How cleaning a nasty aparment reminded me of Jesus...

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:11

Last Tuesday we moved into our new apartment. The first time we saw the apartment it smelled like dog poop, the bathtub was covered with dirt and stains, the toilet was green, and the kitchen floor was brown(it is linoleum floor that is supposed to be off white with a little squiggly line 1970's design in it). This was almost enough for us to say no thanks, however we kept looking at it. We were looking at two different apartments and weren't sure how we would decide between the two. Well, it turned out that the other one was given to someone else. So in a way this apartment chose us :)

We got the key to the apartment and started cleaning as soon as we could. At first, I just felt disgusted and wondered if I would ever dare to take my shoes off in this place. (those of you who know my Mom, know that she is a bit of a clean freak. I am no where close to her level, but she has worn off a little on me.) I worked and worked on the toilet and bathtub. I got the toilet looking good, but could not get the bathtub clean. I gave up after a while. (Luckily Jordan Tardy came over and cleaned it until it shined!)

I decided to move on to the kitchen floor. I swept a few times and then began the first of many moppings. The water had to be changed every few feet and I kept wondering who lets a place get this bad and why. As I mopped something crazy began to happen in my heart. I started to fall in love with this kitchen and this house. I wanted so badly for it to be clean and different than it was when we found it. Then I began to be reminded of how we all come to Jesus like this; nasty, dirty, and smelly and we need someone to clean us. We have no idea how dirty we are and we have no idea how to clean ourselves. I never really understand why God loves us or cleans us when we are so nasty...but then I thought about this apartment and how I cleaned it because it was mine and as I cleaned it my love for it grew. I think God is like that, because we are his he cleans us of our nastiness and he loves us with a great love. This love is so great, he sent Jesus to be the one to ultimately cleanse us for good!

If some of you came to visit our apartment(esp my Mom) you could probably still find a lot of areas that need more cleaning and might even say it is not that great of a place.(still has a dog odor because our neighbor has TONS of dogs). BUT, I know what is was before it was cleaned, I know how far it has come and that is a LONG way. If we could see people the way God sees them/us, how dirty they/we are before being cleaned and how far they/we have come as far as cleansing, we might have a lot more grace and love for one another.

These are just some random thoughts about a nasty apartment, hopefully you didn't get bored in this extremely long post. I just wanted to share and I am so thankful that my disgust for a nasty apartment began to remind me of Jesus' love for me/us and how wonderfully he has cleansed me/us.

Little Austin Friends

While living in Austin, we were able to live in an apartment complex where many refugees are resettled. We LOVED living in these apartments and loved the people we lived with. Ryan and I both feel strongly that as followers of Jesus we are called to love refugees. This is one of the reasons why we feel in love with one another so quickly :)

Anyway, this is a picture of Ryan with our friends Lily Pa and Pai Lai. This picture was taken on the day we were moving out of our apartment. Lily Pa and Pai Lai are brother and sister. They are Burmese, but have never lived or even visited Burma. Their parents had to flee Burma and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand(where they were born.) After many years, they were able to come to the USA. Every year the USA decides how many refugees they will allow from each country and then they usually partner with non-profit or state agencies to resettle these refugees. In Austin there are a few of these resettlement organizations. The one we know the most about and worked with is Refugee Services of Texas. RST settled many refugees in our apartment complex. They were mostly from Burma, Burundi, Iraq, Nepal, and Somalia. If you ever have a chance to hang out with refugees they will inspire you. They all have such amazing stories of pain and loss mixed with perseverance and hope.

Pai Lai is one of our favorites. He spent more time at our apartment than any of the other kids. He loves Ryan and loves being around him. He always wanted to come over and watch Spider Man on our computer or color in our coloring books. He is a really smart little kid and one of the reasons leaving Austin was so hard.

I am so thankful we were able to spend our first year of marriage living with people like this!

