Holy Nuptial Understanding

The theme of youth camp this year was "Pursuit" - mainly that God pursues us and that we should pursue him  in return.  So every night, preaching out of Ephesians, the camp speaker (who happened to be an ETBU alum - go Tigers!) connected what he said with some aspect of pursuit.

And every night after the worship service, we all divided up into our own church groups for church devotion time, a time to talk on a more personal level about what God was doing.  As the only leader for our group, it fell on me to guide our group discussion every night.

I think for the youth it can be somewhat difficult to really grasp how fervently God pursues us.  Now, you have to understand that the youth have pretty much literally watched mine and Matthew's relationship play out since the beginning and know both of us very well.  One or both of us has worked closely with them for our entire relationship.  So I found that the easiest illustration to use for demonstrating pursuit was our relationship.

The youth loved it because it gave them a chance to make fun of my love-sickness.  And it seemed to be an effective way to illustrate the theme of pursuit.  The funny thing is, though, that the more I thought about it and talked about it with the youth, the more I discovered that there is so much more I understand about faith and my relationship with God now that I'm married.

I have always expected to understand more about my relationship with God as his child and he as my Father once I have kids of my own.  I believe there are aspects of that relationship that I simply can't connect with until that happens.  But I never expected that to be the case in my marriage relationship (which was naive of me, I admit).

The Bible is clear that the Church is the bride of Christ, and he is the bridegroom - Ephesians 5 displays that relationship so well (see Mark 2 and Luke 5 as well).  But for whatever reason, I've never connected that with my relationship here on earth.

I feel like I've been given this new gift (along with my incredible husband) to seek and explore and understand better what my relationship with Christ is in light of marriage, something that I couldn't quite grasp in my prenuptial days!  And I think it goes to show that I am never "there" spiritually, never "arrived."  There are always new things to learn about God and my relationship with him.  Not that this is news to me - I just understand it in a different way.  And this excites me!  It excites me that, just like there will always be new things to learn about Matthew, there will always be new things to learn about God.  I love it!

Engagement/Wedding Cards Organization

We received SO MANY cards for our engagement/wedding.  And I didn't want to just throw them away because many of them had sweet, personal notes to us.  But I had no clue how I was going to store them - there were that many.

And then I saw this pinned on Pinterest and knew that it was perfect for all of our cards.  The problem was that I couldn't find binder rings big enough for all of the cards we had.  So I got innovative.

I basically ended up making two card "books" with the biggest rings I had and used two smaller rings to attach them together.  For a bit of flair, I used leftover ribbon from the wedding (in our lovely wedding colors) to tie them up in a bundle.

Let me tell ya - my hands were cramped after this project, but it was so worth it.  And I will add that a handful of the cards were just too thick or embellished for the hole puncher to work.  So I just slid them on top under the ribbon.

One pin I saw included a cover for the wedding card booklet - I think I might have to add this to ours because I really like the look.  We'll see though.  :)

I'm super happy with how it turned out.  And it now sits on display with a few of our other wedding/engagement knick-knacks in our living room.  :)

Tutorial: Burlap & Twine Bunting

I whipped up this cutie in about an hour and with supplies I had on hand.  It's now gracing our entertainment center.  Love it.  

So here we go...

Materials:

Burlap

Twine

Scissors

Needle with large eye (not quite yarn size, though)

Hot glue gun

Ironing board & iron (optional)

First thing's first, cut out whatever size triangles you'd like to use.  I found this perfect template on Pinterest earlier today and used the 6" size (next to biggest).  I decided I wanted 5 triangles to hang from the twine, so I cut 10 triangles.  This step isn't technically necessary, but I wanted it to look a little more sturdy.

Next step is to hand stitch the triangles together, making 5 total.  If you decide not to make yours double thickness, you can just hand stitch around the perimeter to get the same look.  Personally, I love the look of the twine stitching.

My triangles were quite wrinkly because my burlap stash has been folded up in storage for a while now.  So - if yours are like mine - run a quick iron over them just so they lie flat (mine didn't take much time at all, just a few seconds each).  

