Phone Irony

After several months of having this phone, I finally took time to fix my phone settings EXACTLY like I wanted (which included a couple of factory resets along the way).

A few days later, I removed the insurance from my phone (and Matt's) because I figured I didn't need it since I've gone this long without needing it.

Also last week, I purchased a Droid X on one of my lines that had an upgrade. Since I was getting the discounted contract price but don't really use that line, I planned to sell the phone on eBay and make a profit. First time I sold it for a $331 profit, but the person never paid. Second time I sold it for a $375 profit, the buyer was a scam artist out of Nigeria. Third time I sold it for a $332 profit, the buyer's 10 year old nephew was 'playing' around on eBay and put in the winning bid. Never sold. So, I returned it to Verizon.

Monday night, I lost my phone (the one I had JUST finished setting up-the one I had JUST removed insurance from-and the very day I could have JUST kept the extra phone for my line).

Oh, the irony.

Life Since California

Two things will be wrong with this post.
1) There will be no pictures. I dislike posting blogs with no pictures, but it's not an option at this point.
2) It's not in chronological order with other posts I'm working on. SOOO much to update on (including 12 days of vacation).

Now, on to the post!

We got back from California at 3:30 am on June 29th. I had the day off, but Matt had to work. I did laundry and ran errands. Had lunch with Grandma, Steven and Steph. Picked up Nala. That night, we had jetlag and didn't go to sleep til like 5am.

The next day, lots happened:
1. We had our CARES interview (remember this post?).
2. I found out I got a promotion that I had applied for at Verizon.
3. Also found out that said promotion comes with a nice raise. (Praise God it was more than I expected!)

Somewhere in those couple of days, Nala had a checkup for her leg. The vet discovered that now it's both of her back knees that are ruptured. He recommended the specialist do the surgery, which took the price of the surgery from $100 to $4500. Yikes. I cried. At the vet (Matt's work). I was embarrassed. The vet also told us that after 3 years, there was little to no difference in healing for dogs who have the surgery and ones who do 'conservative therapy' which means REST. We opted for the rest.

We found out we got accepted to CARES. Now we are just waiting for the right apartment community to open up for us. Please be praying with us for this. :)

We got a refund that we didn't expect from Matt's first semester at school. We made grown-up decisions with it. Paid off a couple credit cards completely. Put more money towards another card. Put away some money for emergencies. Put away some money for moving. And bought new computers (thus the no pictures on this post). We can justify all of these things for you if you need it. :)

We also got another dog. (What a teaser!!!) You'll have to wait for another post to meet her, in case you're on Facebook because there are pictures there already. :)

That's all for now... :)

5am: Thoughts on Blogging

So... I've just spent 3.5 hours catching up on blogs. I love blogs. I follow lots of blogs. Some people's who I don't know who are maybe friends or relatives of friends. I follow more 'public' blogs designed for lots of readers and not much interaction. I follow blogs of friends I still consider friends though I may not have talked with them for years. It's nice to feel somewhat connected. Tonight, no joke: I laughed out loud, cried, had heartache, was perplexed, challenged, amused, intimidated, encouraged, and entertained. Among other things.

Also, everytime I spend an extended amount of time reading blogs, I go back and forth between wanting to blog more and giving up blogging altogether.

Anyone else know what I mean?

other blog reminder

Just posted on the private blog. There's no RSS feed for that one. Let me know if you want on the email list or if you need an invite.

Outward Bound

Okay, so after a pretty dark season in our lives, I'm happy to report that we're both experiencing kind of an 'awakening' of sorts. Just not so down, not so stressed, not so overwhelmed and more content. This is a HUGE blessing.

There were many steps involved, but I would say one of the main contributing factors has been finding a great church that we're excited to be part of. River Church is a new church in Charleston that really matches up with the God of the Bible. It's Christ-focused, as well as outward-focused. Our second week there, we heard this sermon about reaching our spheres of influences. Matt and I both walked away from church that morning very convicted about our current situation. We loved God but had fallen into selfish and self-centered laziness. Just became too focused on our own comfort and well-being. We both knew things needed to change.

Since then, we have been growing again in our relationship with Christ. He's good, y'all. Even though we both 'knew better' than to end up where we were, God hasn't held that over our heads. He welcomed us back. He's showered His love on us. And He has again challenged us to share His love with others.

Matt said that Sunday morning that being involved with such a great church made him want to do CARES again. I agreed. I had the same feeling actually, the same morning. We've taken a few weeks to mull it over and become brave enough to try it again. We've prayed to make sure this is something from God and not just ourselves. We feel led to pursue it, though we don't have a guarantee it will work out.CARES is a ministry with Apartment Life. We actually were part of it in Texas. We became a CARES team in May of 2008 and moved to a different part of DFW to implant ourselves into an apartment community. The purpose of a CARES team is to plan events and do visits with and for the neighbors in that community. It helps them to get to know each other and form friendships to not feel so isolated in that type of living situation. Through the events and visits, we can build relationships with lots of people and love on them and share our lives-- and our relationships with Christ!

After 3 months in Bedford, TX, we had just started getting to know people and forming good friendships when we heard about the Thailand opportunity and decided to move there. So, it was cut short. Now we'd like to continue with the CARES ministry here and be able to start something new here together.

We applied last year when we first moved back but backed out right before the personal interview process because we didn't really know our work situations or church situation at the time. Now that we are pretty settled into jobs and getting plugged into a great church, it is a much better time. So we've applied and will probably have a face-to-face interview next week. We are ready to start being more outward-focused. I'm excited.