A Picture is Worth a Four-Hundred and Ninety-Two Words...

I was a little bit picture happy on January 30, 2015.

Here is a picture that I took as I was snapping away at any and everything as we first arrived at our new house after closing.  At first glance it almost looks like a picture that was taken on accident.  It's blurry and it's not really focusing on anything interesting.  The real story is that at the very moment that this picture was taken, I wanted to capture exactly what you see.

In the upper left hand corner of the picture you will see our house numbers, "418". In the distance, there is Ben just about to start unloading our things into our new home.  In the foreground, you will see our Financial Peace University study materials. This picture tells a huge story.

When Ben and I were engaged, Ben suggested that we commit to a nine week class on Sunday mornings  to help us learn how to manage our money.  I was so against this idea.  I knew I had never had any issues with overspending or bad money management.  I thought that meant I had everything figured out.  I decided to follow my future husbands lead and respect his decision for us to participate in Financial Peace University.

I thought the study would ruin all of my wedding plans and that it would make us boring and stingy.  Turns out we actually learned ALOT about managing our money and about how to manage it TOGETHER.  We have been working towards the money goals set out for us in this study ever since.  We began by working towards a basic emergency fund and continued to work on paying off our debts.  We learned about buying a home and that we should try our best to put 20% down on it.  Working on common financial goals together is actually fun and extremely rewarding.  We tell our money where to go and not the other way around.

When we began our financial journey, we were working retail and fast food.  Just a year ago we were still in that position and living with my parents. Working towards these goals was hard on low wages, but it gave us hope for our future in the midst of having very little take home pay.  The Bible says, "Whoever can be trusted with very little, can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."  Luke 16:10.  I am so glad that we decided to be faithful with a little.  If you're in a similar situation as we were, be encouraged.  Everything can chance so fast.

So as you can see now, this picture tells a story.  The story of how Ben lead me to do something wise and, in doing that, enabled us to buy this house.  Ben, Financial Peace University, and our home.  :) Three wonderful blessings that God has put in my life.

Expectations Vs. Reality in Marriage

Today I have been married 533 days. That is roughly 1 year 5 months and 18 days. 

I used to think that my marriage would look and feel a certain way. I thought we would do and say specific things. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted our marriage to look like. That idea was largely influenced by a million romantic comedies. 

In the early months of our marriage, I started to notice that life was not a constant retelling of Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, Full House, or Tangled all the time.  I had a wonderful new husband who worked hard, opened doors for me, kissed me every morning, and spent all his free time with me, and even still I worried that something might be wrong with our married life and that caused me to worry about the intensity of my husbands love for me. 

The longer I'm married, the more I'm understanding that I signed up for marriage with Benjamin James Braziel.  I did not marry Flynn Rider or John Stamos or any other romanticized Romeo. I do not live in a castle or the enchanted forest.  We do not have thousands of dollars in disposable income or unlimited free time.

All these factors contribute to why my marriage with Ben Braziel is not like any marriage I could ever have with Flynn Rider or John Stamos. Even if I had waited all my life for Flynn Rider or John Stamos, they would never have come to sweep me away. As much as it saddens me to say this, Flynn Rider doesn't exist and John Stamos is old enough to be my father.

The crazy thing is real life is actually better. Even though we have full time jobs, we have debt, and we have human limitations, what we have is real and doing life together is extremely romantic! 

The fact is, Ben does love me intensely. He wouldn't have married me if he didn't! Ben shows his love for me in his own sweet, funny, realistic, financially responsible, time restrained way. If I had solely based my decision to be with Ben on whether or not he measured up to fictional characters, I would have missed out on the love of my life.  Sometimes he will even say, "Have mercy!" for me if I ask him, just like John Stamos. ;)

The sooner you stop trying to fit your boyfriend, fiancé, or husband into a fictional character mold, the better.  You've got to manage your expectations vs. reality. You and your mate will be a lot happier for it! It is actually sweeter than fiction the way that Ben loves me and it's unique! He cracks me up and makes my life amazing.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

We learned a lot about the subject of expectation vs. reality from Andy Stanley's iMarriage series.

Go Sports! Hit That Ball!

I have never cared about sports.  I have never understood why people get all loud and crazy when they root for their team or why people enjoy watching sports.  I have never played on a team for any sport or wanted to play on one. Thankfully, I even married a man who doesn't care about sports.  

Now that I'm married, I have finally found a sport that I love to play.  

Marriage is my favorite sport!!

Go team Braziel!!! 

Whooooooo! We are the best team everrrr! 

Finally a game that I can get invested in! We've gotta play hard and give it our best shot so we can win! 

Here's a glimpse into one of the plays in our daily playbook:

In the morning as soon as we wake up, Ben starts putting the ingredients in our blender for our green smoothie and I start making our coffee.  I open the fridge to get the ice to cool down our coffee and I'll hand him the bags of frozen spinach and banana for our smoothie (No, it doesn't taste horrible.) He starts the smoothie blending, proceeds to pour our the coffee, and put honey and creamer in my coffee.  Meanwhile, I have retrieved blankets and put  them over our blender (so that it's not so loud).  Then we find ourselves together again drinking our victory coffee while the smoothie blends and high-fiving each other on our successful teamwork.  We don't talk about this, it is just one of the plays in our playbook.  

We both know what it takes to win.  We know our role on the team and we work together to make it happen! We have several plays like this in our playbook.  A few others include straightening up the house, gathering and taking out the trash, packing for a trip, preparing dinner, etc. 

We have long term goals that we have set out to achieve together and we are working together to find balance in all aspects of our lives.   We work together as a team in order to win big in the areas of finances, sleep, exercise, healthy eating, spiritual life, romantic life, work, leisure, etc.  

 Lately, we have found ourselves saying things like, "Go team!" or "Good team work, babe!" after we have put these plays into action. Finally…I understand sports!  We have even started referring to our dog, Ruthie, as our mascot.  I say we need jerseys, but Ben is a little worried that our team colors would be a girly shade of mint or teal.  He's probably right.

As super bowl season approaches (...I think…or did that happen already?), remember to root not only for your favorite sports team, but also the team you formed on the day you got married.  Go team!