The End of an Era

Wednesday marked the end of the quarter-hoarding, minimalist-load-doing era for our family. On Sunday, A’s parents are bringing us their old washer and dryer… That empty washer/dryer hookup we’ve had since January will finally be filled. Oh how I’ve dreamed of what it would be like to return to cloth diapers, to do a load anytime day or night, to do loads while Ae is at my feet playing or helping!

But this season hasn’t been all bad. Sure – I wondered if we were crazy when we kept going to the laundromat as we waited for the washer and dryer, rather than just forking over the $50 for a used set from craigslist. Yep – there were days I really didn’t want to get up and out the door to go do laundry. Yet God had a bigger plan.

Contentment is not about your circumstances; it’s about your outlook. In the midst of these last few months, I wasn’t always certain why God had led us to the laundromat. There are definitely some interesting people there! And my little introverted self listens to most conversations, rarely piping up or otherwise contributing. So why was I there? Why did I put Ae in the Ergo on my back and do 2-3 loads of laundry start to finish while A was in class each week?

Janie. God wanted me to count out quarters each week, to be intentional about getting the laundry sorted Tuesday evenings, to load up the car when I’d rather be at home so that I could meet Janie.

For many months I have been praying for a like-minded lady to link arms with. I love spending time with friends, but I like to accomplish tasks on my to-do list together — kind of like the pioneers used to do. Lo and behold, God wanted me to meet the answer to this prayer in the least likely of all situations – at the laundromat.

She recently moved from across the country. Her extended family lives “back there,” while she, her husband, and her 4 year old daughter have transplanted to this area. Our initial conversation started with Pinterest and a comparison of washing soda and baking soda… for our homemade laundry detergent. Each week we would spend our hour and a half as the clothes washed talking about local venues to visit, how her house-hunting was going, and how her week had been. By the end of this season at the laundromat, I loved doing laundry — just because I couldn’t wait to talk to Janie and see what she’d been up to!

I love that Janie’s name means God is gracious. He has used her in our lives in a mighty way already, and I can’t wait to see where He will take our laundromat friendship.

So, friend, as you are reading this today and struggling with contentment… As you are wondering why you followed God’s call about a certain area, especially if it doesn’t make sense… I urge you to trust Him and wait patiently in this season. Perhaps at the end of the season, you will get a glimpse of the why. Perhaps you will not. But I promise – obedience is always worth the cost.

By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off seas… Ps. 65:5

Confessions of a Home Birther

Our family generally does not automatically do things the way they’re “expected.” I am research-oriented, and A loves facts and statistics. When we discuss our options, we look at every angle…not just what is “normal” or predictable or the first thing we think. So, when we made the choice to have a home birth, we did so with good reason. Several good reasons, in fact. I will explain some of these reasons below. **Note: By presenting this option, I am not saying your choice is inherently “wrong.” You are responsible for the choices made in the interest of your family’s priorities. This is about the choice my family has made.**

Which hospital are you delivering at?

Hospitals don’t ooze “life” in my mind. I have a stronger association of sickness and death with the hospital scene. Jesus Himself said the well don’t seek a doctor; the sick do. So it boils down to whether you view pregnancy as an illness/abnormality or as a normal process God created our (female) bodies capable of enduring.

Isn’t that dangerous? Think of all the germs Baby will be exposed to!

We understand there are risks with any pregnancy. We have sisters who have had pregnancy complications, so we aren’t unaware of those possibilities. We had a back up plan in place where we would transfer to a local hospital if the need arose (and the local hospital was a mere 1/2 mile from our apartment!). The germ concern seems a bit silly though… If we birthed in a hospital, Baby would eventually have to come home to “all those germs.” Why introduce Baby to a hyper-sterile environment and “shock” his/her system when we arrive home?

You’re brave. I could never do that.

It’s a choice we’re making. And really, I bet if you researched it, you might see where I’m coming from. Like the fact that I’m an introvert… I like my space, and I like being able to choose who will be there when I give birth. No fetal monitors strapped to my belly, no lying on my back, no IVs since I can eat or drink as my body needs, no nurses randomly entering my room at any time they please. “Brave” has very little (if anything) to do with it; it’s much more about knowing your options.

What about glucose testing for gestational diabetes and stuff like that?

It’s not necessary; it’s precautionary. As long as the pregnancy is going well, I am taking care of myself, and I am eating healthfully, this won’t be an issue. My midwife is also trained to recognize the earliest symptoms without a mandatory test.

Drugs: Can you have those?

