Last week I went on an awesome trip to Student Life for Kids Camp in Toccoa, GA. This was my second year going and it did not disappoint. Kids Camp is so much fun because they are little sponges! They are so into the games at recreation, the songs at worship, and the bible study activities. Not to mention the canteen with 16 flavors of homemade ice cream! (that was one of my favorite parts, too!) As soon as I got home, I was headed for the rehearsal and dinner of the wedding I was co-directing. Our pastor's youngest daughter got married and it was a gorgeous wedding. Today is my first day in about 2 weeks that I've actually been able to breathe! So this will be a short post but do not fret! Tuesday is our 2nd wedding anniversary and I have a blog in the works for the coolest gift for your guy! I have been wanting to write about it earlier since I've been working on it for about a month but I can't trust that he won't read about it so we will wait until Tuesday!
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Absent
I know that I have been absent from the blog for a little while but it has been for good reason! I've been super busy and that is a good thing! We have so many July birthdays in our families (6 to be exact!) So we have been busy celebrating!
Last week I went on an awesome trip to Student Life for Kids Camp in Toccoa, GA. This was my second year going and it did not disappoint. Kids Camp is so much fun because they are little sponges! They are so into the games at recreation, the songs at worship, and the bible study activities. Not to mention the canteen with 16 flavors of homemade ice cream! (that was one of my favorite parts, too!) As soon as I got home, I was headed for the rehearsal and dinner of the wedding I was co-directing. Our pastor's youngest daughter got married and it was a gorgeous wedding. Today is my first day in about 2 weeks that I've actually been able to breathe! So this will be a short post but do not fret! Tuesday is our 2nd wedding anniversary and I have a blog in the works for the coolest gift for your guy! I have been wanting to write about it earlier since I've been working on it for about a month but I can't trust that he won't read about it so we will wait until Tuesday!
Last week I went on an awesome trip to Student Life for Kids Camp in Toccoa, GA. This was my second year going and it did not disappoint. Kids Camp is so much fun because they are little sponges! They are so into the games at recreation, the songs at worship, and the bible study activities. Not to mention the canteen with 16 flavors of homemade ice cream! (that was one of my favorite parts, too!) As soon as I got home, I was headed for the rehearsal and dinner of the wedding I was co-directing. Our pastor's youngest daughter got married and it was a gorgeous wedding. Today is my first day in about 2 weeks that I've actually been able to breathe! So this will be a short post but do not fret! Tuesday is our 2nd wedding anniversary and I have a blog in the works for the coolest gift for your guy! I have been wanting to write about it earlier since I've been working on it for about a month but I can't trust that he won't read about it so we will wait until Tuesday!
Friday, July 26, 2013
Thief
I have anxiety. (that post is up next on my list) When I am anxious, I get stressed. When I am stressed, I tend to fall into a depression sometimes. When I am anxious for longer periods of times, it leads to weeks like this week. I don't have a reason or certain thing that has made me anxious but I have been in a funk all week!
I have been a bookworm lately. I am on my third book for the month of July. These books are ones that I haven't been able to put down.
(side note: if you are looking for some good novels that are Christian-based but aren't about a bunch of goody-goodies, you NEED to check out Karen Kingsbury! I recommend starting with the Redemption series)
In the book I'm reading right now (Book #3 of the Redemption series), there is one verse that keeps appearing in the book and every single time it comes up, it's like a slap in my face! (the good kind!)
A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. John 10:10
My anxiety has been such a "thief" in my life. I can name multiple situations where I haven't experienced something or been able to do something because of it. But I have to remember that because of God's goodness and grace, I have a life aside from my anxiety. A life that anxiety can't steal from me.
I get butterflies in my stomach when I think that I have a new body waiting for me in heaven! A body free of this thief that so often steals my joy, kills my spirit, and destroys my confidence.
God is so good. His timing is so perfect! And I now have a new view of this "funk" I'm in
I have been a bookworm lately. I am on my third book for the month of July. These books are ones that I haven't been able to put down.
(side note: if you are looking for some good novels that are Christian-based but aren't about a bunch of goody-goodies, you NEED to check out Karen Kingsbury! I recommend starting with the Redemption series)
In the book I'm reading right now (Book #3 of the Redemption series), there is one verse that keeps appearing in the book and every single time it comes up, it's like a slap in my face! (the good kind!)
A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
My anxiety has been such a "thief" in my life. I can name multiple situations where I haven't experienced something or been able to do something because of it. But I have to remember that because of God's goodness and grace, I have a life aside from my anxiety. A life that anxiety can't steal from me.
I get butterflies in my stomach when I think that I have a new body waiting for me in heaven! A body free of this thief that so often steals my joy, kills my spirit, and destroys my confidence.
