Diet Coke and Daisies

Breezing through life, counting blessings...

2011-11-29T23:10:00.001-06:00

I really really wish we were independently wealthy so that Hubs never had to go to work and we could always just hang out together. Its terrible as far as routine and schedule go, but its been amazing just BEING together. We've both had birthdays, some great times with the kids, and God never ceases to amaze us with His goodness and faithfulness.

On the job front... There weren't all that many jobs out there that are along the lines of what he's been doing (and despite the schedule and always being outside, he really enjoys the work) but in the last week or so, the listings have been exploding. Our goal was for him to find something by the end of December, and we're still trusting God for that. Financially, we have been blessed bigger than we could have ever hoped for. Thanks to the extreme kindness and generosity of others (which they informed us was 100% God led), we are not hurting. I'm 97% done with our Christmas shopping and the kids will be having a super awesome Christmas. Being able to get them new jammies and tick off the items on their lists is important to me. Its worldly and a privilege so many people don't get, so we are extremely grateful to be able to do it. Jesus is the reason for the season, but at the same time, I am determined to keep the magic and traditions alive with them. When they grow up, I don't ever want them to look back and have anything but amazing warm memories of Christmas. Every other year, I do everything I possibly can to exceed their expectations on December 25th.

On the baby/birthday/Thanksgiving front... Since I last posted, Eli has turned 6 and then 7 months old. He blows me away every day. Since Daddy started being home all the time, it's a total free for all on sleeping, but I can't be sure that he wouldn't be doing that anyway. From what I hear, so many babies are inconsistent sleepers. He's healthy, and that's more important to me. When we took him for his 6 month check up and shots, we were so relieved when that scale said he was still under 20 pounds. Sure, it was only 2 ounces under, but we were scared! His carrier is only rated for up to 22 pounds, and we're just not ready to move him to a car seat and give up his grocery store/Walmart naps...

For Halloween, we took him to Boo at the Zoo. He could not have cared less about the entire thing. I'm hoping next time he's more interested in checking out the animals. Maybe if it's a little warmer he'll be more interested... We did, however, get him the greatest costume ever and so a lot of the other zoo patrons were EXTREMELY interested in HIM!

On November 7th, Hubs turned 32. I am a birthday person, and I had desperately wanted to make a bigger deal about it and make it more special for him. I am so blessed to have a husband who values my intentions and desires as much if not more than my actions.

The week of Thanksgiving was pretty big time for our little family. On November 20th, Eli turned 7 months old. On November 19th, he busted out his first word! We're pretty sure he's been saying "Hi" for a while, but since that's a very breathy sound, it can go either way. But he does it in response to someone saying it to him, so... Anyway, that's not what we're calling his first word. He was in his exersaucer, and I was packing up his diaper bag. He looked up, saw the bottle in my hand, and started jumping and yelling, "Ba ba ba ba ba ba!" Since we've been calling it his "baba" (to encourage him to say it, too), it was OBVIOUS what he was saying. Love my little nugget learning food words first! We also think he's trying to say "Mama", which makes my heart just about explode. On the 23rd, he got his 1st tooth! We were out running errands and when I went to give him his bottle, I noticed a little white spot on his gum. Stuck my finger in his mouth for confirmation, and yup! A tooth had FINALLY broken through!! For his first Thanksgiving, we introduced meats (turkey, obviously.) and he did just fine with them (the only thing he hasn't liked is green beans). He had a sleepover with Aunt Katy and Uncle Bernie that night so Mommy and Daddy could hit the sales (Toys R Us was the big winner this year.) He slept like a champ for them! Saturday night, he went and spent some time with some sweet friends from church so we could go bowling to celebrate my big Dirty Thirty birthday. He is seriously the greatest baby EVER. When we picked him up, his little eye was gooey and swollen. Was he cranky and crying? Nope! He was smiling and babbling and his happy self. (Our friends felt absolutely AWFUL, but we know it was nothing they did, and kids get sick so why would we be mad?) He'd been that way (happy and babbling) all week, despite a runny nose (which we blamed on the weather change. We both had it, too, but found out we were actually sick. I had a sinus infection and Hubs had bronchitis.) Sunday morning his eye was literally crusted shut and he still woke up smiling! His pediatrician called in some antibiotic eye drops and by Sunday night, his eyes were almost all the way back to normal. Monday he had another little surprise for us in the form of a 2nd tooth (over achiever!). He's just growing up so fast, which I hate but less than I thought I would. He's so fun, and we're having a blast interacting with him, so it's kind of hard to be that upset about him "growing up". He's still my snuggly little baby, so it's okay. Hubs was gone so much when he was working, it's been the biggest blessing for all of us that he was here for all of these firsts with Eli. Watching our son grow TOGETHER is beyond words. Just God blessing us over and over through a seemingly terrible situation!

So, I'm 30 now. For a long time (we're talking YEARS.), I've looked forward to my 30's. I went through so much in my 20's. Some of it was so wonderful (it's when I met my best friends), but so much of it was horrible, and I'm ready to leave it all behind me. I truly believe that God has mind blowingly wonderful things planned for me in my 30's. These are going to be the best years of my life, my "glory days" for reasons that no one thinks of when they're young and imagining their glory days. I'm looking forward to growing in my faith, and seeing how that makes me a better wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend. Ooo warm fuzzies just thinking about it!
Happy Thanksgiving!

So yea, life is far from perfect, but we are perfectly blessed.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

2011-10-15T17:52:00.000-05:00

The Good
Groupon came through again for family fun. We got half price admission to Dewberry Farm. I love watching the kids run around and play in barns.

Let's be real here. We all know that everything else in this category is going to be about the baby.

Eli is a really good eater and hasn't had any reactions! He's had bananas (currently his favorite), sweet potatoes, green beans, sweet peas, and apples. He didn't care for green beans until I mixed some of his bananas in, then he was all about it. When he eats them, he ends up looking like a big grass stain, which cracks me up. He LOVES the peas, and was kind of "meh" about apples. I know, what a weirdo! Who loves peas and is "meh" about apples? Oh, right. His mommy. Overcoming the tongue thrust has been amazing. I love when he makes this adorable serious face while swallowing then immediately opens his mouth for more. We'll be trying carrots and squash soon. I'm learning a lot about making baby food. Some people thing that if you just puree anything its instant baby food. Not so much. When I make his bananas, its a blend of fresh banana, formula, and rice cereal. Same for his sweet potatoes. I cheated and bought the peas and green beans (although I have fresh green beans and will be making them into baby food tonight!) and the apples I just baked an apple and ran the meat through the food processor until it was nice and smooth. My amazing friend Christina is sending me a cook book of baby food recipes because her baby has moved on to finger foods, and I'm a lot more excited about it than I probably should be. Its a lot easier to buy baby food, obviously, but I love the idea of making it myself. Maybe part of that is me trying to reconcile some of the lingering guilt of him not being exclusively breast fed, or really breast fed at all. I don't know. But even if it has nothing to do with the breast milk issue, its cheaper and since my job is to take care of him, it makes sense. If I worked outside the home, I seriously doubt I'd be making his food.

Last weekend, we had him dedicated at church. Dedication is a form of Christening, basically. Sheldon and I don't believe in infant baptism, although it is offered at our church, because Jesus was baptized as an adult in the Bible. Instead, we chose the dedication route. This means that we stand at the front of the church, before our family, friends, and other members of our church, and commit to raising him to follow Jesus. Our pastor leads us in prayers of thanksgiving for being blessed with our child, prayers for Him to equip us as parents, and prayers for God's blessings on his life, all with the hope that he will make the decision to accept Jesus as his savior and be baptized. Its a really special experience, and we're extra glad the big kids could participate with us. Oh, and apparently Eli now has the distinction of being the 1st baby our pastor has dedicated while taking a bottle. The kid loves to eat.

I can't believe he's almost 6 months old! He's so big and busy and changing every day! And seriously, people, stop encouraging him to crawl and telling me how much he wants to walk. My Christmas tree says he doesn't want to walk until 2012, thankyouverymuch.

The Bad
My dad's health has had us pretty worried for a few weeks. He started seeing a nephrologist because his rhematologist ran some blood work and noticed his kidney numbers were bad. Several more tests later, they found that his kidney function was at around 35% and they didn't know why. Thankfully, they ruled out cancer, but its still terrifying! A week or so after that bomb was dropped, my dad went to the ER. He was in horrible pain and had started to vomit. They found 7 (yes, SEVEN) kidney stones, the largest of which was 7mm large. He stayed in the hospital for a few days and left with a stent. He had it in for a week, and the day they removed it, they also pulverized the stones. Our prayer is that all the stones were impairing his kidney function and that he should be recovering nicely.
My dad's health scare was not the worst, unfortunately. The worst is that Sheldon lost his job last week. I don't work. Do the math. It's a very scary thing, but we're choosing to do everything we can to stay positive. The obvious immediate perk is that Eli and I have been enjoying having him home with us the past few days. There was a decided lack of integrity at the company he was working for, and the constant lies, shortcuts, and general crap he had been enduring for several months now was really wearing on him. Eliminating that is amazing. Our obvious hope is for him to find a new job (quickly) that pays as well if not better and has a more consistent schedule. It'll make things easier with visitation with the big kids, plus it'll help Eli and I with our routine. So yes, we're obviously worried about making ends meet until he gets a new job (and health insurance... insulin is expensive!), but God has never let us down, He has always provided for us, and we have to believe that this is going to be an opportunity for us to move forward and for God to put better things in our lives. We've canceled our big birthday trip to Missouri next month, and Christmas is going to be very tight, but we'll get by and someday, it'll just be another memory of something we made it through.

The Ugly
The same day Sheldon lost his job, we discovered a leak in our apartment. On Monday, I noticed the carpet where the foyer and living room meet was wet. I figured someone had just spilled something and let it go. I didn't really pay much attention to it again until Wednesday, when I saw that the carpet was SOAKED. Then I looked over and saw that the wall was wet. The maintenance staff arrived and the ugly began. They started cutting out drywall (there was mold in the coat closet) and pulling up carpet. So we have holes in the walls, missing carpet, and generally a huge mess. Its YUCKY and I will be very happy next week when everything is put back together (and all the mold is gone.).

All in all, I'd say we're blessed. And I love so much that when adversity comes our way, it honestly makes our marriage stronger. We've been through stuff that would cripple relationships much older and more established than ours. But they always make us stronger, and we truly feel that it's a testament to the fact that we were made for each other.

