As I've been going about my house chores the last two days, there were moments in there where I felt completely overwhelmed. I felt like I was going to fall to my knees, burst into tears, and just give up.

Right now my husband and I are going through some tough financial times. I'm trying not to worry, because God tells us that not a single hour is added to your life by worrying. But every once in awhile those moments hit me. I wonder, how are we going to save money for school? How are we going to pay our bills? When are we going to be able to start paying off the debts we owe, mainly the ones to family? And in the midst of all this, when are we going to be able to save money for a house, or for whatever may come up in the future?

I've heard that finances are one of the main causes for fighting among married couples, and may be one of the main causes for divorce. I'm not worried about my relationship with my husband. We are more in love now, despite these worries. But I hate feeling like this, like the world is kicking me and I don't know if and when I'll be able to get back on my feet again.

I'm scared.

Something random I'm noticing more and more about myself is that I love colour. I mean, just look at the title of my blog. Colour makes me happy.

So to be more specific, recently I'm trying to make every aspect of my life more colourful. While in Florida I bought a belt that wasn't black, it is white covered with multi-coloured stripes... and I love it! I recently hosted a Tupperware party and was blessed that I had some money to buy some of their amazing products. The order came in the mail, and as soon as I opened the box, I was hit with COLOUR! It was awesome. I have some lime green sandwich containers, tropical blue stackables for my deli-meats, and a few other things that are bright colours. I'm so glad that Tupperware has jumped on this bandwagon.

I can see the logic in having a few things in neutral colours, so that when you start having a kick for ORANGE instead of PURPLE, you don't have to worry about replacing a couch. But I sometimes wonder if even I might take things to the next step. When my stone coloured couch takes it's last beating, will I try to convince my husband that kelly green is the next best thing? I think I just might. My wonderful husband has been so accommodating with my love of colour, but I think that happiness is contagious. If colour makes me happy, he starts to see the way I see. And if I'm happy, he's happy. Which, in turn, makes me happy. And what a great circle that is. :)

Life is Hard

Do you ever wonder how you're going to get through the next few days, weeks, months, or years? I do. Do you ever wonder what you did to deserve the bad things being thrown at you? I do. Does God care? That's a question I ask myself all the time.

When I feel down, that my life is falling apart, a few things happen to me. First, I experience frustration, sadness, and anger. This eventually comes out in tears, as that is how I express my feelings, and then I throw myself the biggest pity party around. I think, how does this keep happening to me?

Usually after I get my emotions under control, I start to feel badly about the way I have reacted. I mean, if my car breaks down, that's not so bad. I mean, there are a lot of people who are a lot worse off, whether they are dealing with cancer, or the death of a loved one, and therefore I think, how can I feel so bad when there are others out there who are dealing with much worse? But a friend once told me that there will always be bad things happening to other people, and my feelings are MY feelings, so I shouldn't feel bad about that. I can't always compare my problems to other people's problems. That thought has stayed with me. She isn't saying stay sad forever, just that it's O.K. to feel sad when things are going wrong in your life. That is a comfort to me.

Lately I feel like God has forgotten about me. Since the end of February, I have spent over $2000 on my car, with most of that cost going towards getting the same problem fixed 4 times. 4 TIMES! Can you believe that 3 mechanics missed the original problem that was the cause of all the breakdowns? And today, which spurred this blog, our car wouldn't start. I don't think it's a dead battery, although I don't know anything about cars, but I think it may be the starter. And all I can think is, why is this happening to us? What did I do wrong, that I'm being punished? I've always believed that God never gives us more than we can handle in this life, but I feel like that breaking point hit a couple months back. I owe money, a lot of money, to the bank, my parents, and to the government. My husband is in school, and we can't get any more money from OSAP. So in the midst of all our problems with the car, we need to find a way to save money for his last year of schooling. I also work at the school he goes too, so presently we are down one job that helps us make ends meet.

How did life turn out this way? I recently read the whole book of Job, and it was very interesting. Job lost almost everything. God was proving to Satan that Job was a righteous man, and therefore He took everything away from Job. Why? I don't understand why God needed to prove something to Satan. I think I would really like to hear a good sermon series on the book of Job. I think there are many people suffering out there, who could use a better understanding of why bad things happen to them.

Right now I feel like ripping my hair out. I feel like crying until everything goes numb. Money won't buy happiness, but it would really help bring us out of debt, help us to stop fighting. I guess I'm hoping that one day, in the future, Bill and I will be able to look back on this and see how much stronger it made us as a couple, how we grew together and closer to God. How we met these adversities head on and overcame them.

When will that day come?

Halloween 2009

Hey everyone! It's been a little over a month since I've written because things are busy in my household right now. My husband is going to school, has 3 part-time jobs, and needs the computer all the time for homework. That's ok with me, school is very important and I want him to do well.

