I’m back! Obviously, it’s been a while since my last post. Getting through something in life as emotionally painful as a miscarriage is not easy or quick. And although I’m ready to share my recovery process with my readers, I also want to be clear that I’m not “over it.” Losing a child, no matter how early in a pregnancy, is not something to get over. I will never forget Sam. At the same time, though, I’m ready to move forward with my life. I can confidently say that I’m okay now.

It wasn’t a straight path, getting to “okay.” When we first got the news that we’d lost the baby, my immediate reaction was disbelief and shock. There was a lot of sadness, too. But after a few hours, I started to feel like I was alright. I felt oddly peaceful about the whole thing, and though I was still sad, I didn’t feel like it was swallowing me up. That didn’t last long; the next day I really began to feel a deep sense of grief.

For about two weeks, I went to a dark place. I felt hopeless. For all I knew, I would never have children. Even though I knew that miscarriages are sadly common, I also couldn’t help but think that it was a possibility that I would never be able to carry a baby to full term. And I wanted a baby more than anything else. If I didn’t have that, then what was the point of anything? I felt depressed, and I didn’t want to talk to or see anybody except Cory. I kept going to church, but I tried my best not to talk to people there. Other than that once-per-week excursion, I tried to stay in the house as much as possible.

Soon, my depression turned into anger. I was angry at God, but more than that, I felt betrayed by him. Why would he let this happen? More importantly, why should I trust him if he lets things like this happen to me? It seemed just plain stupid to believe that he would protect me and always stay by my side, in light of losing our baby. If that was the result of God loving me, then his love really didn’t seem very valuable. I began to question all of my beliefs.

I was lucky to have family and friends who stuck with me during this time. Many of them seemed to understand perfectly what I needed; they let me be, and gave me subtle love and encouragement. The reminded me that they were there to talk if I needed it, and that was perfect for me. Others were well-meaning, but I’ll just say this; when somebody is grieving, one of the worst things you can do is to tell them how to do it (and for me, one of the others is to act like nothing is wrong). I’m very thankful that most of the people in my life were wise and gracious enough to just let me feel how I felt.

After my two weeks of grief, anger, and confusion, I reached a place where I wanted answers. I started googling some of the “tough questions” to see what other Christians believed. Around that time, my pastor called me to see how I was doing, and offered to meet with me and Cory if we wanted to. We decided that it could help, so we set it up.

Before that meeting, I found some answers through my own research that I thought were good enough. Basically, I came to the conclusion that although God is good, we are still subject to bad things that happen to us in this lifetime. I explained that to myself by reasoning that we are in a broken world; right now, the devil is running things on planet Earth. Things are this way because the human race has chosen sin instead of choosing God. My hope came from the knowledge that Jesus died and rose again, which broke the power of sin in the lives of all people who believe in him. Unfortunately, that apparently didn’t mean we were saved from any of the bad stuff in this lifetime.

When Cory and I went to meet with our pastor, he gently presented a different view. It was simple; God is good, and he only wills good things. When something tragic like a miscarriage happens, it isn’t God’s will, not directly nor indirectly. (Although he will still use it for the good of those who love him.) Yet these things happen, even to believers. Why? Because we have an enemy. One of my favorite Bible verses is John 10:10, and it sums this up pretty beautifully: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

I didn’t fully grasp what my pastor had meant until later that night. He and his wife had gotten me a book called Supernatural Childbirth, which he gave it to me at our meeting. I was still processing what we’d talked about when I sat down to read it that night. Although the book is primarily about using faith during pregnancy and childbirth, it was easy for me to see how the concepts could be applied to every area of my life. Suddenly, everything started to make sense.

The Bible is full of promises from God, for those of us who know and love him. And it all starts with this one key fact; Jesus broke the curse of sin and death when he died and rose again. Because of his amazing sacrifice, we are free. The Bible makes it pretty clear that our freedom involves not only our souls, but our bodies and our lives in this world. Yes, the most amazing gift that God gave us was the gift of eternal salvation through Jesus. What gift could be better or more important? Yet he didn’t stop there. Jesus died to give us even more; he came so that we could have life, and have it abundantly.

For the past two weeks, Cory and I have been learning what this means. We’re learning how to fight using our faith and God’s word. I plan to write a more in-depth post about this concept later, because there’s a lot more to it and I’m still learning more all of the time. But I want to end with the simple idea that God is good, his will is good, and through Jesus, all things are possible.

