested.  And when that happens, God wants to show us that he will provide.


I can't believe we're nearly half way through 2010 already. Time seems to fly faster every year, and this morning I started thinking about all of the things that have happened over the last months and how God has been right there providing us with what we need, at exactly the moment we need it. I'm thankful that throughout my life God has shown himself to me in that way over and over again, whether it was providing financial support at the last minute before a mission trip or providing my family with anything from groceries to Christmas presents when we didn't have the means to purchase them on our own. 


This year has been no exception. We were able to get our sweet little puppy Béla back in January, only to find out less than 24 hours later that we were pregnant.  :)  A month later I lost my job, leaving us with only Matt's salary to live off of. It was a little scary having our family income cut nearly in half, but I applied for unemployment and it went through quickly with no problems, providing us with exactly the money we needed to afford to keep our health insurance and pay the rest of our bills. (Very thankfully, we have no debt right now outside of our student loans.)


Then when it came time to file taxes, it looked as if we were going to have to pay anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars to the government, due to some things that weren't done properly with Matt's job. It worked out that we did have to pay federal, but got a return from state so that it not only evened out, but we were left with enough money from the state return to pay our car taxes for the year and the COBRA payment for the month of June. Even our accountant said he was somewhat surprised that it worked out so well. 


Then a couple weeks ago the filtration system on Boogie's aquarium broke during the night and had been spilling water out onto our living room floor for several hours by the time I caught it the next morning. It damaged the wood laminate as well as the lady's living room ceiling below us. We didn't know what we were going to do, as getting it fixed will easily cost anywhere from a few hundred to possibly over $1000, depending on whether or not we can match the flooring or if we have to re-do the entire room. Somehow it came up when we were talking to some people at church, and within a week we got a call from another member of our church who is involved in a local ministry that does contracting type work for people who can't afford it. He came out to our apartment and looked at the damage, took a piece of the floor with him, and told us not to worry about anything, that everything would be taken care of. What a HUGE blessing!!! 


Those aren't the only ways that God has provided for us this year, but they are definitely some of the big ones. There have also been so many other things I didn't mention that we've been blessed with through our families, friends, and church. And now there is yet another situation where it seems like God may be providing our family with a truly enormous gift. I don't want to say too much "in public" until we know for sure what the outcome will be, but whichever way things happen I know that God is in control. If this particular thing doesn't work out, I know that He will continue to provide for us in some other way.  :)  

Now we know...

Let's start somewhere.

Alright. I started this new blog because I wanted to have a place to post miscellaneous non-baby related things. I want to keep the baby blog mainly about the pregnancy, and this blog mainly not about the pregnancy.

I used to use Xanga, but I don't really know anyone who uses it anymore, plus I like being able to log in and see both of our blogs together in one place. I'm sure I'll be the one writing most, if not all, of the posts on both blogs. Matt's not into blogging much, but he always reads what I post and sees the comments as well.

So, that being said, welcome to the new blog. Our lives aren't thrilling, but hopefully it'll be at least somewhat interesting.  ;)