God is so good. His timing is so perfect! And I now have a new view of this "funk" I'm in
Monday, July 15, 2013
And the winners are...
Are you ready to know who won the vinyl monograms?!
Drum roll please...
The winners are:
Kelly, Alyssa, and Roxanne
Congrats Ladies!
Email me [meghansray(at)gmail(dot)com] and give me your address, your color choices(1 per monogram), and the initials you would like (please put the initials in monogram order. for example, mine would be mRs) All of the monograms will be in the style pictured in the last post.
Here are your color choices:
Garnet
Red
Light Purple
Dark Purple
Green
Lime Green
Yellow
Dark Blue
Light Blue
Gold
Silver
Grey
Brown
Black
Orange
Light Pink
If you didn't win this time, that's ok! I can still get you a monogram for a great price! Email me and we will work something out!
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Keep Calm
And monogram EVERYTHING!
Well, that's at least my motto ;)
I got a Cricut a while back and although I've done a few paper projects with it, it is mainly here for cutting vinyl!
I don't have all the time in the world so my personal projects are kinda on the back burner for the moment but I have enjoyed making monograms and personalizing a few gifts for friends!
Some of the car monograms I've made!
Love the teal and white combo!
These chairs are such a neat gift and they don't break the bank!
If you're looking for some vinyl work, please feel free to contact me and we will see what we can do!
In the meantime, I'll be giving away some vinyl goodies to 3 lucky winners! All you have to do is comment on this post and tell me what you would do with a few vinyl monograms! I will use randomresult.com to draw three names at random. The winners will receive 2 monograms each! (each monogram will be 2.5inches tall) You have until Sunday night at midnight and I will announce the winner first thing Monday morning!
Good luck!
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Mother's Day
I love Mother's Day! Some of my favorite people in life are the people we get to honor on Mother's Day! We had some big things happening at SVBC for Mother's day so I was so excited when my mom said that we were eating at her house! We always eat Sunday lunch at Mimi and Papa's with the whole family (there are at least 16 of us when everyone is there!) but there's something exciting about having everyone over at Mom's.
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| All 16 of us! |
The progression of the next few pictures is why I love the continuous shutter on my camera and I appreciate that my husband knows how to use it!
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| All the Dorton women! |
I seriously LOVE family! We have been through a rough year but I am so inspired by the strength that everyone has shown, especially the women! They are showing me how to be a true woman of God and how to face disaster and devastation with perseverance and the knowledge that it's never goodbye, it's only a see you later...
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Budget
I hate money! I know that hate is a strong word and I really do try to not use it but I do hate money. I would totally be okay with a world where we bought everything thing with hugs and smiles! I don't really know where my disdain for money stemmed from but it stresses me out to the MAX!
When Stuart went to talk to my parents about proposing to me, their one stipulation was that we take Financial Peace before we get married. I'm not gonna lie, I was NOT excited about it. Luckily, the class grew on me. I quickly learned that my love for math would make me a lover of budgets. I would geek out over calculating everything down to the last penny but my follow-through was not so enthusiastic.
We entered our marriage with all of the knowledge we needed to be financially responsible but we just didn't have the will power. I wasn't working at the time so I spent a lot of time at home alone with nothing to do. I was always stressed out that we never had money... I mean we were always counting down the days until pay day and then going and doing all the things we had wanted to do before pay day and then we'd be back to square one. It was a vicious cycle that made me physically sick. I decided to look into couponing. Now, you could not have told me at 20 that I would have been clipping coupons and scouring sales circulars by 22 but I did it because I was desperate.
I quickly learned that the things we were buying, specifically at the grocery store, were things that we didn't ever have to pay full price for! It was like an addiction. But we still weren't spending wisely and we honestly still couldn't tell you where most of Stuart's paychecks were going.
I still kept finding ways to cut costs around the house but it wasn't making a huge difference. I started making my own laundry detergent and added "CVSing" to my weekly couponing adventures.
Fast forward to recently and we are honestly still not where we want to be. It is not nearly as bad as it was before because I now work two jobs but we stink at budgeting! So this week, I tightened my belt and sat down and created these
Yes that is a Lilly Pulitzer print and yes I did spend the time to make my own budget sheets. When we decided to put a "family budget meeting" on the calendar, I decided that it needed to be something that we would keep up and that meant that I needed a binder. We needed to be able to refer to other months for certain things and we needed to have places to save receipts and bills. I scoured Pinterest for budget binder printables but I just didn't find any free ones that I liked and frankly I think its completely backwards to have to PAY for the forms to put together a BUDGET binder. Ever since I've gotten my Mac, I have loved playing around with Pages so this was actually really fun to design.
