Just give us the keys, already!

So Mike and I are just 4 measley days away from owning our first home! We are beyond excited. Wednesday we had the new home orientation where our builder took us thru the house and taught us how everything works, from all the breaker boxes to the water hoses. It was exciting. It was also the last time we had to critique any part of the house like niks in the drywall, paint drips, etc. Mike has an incredible eye for detail.

Here's our schedule, and it's a crazy one!!!

Friday 6/18 work, pack some more

Saturday, 6/19 work, bridal shower, cooking show (unrelated to moving, so I guess that Mike will shoulder all the work tomorrow!)

Sunday 6/20 PACK PACK PACK

Monday 6/21 work, final packing

Tuesday 6/22 CLOSE ON HOUSE! After closing, we'll go over to the house and tape off everything to start painting

Wednesday 6/23-Friday 6/25 PAINT, PAINT, PAINT!! We are painting all but 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms of this giant house. We will be thankful to have Mike's mom with a brush in her hand.

Friday 6/25 All appliances will be delivered and we're crossing our fingers for the couch and loveseat on that day too... this day will feel like Christmas to me

Saturday 6/26 MOVING DAY!

We are pretty busy, obviously, and I'm looking forward to every bit of it. Mostly because I only have 3.5 hours of work today, 3 hours of work tomorrow, and 8 hours on Monday until we close. Yippy! And I"m taking the rest of next week off. That will feel GREAT.
Here are some more recent pictures. They are of us in the kitchen of our home, and also Mike wanted a picture with Brian, our builder. He did a great job.
Enjoy!

Such wonderful blessings

As I've said before, this has been a year of waiting. Well, a life of waiting, but you get the idea. We are continuing to see progress on our house, pretty much all that's left to do right now is put in the carpet, get the water running (which will be good b/c it seems like every time we go over to look at the house, I have to pee), and do the landscaping.

We close on the house on 6/22, and move in on 6/26. It seems like in the past year or two, the beginning to most sentences is "when we get a house, _______" (fill in the blank). I have been waiting...

waiting to have an organized and more spacious place to live

waiting to have a more fulfilling job

waiting to start a family that I've wanted since I was a little girl

waiting to actually run a clean and efficient home

...you get the picture.

In the past 2 years, especially, I have struggled with an incredible amount of discontent. Now sometimes I'm so perfectly happy and content, and then one thing will send me back into the pit. I've gone thru times when I wouldn't allow myself to read other peoples' blogs because I was jealous of them and what they were doing. It would actually cause my heart to sin. Who knew?

But last June, Mike and I joined a small group through our church, College Park Church. When Mike went to England last year, it hit me that we spend so much time working and sleeping and working that we don't really have a lot of friends who we meet with regularly to share the ups and downs of life. We have friends, but we usually only see them every few weeks, and only take a few minutes to talk and ask how the other is doing.

We have been SO blessed by our small group. We love them so much and always look forward to our meetings. The group consists of 9 couples (18 adults) and 18 children (including 4 Henney babies and 1 Sanders baby who live overseas) so it's a wild and fun bunch. We get together about every other Sunday and talk about the morning's sermon and we also have an opportunity to pray for each other. This is so sweet.

Almost all of the women in our group are stay-at-home moms, and to be honest, I find myself extremely jealous of them at times. They probably think I'm crazy, but being in their state of life, being a wife and a mom, taking care of the home... that's my dream. And they're living it right in front of me. Although, I have discovered that these women have so much knowledge and experience in what I hope to experience myself in the near future, and I look to them as incredible resources and kindred spirits. I know that when the day comes and we start a family, if I have concerns about something, I know that I'll be able to call them and be encouraged. I find myself in conversations at the table about potty-training and breastfeeding, etc and I used to tune it out... but now I listen. There is no baby on the way right now, just to be clear, but it's something that I hope will eventually change. I'm just so blessed to have these women in my life, and know that I'm not the only one who struggles with certain things. Thanks so much for your transparency, ladies!!

