Blessings

This has been on my mind a lot lately so I thought I would share.

Kyle and I do our best to live as frugally as possible. 

Notice that I used the word frugal and not "cheap"

Many people has called us cheap and that's okay.

But I do believe that there is a difference between the two.

We do our very best to live within our means, to stay out of debt and work hard for what we have.

I think that is part of what it means to be frugal.

And I think that as we have tried to do this, we have really been blessed by out Father in Heaven.

Here are three recent example of what I am talking about.

They are all quite different from each other but I think the difference is a good thing because it builds my testimony that I have a Father in Heaven who cares about all aspects of my life.

It doesn't matter how big or small. 

If I care about it, He cares about it.

See this black van? 

We started looking for another vehicle a couple of months ago. You see, we had a little girl that would literally get carsick EVERYWHERE we drove. And that is only fun for so long. We went to dealership after dealership telling them that we wanted to look at their mid-size SUV's, but no vans. There was no way that I was going to drive a minivan. But we found nothing that fit our needs. And then we actually drove in a van, and for the first time in longer than I can remember we didn't have a carsick little girl. It's amazing what happens when your seat is up high, you can actually see out of the window and there is air blowing right where you sit. This was such a triumph for us! That night we decided that the van was the way to go for us, and I told Kyle, "Well if I am going to be driving a van than I am at least going to get a cool color." I wanted a black one really bad, but we looked and looked and there was nothing. We almost caved a couple of times, but could never fully commit. Then finally, after two months of searching, and me having no car at all, we found our van. It was the color I wanted, they were asking the exact price we were hoping to spend and had the year and miles that we wanted. It was a perfect fit and we bought it.

Next is our lovely window AC unit

Pretty ghetto right? Funny thing is, I couldn't be more thankful for this thing. I never thought I would say that. You see, we live in a very long apartment. We have a window ac unit in the front, but the air got nowhere close to the back of the apartment, which coincidentally is where both girls sleep. It would get between 80-85 degrees back there every night. It was so hot back there every night that both girls would go to sleep sweating. We knew we had to do something; we had fans going all night and the windows were open but they weren't doing anything. And if it was that hot in May, imagine how it would've been in July and August. So we prayed about it and had the feeling that we would be taken care of. We never got the feeling like we needed to go buy a unit. Then, a couple of weeks ago, as it started really getting warm, we were at a dinner at my sister's house. While visiting with everyone there I made an off hand remark about how nice it was to be in an air conditioned home, because our house was now hot all of the time. And the girl next to me turned and said  that not only did they have a window ac unit that they weren't using, but that we could have it for free. So even if it is ghetto looking, it has been the thing that has saved our lives this summer.

And lastly, this red berry wreath.

I have wanted one of these for years. Three years ago I was at Tai Pan Trading and they had them but they wanted 30 dollars for it. The problem was, I just couldn't justify spending 30 dollars on a wreath. I figured the next year would be better. But it wasn't. They wanted 50 dollars that year. And then last year they were actually charging 80 dollars for this red berry wreath. Anyway, a couple of weekends ago, we went to a friends yard sale and I just happened to see this red berry wreath. I was pretty excited when I found it because anything is better than 80 dollars. But imagine how excited I was when the lady in charge told me that she wanted 1 dollar for the thing.

Anyway, I know this post it different from what I usually do. But I wanted to share this and say how grateful I am for these tender moments in my life.