Today is Brandon and my 11-year anniversary. I feel tremendously blessed to have married him. We were talking the other day about how amazing it is that we dated for 3 weeks before becoming engaged, then were engaged for 3 months before being married...and we are perfect for each other. I feel blessed that we have one of those relationships where we sacrifice for each other, have the same priorities, share the same tastes in most everything, and are best friends.
I realized today that every year we celebrate our anniversary, along with both of our birthdays, in the middle of August. The reason? Financial Aid. I realized that in our 11 years, only 3 Augusts were school-free (2005-2007). Brandon finished a Bachelors and two Masters degrees while we've been married. Now, I am going back to school. I am starting an online Bachelors program in Psychology in a couple of weeks. So, of course, the first thing we'll do when we get that financial aid check, is go out and celebrate..11 years of marriage, 36 and 33 years of life (respectively), and 2 more years of school financial aid, yippee!!!
I am especially excited for one of my classes. I had to choose an upper-level writing class. My advisor suggested "Writing for the professions"...uh, blech......I chose "Writing a Personal History". Fun! I'm sure I'll be posting my essays here, and that may make up for my hardly ever updating my blog! :)
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Seed After It's Own Kind
Brandon and I rented for 7 or so years before we finally bought our first house. During these years, I fantasized about having my own space, my own yard, so I could grow things. I wanted to be surrounded with beautiful, green and colorful things. I wanted to be able to go out to my very own garden and pick tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini that I had grown with my own two hands.
When we 'landscaped' our front yard, I made space for two flower gardens on either side of a space reserved for a garden bench, when the funds for one becomes available. Shortly thereafter, a bulb catalog came into my hands and I purchased and planted tons of bulbs. We placed a irrigation system. The following year, we tore out said irrigation system and put in a new one. The following year, I became pregnant with Sariah and the flower gardens and the leaking, again, irrigation system became the bottom of the priority totem pole. It's now been over a year, and as I see beautiful flowers popping up everywhere, my desire for my envisioned flower gardens is rekindled. There is one thing standing in the way of seeing it to fruition: weeds. Over a year of rain-infused weed growth, to be exact.
So, today I donned my bought-on-clearance-last-year gardening gloves, searched for at least one of my 3 gardening shovels (none of which I found), put Sariah in her walker in the shade and started tackling the beasts. It is amazing what weeds can do when left unchecked. Some had grown tall. Some had sent out feeders in all directions. Many I would pull up to see tons of little plants of the same variety bursting up beneath their parent: the plant's little progentitors, each yielding seed after it's own kind. Some had been allowed to become thick and woody and only a full-sized shovel would be able to remove it from it's place.
Such are our lives and the things we allow to grow. Whether it's habits or sin, when we ignore things that should've been plucked the moment it reared it's head, we are cultivating a garden of weeds. Some become so overbearing in our lives that only drastic measures can remove it. Some simply keep regenerating, not allowing the flowers to come through until we simply get on our knees and pluck it out. All choices we make yields seed after it's own kind, whether it's flowers, vegetables or weeds.
It sure would've been easier to pluck a few of these things out, even though it was inconvenient at the time, than spending hours creating callused hands pulling this stuff out one weed at a time. But, I think when it's all done and I eventually have beautiful flowers growing, I'll appreciate them that much more...and i'll be more dilligent in pulling up the little weeds as they appear.
Here's how much I got done in 2 hours:
Here's vaguely what it looked like before:
And here's what I have left to do:
Here's to spending more time outdoors, and less time on the computer! Happy Spring, everyone!
When we 'landscaped' our front yard, I made space for two flower gardens on either side of a space reserved for a garden bench, when the funds for one becomes available. Shortly thereafter, a bulb catalog came into my hands and I purchased and planted tons of bulbs. We placed a irrigation system. The following year, we tore out said irrigation system and put in a new one. The following year, I became pregnant with Sariah and the flower gardens and the leaking, again, irrigation system became the bottom of the priority totem pole. It's now been over a year, and as I see beautiful flowers popping up everywhere, my desire for my envisioned flower gardens is rekindled. There is one thing standing in the way of seeing it to fruition: weeds. Over a year of rain-infused weed growth, to be exact.
So, today I donned my bought-on-clearance-last-year gardening gloves, searched for at least one of my 3 gardening shovels (none of which I found), put Sariah in her walker in the shade and started tackling the beasts. It is amazing what weeds can do when left unchecked. Some had grown tall. Some had sent out feeders in all directions. Many I would pull up to see tons of little plants of the same variety bursting up beneath their parent: the plant's little progentitors, each yielding seed after it's own kind. Some had been allowed to become thick and woody and only a full-sized shovel would be able to remove it from it's place.
Such are our lives and the things we allow to grow. Whether it's habits or sin, when we ignore things that should've been plucked the moment it reared it's head, we are cultivating a garden of weeds. Some become so overbearing in our lives that only drastic measures can remove it. Some simply keep regenerating, not allowing the flowers to come through until we simply get on our knees and pluck it out. All choices we make yields seed after it's own kind, whether it's flowers, vegetables or weeds.
It sure would've been easier to pluck a few of these things out, even though it was inconvenient at the time, than spending hours creating callused hands pulling this stuff out one weed at a time. But, I think when it's all done and I eventually have beautiful flowers growing, I'll appreciate them that much more...and i'll be more dilligent in pulling up the little weeds as they appear.
Here's how much I got done in 2 hours:
Here's to spending more time outdoors, and less time on the computer! Happy Spring, everyone!
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