Making, Finding, and Having Time

Anthony and I are learning a new marriage lesson lately. That lesson is about TIME. We neither one have a whole lot of extra time with our busy schedules. Two days of the week I spend the entire day down at school taking classes, one day a week I am with clients the whole morning and afternoon. The days I am off school, I am doing homework that takes a lot of my time. Anthony works 5/7 days ...sometimes 6/7 days and he works over 10 hour shifts most days. As you can imagine, we are having a hard time finding time.

This week Anthony had tuesday off and we went out to a wonderful dinner at Black Angus where we had a lovely steak dinner and noone had to do dishes or cook. It was delightful. The downside is that we don't have a lot of time together but the up side (which this pollyanna always likes to find) is that when we do have time together, we no longer waste that time by sitting on the couch watching tv, doing other things, or scheduling other tasks while we are together. Now, we treasure this time so much that we turn off cell phones, don't get on the internet and only watch tv if it's something we bond over (like CSI:Las Vegas)

So, I guess my lesson is that time is relative and it matters what you do with your time and you have to MAKE time for each other. God is continuing to teach us every day on this journey called marriage. So far, it's a great trip. We are going on 2 months married soon! :)

Have a lovely day everyone!

Mr. Clean

I am so grateful today as I am sitting at school and my house is cleaned up by my beautiful husband. I had school last night and he spent his day off cleaning our apartment. He is amazing. I have been lucky the whole two years of knowing and loving him but being his wife is something else entirely. I really admire Anthony and all that he does at our house and thought that the blog deserved to know that!

The Lewis Family Craft

Anthony and I learning to knit and don't laugh! Anthony is only learning because I have very poor fine motor skills and arts and crafts are not my strength so he learns things like this to teach me. I am academic in every way. I learn things through books, reading, classes, etc.... I have never been very artsy and for this reason I have been sad! I love seeing people create things and I always feel in awe of people who create masterpieces and make homemade gifts and just feel left out when I talk to other people who do this. For this reason, I have taken on scrapbooking, card making, ornament making, and now knitting. I have learned to do the cast on tonight and I am excited as it soon did not feel so foreign to me. I love my husband for sitting in front of Youtube learning how to knit so he can teach me. It is impressive to see a man with knitting needles and pink yarn just because his wife REALLY wants to make her own scarf! I love him! SIGH! :)

Growing while Grocery Shopping

Lately I have been really trying to adjust to the jobs that come with being a wife. Anthony works about 60 hours a week therefore I pretty much run the house in every other way. I do the cleaning, cooking, shopping, financial managment etc...and I love it. I really like it because I am a bit more organized than him and it makes me feel like I am helping him out a lot when he gets home and can just relax after a long day at work. Today I took my first shopping trip using coupons. I have used minimal coupons before but today I was thoroughly prepared to shop with coupons. I use some blogs that show deals to help me, get the sunday paper, and clip, clip, clip! This week until tomorrow K-mart has been honoring double coupons up to $2.00. I went there today and literally got $95 of products for $15. I came home and Anthony was astounded. I ended up getting several things for free and stocking our shelves with snacks, cleaning products, and health and beauty items like deodorant, lotion, toothpaste, and shampoo/conditioner. I also did our grocery shopping today and came in under budget which was amazing and I got enough food to last us about a month. I am really proud of myself and also very pleased that this actually works.

While I was out there pounding the pavement and going to a billion different stores to get the tuna for 20 cents less, I realized that there is a lesson to be learned here. Probably more than one, but I thought I would share what God is working on me about. When I decided to take on this task of trying to use coupons and work the system to get our household budget down I began with a good plan, great organization, and several hours of preparation. When I went out today, I allowed myself several hours to get the shopping done so I could adequately use the coupons and pick the products that we could use and get them free. It took about 4 hours for me to finish today.

I find it really sad that I spent the time getting ready to get a good deal on groceries but procrastinate about things that really matter in life more than the grocery budget. Now, I am not saying that the grocery budget doesn't matter because it is essential to running our house but there are FAR more important things that I ignore and do not prepare for at all. Here are a couple of examples:

My health -- I do not prepare for my medications to be out. I end up going a few days without things because I conveniently forget to call in meds or just don't pick them up. I don't plan my workouts in such a way that I won't miss them. I treat them as optional and then they become optional.

Homework -- I do not give myself adequate time to finish assignments to my liking. I rush myself and in turn do not feel good about my performance when I really want to learn.

Spritual disciplines -- I do not give myself enough time with the Lord. I push him to the last thing of the day and then I give him what is left of me when I am tired. I am spending time with him but it isn't quality when I treat it this way.

These things were really brought to my attention today and I feel God leading me in the direction of getting these things together! Thank you Jesus for teaching me lessons through the practical. That is, after all, how I learn!

--Erica Lewis--

Moved to tears!

Watch the video below and just thank God for the days that you have before you. These people are truly heroes in my eyes!
Cancer

Wedding Prints for virtually nothing!

Hey everyone, I had to tell you about the great deal I got today thanks to an awesome blog and my own searching....

Money Saving Mom --a few of the ideas came from this awesome blog!

I went onto York Photos, CVS.com, and Snap Fish and made new accounts with each of them. An account with these companies as well as photo storage is completely free. Well, add to that that you get free prints from each company and I was able to get our wedding prints (a total of 120 prints) for about $3.00 total! Is that amazing or what? Also, just a note, York Photos are only 8 cents a print after that so I would suggest that company for further photo needs. Also, CVS.com has amazing deals on gifts like a photo collage poster for $12.49 as do the other companies. The bonus to CVS is that you can order them online and pick them up in your local store so it sidesteps the shipping process and the possiblity of your prints getting bent in the mail. That's a huge issue to me since I ordered a really great print and it was bent completely in half when I received them from another company.

Thanks for stopping in and I hope you get some free prints out of this deal like I did!

--Erica Lewis--

An Awesome Greeting Card Giveaway

Hey everyone, I found a great new blog and there was a chance to win some really beautiful greeting cards so I entered and wanted to share the link with you so you can enter. Also, while you are there, enjoy the blog because it's worth a stay! Have a lovely day and following the link to enter to win!

Enter for Beautiful Greeting Cards

-Erica Lewis--