AND it's also a nice time to hold and play with precious little ones, and of course see Mike engage with them as well. THAT is downright comical at times.

As I'm sure many of you understand, it's hard to see the blessings in the midst of discontent. Hard to see the big picture... hard to see the forest for the trees, if you will. There are times that I feel (as silly as this sounds) that God has forgotten about me... I pray for a good day at work, and I'm met with more challenges than ever. I find myself in a pile of tears at the end of the day from being exhausted and burned out. The exact opposite of what I prayed for... it is discouraging. But I'm working on looking at the big picture and thank God for the little things in life

like holding off the rain until I get home with my truck full of groceries...

like holding my sweet babies at Riley...

like a fun, swingin' song on my Pandora station...

like giving me a great verse right when I need it...

like having a precious friend write something sweet on my facebook wall...

I'll never understand God and WHY he does things, but I think the idea is that we're not supposed to understand it all. Like Pastor Mark says, "Don't think about the WHY, but the WHO."

Thank you God for such wonderful blessings!

What's going on with us?

Waiting! That's all we seem to do these days! 2010 has been the most boring year ever so far, but in comparison to 2009, I'm totally OK with that! It has allowed Mike and I to spend more time together before the house is completely finished and our weekends are gone.

I'm not one of those bloggers who daily showers her readers with cute anecdotes of what her kids said or pictures of kids or pets or anything.... that's because we are SO busy with a lot of nothing! Pretty much all we do is eat, sleep, and work. Oh and I try to clean. :) We rarely go anywhere or do anything anymore because we're still saving up money for our house.... but these days of boredom will soon be over! Sewing has been my recent "anti-work" and is one of my favorite things to do. Maybe I'll post pictures of some of my products... they can be my "babies."

We close on our house on June 22, and after that it will be full steam ahead! Since this is a brand-new house, we have to get everything to fill it up, and there will be a lot of work in that. I'm excited! Finally a place to call our own! I can finally put everything in it's place! Our apartment has been overtaken by STUFF, so much I can hardly stand it anymore. In our new house I will have my own office, and Mike will have his own office, which will be a nice change. We'll have a yard, so Mike will have to shoulder a little more work around here, which will be nice. The past year or two I've been counting the days, rather than making the days count, which I know isn't a good thing. I'm working on it.

AND on top of getting the house in June, I have a packed Pampered Chef show schedule (praise the Lord)!

AND we will be welcoming our first niece or nephew into the world the first week of July! Ryan & Laurel will have their first child and we are so excited to meet him or her!

AND I have Pampered Chef conference the 2nd week of July in Chicago

AND we're having weekend visitors (Melissa, Jake, Holly) in September and Bethany in October

AND we're hosting Thanksgiving this year, and hopefully my parents will come to see us!

We have a LOT to look forward to, which is nice after all the boredom we've been having!

Since we've been spending more time at home, it has allowed me to pursue things and give more time to things I've wanted to for a long time... my Pampered chef business has been so great this year so far and I'm absolutely loving it.

I am also becoming quite the seamstress, as sewing has become my favorite new thing. I still love to cook more than anything else, but it's more expensive and the things I make aren't always used. I've loved making gifts for all my millions of friends having babies and my new thing is making purses. SO much fun. I love finding blogs online with tutorials, and I can't wait to make curtains and drapes for the new house.

I'm also becoming better at saving money on groceries. I've been a pretty devoted coupon-clipper since we got married, but I've been more serious about it lately, and it's paying off big time. I love www.couponmom.com and even got her book. I joined www.e-mealz.com for the meal planning tips... I always prided myself in being a good meal planner, but this has helped even more. The meals on e-mealz are only OK, and I tweak them a little bit but still save $$. Try these sites!

Mike has spent most of his spare time on the house... going over there every day and taking pictures and talking to the neighbors and workers. He has caught a few mistakes that they've made and mentioned it to the supervisor so our house is gonna be the best! It's cool... our neighbors are so nice, and we are really blessed to live near such helpful and kind people.