Lancaster

First of all, I am so so sorry it has been so long since I have blogged. I promise that our blogging is going to become more regular now that we are in Lancaster. Ryan is about to join me and write some blogs of his own....stay tuned :)

We made it to Lancaster on Thursday night and have been looking for an apartment and exploring the city since we arrived. It looks like we have found an apartment, there are just a few details to work out. I am so excited about getting settled into an apartment. The buildings downtown(they are called row homes) are over 200 years old! We will be living in a house older than TEXAS!! CRAZY! I will post pics as soon as possible.

We are really excited about what this next year will hold. We love the feel and culture of this city and pray that we will be like sponges and soak up everything we can.

hanging out at a coffee shop downtown

Geee-tars

This past weekend we went to Tyler to visit my Mom. We love going to spend time with my Mom and really love when we get to spend time with our nephew, Boston. Boston really loves Ryan and loves playing music with Ryan. They play guitars together, play the piano together, and even sing some songs together (okay it is just the "ABC" song, but he is ONLY two!) Here are pictures of the jam session!

disclaimer: Boston is not naked, he has on a pull-up after spending the morning at the lake :)

They both started with their "own" guitars.

Boston quickly learned that Ryan's guitar sounded much better than his little red one and wanted to switch.

This picture reminds me of the movie "August Rush." I'm pretty sure Boston is also going to be a musical prodigy!

What If?

Back in March I read a blog entry by Donald Miller. It challenged you to ask yourself the question "what if?" and actually follow through with that question. It was an inspiring blog to me and you can read it for yourselves here:

http://donmilleris.com/2010/03/25/the-single-most-powerful-question-you-can-ask/

After reading, Ryan and I began to ask ourselves this question. What are some things that we would really love to do, but for some reason are not doing them? Maybe we are scared, maybe we are scared of what others will say and think, maybe we just don't take the time, or maybe we don't think we can really do it??

Many of you know that Ryan and I plan on moving to PA and then out of the country in the next year or so. These are really big steps and they are scary to me at times, but we are doing it because we know God is leading us every step of the way. For me, it is often the smaller things that are harder to do, the smaller "what ifs" that are more scary for me.

So, after two years of thinking about it and talking nonstop about it the last few months(poor Ryan) I am doing my "what if"!! I really love jewelry and I learned about a company called Silpada. It is one of those companies where you become an independent rep for them and then throw parties in women's homes and sell your product. From the first time I heard about Silpada, I wanted to do it. However, I was afraid

1. People would think I was silly for wanting to sell jewelry

2. I would lose money

3. I would be horrible at it

BUT, I painfully put those worries aside and ordered my kit. I have had three parties so far and I am loving it. It is really fun hanging out with new ladies and catching up with old friends while looking at beautiful jewelry. I am still scared that after a little while no one will want to have any more parties and I still feel a little silly when I tell people about it, but I did it and that is the point. I think it is really good for us to do things that make us feel a little uncomfortable and silly.

Maybe reading this you are a little disappointed that my "what if" was not more dramatic or life changing...sorry if that is the case. OR maybe, just maybe there is something you have been thinking "what if" about and maybe, just maybe my little story of Silpada will inspire you!

For some of you, it maybe be something huge or it may be something "small". What if you decided to become friends with someone totally different than you? What if you decided to start working out? What if you started a blog or a journal? What if you adopted a child or became a foster parent? What if you got married? What if you started eating more vegetables(working on this one :)? What if you learned a new language? The list can go on and on.

What is your "what if"???

PS Anyone want to host a Silpada party for me??? :)

6 months

On Saturday, Ryan and I celebrated our six month anniversary. It is hard to believe we have really been married six months. I had defensive driving all day, but arrived home to a bunch of tulips and pictures that Ryan had developed of us. We also got our wedding video on Saturday so it was really fun to watch it and remember all the special moments.

We celebrated by going to the Oasis for dinner. It is a restaurant on Lake Travis with absolutely beautiful views. They had a live band and so we spend the evening (along with thousands of others) dancing, eating, and watching the sunset.

Here are some pictures from our night. After we got home we made chocolate covered strawberries and bananas for dessert!

