Organize

Waking up this morning really made me miss Florida. Snow this morning...really? Michigan cannot decide if spring is here.  Mike and I took a weekend vacation to Saint Petersburg to attend a wedding of my good friend Kari.  We had a blast with Kari and Brent's family and friends.

To those of you that work the same shift as your husband consider yourself lucky. This week going back to work has been hard. I realize how much I miss spending nights with my husband. With the same breath I am thankful for the job that God has given me. Working on being thankful in everything.

On returning I became very overwhelmed. With what you say? Dirty house and cooking. Since being married our busy lives have taken over. I have realized this is no excuse. My mind finally broke down. I hate having a messy house that if someone just stopped by I would be embarrassed.  This week I have made a weekly cleaning chart with hopes to start next week. The start will be frustrating BUT I know that with time the chart will make cleaning quicker. I wish I did not function on organization. I am like a robot just wanting every day to be the same. Poor Mike.

After tackling the cleaning my hope is to implement a cooking schedule that is healthy. I have been looking into local farms/going organic. By all means I do not want to go crazy with this but when I think about my husband and the family we will some day have I long for healthy. I have read Wildly Affordable Organic loving the whole idea of it.

If any of you have read the Hunger Games (I am on book 3 and yes Kerry I have finally embraced the book even though they are a little cheesy). Why did I embrace this book well after reading Wildly Affordable Organic I realized that as grocery shoppers we are all apart of a Hunger Game. Many of us want to be healthy but the pricing may be too high or you always question how organic is organic? Is this local farm really selling quality food?  Why does the grocery store suck?  Why are prices rising every where?  Is anyone else seeing the relation to the hunger games?  As you already know I am a Jesus follower but I can't help but envision our government looking down on us like the capital in the Hunger Games

I encourage you to read Wildly Affordable Organic...it helped me to see that maybe we do not need meat but lots of beans and vegetables. What to go cheap on and what to spend a little more money on. I would love to live by this book for a year...lets see if my husband would be on board!

Resolution

If you don't know me the only thing I would truly want you to know about me is that I am a Jesus follower. As a young child I accepted Jesus in my heart and will honestly say there has never been a time in my life when I have doubted the existence of Jesus. Life is not perfect but my Savior is.

This blog will have postings of what I struggle with, prayer requests, verses, songs, and rants. They will be labeled Walk Humbly. 

I will start out with a rant...A couple weeks ago I watched the music video Courageous by Casting Crowns. The song of course is from the movie Courageous. At the end of the video it has little clips from the movie, that I watched last night with my closest friends. Yes, this video has one meaning about fathers standing up to the fight for their families.  I watched this over and over. As I watched it I just cried. 

Watching this video brought up an underlying issue in my life. My thoughts just snapped into one thought that I have always known: that the devil has such a deep hold on people. This hold sways our decisions. Makes something else more appealing.  The right choice slaps us in the face it becomes too hard making the wrong choice the win. Every wrong choice takes a piece of ourselves away until we crumble. We are all dealt different cards of hurt. Hurt turns us all from God. Turns us into people we are not. Until we are courageous enough to own it. To deal with it. But until we do that, hurt people will hurt people. I believe that hurt is the cause of all our wrong choices. And man did I make a lot of wrong choices.

In this song it says:  We will reignite the passion that we buried deep inside. May the watchers become warriors let the men of God arise.  I love this. We are warriors meant to fight. Which brings up a question in my mind: Who didn't fight for you? or who lost the fight for you?  Meaning what person hurt you or what person fought so hard that their race was over. What I am talking about are two big issues addressed in the video. The hurt of fathers not being present in their children's life or the death of someone close. I agree these two things mess us up. I know now through time that God is right there screaming I know that this is going to hit you hard but please know I am here. God never wants me to hurt but because of others selfish choices or choices of my own the devil enters in.

I love how this movie hit hard the fact that husbands need to be the strong hold of the family.  It brought tears to my eyes to watch each husband say the resolution to their families.  I would love to take this a step further. I would have loved to see the wives take the resolution as well. To say as the mom/wife I too stand firm behind your father/husband. Once I have children, God willing, I will be taking this vow for them. I pray daily I am able to overcome any selfish life happenings for the sake of my children and husband no matter how hard they may seem. That God continues to fight for my heart keeping me away from the devil. That in my weak moments I acknowledge them as such and reach for my Father. I will make a stand to be courageous and fight.  When this resolution is signed every 5 years I would love to renew it. To countless times stand face to face with my family to fight and no matter what walk together.