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

2011-09-24T17:54:00.001-05:00

I. Love. Autumn. It is hands down my favorite season. I love that its okay for everything to be brown and orange outside because "winter" is coming (and not just because its 110 degrees for the 25th day in a row, and it hasn't rained since March.) Its finally starting to rain again (keep it coming!!) which is fun. Eli is 5 months old, and it's literally rained like 4 times since he was born. If you don't live in Texas, really take a minute to think about that information. Its not pretty. Anyway. I love just about anything pumpkin scented or flavored (proof: I celebrated the 1st day of Fall with pumpkin pound cake for breakfast. It was AWESOME.). The weather is finally not surface of the sun hot anymore (you know its been bad when 92 feels like a really nice day.). On some magic days, and most evenings, there's this delicious crispness in the air that is my faaaaaaaaavorite. Football is back. Big time back for my fellow Longhorns. We were so terrible last year. And this year we are SO NOT. YES!! HOOK 'EM!! Oh yea, and Christmas stuff is starting to be in the stores for me to ooh and ahh over and plan and dream!

So, I'm pretty overwhelmed by all the newness of the Little Big Man. He's returned to sleeping through the night, which is amazing in and of itself, but he's going to sleep earlier. Most nights he's down for the count between 11 and 12. He usually sleeps until between 7 and 8. The other night, Hubs and I got 8 consecutive hours of sleep, together, in our bed. I can't lie. That hasn't happened since before I was pregnant. MIND-BLOWING. He likes to take a looooong nap in the morning (2-4 hours) and then cat naps until dark, when he'll usually sleep for about an hour or 2, want a bottle, then go down for the night. He's sleeping in his crib most of the time (except that long nap in the morning... Mommy learned that when she wants him to go back to sleep, if she puts him in his swing, he'll take the longer nap. I'm not ashamed.) The other morning, I woke up to him crying on the baby monitor (because he's a big guy and needs to eat a lot to stay that way...) so I stumbled into his room and saw 2 fat legs sticking out of the side of the crib. I put him in the crib longways, so he had scooted around to the short side. The kid is a wiggler. When he's on the floor in his baby gym, he never stays even remotely close to where I put him. This is adorable, obviously, but it makes me very nervous about how insane its going to be when he's legitimately mobile in a few months. Pray for me!! I've noticed that he appears to have nightmares. Twice now I've heard him crying on the baby monitor, after he'd been asleep for an hour or 2, and when I go to check on him, he's still asleep and the crying stops. The other day, he was napping in the swing, and I heard him whimpering. When I looked over, his forehead was furrowed and his bottom lip was sticking out like he was upset about something. Anyone else have a baby with bad dreams? Anything you can do to prevent them? Will they go away on their own?

We had planned to wait until 6 months to start him on cereal (we also planned on him having breast milk until 6 months... we all know how well that went.) but the closer he got to 5 months, the hungrier he was. He was taking a 5-6oz bottle every 2 hours from 4pm until he went to bed at night. That's just insane! Plus he would scream like he was dying until he got that bottle every 2 hours. So a few days before he hit 5 months, we started it. He likes it, but he's still fighting with his tongue thrust and so he likes to 1. not allow the spoon into his mouth and/or 2. blow bubbles in the food on the spoon. He's getting better. More food is starting to make it into the baby than ON the baby.

People kept telling us that feeding him cereal would help his sleep. We experimented with feeding him the cereal at different times of day to test that. We quickly discovered that when we fed him cereal, then did bath, then did last bottle, he slept TERRIBLE. He woke up in the middle of the night for another bottle. So we make sure he eats it before 7pm and then he sleeps just fine at night. I'm thinking we're going to start him on veggies October 1st or so. I'm stoked to FINALLY start using the Magic Bullet Express that my mom got us for Christmas 2 years ago to make most of his food myself. I will buy some prepackaged stuff, because there are some foods that I don't even want to try and will be good for him. Feel free to share recipes and tips with me!!

Physically, he's growing so fast! In the span of a week, he started rolling front to back (back to front is close behind... I keep seeing him practicing) and sitting up. He's not a completely unsupported sitter just yet, but close enough. I had him in his bouncy seat while I was in the kitchen last week. I walk out and he's completely upright with his head against the toy arch. Crazy! He's super strong and constantly trying to do new things. I'm not ready for him to pull up or crawl, so I'm not encouraging it. Not for a little longer anyway. He's just becoming such a big boy and I miss my little baby (who was never all that little it seems).5 months

My back had been bothering me pretty much since he was born. I knew it was normal for the first month or 2. After 4 months of painful cramps so bad that I frequently couldn't stand up straight, I asked my doctor about it. She was like, "Oh, yea, that happens all the time when you have a baby. Your back and hips get all crazy." So I started seeing a chiropractor. Turns out my hips are out of alignment and the muscles in my back are doing crazy stuff to compensate. So I get electrodes on my back with ice or heat (I've had both.), massage, and then alignment. OH. MY. GOSH. It hurts. It HURTS. The first time he was adjusting my right shoulder, I almost started to cry. It literally hurt worse than hard labor. Granted, I apparently had a pretty easy labor, but it still hurt. Anyway, he didn't believe me when I told him it hurt worse than labor. Well, Cool Guy, you've never been in labor so you don't really know, now do you? So, the adjustments HUUUUUUUUUURT. But they're working! My back pops a lot lately, when I move or take a deep breath, but that's apparently a good sign. And I'm not in agonizing pain anymore (well, except when he's adjusting my shoulders...) So, yay for chiropractic care!

Happy Fall Y'all!

So we had summer...

2011-08-31T00:12:00.009-05:00

I keep meaning to blog and then Eli always has other plans. I can't say I mind, because, well, he's seriously cute. There's a whole lot that I'm going to shove into this blog, so just know that the flow is going to suffer. And there is gratuitous use of the word "love".

July wasn't at all what I expected. Cherie obsessively loves Eli. Owen has a lot of jealousy. He's not jealous of the attention Eli gets, like you'd expect. He's more jealous of the fact that Cherie can do more stuff for him. He loves being a big brother, but he forgets he's still a little brother, too. She's 3 and a half years older than he is, and subsequently can handle more stuff (a lot of it being just because she's taller and stronger). His behavior wasn't great, but I don't know how much of that stems from his jealousy and how much of it is just ongoing behavior issues (and a desperate desire for attention). He acts up in a lot of the same ways at his mom's house, so I know its not all baby related. Anyway, we got a good routine going for the big kids, which saved me because Eli has no desire whatsoever to be on a schedule, and he started teething at 10 weeks (those teeth are taking their sweet time coming in, though. In the mean time, I have a super drooler who chews on EVERYTHING and gets otherwise inexplicably cranky.) Cherie was a huge help, helping us make bottles, unloading the dishwasher, and holding Cranky Baby so Mama could take a shower. Don't think I don't shower when they aren't here. Its just harder to find time to wash your hair when you have 3 kids to take care of instead of just 1 cranky baby. I love having them, though. Our family feels whole when they're here. Good days and bad days, I love them and love them in my life.

I really enjoy serving in children's ministry at our church, so I was thrilled when they announced last spring that we'd finally be having a VBS. Our church has something like 2000 members and regular attenders. Maybe more. I don't know. Anyway, its a HUGE church. VBS needed to happen. I signed up to teach Owen's class. I will not be signing up for the younger kids again next year. I had about 12 kids every day and 10 were boys. 10 6 year old boys in a room was draining to say the least. VBS also brought a new milestone for Eli and me - separation anxiety. No, not for Eli. He was an angel for the sweet ladies in the nursery. It was all Mommy. I had never been away from him for more than an hour (not counting when he was in the NICU at the hospital...) and it was HARD. Its still hard. I just miss him. But he does great in the nursery at church (he went again during a meeting and has been a few Sunday mornings since Sunday school started back up in August.) Overall, though, the kids and I really enjoyed the experience.

The week after VBS brought torture to our house in the form of lice. Cherie has battled lice for the past 2 years, through no fault of her own. The weekend after VBS, they spent a weekend at their mom's house. She came back with lice. It took me 5 days of pure misery to finally end their reign of terror on sweet girl's head. I wanted to shave her head so bad, no joke.

The last Friday of the month, we were given a gignormous blessing. An amazing photographer wanted to use the talent God blessed her with to bless a family, and she offered to let us be that family. So we had a wonderful session with JME Portraits The resulting pictures literally made me cry they're so beautiful. She's just really fantastically talented, and we have been and continue to be overwhelmingly blessed by her gift.

I love being a stay at home mom. I never ever thought I would. I always wanted a job, and I felt like if I didn't work, I would be one of those women who have nothing to talk about but their kids which is kind of annoying. I needed to work to have something to define myself, as if "I'm a wife and mom" was insufficient. God has shown me that this is what He planned for me. I never got a career. I never found a job that I could grow in and was proud of and felt like that was my calling, until now. I love watching Eli grow and change. I love making sure Hubs has clean underwear and work clothes. I don't really love cooking, but I love making sure everyone's eaten. I never got a career because I was meant to be a Mommy. What an overwhelming blessing. Financially, it is HARD. I wasn't making much before, but we're for sure missing that little bit. Fortunately, we're prayerful and God is getting us through (through the kindness and assistance of others.) But man. To spend every day with this face?

GLORIOUS.

He's so fun these days. He laughs and smiles and babbles. He wants to be sitting up all the time, looking around and taking it all in. He's so curious! He loves to play, usually with his feet. He's perfectly healthy, and for the most part, an incredibly good baby. Now if only he would sleep through the night again... He was doing a good job on that for a while. He'd take his last bottle between midnight at 1 am and be down for the count by 1:30. He'd sleep until sometime between 7:30 and 8:30. It was fantastic! He decided he's over that now. Mommy would like to see that return. I've been good about taking his monthly pictures. Sure, they're not always right on the 20th every month, but I get 'em within a few days. Here they are!

2 months

3 months

4 months

My little baby is 4 months old, weighs about 17 pounds, and is about 26 inches long. So really, he's not so little of a baby. He never did get the hang of (or maybe inclination to? I'll never know which.) nursing so I pumped. For 4 months, I pumped. The week before he hit 4 months, the factory was barely even limping along. It took me 3 days to pump the 3 ounces he drank as his last breast milk bottle, on his 4 month birthday. Its been a very emotional journey, breast milk. I've mostly made my peace with never getting that amazing bonding time of nursing and mourned my desire for him to be exclusively breast fed. At the end of the day, I did my best and he had breast milk for 4 months. He got as much benefit as I could give him, and I'm proud of myself for that. I don't miss pumping, and making formula bottles is a ton easier than making breast milk bottles, so at least there's something positive about losing my milk. Plus it means the saga is over.

