That Christian Side Hug! LOL, WOW

What would you do with $1,000?

As everyone knows, Scott and I have been poor from the get go of our marriage! We're both young, educated adults with degrees, both certified to teach, but yet neither one of us feels like we fit into this crazy capitalist world!

I like to see us as free spirits, artsy folks, HIPPIES if you will, goin against the flow. Which is why I refuse to let Scott shave his beard! It's his beard and my kinky curly hair that separate us from the rest of the world! Hahaha

And even though my dearest friend, Jen, tells me I'm not Hippie material, I refuse to give up hope that one day we will be!!!

And it is just fitting that my dear husband is a FARMER/GARDENER and I've made a career of slingin' coffee. But because of this we are poor and have had to be scrappy! Which is why most of the furniture in my house was picked up on heavy trash day!

But last week there was a letter in the mail. Our address was handwritten on the envelope and immediately I got excited! You see in my world a handwritten letter usually includes a check!!! God bless my in-laws!

As I open the letter I'm thinking, "it's no ones birthday, not a holiday, hmmm...i wonder what this check could be for and how much it is."

It turns out Scott's grandparents owned a running Model T and sold it. The money went to Scott's parents and his uncle and out of the kindness of their hearts, they sent us a $1,000 check!!!

I couldn't believe it!

I started thinking about what we would do with this money.

I'm in "NEED" of a new wardrobe, a new hairstyle, I want to redecorate a room in my house, want a flat screen tv, and I've been wanting some patio furniture to enjoy our garden.

Scott of course wants to build more garden beds! And he wants a good camera. A $500 camera.

On top of that Scott and I both have been wanting to invest some money in our small businesses. His Edible Earth and my soon to be online craft store.

Um....that's a little bit more than $1,000.

OH, OH, and we have debt, home owners dues, we need stickers for the cars, and need to get the oil changed.

Here we are blessed with more money than we've had in a long time...no wait, EVER...and I'm stressing out about what to do with it!

For a few days I would call Scott at work ever few hours and say, "ok, ok, i've got it. You can have this much for that, I get this much for that, and then together we can get this!" And then he would have a different idea of how to spend the money!

I was stressin hardcore. Hahaha, isn't that absolutely ridiculous?

Turns out I stress when we don't have money, and I stress out when we do have money!

Reba once said, "when there's money involved, there's stress."

Anyway, after a few days of this the Lord sent an answer to relieve my stress in the strangest way. Yep, God sent the IRS.

Last night we got a letter (not handwritten) from the IRS telling us we owe $661!!!

Hahaha, life's funny, isn't it. So that's that. And I slept very well last night. ;)

Now, what would you do with $1,000?

(thanks harry and melodie)

All About the Animals

I found another use for those left over kitchen cabinets

Dolomite

and Lemon

the Milikin's pups

And here are some pics of Odin's 5th birthday party!

Yes, Odin is a horse!

the good AND the bad

So I've decided to also post about things that are not so pretty in my life, that way you get a bigger picture of what my life is really like. Not to say that I am unhappy or don't appreciate all I've been blessed with, but I'm working at being more honest about my daily struggles even if that means being vulnerable...yikes!!! This way no one will read my blog and be depressed about their life, ha, like I so often do.

Do you want the good pretty stuff first? Or the bad and the ugly?

Let's do the pretty stuff!

I've been promising this for a while so here are the pictures from our garden! Scott has added four new beds to our back yard! He made three long rectangle beds, 2x4 I believe just for tomatoes. In each bed we have three tomato plants. One bed for small tomatoes, one for medium, and one for large.

He also made me the most beautiful herb planter right on the corner of my back patio that way when I'm cooking I don't have to go far to fetch my herbs! What a sweetheart!!!

In our existing beds we put peppers in one and squash and zucchini in the other with cucumbers on their trellises on the ends.

And then there's the corn bed!!!

If you don't have corn growing in your garden, I would recommend you plant some because it is just so beautiful!

Hahaha, this is where Scott got excited about some new growth or a strange bug he discovered!

And while Scott was busy adding all these awesome new beds to our garden, I decided to add my own little touches...

That's right! A blow up baby pool! Actually two adults fit in it just fine.

Plus my grandmother's chairs! And since Scotty wouldn't let me get six tiki torches like I wanted, I snuck out of the house one day and bought ONE!

Oh, I almost forgot to show you the onions we harvested just the other day.

Now what I'm about to share with you is pretty ugly! Brace yourself.

My sister recently moved to town and because our pants are starting to feel a little snug, we decided we should work out. Now, I'm not trying to be one of those girls who knows they're skinny but insists they are fat just to get other girls to TELL them they are skinny. No, no. My sister and I are very petite girls so any weight we gain goes to...oh yeah, and we're Hispanic...so any weight we gain goes straight to our hips, then our ass, then our bellies, and then it starts to create a double chin! That's how it goes folks, HIPS, ASS, BELLY, CHIN!

So I thought I would let you see us working the P90x video, Plyometrics...the one with all the jumping and lunges! BTW, this workout is not for the loose bladdered!!!

Hahaha, I think I work out my abs from laughing during our workouts more than anything! So that's good. It's something.

And now the truly ugly stuff. Well, ugly is a bad word, let's use real or honest instead.

Scott and I have been wanting to add on to the family for quite some time without any luck. We've had a few tests done, and I'm currently getting Acupuncture (which is amazing by the way). We have also thought about adopting but don't think we have the finances for that right now.

Infertility is a scary thing. It's a hard thing to live with. It's an even harder thing to talk about and share with others. Somedays you feel like a failure, like it's your fault or that your body failed you. Other days are easy and we focus on the things we have and the love we share and how that's enough. And on the really good days I picture Jesus sitting by me on the bed looking at my computer screen and reading along with me about ways to improve fertility. He looks at me and in His eyes I see He wants it just as badly as we do. He's there fighting with me, struggling with me, heartbroken with me, and just as puzzled as I am. And other times I picture God above. He listens to our prayers and wants so desperately for me to not worry and trust in Him. He wishes He could show me my life and how this turns out and how it is all good, but He truly wants me to learn to trust Him.

So this is as vulnerable as it gets folks! And honestly if I were to see any of you who read this blog in the real world and if you were to bring this subject up, I might deny it all. That's how hard it is to talk about.

But I write it for this...prayers.

And to let you all in on a little bit more of my life.