Waffles...it's what's for dinner.

I came home from work the other night, and Jon was making dinner. We never have dinner together, cause I'm always at work and then class, and on the days I don't have class, Jon seems to have to close at work, meaning he doesn't get home till 9:30ish. Everyone asks me if I cook dinner for Jon every night, but sadly, I've only done that a couple times in the past four months. There just isn't time! But Jon decided on Tuesday to make dinner since we'd both be home, and he made one of my favorite things ever- WAFFLES! If you know me well, you know that I love breakfast at any time of the day, and I'm a huge dessert person. So not only did we have waffles, we had waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream (the only right way to do it, in my opinion). It was like dessert for breakfast, for dinner. Perfect.

Here he is, making waffles...isn't he great?

"Why are you taking pictures of me??"

The masterpiece

And then some random ones-

Tucker found a friend!

That's all, for now.

A quick post before I leave work

I wanted to tell a quick story from this morning.

Now that we have a kitty, we don't put our dog Willy in his cage to sleep at night. Having the cat to play with seems to keep him out of trouble, most of the time. I don't know if they are getting bored with each other or something, but they seem to be extra destructive lately. When the cat was a baby, we didn't have to worry about him getting into things and knocking things off shelves, etc. Now, Tucker's 5 months old and can jump onto counters, tables, you name it. Jon's found him sleeping in the bathroom sink before! He loves to get onto the kitchen counter and the table, and push the cups around. Luckily, he doesn't chew anything, he's just curious and likes to play with things. Unfortunately, the dog will chew anything he can get his mouth on...homework, plants, my favorite pair of boots, headphones, a bible, just to name a few. There's a lot of teamwork going on in our house these days. Tucker knocks things onto the ground - Willy chews everything to bits. I woke up this morning and walked into the dining room and saw little pieces of something all over the carpet. I turned the light on and looked closer and realized that Tucker had knocked down a mini christmas tree I had set on a shelf. The animals must have been working all night to create their masterpiece of a mess. All the pinecones were ripped off and chewed to pieces. Willy had shattered all the tiny ornaments and there were pieces of glass everywhere. I was so mad...I had just put up some Christmas decorations LAST NIGHT. They didn't even survive a few hours. Does anyone know a cat whisperer? I love our animals, but sometimes I've just about had it.

I'm interested to see what the fate of our actual Christmas tree will be.

We're being trendy and starting a blog!

So it seems like everyone is blogging these days, especially newlyweds who want to keep everyone updated on their new and exciting life! I guess we'll just try it out and see how it goes. I (Liz) might even be the only one writing on this, but maybe Jon will surprise me and write too!
The main reason I suddenly got the urge to blog was because of some cool stuff happening to us lately. We've been feeling stressed financially lately, with Christmas coming up and so many bills to pay. Jon and I both decided that we would take classes during the winter semester, so we had to figure out how to pay for school on top of our normal bills. I had no idea how we were going to do it. Sadly, the last thing I thought of was to trust that God would provide and pray that He'd help us find a way to make everything work. This past weekend, I had just gotten home from depositing our paychecks in the bank, and I was looking in the cupboard for a piece of paper so I could make a grocery list. I pulled out a pile of junk, and on top was an envelope, which was opened. I pulled the card out, and it was a wedding card that someone had mailed us in October, and inside was a check! I have no idea why we opened it, left the check inside, and then tossed it into the cupboard with a bunch of other stuff, but obviously God knew we'd need it later. It was the best surprise...and something I never would have expected to find.
Yesterday, I went down to the pharmacy in the building where I work to pick up a refill. When I called for the refill last week, the woman had told me that I had no co-pay at all- the medicine would be free (which surprised me cause nothing is ever free when it comes to insurance..)! But when I went to pick it up yesterday, it turned out that they had entered the prescription under a different person's file with the same exact name, and SHE had no co-pay. I actually had no coverage at all, so my doctors office would have to try to get my insurance company to cover the meds. I was prepared to have to just pay for it without insurance. But...the women in the pharmacy are so sweet, and one of them went to another doctors office in the building and ended up getting me samples, so I'm all set for the month and didn't have to pay a ton of money! Today, the doctors office called me and told me that although they can't call the insurance company to get the meds covered, they will just give me samples for free each month!
Finally, Jon just texted me with a cool story. He is really into working out every day, and drives about 20 minutes each way to a gym in Highland. He loves that gym, and is starting to get to know people there, but it's a long way to drive when he could be going to a gym practically within walking distance of our apartment. So he cancelled his membership at the old gym and joined a new one close to where we live. On top of the new gym being cheaper, Jon will also save a lot of gas cause his car isn't exactly known for getting great gas mileage. He was excited to switch, but I was a little worried about the start-up fee that he'd have to pay to start the new membership. Here I was worrying about how we were going to pay the rent and he's getting a gym membership! Once again, I should have trusted that God would provide, but silly little me, I didn't. Anyways, Jon is at work right now, and texted me that a woman who worked at World Gym (where Jon just joined) was at the checkout next to where Jon was working, and somehow it came up that she worked there and he told her he had just signed up. She told him she'd waive the start-up fee! That's when it hit me that we should have just been trusting God this whole time. It reminded me of this verse:

'Don't try to hoard money, or buy lots of things. Someone will only steal them. Store up your treasure with God, where no one can rob you. You have to choose. Will you spend your life getting rich, or will you do what God wants? You can't do both. You are such worriers. You worry about what you are going to eat and what you are going to wear. There is more to life than food and clothes. Look at the birds flying overhead. God takes care of them and he cares much more about you. Look around you. See how God dresses the wild flowers. Not even famous King Solomon had clothes as beautiful as theirs. So don't spend your life worrying. Do what God wants and he will give you all you need. You can trust him.' Matthew 6:25-34

Hopefully this was as encouraging to everyone as it was to me! Until next time...