If I wanted to have drugs, I wouldn’t be choosing a natural, at-home birth. Since I won’t be lying on my back to labor and deliver (I ended up laboring standing up and delivering squatting and standing), contractions will come in ebbs and flows. Epidurals have been linked to severe headaches and other uncomfortable side effects, so I want to avoid them. We believed God for a pain-free birth experience, so drugs were unnecessary.

“He’s so red because they waited to cut his umbilical cord.”

As long as the umbilical cord is pulsing, Baby is receiving important red blood cells and nutrients (including oxygen!). We opted to not cut the cord until after I delivered the placenta and the pulsing had ceased. Perhaps it did contribute to his redness – he was well nourished!

I would love to answer any more questions you have about home birth and why we chose it! Feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail at renowncrowned(at)gmail(dot)com. What was (some of) your reasoning for choosing the route you did?

Happy 1 Year!

This is the letter of blessing I wrote to Ae for his first birthday.

Aeron,

Wow. It is hard for me to believe you are already one year old. You have been in our family for 21 months now. We have been incredibly blessed by your presence, and you have brought such joy to our lives.

Many people think we – Momma and Daddy – are crazy. We got married before finishing college. We waited with eager hearts for God to bless us with children. How exciting it was when we found out you were developing inside me, and that your anticipated birth would come shortly after I graduated.

God used you in my life during those 9 months to show me how it is SO important to take care of my body, so you could get all the nourishment you needed. He also taught me how to begin mothering you even before I held you in my arms. I prayed for you. I spoke blessings over you. I sang to you at night. I have sweet memories of getting to know you during that time.

Even though a lot of people wanted to know, we chose not to have an ultrasound to find out your gender. We like surprises! Even so, several weeks before you were born, God began preparing my heart to raise a SON. I have very little experience with boys, so I was a bit nervous about that. But God is faithful. He has helped me know how to raise you, sweet boy.

You are a delight and a treasure. I love watching you learn about God’s creation. Your smile lights up whatever room you are in. You are excited about life and eager to communicate with us. We are doing our best, by God’s grace, to figure out exactly what you need.

So, Aeron Azariah,

• I pray you will have a tender heart towards God.
• I pray your spirit will thirst to seek Him from a young age.
• I pray you will hide God’s Word in your heart.
• I pray you will learn obedience and submission to Daddy and Momma so you will be ready to obey God’s call.

In your short time, your name has been what we have witnessed:

Aeron: bearer of light

As you bring us joyful hearts and laughter, we pray you will one day be a bearer of the Light of the World, Jesus, and eagerly tell others about Him.

Azariah: the LORD will keep us

Ultimately, Momma and Daddy cannot protect you from all evil. We cannot provide your EVERY need. Only God in His total sovereignty can accomplish such. May you be reminded throughout your life of His enduring faithfulness.

Happy 1st Birthday, Aeron. You are an amazing boy. I love you.

Blessings,

Momma

The Lady with the Big Pink Binder

Thanks to a friend, I inherited this huge couponing binder. No, I’m not really THAT hard core – I currently only use about 1/3 of the page protectors in it. I like being able to see the coupons and flip to them quickly, especially when I find a product on clearance.

So on Sunday I lugged my 5 lb (read as: 2 ton) binder to the store while Ae slept and A enjoyed the time to read. I had planned a huge deal, but I was hesitant about it actually working out. I was even more nervous because A was at home. He’s awesome about double checking my math and making sure I factored everything in.

As I was getting situated, an older gentleman decided to strike up a conversation with me. –Side note: If you know me in real life, you know I am hesitant to talk to strangers. I try hard to be cordial and not standoff-ish, but I am not always successful. — Anyways. He asked me how I did “that” and pointed to the binder. I barely fumbled a “I’ve practiced” answer before he followed up with, “Do you save a lot of money?” “I usually save around 60%,” I responded. He continued the steady stream of questions:

• Where do you find coupons? Coupons.com, Smartsource.com, Redplum.com are the most popular. I print most of mine out, but you can get them in the Sunday paper.
• Do you pay for them? No. Well, you pay for a Sunday paper… but you don’t have to pay anything for coupons.
• How’d you start couponing? Watching TV or something? No, I was couponing before the Extreme show came out. I just saw that I was paying $1,000 for a decent meal plan on campus each semester, and I was determined to make my own food for less than that.
• Is it easy or time consuming? It can be time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. You can coupon as much or as little as you’d like.
• What do you do [for a living]? I’m a stay at home mom.
• Are there ever coupons for things like avocados? Very rarely. However, I have seen them several times on Meijer mPerks!

