wordless wednesday {{what i'm thankful for}}

Wishing you & yours a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

flashback friday

{{Josh & Kimmy circa 2006}}

Meet one of my very BEST friends from college, Josh!! I love this picture of us from back in our crazy college days!!! I haven't seen my good buddy since the summer of 2007, and a few weeks ago he totally shocked me when he asked if he could swing by and visit me!!! Can you say YAY??!! He lives in North Dakota which is only a few states over, and is passing through Minnesota on his way to celebrate Thanksgiving, and thought of me!!!  He was so very sweet to want to swing by and see me on his way through, and I am beyond excited to see him!!

One of the things that I miss so much about college is the amazing friends that I met there.  They truly were the greatest people I have ever had the privilege to know in my entire life.  The hardest thing about graduating from college was leaving them, because we are all so spread out around the world and don't get to see each other often.  I constantly miss them!!!  However, I am so excited that I get a chance to reunite with at least one of them, even if it's just for a small span of time!! It's gonna be a great weekend!!!

let is snow, let it snow, let it snow....

I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! 

We have officially hit winter time here in Minnesota and I am so thankful that our first snowfall came on a Saturday!!! Does God love me or what?!? If any of you live in snowy areas, you understand why this makes my little heart so happy.  Morning rush hour in the snow is anything but pleasant.  However, I do love sitting in my house by the fireplace watching the beautiful white flakes cover everything outdoors.  There is something that's a bit romantic about it all, and I am happy that this weekend will be filled with plenty of snuggled up moments inside my home.

Speaking of inside my home, it's officially Christmastime here in at the Dodge's!!! Yes, I do love Thanksgiving, but there is just something about Christmas decor that gets me every year.  I was bitten by the Christmas bug late in October, and I held off until the first weekend in November to pull out the Christmas decor.  I just couldn't wait any longer!!  Last weekend, I went to it and got everything out and put up and let me tell you it's just gorgeous!!!  I love that we get more than a single month to enjoy our tree!

I mean really, can you blame me for putting all this goodness up early? I just love it!!! Have a great weekend everyone!!!

the day my hubby really, really outdid himself

Obviously, I already think that my husband is the greatest man in the world.  If I didn't think that, I obviously would't have married him, right?  But there are some times where the things he says and/or does for me, really takes me back and captures my heart all over again in the most overwhelming ways.  I can't say that those moments happen every day, you know the moments were you feel like you felt the first time you held hands, or kissed, or the first "I love you" moments,  but when they do it's the best and better than I could ever remember.  Yesterday was one of those moments.

My husband had this Thursday and Friday off of work, and not only did he outdo himself but doing ALL the laundry, and cleaning the house, I came in the door from work and lo and behold my little eyes gazed upon this beautiful sight.

That's right....a brand new beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer!!! As I walked in the door, I was on the phone with my sister Pam and I began squealing like a little girl (to her dismay) as I was beyond overjoyed at this beautiful blessing from my husband!!! I was in such shock that he would go all out in love and do this for me!!   I have wanted to buy a Kitchen Aid mixer since we got married, but at that time we just didn't have the extra finances to get one and I have let my little hand mixer suffice my needs.  I really love baking and cooking and try to get better at it, and this little beauty makes all those efforts that much easier.  

So a few days ago, as I was thinking/planning the Christmas cookies that I wanted to make, I mentioned to Scott that it would be so nice to have one of these.  With Christmas coming up, I just knew that it wouldn't be the right time to get one, and on Thursday night he said to me, "Well, we can wait till after Christmas, and see what extra we might have in the budget then."  I knew that would be his answer, and honestly I had the same train of thought, so I just let that be that.  Little did I know that all along he was planning on getting me one the VERY next day.  That little sneak!! 

I say all this not to brag, but to remind myself to always be thankful for the blessing that I have in my husband, and the blessings that God has given to us over the past 2 1/2 years in increasing our financial capacity.  Being married, you can tend to only focus on the hard days, or the bad things that your husband can do...like when he leaves dirty dishes on the counter instead of in the sink, or chooses to lay on the couch instead of helping you clean.  I know my husband does all those things, but when he really wants to bless me and show me his love for me, he really, really goes all out and it makes up for all the other things that happen in between that may be not so great.  I couldn't ask God for a better man in my life, and I am truly thankful for him.

I am so excited about my beautiful new baking station in my kitchen, and this makes me even more excited for Christmas to come!!!

