What a Sweet Surprise

Let me start out with a little background info and some personal thoughts before I delve into my main point (that is totally a woman for you! Details, details and then finally getting around to the point!). In my little town, I'm just about the only one in my group of friends that isn't a stay at home mom. As you know, a Boxer dog is the closest thing to a child in my life. This fact has bothered me on and off throughout the last few years as people were getting married and starting families and I was still in college trying to earn a degree while enduring a two-year long-distance relationship with Alex and a two and a half year long engagement. Now I'm at a place where all that doesn't bother me (most days). I've realized though that just about all my friends and I have a lot of other things in common. It's almost uncanny. We're conservative Christians, most of us want to home school our kids someday, several of us have an interest in sustainable living (I'm just jumping on this bandwagon and it's really been fascinating!), many of us are thrifty, frugal or just plain CHEAP! We also all share a love of being creative. We sew, cook, crochet, make cards or scrapbooks, have a Cricut or Silhouette machine, etch glass, cut vinyl wall designs and just love to make handmade gifts in general. Now a new theme is emerging. Embroidery. All of a sudden, it would be the greatest thing in the world to own an embroidery machine and personalize every sewing project to run across our sewing machines. Now several friends have such machines or are looking to purchase them to take their crafting to a "new level". I must admit, this idea intrigues me, but my frugal side says it's just too expensive. Dave Ramsey's voice is in my head saying, "NO. It's not in the budget. Don't steal from your emergency fund. This is NO emergency!" Dagnabolies. Ah, but then, a friend wants to sell her embroidery machine and Alex tells me to go for it if I want one. But, oh, the guilt! I can't! Stupid Dave Ramsey and your crazy budget!

After Alex got home and we were getting ready to fall asleep, he got his wallet and took out his remaining spending money from his trip. His company had given each person $40 a day for food (and breakfast was free at the hotel). My husband likes, no LOVES, to eat out, but even $20 per meal is high for him. He had $225 left over and handed it to me, saying, "This is for you so you can buy that embroidery machine." I wanted to cry! He had just told me earlier in the day that he was probably going to use the money to buy an Xbox (shoot me now!) and I told him that we could pay bills or save or spend the money more wisely than that! I am so blessed! And I'm so excited to save up the remaining money to buy the machine from a friend. My head has been swirling with all the ideas of things I can personalize. Watch out! We're gonna have monogrammed everything before long! And if you're in the market for a monogrammed gift, let me know and I'll help you out!

God is so good! Alex was really selfless for giving up that money to support my creative endeavors (which may or may not include a little Etsy store in the future. We'll see.). I want to be selfless like that. To bless someone else instead of hoarding something good to save it for myself. God has blessed us abundantly beyond what we could ever have hoped for. I want to pass it on, to be used by Him to change someone else's life, to give them hope, to give them joy and share God's love. And I think sharing some handmade, personalized gifts is a good place for me to start.