Using more of your twine, string the triangle flags together and decide how long you want it to be and how far apart you'd like your flags to hang.  I just eye-balled it because I am too lazy to measure.

Once you figure out how you'd like them to hang, hot glue the twine in place on the back of each flag in the corners.  I'm pretty sure this step can be skipped, but I wanted to make sure mine stayed put.  (PS - I had a fun time figuring out how to take this picture because I'm not left-handed and needed my right hand to click the camera button.)

Last thing to do is hang it!  I used some mason jars, dollar tree glass stones, and candles from one of my bridal showers that we had around our house to hang ours.  Unfortunately, the lighting in our living room is pretty lousy, so I don't have any pics of it hanging from the entertainment center.  I figured the deck out front would do for pictures though.  :)

I might embellish them later on for the different seasons using some velcro so that I can interchange them for each season, but I'm undecided on that.  Either way, it has added a nice touch to our living room!  

Event Planning Sheet Download

After youth camp, I evaluated how smoothly things went leading up to camp and decided that I need to be a little more organized in that realm.  One place to start is just to have all the information in one easy, accessible place.

And after many hours of searching online, I couldn't find an event planning sheet that (a) I liked or (b) was editable (if I did like it).

So I created an event planning sheet that covers the essentials that I found important for planning most of our big youth group events.  And I thought I would share the file so that others can benefit from it as well.

I'm using this for all of our big events and events that require transportation.  My youth ministry binder is organized by month, and the event planning sheets fall under whatever month the event is in (and any other documents or information related to the event sits behind it).

I made it as generic as possible so that any church can use it.  I hope you find it helpful!

::Click the picture to download the file::

**UPDATE: The link should now be up and running.  Sorry for the mishap!***

Texas LOVE

I don't usually post about great deals that I get, but I just HAVE TO SHARE this one.  If you know me, you know I love a good deal.  And you know I love a good deal when it's something that I would totally not buy otherwise.  This is one of those deals.

Kohls has this sale going on so that you can get 20% off your order plus 99 cent shipping on each item you order.  So I figured I'd browse just to see what I could find, and I ran across these.  <3

"Texas Word Toss Kitchen Towel" from kohls.com

"Home Sweet Texas Kitchen Towel" from kohls.com

"Stitched Texas Placemat" from kohls.com

I'm in HEAVEN.  And can't wait for them to get here!  I plan to make the placemat into either a pillow or wall hanging.  Super excited.  :D  And I spent just over $10, including shipping and tax!  (PS - If you click the links in the captions under the pictures, you'll go straight to the items on Kohls' website.)

Just thought I'd share the Texas love, y'all!

And then he moved...

Last week I was gone at youth camp in Oregon.  It was hot.  Not like Texas hot, but still hot.  Especially for this Northwest-adapted girl who loves her year-round cool weather.  The worst part was being indoors.  Outdoors it was beautiful.  And then I would walk into the auditorium filled with 370 teenagers (and their b.o.) and 80 adults who are on their feet praising Jesus in song (which was beautiful).  But it was like hitting a wall of funk and heat.  I'm sure you can imagine.  It was gross.

Nonetheless it turned out to be a good week.  Which I didn't really expect.  Speaking honestly, I didn't want to be there.  I love our youth to death.  I do.

But I didn't realize how hard it would be to be a newlywed, married less than 2 months, and be gone for another week at camp.  Call me a wimp, but I desperately missed my husband while I was gone and had a really hard time leaving him in the first place.

And there was this voice inside of me saying, "Is this really worth your time?  Really??  Are these youth really going to get anything out of this?  Is it really worth the money that our church gave so generously for us to go?  Or will they just walk away completely unchanged and unaffected and unmoved?  Is it worth being away from Matthew and losing the week away from work?  Is it really worth it?"

So that's how I started camp.  Skeptical and a little irritated - I had allowed myself to be convinced it wasn't worth my time.

And then God moved.

Just like that.

