Monday, April 25, 2011

I'm addicted

So I kept hearing about Pinterest on various blogs. I decided to check it out, and it is cooler than the other image saving site I joined. I signed up to join it and finally got an invite email a week later (last night). I'm addicted. I love how you can create categories and follow people, plus it's always updated. You can find images of everything on here. I've already found/tabbed a few kitchen gadgets I'd like to buy down the road. If you want an invite, let me know! This is one of the folders I created called "my fav colors" :).

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Beautiful

This was the Prayer of Confession posted in today's bulletin at church. The words are beautiful; I wanted to share them, it's a reminder of what today is all about. I think I'm going to frame this and put it near the front door.

Happy Easter to all!

O Lord, no day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in your sight. Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart; praise has been often praiseless sound; my best services are filthy rags. Blessed Jesus, let me find a cover in your appeasing wounds. Though my sins rise to heaven your merits soar above them; though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell, your righteousness exalts me to your throne. All things in me call for my rejection, all things in you plead my acceptance. I appeal from the throne of perfect justice to your throne of boundless grace, grant me to hear your voice assuring me: that by your stripes I am healed, that you were bruised for my iniquities, that you have been made sin for me that I might be righteous in you, that my grievous sins, my manifold sins, are all forgiven, buried in the ocean of your concealing blood. I am guilty, but pardoned; lost, but saved; wandering, but found; sinning, but cleansed. Give me perpetual broken-heartedness, keep me always clinging to your cross, flood me every moment with descending grace, open to me the springs of divine knowledge, sparkling like crystal, flowing clear and unsullied through my wilderness of life.

-Aurthur Bennett. The Valley of Vision.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

A summary of this insanely busy month

I should start this post by mentioning that when I initially typed out the title, I entered "summery" instead of "summary". Probably because it's been in the 60s off and on lately, so it feels a bit like summer! YES!!!!

It's been an exhausting few weeks. Mirabel was sleeping better, then she started coming down with a cold. Last night she cried for 2 hours and woke up every hour. I should be sleeping now that it's her naptime, but I feel worse after napping! Am I the only crazy one? Yesterday, after a rough night, I took a nap and felt so exhausted for the rest of the day, moreso than I do now, and I slept even less last night. Anyhow, I was losing sleep over another issue last week.

So the Austin rental market is INSANE. Literally, a house will be listed in the morning and it will be gone by that afternoon! I know because there have been a few houses that I've liked that have gone that quickly. So when I saw this really adorable bungalow listed last week, I had to act fast. It was 5 miles away from Jose's work and it was so darn cute. A blue cottage. It was kind of pricy for the size, but we liked that it was only about a year old. So we were paying for security and location. We submitted an application, and we passed our background check with flying colors. THEN THE LANDLORD decided to change his mind at the last minute and give the house over to his neighbors (who were renting) because they wanted the house for 3 years (we only want it for about 1) and their landlord was losing the house. Ugh. We were so disappointed. We were worried that we weren't going to be able to find a place before our move. Thankfully, we were wrong :)!

A few days after, Jose was browsing the web for rental homes in Austin. He came upon a house that wasn't listed on the major sites. A lot of folks will sign up for email updates with their realtors so that they can jump on a house as soon as it's listed. Well, this house wasn't being listed by a realtor; the guy who owns the house owns 15 properties in the area and he handles his own leases. So we decided to email the guy. We assumed that the house was already taken. I mean, c'mon, it's not like a 2400 square foot, 4 bedroom & 2.5 bath, cute blue cottage under 5 years old that's relatively close to Downtown is gonna stick around for long. Blue cottage? Yep, this place looked a whole lot like the house we "lost", except it's 1000 square feet more!!! AND it's $150 less per month! AND WE WERE THE FIRST ONES TO SUBMIT AN APPLICATION FOR IT. AND (get this, I'll stop yelling after this ;) 8 OTHERS asked about it only after we submitted our contract! Ok, c'mon now...

What are the odds that a really cute place will be listed online for 3 days (with the Austin rental market being the way it is), and not receive any inquiries until after ours? Isn't it a little strange that no one else asked the landlord about it until AFTER we submitted an application? Little miracles happen when we least expect them to :). So we got that house! It was a steal; very much a deal. I still can't believe we'll be paying less for a house that's 2400 square feet than we do for our current 500 square foot apartment, insane!


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Sweet Story

Life has been crazy-busy lately. I don't have much time to blog at the moment but I wanted to share this with you all; my aunt shared it on FB. I love this story!


 

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