Things we learned in April

New friends: We've had the privilege of making one! It's never too old for anyone, isn't it? Over this past month we've done a few things together, and it was just a time in our lives where we felt God calling us to reach out to this particular person. It's been terrific!

Let's get better: We're both pretty healthy and have been for all our lives, but this month we decided to see for ourselves- that is, make actual, adult doctor's appointments and be more proactive with our health. I (Holly) go tomorrow, even though I'm currently battling cold-like symptoms, and Kelly went earlier in April and, aside from some joint issues, received a clean bill of health :)

Honest conversations and realizations: Sometimes you have to have them, be it for setting the record straight or coming to that conclusion that you just have to let go. It's one of the many ways we grow as humans.

Cars are expensive: Both of us had some unforeseen car issues arise this month that left us needing to pinch pennies for a few days. Be prepared!

Mental illness is real: Our sweet, dear friend bravely shared her struggles with depression in a candid, honest way, because so often these types of conversations are brushed aside. A sobering reminder to always, ALWAYS be kind and considerate to others, because we never really do know what the other is going through. Treat others with compassion, and be grateful for what you have.

Birthdays can still be fun: For the first time since either of us can remember, we rang in 26 out of school, out of home, and actually...out of Kentucky! We spent our birthday weekend in Chicago, where we nearly froze to death, ate way too much, and just cherished the moments we got to spend both together and with Justin.

Those that we hold in our hearts never truly leave us: Our beloved Grandpa passed away on our birthday (April 9) three years ago this year. It's almost every day that something or someone reminds us of him.

Happy b-day from Chicago! 

To have or not to have (kiddos/wee ones)

Kelly: DISCLAIMER: WE LOVE OUR MOM FRIENDS AND YOUR CHILDREN! THIS POST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH "MOM BASHING," OR BRATTY KIDS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. ANYTHING SHARED IN THIS POST IS PURELY OUR OWN THOUGHTS, FEELINGS AND CONVERSATIONS THAT THE TWO OF US HAD. SO MOMS AND OUR MOM FRIENDS, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, BECAUSE YOU'RE DOING A FANTASTIC JOB!!!!! OK???? OK!!!

I am 25 years old. I am a nurse. I love my family, friends, my job and doing what I do. I hope one day that God will give me "the one," and that I will get married and live happily ever after (that's a good one) with my future husband. I pray that I will find a Godly man who loves God first, supports me in whatever I decide and remembers daily the promise he made to me and before God. If/when I meet "the one," this truth I am about to reveal may be a deal breaker, and I've come to terms with that.

I don't want children.

I have absolutely nothing against my mom friends or moms in general, like mentioned in the above disclaimer. Now before you try to say "oh but when you meet the one you'll change your mind," or "when the time is right you'll want them."  I will say thank you and smile. But I'm not going to change my mind; I'm just being honest. And this isn't something that I've thought overnight, no. This has been my way of thinking for years now. Quite a few years. I've honestly just never seen myself becoming a mother. I've never had that desire. Please don't be sad on my behalf, please. I really do like kids. I've enjoyed watching the kids grow up at my church and become mature and responsible young men and women. I enjoyed babysitting in high school (and still do!). I enjoy some of my mom friends sharing their funny stories on Facebook about their kid stories. There are a lot of reasons why I don't want children, and that right now is not the point of this post. Why am I sharing this? What's the point of this? I don't know; this is something that's been weighing on my heart to share for a while now. I honestly don't know why now. But now you know.

And yes, maybe one day I will change my mind. I've always been open to that possibility. And if I do change my mind, I hope to be as great of a mom as my mom is.

Holly: First off, I would like to echo Kelly's statement, and that is do not be sad for her.  There is SO MUCH more to life than having children (Although kids are great and I'm sure they bring fulfillment and joy and all kinds of other stuff to your life) I wouldn't know because we do not have any.

I don't share the same side as Kelly, in the sense that I honestly don't know whether or not I want children. My mind changes often, and it flip flops so much because although I am completely and totally amazed and in awe at the concept of being pregnant and all that comes during and after, it's the after that is just a mind-boggling amount of responsibility that, quite frankly, scares me. There is no room for selfishness. You have to invest hours and hours and hours of time, love, nurturing and sleepless nights with absolutely no idea of the outcome (All you can do is the aforementioned and pray that your child doesn't turn into a total monster).

