What happend to January?

Today we are into the second week of February and I'm realizing that I neglected to post much of anything last month. So, a little recap of January is in order. The month can basically be summed up with "Family and a Transmission."

Bad news first, as I was driving out to a high school basketball game my truck started making this horrible noise, like it was dying. I though something broke off the undercarriage and was dragging or something. It was awful! I stopped and grabbed the flashlight and looked under and saw nothing visible wrong, so I tried to drive back towards town but it got worse! So I stopped and called a friend for help. Not knowing what was wrong I called AAA for a tow and had it taken to the shop.

The next day I called and they said they thought it was my transfer case and that to replace it with a used one would cost about $1100. After I picked myself up off the floor, I said okay I'll find the money. Well I got the money (it was for taxes, but it was all I had so I didn't really have a choice) and they started to fix it. But when they got the transfer case off, they discovered it wasn't that, but actually my transmission. So they told me that now it would cost $1600.

I called my loan company and decided that I still owed too much on the truck to get rid of it and get a new a loan. I just didn't want to do that. So I had to find the money, which meant waiting for pay day and skipping payments of some bills. I rounded up the money and last week I was able to get my truck back, although now I am broke. I am SUPER thankful to my friends Rob & Colleen for letting me borrow their extra car for most of the month and friends who filled my tank for me so I can drive my truck to work. I am also thankful to everyone who has/will feed me over the next couple weeks til I get paid again. :)

In the midst of my truck woes, I took a vacation back to Oregon to visit family and friends (who are also family). The trip was mostly for my beautiful niece's 1st Birthday! Nora has grown up so much and is the absolute CUTEST girl in the entire world. I'm serious! It was so fun to see her and spend time with her mom and dad too and my Momma and other siblings as well. I also got to take my Grandpa out to lunch (Chinese, our favorite!) which was really awesome. After a long weekend with the fam I got to drive over the mountain to Bend to see my family there. I didn't get to see everyone I'd hoped to, mostly thanks to a snow day, but I had a great time with everyone I did see. LOVED seeing my kids especially, and also going in person to Bible study instead of through skype! So good to see everyone, can't wait for June when I'll go back for some graduations!

That's pretty much the highlights of January. I can't believe it's already February 7th. Time flies when you're having fun...or not really having fun. Bottom line is God is good ALL the time and even when things are crummy, He gives us amazing people to love us through the tough times. I am blessed!

Happy New Year!

Well 2011 is a thing of the past and we have begun 2012! I for one prefer even numbers, so I am already happy with this year. :) I am definitely looking forward to this year and all the blessings God has in store!

I'm not really one to make "New Year's Resolutions." I understand the purpose and timing, but I really think that sometimes we set ourselves up to fail or are too specific in our resolutions. For instance, "starting Jan. 1st I'm going to stop eating junk, excercise every day and lose 50 lbs by summer." Well it sounds good, but there's no way I'm going to stop eating junk all together (it's too much of a habit! ;) ), and excercising every day would be awesome, but also not realistic to think that I will do it EVERY day, and losing 50lbs would be awesome, but if I only lose 25 by summer am I a failure? I guess I just know myself and realize that while this style of resolution might be a great motivation and totally work for some people, it's just not my style.

So I'm not going to play that game. Instead I'd rather think big picture and work on things over the year, with no hard and fast dealines or super specific goals. And I think my big picture focus is going to be on Health, not just physical, but financial, emotional, spiritual, and in relationships too. So in all the things I do everyday I hope to have "Health" on my mind and I hope that will guide me to making good choices to support my Health in a variety of areas. And realizing that I am not perfect and will fail at times, I will commit this to prayer. I will ask God to help me to be mindful of this and stay focused on Him, because I know that when I do everything else always falls into place. :)

So a happy and HEALTHY New Year to you!