First Mortgage Payment

Well, I paid the first mortgage payment this morning. We probably own the kitchen sink or a light switch or something minuscule like that. I'd rather own a sink as opposed to a light switch...its more functional. Don will be so happy to know we actually own something of this house.

Its still relatively clean too. ...And I pick up the kitchen and its relatively clean when I go to bed and when it isn't, it is actually the first thing I do in the morning, even when I leave at 7:15. You'd be so proud...anyone who has ever lived with me.

Don and I actually remembered to take the garbage out this week too. We usually don't think about it till I hear the truck driving past the house and I think, "O crap!!" and then we have to wait a week. I then, will end up catching it on the recycle week (every other week). And this week is not a recycle week AND I got the garbage out. I'm impressed with myself.

We've already thought about yard work this spring and summer. Our next "big" purchase will be a push-mower for our yard. We also will pick up a rack because there are quite a bit of leaves from last fall. It is so great to see the landscaping since we viewed the house and up until the past couple of weeks, there has been tons of snow everywhere. I am planning a vegetable garden and there is already a spot dug up for it. So it is just a matter of transplanting some plants and planting new ones. I'm pretty excited about it. I can't wait to see our trees blossom and green and see the kind of shade we get over our house.

Other than that: same-o, same-o. I'm still looking for a job, trying to put things in their space, revisiting old hobbies, etc...

Things I Never Did In Our Apartment

After four years, nine months, and five days of leasing an apartment, there were a few things that I spent that time thinking I could only do in a house (or I flat-out did not want to do in our apartment). Here is the list:

Clean my kitchen on a regular basis. I know, that sounds horrible being the wife of a chef. You have to understand though, the kitchen in my apartment was five square feet, with two of those being counter top and one of that being a sink (or so it seemed, it wasn't really THAT small but it was small, don't get me wrong!). At that point, it seemed like anything (even one thing) on the counter, clean or not, kitchen thing or not, made it seem cluttered and uncleaned and it also seemed that because the place was so small nothing had a real home, it only had a place that something else (that was dirty or being used) lived in...space sharing...ich! My kitchen here is tidied up every day!

Entertaining. Maybe this is an obvious one but one nonetheless. We did have people over, on occasion, mostly they were single friends that also lived in an apartment that understood such space constraints. In the past week I or we have had people over on three different days! Shocker! The Ram's actually entertain! We had Bible Study here. We've had Mario dates here. I've had people here for coffee... The list goes on! (If you want to be invited, feel free to invite yourselves...we LOVE entertaining).

Exchange Students. Yep! You've heard right...we're hoping to host an exchange student(s).

Cooking Meals and Baking. Again, that sounds bad being the wife of a chef but really it was either what was right in front of me, a frozen meal of some sort or something special that I would cook for. Space was just NOT conducive to knowing what was in my apartment, stocking basic ingredients (or more than three) and I now have a cupboard all for baking stuff! (How amazing is that???). By the way, when we moved I found things I didn't know I had: 4 full bottles of ketchup, 1 whole bag of rice, five jars of peanut butter at various stages of being empty (two that were empty and one that was full, one of the other ones was crunchy where as the other four were smooth). This is probably why I had so much space problems.

Eating at a table. We didn't really have space for a table or patience to set up and clean up a table so we at at a coffee table in the living room in front of the TV... We also do 'family' devotions on a somewhat regular basis.

For pictures of my new place, check out my Facebook page because they take too long to upload here and blogspot does not make it easy to caption it. If there is a lot uproar about this decision I will add them here. Just let me know! I do have more pictures than what I posted on FB but they are boxes and other things that not many people really care about...again if there are things you want to see/want to see more in general, or want them posted here, just let me know!

In A Groove

Well, life is starting a new normal around here...new in the case of tending after a house and not an apartment. I love the house! I didn't realize how much I would enjoy this but it is SO cool. (Yes, I do realize that sounds very cheesy but that is just fine with me!). I also didn't realize how much I would notice the increased space! I haven't lived in a house that I could sprawl all over since I was 18 and moved out of my mom and dad's place! That was 11 and a half years ago! Crazy!!

People have said that I've got remarkably few boxes in the house and I realize now that there are some things that will forever be in a box or at least be stored in a box for a while yet and that is okay. I am slowly finding places for all those things that I don't really know what to do with. But other than that, it is all going well. So...pictures of the whole thing hopefully by the end of the week.

I participated in a Job fair for DHS (Department of Human Services) as they have many positions open in a few different departments across the state. I made it in as a walk-in (as this was a pre-registered event), made it to day two, and then made it on to day three. I was thrilled to make it that far. At the end of day three I felt pretty confident about the job, about my ability to get the job, and about my performance in the interview but I won't here for another 3-5 weeks. Bummer. Oh well, I have things that can fill up that time pretty nicely. Even though this isn't my "dream job" I like the opportunity it will give me to build relationships with co-workers and hopefully those can turn into a referral sources later on.

