Another Day, Another Dollar

The New House!!!

  

 

My laundry room is adorable. I think. I wish I could paint it but I wont :)

 

My Kitchen..

 With a big opening through to the living room.

 Guest (my) Bathroom

 And my super organized closet :)

 This is the making of a man cave room. Still have to get the tv moved over and the pictures hung up.

 Living room from the hallway..

 Our BEAUTIFUL new sectional thanks to Papa Q :)

 Master Bedroom. Still working on decorating it.

 Master Bathroom...

 Don't judge..we're (gonna be) married :)

 Our pretty welcome mat outside the front door.

 And the SUPER cute rug in the kitchen. I love it.

We have a third bedroom. Grant calls it the "Lady Lair". But it's a work in progress. So updated/finished photos will be posted in a little while. 

Basically I love my new house :) Grant is moving in in about 17 days because...wait...

WE'RE GETTING MARRIED IN LESS THAN 3 WEEKS.

I love my life. There's pictures for the family.

All That Could Have Been

So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to get rid of my Facebook and Twitter for a while. I waste too much time looking at and reading things that aren't helpful or anything for me. It's been almost 2 months now and I LOVE that I don't worry about it anymore. It has made my life much more uncomplicated.
However. I have had my Facebook account at least for years and years, and I can't help but think I would make a facebook status about this or I would post this picture on facebook in some situations.

So here's to what could have been. To catch you up on all of the make believe status updates that I posted [in my head]. #youmissedalot

• My animals are lovely and adorable. #socute

• My mom bought me a REALLY early birthday gift- A sewing machine. Pinterest has made me a regular house wife. I got this idea in my head that I wanted to learn to sew. #pinterestprincess

                    So I've been a sewing machine (pun intended) for weeks now making                                        pillows, plastic bag socks, pot holders, and aprons.

• Boyfriend (FIANCE) and I are now 68 days away from getting married!!!!! And we are as perfect together as the first day we met. #lovers

• I have been ordering and shopping for lots of wedding stuff with mom and I'm getting quite the collection of decorations and such. Here's the shoes I'll be wearing, our photo guest book, and the ties that the guys will be wearing!! #weddingday

• My baby nephew Mason turned the 6 month mark. He's the cutest. #babyface

• Valentines Day rolled around and my lovely fiancé got me the worlds biggest balloon. Needless to say, it's a month later and it's still full of helium... #embarrassed #lovehim



• Grant and I are planning on moving to Kentucky somewhere after we get married, so I have been looking for jobs and such. I had a couple interviews this past weekend and so the fiancé and I packed our bags for a little weekend vacation to the Commonwealth (as Grant calls it). #roadtrip !!





 

-Our first experience in the batting cages. SO much fun. #strike1

• On our way home, we stopped for a trip through Louisville Zoo and saw some awesome animals :) #animalssssss

• We had a day date back a couple weeks ago at a gun range with a friend of the family who also happens to be a cop. We got to shoot an AR-15 which was awesome. #bangbang

• Needless to say, we have had a lot of good stuff happening. Counting down the days til we get MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honeymoon is paid for. Another weekend trip planned for April.
God is good.
My fiancé is a good looking man.
#cantwait #futuremrsquimby
68 days.


#canthashtagbecauseidonthaveatwitteranymore
=]

♫I got my shades on, top back, rollin' with the music jacked, one on the wheel and one around you baby. Sun set, I'll bet there's a chance we can get sure enough tangled up, laid back and lazy...nothin' but time tonight, let's get to killin it. As long as I'm rocking with you, you know i'm cool with just chillin' it. ♫ -Cole Swindell

My Prince Charming.

So it's been forever since I've been writing. And a ton has happened.

Most importantly being the fact that I got engaged in December.
This happened.

I can't explain how happy I am. We're getting married May 17th and I can't stop myself from counting down the weeks, even days, until I can finally spend every minute with this guy.

We've been through so much together. Highs and lows, and through it all we have gotten so incredibly close. My heart knew as soon as our eyes met that he was the one God intended to be mine forever.
God certainly works in mysterious ways. When we first met, I never dreamed we would be counting down the days until we got married. And sitting here now watching him sleeping on the couch beside me, I find myself looking back on those first days and weeks that Grant and I started building that foundation of our friendship/relationship.

From day 1 Grant has made me happier than I literally ever thought possible. When I met him, I was in the middle of the biggest, most painful storm I've ever experienced. But whenever I was with him, regardless of what was going on around me, my heart was happy again. Truly, genuinely happy.  He made me forget about the hurt I was experiencing and he made me feel safe again, something I had been longing to feel for some time.
I got to that point that when I walked into a room, my eyes immediately started searching for him. and when our eyes finally met, it was like everything in the room disappeared except for him. He was (and continues to be) my sanctuary, my safe spot. He's my rock and I draw so much strength from him.

