being content in all things...

God has always been faithful to keep a song in my heart no matter the circumstance he puts a song in my heart to remind me that he is my focus and my strength my joy my provision and he is in control of every moment and deserving of every moment of my praise... So on days when i start a crummy job that means i never get to see Steve or seemingly have 5 min to myself. He gives me comfort with a song... I pray my focus would remain on Him during this time when time with Steve is short... When time away from work means planning a wedding and not watching tv or reading a food blog... I pray God would be my portion strength and comfort and my hard work and toil would result in a beautiful wedding and a blessed marriage for my Steve and I...just sharing the songs He's put in my heart today...

"Before the throne of God above, I have a strong, a perfect plea, A great High Priest whose name is "Love," Who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on His hands, My name is writen on His heart; I know that while in heav'n He stands no tongue can bid me thence depart. No tongue can bid me thence depart. When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there Who made an end to all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free; For God, the Just, is satisfied to look on him and pardon me. to look on him and pardon me. Behold him there! the risen Lamb, my perfect, spotless Righteousness, the great unchangeable I AM, the King of glory and of grace! One with Himself I cannot die, My soul is purchased by His blood; My life is hid with Christ on high, with Christ, my Savior and my God with Christ, my Savior and my God" --Charitie Lees Bancroft and Vikki Cook

Here I am, once again I pour out my heart For I know that you hear Every cry You are listening No matter what state my heart is in You are faithful to answer With words that are true And a hope that is real As I feel your touch You bring a freedom To all that’s within In the safety of this place I’m longing to ... Pour out my heart To say that I love you Pour out my heart To say that I need you Pour out my heart To say that I’m thankful Pour out my heart To say that you’re wonderful. -- Craig Musseau

Lord you are so wonderful and I pray you would show me your blessings during this time and help my focus to remain on you and not on how I wish things could be... My desire is to trust you and listen to you... Be close to Steve and I and draw us closer together...

of dresses and dream jobs

I finally bought my wedding dress i've been talking about it for months but i paid for it this morning and the company i ordered it from told me they would start working on it tomorrow i'm sooo beyond excited seeing this dress i've dreamed about in real life touching it trying it on will be so exciting and i just think it will make the fact that i'm getting married even more of a reality haha its a reality already but i think there will just be like a wave that crashes over me when i see my dress when i touch my dress... the dress picture above by the way is like the complete opposite of mine haha but if i was a size 2 i may have considered something with a big full poofy skirt haha i dunno i'm a simple kind of girl and i got a simple kind of dress... that will be soooo amazingly gorgeous!

In other news...

I have a job interview on tuesday actually i have one monday too and its about time but... i'm most excited about the one on tuesday because i've wanted to work at whole foods since i found out they were coming to Reno!!! These stores are amazing wonderful beautiful meccas where great food real food... food that will make your eyes roll back in your head is a reality! and I could be a part of it it would be the answer to over a years worth of prayers! I'm incredibly excited I'm trying to plot and plan the perfect outfit to wear to my interview i'm gonna get a haircut so my normal long stringy flat curly hair has some life some professionalism and polish... I'm out to impress!! The man i spoke to said my resume and cover letter were impressive and i about bubbled over on the phone i was trying so hard not to squeal i'm sure he could hear my enthusiasm... WHEEE! ok so i know my hopes are probably ridiculously high and i've heard it takes a lot of work to get hired by this company and its all in God's hands but this would really be sooo great! working with food ahh how many times have i lamented on that before... i would love to spend my days in a building filled with all the delicious things... fresh mozzarella in herbs, moscato d'asti ( my favorite wine), an olive bar mmm... a bakery with delicious confections! Artisan bread... sustainably farmed fresh fish.... even if i don't get to work there i will most definitely be shopping there...

FRUSTRATION!!!

It is nice not to work i'll admit... I have time to goof off watch random movies on demand while i fill out job applications and troll the job seeking websites... i can sleep in late if i want... I can cook myself anythign for lunch... I can take a break from job posting after my next resume edit and plan a wedding i can't afford... but its more than just my wedding ya know i would get married in blue jeans if i had to and tell everyone to bring a potluck dish ( which at first thought seems INCREDIBLY tacky but its an option? maybe? hopefully not?) I haven't had a real job since november of 2006... i've applied at so many places places i don't even want to work at and i haven't had a single call a single interview no inkling even of hope since i came home from texas and employers see long gaps in your employment history and assume you're unmotivated... Unmotivated i've been spending practically every day for the last 4 months looking for a job and applying for jobs! i'm plenty motivated but i can't put Job seeker on my resume... nor babysitter which i've done a TON of in the last year... and yet you have people looking at your resume judging you based on what they see there which is understandable but who's to say i'm unmotivated because i haven't worked and its not for lack of trying... i just want to be working not even to pay for my wedding so much anymore as it is to secure some stability for Steve and I as we start our marriage things like a place to live and a reliable car... the ability to pay the grocery bill? I know young married couples struggle i know its part of the growth process and what not but I feel like we can't even catch a break sometimes... God has been good so good to us and I feel like a lousy whiny complainer we've been blessed with furniture we've been blessed with the ability to afford daily life with steve's paycheck but Steve's income alone isn't going to afford a place to live and electricity and groceries... I'm confident God has a plan I'm confident even now as i'm writing this he is working everything out for us... I'm even willing to wait a little longer but i'd really like to feel like my effort isn't in vain like some good is coming from all of this work i'm putting into finding a job and so my friends my dear friends who pray without ceasing that a job would come for me could see those prayers answered....and i'm tired of writing blogs about being tired of not working....

Ice Cream? None for me...

