Married day!

As my days are going on and on, I can't wait until Tuesday. My wonderful husband switched his days off in order to be home with me and have Married day! We have been married for 3 weeks on Saturday and we have not had much time to just enjoy each other's company and hang out. I am looking forward to that time! I am hoping to do a lot with our day but mostly just enjoy every second and pay no attention to the rest of the world. I am so lucky to have the husband I have and I will not take one second for granted! :)

500 blessings!

So when Anthony and I decided to get married, we also decided to make a huge step and I quit working. I worked as a nanny for 4 years and made good money to do so. Anthony decided that he really wanted me to focus on grad school for my last year and that meant he would take on all of our bills by himself. We aren't loaded down with bills like some are but we have enough that it is harder than it has ever been. Last year when my nephew passed away we used a great deal of savings we had built up to fly home in emergency and be there for my family. All of that to say this...we have been broke. I have been finding VERY creative ways to make a buck stretch including clipping coupons, finding ways to make money from home including writing lesson plans for an online tutoring site, reading email for money, and recycling *which we already did anyway*.

This has been more of an adventure for me than a burden and God is teaching us a whole new lesson on dependence. I mean, it was easy to say we depended on God when we made over 4 times the rent but now the rubber meets the road. Lately we have been having to lift each and every bill up in prayer and just really trust God to bring the amount about in our lives. We have had to really change our menu plans by not eating out, cooking economical meals and being ok with not having a whole lot of excess. I am proud to say we have really been growing through this. We are also noticing that God does things so differently than we expect him to.

As you all know, we got married about 3 weeks ago and because we went to Vegas and did not have the traditional exchange of vows, we kind of lost out on all of the great wedding gifts that people get you. That was ok with us as we have a fully furnished apartment now and don't really NEED anything other than money. We were making jokes for a while that we should have registered at AMEX, Mastercard, Visa, and the US Mint. It's not far fetched. It was hard at first that noone really sent us cards and gifts but again, we feel like we have everything we need and it would be nice if someone sent a gift but we really didn't care. Our friends and family that attended the wedding actually did bring gift cards and did nice things to help us out and that was special.

Well, last night when I got home from a long night at school, I stopped at the mailbox in our complex. Inside the box was 2 cards, one for my birthday (Same day as my wedding was) and one for our wedding. The birthday card was really heartfelt and wonderful and when we opened our wedding card, out fell a $500 check! We felt like our hearts might stop. To get $500 right now out of nowhere and not have to work for it was amazing. God went above and beyond what we could ever hope for, dream of, or imagine..as He always does!

So now we have 500 little blessings and our prayer time was amazing last night with praises for most of it. We plan to put that money in the bank and begin to build back up our savings and emergency fund. We also have been feeling God leading us to tithe of of it and also off of our income. It's interesting because I used to tithe when I was single but when Anthony and I started to share money I was kind of afraid to mention tithing again. I don't know why because my husband is an amazing man of God with a moldable and wonderful heart but it was hard for me if I wasn't working. I approached the subject with Anthony a few nights ago before the $500 and we came to an agreement that even if we did not know how the money was gonna get there for bills, GOD CAME FIRST! I am excited about what God is going to give us to help others with. We are excited to start pouring out our blessings on others! We have been praying about where to direct this though as we haven't chosen a church HOME just yet. If anyone knows any good churches in the Anaheim area, ideas are welcomed.

Anyway, we are totally excited about what God is doing in our dependence, maturity, growth, and hearts! It's not really about the 500..it's about the way we are growing and the way we did not just run to spend it but truly sought God on what to do with HIS money! I love the way marriage is looking on us! God is at the center of our marriage and true happiness and peace is finally in my house! :)

I love you Lord,

Erica Lewis

My new Name!

Buy Nintendo DS Lite

A new person!

Today I went to the Social Security Office and changed my name from Erica Lea King to Erica Lea Lewis! That is exciting news and I wanted everyone to know it's official according to the United States now! Anthony and I are very excited that I am officially Mrs. Erica Lewis! Just wanted to tell everyone, I am downright giddy! :)

A give away worth mentioning

So I stumbled upon a giveway contest tonight and wanted to get some entries in order to win so I am posting this on my blog in the hopes that my three entries will maybe win. Also, I hope it helps someone out there to win since it's free money and that is always a good thing! The link for the contest is...

http://newlyweds.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/25-cvs-giftcard-giveaway/

Go ahead and stop by and try your luck! Everyone could use $25.00 at CVS right?

