I am hot. Literally hot. Nearly on fire.

We don’t have air conditioning. Yesterday, it was 96 degrees when we walked home from work. It was 93 degrees upstairs in our house. By the time I was going to bed, it was 90. Today, it was a little cooler – 91 when we got home.

That was upstairs. Thankfully, our bedroom is in the basement. It was a pleasant 80-ish down there.

Thankfully, we have a TV downstairs where I can watch the Biggest Loser finale! My awesome Adrienne and I met O’Neal, one of the cast this year, just a couple of weeks ago. He was at Target to inspire us on wellness week.

But O’Neal himself isn’t exactly inspiration. I liked him because he was so family-oriented. My family, current and future, are my inspiration for health.

I want Rafa to be proud of me, and for him to know I am doing my best to be healthy so that I can have a long and happy life with him.

I also need to be healthy for the kids I don’t have yet. I want to be a healthy weight so that when I get pregnant, we will both be at lower risk of complications. I want to be a healthy, active mom after they are born.

I have some work to do…but I have a lot of good reasons to do it.

Check out this new blog!! I’m glad you found your way to it. I’m so excited about the new design and the WordPress platform. It’s so fun to be married to a man with such cool skills.

And, as you can tell by looking at this blog, my man also has a great sense of style. I love getting to take advantage of this great taste.

But I have to take the good with the bad. While that great taste translates nicely to a blog, it is next to impossible for me to translate his great taste into gifts he will like. What do you buy for a man who has an opinion on the style of everything?

I took a gamble the other day when I saw this card holder on my first visit to Patina:

Rafa kept mentioning that he wanted something that would be sleeker than his wallet. I found this and knew it was exactly what he was looking for. I was so excited to bring it home to see if my guess at his style would pay off.

It did! He loved it! My only regret is that I didn’t wait for a month and give it to him for his birthday 🙂

During our wedding, I had the pleasure to address some words to our friends and family. I know my words moved Sarah, sadly they didn’t get recorded and they were impromptu. So before time takes its toll on me, I decided to write down what I remember saying.

“I would like to start by thanking you for joining us on this special day. We know some of you have traveled long distances to join us, and we are very happy you could make it.

I would also like to thank Sarah’s parents for raising such a wonderful woman, and my mom for everything she has done for me.

This is the day I get to marry my best friend,
The one I’ll live with, love with, laugh with.
This is the one God has given me for life,
My partner, my love, my soulmate.

These are the words that Sarah wrote for our wedding invitations. When I first read them I liked them a lot, there was something about them, but I didn’t pay much attention. Later on I kept thinking about them, I even looked them up in Google to see where they came from but couldn’t find anything helpful.

I kept thinking and reflecting over these words, until it hit me. What was so meaningful to me is the part that says “This is the one God has given me for life, My partner, my love, my soulmate.” This is the one that God has given me for life.

I realized that Sarah doesn’t belong to me, she is a gift to me from God. I started to think how would I like to return the gift to back to God when our time is up. I want to go to God and tell him “Thank you Father for a wonderful wife, for a great woman. I loved your gift, treated her with love, respect and helped her grow in faith.” I want to be successful at this.

Speaking about success, this is something I have been thinking about. I want us to have a successful life.

There is a man that I grew up with that is really successful and I never even knew it. This is a man has given up his title, his job and his personal desires for his family. This man is my brother. He recently moved his family to Canada and gave up his career as a doctor for the future of his kids. He doesn’t have money, he doesn’t have cars or a fancy job but he is successful. I can see it in the way his daughters love him and treat him with respect, the way his son looks up to him and the way he leads his family in faith.

Don’t get me wrong, I have ambitions, I want to keep growing at my job and do well financially. What I don’t want is to miss what is important to me. To remember that I am part of the world, but I don’t belong to it.

I have seen success at the house of Rodney and Lisa, the way they love and respect each other. The way they raised Sarah and their serving spirit. You guys have a marriage I hope to model ours after.

My friends, I want us to be successful! And I know that with the help of God, our church and family we will be successful.

Thank you ”

Good morning, dear duplex neighbors!

I just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed the wake-up call this morning. The music itself wasn’t quite enough to get me out of bed (although I know Gilda loves death metal at 5 am), but the pounding on the walls shook me up. The animal noises in the back yard were a nice touch. I hope the yelling helped you as you broke in through the window. Who needs keys?!

Oh, and I’m very sorry that your girlfriend broke up with you. I don’t want to take sides, but I agree that she was defending Kevin too much and that it is likely they have fornicated. I don’t blame you. You certainly have a wide variety of words to describe your displeasure at the situation! The yelling and screaming were tough, so I’m glad you had enough cigarettes to calm your nerves. Luckily, that smell comes right over into our “home” so we can enjoy it too.

I hope you get a lot of time to catch up on your sleep throughout the morning and afternoon. We will be at work, so it should be nice and quiet for you. If I’m lucky, we can do this all again tomorrow!

Love,
Your neighbors

We made an offer on the Sherwood house today! I am excited, nervous, excited, terrified and excited all at the same time. But I can’t be too excited – we are in a multiple offer situation on the house, which is in short-sale. In my newly-augmented real estate knowledge, this means that the bank will take a practical look at the numbers and accept whichever offer results in the largest net for the bank. Now we just have to wait and see if the offer Rafa and I entered hits that magical mystery number.

We walked away from our meeting with our Relator (the absolutely fantastic Jennifer Murphy) knowing that we made the best offer we could. We didn’t get emotional and go out of our price range. If our offer isn’t accepted, it simply isn’t the house for us.

But we really hope it is!

We have been praying through 1 Chronicles 4:10. The verse is better known as the prayer of Jabez, a man who was described in the previous verse as “more distinguished than any of his brothers.” He prayed, “Oh, that You would bless me and extend my lands! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain.” The last part of the verse is, “And the Lord granted him his request.”

My dear friend Kita reminded me of this verse on Sunday. It is pretty much the perfect verse for a first-time homebuyer! Let’s break it down:
1) Extend my land (literally, the house is on 1/2 acre in Eagan)
2) Please be with me because this is a nerve-wracking process!
3) Keep me from trouble and pain, i.e. major damage not reflected in the inspection, etc.

We will find out on Friday if our offer is accepted or not. Please join us in praying!