It didn't take long (like, just a few hours) for the Holy Spirit to spiritually slap me in the face with his ability to move people and change hearts.  I saw some of our youth make steps in their faith-walks that I never would have imagined.  I saw our youth - the whole group - weeping together as they prayed for one another out of love and compassion for what God was doing in their lives individually and collectively (which, inevitably, made me weep in response).  I saw leaders rise up and counsel other youth. And I saw them still living out on Sunday morning some of the life-changes we talked about during the week!  (*Whose youth are these?!*)

And I heard the Lord asking, "Why did you ever doubt me, my sweet child?"  Not rebuking me, but reminding me that this is what he does.

I felt so humbled.  And I'm so grateful to have had that week at camp with our youth group.  I feel so privileged to be a part of what God is doing in their lives.  And I'm really going to work at opening my heart so that those spiritual face slaps happen a little less often.

me with my youth gang

And, on another upside, I had plenty of down time while I was there (didn't expect that, did ya?) and have a whole list of things I'd like to blog about in the near future.  So get ready - this could get exciting.

Granny Square Afghan Project

For my birthday several years ago (2010, I think), my parents gave me a gift card for Michael's so that I could buy yarn because I got into this huge crocheting phase.  I bought the yarn immediately and started on this afghan soon after.  But I got bored with it. 

So I'd put it down and pick it back up spontaneously.  My only goal was to finish it before Matthew and I got married (even though, at the time, I had absolutely no idea when that would be).  But it wasn't until about a year ago that my crochet group friends encouraged me to finally finish it.  And I did (before we got married, mind you)!  And I'm only just now getting around to posting pics of it because I kept forgetting...sorry.  

 I actually got the inspiration for it from a blanket that I somehow caught in the background of an old episode of "Parks & Recreation" (see above picture).  It probably took me about two years to finish all in all, but I love it.  It's huge - big enough for a queen size bed, which makes it perfect for snuggling.  :) 

This square is my absolute favorite.  Something about the combo of colors is so intriguing.  I used this tutorial for the general idea for the granny squares (I only used "the basic square") - I did 3 rounds of the first color, 2 rounds of each color after that, and a single crochet around the edge of the square using the main teal color that I also used to join them. And I used this tutorial for joining them together - my personal favorite method because it's essentially seamless (and have had MANY compliments from veteran crocheters for this particular look).  

Happy crocheting!

Home Organization

Lately I've been on a home organization/craft kick.  I'm not entirely sure why.  I think I'm just prone to go through intense phases, especially when it comes to crafts.  I'll craft hardcore for a few weeks and then quit altogether for a few months...and repeat.

Thanks to Pinterest I've combined the two and done some awesome things around our home that will - hopefully - make life less cluttered and chaotic.  And there are a couple that I will be doing in the near future.

Project #1: {Tickler File}

Pinterest led me to {this blog} with the "Tickler" file.  It's a great system for keeping your day-to-day and monthly to-dos organized.  If you would like to know more, I highly recommend clicking the link for more information.  I bought some manilla folders and found this perfectly sized basket at Goodwill and used scrapbook paper and double-sided tape to create mine.  Total cost = $6.

Project #2: {Scarf Organizer}

I'm a scarf fanatic.  I love them, and I get more every year.  But organizing them is such a pain.  I saw a pin one day that used shower curtain hooks on a hanger, and I tried that out.  The only problem was that the hooks (which I got for $1 at the Dollar Tree) slid to one end of the hanger (on hand), making the project not very practical.  And then I came across {this post} - same idea, better concept.  It worked like a charm.  Total cost = $1.

Project #3: {Meal Planning Paint Chip Calendar}

Matthew and I plan our meals out weekly so that we know what we need to get at the grocery store, instead of going every day.  But we decided to plan a little more long-term so that we can be even more frugal.  The problem is that our awesome little meal planner only goes by the week, and I knew we'd need something bigger.

Enter the {paint chip calendar}.  These aren't new, at least not to the Pinterest world, but what I liked about the one in this blog post is the ombre style.  So I spent about half an hour in front of the paint chips at Walmart picking out an ombre scheme that I liked (free).  And I bought a 16 x 20 poster frame for about $7.  I also used a paper punch that rounds the corners (on hand) because I liked the soft edge.  Now we can plan our meals ahead of time and coordinate it with our calendars.  I'm also thinking about adding some strong magnets to the back (it's not super heavy) so we can put it on our fridge.  Total cost = $7.