Every single day, I thank God that I get to be his mommy. Seriously. Being a mom is nothing like I expected, and the greatest thing ever. I mean, people talk about trusting your instincts, "he's your baby, you'll know what's best" and until you're in it, you kind of think they're full of it. But then the strangest thing happens... you have a child and you just KNOW him. I never ever feel like I'm a great mom (thankfully, my amazing husband tells me almost daily that 1. He loves me. 2. I am an awesome wife and mother. and 3. He is grateful for me. I'm so blessed to be his wife.) and yet I feel like I can care for Eli better than anybody else (including Hubs, but in his defense, its because he doesn't spend nearly as much time with Eli so he doesn't know his quirks as well.) I've learned the way he acts when he's hungry, when he's sleepy, when he's uncomfortable, when he's happy, when his tummy hurts, etc. I know that when he cries in the car its not because he needs anything, its just because he hates when we stop (the boy can't stand red lights or the drive thru at Sonic.). I can predict how he'll react to just about anything. Its amazing! I'm sure this is normal for moms, but its all still new to me, so every day brings a mind-blowing realization about motherhood.

There's a million other things I want to write about, but I'm tired and Eli's been asleep for a while (maybe he'll sleep on through until morning... he did get pretty tired out taking his 1st bath in his big boy duckie tub tonight...) so I'm gonna follow his lead.

So. Stinking. Blessed.

trucking along

2011-05-31T22:30:00.006-05:00

I'm starting to get more settled into the mommy lifestyle. My laundry doesn't get backed up like it did when I was pregnant. The dishes are almost always done. The boxes are finally getting unpacked and we actually have pictures hanging on the walls. We've lived here for 6 months.

Eli is growing so fast. We had him weighed on his 5 week birthday and he's up to 11 pounds 6 ounces. He also grew about an inch in 3 weeks. My brother in law is on the sports medicine faculty at a university in West Texas and he was incredibly impressed with his muscle tone and reflexes this weekend. He holds his head up and has a really strong back. Sometimes when he's hanging out with Daddy, he tries to roll. Slow down, baby! Slow down!! We're going to take pictures of him every month next to a stuffed giraffe to show how much he's growing. I don't particularly like the idea of making onesies for every month with the number and a friend did the stuffed animal gauge with both of her kids so I took the idea.

We took him on his 1st trip this weekend. Sheldon's cousin Karen got married down in Galveston. He was so good and was a big hit. He was lookin' pretty fancy afterall...

One of the groom's relatives fell head over heels in love with him. Seriously. He was walking around all night asking people if they'd met Eli yet. Incredibly flattering and yet if it wasn't a family wedding, I'd be creeped out.

One more month to get used to having 1 full time child before I have 3... I don't know if I'm scared or not. I think it'll depend on how much we're all sleeping...

4 weeks?!

2011-05-19T00:51:00.003-05:00

I don't ever want Eli to grow up. I don't ever want a toddler, or an elementary school kid, or (ugh) a teenager. I want to keep my snuggly ball of chubs forever.

He's an amazing baby. He cries when he's hungry and occasionally when he just feels lonely, but mostly just when he's hungry. Thank GOD. He's a good sleeper, almost always sleeping 2-4 hours in a stretch (this is great for naps!) As he gets older, though, he has 2 or 3 times in a 24 hour period where he stays awake for the 2-3 hours between feedings. I'm learning to cherish these times (except when they fall in the midnight to 3am window.) and spend time talking to him, snuggling him, and just watching him wiggle and look at stuff. I'm still in awe that this person grew inside of me, that God chose me to be his mother, and that I'm not the baby sitter. I've struggled with that a lot. There are a lot of kids in my life that I have and currently love so deeply. But they're always someone else's kids. And then there's the stepmom struggle. In so many ways, they're my children. But we are a part time family, because we share them. So now I keep somehow expecting Eli to be someone else's, too. He's developing the Mommy attachment, and it makes it even more real. When the sound of my voice or my touch are all he needs to calm down... there aren't words. Those are the moments that people are talking about when they say that motherhood is the most amazing experience ever.

The biggest struggle we've had has been with breast feeding. I was mentally prepared for him to be a bottle baby in case (for one of a number of reasons) my milk didn't come in. I never imagined the problem would be that he doesn't want to latch. He's capable of doing it, and he nurses every so often, but more often than not, he refuses. So I spend a lot of time with my best friend, the pump. Its so important to me that he has breast milk (although it only makes up about half of his diet... I can only do so much...) so I'm doing what I have to do to give him that benefit. Its kind of heartbreaking because that was the only thing I really desperately wanted for him. Oh what a blessing that special time with him would've been... It's not too late, and we're still trying (like I said, he nurses when he's in the mood...) but I know he won't ever be an exclusively breastfed baby. At least he's healthy!

I hate that these 4 weeks have gone by so fast. I have no concept of what day it is, really. My life right now is a timeless cycle of naps, feedings, and laundry. Eli doesn't have days and nights so we don't really have them either. I know that will change in the next few weeks as he starts to sleep longer (like the other night when he slept for 4 hours during the night between feedings!!) and we will work hard to make sure those longer sleeps are when it's dark outside. But in the mean time, the days all run together and it has just whooshed by. He's already getting so big, and changed so much from the little baby I brought home from the hospital. I just want to freeze him!!

As I've entered this new role of mommy, I have really come to appreciate my friends, especially the other mommies. I have these women in my life who have encouraged me, prayed for me, given me advice, and helped me feel normal and totally not crazy when I felt like I was losing my mind and failing at everything. It can get extremely lonely when you're tired, in pain, and alone with a new baby and not really sure what you're doing. Its REALLY easy to lose it. I am blessed beyond belief to have these women in my life to help me through it. It is getting better, it is getting easier, and I'm a bit more with it. I wouldn't be if I didn't have them (and an amazing husband who is very willing to be the more sleep deprived of the 2 so that I can take some pain medicine and a longer nap.). When we were kids, my brother HATED the idea of us having mutual friends. There was a family with a son and daughter our ages that we were friends with. I can remember him pitching a fit when I'd be over there playing with the daughter if he was already there to play with the son. Oh how the times have changed! His wife is one of my best friends, and most of my friends here were her friends first. She has graciously shared them with me, and my life is infinitely better for it.

Introducing... Eli!

2011-04-26T20:00:00.007-05:00

(I started this yesterday... you'll get the point)

Today is April 25th. For months we have been planning on today being Eli's birthday. On Monday the 18th, we were still planning on today being his birthday. God laughed at us. He laughed right in our silly human faces.

*This is the story of my labor and Eli's birth. It gets a little TMI, so be prepared.*

At 2pm on the 18th, we went for our 36 week check up at the high risk OB. My cervix was totally closed, and I wasn't having contractions. We left content that we were still on pace to have check ups with my regular OB on Wednesday and Friday, then be admitted on Easter to induce. Monday the 18th was a full moon. And I'm now a believer. Shortly after midnight, my hips started killing me. It felt like charley horses in my hip flexors. No contractions, so I just wrote it off as my hips spreading and resigned myself to the pain. The pain got worse throughout the day on Tuesday. I could barely walk it was hurting so much. I was determined to not have to be back in the hospital on bed rest, so I wouldn't let Sheldon call the doctor. My blood pressures were still great, and I didn't have any of the other symptoms my doctor told me I had to come in with. In the late afternoon, I started having a few random contractions. The closest they got was about 30 minute apart in the 6 o clock hour. I noticed a little bit of a pink tint to the mucus I had. Mucus in general I wasn't concerned about, because I know your mucus plug regenerates and can be shedding/regenerating for weeks and have nothing to do with labor. The pain was getting worse, so around 6:45 I laid down to take a nap. At 7:15, I got up to use the restroom and saw blood in the toilet. We decided it was time to go to the hospital. I got in the tub for a warm soak while Sheldon got our bags together. And the contractions started to come every 10-15 minutes. I was pretty sure that Thundercats were, in fact, GOOOOOOOOOOOO! at that point.

We got to the hospital at about 8:30 and headed up to L&D. At 8:45 the nurse checked me and to our complete and utter shock said, "You're gonna be a mama soon! You're at about 4 and a half!" WHAT!! *Cue excitement* "Let's get you checked in and get anesthesia up here for your epidural!" (best news EVER.) My sister in law arrived around 9:30, also excited out of her mind. The doctor (who was not my regular doctor, but the chief of obstetrics for the hospital and we had already decided we didn't absolutely need my doctor to be the one who delivered the baby) came in to rupture my sac. Well, it had already ruptured, and after he informed us of that, he also said, "Hey, your baby has hair!" It puts you at ease when you have a casual yet professional doctor. I like it. (In hindsight, knowing that my water was already broken makes us believe that the afore mentioned blood was in fact, my bloody show.) A little after 10, I was checked again (and I was already at 8!!) and got my epidural. Katy is in awe of me for all of this. I did not scream when during contractions (which hurt REALLY EFFING BAD, in case you were wondering.). I just closed my eyes and tried to breath through them, crying with the ones that were really bad. I'm shocked I didn't use a single profane word. That's just not like me. I loves me some F bombs and "holy shits" when something hurts. I don't know why I was so calm throughout it all. I think I was still sort of in shock that I was actually having a baby. So epidural. AMAZING. I could still feel my legs, I just couldn't feel any pain. I felt a little pressure when I was having contractions, and so I was in a great mood! I started to stall, so they gave me some pitocin to try and get me the last cm or so. It worked! Some time between 12:30 and 1, it was time to push! It was impossible to be scared at that point. I had Sheldon on 1 side, Katy on the other, and probably the greatest L&D nurse ever, all of them encouraging me and keeping me calm. Best labor experience ever, probably. I pushed for an hour and his head just was not moving past the pubic bone. The doctor came back in and said it was time to throw in the towel and do a C-section. The plan since the 1st trimester had been to let me try to delivery vaginally but knowing that I'd most likely have a C. I've been prepared to have a C since I was 19 and was totally cool with it. Basically, because I'm diabetic, doctors won't let me (or any diabetic mommy for that matter) push as long as a non-diabetic mommy because it stresses the baby. So Sheldon suited up and anesthesia started getting me ready for the big show.

