photos * a friend’s wedding

Over Memorial Day weekend, our friends Dan & Kelly got married. They are such a sweet couple, and they really remind Ryan and me of ourselves – they were together for a long time before they got married, and were high school sweethearts, too!  It has been an amazing journey for us to watch. What a privilege.

Ryan was asked to sing “We Are Man and Wife” by Michelle Featherstone while they lit the unity candle.  Although he was super nervous, he did a magnificent job, and I was so proud! He received many compliments.

I took lots of photos, and a few turned out, so I thought I’d post them : )

financial goals in 2009 – june update

Well, our progress toward our “Ryan’s Masters Degree” fund was a little better this month.  There was a minor setback, but I think it will turn out for the good.  Officially, we have now saved 17% of our goal.

We were unable to stick to our original plan of taking out (forgivable) loans for all of Ryan’s tuition.  He registered for a summer class, and we found out on Monday that since it was only 3 credits, he was not eligible for financial aid.  So, we had to fork out a BIG portion of money that we would have saved to pay for that class.  But, it all went to basically the same place.  So, now our savings goal has dropped by that same amount, bringing our total percentage up a bit.

This summer, while Ryan has off work, he is picking up some extra hours as a substitute summer-school teacher, and God-willing we will be saving that extra money for our fund!

How’d you do??

this morning’s great reminder

“Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But, if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, in to a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

Fight the good fight of the faith.

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called…”

 

* 1 Timothy 6:6-12, ESV, emphases mine

*super savings saturday* – we made ice cream!

This week’s *super savings saturday* post is actually something we did two weeks ago. But, since I obviously haven’t been posting much lately, I saved it until now!

It was a week night, and we were watching TV. Ryan and I both really wanted ice cream, but absolutely did not want to go out to get some (yes, we were in our jammies…). We had about a quarter of a gallon of soy milk in the fridge, so Ryan suggested making our own ice cream.  Harumph!  I scoffed.  How could you possibly make ice cream. And then still have energy left to enjoy eating it?! Geez…

Well, little did I know, it is SO POSSIBLE and SO EASY. Oh, and it’s actually very quick, too.  We used this recipe that we quickly found online for “ice cream in a bag”.  It takes all of five minutes.  We literally put it all in the baggies, set our kitchen timer for five minutes, and began shaking our bags.  We chatted about our days…how cold our hands were getting…how delicious our ice cream was going to be…and, before we knew it, our ice cream was ready!! We actually doubled the recipe, because we wanted a lot of ice cream, and it made a hefty portion.

I thoroughly enjoyed my organic soy vanilla ice cream.  So did Ryan. We put a little Magic Shell on top, and bingo! Ice cream on the cheap (nearly free…)!

 

 

garage sale update: all is said and done

Well, the sale is over! As anticipated, Saturday proved to be a MUCH better day for my garage sale. The weather was beautiful, and the shoppers were plentiful. I made about $125, which is not too shabby! There was still a bunch of good stuff left over, but I had to close at 5, because we had dinner plans. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t closed, people still would have stopped and shopped. It was that nice out!

But, there were no creepy guys; there was no rain; and, I had lots of great friends come to visit! All in all, the sale was a success .

garage sale update: day 1

Today was quite possibly the worst day to have a garage sale. Sad. It rained 70% of the day, and I had about 30 customers in my seven hours. I think I made about $40. But, I still have a garage FULL of stuff. Hopefully tomorrow will be nicer, and people will stop by and buy my totally awesome stuff!

The day culminated with a creepy man coming into my garage, proceeding to make small talk with me, and then asking if he could whisper something in my ear. It was an altogether terrible experience, and I will never be the same.

Ugh.

Here’s to tomorrow. Cheers.

getting ready for garage sale – part 3

T minus 40 hours and counting! You could say I’m a little excited about my upcoming totally awesome garage sale.

This week, I started a new project for work (for those of you who don’t know, I work from home scoring standardized tests online – but really, who reads this anyways?).  It has proved to be a bit slower than anticipated, as every time I log on, there are no responses loaded on to the system. So, I sit. And I wait. And I wait some more. But, while I wait, I dream of Friday and sunny weather and making lots of dough.

Last night, I loaded almost all of my super awesome stuff into the garage. I have only one table so far, so it was rather difficult to find a home for things. But, I ended up just putting most of it on the floor in piles. My parents are coming over tonight to drop off a 4-foot rectangular table, and I am excited for the possibilities that will open up!  I would take a picture, but I had to shove everything in pretty tight, because it is supposed to hail tonight and I wanted my car to be safe inside the garage. :/

Anyways, I have three garage sale prep projects to work on today and tomorrow.
1)  I will be making sheets for each person who has items in my sale.  I already printed individualized price tags (I had LOTS of extra labels that I needed to use up), so I know to whom each item belongs. But, I will now be making sheets to keep track of what sells and how much each person will get from the total sale earnings.
2)  I also need to get change. This is a tricky one for me, because I don’t know what to expect. But, most of my items are priced at $1 or $2, so I think I’ll get mostly one dollar bills and quarters.  I tried to price everything under a dollar in multiples of .25, so I shouldn’t need any dimes, nickels or pennies.  I feel that if it’s worth less than a quarter, it goes in the FREE box! Who needs the hassle?
3)  I need to buy posterboard and make at least one sign to post at our main intersection to direct all of Rockford’s deal seekers to my awesome sale!

So, wish me luck! I’ll update soon with the final makings of my totally awesome garage sale .

eek!

I just saw on the news that it’s supposed to storm on Friday and Saturday. That’s when I’m scheduled to have my totally awesome garage sale. Pray for clear skies! Yikes!

financial check up

Thanks to Money Saving Mom for holding me accountable

I was going to skip the financial update this month because we didn’t do anything spectacular last month. But, Crystal posted her update, and that was my cue to do the same. I’ll keep it short, because we have not accomplished a whole lot since last time:

As of May 11, 2009, we have saved 14.5% toward Ryan’s Master’s degree. Basically, we saved 1% more in the last month. Hopefully it won’t take us 86 more months to get the whole thing! Just kidding…sort of

baby photos * our newest neighbor

On April 28, our good friends (who happen to also be our good neighbors across the street) had their first baby – a girl. Our newest neighbor is quite possibly the cutest, most precious little thing I’ve ever seen.

Last Tuesday, Ryan and I went across the street to their house to bring them some goodies.  While we oogled over Baby Neighbor, our friend asked me if I would be interested in taking some baby photos of her in their back yard.  While I was so nervous at the thought, it was an offer I couldn’t turn down.  Here are some of the best shots.  If you like them, please let me know.  I need the encouragement  :o)