The older Brown chimes in...

Ok, I had better start chiming in with some of my thoughts before all of you think I am oppressing my wife not to have children! I was told by "a friend" who's last name rhymes with "Eder" that I had better start having kids. Apparently Daja, in her blog, sounds so sad about seeing a lot of our friends starting to have babies, and we don't have any yet. This is amplified by her working as a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital where she gets to see new life come into the world almost every time she's at work! See, if I were a female, watching the pain of having a kid would be enough to keep me from having one, but my wonderful wife sees the true beauty of God's miracle in the birth of a child and the starting of a new life. That all being said, I figured I'd better set up a spot for me to voice my opinions as well!
I have to hand it to Daja, she's hasn't thrown me under the bus......too much......and I don't plan on doing that to her either. She's pretty much covered the past couple months of events for us as a couple, so I may not need to go into that stuff too much. There are a few things I'd like to comment on from her blog (yes, you'll have to read hers too if you haven't already!).
Everything she said about Reese and Shauna's baby is correct. However, Jon and Kellie's baby was the first one to come about. Little baby Patterson (well, actually HUGE baby Patterson) was the first, and I'm sure he'll be bullying all of our kids around someday! Well, with his parents being who they are that probably won't be happening, but I can say that his parents are going to have a ridiculously tough time keeping his tummy satisfied! We saw them at Dave's wedding and I can't believe how big that kid is (not Dave, but baby Patterson)! Anyhow, Reese and Shauna's little one, Alivia, is beautiful and adorable, and to be honest, all these baby things do make me want to have one. Actually, I do want kids, and I've always wanted them, but Daja and I are not ready for one yet (not that anyone ever really is!).
So, on to other things...
As Daja went over in her/our (whatever it is) blog, we recently moved to an aparment, and no, we're not still making a house payment! What a blessing this has been for us! We had that stupid house on and off the market for the past 2 years, and were never able to even get an offer on it! That being said, we listed with Coldwell Banker Realty in July '07 immediately after I lost my job. It stayed on the market the full 6 months of that contract, had probably over 100 walk-throughs, but still, not even an offer. Ok, we listed the house at $199,900 just to get rid of it, and it appraised higher than that a year and a half previous. So, the contract came up, and we decided, with me now being employed, to go ahead and try to keep the house and stay in it. About a month later I get a phone call from a realtor, and she said she had some clients who would be interested in seeing the house because they had heard about it being on and off the market from some friends of theirs who live just around the block from the house. The realtor asked if they could take a look at the house, and we decided to let them. One week later they made an offer on the house, we accepted, and they bought the house! I'm still in shock I think! But what a blessing it has been to not "have" to make a mortgage payment that is too high (yes, it's my fault that I stupidly bought the house). The worst part about the house was that I bought it long before I met (re-met I guess) Daja, and we never really felt that it was "our" house. The apartment actually feels more like "ours" than the house did, so we're pretty happy and thankful!
God has allowed us to go through some pretty interesting times during our first year of marriage, and we have learned a LOT from it. Yet he's taken care of us the entire way. We were (somehow) never late on a bill, never missed a payment, always had food, etc, etc, and I am completely amazed how much He loves us and has taken care of us. When we (well really "I") let go of everything and started to realize that I have little to no control of my life, things started looking up (from our worldly point of view). I guess it really should boil down to this, "when we/I started looking up, our situation did the same!"