More blessings!

I am joyfully praising God today for allowing my sweet hubby to figure out a little area of our taxes that had him stumped. :) He bought a new(er) truck this year, which should have been a big deduction, but for some reason Turbo Tax had been giving him trouble and that deduction wasn't showing up. It was telling us we would owe the government a rather large amount of money . . . YIKES! Anyway, last night he was working on it again and was able to get everything straightened out, so now we end up owing much, much less. Now of course we would rather not owe anything--but this is way better than the first number!! Next year, maybe we will even get a refund, since we will then have two dependents instead of just one. :)

I'm also thankful that God gave me the energy I needed this week to accomplish a couple household projects that I had been putting off--a thorough fridge cleaning, and getting my kitchen floor mopped (it was in dire need of it!). I also have been working on cleaning out a dresser and filling it with freshly washed baby clothes. :) We have had this dresser for most of our married life (it was a hand-me-down from my inlaws), and we had managed to load it up with all kinds of papers, letters, pictures, computer manuals, etc. etc. (mostly my junk). Yesterday I got a good start on sorting through stuff and emptied 4 drawers, throwing away much of what was inside. I am a terrible packrat, and it sure felt good to pitch some things! I am really hoping to pare down our "stuff" throughout this year. As I sorted, though, I had many memories come flooding back. Many of the letters were from my mom (written to me at college), my dad, my grandparents, and various friends. I was reminded how very blessed I was to have a family who communicated with me so faithfully. I wish I could save every one of those letters, but it would be silly to do so, since I would never have the time to re-read them all! I did save a few, though, just for the reminder of the sacrifice of time and love that went into writing them. I also found sweet cards from Jim (my then-fiance), and also all the cards from my bridal shower which my friends gave me at college. It was a lot of fun to go back and read through those! I saved them to add to my wedding scrapbook (which I still haven't finished!!). Anyway, there are still a few more drawers to empty, but I found room for all the baby clothes, as well as room for some of Sam's clothes. It's very exciting to feel like I'm getting more prepared for the coming little one. Here's a picture of the dresser (with hutch on top) in Sam's room. The top of the dresser will be used for a changing table when the baby comes along.


I'm in the process of downloading the Firefox browser, in the hopes that I will have more success using some of the Blogger features, such as the picture uploader, which doesn't work for me with Safari. So far I think it's about 1/3 of the way finished downloading.

Jim is working on building our deck, and I'm very excited about that, too! It's coming along great. I am thrilled to think that I'll be able to sit out there this summer . . . Sam can play with some outside toys, I can sit and nurse the baby, and we can all get some much-needed sunshine and fresh air. It will also be a great place to eat supper sometimes on those hot summer evenings. I'll just have to request a picnic table next . . . :) Like Jim doesn't have enough other projects to work on!!