OK that's all I got now. I would upload another house picture, but not much on the outside has changed! Later!

Rachel <><

Our house, as of 4/5/10

YIPPY SKIPPY!

Finally

After more than 2 years of living in our apartment, saving as much money as possible (close to my salary), and driving me pretty much out of my ever-loving mind, I am proud to say that we have BOUGHT A HOUSE!!

What? What just happened?

That's right!! We have been saving so much pretty much since we got married so that we could have a home that we really wanted, and wanted to stay in for a long time. Neither one of us were interested in the small "starter home," so we decided to save and go BIG. We have sacrificed date nights, vacations, shopping (seriously- I haven't been shopping in over a year) and many other fun things for a 20% down payment on a house and it looks like it's finally becoming a reality.

Our plan was to save until February, then get a mortgage, realtor, and start looking for a house. Back in August I was out shopping at Metropolis (outdoor mall in Plainfield) and saw this cute little community and decided to pop in. It's a Centex community, building custom homes at a price. A BIG price, mind you. I went in, talked to the salesman, and brought Mike back the next day. The guy spent several hours with us, walking through the various options, what they would cost, etc.... and the total came to WAY more than we expected to pay. We left a little deflated, and tossed the idea of building a house out the window....

... until the first week of January. Mike felt that the Lord was leading him to reopen the discussion about building a house. He looked online and found that because Pulte Homes acquired Centex, then the base price of the homes had dropped $20K! Wow! It's within our reach now! So in a matter of about 8 days we picked out the options again, found the lot, looked at an existing home, and signed the contract! Whew!

The home we will be building is a Sizemore model. You can check it out on the Centex site... we are going to be in The Settlement subdivision in Avon/Plainfield. I say "Avon/Plainfield" because we will have a Plainfield address, but we will be in Avon schools and pay Avon taxes. Silly postmaster. The neighborhood is really quiet, and it's far enough away from all the city lights so that we can see the stars on a clear night. Yay!

So Lord willing, at the end of June, we will be moving out of our apartment into our very own house! I will try to post pictures here and on facebook of the building process, as this will be very exciting for us. I am extremely pumped about this.... we have so much stuffed packed to the walls in this apartment. Partially due to my packrat husband, and also due to the fact that we just don't have enough room for everything. Just to give you an idea, we'll be able to fit pretty much our entire apartment in the basement of our new house. OMG. I have surrendered to the fact that our apartment will never truly be clean until we move out, because there just isn't room to get around. It's bad, people.

AND when we got married, we didn't get anything new (big stuff like furniture, bed, etc) so we'll finally be able to have some nice things!

Below are some pictures of our lot and a home that is similar to what ours will look like. Ours will have the garage on the other side of the house, and be a different color siding, brick and shutters. Enjoy!!

our muddy lot...

A Decade in Review

After I finished my last post, I thought about all that's happened not just this past year,but this past decade! All the news websites are doing this type of thing, and it's amazing to do that on a more personal basis..... so here goes:

1999: Graduated high school, started full-time at Tomball College, struggled with headaches and other health issues, tried to figure out what it would take to transfer to Texas A&M, started working at the FLC (Family Life Center) at church working the early morning shift.

2000: Continued my studies at Tomball College, also continued to struggle with health issues and finally had my back surgery, which caused me to take a semester off of school. I started working with Dot Hill as her assistant in Premier Designs, Inc and absolutely loved it. I was in the choir at church and loved being the dancing snowman in the Christmas production.

2001: Got accepted to Texas A&M! That summer I was an intern at Champion Forest and really enjoyed learning more about what it really means to run a youth ministry. I started school and 2 weeks later 9/11 hit and all our lives were changed. I loved my first year at A&M, but found my share of struggles due to lack of a car and cell phone. But boy was I in shape from riding that bike everywhere!

2002: In the Spring I made the Dean's List and that summer I got my certification as an Emergency Medical Technician. I spent some time in the back of ambulances, in firehouses, and many hours (it seemed) in the ER, practicing my skills and observing many amazing things. In the fall I got a job at the on-campus Rec Center as a medic, which is the best job I've ever had.

