A little overwhelmed...

I had a minor breakdown last night. Surprisingly it's not the wedding that is getting to me. It's everything else that's going on that is driving me crazy!

Mike is giving notice on Friday and will need to find a place by the first of March. Ideally, he would find a place that he could move in to at least the week before he has to so that we have some time to get his current place cleaned. We're going to try to find a place that will work for us once we are married in august. It's silly for him to sign a one year lease on a place that won't work once we're married in 6 months! That's just crazy talk. In this discussion of finding a place, the possibility of buying has come up. The market is good, and will hopefully get better, so this wouldn't be a bad time to buy at all. We'd like to find a 3 bedroom 2 bath if possible, with a garage (even one car), and possibly a small yard or patio for Mandy. It would be great if we didn't have upstairs or downstairs neighbors to contend with too.

The discussion of buying, along with planning a wedding, and dealing with every day life is overwhelming. I only have so much energy right now. Beth isn't the most responsible all the time and her minor annoyances get to me at home. Then when I escape to Mike's place for some solitude, we are faced with big, life changing decisions and wedding planning. It's just crazy to have all of this assaulting us at once. I love that we are starting our futures together and that we have this to even discuss and think about. It's just overwhelming for it to all hit at once!

On the up side, we went registry shopping yesterday. We spent about an hour at Target scanning random items to put them in our "Club Wedd" registry. It was fun. Our registry at Target is very random. Mike registered for an electric guitar and some gushers, I registered for an iPod Nano and a flat iron for my hair. It's all silly stuff that we want/need. The problem is that we have all the pots and pans and glasses and knives that we could ever need. I have really nice stuff, so we don't need any more. We're going to register for more practical items at Linens N' Things, but for now, our registry is fun!

Back to work now!

Only a few things left to do.

As of tomorrow we will have been engaged for one month exactly! It's crazy that I've been able to get so much done in such a short amount of time. we didn't even make the decision about the month until a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing!

I found the dress in the first time to the bridal shop. The place we're getting married is the second place we looked at. Booking the place hooked up the catering and the cake and the alcohol and the rentals and...almost everything. My friend (Laura) is my photographer (once i get her the deposit and the contract!). Another friend (Trish) is going to borrow a camera from work to shoot (on video) the ceremony and important things at the reception (it is what she does for a living working for Intervention and all!). Another friend (Stacy) hooked me up with her friend (Jaya) who does makeup. We picked Mike's tux style last night. Our coordinator, Rozanna, is doing our flowers. Between Kathleen and I, my invites are almost done and I can start on the rest of the stationary. We just need a DJ, someone to do my hair, and a getaway car. Oh, and we need to figure out a block of rooms in San Marcos for everyone to stay. but that's not that much and I have 6 and a half months left to "plan." Now if only money materialized just as easily as everything else is falling in to place.

Today, I am feeling truly blessed! Now I'm off to bed.

Searching…

As babies we have two basic needs: to eat and to sleep. We rely on our mom and dad, our family, to take care of us and make sure that our needs are met. As we grow up, our basic needs of eating and sleeping do not change. What changes is how we ensure that our needs are met. We learn that our parents are not always going to be there to take care of things for us. As adults, we have the responsibility of taking care of ourselves and fulfilling our own needs, and sometimes even fulfilling the needs of others. Filling these basic needs, for us, becomes a daily part of our lives, something as integral as breathing and existing. We eat when we're hungry, we drink when we're thirsty, we sleep when we're tired, and we continue to live each day. But are these the only needs we have in our lives? Every day we are faced with other challenges, questions and needs that need to be fulfilled. Not all of these are "needs" that we can meet for ourselves. Sometimes we must still rely on others to fill these voids in our lives, these holes left by our cravings.