THANKS HONEY!! YOU'RE THE BEST! 

the social networking battle

For the month of October, my church did a church wide fast to spend some time praying for the upcoming elections. Although the main reason for the fast was to pray for the upcoming elections, which I certainly did, God always finds a way to teach me something that I wasn’t expecting to learn. Immediately when my Pastor made the announcement about this fast, I knew in my heart that God wanted me to give up social networking. For a few months previous to that, God has been working on my heart about my constant “need” for Facebook/Twitter. I didn’t want to admit that it consumed more time than I would like it to, and I always kept making excuses that it wasn’t consuming my time, but in my heart I knew that I needed to make a change and this fast just completely confirmed that to me.

First, let me make it clear that I am NOT opposed to social networking…in fact I think it’s one of the greatest things that technology has provided to us. However, what I am opposed to is letting it control my life, my emotions, my thoughts, and most importantly my relationships. Honestly, it had come to that point and I just needed to break away from it all. At first, I thought it would be SO hard to step away, but as days went on I hardly even noticed the break. To be truly honest, I felt somewhat relieved to not know every person’s up to the minute update on their life. For me, not being so focused on all of that stuff gave me time to reflect on myself, and let God speak to my heart about some things that I needed to address in my own life. There are so many thing that Scott & I are praying and believing for in our life, personally, financially, and spiritually that this was the PERFECT opportunity to spend time seeking God on those things. Taking a break from social networking was the best thing that I have done in awhile, and it completely opened my eyes to a lot of things that I never knew I felt and thought, as well as how much I was letting really unimportant things effect my life.

I don’t know if I am the only person that feels like this, but sometimes Facebook/Twitter can make me feel like I am back in high school where people are always competing and trying to out do the other with what cool things they do, or have, and so on and so forth. This part of it I hate the most because no matter what you say we all have the tendency to join in on this “game”. I sure know that I have done it! However, from here on out I refuse to be apart of this “game”. As my wonderful sister-in-law mentioned in a similar blog post, after all it’s not a fair fight to engage in. We all are in different places in life with different view points and challenges so to try to compare our lives to each other is just stupid.

Another thing that I hate is that there are times when I would feel like maybe something that someone posted was directed at me...although I am sure that there are times where it wasn't and it was purely just how I took the comment, since things via the internet can easily get lost in translation. Bottom line is that I was letting these things effect my feelings, and how I would talk or think about people that I haven’t had face to face interacting with in YEARS. It was to the point where it was just plain ridiculous. Over the past month, I have had a lot of time to think about these things, and how I didn’t want it to be this way anymore when I started back on social networking.

Well, today is my first day “back” at it, and within minutes of getting back on I felt all these things coming back up to the surface for me. The one thing that is always true is that whatever God works on your heart to teach you and change you in something, you can bet  that instantly a test will come to see if you are going to follow through with your word. Boy oh boy that happened to me this morning!! It was SO easy to slip back into those old habits after a few minutes of being back on it, and I honestly had to log off, step back, and nearly slap myself in the face to realize that I was letting this happen.

With all this being said, I have decided that I am going to continue to social network, but I am going to have to make some drastic changes. I realized that there may be some “friends” that I need to remove from my accounts, not because I have any ill feelings towards them, or to be catty, but because the only solution that I can think of to keep from moving backwards in things is to remove the situation all together...and in this case removing the situation means "removing" people. But truly, in all honesty, this really isn’t even about those people, but rather this is about me (as it should be) growing in the things of  God. I don’t want anything or anyone keeping me from growing in the Lord, and growing in life, and there is just SO much that I won’t get into here because it’s truly, truly personal, but in order for me to move forward in my life some of these things just have to go. And honestly I really don’t care how people may think this makes me look, or what motivation they may think is behind my choice to do this, because only I know my heart about this and the people who truly matter to me know my heart about this situation, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters to me.

I’m fairly sure that some of the people who I am “friends” with currently who truly don’t care for me, or find what I say to be annoying, and honestly, all I pray for them is God’s best in life. I truly don’t have any ill feelings towards them whatsoever, but I don’t really see the point in letting them see the details of my life. I wouldn’t do that with a “friend” who I spent time with face to face who felt/acted that way towards me, so why do it over the internet?

My husband, my family, and the personal things in my life are more important to me than anything else in this world, and I try to protect and treasure those things as much as I can and to the best of my ability. I feel like in making this choice to remove some people from access to my accounts that it is the best decision to honor how I feel. I only want people in my life who want to see me succeed, and pray the best for my family, and so I just feel so at peace with making this decision. And after all, at the end of the day I do this stuff for my enjoyment, and if it’s not enjoyable for me to have access to some people, or for them to have access to me, then why continue doing it?

The battle of social networking is one that I know is not yet over. I will have to continue to face these challenges as I continue to choose to use this outlet. However, I feel so great about the place that I have come to today with it, as well as the choices that I have made to deal with the difficulties I have faced. I truly have peace and joy about it, and therefore I know it’s the right thing to do.