Life coming at me

Hard to believe that Bobby and I have been married for almost five months. The days have flown by.

There have been a lot of hard days, and there have been a lot of good days so far. When we got married, Bobby did not have a steady job; he was doing freelance writing here and there. Unfortunately, the economy was not friendly with his job-finding efforts, and for several months we toughed it out on one salary.

I'm not sure I can do justice to the range of emotions we experienced during this time. There was the obvious elation of being newlyweds, living together for the first time and searching for our first house together. But there was also worry and stress -- Would he get a job? What if we started falling behind on our very first mortgage payment? And for him, there were the feelings of helplessness at not being able to contribute. For me, pressure to do great at my job and worry that my income would not get us by.

It was hard, but God has been so good to get us through that. About a month ago, Bobby finally got a solid lead on a job, from an unexpected source: a bowling alley. They were looking for a part-time bartender, so he went in, interviewed and was pretty much immediately offered the position. I'm surprised at how good this job has been for him. He's very much a people person, so he's very good at it, and the tips and hourly pay are more than enough to fulfill our budget.

Having the weight of financial stress lifted has done wonders for both of us. I would love to say that I was 100 percent supportive during his job hunt, and I would also love to say that he never got discouraged or wanted to give up. But honestly, that's not where either of us was a lot of the time. But we made it through, and we have learned valuable lessons.

These days we're able to do a lot more of what we want to do, which is nice. We've gotten our budget into better shape through taking a Dave Ramsey financial seminar at our church. We did buy the awesome house that there are pics of in some previous blog entry on here. And we've gotten plugged in with an awesome small group at church.

I'm really proud of my husband, and I'm happy to be married to him. I've seen him grow and change over the years, and I'm excited about the person he is and who he is becoming. And I feel the same way about me, too.

I told him the other day that I'm glad to be married to my best friend, and that's the truth.