I have an amazing sense of hope now, because I know that God will meet me where my faith is. The sky is the limit. For the time being, Cory and I are aiming for babies, and I know now without a doubt that we will be parents. The only question is when. Of course, that doesn’t worry me one bit because I know that the answer is “in God’s perfect timing.”

Yesterday, Cory and I went to our ultrasound appointment and received heartbreaking news. Unfortunately, I had an early miscarriage and I am no longer pregnant.

There are many things I’ve been feeling since then. For the most part, right now I just feel like I’m in some kind of nightmare. This can’t be reality, because this was not supposed to happen. I had complete and utter faith that everything was fine, and hearing the ultrasound technician tell me that there was nothing in my uterus was like a sick joke. It was impossible, she must have somehow made a mistake because I was eight and a half weeks pregnant and that was the only possibility I thought existed. But then I didn’t wake up, and I knew that somehow, beyond my understanding, this was the new reality. When I went home and took a pregnancy test just to make sure, I was slapped in the face with a big fat “not pregnant.” Somehow, the unthinkable had happened.

After our initial shock and disbelief, Cory and I spent some time just crying together. Since then, I’ve noticed that it comes in waves. For a while, I’ll feel fine and optimistic about the future and at peace with the situation. And then I’ll start to think about it, and it all comes rushing back; anger at God, a feeling of betrayal, despair, grief, confusion, and a sense of hopelessness. The realization that I will never fully understand God’s ways, and that for all I know, it may not be in his plans for me to have a baby at all.

Yet through it all, I do know one thing, which is that God loves me and he has plans for me that are good. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck sometimes (understatement) or that I won’t feel incredibly gut-wrenching pain in the process. But I can still hold on to the small sliver of hope in knowing that he will use it all for the good, somehow.

When I decided to publicly share that I was pregnant so early on, I knew that it was a theoretical possibility that I would have to publicly share news like this, too. I decided that it was worth it, because I want to let God use my story for his glory, whatever that story looks like. Sharing this sad news with my friends and family has been helpful and relieving, in many ways. Knowing that I don’t have to carry this pain all by myself gives me strength to face it. Knowing that other people are crying with me gives me the strength to grieve. Cory and I appreciate all of your prayers, very much. Other than that, we just need time to heal.

Even though our baby was only a few weeks in the making before God decided to take him/her to heaven early, we know that he/she was a person with a soul. Our baby is now living out his/her eternal life, at God’s side. Since we didn’t know the gender, Cory and I have decided to name the baby Sam. We want to honor Sam as our first child, even though we will not get to meet him or her until we go to heaven ourselves. We’ll never forget our baby.

Support and encouragement in the comments is always welcome. Thank you for sharing the pain with me; it truly does help.

The time has come for me to tell you some big news. About a month ago, during the same week that God led us to our new home, Cory and I discovered that there was one more big change to be excited about. We are very happy to announce that in March 2014, we will have a new family member joining us. We’re pregnant!

When I first found out, I was shocked and amazed. It was the first month that we’d been trying to conceive, and to be successful on the first try is very fortunate! We definitely didn’t expect it that soon. But God clearly had a plan in mind for when we would have a baby. He put Cory into the perfect job, moved us to the perfect house, and started knitting together a baby for us all within six weeks. There’s really only one word to describe that kind of miraculous series of events; Godly. He is making all of the pieces fall into place, and all of the glory for that goes to Him! So I say it again… God is good. So, so good.

Today I am in my 8^th week, which is still pretty early. We have a long wait ahead of us, but I’m excited to be on this journey! In just over 7 months we’ll be holding our precious baby. We’re both convinced that it’s a girl, but we won’t know for sure for another 8 weeks or so. We are definitely going to try to find out the gender as soon as we can!

For the most part, I’ve been having a very easy pregnancy. I have no morning sickness whatsoever (neither did my mom) and really no other unpleasant symptoms. I’ve been a little more tired and unmotivated to get things done, but other than that I feel fine. Last week, however, I did find myself in a scary situation. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say that I’m experiencing a symptom that is definitely not normal. My midwife recommended an early ultrasound to investigate, which I went to on Thursday. The results were ambiguous; there wasn’t much to see, since it was so early in the pregnancy, but it didn’t look bad either. I scheduled another ultrasound for August 1^st to get a better look. I will be in my 9^th week of pregnancy at that point. We are praying to hear, or at least see, the heartbeat at that appointment. If we do, then the prognosis is very good for a healthy, full-term pregnancy!

