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Monday, June 22, 2015

Stitch Fix for June - Taking Care of Mom

I'd been hearing about Stitch Fix for a while and was interested in trying it out.  Then I saw a friend of mine wearing a darling outfit; when I complemented her on it she mentioned using Stitch Fix.  I mentioned it to Rob and he thought it was a great idea.  That was early in May.  While we were in the process of buying a house and moving.  This month I got my belated Mother's Day gift in the form of my first "fix."

When it arrived Miss E was excited to find out what would be in the box too.  It was fun to open it up with her.  Just the experience of opening the box and seeing how pretty everything was was great.

Almost everything in the box appealed to me, and it all fit.  I had so much fun trying it all on.

I loved that the stylist listened to my input and requests, but also stretched me a bit.  You know that feeling when you get a gift that you LOVE but wouldn't have picked for yourself?  Yea, that was the feeling I had.

While I did like most of the items in my shipment I didn't LOVE them all.  I ended up keeping the 2 great tops and sending the other 3 items back.  Part of what makes this service so great is how easy it was to return what I didn't want.  I just tossed it into the (included and pre-labeled) envelope and put it in my mailbox!

This is a great service for anyone that would like help with their wardrobe or does not want to have to take time to shop for new pieces for their wardrobe.  I knew I wanted a couple more items but REALLY did not want to have to take the time to look for what I wanted either by going out or shopping on line.  This was the perfect solution for me.  No, it's not something I'll do all the time.  The items are not bargain prices, but I did like that I could give them a price range that I was comfortable with.

Next month it's my birthday.  I'm looking forward to another Stitch Fix as another fun gift.

I've included links to Stitch Fix in this post.  While this is not a sponsored post, I do get referral credit if you follow my links, sign up AND receive a "fix."  The opinions are my own that I would have posted anyways...the referral links are a bonus. ;)

Thursday, June 18, 2015

A new house....a gift from God.....

Those tiny house posts?  Sorry, God had other plans and I'll not be finishing that series....

When we moved back to Colorado we moved back into the house we purchased last time we lived here (we rented it out while we were gone).  It was the house we had purchased when we had four kids, and we were done having kids.  Ha! Ha!  Yea, 9 years and 4 MORE kids later it was a bit small.  We were praying, saving and waiting.  We really thought we would be waiting 3 more years in this house.  3 more years active duty Air Force.  3 more years to save so that we could afford the house we were wanting.  3 more years to pray for God's direction.  3 more years being content in the "too small house."
The old house

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6

By December we had gotten back in contact with our realtors.  We were interested in purchasing an investment property, but were not opposed to looking at houses for our family as well.  We looked at several houses, some in each category.  None were right, but the "family" houses we looked at really helped us figure out what we were and were NOT looking for when the time came to buy our "20 year house."   God was working in our hearts in so many ways through so many people and circumstances.   

Then I saw this house on zillow.  It looked great, but I didn't think the land was what Rob wanted.  A few days later he sent me a link to this house.  What did I think?  We looked at the pictures and talked.  There were a couple other homes that interested us as well.  We couldn't look at any of them for another week though.  Science Olympiad was happening in the next week.

We made plans to look at 4 houses.  3 one day and 1 the next.  The first house was nice, but both the house and land were NOT "ours."  We headed on over to that big blue house.  There was trouble getting the key out of the lock box.  We all went to look around the land while our realtors (whom we've known for 9 years) worked on that.  By the time I got back to the door they had already been in and came out saying "this is your house!"  Rob was nowhere in sight.  He was still looking around at the land....



I silently looked through the house.  It puzzled me.  WHO builds a house like this?  It looked like they only had 2 children, but the house was made for a LARGE family.  _I_ would have built this house.....but, what did Rob think?  I kept quiet knowing that he had to know I loved the house.  Sure enough he started asking about making offers etc.

Just to be sure we went on to the next house.  The land was nice, but the house was NOT for us and much farther out than we wanted to live.  The next day we had plans to look at 1 more house.  Most of the kids opted to stay home, they knew it wasn't ours. ;)  We were just going to make sure there were no "what ifs" in the back of our minds.

Those questions I had about WHO would build a house like this?  Yea, a family that adopted 11 children builds a house like this!  They lived here 20 years.  Those 2 littles still in the home?  The grandchildren. :)  This house was built for us long before we knew to start praying for it.  God is good!  There are so many big and small prayers that were answered through this house.  Prayers that were spoken and shared, silent prayers and even those that were just hidden away in my heart.  Some answered in the loud "THIS IS YOUR HOUSE" way, and others in the whispered "I care about even this" sort of way.
We MAY have been at the house for a whole 15 minutes before Mr. M got the lawn mower going.

When we got into the house even the "baby" Miss A seemed to know it was "home" even without any of our stuff in it.  We've been enjoying the space and great floor plan as we've been moving in this past month.

For those that are wondering... We can't know what God has planned in the future, but unless He says otherwise we do intend to settle here.