Julie Gumm - Author

Meeting My Online Peeps

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This fall I’ll be headed to Austin, TX to attend the Together for Adoption Conference where I get to be a featured blogger. Besides all the great content at the conference I’m super excited about meeting up with some online friends “in real life”. These is just a sample of some of the awesome gals I’m excited to hang with.

Brandi McElheny – This girl is like a fireball of passion, energy and prayer aimed at injustice. I’ve known her online for a couple of years but got to meet her at the CAFO Summit in April and then I got the opportunity to hang with her one night in June while in Colorado. She’s the real deal and a total blast!

Angel Weir – I “met” this girl online when researching Ethiopia adoptions. She had just been on a missions trip to Ethiopia, had one adopted daughter and another on the way. Then through her and her husbands work on the Red Letter Campaign we became friends. Imagine my delight when she was in Colorado at the same time I was and got to meet her at the aforementioned night as well. And now she’s paperchasing for an Ethiopian adoption.

Wendi Henry – Wendi and her husband Sam have a huge heart for orphans and started the micro-giving site HopeMongers. She’s another Colorado-dweller and was in on the fun girls night last month with Brandi & Angel. Totally excited to hang out with her again and get to know her better!

Amy Bottomly – Hooked up with this gal via Red Letters Campaign and got to design a web site for the book her and Josh wrote about their adoption “From Ashes to Africa“. Turns out she’s a John Brown University grad although I don’t think our paths crossed while there. They just brought home a darling daughter from Ethiopia (to join brother Silas) and I’m super excited to get to meet Amy in person.

Jody Landers – Found this beautiful gal a couple years ago when I was adoption blog stalking and have read her off and on since then. She’s a huge advocate/fundraiser for clean water (Water for Christmas). Jody pours out her heart on her blog and has walked through some extremely tough stuff in the last year and it has been such a privilege to read her honesty and be able to lift her up in prayer. I have probably only commented on her blog a couple of times so my behavior might be borderline stalkerish at T4A 🙂 But since she knows Brandi and Wendi hopefully they’ll vouch for my sanity!

Mary Ostyn (aka Owlhaven) – She’s got 10 kids from 3 countries – another blog I found in my early adoption journey. She’s a woman after my own frugal heart and her blog has tons of great ideas on saving money, great recipes and fun family stories. She’s written two great books as well – both in my personal library: “A Sane Woman’s Guide to Raising a Large Family” and “Family Feasts for Under $75 a Week“.

There are so many more, maybe I’ll have to save some for another post…

Foster Child Mentors

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Tonight I’m attending an orientation session with AASK (Aid to Adoption of Special Kids) to find out more about their mentoring program for foster kids. (It includes general foster and adoptive information as well.)

It’s an opportunity that we used to advertise through our previous church orphan ministry and one that I’ve been interested in for some time but felt like it wasn’t the right time for one reason or another. But I’ve realized there will never be a good time unless I make it a priority.

Here’s a great article about how mentors can make a huge difference in the life of a foster child.

Mentors prove a savior for foster children

More info about the program

Joining Financial Baggage

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Part 2 of Financial Freedom Friday (Read Part 1)

One of the hardest things about marriage is arguably meshing two different money styles and two different financial backgrounds.

I came from a very rigid financial family – my dad is a spreadsheet guy (well back then he was a green ledger sheet guy) who tracked every penny. There was never a lot of extra money but we had what we needed and my parents put all of us kids through Christian schools and through college.

We drove cars until they died (one was 17 years old when my brother finally totaled it), rarely ate out and never got really expensive gifts.

Despite this upbringing I will be the first to admit that I am more of a spender than a saver. I got my first job at 15 working at Burger King, and held down a job consistently on into adulthood. My jobs only served to support my shopping and social habits. Sure, my senior year I saved up some money for college but I didn’t really have a savings goal or any big motivation.

Mark grew up in similar financial circumstances but from a much less structured system. So he had even less experience with living on a budget.

All of this contributed to our disjointed system – well it wasn’t even really a system. We could make a budget, sure, but had trouble sticking to it and soon found it wasn’t working and would give up for awhile.

We’d have what we call “The Visa War”. I would get the Visa bill, open it, keel over in shock from the balance and then begin to vehemently highlight everything on the bill that Mark had charged. I would total it all up and march into the office and declare something like “Did you know you charged $457 this month?!”

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. I am not proud.

Because usually the unhighlighted expenses (mine) were nearly that if not more J

It took us nearly 7 years of marriage before we finally got our act together.

Next Week: Driving Our Debt Around