When Mike and I decide to sign this I would love for my friends to stand with me as accountability partners to sign the resolution as well.  I will be posting on my blog when we decide to do this. Saying this I welcome anyone to join us. It is time for Christians to step up and say "no power of hell no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand till He returns or calls me home here in the power of Christ I stand."  Look at the world around us and see that the devil as work.

AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE WE WILL SERVE THE LORD

Courageous Music Video

"If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?"

The quote above is appropriate for Valentine's day right?  I love Valentine's day. I mean who wouldn't love to celebrate by force the love you have for each other with gifts and going out. I am so not a hopeless romantic. I don't want flowers unless they are straight up from the field or Lilacs. In no way do I need chocolate...I don't want to get real big. And cards well my husband is not good at writing out his feelings instead he just shows me everyday.  In saying all this I am really not a hater....whoever really celebrates God bless.
Here is how my Michael and I celebrated...

My Gift

Michael's Gift :) 

Before Dinner

Where we had dinner and met for the first time oh so many years ago

Of course we invited my mommy!

"You're not married are you?" As I stand there taking a picture.
Haha of course he is nice drunk lady!

Made a stop at the sister and brother in-laws

Outfits...Can you tell my husband loves to dress up?

Bliss!

Like I promised here is our wonderful wedding day!!  Unlike most brides I had a blast planning. Since I wanted the wedding outside I'm not going to lie the only thing I was overly stressed about was the weather.  The week of called for rain all week plus rain on the day of. But thank God everything turned out as planned and the day went great, thanks to my family and friends who helped.  I wanted a simple, stylish, DIY wedding. The pictures will explain it all.  

All Shirts and Ties by Express

Dress by David's Bridal

Dress by Modcloth

Glitter Toms

Flowers by Ludemas

Pants by Bonobos

Chuck Taylors by Converse

  Our wedding was located at a very special place that holds a lot of memories for me.  As a young girl my grandparents owned a apple orchard/farm that was open to the public. Now you can understand why no other location would do. Call me a little stubborn and by a little I mean a lot but I'm one lucky girl to have the grandpa that I do.  He made this wedding possible no words seem fitting to describe how greatful I am.  To all you other brides I'm sorry to say I've never seen another location that is this beautiful. Deciding the colors of my wedding was simple I just went with the apple color theme: red, yellow, and green.  And let me just say though so many people mocked the fact that my husband would be wearing red pants can I just say how in they are now. 

Our reception was located on the same property out back.  My Uncle thought of the great idea for the hayride to transport people to and from.   We had a pig roast with sides and pie for dessert. We also had games to play while we had our pictures taken.  Can you tell the theme here that I didn't want anything traditional. I wanted our day to be so relaxed with a bunch of people coming together to celebrate.

Catered by Adeline Leigh

Dessert Pie by Grand Traverse Pie Company

Homemade Signs :) 

 My mom did all the computer work. She made our invitations, which I might feature on here later, which were themed around the book The Giving Tree.  We decided that the book would be our guestbook. I didn't want the traditional huge picture that I would eventually not want hung or the collage of pictures book. Since my degree is in early childhood a book to read to my children just made sense. Pictured above was handed out to our wedding guest for our ceremony.Instead of the traditional ceremony itinary I wanted something centered around our family and who was in the wedding. I loved this because Mike and I were able to write a little detail about each of the people standing up with us and a thanks to all involved. It was our way of explaining how special they are to us.  

Every table had a basket with apples and a big white balloon attached.  As our favor every guest received apple butter.  My mom of course came up with the cute tag idea and I came up with the saying "spread the love." We didn't hire a DJ and just played our own playlists. 

Tidbits of our Life

Can I first say how excited I am to enter the life of blogging. I can't wait to explore and share my experiences of life, whether people read it or not.

I named this blog Karl and Joy. Allow me to explain: Karl is my husband's first name who goes by Mike but in my ranting or silly moments I call him Karl. Joy is my middle name but also the name that my sweet husband calls me in all moments. Need I mention that I love the names we have for each other because when I call him Karl I am reminded of truly how much he is like his dad and when he calls me Joy I am reminded that he is the only one that has ever called me by that.

Our Timeline:

May 22 2009: We met

November 22 2009: Started dating

August 16 2010: We are home owners

September 29 2010: Engaged/Possession of house

June 11 2011: Married (featured in my next post)

That's our happily ever after.  And this is my blog that will consist of our comical so called life.