Even though I was really scared at first, I have since come to a place of awesome peace. It took me a while to really believe it, but now I know that God truly does have his hand on our baby. He is protecting her (and me) from any and all harm. I know now that it doesn’t matter what it may look like on the outside. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” I am walking through a potentially scary time with complete faith in my Father. Even though my eyes may try to convince me that something is wrong, I know that all is well. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Because I follow an amazing God, I have assurance that my baby is healthy and safe. My pregnancy is in His capable hands. Hallelujah to that!

This week, I’m still feeling excited about being an expectant mother, but I’m also eager to start seeing some changes related to pregnancy. Cory and I are both thrilled to be becoming parents, and we couldn’t be more ready. But as it turns out, being pregnant, at least in the beginning, isn’t as exciting as I thought it might be. I feel almost no different than I did before I was pregnant, and at times it just doesn’t feel real. Is there truly a person growing inside me? It can sometimes be hard to believe! I am very much looking forward to developing a baby bump, and just making “progress” through my pregnancy in general. For the rest of my first trimester, I will be posting updates whenever I have new information to share. In my second and third trimesters, I may try to post short weekly updates depending on how much I can find to write about. I’m excited to share this adventure with you, my readers!

Thanks for sharing in this exciting news with me, and as always, thanks for reading.

Hello readers! I just wanted to share an update about our living situation. In my last post, I wrote that we were waiting to find out whether we were approved for a lease on a house that we really liked. Well thank Jesus, because we were approved on Monday and moved in on Saturday! It was a crazy week, but also very exciting. The house is perfect for us and we are thrilled to be living in it now. God is so good! He is doing a lot of amazing things in our lives right now, and honestly my biggest struggle at the moment is believing that he still wants to give me so much more. It sometimes seems impossible that all of this would fall into place at once, but for God I know this is just a drop in the bucket. He has so much that he wants to give his children. I hope that you can start grabbing ahold of that today. Jesus loves you and wants to fill your life with goodness! I know, because he’s doing it for me right now.

Today was Cory’s second day at his new job. Everything was made official on Tuesday, and we could not be happier. 🙂 He has an awesome salary, exactly what we needed, and some great benefits, too. So far, he loves going to work and it’s been very exciting. I am also enjoying being at home and being more productive. It still feels so surreal that things are finally happening. I pictured how our lives would be when we started moving forward so many times, and now it’s become a reality! My husband has an awesome job, we are finally self-sufficient financially, and we are getting really close to the next step. That’s right… it’s almost baby time.

In the spirit of caution, we are planning on waiting a month or so until we officially start trying to conceive. In the spirit of trusting in God, though, we are not planning on waiting for much longer than that. Some might say it would be more responsible to wait until he’s had the job for a longer period of time. But the truth is, anybody could lose their job at any time, no matter how long they’ve been doing it. We are not going to make our decisions based on fear, but trust in the Lord. God gave Cory this job, I have no doubt about that, and I believe that one of the reasons He did that was so that we could have a baby. It’s what we’ve been praying for, and I feel convinced that it’s one of the major purposes that He has for my life. So, I have very little interest in waiting for longer than I have to. I trust that my Provider will continue to provide. And Cory and I are so ready to be parents. I am thrilled to be able to share our journey into parenthood with you, my readers!

In the meantime, I plan on spending my summer break from school doing a lot of writing. You can expect to see more frequent posts for the next few months, on a variety of topics. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog to receive emails of my posts, if you’d like! You can do so by clicking “Subscribe for Updates!” at the top of the page. Also, please feel free to pick and choose what categories you’d like to subscribe to. You can do this after you’ve created an account by logging in and changing your subscription settings. If you need help, leave me a comment or send me a message using the contact page.

As always, thanks for reading! Have a great day. 🙂

Yesterday was a day of incredible joy, and incredible sadness. Sadness because in the morning, I found out about the Oklahoma tornado that hit on Monday. I don’t really keep up with the news because it’s usually so depressing, but I finally heard the story through a few blogs that I follow. When I read that 24 people died in the storm, including 10 children, my mind went into lockdown. The walls went up, and I closed out any emotions that I might have otherwise felt. It was just too much. I could not let myself feel it.

I was also in full prayer-warrior mode, since Cory had just left for his job interview, and I was trying to keep my focus on God and my plea for a successful interview. As terrible as it may sound, I felt that I needed to focus on that before I could begin to process and mourn for what happened in Oklahoma.

After Cory got home from his interview, he told me that they said they would call him this weekend or next week. So we waited. We went on with our day, relieved that the interview was over but still anxious to hear back from them about the job. Fortunately, the wait was not as long as we thought it would be, and he received a phone call a few hours later. They offered him the job!