The only thing that sucked about this part was that I was COLD. I was so cold I was shaking. It was AWFUL. The anesthesiologist was amazing and trying so hard to warm me up. Bless him! Sheldon was by my side while they did the surgery (which is surreal... you're awake, and you just feel like someone is pressing on you, but that's all you can feel.) The first thing the doctor said when he pulled Eli out (at 2:46am) was, "Look at those big cheeks!" And Sheldon and I both started to cry. I'm totally tearing up again thinking about it. Then you wait for what feels like minutes (but is really just like 30 seconds max) to hear that cry. And then there it was. I looked at Sheldon and said, "He sounds like Tilly!" Weird the things you think about when you hear your child's 1st cry... I asked how big he was (because the ultrasound on Monday had estimated him at 7 and a half pounds) and someone replied, "HUGE! He's 8 pounds 9 ounces! 21 inches long." Sheldon and I both said, "HOLY CRAP!!!" They wrapped him up and handed him to Sheldon, instructed him to show me and let me kiss him. Oh my God he was so beautiful!

Then Sheldon took Eli with the nurses to the nursery to get cleaned up and set up for success, I got stapled up, and headed to recovery. When I got there, the only things I could feel were my head and my left arm. I felt like I was in the video for "One" by Metallica. Not a cool feeling AT ALL. While I was in recovery, I got the amazing surprise of Bunny and Fox! They had driven down from Dallas when I told them I was in labor. Love them. I finally made it back to my room between some time around 6. I was DESPERATE to get my baby. I kept asking for him, but they were bathing him and making sure he was warm. I finally got him around 7 and oh my heart just stopped. This beautiful little boy came out of me?! He's mine?! Its the craziest awesome feeling ever. My doctor came by for rounds a little after 8. He was like, "You have a baby!! And he's HUGE!!" Seriously, no one saw me going into labor, and we didn't expect him to be so big. But he's amazing and we're so blessed.

Elijah Ross Green April 20, 2011 2:46am

We were in the hospital until Saturday, and there's a lot that went on during that time, but that'll have to wait for another post. I need to go snuggle my son now.

Oh the uterus.

2011-04-12T20:57:00.008-05:00

My life is run by the uterus. Seriously. Usually its mine, but apparently, other uterus also have a huge impact on my life. Oh, and I was wrong. Apparently, I can handle another lemon. I mean, I bawled like a crazy person all day, but we got through and it's okay.

Now, you may or may not be aware that I am OBSESSED with my cats. Seriously. They have been my children for almost 6 years now. I love them like my children and yea. Well, Matilda has been acting funny for a few days, like she didn't feel good. This morning, she started leaking clear fluid and I knew something was seriously wrong. We do not have any extra money right now, so I was double upset: my heart was breaking watching my baby suffer and feeling very helpless because I couldn't really do anything about it. Thankfully, a call to the vet and a very understanding office manager ended with my mom bringing us to the vet at 2.

She was purring and demanding petting from everyone who came near her, regardless of the grumpy look on her face. Turns out she was dehydrated and had pyometra, which is a severe uterine infection. She had emergency surgery this evening, and should be just fine! We caught it super early and thank God for that! From what I've read, this condition is life-threatening. My poor baby!

In happier news, I'm 35 weeks along and Eli's huge. They estimated him at 6lbs 15oz on Monday. My ribcage could've told you that! He continues to get all A's on his tests at the OB's office. He's a big, healthy nugget! He was moving around like crazy while I was hooked up to the fetal monitors, and my doctor goes, "Wow! what a happy baby!" We see the high risk OB on Monday and then my regular OB on Wednesday. They both agree that they want him induced before he hits 9 pounds, so we're on pace to be admitted on Easter Sunday and he'll be born the following morning.

Here's some of our amazing family pictures we had done on the 2nd. Love them and can't wait for the 5th face to be in the next set!!

Year 2.

2011-04-04T21:45:00.003-05:00

Saturday was kind of a big deal for Team Green. We had the kids with us for the first time since new year's, Saturday morning was my last shift ever at my job, and it was also our 1st wedding anniversary. Let's break this down.

Loved having the kids. Friday night they had Daddy Date Night because I was at bunco. (I love my bunco group soooo much. Its something I look forward to every month. These women are so much fun and have really been rays of sunshine in the dark times of the past year.) Whenever Daddy's in charge, the kids are always up soooo late. This is more of an issue for Owen than Cherie, but we kinda saw it coming. Saturday am, we were up at 6:45. Owen got a hair cut and Cherie got braids. They were fed, sunscreened, and lookin' snappy in their uniforms (Cherie plays softball and Owen plays t-ball) and off they went with Daddy for their games. O missed pictures because Mama can only move so fast lately, and Daddy decided to shower and shave instead of help get them dressed. Live and learn. They picked me up from work, we had some lunch, and then had some down time. O took a 3+ hour nap.

Cherie had a luxurious bath. I'm serious. She asked for a mud mask (I created a monster with that one!) and was in there for a good hour. (Don't worry. I made her change the water after she washed the mask off.) Sheldon and I were cracking up in the living room listening to her singing and chatting to herself in there. When she got out of the bath, Daddy decided to take a nap so the girls ran some errands. We went to Target for an anniversary gift and to my parents' house to pick up the top of our wedding cake. When we got home, we woke the guys up, everyone got changed, and we headed to Old Katy to have family pictures taken! I can't wait to see them. I really think they're going to be so beautiful. We continued our whirlwind of a day with dinner at Chuy's. Oh Boom Boom Sauce... how we love thee! Owen started to melt down when we got home because Little Guy was so tired! Sunday morning was church as usual, then we had lunch and some playtime at my brother's house. We wrapped up the weekend with the totally un-fun task of having the kids try on their clothes to purge the stuff they've outgrown. I really wanted it done before Eli's here in the event they needed a lot of new things. I wanted that done before I'm on house arrest or just too tired to go shopping. I was pleasantly surprised that most things still fit. Tax free weekend, however, we'll be doing some replacing.

The downer of the weekend: Owen's behavior. I understand that he's almost 6 and am fully aware that when his behavior was at its worst he was usually pretty tired. That does not make it acceptable for him to keep doing the same things over and over again. We had some problems with him lying, but he's improving there. The biggest problem was him following instructions and being disrespectful. It is NEVER acceptable for a child to yell back at an adult. Our waiter accidentally tried to give him Cherie's drink at dinner Saturday and Owen immediately YELLED at him that he was wrong. I was so embarrassed. When he was trying on his clothes, Sheldon said something to him and he yelled his disagreement in Sheldon's face. NOT ACCEPTABLE. He also just had a really hard time following instructions. It wasn't a great decision on Sheldon's part to decide that he wants to have Owen trying on clothes in the living room so that he can watch a movie while Owen's changing. That's a Daddy Fail. But the distraction was just too great for a 5 year old to handle, and he could not stay focused on what he was doing to save his life, no matter how many times he was told. He also just doesn't pay attention to what he's doing. I've put my shirts on backwards and/or inside out before. It happens. But after the 2nd time he put something on backwards and/or inside out and I told him to pay attention and check for the tags or a picture when getting dressed, that should've sufficed for the day. By the (I'm not exaggerating) 8th time he did it, my patience was gone and time out happened so he could focus on something. He dresses himself every day and has been dressing himself for as long as I've been around. This is not usually a problem. It frustrated the crap out of me that I told him 4 or 5 times to pay attention to what he's doing and then the next thing he'd put on, he'd do backwards because he just wasn't paying attention to what he was doing (yes, we were still in the living room. No the tv wasn't on.) He had some other incidents with being told to do or not do something more than once and then doing it anyway. He's not misbehaving to the extent he was before, but when its the same thing over and over... I'm trying so hard to expect less from them, because they're kids and its okay. But there are still things that will just get me every time. Lying, for instance. CAN'T STAND IT. Cherie got busted in a lie (she told me Saturday morning, "Daddy said I could...". I told him about it that night, after they were in bed - obviously it was such a big deal! - and he said he never said it. So Sunday morning, he mentioned it to her. She goes, "Oh, no, what I said was..." and I cut her off because no way was I letting her start another lie and basically call me a liar. We weren't even mad! Sheldon was like, "Baby, you need to remember that Mama and I tell each other everything. You can't tell one of us that the other said something when we didn't. We always find out. Now eat your cereal." It wasn't a big deal at all, but she was so upset about being busted she started to cry. She got in trouble 3 times while she was here and cried every time. I asked her if she cries every time she gets in trouble, and she said no, just at our house. I don't have a clue why.) Anyway, I'm trying to be more flexible with them, to be more patient (which is a big deal for me, because I am tired and cranky these days and very few people get patience from me!), to encourage them, and give more hugs and snuggles. We're getting there. Even with the discipline issues, they were happy to be here. It broke my heart when I was snuggling with Owen on the couch before we left to take them back to her house and he just kept telling me he didn't want to leave. I can't wait until we have primary custody...

I'm done working. DONE. I haven't officially turned in my notice. I'm currently technically on maternity leave. Its so sad that I couldn't just quit before I left because I knew there would be some bad treatment. I fully believe that working there made my pregnancy harder. I think the needless excessive stress they placed on my position exacerbated all the negative symptoms I've been dealing with. They weren't super understanding about things when I was in the hospital (all 3 times while I was working), and I'm having a bit of trouble with the transition. My doctor mentioned last week that he thinks there's a good chance Eli's going to come early on his own (and by early, I mean before his induction date of April 25th). We were talking about it today and Sheldon said (and I think he's totally right) that if I was still working there, I'd be in labor by the beginning of next week (which puts me at 35 weeks and that's really not great.) I've been working there for a year and a half, and I've invested a lot into the job, making it more efficient and developing my own procedures. Because of that, I'm having a hard time transitioning and not feeling responsible for it. I keep feeling like I'm supposed to be there! I really hope I get over that soon...

And then the big one: our anniversary. I can't believe we've only been married for a year. We haven't even been together for 2 years, and yet I feel like he's always been there. Sheldon was awesome. He was bouncing around like an excited little kid Friday night because he wanted to give me presents so bad. At midnight I got a dozen roses and a card that was so perfect and obviously made me cry. At around 2am, he took amazing care of me while I puked up everything I'd eaten Friday night (yea, not going to miss that in a few weeks when I'm not pregnant anymore) and then ended up with low blood sugar. When we got the kids up, he sent them in with balloons and candy for me. He's so sweet. Seriously. Being with him is the best thing. We've been through so much this year, lows like the early summer miscarriage and the custody battle to highs like getting ready for Eli. Everything feels better with him. Hard times don't hurt as much and good times feel even better. He can make me so mad and so happy. And no matter what, I always feel so loved and cherished. Every day, we love each other more, flaws and all, and I feel so secure. I'm looking forward to growing old with him.

