I GOT A REAL JOB.

A lot of exciting things have been happening lately. Including getting a new JOB, Paul and I getting off facebook (listen, it's a lot harder than it sounds!), and just doing some major adjusting.

This past Thursday, I got a call from my mom's good friend, Dollie, the assistant principle at Hickory Hills elementary, wondering if I was interested in becoming a kindergarten paraprofessional. Of course I said YES! They had me in THAT day for an interview. PTL Meghan (the lady I nanny for) let me borrow her cute dress, makeup, and borrowed some shoes from a neighbor (her feet are a tad large compared to mine). So I swung on by the elementary school for an interview, and they offered me the JOB! All in one day!! This is such a blessing to us, I get paid full-time as well as benefits and paid vacations. And the craziest part is that I have been feeling for the past two months that God wanted me to be a school teacher. I've had it on my heart, and this position fell into my hands. Coincidence? Definitely not, God had His hand all in this for His plan. I have been trusting Him into getting Paul and I where to be, and maybe where we need to be is here for right now. Who knows....

As wonderful as this blessing is, it is so hard for me to leave the family I nanny for. Meghan has become one of my really good friends, and she's always there for me to vent! I hate that I can't be a helping hand for her anymore, but I know it's probably best for the both of us. I sure will miss those kiddos though. They will always hold a special place in my heart.

Well, this is my life update for now.

OH, and not to mention I got this job this past Thursday... well I start THIS Monday!!!!

love & war.

So let me start out by saying that marriage is GREAT. I truly have loved it, and I wouldn't want to be with any other than man than Paul. He is kind, loving, selfless, romantic, a leader, extremely handsome, and has all the qualities a woman like me would want. I am truly blessed by Paul and this marriage. But can I just say HALLELUJAH for Stasi and John Elderidge who wrote the book "Love and War" that I am currently reading...

I have been struggling lately, and it has been a personal struggle. I find myself trying to be this perfect wife. There are so many "duties" that a wife must fulfill. And I'm just going to be honest, MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK. I never thought I'd admit that, but it is. It is so compleltely different that anything I've ever done in my entire life. Putting someone else before me, serving someone else, seeing that person every day and night of your life. It's a lot to ask of a man of woman and cannot be done without God. I cannot even comprehend how any marriage can work without Jesus being the center and pulling our ropes. Praise the Lord I happened to stumble across this book, because all I've been thinking to myself lately is "I'm just never going to be good enough, I'm not perfect for Paul, how could anybody fully love me?" How could I possibly forget God's love for me, and the whole point of marriage is to show God's love. God knows marriage is hard, but He is showing you a "true love" that you can only grasp through marriage.

Did you know that the Bible begins AND ends with marriage? Marriage is SUCH a huge lesson that God is teaching us with our time here on earth. I will not lie and say that marriage is great all the time, because it's just not. But I love Paul more than I've ever loved anyone, and I love the fact that we get to go through this together. What a wonderful blessing that is.

life, life, life.

Soo.... I'm having a vision. A vision of SELLING my homemade bread? Crazy? Probably. But what do you think of a HOME delivery service? I can make all different kinds of breads, muffins, bagels, rolls, etc. I mean... aren't there some mom's out there that would love to make homemade bread but don't have the time? I work as a nanny, and KNOW there are some mom's that would love this. Thoughts??

Also, Paul will be meeting with the director on Tuesday, and I think we will leave soon for a week to St. Mary's to film THE PILOT episode. Please continue to pray for our future, as it is ALL up in the air!

lifelong goal completed.

why am I so bad at keeping this updated? I am sorry to all my fans (all three of you) haha. Oh goodness, anyshways, I am sure most of you have seen my twitter or facebook, but I completed one of my life goals last week. And it was INCREDIBLE.

So, my bff had invited me to go to the braves game and go to the suntrust club. Let me tell you... once you go suntrust, you won't wanna go back to normal seating. It is AWESOME. You get free food the whole time (dinner, ballpark food, drinks, etc). You have your own personal waiter. You have a flat screen tv in front of you (just incase you can't see what's going on from the 2nd row) and it's just an experience you'll never forget.