I plan to create a binder that we can put each month's budget in and keep it handy so that we can refer to it every pay day when we have to pay bills. I'm also adding a calendar of every month so that we can schedule things like what bills need to be payed when and special things like our alotted one date night a month. I also created a sheet that is a "checkbook register" for each of our accounts so we can start receipt tracking. It looks a little like this
The budgeting process for us is going to be long and slow process. It's probably going to be painful at some points and we are guaranteed to bicker over things like how much "fun" money each of us gets and "yes we do need to buy groceries every week"(we seriously have that conversation EVERY TIME I get my grocery store "stuff" together! We would live off Ramen and OJ if it was his choice!) But the thing that counts is that we're both committed to buckling down and working through it together.
Do you struggle with monthly household budgeting? What are some easy ways that you handle spending, saving, and giving?
When Stuart went to talk to my parents about proposing to me, their one stipulation was that we take Financial Peace before we get married. I'm not gonna lie, I was NOT excited about it. Luckily, the class grew on me. I quickly learned that my love for math would make me a lover of budgets. I would geek out over calculating everything down to the last penny but my follow-through was not so enthusiastic.
We entered our marriage with all of the knowledge we needed to be financially responsible but we just didn't have the will power. I wasn't working at the time so I spent a lot of time at home alone with nothing to do. I was always stressed out that we never had money... I mean we were always counting down the days until pay day and then going and doing all the things we had wanted to do before pay day and then we'd be back to square one. It was a vicious cycle that made me physically sick. I decided to look into couponing. Now, you could not have told me at 20 that I would have been clipping coupons and scouring sales circulars by 22 but I did it because I was desperate.
I quickly learned that the things we were buying, specifically at the grocery store, were things that we didn't ever have to pay full price for! It was like an addiction. But we still weren't spending wisely and we honestly still couldn't tell you where most of Stuart's paychecks were going.
I still kept finding ways to cut costs around the house but it wasn't making a huge difference. I started making my own laundry detergent and added "CVSing" to my weekly couponing adventures.
Fast forward to recently and we are honestly still not where we want to be. It is not nearly as bad as it was before because I now work two jobs but we stink at budgeting! So this week, I tightened my belt and sat down and created these
Yes that is a Lilly Pulitzer print and yes I did spend the time to make my own budget sheets. When we decided to put a "family budget meeting" on the calendar, I decided that it needed to be something that we would keep up and that meant that I needed a binder. We needed to be able to refer to other months for certain things and we needed to have places to save receipts and bills. I scoured Pinterest for budget binder printables but I just didn't find any free ones that I liked and frankly I think its completely backwards to have to PAY for the forms to put together a BUDGET binder. Ever since I've gotten my Mac, I have loved playing around with Pages so this was actually really fun to design.
I plan to create a binder that we can put each month's budget in and keep it handy so that we can refer to it every pay day when we have to pay bills. I'm also adding a calendar of every month so that we can schedule things like what bills need to be payed when and special things like our alotted one date night a month. I also created a sheet that is a "checkbook register" for each of our accounts so we can start receipt tracking. It looks a little like this
The budgeting process for us is going to be long and slow process. It's probably going to be painful at some points and we are guaranteed to bicker over things like how much "fun" money each of us gets and "yes we do need to buy groceries every week"(we seriously have that conversation EVERY TIME I get my grocery store "stuff" together! We would live off Ramen and OJ if it was his choice!) But the thing that counts is that we're both committed to buckling down and working through it together.
Do you struggle with monthly household budgeting? What are some easy ways that you handle spending, saving, and giving?
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Lately...
We've been busy! I mean, it's like you blink and three weeks have flown by! Holy Week (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday) is always super busy for us in the church office and Stuart's band went to Concert Festival to compete that Tuesday. The next week was spring break and I had taken the whole week off to spend time with Hubs. This week I have no excuses for not blogging!
Here's an update on the past three weeks of life!
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| Seriously, how can you not love that man?! |
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| Our 15 pizzas for Stuart's band kids... My car smelled like Dominos for a week! |
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| I decided to purchase this at home gel manicure kit to save on getting my nails done. The jury is still out on this one... |
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| We got to go to a Carolina game! |
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| This sweet girl seriously has the best smile! |
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| Bird's Nest cookies for my preschoolers on Easter Sunday! |
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| Grilled Chick-fil-A nuggets are my new obsession! |
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| Men's Spanx?! Or shall we say Manx! |
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| Beautiful Fripp Island! |
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| This is in the doll making section of Hobby Lobby... super creepy! |
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| Our set up for the fellowship we put together at church! |
I put this post together on Monday and since then we've been to another Carolina game and the Carrie Underwood concert! Has anyone else been super busy lately?!
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