Eli continues to thrive. I continue to be in pain and have less and less energy. I've started to have random contractions. My father in law told me last night, "That bread's just about baked!" I'm 34 weeks now, so 2 or 3 more weeks, tops. We were blessed beyond belief at our showers so we have just about everything we need. This weekend, Sheldon's off so we'll do the last of the organizing and setting up of stuff. We'll take the gift cards we got and go get the last things we need (nipples, burp rags, a breast pump, and a crib mattress. Not much!) Then it's just waiting for him to be cooked enough! I can't wait. I'm already so in love, and I think I'm going to explode when I finally get to hold and kiss him.

If I see one more lemon...

2011-03-19T18:25:00.005-05:00

I'm not sure what's been worse about this pregnancy, the feeling sick all the time or the lemons that life has been incessantly pelting us with. I get that there's always going to be trials in life, but its just overwhelming when you aren't quite done with one battle and another one starts. Its basically a never ending list of bad days that have really tainted my pregnancy with a ton of terrible memories. I turn 30 this fall, and honestly? I'm pretty ready to say "good riddance!" to my 20's.

The custody battle with the kids hasn't ended quietly (she tried to disregard the orders again the 1st night we got a visit and our amazing lawyer had to put the fear of God into her.). I would be SHOCKED if she didn't keep pulling her crazy antics, since she's been pulling them with increasing malice and crazy as long as Sheldon and I have been together, but at least we've seen their beautiful faces again, and that was so great for our souls.

The most recent lemons we've been pelted with have been materialistic and financial. We currently don't have any cars. We've been getting by with just one for over a month since Sheldon's died, but then mine died, too, when we were 15 minutes away from the kids' school. We were going to surprise them with lunch and see them for the 1st time in 2 months. Needless to say, that sucked. My parents have been extremely graciously letting Sheldon drive my mom's Explorer and giving me rides to work. Then yesterday, my mom's Explorer crapped out, too. Tonight, he took his mom's car to work and hopefully, my mom's car will be fixed tomorrow and my dad can get back to work fixing Sheldon's. On top of that, we're waiting on tax money (which will be decreased thanks to my stupid student loans) to purchase a mini van. With about 5 weeks left, we're getting down to the wire and I'm getting pretty nervous about the situation. But God has never let us down before, so we have no reason NOT to trust His provision at this point.

Speaking of 5 weeks to go... I have a big baby growin' in my ever expanding belly! At30 weeks exactly, he was estimated at 3lbs 9oz in his ultrasound. They didn't estimate it on Wednesday (31w2d) at our weekly scan because they only do it every other week. But my doctor is pleased as punch with the way everything's going. I've gained 4 pounds total now (which I'm amazed at, especially considering how huge I'm feeling), my blood pressure is on the high side of normal, but he wasn't concerned (which I was also pretty amazed about), and everyone keeps gushing about how perfect Eli is. I mean everyone. The ultrasound tech, the nurse, my OB, etc. Its the best feeling ever. Thursday (31w3d), I went to see the high risk OB. I was a little bit nervous about it (and Sheldon went in with his feathers already ruffled) because we'd heard horror stories about how mean they get, how they were going to lecture me about my blood sugars (which aren't glorious these days...), tell me I wasn't doing things right, etc. It was a pleasant surprise. Yes, he told me my a1c and blood sugars are too high, but he just said it once and moved on, content that I'm seeing my endocrinologist and that we're working on it. He did an extensive ultrasound and did estimate the weight. We were expecting somewhere around 4 and a half pounds. Imagine our surprise when he said, "5lbs 2oz." BIG BOY!!! Thankfully, that's not excessively large, just puts him in the 80th percentile. He also used the word perfect to describe Eli, which keeps this mommy calm. He wants to check me again at 36 weeks (especially since my OB is planning on a 37 week induction) so he can consult on the healthiest delivery options for the baby. He said that if it looks like Eli's going to be 9lbs or more, he's advising for a c-section. He told us that babies over 9lbs run a higher risk of shoulder dislocation, so C's are easiest on big babies. Honestly? I don't care either way. I never have. When I was 19 and first diagnosed with diabetes, I started having doctors tell me I'd be delivering via C-section if I was able to have children (so really, be pregnant much less having a perfect baby is apparently miraculous). My mom had C's with my brother and me, and that also put me at a higher likelihood for having one. I don't have, and never have had, a romantic vision of vaginal delivery. I've never wanted a natural, pain-med-free delivery, so that didn't give me some evil idea about c-sections being the easy way out, against the way God intended babies to be born. I thank God for medical developments! I want to give birth the way that's going to put the least amount of stress on me and my baby. So my birth plan is to go in, have the OB's tell me which way they think is best and why (my doctor is AMAZING at giving us his reasons for stuff, which we have very much appreciated) and go from there. No stubborn clinging to a romanticized vision that I've turned into my birth plan. Nope. I'm gonna cry and bleed and end up with a beautiful baby with massive cheeks in my arms either way.

My last day at work will be April 1st, and I will spend the 3 weeks between then and Eli's arrival nesting like a fiend. Lately, every time I've woken up with the nesting urge, I have to work and come home just drained. I'm there for 3 hours and feel wasted afterwards. Its a combination of not having a tremendous amount of energy as it is and the raging stupidity and ridiculousness I deal with there just draining me. I can't WAIT.

sweet relief

2011-03-08T22:25:00.002-06:00

Ahhhh... it feels really good.

My blood pressure has been on the rise a bit here lately. Not high enough to be pre-eclampsia, but high enough to raise eyebrows and make me afraid of bed rest. We've very obviously attributed these spikes to the stress we've been plagued with. But as of today, life is calming down and becoming so much more beautiful. Today, our custody battle ended. And it ended very much in our favor. The best part is that we get the kids back. We get to get things back to normal just in time to make them all crazy. But I'm over the moon elated and can't wait to hug and kiss their sweet faces.

I'm also about to eliminate the other needless stress in my life: quitting my job. I'm going to spend the last month of my pregnancy spending all my energy (and there's really not that much of it...) nesting and getting ready for my little bundle of cheeks. Oh, based on his ultrasounds yesterday, he has HUGE cheeks. I love it. I have chipmunk cheeks, my niece had 'em, he's one of us.

I'm really eager to settle into my new life, where my job is to care for my baby, care for the big kids when we're fortunate enough to be a family of 5, cook dinner, and wash clothes. I'm even getting a minivan to fully secure this role. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stay in this role, but I'm blessed to get it as long as I will.

God is good.

T-minus 8 weeks

2011-03-01T17:41:00.002-06:00

I have officially hit 29 weeks. That means I have been aware that I'm pregnant (and, yunno, throwing up) for 26 weeks. When you say it in weeks, it doesn't seem that long. When you say "for 6 months", it sounds longer. When you live it, it feels like infinity.

I'm excited. I'm starting to get nervous about a few things, mostly nursing and the changes it will bring to our time with the big kids (who we are still desperately missing, but hopeful that after court next week, will be getting back to some semblance of normalcy with.) Emotionally, I'm so ready. I don't really sleep more than 2 or 3 hours at a time now, so the sleep deprivation isn't that scary. One of the perks of being a [step]mommy and not just a new-mommy-in-waiting is that I have been able to reflect on my experiences with them, which helps me prepare for the challenges ahead. I am sad when I think about all the things I wish I'd done differently so far, and grateful that God gives us opportunities every day to be better, to love better. The way that those 2 kids have changed my heart has shown me so fully that God called me to motherhood, and I'm humbled. Whenever I get frustrated with them, He inevitably reminds me (not instantly, but eventually... when I'm ready to hear) what a huge privilege He's given me, trusting me with these people that ultimately belong to Him. That should be terrifying, but somehow it's not. It gives me perspective to see how I need to shape and change my own walk, how I can live my life more completely for Him, by His standards and teachings, to better model it for them. We are so deliberate about modelling marriage for them, showing them how a couple is meant to love. They see us argue, and they always see us make up. We strive to show them our imperfections and are intentional about telling them that parents aren't perfect, that we make mistakes, but that we try our best and that the only perfect person is Jesus. This is true for every type of relationship they will have in life. Relationships are not the only thing we are commanded to model for our children, so I have lots of opportunities for growth! As much as I'm excited to cuddle and kiss Eli, I'm also excited to teach him to pray, to apologize when he's wrong, and to have a heart that longs for Jesus. The day Cherie was baptized, I was crying. To watch this little person that I love so much declare her love for our Lord and her desire to live for His glory was huge! I can't wait for the day I see my sons do the same, and I know I will be just as teary and joyful.

That really wasn't where I was planning on going with this entry. I was planning on gushing about how we're pre-registered at the hospital, that Eli's healthy and great, and how the plan right now is to be admitted on Easter Sunday to get things started and give birth on Monday, April 25th. I want to nest, and thankfully my heartburn has been obliging and letting me do tons of laundry and organize things to start situating Eli's stuff. But I got distracted with by the most important and rewarding aspect of motherhood. I mean, the simplest moments of joy are when they smile at you, when they hug and/or kiss you, hearing them laugh, etc. But the eternal joy is being a part of showing your children the most important thing in life: God. That's the mission field God has called me to, and I am a very willing worker.

So, yea. We'll celebrate the resurrection of our King, and then we'll celebrate the birth of our precious gift from Him. Sounds like a pretty great way to end the month of April, doesn't it?

3rd trimester - bazinga!

2011-02-21T20:23:00.005-06:00

Things are still not great with the situation with the big kids. We still haven't seen or spoken to them since the 1st week of January. When we got custody back, his ex-wife hid them from us. She went so far as to claim they had an appointment and pull them out of school to keep us from having lunch with them. God will prevail, but in the mean time, continued prayers are appreciated.

