Tag: family update

Life in Our Home || October 2019

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When I look back at the past month, I see a flurry of activity. As we prepare for the birth of our ninth child, things have been busy! Throw in birthday parties for three children, dropping our first child off at college, and the continual settling into our new home, and I must admit that I am tired.

The blog has been quiet as of late. We have been laser focused on paying off our mortgage, which involves me (by my own choice) accepting a lot of Etsy orders. I feel like it is time to wind down, with baby being due in early November. This has been a struggle for me. We have come such a long way, and I’m ready for this chapter to end! We started off with $293,000 worth of debt in November 2016, and are now at $33,699 left on our mortgage. My sweet husband has been working a lot of overtime and overall, we try to live a fairly simple life. Downgrading our home twice has also helped our cause.

I think one of the reasons why I am having a difficult time slowing down is because I place a lot of the blame of our debt on myself. My husband has always been more steady and smart with finances than me, and I was usually the one who wanted the new house, car, or camper. I was the one with student loans. We are in a totally different place now, thanks to God’s mercy. But I still take the words “Owe no one anything but love” in Scripture very seriously and I’m trying very hard to find the appropriate balance. I think my focus will shift to frugality even more so once our baby arrives to counteract any losses in Etsy income.

Life has been different without our oldest daughter here. I believe this has been the hardest part of parenting so far. This life change has made me cherish the moments with my other children even more so. Children are such blessings and gifts. I am truly blessed to be expecting our ninth at age 39.

The pregnancy has been going well except for some nerve pain in my leg which puts me out of commission at times. My family has been so helpful and I’m very grateful for them.

We celebrated the Feast of Trumpets a few days ago, and I’m looking forward to celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles soon! How I love His feasts and this time of year!

I hope you ladies have a lovely October. Oh, and I would love to quickly share a head covering article that was a blessing to me which I recently stumbled upon. Blessings!

An Update from Our Family

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Good morning! It is so nice to dust off this space again. I haven’t shared much on my blog lately due to a couple of reasons. First of all, my phone has not been cooperating. I’ve thought about replacing it, but am holding on a while longer while we are remaining “gazelle intense” in regards to paying down our mortgage. It’s difficult to write a blog post when my phone decides to lock up. Secondly, I’ve been focused on our house debt almost to the point of obsession, and I’ve spent most of my free time lately working on ways to pay it down. I’m so thankful that the Lord led us to Dave Ramsey about a year and a half ago!

I watch his broadcast on YouTube most days to stay motivated. I’ve reopened my Etsy shop. I spend so much time punching numbers into calculators it might be unhealthy, ha! All joking aside, I have this fire burning inside of me right now that is aching to be completely debt free. As Paul says in Romans, I want to “owe no man anything but love.”

In other news, my oldest is almost ready to graduate. I can hardly believe it. I can’t wait to see the plans the Lord has in store for her. Our two oldest are taking the ACT in April per my request. Neither of them really wants to attend college, but I’d like for them to be as prepared as possible in case they change their mind.

We are planning to take our first camping trip in a year soon. I am so excited! Sure, when we get there I probably will be uncomfortable the first night and wish that I had access to my bathroom at home, ha! But the little kids especially LOVE it, and I really like to have these sweet memories with them. We are headed to upstate South Carolina, which is a “new to us” area.

My mother-in-law will be staying with us much more often once she retires in June, which will be a huge blessing. She is always so helpful!

As always, I feel the Lord working on my contentment level. There are so many things that I would like to do around our home, but at the same time I want to throw as much money as possible towards our home loan. He has blessed us EXCEEDINGLY and ABUNDANTLY, and who am I to feel discontent while working to pay off a debt that we legitimately owe? I told my husband that I might try to not buy myself any new clothing for the remainder of the year. Looking through my closet I realized that I have so much more than enough!

Well, I guess that’s all for now. I am looking forward to Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits as a way to celebrate our risen Savior. I hope and pray that y’all have a blessed week serving your families!