So I have always always ALWAYS wanted to catch a baseball at a Braves game. I mean who hasn't? Soo.... I am sitting there and I make eye contact with one of the Mets coaches (and this is during the game people). I signal him to throw me a ball. He then points to me and throws it to me! UNREAL. I even got on NATIONAL tv and on the bigscreen. Lifechanging really. The best, is when I listened to what they were saying they said "Mets coach makes a friend behind the net" I mean seriously great. I can check that one off the list!

Mr. Bags

Isn't life crazy sometimes, and I mean crazy as in ... God throws something in your face that was the last thing in the WORLD you'd think you would be doing.

I have been learning SO much recently from my Savior. I've been learning how to really become a selfless wife and person, how to put someone else before myself, and to just TRUST in whatever God has in store for us.

I have been mentally preparing myself that there's a good chance I could start living as a missionary with Paul. I mean, I've been preparing myself mentally, praying for peace, and had finally felt ready to say, "God, take us where you want us!" But little did I know, maybe I wasn't quite ready for his response..

Like I said, I was preparing myself for some sort of mission work, since Paul's passion was there. I was finally getting excited to see where God would take us, and this is the LAST thing I expected.

Paul got a phone call about a month ago from a man named, Jeff Franklin, interested in casting Paul in a NEW TV SERIES. When this first came up all I could do was laugh. "Well, we KNOW this is NOT what God has in store for us Paul, He has something much better, like working at a church or something" I mean I was totally NOT for this idea at all. It was WAY too out there, I have NOT been mentally preparing myself for this, and this is definitely NOT what God wants us to do.

So, we've been praying, and praying a lot over this past month and decided to give the first day of filming for the pilot a try. As we were in the car driving to the next filming location, I start balling. "Paul, this CAN'T be what God has in store. It is way too risky, it's something you do when your single! This is absolutely crazy. How can we do this??" And then I realized, how is this being selfless at all? Paul has one of the biggest opportunities of his life to STAR in a new CHRISTIAN tv series that could change people's lives! This is EXCITING! And something we may never get the chance to do again.

We talked to Jeff afterwards, and what a great man of God he was. He was supportive of whatever choice we made. But he knew, from when he laid eyes on Paul over 2 years ago, that Paul was the character, Billy Bags. He was meant to play this part. And at that moment, I realized for the first time, that this really maybe what God has in store for us. Wow.

So right now I just want to ask that you pray about this exciting, crazy, life changing adventure we could be a part of! I will make sure to keep everyone updated on the big decision we are about to make. Isn't it crazy that you think God is preparing you for something, when really, he might have been preparing you for something else?

our little place :)

So here's some pictures I finally took of our place :) I wanted to take pictures because I know that this will be something special we will always remember. For those of you that don't know, we are currently living in the basement of our great friends and mentors, Rick and Emily Everswick.

Rick married us, and both of them counseled us through our engagement time. They have been SUCH a blessing to us in so many ways. This being one of the biggest. It's been a great way for us to save money as we are trying to figure out WHAT in the world we are going to do. I will probably update on Thursday about a HUGE opportunity for Paul, and possibly me ;) Some of you may already know, we haven't told many people yet, but it's verrrry EXCITING!!

Here are some pictures of our new place:

our entrance

the kitchen

the den

the dining area

Right by the dining room

the bedroom, obvi

I LOVE the floors, probs my fave part!
the bathroom (can't figure out how to rotate)
(the bathroom again)

the daily grind.

So I have to talk about my new obsession: the daily grind...

What a great place. It's a Christian owned, coffee shop and I swear that every person you run into there is THE nicest person of my entire life. When I was there the other day, I asked for a blueberry muffin, and the guy told me they had just sold out. The man infront of me that had bought insisted that I have his, not in a creepy "i'm hitting on you way" btw, but in a genuine way. It made my day. And of course I told him no, cause it was even more of an excuse for me to get the AMAZING cinnamon roll (props to Caroline Fidell for showing me this place slash opening my stomach up for the cinnamon roll experience)

I would also like to say that I am currently dying from bronchitis which I am pretty sure has turned into pneumonia. Ok so I have no clue if it really has, but I feel HORRIBLE so please pray for me, and our medical bills :)