Getting in Gear in South Carolina

Before our first date as husband and wife!

Well, here we are..finally getting settled into a routine ((somewhat)) and I finally have the motivation and time to blog again. When we got back from the honeymoon all I wanted to do was to continue the vacation and mindlessly relax. Since I don't start work until the 9th (this Friday) I was able to do just that! Now I am getting bored with sitting at home all day and I am eager to start working. Not to mention, I am ready to get some paychecks rolling in!

 view from our apartment balcony

We LOVE South Carolina. And even though we are still waiting for a few things to fall into place here (find a church home, job for Eric, grad school for Eric) we still feel like we are in the right place in our lives. Yes, we could have stayed in Chattanooga and Eric wouldn't be in the midst of a job search, but, we didn't want to stay in Chattanooga. We wanted to begin our lives together where WE wanted to be. Not to mention, the pay is quite a bit larger here than in Tennessee while the cost of living is just about the same. So, now we are just waiting for a few things to fall into place to really and truly make Columbia our home.

 Date night!!!

While we have been waiting for these few things to fall into place, I have been thinking and talking to God a lot. While not everything has fallen into place, we have a lot to be thankful for, especially for everything that has fallen into place, especially since this move was a leap of faith for us in many ways. I mean we did leave everything we know behind in order to have a substantial building ground of a life for us. We did what we wanted to do and we were able to do with ease (minus these few things we are waiting to fall into place).

So I have decided to make a list of the things we are thankful for to remind myself of how this move has been an amazing happening for us in our lives:
1. I got an amazing job with an amazing pay with my first and only interview here in South Carolina.
2. I have a nurse manager who I LOVE and am looking forward to working for who supports my future goals and who has a lot of connections.
3. Eric was able to work and live at home to save money my last year of nursing school so that we had the funds to move and to live off of until I started working.
4. My pay enables us to easily live off one salary as long as that is needed, and comfortably at that. When Eric starts working, that is ALL extra money.
5. We are able to splurge a little bit on our apartment to have a place that really feels like home. We have all the amenities we wanted plus some.
6. We will still have a nice amount of $$ in our savings once I start working despite not having any sort of income for 2 months while still paying all the bills.
7. We have enough money to buy the groceries and things we want to buy--no longer on a college kid diet/shopping mindset!
8. We have enough money to go on dates.
9. We have enough money to care for our little Bambi the way we want to.
10. We are happy in our new hometown and we will continue to trust in God to help us find a church home, find friends, find Eric a job, enable Eric to work towards his career path.

And really, I could go on and on. We are blessed beyond a doubt and I am not going to take that for granted. God has helped us get to where we are and He will continue to provide for us because we have faith in Him. Please pray for us as we continue this journey as husband and wife in our new hometown! No one said moving away from everything you know and love to another state would ever be easy. But luckily, because we have each other, and because we trust in God, it makes it quite a bit easier.

And.....SURPRISE!

i am now a brunette again!

A

At the fireworks show :)

The next post will be the wedding blog! Followed by a honeymoon blog (or two...or three...or more...) and our new apartment blog!

Oh, and by the way, Eric has a sign on for the blog now, so you may see a post from him every now and then too :)