We had a great conversation today about sacrificial love. Giving of ourselves putting our own self aside and doing what is right for the other or just out of love. We are learning to say "OK you can have what you want... " and doing it with a joyful heart... Steve and I have and are learning several ways to express this but one of the simplest... one that just thrills me because its so simple and so basic is Ice cream and Popcorn...
I like ice cream not all the time but I go through my ice cream spurts sometimes my spurts sprout into a months worth of addiction then they putter out but... my dear Steve hears me suggest all too frequently "oh hey lets go to Cold stone and get ice cream YUM!" My most wonderful Steve tho can't eat ice cream (poor guy) because he's lactose intolerant. Suggesting we have ice cream is akin to asking him if he wants a slumber party in the bathroom and a belly ache. In sympathy and sacrificial love I have decreased the frequency in which I ask about going for ice cream. He takes it a step further and will buy me a pint of Ben and Jerry's every so often to keep in the freezer so when my "Ooh I want ice cream" craving hits I'm prepared. Its so sweet and wonderful it means so much to me that he's willing to say "OK I can't have ice cream but it will make her smile."
Steve on the other hand loves popcorn... Its one of his favorite snacks! Salty, light, fluffy and buttery popcorn... I secretly LOVE popcorn but (ouchie momma) it hurts my teeth so bad that I dare not eat it for fear I will be picking flossing and brushing it away a month later... SO in the interest of not living on Orajel and dental floss I abstain... but I will still pop Steve a big bowl full of light fluffy perfect popcorn whenever he wants because well I love him and it makes him so happy. I also get a buttery salty kiss with popcorn breath afterwards...
These are silly little things in the grand scheme I know we will encounter bigger taller more difficult instances when we will learn more about sacrificial love but for now just the simple lessons we can learn from Ice cream and popcorn help me feel like we're off to a good start...

Learning to speak Stevenese

So Steve an I have been learning about communication... how to do it... how not to do it... This is hard sometimes I feel like we talk ourselves in circles! We'll both be saying the same thing like what we're saying agrees but we have to talk about it for an hour before our mouths and brains and ears all realize that we agree?? We can kiss and make up now OHH YAY!!! thankfully we do have these hour long conversations that go nowhere until we get where we're going we don't just throw our hands up and give up... sometimes tho its very very hard to do like "pull our hair out hard" to get there... i understand we're laying foundations for marriage and learning how to interpret eachother's thoughts and responses is all part of the mystery. A lifelong mystery that we will always be working on that we may never perfect! Thankfully we realize this is a life long process learning how to communicate we'll always have something to talk about or figure out. Hopefully with more time and less practice in the art of arguing and more in the realm of intelligent honest heartfelt discussion and expression I will learn to speak Stevenese and he will learn to speak Deairish?? and even if we can't become fluent in it perhaps just some basics would help... like "I was wrong" another few key phrases... "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you" and most importantly "I love you we can figure this out."

Fighting, disagreeing, even agreeing in different ways is always hard. Thankfully we don't do it very much. We generally communicate very well... Life has been crazy lately and we're both handling the stress and chaos as it comes. It helps so much to have eachother even when things are tense its so nice to snuggle up and watch tv and feel recharged. The promise too that tomorrow is worth waiting for works too... At a recent wedding we attended our Pastor said its about one more day... keep going... keep walking... hang in there... I like that its an ideal i'm really trying to adapt and apply during these times when Stevenese is the language spoken at our house...

Preservation...

"The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It's a choice you make; not just on your wedding day, but over and over again and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife."
~ Barbara De Angelis

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So I found this quote emailed to me with one of my money saving wedding planning newsletters.... and it struck a chord. It sums up how i've been feeling lately how i have been viewing marriage. I'm not gonna rush out and take advantage of those "married benefits" but i do truly feel like Steve and I are already married most days. Marriage is something that happens in your heart and in the day by day choice to love and keep loving. The choice to forgive overlook, ignore and choose to love... I've tried to explain this to Steve and he feels like i'm saying its hard to love him. On the contrary its not hard to love him, but there's freedom in choosing to love him... to keep loving him... even if he is impatient with me... even if he says something i see as unkind... even if he's just being goofy when i'm trying to be serious... I can set myself aside and say yes i love him and nothing else matters... In choosing love over anger or impatience it makes me more quick to apologize it makes me less likely to get upset or mad or impatient it makes me say... its not worth fighting about. It makes me evaluate in that moment of potetial fireworks if i'm going react in love or in a negative way... and that simple spilt second where i make that choice is where I choose to be a loving kind wife or a naggy mean one... Praise the Lord for his revealing to me my own faults and shortcomings so when they may butt up against Steve's the Lord gently nudges and gives me the choice to love Steve the way He loves Steve with patience, kindless, gentleness long suffering... no matter what every minute of every day... and to delight in his love... or to be a mean cranky naggy wife... Oh how i pray the Lord continues revealing to me day by day the choices to be the best wife I can be to Steve! Is it October yet? :) I'm really really excited just to like really be HIS WIFE!!! :)


p.s. Thanks for the HTML help Tiffany... couldn't do it without you and you get to be in my blog again when i say Thank you! :)

TWO YEARS!!!

Yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of the day we met... We met April 3,2006 we had talked on Myspace far a few days and decided to meet. Steve surprised me and took me to dinner at Bangkok Cuisine a local restaurant and personal favorite of ours... We did the same thing last year recreating our first date like this. Its almost hard to imagine its been 2 years. We've been through so much we've grown so much! Every day is just as exciting as the last and sometimes it feels like its still brand new that rush of new love! We still giggle and we're still cute enough to make people sick... We have our moments of arguing like an old married couple thats normal as we grow closer and become more accustom to eachother but even still we have so many wonderful joy filled moments filled with laughing and love. I hope we will never lose the cute silliness in our relationship that we will always be cute and make eachother laugh!