I hope to be married someday, and when I think about my life with my future husband, I picture us traveling together, sharing life together, doing all the crazy stuff I do with Kelly, together! I love the idea of sharing my life with my "soulmate" and the one that God has intended for me to be with, rather than sharing my life with my "soulmate" and one or two mini "us"es. I guess the bottom line is that I won't be devastated if my husband and I don't have children. But if we do, well then...adventure is out there! :)

There's a whole lot more to our kid conversations, and perhaps we will share those at another time.  Regardless of whether you are a mom or not, let's focus on what is the "right now" in our lives, instead of "what could be" or what someone else has.  You'll find you're a lot more blessed than you think!

The meatless results (and a house update?)

H and K: It has been seven days since our last post, and if you remember, we took it upon ourselves to go one week without meat.  So...how did we do?

Honestly, we didn't find it too challenging.  Some days, it was hard walking up Main Street and catching a whiff of the cafe's burgers, or resisting devouring an entire order of chicken wings from Papaleno's.  We did have one "cheat" day, Saturday, in which we attended a cook-out sponsored by Kelly's work.  We didn't go too crazy, though, in the sense that we both had just one chicken wing. Fried rice became a good friend of ours. Our weight didn't really change either, which we kind of expected, but that's ok, considering that wasn't the end goal.  We were just curious...and a little bit broke.  So will we do it again? Probably.  We had to get pretty creative with some of our recipes, but overall we enjoyed incorporating more veggies into our diet. The drastically reduced cost of groceries for the week was a good incentive, too!

And this concludes our one week without meat.  We learned a lot, had a good time...but honestly, if anyone would care to drop off a couple of steaks or a rotisserie chicken, that would be pretty amazing.

Switching gears a little, and we're just going full disclosure here, because we can do that here.  In case some of you are a little behind, we are in the process of moving, this time into a house.  We do have a house lined up, although we've only seen it from the outside.  However, here's where the situation gets a little hairy: The family that is living in the house now is waiting on a closing date for a house they're buying.  Once they get their closing date, they will move out, and we will move in. We are not buying, we're renting (Just in case that wasn't clear).  We do not know when this closing date will be.  It's been two weeks since we first made contact with our eventual landlord.  When I called him last week, hoping to affirm my fear of him not giving the house away to someone else, he informed me that they still had not reached a closing date, but that he still had our contact information and would reach out to us when they closed.  That was a week ago.  We still have not heard anything.

Honestly...it's been hard.  Our many frustrations with our current living situation, for reasons we don't wish to discuss at this time, have nearly reached a tipping point.  Let's just say it's gone on too long. Period.  In addition, it's just the waiting...the waiting and waiting for a phone call.  My (Holly) hopes soar every time my phone rings, and plummet when it's someone else besides the phone call we're anxiously waiting for.  It's the doubt...the doubt of wondering, nearly agonizing ourselves, if this is ever going to happen at all.  It's discouraging- another day that passes with silence, with no news. But through all of this, we've learned a lot about grace, and we are thankful for that. I (Holly) read Proverbs 3:5-6 recently, and I've been heavily meditating on that, relying on that promise in God's word.  We've been praying.  We've been praying a lot.  And still waiting.

So that's where we are right now.  If you feel led to pray for us, please do so.  And pray for the family that is waiting on a closing date; it's probably just as frustrating for them, if not more so, than it is for us. But we KNOW that something better is coming, and we KNOW that God is faithful.  It's just that some days are easier than others, and we thank God that He can handle our joys and our frustrations as well.  Thanks for following along with us, as always.  We hope to hear something soon.