Future Project #4: {Cleaning Calendar}

With just the two of us at home, our house really doesn't get that dirty.  And we clean the whole house about once a week.  But Matthew and I are forward-thinking people, and we know that one day we will have kids and cleaning won't be so easy.  I found {this pin} while roaming Pinterest one day and think that it will help us establish a good routine for cleaning the house.  Our hope is that it will keep rigorous cleaning to a minimum since it will be an ongoing process done in smaller chunks.  Plus, we won't be in a rut if/when someone stops by unexpectedly.  The project I foresee being the most difficult to keep up: making the bed(s).  I'm just not a fan.  Haha.

Future Project #5: {DIY Emergency Documents Folder}

I think {this project} will come in much handier once we have kids.  However, it can't hurt to get started now and start organizing all of our important documents for the sake of convenience and reference.  For instance, I don't have Matthew's social security number memorized.  Having it in a file like this will make it much easier for me to find.  I'd also like to keep a running list of accounts, usernames, and passwords for websites like our bank account and Paypal so that if something should ever happen to one or both of us, our financial information and other information can be handled easily.  And, of course, we'll plan to keep this in a fire-proof safe for our protection.

Overall, I think these things will help keep us a little more sane and organized.  Maybe I'm just a little OCD or too controlling, but I'll go crazy if my home life isn't at least somewhat orderly.

He Loves Me

DISCLAIMER: This is me bragging on my husband a little bit.  So if you're not in the mood for gushy right now, I advise that you click away...

Let me start by saying that I love being married.  Absolutely love it.  But - and I'm being very transparent here - there's this little itty bitty ounce (or maybe even smaller than an ounce) of me that still feels a bit insecure about how Matthew feels about marriage.  Don't get me wrong, I know he loves me and loves being married - I mean, after all, he chose me.  :D  But I think part of Satan's plan to ruin marriages is to plant little doubts in our minds that make us question our spouses, which is exactly what I think this bit of insecurity is.  Because, if I allowed it, this could become a huge issue between us.

Anyway, with that said, Monday afternoon I cranked my car to go do some work errands, and it wouldn't start.  This isn't an entirely new problem with my car - usually I just have to let it sit for a minute and it will start.  However, this time it still didn't start, even an hour later.  So I let Matthew know that he was going to have to pick me up at work when he got off and that we'd deal with my car from there.

For a little bit now, we've been discussing the idea of becoming a one car family because my car is old and not very reliable (see above paragraph).  And our plan would be to buy a new-used car within a few months of getting rid of mine.  But we hadn't made the plunge yet because my car was still running and his eats through gas so quickly (and it's so expensive).  Plus, I don't think Matthew was 100% sold on the idea because we're not sure when we'd buy a new car, which means we'd be doing the one-car thing indefinitely.

But then my car wouldn't start.

So we finally get it started - by jumping it - and take my old little 93 Honda Accord to a mechanic friend of the Venturas (who has an awesome Lithuanian accent) and discover that there's a problem with the distributor.  And we're going to have to leave it overnight.

Instantly, we have become a one car family.  Which means I wake up around 4 am to take Matthew to his carpool meet-up so that I can use the car to get to work mid-morning and then pick him up from his carpool drop-off around 3 pm.  Overall, it's not terrible.  The hardest part is that I have to get up super early to take him to where he needs to be.

Now back to my little insecurity issue.  I could tell Matthew wasn't completely ready to go to one car, and so I didn't want to push him.  But now we're forced into it.  So I've been super appreciative of Matthew being so cooperative with it and allowing me to use his car during the day.  And I already have been trying to show him how much I appreciate that he gets up so early in the morning to provide for us.  I basically didn't want to give him any reasons to think I don't appreciate him, especially since it's my car that is the source of our vehicle issues right now.