Now for the extreme joy in our lives... our new little miracle. Last week, I started having bio-physical fetal surveillance. This is conducted primarily through ultrasound. There's 8 things they're checking, including to estimate his weight (2lbs. 4oz.!!), check his heart rate (148 bpm), his movements, my fluid level, etc. He scored a perfect 8/8 last week. Unfortunately, my blood sugars have been a little wonky and my blood pressure was slightly elevated, so he scheduled me to come back this week for another round. My blood pressure was perfect today (which I told him it would be. Last week, the nurse was talking to me and arguing about my due date while she was taking it. Obviously that's going to make it rise.), I actually have gained weight (3 whole pounds... whoa.), and Baby Boy scored another perfect 8/8 on his BPFP. His weight is now up to 2 lbs 10 oz, his heart rate was 143, and he officially loves the ultrasounds as much as we do now. Up until 20 weeks, he was not the most cooperative baby. But now... oh what a change! The tech was doing his scan today and she got really excited because the images were so clear. She asked us if we were planning to have the 3D/4D scan done. We told her we weren't(mostly because I think they tend to look really creepy, and plus they're expensive.), and she goes, "Oh I just can't resist!" and flipped to the 4D view. OMG. He's beautiful. He was making squishy faces, but it's still very obvious that he looks like his daddy.

That's his elbow next to his cheek, by the way. He was lounging with his arm like that last week, too. I don't blame him... I lay like that, too. In 9 weeks, I will be able to kiss that squishy face. I'm PUMPED. In the mean time, I'm seeing the ob weekly. We changed everything on my insulin pump at my endocrinologist's office today. "You're in the 3rd trimester. Insulin use doubles or triples during this. We just have to be aggressive."

I feel like I've been pregnant forever. I wonder if it'll be weird when it's finally over, when I can lift things again, when my belly doesn't shake because the occupant is moving, when I'm not having a preggo party anymore. Is that part of why some women get post partum depression so severely? Is it like women who get really depressed after their wedding because they'd been so obsessed and engrossed with the planning and in defining themselves as "brides-to-be". I hope not. I'll find out in 2months. It's gonna flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy by, I just know it.

Seriously, 2011?

2011-01-27T13:10:00.002-06:00

I'm pinning my hopes on the 2nd half of 2011 as being great for Team Green.

So, it took me about 2 and a half weeks to stop being sick. That SUCKED. In the mean time, we've had a tremendous amount of Baby Mama Drama that's landed us in court with more court in the future. The worst part is far and away that she has kept the kids from us since January 2nd, and we will not see them again until maybe dinner on February 10th. Its excruciating to not see them or even be able to talk to them. We feel very confident that God has a plan in all this, and our hopes are that 1. the kids will not be scarred by her actions (we already know she's hurting them, but the extent is what we worry about.) 2. that her actions will backfire on her and 3. hope of hopes, that we would be granted primary custody of them. We absolutely want them to have time with her, to always have a relationship with her, because it is obviously in their best interest to have that with both of their parents, contrary to her belief. We trust God that the truth will prevail, and her lies will be exposed. This is not a battle we would've chosen to get into 3 months before I'm supposed to give birth, but it's not about our time or our plans, now is it? Plus we both know that the best blessings and God's most perfect growth come from the times of suffering. So we're enduring, praying, and appreciative of the prayers and support of our loved ones.

In happy news, Eli is perfect. He kicks ALL. THE. TIME. We talk to him and he acknowledges us with kicks. He kicks so hard Sheldon can easily feel it by just laying his hand on my belly. Sometimes he kicks so hard that my body sways a bit. Its amazing to me how strong he is! My most favorite is the battle between Lucie and Eli. She's one of those cats who loves to snuggle and REALLY loves her mommy. I've known from Day 1 there would be competition between the baby and her for my attention. I didn't realize Eli would be getting in on the action from the womb... When Lucie is laying in my lap, especially up against him, he kicks her. Last night, he was kicking her so hard I know she could feel it. They aren't hard enough for her to be phased yet, though, so I just laughed and laughed. My little guy is spunky! I had my 24 week check up yesterday, and while we frankly discussed a lot of very scary potential realities, I couldn't be happier. From what I understand, he's around 2/3 of his birth length, so his big focus now is for his lungs to form and for him to gain weight. He's getting close to a pound and a half in there, and should gain about 1/4 a pound every week from here on out. His heart rate was a solid 164, he kicked me 3 times while we were in the exam room (a great sign!), and my blood pressure is "beautiful". In my first trimester, there was some concern about my blood pressure, and I kept trying to tell them that it was totally because I was rushing out the door at work to make it to my appointments and that things were stressful at work. Now that things have calmed down at work (and the end of my time there is closer and closer... praise Jesus!) and I have more of a cushion between leaving the store and arriving at their office, my blood pressure is great. It was so great yesterday that my nurse said, "Perfect! You're taking your meds, aren't you?" Nope! That's just how I roll! My hemoglobin A1c is a little higher than I'd like, but still substatially lower than where it was back in August. My endocrinologist agreed that the week long spike in November when I was on steroids for my migraine combined with being sick for almost 3 weeks in January caused it to rise. It's still only a few tenths of a point above ideal, so no one is worried. Our big milestone this week is that if something crazy happened and he was born now (which there's really pretty much no chance of), he would (with intense medical care) probably survive. His premature birth survival rate goes up exponentially every week from now on. Its something I just haven't let myself think about the entire time. I've chosen to focus on the positive, believing that he would make it to 36 weeks and be born perfect and with tons of hair (that last part is because every boy dream I've had, he had a ton of dark hair like mine. We'll see!!). My next check up will be at 27 weeks, and I have some milestone labs scheduled. It also signals the beginning of "bio-physical fetal surveillance." That means ultrasounds every visit, "measuring" his weight on ultrasounds (that got quotes because its such an estimate.), listening to his heart beat for longer times, and potentially non-stress tests for me. They want to monitor my fluid level and make sure there are no signs of fetal distress. I have such a peace about the whole thing. I'm just like, "Yay! I get to watch my son move and grow all the time!" and not "OMG what if something's wrong?!" We also went over again why and when I'll be induced. The answer is sometime between April 18th and May 2nd, or between 36 and 38 weeks. Diabetes puts a whole new set of risks on a pregnancy, and so far we've dodged all of them, but I'm on the eve of my 3rd trimester, and there's a lot that we have yet to face. The reason he will definitely be born no later than 38 weeks is because there are a large number of risks that arise after that point, the biggest one being intrauterine demise. There are some risks with being a preemie, but they're much lower than the risks of leaving him in after 38 weeks. I mean, babies are technically considered term at 36 weeks anyway, so I'm not concerned. Even when he said, "intrauterine demise", I was unphased. I was too excited about getting to hold my baby earlier and being able to see the end of my puking (yea, I did it 5 times this morning and subsequently did not go to work.). Plus, as far as Eli is concerned, this pregnancy has been awesome, so it seems silly to start getting worried now. Another bit of awesome news? There's still a good chance I'll be able to have a vaginal birth. I mean, I've been mentally prepared for c-sections since I was 19. But I've had abdominal surgery and it SUCKS. If Eli can be born without surgery, I'm all for it.

We're so excited about the hospital I'll be delivering at. Before we were even pregnant, Sheldon and I both really wanted to have him at the new Methodist West Houston. They aren't even delivering there until valentine's day, so the timing is great for us. We went to take a peek last week and were so happy with the decision. We couldn't take a full tour of the L&D floor yet (which is fine) because it's still under construction, but we met with the director, and its great. We're going to have to take our classes at a different hospital, but that's not a big deal. Its just exciting!

So, yea. Our lives are pretty solidly kid-centered. And we love it.

I'm not joining the 2011 fan club yet...

2011-01-07T20:46:00.003-06:00

I made a huge, huge, huge mistake. I made a comment on a friend's blog that my #1 resolution for 2011 was to puke less. God did not think that was funny. At 11:45, right before 2011 started, the puking came like a tidal wave. I was too sick to fully count, but I'm estimating that I ended up puking around 30 times by 3am, when we were already in the emergency room. I am beyond grateful that God knew this near-death feeling was coming and Hubs was able to be home. He was out on a job but there was an engine problem on the barge so he got to come home. He arrive about 20 minutes after the mess was flying. It was generally an awful way to start the new year. I regret letting Cherie stay up to have midnight with me... instead of that special moment, she watched me get incredibly sick which terrified her. Owen thankfully slept through it. At the ER, I had 3 bags of IV and 2 hefty doses of nausea medication. We got home around 8:30 Saturday morning. The kids very sweetly let us sleep until 1:30.

We're not exactly sure what brought on that bought of stunning gastrointestinal pyrotechnics, but it paved the way for what is known as The Crud. I missed Monday and Tuesday at work, have had a Z Pack, and will start Tamiflu tomorrow. I hope to be able to stop coughing and "breathing" glue soon.

Thankfully, Eli has apparently been oblivious to it all. Cherie was really worried about him during all my toilet hugging, but I told her that he likes all the bouncing. His heart rate has been consistently in the upper 150's (when they checked it in the ER and then again today at my doctor's office.) He's about a foot long now, and quite the wiggler. I love the little thumps of him moving around! I was propped up on a bunch of pillows in bed the other day and Lucie came and laid across my belly. Eli was trying to kick her, which cracked me up (and then made me cough for 5 minutes). My doctor was beyond pleased by his last ultrasound images, going on and on about how great he looks. He's growing at the right pace, anatomy is proportional and looks as it should, etc. He's a healthy baby! When they weighed me today, I'd lost 3 pounds since my 18 week check up (I'm 21w4d now, was 18w2d then), which puts me back at 4 pounds under prepregnancy weight. My doctor isn't worried, because I was overweight to begin with. They want me to gain a max of 15 pounds during the entire pregnancy. Plus I'm sick and have thrown up a substantial amount lately. It stands to reason. And since Eli's growing on pace and is totally healthy, there's nothing to be worried about. Yay! (other preggos who gained a lot of weight, I am not bragging. I promise.)

I don't like to have my belly touched. Ever. Which is going to probably become an issue by my 3rd trimester. Basically, I've always been self conscious about the fleshiness of my belly, and then when I started doing insulin injections there which caused lots of bruising, and now I have my pump site there... its just not an area I'm comfortable being touched. There are now 2 exceptions, and they surprised me! I like it when Sheldon rubs my belly. Today at my check up, my doctor said, "Let's touch your belly." and started poking at it, measuring my uterus, etc. When he said, "the top of your uterus is right here *poke poke, grabs my hand to poke* which is exactly where it should be right now," I LIKED IT. So maybe it won't be as big of an issue in my 3rd trimester...