I felt a bit uncomfortable the whole time. He wanted quick answers, not detailed ones. Finally, he said, “Well, if you see me again, please say hi. I’d like to talk to you. Just tell me you’re the one who coupons.” I told him I would, adding, “I’ll say, ‘Hi. I’m the lady with the big pink coupon binder!’” And with that, we parted ways.

Until 10 minutes later, when he found me looking at the meat. “Well, here you are!” he said. {It sounded like he’d lost me or something…} “Find any good deals?” So I showed him the buy one, get one free brats and bratwurst burgers coupon I had, explaining why I needed both in my cart. “That’s incredible!” he replied. “Good job!”

And then the questions continued…

• Do you think Kroger or Meijer sells better meat? Generally Kroger, but on some cuts it’s a toss-up
• Are you married? Yessir.
• Have any kids? Yes. I have one. He’ll be one in less than a week.
• Want to keep him? Oh yes. I love him too much to get rid of him!

After this go-round, he stated, “Wow. You just won’t budge. Can’t find anything to pick on you. Your husband is a lucky guy, for sure. Keep up the good work.”

I didn’t see him again after that. It made me wonder… It’s not likely I’ll see him again. As long as his list of questions was, it was validated – worth it – when he spoke those final words of encouragement and blessing. I wished I had thought of more questions to ask him in this impromptu veggie section conversation so I, too, would have parting words of encouragement. Sometimes, I really need to get out of my box.

Confessions of a Frugalista

It has been established that while A makes more than minimum wage, we still have an extremely tight budget. Like I mentioned last week, we’ve done “without” quite a few things to keep our expenses down. But those things we do purchase. How do we keep those from costing an arm and a leg?

Groceries

I coupon. Not as avidly as I did in college (though I am working back up to my previous enthusiasm, thanks to a couple of highly interested friends), but I do coupon. I am far more selective about what we purchase now, particularly because we like to purchase more fresh fruit and veggies. That knocks a lot of processed foods off my radar (which I’m ok with!). I am also aware of which store generally has the best prices on what. When I need to buy tortillas, I will always buy them from Dollar Tree (with the exception of a really great sale/coupon combo that makes a 10 pack cheaper than $1 elsewhere). If I need to buy fresh fruit and veggies, Aldi is probably going to have the cheapest option. Diapers? We buy those from Amazon for the best deal — most of the time.

Furniture

When you visit our home, A will eagerly explain to you all the pieces of furniture and decorations we have, the stories behind them, and how we’ve furnished the entire apartment for under $600 – including our bed! “How is this possible,” you ask?

Goodwill. Garage Sales. Resale shops. Factory Seconds. The side of the road. We’ve walked into two furniture stores in the last two years…and promptly turned around and left. The prices are half (or more!) of our emergency fund — and brand new furniture is definitely not an emergency.

Garage Sales

Speaking of garage sales, we like to do them around here. I look on craigslist and the local paper’s website for sales, call up A and tell them where they are, and he verifies yes or no. (Ah, the perks of being married to a delivery driver…) Then I plan the most efficient route.

Sure, we can come home with a lot of random things quite easily (–especially if you know my pack-rat husband–), but we also shop intentionally. We always buy reasonably priced khaki cargo shorts for A, because he needs them for work. We keep a running list of items around the house we’d like to buy if we find one at a garage sale – like a glass measuring cup, a can opener, a razor for A’s hair, a cooling rack… (see a theme?)

Budget

This seems kind of random, but this is actually how we find reasonable deals – whether at the grocery store, on craigslist, or at a garage sale. We choose an amount we don’t want to pay more than, and then search high and low to find one in that price range. That’s our philosophy with everything from planning our wedding to our rings, our mattress, and our second car (which we no longer have, just to be clear). It helps us weed out the overpriced or extravagant purchases and forces us to get creative to find the best deal. Like right now… we’ve budgeted a certain amount to replace my cell phone as well as A’s. We have to be creative, because the budgeted amount won’t cover 2 brand new phones. Hello, eBay!

So there. It’s out in the open. I coupon. Some of our furniture has come from the side of the road. My husband brings home random stuff We make a list for garage sales. And we budget a specific amount for our purchases. As A says to me, “That’s why you get paid the big bucks!”

How about you? Are you a frugalista? Any confessions to make?

{original photo by bigevil600}

Praising God: The Missing Wallet Story

Last Friday, we ran some errands: the typical Friday errand (depositing A’s tips from the previous week) as well as a stop by AutoZone to check the alternator and a stop by the pizza place to see if A could figure out why the car topper won’t light up anymore. No big deal – 3 places in less than an hour and a half.

