We’ve hit a few bumps in the road, but we’re doing our best to keep our heads up! We were supposed to move into a condo this past weekend and well…it didn’t happen. Not to go into too many details about that but it didn’t work out very well and it’s obviously not the right thing for us.
Thankfully we have some wonderful friends letting us crash at their place and we’re trying to find a place to call home. It’s a frustrating and difficult time, but God is faithful and I know he won’t leave us out on the streets. Hopefully! So for now we keep living out of boxes and waiting for something great to come through for us! Christmas is just 10 days away and I so badly want to spend Christmas in OUR home!
We covet your prayers in this time and appreciate all of you who have been lifting us up in your prayers as we figure out what’s ahead.
We closed on the house today!!! Well at least we’re assuming so. There was money deposited in our account and we didn’t hear that anything awful happened so I’m guessing that’s good 
It’s kinda hard to say goodbye to our first home, but exciting to look forward to the future and whatever that may hold!
Here we are saying goodbye on the last day at our house!
We’ve taken Jack to the beach a couple of times but not for long, and that got him adjusted well I think. Today we took him for a while and he LOVED IT!! It was so funny to watch him run around and play. He was so excited.
It was about 75 degrees today and so nice! I can’t help but brag to all of you that are in freezing temps right now in OK and Texas! HAHAHA!!
Here are some pictures from our day at the beach today and a video of Jack and Brook playing…
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5472553861282002552]
Have you ever started over? Like put behind everything you know behind you and start ALL over?
That’s what we’re doing. We’ve given up everything comfortable. Our families are 1400 miles away. Our friends are 1400 miles away. Oklahoma is 1400 miles away. But that’s the easy life. We’re not always called to the easy life.
When we felt called to California, for some reason I thought the second we got here everything would turn around for us. Then I remember it’s God’s time and not mine. I haven’t found the “perfect” job, but I am starting a job this week. I’m thankful to at least have something in this market and I’ll have time to find that “oh so perfect job”. We’re ready to get into a church that we can call home and accepts us for who we are. Sometimes that doesn’t happen right away, but there is HOPE on the horizon.
So now I am trying to be patient and figure out what it is that God is teaching me through this new start.
7
Dec
2008
Something to miss this Christmas…
By karakaejames. Posted in Family, Our life! | No Comments »Since moving to California, I realized there is something I’ll really miss around Christmas time.
Not because my husband buys me tons of jewelry for Christmas, but for the commercials. Oh how I love that jingle! I love to hate them I should say. I miss not having that song stuck in my head all the time, and seeing all the creative ways they can sing it. Good times. Well….I guess I’ll just have to sing it to myself this Christmas.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEFd2lCHCcE]
A fun fact about B.C. Clark, the first jewelry store was opened in Purcell, Oklahoma! My hometown!!
Don’t worry…I’ll always be an Okie girl at heart
ps. Notice that my blog is snowing?? Hooray!
I’m struggling with the “trials” life has thrown me over the last year or so. I struggle with how to deal, and then beat myself for worrying and doubting that God is in control. I know better, but sometimes I don’t act like it. I guess that makes me human. I want to be more like Jesus and less like me.
This is good stuff:
James 1:2-8 (The Message)
2 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.
3 You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.
4 So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
5 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it.
6 Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves.
7 Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way,
8 adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
I don’t fool myself into thinking that me and the hubby have the perfect marriage, or even that we have it all figured out. However, I do like to think we are in a special category. And I think we’re on the right track. It’s interesting because in a lot of ways, we’re complete opposites. I’m a hopeless romantic and he’s well…a guy. I like to shop and love pretty things, and he’d just as well live in a shack on the beach with nothing special except maybe a nice surf board. But when it comes to the important things we’re on the same page. (Yes baby, I know surf boards are important things…)
Tonight we went on a date. I love dating my husband. I think a lot of couples miss that and don’t see how important it is to take some time out to focus on each other. We’re still working on this area and I think there’s a lot we can do to make it better, and that’s my goal. I enjoy going to dinner and just talking, walking through the mall holding hands, eating ice cream. Makes my heart flutter. Yes I said flutter.
Back in college when Brook and I dated, I was at work and he went to the barn (a drive through drink place I frequented) and pre-ordered me a diet coke. Not an easy feat from what I’m told. Put a sweet note on my car and a flower he had plucked from the side of the road on my windshield. I’ll never forget that day and how special this new boy in my life had made me feel. Now here we are 3 and a half years later and he makes me feel like that still. It’s the little things that mean so much and I’ll always remember!
What can you do today for your spouse? Something little, or something big to make their day? I think I’ll wash his clothes so he doesn’t have to keep wearing the same dirty ones. Now that’s love.
Oh….HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TODD & WENDY! Your marriage is such a blessing to us and we’re so very thankful for your wisdom, friendship and all the “advice”!! Love you guys!
Brook and I found a place! We are going to rent a condo across the street from the beach. How awesome is that?? The condo has been completely redone from top to bottom and is super nice. What an awesome deal.
We are in the process of working out the details with the owner, but it’ll work out perfectly because our house in Fort Worth on the 12th. So in a little over than a week we will have a home and be across the street from the beach. Hopefully jobs will work out sooner than later!
This is the view we’ll have from our front door:
Here we are about 25 days from Christmas. Black Friday has come and gone. Somebody actually died at a Wal-Mart here because they got trampled. Are you kidding me? It breaks my heart to see that is what Christmas is to some people! I guess we’ll see if my thoughts on Black Friday change once I have kids, but hopefully not. I’ve always been a huge fan of Christmas, slightly obsessed. But I can’t seem to bring myself to go crazy over it for all those wrong reasons.
Not worth it to me.
Christmas seems different this year. Maybe because it’s all warm and sunny here, maybe because we’re far from family, maybe because we’re living out of a storage unit. I can’t complain about getting to go to the beach on Christmas, and Santa wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, but still. Could be a multitude of things. But I don’t think it should matter where we are to understand the REAL meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it.
Still breaks my heart that so many of us, me included, forget the REAL reason and worry so much about the unimportant stuff. All I want for Christmas are things that you can’t buy on Black Friday. I want a home for my husband and I, and a church home. I want jobs for us where we feel appreciated. I want my family to know how much I love them although we are 1400 miles away.
That’s all. For REAL.
