August: our friends from OH came in for the state fair so he could compete in a sheep-shearing contest. We so enjoyed our time with them. It's always an encouragement to spend time with like-minded kindred spirits.
September: started teaching part-time, my birthday- Nick took the day off and made it super special!
October: Our one-year anniversary! How crazy is that!? God was sooo good to give me this man!
November: New roof. I'd been praying for hail so we could get a free roof thanks to insurance and God answered those prayers. For us a new roof also meant painting the house a new color- loooots of work!
December: Christmas is coming! I've had my shopping done since November. It helps that I'm making all our gifts this year in order to save money. We had a good friend pass away who was N's adopted grandma. We made a quick trip to Louisville for that and were able to see some good friends and their new baby.
We've been trying to save like it's our J-O-B. We've been cutting some expenses and this month have decided to spend next to nothing apart from our utilities, mortgage, and food (even that was lowered this month when I realized how much I have in the freezer). We've decided this is a good exercise in being content and in being frugal since we are still trying to save toward a specific goal... We were inspired by this blog post on a no-spend month. I think we're going to try to have them a bit more often. Hard when you're trying to decorate a new house, but so worth it when you have a big goal in mind.
Big goal??
I've picked up some daytime babysitting jobs and the latest adventure is opening an Etsy shop. I know people talk all the time about not having any luck with theirs. Honestly, I'm not trying to use it to make crazy, big bucks. Rather, we are using any funds, along with whatever else I make from teaching, babysitting etc to put towards adopting. We knew when we got married that we both had wanted to adopt for several years. We figured we would wait for several after marriage, but the Lord seems to be directing us to pursue this sooner than later. With the cost of an international adoption averaging 35k for one child we have decided we need to be saving and earning as much as we can.
We don't know when we would come home with a child. Adoption is TONS of work, paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. We also know we want to do this without debt, so it may take longer than we would like to have a decent amount towards this goal.
Please consider checking out my Etsy shop. I don't have much up yet, but you can bookmark it and come back later as more will definitely be added. You can spread the word that this is going directly toward adoption (straight into its own separate account at a separate bank than the rest of our banking) which will encourage others to stop by. This is not about making money for the sake of money, but really trying to get one step closer to giving a child, a child of our hearts, a home.
My favorite item up now would make a simple and fun baby gift even. Check it out at my Etsy shop, ChildoftheHeart.
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