Thursday, April 24, 2014

A Real American Housewife

Hello!

Let me catch everyone up from my last blog post.  I fell in love, moved back to Dublin, GA, got engaged, got married, and moved to Augusta, GA!  Whew! Just a few MAJOR life changes, that's all. ;)

Ben and I are so excited about our new life here in Augusta!  Ben works for Chicago Bridge and Iron as a Materials Manager for the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant construction project!  I am currently looking for a job either working in the customer service/hospitality industry or working with kids.  In the meantime, I've been enjoying setting up the beautiful town home that we are renting and getting settled into life as a real American housewife.  

When we were engaged, Ben led us to take a course called Financial Peace University that is by Dave Ramsey.  I fought him on it every step of the way, but now on the other side, I'm so glad he made me do it.  It was so hard to face the cold hard facts of our finances and make the decision not to move out on our own once we got married.  We lived with my parents for the first 6 months of our marriage.  

The whole time we were praying for God to open a door for Ben to have a job that could support us financially and we were pursuing various career opportunities.  At times it seemed hopeless and I truly believed that we would not have a place of our own for at least a whole year, if not two.  It's so neat to see how God is blessing our decision to honor Him with our money.  After 6 months of wondering what God was up to, He has blessed Ben with a great job that supports us very well for our current stage of life and a bonus is that Ben is actually really enjoying his new job!

 I feel so dumb for doubting God and for worrying so much about not ever having the opportunity to be on our own like a "real married couple".  Now as I sit and wait for God to provide the right job for me, I know He will and I know there's a reason why I have so much free time right now.  

We didn't have much and we're still not extremely wealthy, but we are committed to tithing the first 10% of our profits back to God in whatever way He leads us each month.  We have been so blessed by blessing others with our money! There is always a need and we are thrilled to be God's hands and feet as we help others.  We are also committed to spending our money wisely and that means paying off our debts as soon as possible.  When I met Ben, I thought that I'd be drowning in my school debt for the rest of my life.  We started fighting our debt a year ago and we have made HUGE strides! We hope to get out of debt by the end of next year! 

We are also learning a lot about time management.  Ben leaves for work at 5AM and gets home at 6PM, Monday through Friday!  So it is very hard to manage our time together, as well as all the other things we need to do.  We are committed to eating dinner and spending time with each other, reading the Bible and praying together, and exercising every night.  It is important to us to not neglect our emotional, spiritual, or physical health.  We feel this is something that is vital to our marriage, our relationship with God, and our overall well-being! 

While we were engaged, Ben and I heard a lot of newly married couple tell us that "marriage is hard" and try to downplay the level of excitement we were feeling about it.  We determined that when we got married, we were not going to give marriage a bad name, especially to those considering it!

We have come to the conclusion that LIFE is hard.  Marriage is great.  Life gets in the way of marriage.  Don't confuse that.  After almost 9 months, we love being married!  We are HAPPY!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM Happy - Pharrell Williams 
(What we listened to this morning to start our day! :D)