Speaking of that... My business partner and I are looking at office space this afternoon. I've already seen it, was relatively happy with it, and am hoping that he'll like it too so that we can move forward on this Private Practice (AKA: "dream job"). We have a lot of business planning to go yet but that will also happen as time goes on. We have a good start even though it isn't leaps and bounds.

Anything else??? Not really. I think I'll head over to coffee with my mom and aunt in a short-hour and then hopefully the AT&T people will come and fix the phone line they disrupted. Ha ha...this is a good story:

So I canceled the phone and internet at our apartment and switched over service to our house. We had a bit of trouble hooking up our internet so they sent over an installation guy and hooked it up. Well, we had no problems with our land-line service but when they sent the guy over for the internet, he did a great job hooking that up but we quickly found we no longer had a phone. So...out they come again. After this, no more installation people coming over.

We have a house. I have a professional license. Don has a great job he likes more and more. All we need are kiddos, me a job, and life will move from perfect to beyond perfect!

Licensed Professional

I got my license in the mail today. My title has officially changed I am now:

Kelly Ram, MA, LLPC

Also member in good standing with the ACA.

Homeowners

No more a secret: Don and I are homeowners.

Our house even has an occupant — one gigantic stuffed gorilla. Our TV and some shelves will be there tomorrow and we will join Fuzzy and all the other fun on Saturday. I am tired of packing even tho the Kitchen was not has difficult as I had suspected. I am so excited to live there...excitement has officially moved out of our apartment.

Pictures to follow. ...After I've unpacked.

Thoughts on Faith

I am reading this book, "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus can Transform Your Faith" and I must say that this book has greatly impacted me. I keep thinking, 'Why do we not teach first century Jewish tradition in churches and Sunday school classes?'.

One of the ways it has impacted me is how I see praying in confidence, believing that God can and will do what we pray for. That is not to say that God is some Mover, waiting for us to pray for him to act, that would deny God his sovereignty. It is to say that when we pray, or when I pray, I often think in the back of my mind, 'This really won't happen...God won't really ... the way I expect or desire.' Which in reality, reveals more of my lack of faith than God's will and/or sovereignty.

If you go back to my blog entitled 'Expectations' (the only August 2010 entry) I wrote about this struggle that Christians have. I need to pray with faith. I know we all need to pray with faith. If we pray and have doubts, isn't that defeating the purpose? One of the purposes of prayer is to enact the will of God because, yes, there are times that we pray and God changes, but He won't act if we don't believe he will!

Miracles. Miracles never happen to prove God exists. In order for a miracle to happen, one needs to have faith that God exists (to perform the miracle) and faith that God will indeed perform this miracle. Therefore, by default, faith needs to exist in order for a miracle to be present. So, if we look at prayer in the same way, we ought to expect, without doubt, that God hears and answers our prayer.

There is a seven year old girl, Kate McRae, who needs us to pray with absolute faith on Feb 8. For the past 9 months she has been in remission from a rare form of brain cancer that threatens her short life. It is inoperable as it is wrapped around veins, arteries, or some sort of blood supply. Her dad is a pastor in Arizona and she has both a brother and a sister. Her last MRI, back in January, revealed new spots and there is a STRONG possibility that is cancer again. The team of doctors and her family are searching the country over trying to find doctors to help in this massive effort. Please pray. Her picture is currently my Facebook profile.

Clarity and Joy

Clarity that comes from hindsight is a wonderful thing. Probably one of the better things in life. In my packing and sorting and labeling and all that, I ran across a journal I kept from that third year of college. I always wished I would have kept better track of these sorts of things but I never do so you could imagine my astonishment when I found it.

Without going into detail here and to make a LONG story short, I will recap it with this sentence: It was probably the most difficult year of my life. ...And it wasn't even a year. Reading through it I realized it was only three and a half or four months (so that's how difficult it was, it seemed like a year!).

I come to a very steadfast conclusion and I've said it before: Conflict defines relationship. Without conflict we do not know what the true value is of someone or something that we have. Whether it be conflict with another person or someone else seeing you through conflict, truth about that relationship comes to fruition.

I am also amazed and very surprised (pleasantly) to see that some relationships I held back then are not only present in my life today but they are some of my most cherished and favored things in life now, nine years later.

I cannot believe God's amazing grace in this simple fact of my life. I think it really puts in perspective all God, through Jesus, over came just to live with us on earth. I mean, my conflict was great in my life. Hands-down it will probably be the greatest conflict of my life (I hope) and yet, in the grand scheme of this world from creation to the time Jesus comes again, it was pretty insignificant. Yet out of that great conflict in my life, such joy has come because we all fought for some semblance to be brought to reality. I cannot image the greatest conflict of all time — that between God and us because of sin — being resolved and the joy that it will bring at the end of time. Praise be to God! A thousand times over!