It wasn’t a big deal until we decided to go for a walk that afternoon, and A could not locate his wallet. We decided we’d look for it when we got home. After a quick walk (it started raining on us), we returned home. The misplaced wallet was forgotten until about 15 minutes before A needed to leave for work…

We couldn’t find it. A looked in the car, on top of the dresser (the usual spot), in the couch and chair cushions, on the floor…basically everywhere logical and illogical. He had to call his boss to say he’d be running late. After all – your wallet (with your driver’s license) is rather important when you’re a delivery driver!

Finally, A asked if I could drive him to work so he could work as an instore. He was already 30 minutes late, and his boss needed all hands on deck due to a large order coming in. I dropped him off and headed home to look some more.

I looked and didn’t find it. While A was at work, he called our bank and had them freeze his debit card. On his way home (he walked since Ae was asleep), he called AutoZone to see if they’d found a missing wallet. Nope. Hadn’t seen it. After he got home, he called WalMart (where we deposit tips). They didn’t have his wallet. No one had turned it in to the local law enforcement, either.

Disappointed was a bit of an understatement. This was a Friday. He would have to wait until Monday to go get a new driver’s license (and he was scheduled to work Saturday). He lost his debit card and the debit card from donating plasma. And of course, there was simply the frustration of not knowing where he lost it.

On Saturday, A did a little more investigating and made a few more phone calls. After it was all said and done, we made a list of the ways God still provided and was faithful in the midst of this:

• Driving with his Social Security card – A’s friend Reed had mentioned a couple months ago about driving with your Social Security card if you didn’t have your driver’s license. A called the city police to verify this information and found out (at least in our state) it is legal! He was able to work Saturday night after all. [Which was awesome, because it was graduation day -- a big day for business at work]
• Getting a new plasma card FREE – We were concerned getting a replacement plasma card would cost money. If we could wait the 5-10 business days to get it in the mail, it would be free! (If we wanted it in 4 business days, it would cost $25!)
• Getting to donate plasma this week - Would A be able to donate plasma if he didn’t have his new card? Would he still get that money? YES! The old card was deactivated, so the new card is linked to his account/name.
• Retrieving the funds from the old plasma card – When the old card was deactivated, any remaining funds were transferred to the new card. What a relief!
• We only lost $5 – A only had a $5 bill in his wallet. No one had used the debit card or the plasma card between the time we lost the wallet and the time we realized we’d lost it.
• We got a clean living room out of the ordeal - Sounds funny, but we picked everything up off the floor, threw away miscellaneous papers, and vacuumed in an effort to find the wallet.

We do have to go buy A a new wallet and driver’s license… so yes, it did end up costing us more than $5 overall. But it could’ve been far worse. We are thankful it didn’t end with our identity being stolen or A not being able to work Saturday night. We are thankful for God’s sovereignty in our chaos.

Now, therefore, our God, we thank You and praise Your glorious name. 1 Chronicles 29:13

{original photo by grzessiek}

Weekly Goals

It’s Monday again! Some weeks fly by, others drag by. Last week flew by, and I anticipate this week will as well. There was much accomplished at our house – including cleaning Ae’s room AND the living room! A had to do quite a bit of car maintenance (tail light, blinkers/hazards, battery replacement, alternator check), but we did get to go to the pool (for free)! It was a good week at our house. So, here’s my week in review. I’d love to hear about your weekly goals when I post – so please, don’t hesitate to share!

Personal

• Finish 2 Samuel.
• Finish 60% of Transforming Grace, and A Chance to Die. Find one audiobook to listen to. {A Thousand Never Evers}
• Journal 2 times, even if short entries. {sighs. None.}

Relational

• Read Romans 3x with A {None. Hoping to squeeze some in this week!}
• Write a love note to A
• Read God’s Word daily with Ae
• Blanket train Ae 4x (8 minutes each) {10 minutes each!}
• Call my mom

Kitchen/Household

• Two loads of laundry
• Create a meal plan through Memorial Day weekend {eek! This one’s getting transferred to try again this week…}

Blog

• Blog 3 times.
• Write one guest post and submit.

This week…

Personal

• Begin 1 Kings.
• Finish 75% of Transforming Grace, and 50% of A Chance to Die. Find one audiobook to listen to.
• Journal 2 times, even if short entries.

Relational

• Read Romans 3x with A
• Write a love note to A
• Read God’s Word daily with Ae
• Blanket train Ae 4x (10 minutes each)
• Call my mom

Kitchen/Household

• Two loads of laundry
• Create a meal plan through Memorial Day weekend

Blog

• Blog 3 times.

How’s your week look?