Our Life in the Yellow Brick House

This week marks five whole years in our house! It’s gone by fast and we’ve squeezed lots of life into that time period. It’s been fun to watch the house change as we’ve: Upgraded our electrical   Added a new front door   Improved our curb appeal   Transformed our side yard   Replaced our water heater   Bought new appliances Replaced our air conditioner (that one hurt!) Got new, WORKING garage doors…FINALLY The list goes on and on. This past year we’ve done lots of thinking about where our future will take us. We love our home and the general location but still don’t see it as our forever house. There for a while, we thought we’d move out before celebrating our 5 th anniversary here. We even started casually house hunting but were pretty unimpressed with what was out there in our price range and on our side of town. The more we talk about it, the more satisfied I am with where we’re at.  When we bought the house in 2010, we knew it h...

I think I mentioned a while back that my department at work was doing the One Word exercise where you focus on one word throughout the year, rather than a list of resolutions. We are doing it based in the fiscal year, so June 30th marked the end of my first year. Overall, I really liked the experience. My word for FY14 was EMBRACE. When I picked it, I thought it would be a year about embracing the plan God had for my life, both professionally and personally. I am not very good at planning for the future and when people ask me what my five-year plan is, I usually stare blankly back at them and say, "I'm not really sure." This year, I was ready for God to let me in on the secret so I could embrace His plan, whatever that meant...kids or no kids, growing in the job I love or finding a new one, etc. The problem is, it didn't really go that direction. God didn't show me what He has for my future exactly, but I do think He more clearly explained why He created me. I...