07.20.07
journey…
Well I’ve started a journey. I desperately want to read through the Bible. The whole thing… not in just little sections but the whole thing. Well I started maybe a year ago and I thought that I would go through just a little at a time just jotting down my thoughts and notes about everything I read. But that was difficult for me to do and I constantly forgot about it. So Wednesday morning I sat down and just finished Genesis. Thursday morning I started Exodus and I continued in Exodus this morning. I find I’m reading much more of the story and understanding how all the little things I knew fit together in the big picture. I think I’m retaining more this way too. I like finding the passages that I’ve never read before too… there seems to always be one stuck in the midst of a story that somehow is always glanced over. Today’s glanced over passage is:
Exodus 4:24-26 “At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah (Moses’ wife) took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,’ she said. So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said ‘bridegroom of blood,’ referring to circumcision.)”
So yeah when I read that I said to myself “What the crap?” because it’s surrounded by verses telling of Moses going back to Egypt and God telling Aaron to go to Moses in the wilderness. And these 3 verses come in between.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary says God’s anger was out of the sin Moses comitted by not having his son circumcised.
So hear starts my journey of reading through the Bible.
06.06.07
over my head…
Ok so I really really like the book The Wealthy Barber… I’m just having a rough time of figuring out how to apply this stuff. So the first step was EASY! Save 10% of your income and this isn’t just for retirement this is to save so that in the future you can afford some of your dream items! This is supposed to go into a mutual fund… ok now mutual funds… wow there is a lot of them out there! How the heck are you supposed to understand this stuff! If anyone has any connections to a financial guru that is great with this stuff please let me know! Anyway, then it talks about saving for retirement and all of the options… wow. So yeah I guess I need to do my homework, I just wish I knew where to start with that homework.
In other news… my time is freeing up quickly this summer because a number of my students are stopping lessons for the next couple of months. Quite understandable and I’m taking the entire month of July off for myself anyway. I’m really looking forward to this summer, seeing what it holds for us. The greatest thing though will be LIFE down in Orlando, FL, a youth conference that we’re taking 19 of our 8th-12th graders to. It’s going to be a great experience for them (and hopefully for us as well), but I’m really excited because I get to see my best friend!!! Yea! I haven’t seen her since Christmas and before that was at our wedding! I miss her tremendously and am so excited to have a chance to see her, even if only for an evening or so.
We have a few weddings this summer too, though I guess it really is more this fall and winter! I’m so excited for these and for the people that will be saying the vows, they’re all amazing people that have really touched Karl’s and my lives in the past couple of years. We love them!
05.01.07
financial peace…
So, despite my quick start into Dave Ramsey’s book Financial Peace revisited i was unable to really pick it up this week until last night. Maybe there’s something special about Monday nights. Anyway… I’m pumped to win financially. The hardest part for me is letting the time pass to let money grow and all that jazz. I kind of jumped ahead in the book to where Ramsey spells out steps to really get on track… I really liked them. Karl and I looked over them last night a bit and we’re gonna stick to it.
In other news… hmm… I had a good weekend. Monday was pretty good to me too. Today I’m doing the laundry that I was going to do yesterday… and I was going to give Rufus a bath but just remembered that the cat has taken over the bathroom and it’s pretty gross… so maybe I’ll wait or give her the bath in our other bathroom. We’ll go for our walk in a little bit and then maybe i’ll walk down to Giant to get a couple things for this week. I’ve already had 2 of the 3 lessons for today cancel, but I also have one moved from yesterday to today, so 2 lessons today. It should be a good day!
04.24.07
challenged…
So Jon gave Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Revisted to Karl tonight to borrow. Well, while the boys were off at Eat ‘N Park for Bible Study I got through the first 8 chapters! It’s an easy read but soo challenging! It’s really motivating me to get our finances on the right track. We’re getting there slowly… luckily we’re learning this stuff early on in marriage and our debt so far is managable. I’m so thankful that my parents were able to save and pay for my schooling without any loans. That’s a huge blessing! I think our next challenge will be trying to keep from charging things on the credit card… except for Karl’s grad classes and for the things that we get reimbursed for in ministry. We’re going to try our best though to go to a cash system.
Ramsey writes about how we just want things now, and can’t wait and I see that in myself so often…. usually with smaller things… but they add up. I really want to cut down on our spending. In fact as I think about it… I don’t know what it is we spend so much money on. We’ve cut down on our eating out and groceries now we just have to keep from impulse buying things.
I’m a little tired so ideas and thoughts seem to be just swirling around in my head and not coming out the way I want. So I’ll close for the night. But I highly recommend Dave Ramsey’s book: Financial Peace Revisited.
03.09.07
It’s a chai morning…
I’ve got my chai (that Karl made), the today show is on… it’s a wonderful friday morning. I have nothing on my calendar as of right now, which could result in boredom a little later but I’ll deal. Rufus has already gotten into trouble and is now wanting to play.
So I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Searching For God Knows What and I’m not finding it as “must read” as I found Blue Like Jazz and Through Painted Deserts. Those two, though I started slow with both, by the 2nd chapter I couldn’t put them down. I’m about half way through Searching for God Knows What and I’m just not as engaged. I really like Donald Miller’s style and his other two books have really made me think. I also loved listening to him speak at a conference Karl and I attended in Texas. We even chased him down and had him sign the nerf gun I won earlier in the day at the conference (they were giving away 2 nerf guns and an ipod… guess who got the first gun. Me.) Anyway, it bums me out that I’m not tearing through this book.
Anyway I’m off to clean for potential dinner guests (Yes, I’ve added one thing to my calendar since I started writing this). Errands will come later, after the UPS man comes with our ipod integration system for the Jeep.