--Erica Lewis

Being real in marriage

Anthony and I have noticed a huge difference in our lives since we got married a couple of weeks ago. We both came from divorced families who really did not give us any focus on how to be married people. We both knew that it was a huge comittment which is why we were together for 2 years before getting engaged and did a whole year of premarital therapy. These things were crucial for us as we went into uncertainty. When we made this comittment, we knew we meant the vows we were speaking. A huge leaf was turned over the day after we became Mr. & Mrs. Lewis. We got serious about our faith.

I know, I know, we should have been serious about our faith before but something in us knew that in our world that we live in, there is no chance for a marriage that isn't centered in Christ. We both had relationships with Jesus before we got married and occasionally invited him into our dating relationship but to be honest, He really wasn't as huge of a part as we should have allowed Him to be. Something dramatically changed when we said those vows. Our life with God has never been better and I personally can attest that God is changing me in ways I never thought were possible. I have been through a lot of therapy in my chosen career and I still think that these last two weeks, I have changed a lot more for the better. God's hands of healing, blessing, and renewal are so powerful.

All that to say, I found out that I am quite domestic. I have fought with all of my might against being the "average wife" and I found out..I am not average, I am really good at this. I thought I would never be a very good wife because I didn't have an example but it turns out, to be a good wife, you just need to love your husband with all of your heart and love your God with everything you have. I know that God is doing this for me and I praise Him for it! I decided that when I find something cool that could be of help to another person being a wife, student, housekeeper, grocery shopper or whatever their role in life is, I am going to add it to our Lewis Family blog in order to spread the word.

Thanks for stopping in today and here are a few sites I use for grocery shopping and meal planning:

http://www.grocerydeals.com/ -- grocery deals in your area
http://www.supercook.com/ -- recipes that match the ingredients in your house
http://www.guidepostsmag.com/ -- Guideposts magazine which always has money saving tips, Godly wisdom, and inspiring stories
http://www.angelfoodministry.com/ -- where we get our food because 2 weeks for 30 bucks can not be beat! This is all over the country and you don't have to be poor to qualify. We make plenty and we still use it because the cost of food is so high.

--Erica Lewis--

The Lewis Family has a new look!

If you are avid readers of our blog (and I hope you are), you may have noticed that we have a new look. I have been wanting to switch over to a non-cookie cutter template for my blog for a long time but I really haven't had the time being that I worked full time and went to school full time. Now, I have some time open so my blogs are going to get more attention. I wanted to let you all know that there is a really cool blog background site that I used for this blog as well as my own personal blog at http://www.ericaland.blogspot.com and it is an amazing site with simple backgrounds that don't take over your blog or make it difficult to read. You can find these backgrounds for your own blog at http://www.simplychicblogs.blogspot.com/

New post to come...

Erica Lewis

Pictures from our wedding!

Here are a few from the ceremony. I am having trouble uploading right now so more later!

Many adventures to talk about

Ok, so most of you probably already know but Anthony and I got married on August 9th in Las Vegas and we meant to. We had it planned for about 2 months and it was a beautiful ceremony and brought so much joy to our lives. We are so excited to be married (11 days today) and have really made some huge growth steps in our lives in working together to keep Christ first. I will add a few pics on the next post for those of you who do not frequent myspace or facebook.

In other news, I start back to school a week from today and I am already praying for time managment and procrastination issues. Graduate School has been one of the hardest experiences of my life and it's not due to the actual work, it's due to my lack of time managment and my tendency to procrastinate. I really don't like these traits in my myself and they are things I want to work on in my discipline so Anthony and I are praying diligently that this year will be different. It might help that I don't have to work!

We had our first houseguest this past couple of weeks. My little sister came in from Indiana for my birthdy and the wedding and we loved having her here. She is the ideal houseguest. She helps clean up, is respectful, and tons of fun. I miss her already although she only left two days ago. Anthony and she get along so well that it's beautiful to see.

Anthony is going through some training for his job this week so it's been surprisingly uneventful and not stressful. We are pretty concerned about our new budget with me not working but we are trying to take it one step at a time and learn new skills in saving money. So far, we aren't so bad at it. We just have to depend on God so much right now.

Well, I guess that's all for now but I will post some pictures next of the wedding in Vegas! Thanks for stopping in.

--Erica Lewis--