30 Days of Writing: Five Ways to Win Your Heart

Holly: I was inspired by a friend...well, two friends actually, who both have amazing writing talent.  For a time Kelly and I used to write.  When I was in England I took a writing class.  Maybe something will happen from this.  But for now, I think we're just going to kind of roll with it and see where it goes! :)

Day 1: Five ways to win your heart

1. Love Jesus.  Pretty self-explanatory.  But Jesus set the bar for love and life, essentially.  The way I see it is you can't fully love someone unless you realize the perfect love that only Christ can give.
2. Have a sense of humor.  Life is too short to take anything seriously.  Laugh at things.  Laugh at yourself.
3. Be genuine.  I know this is so cliche, but it's so hard to find these days, especially with such a superficial society.  Being yourself gets people a lot farther than they realize.
4. Have goals, even if they're small.  Everyone needs something to work for.
5. Don't be afraid to let people know you're with me.  Hold my hand.  Hug me for just a second longer.  Kiss me in public.  Don't be shy.  Love is nothing to be ashamed of.  Oh, and like hobbits too.  :)

Kelly:

1. Love Jesus before myself. If you love me you have to love Him first too.
2. Love Lord of the Rings. I really don't need to go into any more detail.
3. Be true to yourself and be true to me. I have a heart for honest people; people who are honest about themselves and TO themselves. This goes for me too; be honest with me. Always. I can't tell a lie to save my life, so don't do the same to me.
4. Love other people. It's my duty as a Christian, human being and future RN.
5. Invest. Do the little things more than what's expected. Don't go to bed angry with me. Kiss me good morning every morning. Smile, especially when I'm sad. I will give 110% to whoever God calls me to be with; I expect 110% out of the relationship too.

What's your appleseed?

Kelly: There is a reason for the crazy title that will be explained in a little bit. Anyway, the topic for this blog today is regarding fear. What in the world are we so afraid of? I could rattle off a few things, such as snakes, falling off really high places, and stinging bugs. Yeah. But if there was something that REALLY got me bone-chilling afraid...it'd be this.

Pain. Never knowing again what not having pain feels like. Yes, I am talking about my ankle...again. Now before you automatically disregard this, please don't. I've been thinking about how to describe what I'm so afraid of for a while, but after today at church I finally understand. I am afraid that I will never be pain-free again. It's not a phobia, but yeah. It does scare me. I have felt on numerous occasions that I will be the way I am for the rest of my life. And I haven't accepted that yet...because I'm afraid to. See where all the fear is coming from? But today, I've thought of something different. Something in a way that I haven't heard before.

Hope.

There is. There always is. And God...my God...is so much bigger than your fears. Than my fears. Than all my pain and worry about never knowing no pain. And that gives me hope. That is what has fueled me in all the areas in my life; that hope that God is so much bigger than all my junk that He has erased and freed me from! It is not His will for us to live in fear; to live in bondage of this and that and then some. But...it's a choice. I am trusting Him, or at least learning to trust Him more. It hasn't been easy. Some days it's easy to trust God; some days, most days, it's really hard. But I make a choice. Daily. So now I ask this; what are you afraid of? What are you doing about it? Are you ok with living in fear or is today the day you're going to decide that you don't have to? That it's not your will to do so? Yes. I'm still in pain. But God is bigger than pain.

Holly: The title comes from the sermon today: our pastor mistaking a bed bug in his 2-year-old daughter's bedroom for a mere appleseed (the story is much more humorous than I'm letting on).  But what I'm getting at is this: why do we WORRY???????????? All. The. Time?          qwvgbsegbf (attack of the Yoda...sorry)

We get so bent out of shape with worry and fear that it distorts reality...we see things that simply are not there.  We get crazy ideas planted in our head, we have visions of crazy things that could, should, might happen.  And then what happens, 9 times out of 10, is that we worry over absolutely NOTHING.  Kelly used to get herself physically sick over worrying; kid you not.

The challenge from today was what if Christians, PEOPLE, lived in simple faith and not fear?  That doesn't mean that us as Christians are going to have hard times and struggle.  But the difference is that we can choose to trust in the One who knows all, sees all, created all, and dealt with it all whenever we have a hard time.  Whenever we feel that age-old fear creeping up again.  It's a choice, like Kelly said.  We can either choose to continue to let fear cripple us to the point of distorting reality, or we can do something about it.  If you know that something in your life is causing you worry, pray about it.  TRUST that God will see you through it, and REFLECT on all the things that God has already carried you through, and then IMAGINE all the things that God is going to carry you through in the future!!!!

How's that for making an appleseed into an apple tree?