This job is what we have been hoping and praying for for months. For it to finally become a reality was so overwhelming, relieving, and emotional. It’s still not completely sinking in for us, but I’m sure it will feel more real when he actually starts next week. The anxious feeling is still hanging around, because he’s not done working out the final details of his salary and he won’t sign the employment contract until Tuesday. Until it’s official, I don’t think either of us will be able to fully relax or celebrate.

We are so happy, though, because we know that God heard us, and moved on our behalf, and that is such an amazing feeling. I feel confident that everything will go smoothly, and the job will be completely secured very soon. This final step is just one more test of our trust in God. He got us this far, and I have no doubt that He will give us what we need. God is so good!

Today, in the middle of my joy, I came across yet another blog post about the Oklahoma tornado. This time, I let myself read more and feel more. And it started to make me think, how can I be happy about a job when I know that 10 children just died in a terrifying storm? Two babies were among them. One toddler. Seven 8 and 9 year olds. It’s unthinkable. How can we live in a world where this happens, let alone be happy in it?

Yet my last sentence from the paragraph above still stands. God is good. The world is not good, not anymore. But God is. God feels this pain more than I do, more than any of us do. He feels it more than the parents who lost their children and the people who lost their family members and friends. He feels it in a way that we can’t even begin to feel or understand or describe.

He doesn’t want this ugly, painful, tragic world for us. He wants our lives to be full of beauty, joy, and perfection. That’s why He gave up His only son and let Him die in this broken place, so that we could have something better. And those precious children who died are with Him now, in that place of perfection. I know that for the victims of this tragedy, there are no words that will bring comfort. It is a pain beyond words. But God is there, too. He’s with them, feeling their pain and feeling more.

Today, I will cry for the devastation of people and lives in Oklahoma. I will pray for supernatural comfort for those who are suffering unimaginable losses. And then, I will let myself be happy again and continue to live my life with joy. Because as ugly as things may get here in this world, there is still so much beauty to be found. I will praise the Lord for that.

These last two weeks have been packed full of activity for my husband and I. We both had final papers, projects, and exams to get through for school, and I am very happy to say that we are officially done with another tough semester. An even more exciting development has been Cory finding a job opening at a company he would really love to work for. After applying and meeting with the hiring manager to get to know the company more, his interview was scheduled for Friday (tomorrow!). We’ve been preparing for it all week, practicing and gathering his materials. I actually had to learn how to tie a tie, and iron!

We are both so excited for this opportunity. After meeting with our church group last night and receiving prayers and encouragement, we feel very confident that this is the job that we’ve been waiting and hoping for. Honestly, I was a little bit uncertain about posting anything about it until after the interview was done and a job offer was extended. But I am taking a step of faith by writing about it, and sharing it with my readers. We trust in our God, and we know that He will come through for us. In our hearts, we are already celebrating this awesome blessing!

It is both exciting and strange to think of what our lives will be like from now on. We will no longer be home together all day, every day. I’ll be an official housewife with a husband who works in an office— how traditional! I’m planning to continue school, most likely at or near full-time, and I’ve also recently started a new part-time “babysitting” job (I prefer to call it kid-sitting, because they aren’t babies). Between school and kid-sitting, I should be staying pretty productive. And of course, as you probably know Cory and I do want to start a family soon after he gets his job, so hopefully that will be happening in the near future.

For now, I have summer break to look forward to, with only one summer class to take up my time. I plan to do some writing, especially working on my novel Eliza and my short story Sink; You can learn more about them here. I am also teaching myself to play the keyboard (piano) which has been fun. I’d like to learn to play the ukulele, too, which I started to do about a year ago but I didn’t continue with it and promptly forgot everything I learned. It’s always been an aspiration of mine to learn to play an instrument, so I hope I can accomplish that, or at least get started, this summer. I’m also hoping to spend some more time with my 12-year-old brother, who is finally showing an interest in hanging out with me! It’ll probably be short-lived since he’s almost a teenager and soon will probably want nothing to do with his annoying older sister, so I may as well enjoy it while I can. 😉

Anyway, that is my life at the moment. I’m eagerly looking forward to what is in store for me and my hubby soon. It makes me wonder, what did I ever do to deserve such an awesome God who looks out for me and directs my life for the good? Oh, that’s right, I didn’t do anything. God’s just awesome. 🙂

Thanks for reading about little ol’ me. I hope you have a great day!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord.

