A Place of Renewal

I love living in the mountains. I love having tall trees outside my window (funny that this will change upon our moving to the new house!). I also love the fact that my wife loves the outdoors and we can frequently leave the big city of Show Low behind (haha) and drive up to where it is truly magnificent. Yesterday was one of those days as we decided to travel (on our 4th anniversary :) up to Black River. I had never been to Black River, but I have heard some good things. It was quite a drive up there through through wide valleys and by beautiful countryside. The roads were not bad; plenty of washboards in the dirt, potholes to dodge and birds to hit. Seriously I hit 3 birds on the way up! When we arrived I was very excited to get my fishing pole out and try this new spot. Long story short, the fishing was not good. I almost caught two crawdads though! So because the fishing was less than desirable, I decided to take a hike.

I hiked by myself to scout out the area and check out the river. I hiked past a few groups of people fishing and kept going. There were numerous times when I thought I should turn around, yet for some reason I kept going. I have no idea how long I was gone or how far I had gone, but I kept hiking. At last I came to a place where another portion of the river met up with the portion I had been following. It was spectacular. The waters met and 20 feet later they slowed into a 30 yard pool of very slow moving water. It was so tranquil, I had to stop and take it all in. I have often found myself being totally awed by God's hand of creation in this earth and yesterday was no excuse. I found a large rock and laid down. I looked up at the fast moving monsoon clouds and the rocky cliffs that emerged from the side of the green sloped hills. I closed off all thoughts that raced through my mind and just sat, silently. The time slowly melted away and with it, all the stress and worry that had built up in my life over the past few weeks. I could breathe again. I was renewed.

I rose from the rock feeling so much lighter of heart and mind. I felt almost childish as I fought to suppress my urge to jump into the river (won't happen again I can promise that) and I took off running on the path back to where my family was relaxing. It was only a short period of time, but I left that spot knowing that though my problems seemed large, they were not too big for God to conquer.

Buying a House

Perhaps the biggest step in a person's financial life is their commitment to buying a house. You are basically committing yourself to be in debt for a long time. I have been very wary of this over the years. I have always wanted to own my own home, but I understand the ramifications and to be honest it scares me a little. Do I really want to promise to spend almost 1/2 my monthly pay for a building to live in for the next 30 years of my life? When I put it like that, not really!

However, the perks to owning a home have to be fantastic. I can't speak from experience but I would sure like to! Krystle and I are in the process of trying to figure out how to buy a form of our dream house that was dropped into our laps in the past week. I say dropped because we had honestly given up the search for a home. Realtors had only ever shown us total dumps that needed more work than I am willing to do. We have had no luck. Until now. It hasn't been until this house came around that I have really, seriously began to think about how to make it ours. It is a great deal on an acre of land. An acre of land! Talk about room to run! Edmund has never had a yard to play in, and now he could have more yard than many kids put together!

Unfortunately there is a catch. Apparently, according to the bank, we have too much debt to qualify for the amount we need for the loan which is $100,000. The only debt we have. Student loans. Killer. Turns out the best way for me to bypass the student loan problem is to go back to school to put those loans in deferrement. So essentially, to better my debt situation, I have to get into more debt by going back to school. Haha. There's a nice slice of irony in the economic cake of America!

My Summer Job

The most wonderful part about being a teacher in rural Arizona is my summer job. Ok, so that is not 100% true. I could put myself on a pay schedule where I would get checks from teaching during the summer but the problem is that it would be too low of an amount for my family to pay rent/bills. So, I have to find work. Two summers ago I worked at Home Depot. Although it was not a glorious job at all, the hours were steady and I knew what was coming. Last summer I worked a landscaping job. It was very hard laborious work, same pay as Home Depot and not as steady hours. So, I had to find something else to do. This summer, I am working a better paying job with far fewer hours. My highest total work week has been 26 hours so far. So, needless to say I am not making nearly what I need to. Thankfully I have a smart wife who budgeted our income well enough to pay for some rent ahead of time and we will make it through the summer without (hopefully) going into debt.

I really like my new summer job. It is easy, I get some reading done, and I get to talk to people I might never meet in any other place. The Rec Center is a haven, a cure for boredom and just a place to hang out with friends. I used to visit this place frequently when I was younger and there is a lot about it that is the same. However, it would be awesome if I never had to find a summer job. I don't want to complain because this summer has been great so far, but it would be really nice to not have to worry all year about what to do to make it through the summer. I guess I will get there someday and some degree later.