Never Thought It Would Happen

Hubby in Afghanistan, 2011

 Yesterday I mentioned how my husband made a decision that will change our life next year. You can read that here.  The decision he has made was to retire from the Army.  My wonderful husband has been in the military for almost 22 years, 19 of those years were serving on active-duty.  This August my husband will put in his retirement paperwork and this time next year he will be considered retired.  I knew this time would occur, but I think I never thought it would happen.  To be honest, it is very scary.

My husband joined the military when he was 17 and I joined when I was 18.  We are now in our 30s.  Our entire adult life has been military.  This is all we know.  So retiring is quite frightening.  We do not know what the future holds, but God does.  We are putting our faith in Him.  We are praying and asking for guidance and wisdom. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

The next year will be preparing for his retirement.  Again, I never thought I would be saying that.  I knew eventually the time would come and now that the time is here, I look back in our earlier military days.  Back then I remember other members who were retiring and I would think "wow, what a lifestyle change."  I can say that the years have definitely flown by.  Our time here is done.  God has other plans for us.  I would be lying if I said I was not scared. 

In preparation for the retirement, the hubs and I sat down last night and looked at our finances.  I would like to say there is no worries there, but I cannot. We added up all of our debt and put them in order of what is being paid off.  Then, we put a goal of what we wanted paid off and when we wanted it paid off.  I am happy to say that our first item is paid off today! We then looked at what upcoming income we would be receiving and what items are about to paid off. We set some goals and a game plan.  We needed a plan of attack and we accomplished that last night.  Our big goal is to pay off 50 percent of our debt.  50 PERCENT!! Trust me when I say that is a HUGE goal.  However, we are looking into the future and that is his retirement.  He needs to retire.  His body is starting to shut down.  He is in constant pain.  It is time to hang up the boots. 

"For I know the plans I have for you, "declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-13

As the days go by, our main focus is retirement.  We are focusing on lowering our debt, praying for healing for my husband, and trusting in the Lord.  We know if this is God's plan then all we can do is succeed if we follow Him.  The next year will be a difficult one but I have God by side and my husband.  Two of the most important people in my life.

 Everything will be just fine.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

One final thing, would you mind saying a prayer for my mom? She leaves on her missions trip to St. Lucia today.  All prayers are welcomed! Thank you!

Blessings to you all!

To Be Honest

As humans, we have moments in our life where we lack in areas. Mine has been blogging; as many of you can tell, and many other areas. I reached a moment where I felt I had nothing to blog about and honestly felt like I was going against what I was blogging. When I first started blogging I had a vision of how I wanted my blog to go.  I wanted to blog about our road to becoming debt-free, saving money, frugal living, and of course my love for my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Once my husband left for Afghanistan I started turning away from many of my paths.  We were working on becoming debt-free, but I stopped baking in the kitchen and turned toward convenience foods.  I stopped trying to save money and bought more luxury items.  Some of the luxury items may not be luxury items to others but it was to me.  Then the hubby returned home and my focus was on his healing.  After a few months of hubby being home we moved from Alaska to Wisconsin. 

After moving to Wisconsin I felt myself entering into a rut.  I was not depressed because I was closer to family and was excited to see what God had in store for us.  However, I was missing my Alaska lifestyle and my close friends.  I missed having people coming to our home, or sitting outside with my neighbor watching our kids play, or sitting at the local park with a close friend and having some serious heart to heart talks.  I felt out of the loop in a world of civilians.  The ratio of civilians to military is higher here than anywhere else we have been.  We have military here, but it is not an active-duty base and the "military family" atmosphere is almost non-existent. 

I was having a hard time adjusting to Wisconsin.  No matter how hard I tried I could not get back on track with our routines.

We arrived mid-January to Wisconsin and it is now the end of May.  I am feeling much better about our new life here in Dairyland.  New blessings have occurred here and the hubby has made a huge decision that will change our life come next year.  More on that tomorrow!

A friend came over yesterday to introduce me to her chore system she has in place.  I have adapted her system and added some of my items into the system so that it will work for me.  One of the items I added was blogging to my daily list. 

I miss blogging.
I miss my readers.
I miss the accountability of our journey.

I will be making some changes to the blog and may add some new items or topics, so please bare with me for a couple of weeks.

Blessings to you all!
The Forever Neighbor is back!