-Jeremiah 29:11-14a NLT

A couple of months ago, Cory and I decided to add another cockatiel to our home. We thought that Rocky could benefit from a feathery friend, and we were excited about the idea of having two! So we went to our favorite exotic bird store, Omar’s, and picked out a little baby to reserve. Then, after a long wait while he grew up a bit, we finally got to take him home 2 ½ weeks ago.

We named him Samson. He’s really quite adorable, and it has been fun to watch his personality emerge! Best of all, he and Rocky are getting along very well and Rocky seems to be happier with little Sammy around.

Fortunately, having two birds has not been much more work than having one. We moved them to quite a large cage, which certainly takes longer to clean, but the larger cage (with plenty of toys) and the fact that they have each other now has made it easier to keep them entertained. Rocky doesn’t scream quite as much, but the real benefit has been the joy of seeing the two of them interacting and playing together. Lately, Samson has taken to singing and making other really cute bird chuckly-noises, which always makes me smile.

Shortly before we decided to get Samson, my pet mouse named Nilly passed away. She was about 2 years old, and lived a happy life, as far as being a mouse goes. So now we are a one dog, one cat, two cockatiel household. And we love each of our pets dearly!

Here’s a picture of Samson, and another of him and Rocky in their new cage.

This week has been exceptionally difficult for me. My professors have been piling on the school work, and I’m starting to feel very burned out. Just this week, I had 315 pages of reading (no joke— I counted it. I actually have to finish some of it today, even though I usually try to avoid working on Saturdays.) On top of the mountains of reading I had an exam, three quizzes, two smaller assignments, and two major assignments due. By the middle of the week, I was ready to give up.

I’m not saying all of this just to complain. Because in truth, while it is a lot of work, it probably could be managed if I actually worked 8 hours every weekday, which is what I would be doing in a normal job. The problem isn’t that I don’t have enough time. The problem is that I’m beginning to find it really difficult to spend the majority of my day doing something other than what I really want to be doing. I don’t want to be a student anymore, honestly. But I am a student, because that is the path to the career that I want. Or, I should say, that is the path to the second career that I want. What I really want to be doing is starting my first career— my career as a mother.

I would so much rather spend my days taking care of my baby and my home. Weird as it may be, I actually love cleaning. When I need a break from my schoolwork, I usually do some vacuuming or do the laundry. I also love managing Cory’s and my budget, making our grocery list, and taking care of our pets. These are the things that I want to be doing all day. I am very much looking forward to being a stay-at-home mom.

Unfortunately, things aren’t quite lined up yet for that. And in the meantime, I can’t just sit around doing nothing. I have to do something productive and useful. Since I may not have much time to finish school when I’m a parent, I may as well get that out of the way now as much as possible. That way, when my kids are grown, I can jump right into teaching. It makes sense for sure. The problem is, I’m just so tired of it.

My husband has been trying really hard to help me in whatever ways that he can, but there’s simply not much he can do. He can’t do my schoolwork for me, and that’s the one thing that I want to be doing less of. But his support and encouragement have helped me push through. I’ve also been trying to focus on God instead of my problems. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Usually when I’m feeling burned out, spending time in prayer or reading my Bible is not very tempting. Sometimes I even start to get mad at God and purposely avoid Him. It’s like I’m trying to punish him for not giving me what I want— which is really ridiculous considering how much God has given me. For most of this week, I didn’t spend a lot of time with him. But a couple nights ago, I started a new Bible reading plan and on the first night, this is what I read:

“We must let go of the good to grab hold of the better. Living a better life begins with understanding this one key thought from Psalm 84: better is one day with God than thousands elsewhere. His ways are better than your ways. His love is better than life. His blessings are better than material possessions. This week, you will read from God’s word about what it truly means to have a day with God.”

The Bible passage assigned to that day was Psalms 84:1-12. This is some of what it says:

“With my whole being, body and soul, I will shout joyfully to the living God… What joy for those who can live in your house, always singing your praises… What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord… For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory.”

When I read that, I was not really feeling full of joy. I was feeling discontented and frustrated. But then I remembered something I learned a long time ago— the only surefire source of true and lasting joy is God. Lately, I haven’t been looking to God for joy; I’ve been looking to life. And life isn’t exactly always full of joy. So it’s really no wonder that I’m feeling the way that I am. Even though I haven’t been ignoring God completely, I certainly haven’t been giving him my focused attention.

I’m trying to change that, though.

Next week, I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter how much reading or how many assignments or how many hours of schoolwork I have. I’m determined to focus on God instead. I have a feeling that he’ll help me take care of the rest.

