(wrote this a while ago, but didn’t post right away because of pictures… I’m just posting now and will try to get some up later today – the title was supposed to be “just surviving” or something, I forget) Too much of the time this is how we feel… it’s one thing, to the next, to the next. And this is with us constantly actively simplifying our lives. We’re major advocates of simplicity, but it’s still an everyday battle, unfortunately. Two times last week we chose to go on a walk even though there were many other things we needed to do, because it was a nice day and Maeve needed something to do before bed. There are too many things like that that usually get shoved on the back burner because other things seem more pressing. As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease… which is one of the principles credit card collection agencies use so well when bullying people into paying their debt. And that segues wonderfully into the subject of the financial class we are leading, starting tonight. Admittedly, it goes against our simplify motto, but it’s one of the areas that we have been extremely blessed in, and therefore we want to do our best to extend that blessing to others!
Another thing that takes up some of our time that a lot of you probably don’t know about is my connection with the homeschool group in this area. It’s a really great group and I wish it had existed when I was going through my childhood of homeschooling. Anyway, I have been working with them a couple of hours a week for 2 years? I can’t remember, I think so. Mainly I like having the connection and seeing how homeschooling has evolved. We are apparently going to be doing homeschooling of sorts with our children, so it’s good to stay in the loop. In any case, I had been doing a lot of library work for them (funny that as a child going to the library was one of my favorite things and at the time I would say I wanted to be a librarian), but since Maeve came along I have only made it over there a few times. Then a lovely new opportunity presented itself that I could maintain my relationship with the group and it was more suitable for Maeve. The group has classes at our church on Fridays, so I get to be the person on duty to help kids get to their respective classes, answer questions, make sure people get any materials the library sent over for them, etc. And now I get to interact with the people in the group more, whereas before I went to the library before it was open so that I could actually get stuff done. It suits us perfectly. How like God to have our back before we even had to ask.
One other thing that I do that you may or may not have been aware of, is that I became the secretary for our church in February. There were a few things that we really wanted to be able to work on for the church and this position was also a perfect match for us, as it is an at your own pace type of thing *most* of the time, and from home, also.
Of course, there is always our design business which keeps us constantly hopping as well. People ask us about it all the time, but we never have a lot to say because we’ve kind of been flying under the radar with a lot of stuff. Slowly but surely we are progressing with many endeavors and are currently working on an identity revamp which will be unveiled here when it gets accomplished. Some (David) would say I’m a bit of a perfectionist with stuff like this; I think it makes more sense to call it a “professionalist”, haha.
Anyway, many people wonder what we do, so that was a little bit of a look into our lives for those of you. (this sentence reminded me of Dwight Shrute. Jeff & Rhonda brilliantly invited us over for the premiere of this season of The Office tomorrow night… here’s to hoping they can keep it together and not start relying on crap. There was already a bit more crap involved in last season then the previous two…)
We recently took a long weekend trip out to OH. We hadn’t seen our OH people since January, so it felt long overdue. Actually, we hadn’t seen Lenny & Christina for longer than that because they were in Spain. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, but not quite as relaxing as it used to be with just the two of us… there were really no spare moments. Reuben skipped his classes for the evening and Monica made us a delicious supper. We got to stay with David’s grandma in her new house and she took us to the thrift store where she works and I found some great deals (which she blessed us with by paying the bill). We got to see some of David’s aunts and cousins and also stopped to see Sarah and Newton on the way to Columbus and they treated us to lunch and gave us a gas card! In Columbus, Kirk & Karla treated us to the usual royal treatment we have come to expect from them ;-) It was fun introducing the babies to each other. Maeve got to meet some of her cousins, Ethan, Dylan, Lauren, Emily, and Nathan, and our friends’ kids Mabri, Addison, and Noah. Thanks everyone for contributing to the pounds I probably gained while there. Delicious pounds they were.
Maeve, cute little punk that she is, started crawling in Columbus just before she turned 6 months. She isn’t *zooming* around per se, but fast enough for us to be hard pressed to keep up with her! She climbs up on stuff also, and we are starting to teach her the dreaded “no, no”. We really don’t want her to start walking, but at the same time, it would be funny to see such a short person tottering around. Finding new and exciting activities to entertain a growing, exploring, little brain will keep us young, no doubt about it. I actually hate entertaining small children, but I am pleasantly surprised to find out that all those people who said it is different with your own kid were right. It’s a blast, thank God! I’ll get some pictures up shortly!
I’ll leave you with one last tidbit of info about us. We are hoping to finally make it to Costa Rica this winter… it’s been on our agenda ever since getting married, and finally this year it is looking a lot more hopeful. We’ve been saving for it, have all of our passports, talked to David’s boss to get a leave of absence, found our tickets… now we just need to go over our finances again to decide for sure how long we will be able to stay there. We are going to try for three months. David really wants to be there for Christmas, and also for Maeve’s first birthday… he is thinking we could celebrate it there and come home and celebrate it here again. I guess we’ll see!