This morning, we were waiting for his carpool buddy (and bff) to pick him up for work, and we haven't said much because we were both still tired.  But Matthew turns to me and says, "I love you, and I love that you're doing this" (as in, waking up early to drive him to his carpool).  <3 <3 <3

It was one of the sweetest moments.  Because this whole time I've been thinking he feels inconvenienced, but he wasn't.  He was more worried about me and inconveniencing me.  I feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now, to have a husband who cares so much about me and takes such good care of me.

the hubs and me at our rehearsal dinner

And I feel so blessed to have a God who loves me and gives me discernment to recognize the enemy's plans against me and my marriage.  And that he uses my husband to affirm that I have no reason to question his love.  :D

6 Money Savvy Tips

I haven't posted in a while.  What do you expect - I'm a newlywed.  :)

In the time since I last posted I have somehow survived my first experience at Kids Camp.  It was an exciting, l.o.n.g. week, but in the end I had a great time.  The worship leader approached me at the end of camp to inquire about me possibly leading worship next year, and I was very honored to be considered.  I didn't give a yes or no yet - we'll see.

Matthew and I also just passed the one month of marriage mark yesterday.  We celebrated with some steak and shrimp at la casa and had a discussion about finances since we were able to see a whole month's worth of spending and saving post-wedding.  If you don't use a finance tracking software of some kind, I highly suggest using Mint.com.  It tracks all of your inbound and outbound finances and gives you an overview at the end of the month, which you can then compare to past months.  We were very glad that we've been using it for a few months now because we're able to see where we're spending unnecessarily and where we've done well (and where we can save more, too).

One of the bigger decisions we made last night is to re-arrange our charitable giving a little bit.  For a while now I've felt convicted about what organizations we give our money to and how they use that money.  Ultimately, we decided that we would very much like to sponsor one or two children through Compassion International, which is a highly esteemed organization.  We love what they do and that we can have direct communication to and from the child(ren) we sponsor.  I'm looking forward to posting more about this in the future.

All in all, we learned quite a few things from our discussion last night that I think are good, general principles regarding money.  I really wanted to keep this list to 5 things but really couldn't decide which one to cut, so here are six.

1. Tithe.  If you're a Christ-follower, tithing is so essential to your spiritual health.  This is a lesson I learned from the hubs (mostly).  Among other countless, good reasons to tithe, I think one of the most important is that it helps us remember that the money we have is only ours because God has allowed it to be.  
2. Know where your money is going.  If you don't know where it's going, you're not being very responsible for your spending.  It's that simple.  Track your finances and know how much money is in your account and how much debt you have.  You'll be much more fiscally responsible that way.
3. Just because you have  money doesn't mean it has to be spent.  Or, in other words, SAVE.  Since it's just the two of us, we could be (and will be) saving a lot more than we are because our needs are few.  Once we have children, we won't have as much freedom to do that.  So our plan is to save now so that we aren't strapped later.
4. Give money away.  One of the principles Matthew and I are trying to learn is if we give money away (i.e., donate to charity), it becomes less important as a whole.  We want to be able to have the mentality that money is not where our security rests, so much so that we can simply give it away.  This is in part why we have chosen to give money to charitable organizations (separate from our tithes).
5. Budgets are our friends.  Matthew and I have several financial goals for the next couple of years, like replacing my car and buying a house (among others).  We decided that the best way for us to achieve that goal is to budget.  In the past we've kept a very loose budget, mainly keeping it up enough to make sure bills get paid.  But we want to keep to a stricter budget so we can save (see point #3) and teach ourselves to spend only what's necessary (aside from the occasional splurge).  So to start out we will be using cash for groceries and entertainment because those are two areas where we tend to overspend.  Basically, we will take out a certain amount of cash every month for these two "departments" and use only that cash stash to pay for those things.  This way we will - hopefully - get a better, visual grasp of how to stick within our budget.  
6. Establish good communication between yourself and your significant other (if you have one).  This has been one of the best lessons Matthew and I have learned over the course of our relationship, and not just in regard to finances.  We believe that it's so essential to keep communication open, especially in relation to finances, and to make financial decisions together.  Our conversation last night would not have gone nearly as well if one or the other of us made all of the decisions without consulting the other.  This has also helped us keep each other financially accountable to the other because our decisions are made together.  

I could probably talk about this stuff all day.  And I realize that what I'm saying isn't anything new and that I'm still a rookie at marriage.  But perhaps - I hope - this is a good reminder.