Speaking of my belly... I only really look pregnant in 1 sweater. Otherwise, I just look like the donuts call to me. I expected to feel a bit rounder by now. Subsequently, I'm not thinking I'm going to end up super huge. That's okay, but at the same time, it's a little disappointing because that's part of the fun of being pregnant.

I'm so in love with this kid... 15 or so weeks to go!!

Christmas and all that

2010-12-31T20:50:00.006-06:00

Sheldon and I are pretty sure we want to have another baby after this one (in a few years, obviously) and I fully intend to take everything I learned from this pregnancy and make my next pregnant holiday season A LOT better.

This was the game plan: Christmas Eve night with my in laws, Christmas morning in newlywed alonetime bliss, Christmas afternoon/evening with my family, big Christmas with the kids on the 28th. The general timeline went, for the most part, as planned. But it was not smooth and it was frequently not merry. Lesson learned.

Christmas Eve, we caught a break (the only one of the season) and Sheldon was sent out on a job that let him out early. He got home around 4:30, so we were actually on time (a tremendous feat for us... seriously.) and TOGETHER to his aunt and uncle's house for dinner and festivities. The thing about being 5 months pregnant is that by 8 or 9pm, if I've been up since 6am and doing stuff the entire day, my body starts to crap out. I get sore and it takes me a good minute to stand from comfy chairs. Other than the achy body, it was nice. Delicious tamales, family sing-a-long, and an amazing new camera from the parents.

(this is Sheldon's youngest brother rocking the NERF dart tag we got him. It was way cooler than we ever anticipated.)

The thing about Christmas day is that this year was the only year Sheldon and I would have together without kids. No Santa pressure, no early morning, etc. Just the 2 of us, being together and enjoying each other. Not that I don't love being a mom, its just couple time is so important and this Christmas was a lot of firsts for me. We'd been getting fired up for it for like a month. I'd gone and purchased the ingredients to make a big awesome breakfast for us. No alarm clocks. BLISS. Well, then the phone rang at 5am and Sheldon got called out for a job. The guy who was 1st up and supposed to go ignored his phone (and then lied to Sheldon about it later.) That amazing Christmas morning shattered. Cue the preggo hormones and an hour and a half of crying. My brother picked me up at 1:30 to go have dinner at our aunt's house. There were a lot of not nice comments made (which I obviously added to my "I'm already in a bad mood and having a bad day" bank). Sheldon finally made it home around 8, we got to talk to the kids, and passed out, just happy to finally be together. Not my best Christmas day. (we had our big breakfast the next morning.)

(watching my beautiful nephew Isaac go off on a candy cane was a classic Christmas moment.)

Fast forward to Monday. My lunch did not sit well. It resulted in a violent rejection from my stomach. And pretty much everything else that I tried to eat. Until Tuesday morning, while I was still unable to keep things in my stomach. I called in sick, drank a crapton of water, and embraced my anti-nausea meds. I felt shaky but still made it to pick up the kids at noon. We had lunch at Zaxby's (and they were awesomely still playing Christmas music!), then headed home for the gift bonanza. They started with their gifts from us. Then they moved on to Santa. Basically, they got spoiled out of their little minds. My parents and my brother and his family came over for dinner and there was more gift giving. Even Eli got some presents! It was a big awesome day and fully lived up to the hype of Christmas.

Spoiled. Rotten.

Next year, Sheldon will be turning in his vacation request for Christmas Eve and day in October. He will be there for all 48 hours of Eli's 1st Christmas. The 5 of us will be spending the weekend together, as a family. It might be the best Christmas of my entire life. 2011 is set up to be full of awesome things for the Green family, and to end it like that will be the stuff that dreams are made of.

Pink or Blue?!

2010-12-22T14:04:00.004-06:00

Its not just that I'm a bad blogger lately. We moved on December 1st and still don't have internet at home. Our modem came yesterday, so any day now, really. In the mean time...

We are really excited that Baby Green has a name, and it is no longer Promise (which was our nickname - We believed from the time we got engaged that God would bless us with a child together, that He promised that to us.). Well, we're 90% sure about this name anyway...

Because I don't like taking off from my part time job for appointments, and because my doctor only sees patients at the Katy office until noon on Wednesdays (they have 2 other offices in the Houston area he divides his time with), I am very good at getting the 11:30 slot, which is his last one. That means he, knowing I love them and that he's in no hurry, pretty much always does an ultrasound. At 16 weeks, I got reaaaaally excited about getting that peek. It was right around my birthday, and I have not enjoyed the anticipation of not knowing the gender of my little bonus passenger. So my doctor obliged and we took a peek. This child was having none of it. Literally. Squeezed the legs together, rolled over, and gave us a thumbs up. I told my sister that obviously the baby is already in love with Aunt Katy and her aggie ways. She agrees. My doctor told us 18 weeks would be easier to check, and we'd do a more thorough ultrasound. I got PUMPED. We arrived for our 18 week check up like it was Christmas morning. Seriously. I was hardly able to sit still all morning. When the nurse came in with the doppler, she told us he hadn't order the big gender scan. I was NOT happy. We had our visit with the doctor, and he said, "Well, its still so early. We'll have the big gender scan in 2 more weeks. *notices my frown* But let's go take a look." So we head across the hall to the ultrasound room. We looked at a precious head and face. (btw - I was negative across the board on my triple screen. No risk for Downs Syndrome, Spina Bifida, and whatever the 3rd one is. Not that it would make us love our child less, but we did high 5 when he told us.) We looked at a sweet little belly and all I could think was how much I can't wait to tickle and kiss that belly. Then we moved to the legs. "The legs are always the hardest part." This child is still not a cooperator. There was this precious little foot that did not want to move! My doctor shook the wand on my belly (which doesn't feel that great, fyi. Especially since my placenta is apparently towards the front and made the doppler difficult. I was already sore from all that poking.) Foot still wouldn't move. So I rolled on my side and we went at it from a different angle. More wand jiggles (and grimaces from Mommy.) Nope. That foot was THERE. So that's why we only have a 90% sure on the gender. We go back on the 29th for that big gender scan (and have to go to the main office at the hospital) and we'll get a for sure confirmation on gender. I'm actually ridiculously excited about that ultrasound because Cherie and Owen will be with us for Christmas visitation then, and they'll be joining us at the appointment. I can't wait for them to see the baby, to watch those tiny arms move around and see that there is a real person in my belly. I feel like it's going to make it all so much more real for them, and it will also give them more of a sense of ownership of their new sibling. Baby will become something real that they've seen instead of just something we talk about and they pray for.

With that being said, our little miracle's name is Elijah Ross Green, or Eli. When my doctor said, (after "I'm 90% sure" of course,) "it's a boy!", Hubs was overcome. He's been saying boy the entire time, and his intuition was apparently correct. He's so happy there were some tears, which I find beyond adorable.

I'm not cray cray or anything, but there's something about being pregnant with a boy at Christmas. We spend a tremendous portion of the season remembering what it really is all about, why we have a holiday in the first place, and that is a baby boy who was born into NOTHING and gave us EVERYTHING. When I hear the story, or even just phrases like, "Mary's baby boy", I feel this surge of emotion. And I know my son is not Jesus. He is not the 2nd coming of the Savior of the World. He will just be my baby, and while God has big plans for his life, it's not the same. But I can't not touch my belly and feel slightly more in love with my child when I think of that baby boy born 2000 years ago.

I have other stuff I want to write about, but Isaac just woke up from his nap and I'm on Aunt Suzy duty. What a hard duty it is... hehehe

oh, hi

2010-11-30T21:56:00.002-06:00

So, I'm 4 months pregnant, and that's fun. Actually being pregnant isn't the most fun thing I've ever done, but it's so worth it. My throwing up hasn't gone away, but its gotten soooooooooooo much better since we leveled up into the 2nd trimester. I now only throw up once or twice every day or 2, and I'm not nauseous 24/7 anymore. In its place, unfortunately, we have The Headache. It started peaking in at the tail end of my 1st trimester, but then came in with a bang during my 13th week. Like, exploded into a migraine so huge I spent Wednesday-Friday in the hospital, in the dark, with an IV and an assortment of pain meds. The neurologist had them do a CT scan because he could see the fluid/pressure build up behind my eyes. Thankfully, they didn't see anything, but I spent a week on steroids to be safe. Its been 3 weeks and I'm still getting lots of headaches (and 2 or 3 migraines.) Since I've been getting migraines since I was 18 and my neurologist in Dallas informed me that its due to hormone sensitivity, my doctor gently broke the bad news that this was going to be my reality for the duration of my pregnancy. At least he gave me 2 levels of pain meds to try and control it. I have my 16 week check up in the morning, and we're hoping my doctor is true to his word and does an ultrasound so I can know if its my son or my daughter making me feel so yucky!

Other exciting changes... after 8 months of marriage, I finally got around to changing my name on my driver's license. I took Cherie with me and she enjoyed the experience way more than anyone I know. Her good time made me enjoy it a lot, too. When we got there, I discovered that I have Homeland Security flags attached to my social security number. When I got married the first time, I went to the social security office to change my name, found out I didn't have all the required documents, and then never got around to going back. Sooo as far as they are concerned, my last name is still Hall. Whoopsie! It's on my to-do list next week. I'd do it this week, but I'm really wrapped up in the other exciting change we've got going on... we finally got our own place! My mom really doesn't need help anymore, so we've been working on finding a place of our own for months. There was A LOT of drama that went along with it, but finally, God blessed us with a fantastic place, and we're slowly but surely getting all of our stuff transferred over from my parents' house. (For the record, it sucks to move while you're pregnant. I feel really really useless.) We got our keys on my birthday (oh yea, I turned 29 in there) and it was the best birthday gift Hubs could have possibly given me.

Owen's still acting up a lot, and its heartbreaking. Today he got an N because he refused to follow instructions and threw rocks at other kids on the playground. he's about to get a lot more structure and routine during his time with us, thanks to the new place. I'm hoping that a combo of that and more time with Daddy will encourage a change. It frequently feels like spitting into the wind because every time we make progress, it gets destroyed when he goes back to her house. God has a plan with this, and someday, He'll share that. In the mean time... whew!

So yea, my belly's growing, we're settling into our first married home together, and in general, we feel exceptionally blessed.

the blog post I have always wanted to write

2010-10-18T20:01:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty busy lately, and it's a task I'll be pretty busy with for a while longer. I'm helping to create something. Its a "project" we've been working on for almost 3 months now. Let me show you some pictures of this amazing work in progress...

