Bye Bye Student Loan

After working for just over a year, we are so glad to have paid off our student loan. One of the main financial goals we set for ourselves was to eliminate this debt as soon as we could.

When meeting with a financial planner early in our marriage, we wanted to handle our finances in a Biblical manner. We know that scripture states: "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender" Proverbs 22:7. We wanted to stop being slaves to Sallie Mae who took most of our expendable income for the first 15 months of our marriage.

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We have listened to many radio shows and podcasts by Dave Ramsey, and we are huge fans of his ideals. As he says, we've kicked Sallie Mae out of our house, and we now have more financial freedom.

Beautiful flowers

From my wonderful husband...Love him.

My new best friend

After several hours of sweat and frustration while trying to replace the heating elements of our water heaters, a family friend recommended trying a tool designed specifically for the heating element. Channel locks worked for 3 of the 4 elements but the 4th was too stubborn. I prayed that God would give me the strength to remove the element, but instead God gave me an $8 tool.
We've now spent 10 nights in the new home, and we are very thankful for hot water. We'll continue to post about the process, the move, and updates on the new home for the next few weeks.

The keys to our new home!

Yep, those keys unlock the door to our new home. We have been bursting at the seams keeping this under wraps, and now we are happy to share it with everyone. We have been searching for and praying about a home for months, but just couldn't find "the one." Then this beauty came along.

Actually, we stumbled across it about 6 months ago but the timing was not right. Even then, we weren't impressed by the photos in the listing and almost passed it up. I'm so glad I made Cary drive out to see it, because we both really liked it. We are so excited to make it our own.

It has been a long process with tons of excitement, dozens of questions, and quite a bit of stress, but in the end, God blessed us with a house. We are looking forward to turning it into our home.

Stay tuned for some more posts about the home buying process.

Tough Loss!

What a tough weekend for the Bulldog Nation! Cary and I traveled to Atlanta for the UGA/Boise State game this past Saturday. We spent the entire day tailgating with friends outside the Georgia Dome (notice the sunburn below). Even though it was a rough game, we enjoyed spending time with friends and fellow fans.

Hopefully, next week will go better against our SEC opponent, South Carolina. See ya in Athens!

Countdown to Kickoff

It's been a couple of weeks since we last posted but we've been busy with some exciting times recently. We'll be posting about that in a couple weeks.

As I woke up this morning and watched the hurricane update, I flipped it on ESPN to check the latest sports and realized a week from now, I'll be watching the college football updates. An exciting time for sure.

Next Saturday, we'll be up early, putting on our red and black, and heading to the dome to watch UGA-Boise St. And Georgia will be putting on red and well, mostly just red. They will be debuting their ProCombat uniforms, pictured below. It's gonna be another great football season!

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I personally like the black uniform option better, but I also remember being down 31-0 at halftime and hearing a Bama fan chant "Knowshon...No Yards!" over and over. Maybe we should stick with red.

What's for Dinner?

What's for dinner? That's a common question heard in this household! Sometimes the last thing I want to do after a long, exhausting day of work is cook dinner. That's why I LOVE my crock pot. Call me old-fashioned, that's fine, but it is the. best. thing. ever.

Here's a picture of this miracle invention in action:

I love being able to set up a meal in the morning and show up in the early evening, after work, to find that all the labor is done, and dinner is ready! How awesome is that?

(That's a crock pot liner in my crock pot...quite possibly the next best invention when it comes to slow cookers. It makes clean-up SUPER quick and easy.)

Here's the final result:

That's a blended peach margarita we're drinking (which wasn't sweet enough and needed some extra flavor, so I won't be sharing that recipe). The other great thing about crock pot meals is that it feeds a ton of people. We have leftovers for quite a few meals. Here is the recipe I used:

Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken
Ingredients:
1 can, 15 oz. tomato sauce
2 cans, 14.5 oz. each, diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 cup whole grain or white rice
1 can, 14.5 oz. chicken broth or water
1 can, 15 oz. black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can, 15 oz. whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 packet taco seasoning (mild or hot...how spicy do you want it?)

Instructions:
Combine all of the ingredients in a crock pot, set to low and allow to cook for 6 to 8 hours. In the last hour of cooking, tear apart chicken breasts with fork. Continue cooking on low for another hour (totaling 8). Serve with tortilla chips as a dip or eat as a stew.

I'm not sure where I found the original recipe, probably a Google search or something. The original recipe did not have corn and called for pinto beans instead of black beans. I like to change it up and try different things, though. I also like to rinse canned veggies to try and get as much sodium out as possible. Use low sodium taco seasoning, too, to cut the salt. Try out the recipe, and let me know your changes and your thoughts!