One Month Coming to a Close... 11 More to go

January 29, 2013

Well, the first month of the year 2013 is nearing its end and i can honestly say it was a success! For the first time since Matt and i have been married we have lived well within our means and even put more money than the minimum on some of our school debt! If things keep going like this all year we will be looking good for 2014 and the rest of our lives together! I will admit that the finances part of combining our lives has been difficult. Budgeting has never been one of my strong points especially during the holidays (which is where i lost track last year). But i have a new focus and the fact that i kept with it for a whole month is amazing!

Back when i was attending Dixie State College i took a personal finance class. The main focus was on investing (which i thought was dumb) but the things i really wanted to learn from that course was how to budget and save money and pay of debt. the professor gave me a template for Excel that i still have and use to keep me on track with how much we are spending and where we are spending it. It has helped us to not spend too much on groceries or eating out, and others. But if we do make some purchases we were not planning on, we have to hold ourselves accountable and track it.

I have always grown up with a pretty good savings account. If there was something i wanted but didn't have the money in my checking account at the time i wanted it, i would just transfer the money in and tell myself i would replace it when i got my paycheck... i never would though... so to say that this month, we lived with in our paychecks is amazing! I hope to do this all year and allow our savings to get even bigger! 

This month Matt and i have read the scriptures nearly everyday! Another success that we intend to continue. Excitedly this month has been a good one as far as working on my resolutions. I guess we will see if i will be able to keep it up through the whole year. 

Last week i got a phone call from The Marriage and Family Therapy Department at University of Nebraska Lincoln. My resume was reviewed and they invited me as well as 17 others to attend a day long interview process where the staff will decide which 8 of the 18 will be good additions to the MFT program. I am nervous about it, yet i am also excited. My dad says that i have nothing to fear, that i just need to be myself and if i'm meant to be in the program this year then it will happen no matter what. I decided i needed a new outfit to wear the day of the interview, so i can feel and LOOK my best! Matt was such a wonderful husband to come with me as my shopping assistant. He followed me around and held all the clothes i picked out to try on, and he even went around looking for things for me as well as running back for different sizes. i sure have a wonderful husband. 

Speaking of having a wonderful husband, i had a dream last night. It was kind of a strange one, because it combined a lot of points in my life into one. Matt and i were married, attending church with people from our current family ward, but the building was an auditorium instead of a chapel. Bishop Reinsch closed the meeting with prayer and then asked the missionaries to sing the primary song "Love is Spoken Here." As they sang they changed the words to the line "for love is spoken here" to "FOR LOVE HAS BROUGHT YOU HERE." This is where i had such a strong spiritual feeling not just in my dream but in reality. I have never had a dream where the spirit witnessed during the dream. I woke up thinking about the phrase, "for love has brought you here." It has been difficult living here in Lincoln away from family and long time friends. and i think this dream was Heavenly Father's reminder to me that my love for Matt is what has and will continue to help me through what ever life brings our way. Another thought i had was that everything i have gone through and the person i have become and am still becoming is all because of the love Heavenly Father has for me. His love has brought me to where i am as well as my love for Him and for Matt. It goes both ways. It was very reassuring to know that i am where i am supposed to be and that God approves of me and what i am becoming in this life.

Life has a funny way of teaching you things, and i can testify to that! I can also testify to the fact that if you do what He asks of you with faith and hope, things will ALWAYS turn out for the best. What a great blessing it is to have someone with all knowledge and all power watching out for us. God Bless!

P.S. the picture is when Matt and I went ice skating together for the first time!