In our group last night we talked about what our most important needs are, beyond food, water, oxygen, sleep. Our needs ranged from success and optimism to love, faith, and community. We found that we are all in different places in our lives. We face different challenges every day. Our needs and wants differ greatly. But we all admit that we don't just rely upon ourselves to meet our own needs. We turn to each other for support, for guidance, and we turn to our God to fill the holes in our lives for which there are no other answers. Our life journeys are full of questions and needs that we can not face alone, no matter how strong and brave we are. These are the moments, the struggles, and the cravings that we turn to God to fill. We turn to Him because we know Him to have the answers, if only we can take a moment to listen to what He is telling us.

How would this change if we didn't have Him in our lives and our hearts to turn to? Have you ever wondered what it must be like to not believe and not have that supernatural power on your side? I pray every morning as I get ready for work. I pray for a good day. I pray for the health of my friends and family. I pray that the answers I have been searching for become clear. I pray that an old friend will call. I pray that my lunch is yummy. I pray for energy, for peace, for strength, to get through my day at work. My prayers are not grand nor are they always specific. But every day my prayers are answered in small ways. What would life be like if I prayed, but didn't have anyone to pray to? How would my life be different if I never heard an answer to my prayers? What would I do if I stopped believing and He stopped being a part of my life?

These are just a few questions that came to mind as we discussed our journeys and our cravings last night. We start our lives as simple babies with simple needs that our parents meet for us. As adults, we have grown in to this responsibility of fulfilling our own needs. Are we up to the challenge? Do we have the strength to search and fill the holes in our lives? We do if we rely on Him for that strength. We just need to turn our hearts and our heads toward Him and the answers will come.

My ultimate craving is for a deeper, more personal relationship with my God. This is the journey that I am on.
What's yours look like?

Why does $$ matter so much?

Mike and I met Rozanna in San Marcos today to look at possible site called Twin Oaks House & Garden. It is beautiful! It is the perfect setting for what we are looking for. Unfortunately, I think it is out of our budget. It makes me sad that it's out of our budget simply because my father isn't stepping up to his duty as Father-of-the-Bride. It's the perfect place. I'm going to go eat dinner and pout now. :(

http://www.twinoaksvictoriangardens.info/index.htm

Another package

I shipped another package international today! This is crazy. Prices for shipping are expensive. Oh well! Taunya is worth it. Plus, she needed to be on the same page for planning and stuff, and I put the material swatch in the envelope! YAY!! Keep an eye out for your next package in the mail Tay!
Love you!

The planning begins.

Now that we've set August 2008 as the month for the wedding, I feel so much better about this whole planning process. With help from Rozanna, our wedding planner, I'm hoping to have a contract signed on a site by next Friday! That means we might actually have a date set by next Friday! YAY!!! I ordered my dress on Friday and have already started looking for shoes and accessories for my dress. My mom is planning to come visit the first weekend in February, so hopefully the two of us can go shopping for those little extras while she's in town. Plus, if we have the site picked out, she'll be able to go see it with me and hopefully meet Rozanna as well! This is so exciting. It feels like we have A TON of time to plan, but really we only have 7 short months to get everything together (I'm not counting August as part of our "planning" time!). We can totally do it.

I know I'm going ot get stressed. I hope that I can keep my head on straight and not turn in to a "Bridezilla" like the group of girls at the store the other day. I just have to keep calm, flexible, and get plenty of sleep in the next few months. It's fun and exciting to plan. I'm so happy that we're able to get this started sooner than later. March 2009 just seemed like a really long time away. I think that was just too many months to spend planning. It was freaking me out more than only having a few months!

I guess I should work now!

Change of plans....

For a variety of reasons, I think we're going to try to get married at the end of the summer this year after all! I'm shooting for August 2008 right now. Just wanted to share! More later!

Why We Should Move In Together

(Parents are dumb!!!! I really wish we could send this to them!)

By: The People Who Want to Move In Together, Inc.

Two young people living together is against Christian beliefs and norms. However, it has become a societal norm these days. The statistical divorce rate is so high these days already that young people are choosing to move in together in order to learn to live with one another prior to making a life long commitment. For Mike and I, although we have talked about making this decision previously, we had decided that this was not the right decision for us.