Yesterday, Cory and I were in Orange County visiting family, so I’m posting a day late. I don’t really have a lot to talk about, so I’m just going to write about some of the things on my mind and recent developments in my life.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a weekly couples’ group Cory and I were going to at our new church (which is called Cornerstone). Later that week, we saw an advertisement for another church that was just starting nearby and we decided to give it a try last weekend, just for kicks. It turned out that we really liked it, even more than Cornerstone. So now we have a new new church, and it’s called Passion Life Church. We’re both really excited about it and we’re already getting connected there and meeting new people.

On Tuesday, we went to the final session for “Couples Connection” at Cornerstone, and it was great. Even though Passion Life Church fits us better in terms of the worship and teaching on the weekend services, they don’t have as many opportunities to get involved because they are so new and small. For example, it would be hard for us to volunteer for the kids’ ministry because there is only one weekend service, and we would have to miss it every time we served. There are also no weekly small groups/Bible study groups, just two groups to choose form that meet every two weeks. So for now, we’re planning on being a part of two small groups; one from Passion Life and another 8-week Bible study through Cornerstone. We are considering serving in the children’s ministry at Cornerstone as well, but we haven’t decided yet. Either way, I like that we have options and I really like that we finally have a church where we feel at home.

Besides church-related stuff, I’ve been doing school and other fun things. I have two classes right now and two more that start in one week. This week, while things are still less busy, I hope to finish writing my short story sequel to Swim, which is called Sink. I also would like to get started on the second half of a painting that I’m making for my dad and stepmom. That way, I can hopefully have it finished by the time we go visit them next, in two weeks or so.

After that, my focus will be mostly on school. The two classes I have now are really interesting to me— Nutrition, and Child Guidance. I’m learning so many useful things in both of them! Because of Nutrition, my eating habits have definitely changed for the better, and hopefully that will last. I also know that the concepts and techniques that I’m learning in Child Guidance will help me as a teacher one day, and as a parent as well. It’s really interesting to me that all of these tools for guiding and raising children are out there, just waiting to be found. I think that learning about child development is such a good thing for parents (or anybody working with children) to do. There are few things more important than our job of preparing the next generation to live as competent, respectful, kind, and cooperative individuals, at least in my opinion. It should be a job that we take seriously and learn to do well. I definitely enjoy learning about this subject!

In my personal life, things are going pretty well. You may or may not know that my mom and little brother (and their dog) have been living with us for the past several months. We were happy to help them get back on their feet in a time of need, of course. Fortunately, they will be ready to move out in two weeks and we are very happy for them. We will also be glad to have our space and privacy once again. Living with parents when you’re all grown up can be hard, no matter how much you love them!

Socially, we’ve been a bit… well, not social. Since Cory and I moved out to Riverside County, it’s been a lot harder to get together with our friends. We’ve been able to mostly stay in touch in other ways, and luckily we’ve also found time to hang out sometimes when we drive out to visit. Still, it’s easy to feel a little bit disconnected when you don’t live as close to your friends and family. Hopefully we will be able to meet some new people out here and make some new friends as well. Of course, we could never replace our Orange County friends either! You know who you are. 😉

Our marriage is still strong and happy, thanks to God’s constant vigilance in helping us to grow together. Did I mention that our God is awesome? I won’t brag about how great my marriage is because of the things that Cory and I do, but I will brag about how awesome it is because of God! Our love is so strong because He shows us how to love like Him. He’s such a good God, and I just want everyone in the world to know that.

Last but not least, our plans for the future are still intact. We are, as usual, relying on God to provide what we need, and I feel confident that things will work out beautifully. Cory’s planning to get a job as a programmer in the next three to four months (as soon as he gains enough skills and practice), and then we would like to start our family. We also hope to buy a house out here in Riverside County when our apartment lease is up in September. Alternatively, if Cory’s job ends up being in Orange County instead, we will want to move back and then probably rent for a little while longer before considering buying a house. As far as our educations go, we plan on continuing school part-time until we’re both finished with our bachelor’s degrees. My long term goal is to become an elementary school teacher and then to home school our kids for junior high and high school. Cory’s long term goal is to be an entrepreneur and start his own businesses (bigger than his current small business as a web designer). I’m sure that there will be changes and surprises and trials all along the way, but having a vision for the future helps keep us motivated. And either way, I know that God has great things in store for us.

Well, that’s pretty much it. I’m sorry that I didn’t have anything more enlightening or interesting to write about, but thanks for reading anyway!

Have an excellent week!