But right now I have a little time on the computer while he's fixing himself dinner, so I was going to update everyone on my Halloween this year. October 31st landed on a Saturday, a great day for a Halloween party. That is where we were headed that night, my husband and I and a few friends we picked up on the way. I was a Fall fairy, and my husband was Phantom of the Opera. We drove the hour and a half to get to our friends house, where we proceeded to have a great time talking, eating, and just hanging out. I had a really nice time. The next day, Sunday, we went to church, which I was really excited for because the pastor is doing a sermon series on tough questions people have about the Bible and Christianity, which is always good to hear the answers to these questions. After church we watched a scary movie, ate a ton of discounted chocolate, and had a nice relaxing day. All in all, a great weekend. Now I'm looking forward to Christmas! I need something to look forward to, or else I'm going to get down with the cold weather and all.

Anyways, that's it for now

Peace from Rainbow Candy

Recycling

Hey everyone!

I love to recycle. I have 3 blue boxes at home: 1 is for cardboard, 1 is for paper, and 1 is for cans or anything else that has that recycling symbol on it. When my husband and I were first married, we lived in an apartment building that didn't have recycling. It was horrible! I grew up in a home where you recycled all the things I mentioned above, and my father even had a compost in the back so peels and such weren't put in the trash! I think we only put out 1 garbage bag a week. That's pretty impressive I would say. There are alot of people out there who don't even think about recycling, and how it helps the environment. I could easily move onto the topic of helping our environment in other ways, but I'll save that for a later date. Trust me, I'm pretty passionate about that as well.

The reason I'm talking about this topic now is that ever since I started at my school cafeteria job, I was surprised at the number of students who are throwing out their milk cartons in the garbage. I realize not everyone was brought up in a "recycling home" but still... I think that recycling is taught in school, and is common sense. Everywhere you look people are addressing environmental issues. One could argue that the students don't know that you can recycle the milk cartons, but the recycling box in the cafeteria is right beside the garbage and you can see other milk cartons in the box, so what are these students doing? I have to pick their cartons out of the garbage because I think it's wrong to throw out something that can be reused again. It's a messy job that I should have to do.

Anyways, I'm going to put up a sign or something just in case some students still haven't gotten the idea. I hope that people realize that we have to take care of this earth.

Genesis 1 says to us: ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸ And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."²⁹ And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

So we have to take care of what God has given us, by reusing our resources in a smart, economic way. Recycling is something we can do at home and at our businesses, we just need to take the time to do it.

Well, that's my 2 cents for today, I gotta run for now.

Peace from Rainbow Candy

New Changes to my routine

Hey everyone!

I had a great birthday this year! 09/09/09 passed by in a flash, but a few hi-lights of my day was getting breakfast in bed from my husband, who got it from McDonald's (but before you groan, I must admit that I asked for it!) YUM! lol I also received my present from my husband, when he surprised me by taking me to the mall so I could pick out... are you ready for this? A CELL PHONE! I love it very much, I haven't had a cell phone since I lost mine when I was like 16 or something, so this was a very nice gift! And later on that night we went over to Crabby Joes with one of our couple friends, and then we went to the movies with them to see "9" which was a creepy movie but I liked it.

So on to the new changes in my routine: school started, which means that my cafeteria job started. I'm tired already! I just need to get my body adjusted to working every day, and getting up early every day. I tried not to sleep in too much during the summer, but I probably get up an hour and a half earlier now every day for work! I don't mind too much, I'm learning that I'm more of a morning person, but still, it takes some getting used to.

Also new to my routine: my husband has started school, so figuring out rides every day is not always fun but is necessary. Additionally, school means more homework and less time on the computer, as well as seeing my husband. This is not going to help my S.A.D., but I hope to stay on top of things this time around, and I praise the Lord that He helped me to have a great birthday and not feel down!

With all these new changes to my routine, I am learning to rely heavily on God for support, strength, and patience. I started to lose my cool today, but I just need to remind myself that God is there, and He will take care of all my worries.

Anyways, that's it for now.

Peace from Rainbow Candy

Starbucks

Hey everyone!

Here I am, sitting in a Starbucks cafe, drinking a latte and blogging in a leather arm chair. I feel like a cliche, but I love it! It's not busy at the counter, but there are a lot of people sitting in here, talking with friends and laughing. It's a fun environment to be in, to be a part of this moment, but to also not be a part, one who is just merely catching a glimpse of the world moving around her. It's very satisfying.

Did I tell you that my husband works at Starbucks? Probably not. He's the reason I'm here. He's told me before how he would really enjoy his lunch break more if I could come here and sit with him. So today is the day. I didn't have to work at the same time as him, and I have the car. So granting my boy's wish, I came down and spent some time with him. To put a smile on his face brings me great joy. He sent flowers (more specifically, roses!) to my work yesterday and that small gesture was the highlight of my day. My husband is very special to me, and if I can show him how much I love him just by spending time with him on his break, it's the least I can do.

Anyways, I plan to watch a down-loaded episode of Bones while I finish my latte, and then it's off home to finish the laundry. But I'm not going to rush, because I want to enjoy this atmosphere for as long as I can.

Peace from Rainbow Candy