For us, getting engaged on Christmas day is a promise of forever. We have already committed to each other that we will be one for the rest of our lives. Waiting to have the wedding ceremony and reception in March 2009 is really just for the benefit of having our family and friends around us to share in the special day. We would just as soon buy plane tickets to Vegas for a weekend in the next few weeks and get our lives started in a chapel with Elvis officiating the ceremony. This is not something either of us wants to do as we are really looking forward to the sharing the day with our families and friends.

That said, we are again considering moving in together for a variety of reasons. The first and foremost being the financial implications this will have on our future. Currently, with Mike living in Rancho Bernardo (RB) and Jen living in Linda Vista (LV), we have a total disposable income of approximately $114 combined. In reality, this money does not get saved, but instead applied to other bills and unexpected expenses. However, if we were to move in together, our disposable income each month could increase to as much as $1,650 per month. This means we could potentially save almost $20,000 by our proposed wedding date in March 2009.

The other reason that we have discussed the option of moving in together is that we already spend the majority of our time together. Jen drives up to Mike’s house every Friday evening after work and doesn’t leave again until Monday morning for work. We also host small group for our church on Tuesday nights, so Jen is back up at Mike’s that night as well. We are currently paying over $2,000 in rent each month with Jen only living part time at her place, basically a waste of almost $700 each month. There are two scenarios that we have looked at as far as living together goes.
The first scenario would be for Mike to move down to Jen’s house in San Diego. The total rent each month would be $600, split in half, and utilities currently run around $90 per person (split 3 ways) so with splitting the utilities in four, there would be an additional savings there. We would be living with 2 other housemates which could possibly add stress to our lives. Jen has already been living with both individuals and we already understand the idiosyncrasies of both people, so are better prepared to make this transition of adding Mike to the established household. This option is the most financially friendly option with the potential of saving almost $20,000 by the time we get married in just one year.

The second scenario we have considered is for Jen to move in to Mike’s place in Rancho Bernardo. The commute from RB would be pretty much equal for both Jen and Mike and there would be more privacy and less intrusion by others as it would just be the three of us here (Mike, Jen, and Mandy). However, Mike’s current landlords are not the easiest to communicate with and we don’t relish maintaining the tenant relationship with them for too much longer. In this scenario we could potentially save approximately $8,500 in one year. The expenses would be higher at Mike’s place, but there wouldn’t be additional roommates and therefore the added stress of “roommate issues.” (We all know Jen’s luck with roommates lately!)

Another option that we have considered is for Mike to find another place either by him self that is cheaper or rent a room in a house/apartment with roommates. This is again a viable option for saving money, but will put us in the same situation as we currently are: us spending the majority of our time commuting between houses in order to see each other, wasting gas, and potentially rent and utility money in places where we aren’t living full time. In making this decision, we also have to look at our happiness and contentment with our lives. If either of us makes a move that we aren’t happy with in order to save money, planning our wedding will become a chore and not the joy that it should be.

We do understand the objections that our families may have to us living together. Living together as a couple before marriage is not right as taught by our church. But aren’t we also taught not to condemn or judge others for their actions as He is the ultimate judge, not us. If we have prayerfully considered this for months now and have heard an answer, been given direction by Him, shouldn’t we follow what He tells us is right for OUR future despite what our family may think? Last February we made another prayerful decision that has served us well. It has been 10 months now since we have been sexually intimate. While we still stay the night together and spend weekends together, we have not been intimate, nor have we even undressed in front of one another in this entire time. It has been a challenge at times, but one that we have stepped up to and met. We plan to maintain this promise we made to each other and to God until the day we are married. Our relationship is stronger today than it was 10 months ago, as is testament in our engagement and upcoming nuptials.

We are now choosing to share this decision with you because we don’t want to offend or upset our families by making this decision. What it comes down to is that financially, in order for us to get married in a year, we need to save some money. The only way for us to do this right now with our lives as they are, is to make a change in our living situation. Jen’s family has already given us their blessing to make this decision if it is right for us. Now we ask for the same understanding and acceptance from you.