2003: Continued studying at A&M, but finally had a car! Actually I had the big blue minivan, which was fun taking all my friends all over town in style. In December I received my Aggie Ring, which was an encouragement to me to keep going!

2004: The Spring semester was my last on-campus, and it was a doozy! In the summer I did my internship at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston in the Volunteer Services office. I was in charge of managing all the Junior Volunteers for the summer. It was kind of fun at times, but let's just say I got reeeeeallllly good at fixing paper jams in xerox machines. In August I graduated with my BS in Community Health and a month later started working at The Health Musuem in Houston as a Science Educator. I taught field trip science classes and dissected all sorts of animal organs for an audience. No, actually, that was the best job I've ever had.

2005: Worked at the Health Museum until May, then moved to Indianapolis for a new job at Summex Health Management, now WebM*. And I am still there. Oh and in December I met the man of my dreams.

2006: I dated Mike. That pretty much covers it.

2007: Mike and I were engaged in February and married on July 14th. I have never learned so much about myself in such a short period of time!

2008: I started my Pampered Chef business and celebrated my first anniversary with Mike in the same week! I also switched from Supervisor to Health Coach in my job (which was a step down) but it was totally worth it.

2009: See above post.

Wow, so much! So to sum it up: In 10 years I had a major life-changing surgery, went to college, went to another college, graduated, got my first real job and got my first real boyfriend and husband (all in one!).

A Year in Review

2009 was without question the worst year of my life and I am glad to see it go! There. Got that out of the way!

However, I am glad to say that I came closer to any 2 New Years Resolutions than ever!

1. Reading the Bible. This time last year I resolved to read through the entire Bible in 1 year following a plan from the Discipleship Journal. Due to the looooongness of the Old Testament, I am only about 1.5 months behind! I got up every weekday morning, took a shower, read the Bible, and then ate breakfast. This was made possible by me beginning to work at home in January. I found that sitting on the bathroom floor (with the shower running--- don't judge--- it's my favorite sound in the world) with my Bible was my favorite part of the day. Thank you, Lord!

2. Flossing. Every year I vow to floss my teeth every day, and each year I get better. This year was probably the best for flossing, and it showed at my latest dentist appointment! Score!

This year was full of lots of ups and downs. Pros and cons. Happiness and tears. You get the idea.

The Bad:
** Mike was in England on business for 5 months, when it was originally supposed to last 2 months.
** My PC sales went down the toilet (early in the year) because I didn't care about anything and had to work hard just to get up every day from January through May.
** Work was so stressful that sometimes I just break down in tears because I'm so exhausted, tired of dealing with it!!
** I struggled with more discontent and had more stress than any other time in my life! (see previous bullet point)

The Good:
** I got to travel out of the country (England) for the first time to see Mike. Now I finally have a stamp on my passport!
** My sister Melissa got engaged and married, and we were able to travel to Savannah, GA for the wedding and then a vacation. It was such a special week!
** I learned how very much I love my husband.
** After a rough Spring, my PC sales bounced back up and I met many of my goals!
** In January I started working from home which is a huge blessing, considering how awful winters can be! Life is a lot better when you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to scrape off your car and hope you don't die on your way to work.
** (more recently) Mike and I got to visit Texas for Christmas and I got to see more old friends than any trip in the past!
** I learned how to sew
** I learned how to live as a single-but-married girl for 5 months, which was the hardest thing I've had to do. Looking back on it, I still can't believe we made it! I have a whole new respect for you military wives out there!

So... on to 2010! I am so excited and am really looking forward to all that will be in store for us in the upcoming year. I've been thinking about it all week, trying to come up with resolutions, and honestly I don't have any, except just to keep up what I've been doing... flossing, reading the Bible, exercising, etc.

Do any of my readers have resolutions?

PS: This year, one of my resolutions is NOT to blog more. I always fail at that one!! LOL