I know this all sounds so cliché but I can honestly say that I've been blessed with that fairy tale love story with him.

We both had a past, and with previous relationships I had been in, it seemed that that past mattered. But with Grant, it was all about our future. Never "hey lets talk about how you messed up", no judgement. Just grace and patience as I worked through my emotional baggage and began to heal. Step by step he was there holding my hand, not pulling and tugging me forward, but giving me the strength to take it as slowly as I needed to.
Everyone is familiar with 1 Corinthians 13, and we all know "love is patient, kind..." etc. But never in my life (besides Jesus of course) has anyone SHOWN me love like Grant does. With him, I never have to doubt whether or not he will be there for me. He may be late :) But he is always there for me. He looks out for me, he protects me, and he truly treasures me. He puts my interests before his, and he does his best to keep us right with God and to ensure that our individual relationships with God are growing as strongly and stronger than our relationship with each other.

I love sitting with Grant and talking about having kids (we already have names picked out), and talking about future houses and jobs. It's no longer 2 separate lives that we are a part of, its one life, together, for the rest of our lives.
He loves my family. He jokes with my dad, he laughs with my mom, he and my brother are close. He's the best fit for me and my family.
I thank God every day for Grant and for his strong presence in my life. It's seriously the greatest gift he could have given me. I have a strong, godly, trustworthy man in my life forever that cares for me like no one ever has. He's perfect for me. And I love him so much.

Plan "B"

I'm been learning, the past few months, that I don't know everything. I have had all these plans in mind, the way I want and think things should be. I plan things down to the second because it makes me feel safer and more confident to know when things are going to happen. But sometimes, most times for me, God doesn't work that way. I spend all this time telling God I planned this and this and this. And he comes back with Okay kiddo, but lets call that plan B alright? I've got something better in mind for you.

Life really is a huge step of faith. Every time I picture what that looks like for me I think of the Indiana Jones movie, "The Last Crusade". In one particular scene, Indiana Jones comes to a big gap in the path he is supposed to be taking. To him, it looks like a big gaping hole he could never just jump on over. But he knows there has to be an "easier" way across. He consults his little book (in this instance is where we as Christians crack open our Bibles to see what God would have us to do next), and he finds the quote "Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth". He thinks There's no way anyone can jump that far. And he says outloud It's a leap of faith. (Are you following me yet?)

So what does he do? He takes a deep breath and steps out. And as it turns out, there's a path in front of him. A path that had been there all along but he couldn't see it. It blended into the background of the gap in front of him, and because he was so concerned with the unknown he was facing, he couldn't see that there was a safe, easy way across.

{Top picture is what he saw. But at another angle (bottom picture) there's the path :) If you can't picture all this happening in your head, and you haven't seen the movie, look up the clip on YouTube. There's a lesson there.}

Proverbs 3:5-6 is a verse that a lot of people know but don't put into practice. It says
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
  in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight"

That doesn't necessarily mean it will be easy. Nowhere in that verse does it say that he'll tell you what's next or let you decide when things will happen. It just says that if we TRUST God with ALL of your heart and not try to understand everything, he'll make your path straight. It's so so important that we let go (submit) of that Lord/Leader spot in our lives and actually allow God to take the reins and just follow where he leads.
A lesson to live by :) And something I need to work on.

Get Your Own Word

Recently we had a guest speaker come to our church to prophesy over people. He's incredibly gifted and God really uses him in our church sometimes.
My whole family was desperate for a word from God through him. Confirmation. Direction. Anything.

I didn't feel so much desperate for a word but I did want some confirmation of some things. However, the speaker never spoke to me or Grant.
That night I got to thinking and praying about it and I felt God saying If you want a word from me that badly, ask. You can't expect me to speak through someone else when you aren't doing anything to hear me yourself. It's not fair to expect someone to just tell you what God has in store for you if you aren't seeking the answers yourself. You have to make an effort to hear God and spend some extra quality time with him if you want some direction. God can speak to you just as clearly as he can anyone else. You just have to make the effort to hear him. And then listen. He wants to talk to you just as much as you want to hear from him.



I have also recently (along with Grant) have been bombarded by blessings right now. And it's pretty sweet. He's so faithful to come through for us, no matter what we have done.

This next year a lot is going to change. And it is all change that I'm anxiously waiting for.

Wish I had more to write about, but it's work, sleep, church, work. And then there's that glorious couple of hours that I get to spend with the most wonderful man to ever walk to earth.

He's even more amazing than he was the first time I wrote about him. I'm so proud to call him mine. We're gonna be awesome together. Plus there's this super cute picture of him with his little niece. He's going to be a perfect dad. :)






I love him so much :)



♫ I need you, OH I need You.
Every hour I need you.
My one defense, My righteousness
Oh God, how I need you ♫