In honor of our 6 month anniversary I thought I would write about the top six things I love about Ryan and being married to him:

1. Learning Together. The amazing thing about marriage is that you have someone to process and learn with all the time. Whether it is learning new things about each other, God, cooking, music, or about ourselves it is a beautiful thing to do with someone.

2. Saturday Morning Pancakes. It has been a tradition for Ryan to cook pancakes every Saturday morning. He has even invented a new type of pancake. He scrambles eggs then he pours the pancake batter around the eggs and makes an egg pancake. It is delicious!

3. Joy. Ryan is one of the most positive people I know. He finds joy in so many things(like good food, a good book(he even loves books that are thousands of pages long and loves reading through all of it!), good relationships, and good wine). He has helped to teach me to enjoy the small things.

4. Date Night. We decided when we got married that we would have a night every week where we just spend time with each other. We use this time to focus on our marriage and our hopes and dreams for our marriage and each other. We do different things on date night, for example; salsa dancing, exploring different coffee shops, watching 24, and checking out different restaurants. Austin has endless options for this kind of thing.

5. Snuggling. I really love to snuggle. Marriage = constant snuggle partner.

6. Unconditional love and forgiveness. We have quickly learned that the closer you are to a person the more that person has the ability to hurt you. We definitely are not perfect and have already done a lot of selfish, hurtful things to one another. The amazing thing is that God has given us so much grace and we are able to extend that to one another and experience more of God through one another's love and forgiveness. It is such an amazing thing to completely, unashamedly know and be known by someone in marriage. I am so thankful God gave us this gift in order to for us to have a very small glimpse of His TRUE, NEVER FAILING unconditional love and forgiveness.

I have been accused(I believe wrongly) of still being in the "honeymoon phase" and wearing "rose-colored glasses." So in an attempt to fight this stereo-type and be honest about marriage I decided to include a list of 6 annoying things about marriage:

1. Getting elbowed in the face. Ryan likes to sleep with his arm up under my pillow, well when he gets tired of his arm being in this position he carefully removes it. More than once, this has resulted in his elbow jamming into my face in the middle of the night.

2. Clutter. Ryan loves books and to study. He is usually reading multiple books at a time. On most days if you come to our apartment you can find anywhere from 5-10 books scattered around...on the table, on the desk, ect. (Okay I have to admit a few of the books are mine, but most of them are his!)

3. The Pregnant Question. Now that we are married anytime we tell someone we have some news we want to share with them, they automatically think we are pregnant. I guess it is just that time in our lives.

4. Alarm clock. Ryan is a morning person and I am most definitely not. He likes to wake up really early and read and study. He likes to set his alarm a good 30 minutes before he wants to wake up, this means that the alarm goes off around 5:30 multiple times every morning. At least it is a soft alarm that sounds like wind chimes.

5. Weird noise. Ryan does this weird thing where he makes a noise in his throat/nose. It is really hard to explain. He does it when his throat or ear itches. It is very strange to me. I think he learned it from someone in his family :)

6. Decisions. I have learned now being two people instead of one means that you check with each other before making plans and decisions. I think this is really a good thing and teaching us what it means to not be so selfish. However, it does mean that it takes a lot longer to make plans and decisions that it did as a single person.

I love being married to Ryan Hartsfield and hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into our first six months!

Fun Weekend

One of the reasons I love Austin is because of all the unique events you can attend.  This past weekend was SXSW and the kite festival.  Jessica, Autumn(college friends), and Maggie(co-worker of Jessica and Autumn/new friend) were all in town.  Saturday we spent the day at Town Lake canoeing and playing frisbee.  Then we took a trip to Mt. Bonnell.  On Sunday we went to the kite festival.  

At the kite festival there were hundreds of people flying kites.  The skies looked amazing! It is so refreshing to spend time with good friends. 

Here are a few pictures from the weekend.  I really hope to have a better camera in the next few months, but for now these were taken on the iPhone :)

*top of Mt. Bonnell overlooking the Lake.  I love these girls!*

*Maggie's uncle has a sweet house on Lake Austin.  This is Ryan and I on the dock.*