That's right. We're expecting a little miracle in May. We had nooooo idea we'd get pregnant again so fast after losing the baby in July. I'm sad to say that I didn't feel the same overwhelming excitement this time around that we felt last time, but I know its because I was so scared to feel the disappointment I felt. But since the worry has left, I'm there now.

We've already been through some trials with this pregnancy, including my 3 day hospital stay at 6 weeks (Nothing serious: just getting some meds tweaked in a controlled environment.). My doctor is very aggressive and has been amazing in helping us do everything we can to give this baby the best possible chance. We were so blessed to have weekly ultrasounds for most of the first trimester - 5 total. It was incredibly bittersweet when my doctor told me we didn't need them anymore. Horns up: your baby is doing fantastic! Horns down: you don't get to see Baby grow and change every week. Watching how much things change in a week is nothing short of mind blowing! And you better believe that I cried the first time I watched that precious little heart beat!! My doctor isn't at all worried about another miscarriage and has shifted his focus to all the risks I'm facing down the road. There's no guarantee that I will have any of those complications, but we went into this knowing I was high risk, so better safe than sorry. The only guarantee he's given us is that I will delivery before 40 weeks, so that's cool. We'd love to have the baby on Earth Day... hahaha get it? the Green Baby born on Earth Day!

To answer some of the most common questions...

1. "How are you feeling?" Pretty terrible, actually. I've been throwing up since before I had a positive pregnancy test. (which means we went and bought a bunch of tests at the dollar store and my morning ritual became to test. I made the decision that I would keep testing until I either got a positive or stopped throwing up). This method does make the positive a little anticlimactic, fyi. But its better than just throwing up for no reason. Anyway, I've had like 5 positives (I wanted to be really sure at home, and then they also test at the OB's office), and I haven't stopped throwing up. I'm hoping that we're almost done with this part, but I have some friends who were sick until their third trimester or their entire pregnancy. I also have terrible heartburn and lots of the physical aches and pains. I've actually been losing weight (which my doctor is fine with this early, plus they don't want me to gain much anyway) As crappy as I feel, its totally worth it. I'm in love with this little sea monkey.

2. "Boy or girl?" Obviously, we don't know yet. We'll find out in December. And oh yes, we are totally finding out. Its driving me nuts not knowing! I have no idea how people can stand not knowing! As for what I hope it is, I honestly don't care. I always thought I wanted a girl, but now that it's a reality, I don't care. I mean, I would really enjoy having my own little doll to put in tutus and precious little girl outfits, but boys are fun, too. Sheldon is convinced we're having a boy, but he assures me he'll be happy either way.

3. "How do the kids feel about it?" They're SUPER excited. Cherie loves being a big sister so much as it is, and having another sibling is heaven to her. Owen's excited, too, but he's 5 so it's a different excitement. I think he might still be a little confused about what happened to the last baby, because he's not as excited as last time. Last time, he would talk to my belly and always pray for the baby. And then again, maybe he's just not as excited because of his other underlying issues right now. But he is excited.

So yea, there it is. I'm thrilled and just know the next 20 something weeks will absolutely DRAG. I already feel like I've been pregnant forever and we're not quite 1/3 of the way through the process!

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

2010-09-15T21:46:00.002-05:00

Its gonna be a mishmash post. That's just the way things are these days.

So, the kids have started school, and that's been going well for one of them. The other? Not so much. I don't know where my sweet little guy went but the mean kid who took his place is so not awesome. And to be perfectly honest, it's embarrassing. No one wants their kid to be the one who changes his color (almost) every day. And no one wants their kid to be a fighter. The first fight was in Sunday school with us a week and a half ago. Unfortunately for him, my classroom window looks out onto the playground. I watched him shove a little boy then stomp on his foot (Owen was in regular shoes, the other little boy was in flip flops.) I met him at the door as they were coming in, yanked him out of line and away from his classmates, gave him stern words and a swift pop on his bottom before sending him back to his classroom to apologize for what he did. Until this week, he was changing his color for talking almost every day in class. Its not like he doesn't get a warning. He just doesn't care. He does stuff like here, too. We tell him not to do something so he turns around and does it again. And again. And again. When I asked him why he was getting in trouble, he lied. And then lied again. And then just got good measure, lied again. He said Kindergarten is too much work (lie.). Then he said he was just tired of school (after 8 days? Lie. Especially since he loved school in pre-K.) And he rounded out the lie-spree with "I'm just tired of Kindergarten, and really ready for 1st grade." That's just ridiculous. He's also taken to yelling in my face when he doesn't get his way. He has yet to get an entire sentence out before that's keebashed. His behavior is getting progressively worse. He got a U in his folder today because he was talking in class, being disruptive, and fighting on the playground. We got an email from his teacher and then a phone call from ex-wife to talk about it. He's misbehaving increasingly at her house, too. She said he stomps around the house, yells, and is generally unpleasant for her, too. I don't know if its just an all of a sudden being upset that his parents are divorced, if he's acting out because his life feels fragmented and compartmentalized, or if its something else entirely. All I know is that something is seriously not right in my poor little guy's head. He has a lot of feelings that he doesn't understand and acts as a direct result. It gets really stressful, and makes it really hard to do fun family stuff. I mean, do we punish him and take away things (toys, outings, etc) or do we just carry on and hope he grows out of this?

He was a lot of fun when we all went to the Texas vs Rice game. It was their first football game, and we did it right, complete with tailgating. Yes I have pictures that will get posted later.

We're very excited about this weekend. Cherie has professed her faith is Jesus and is being baptized! She loves God, and He will use her in mighty ways throughout her life. Its very exciting to see and very humbling to be a part of teaching her to walk His path.

We have some other big changes coming up before the end of the year, and the one I'm currently most excited about is that we're finally getting a home of our own. Okay, we won't own it but I really couldn't care less. We hit a stumble in that path tonight. A house we thought was going to be The House turned out to be something of an abomination when we toured with the realtor tonight. If it was just one thing, maybe 2, I'd be fine. But it was 5 and the absolute deal breaker was the wall of windows in the master bath coupled with the glass surround in the shower. That doesn't sound bad, except that the fence is shorter than the windows and the slats have huge gaps. That means the neighbors can watch you shower. NOT COOL. I know the right house for us is there and we will find it in time to make our October move... Its gonna happen. I'm trusting God on this, and He ALWAYS delivers.

I'm gonna wrap this post up by professing my love for my husband. Lately, we've been squabbling more, but I know it has to do with me being annoyed by everything and him being stressed by a handful of things that have nothing to do with me. But through it all, he is so wonderful. He does everything he can to give me everything I've ever wanted. I love how I never have to suggest it, he always turns to prayer for everything. Having a marriage with God as the center makes all the difference, and I am super blessed to have him. K I'm done.

joy and pain

2010-07-18T13:08:00.002-05:00

So, July has been more of a roller coaster than I ever could have imagined. I have felt the happiest I've ever felt in my life and then turned around and felt absolutely destroyed. Everything can change in an instant.

On July 2nd, Clear Blue Easy changed our lives when the little plus sign appeared. I would love to say that I shared that with Sheldon in some adorable loving way. Nope. I ran into our room and started shaking him going, "SheldonI'mpregnant!" over and over, until he finally woke up. I wanted to scream and cry and shake all at the same time. Excited doesn't even begin to cover how we felt.

I was sick to my stomach our entire trip to the beach, and the actual puking started Sunday evening. I kept being reminded that being sick is a good thing when you're pregnant. I puked and tried to sleep every spare minute for a week. And was over the moon about the little person growing inside me.

Then the ride sped up. On the 11th, we spent 4 hours at the er because I started to spot. The bleeding stopped, my hormone levels were fine, but the ultrasounds showed nothing. Literally. Nothing. That's not uncommon at 6 weeks, so they told me to follow up with my ob. We went to the ob the next day. My pelvic exam was normal, so they did some blood work to check my hormone levels. I started feeling better about the situation and let my excitement come flooding back. Tuesday the ride dropped again. My nurse left a voicemail saying my hormone levels were lower and for me to come have blood work done again. My excitement vanished. Wednesday morning, I called to get the details. She had nothing good to tell me. By lunchtime, I was full on bleeding and the physical pain had rolled in. We spent 7 hours in the hospital to leave with a prescription for vicodin and paperwork with the worst word ever as the diagnosis: miscarriage.

I've been very blessed with incredibly supportive friends and family. I don't understand why I seem to be so unable to stay pregnant. I don't understand why God took this pregnancy away from us. All I know is that He has a plan bigger than me, Sheldon, or a baby. We'll just have to try again and when the time is right, that pregnancy will make it.

bunch of stuff crammed into 1 entry without a clever title

2010-07-12T18:56:00.004-05:00

I know. I know. I should be better about blogging. I have been slacking at uploading pictures, and the only other stuff I wanna blog about isn't really appropriate, so I basically just haven't been bothering to blog. I think I can improve. I know I can.

It's July so we have the kids for the entire month. It's such a blessing, even when they make me crazy. The longest I've gotten to be with them was the 10 days at Christmas, so this is fun. As much as I complain about our living arrangement, I've been pretty grateful for my mom when we both need to be at work. I can just let them sleep in and quietly sneak out at 7:45. That's right, Moms. My kids sleep well past 8am almost every day. The other morning, Sheldon woke them up at 9:30. Owen had been asleep for almost 13 hours at that point. Little dude was just worn out I guess!

We went down to Galveston for the weekend of the 4th with my brother's family. That's always a good time. The kids are pretty much obsessed with each other and shockingly don't fight. I'm sure they will eventually, but for now, we bask in the awesome of that. It rained pretty much the entire way down on Friday, but we woke up Saturday to beautiful sunny skies. We spent the morning at the beach, there was a short storm around lunch time, and then in the afternoon, the men set up the giant water slide pool thing for the kids to play on while they grilled some dinner. Sunday morning, we had another great morning at the beach with an afternoon of the kids on the water slide. It was a lot of fun, even if I did get burnt beyond recognition despite my liberal use and reapplication of sunblock. I'm still peeling and the blisters on my boobs make people cringe. They don't really hurt anymore. Its okay.

Sheldon was on nights this past week so I was single mommin' it in the evenings. Owen is extremely spirited and has some pretty rough days with the whole obeying, keeping his hands to himself, telling the truth, and making good decisions in general. I teetered on the edge. This past Sunday, we had a guest speaker at our church. Ben Glenn spoke a few years ago, and I really enjoyed it. When they announced he was coming back this year, I was really excited and started hyping it up to Sheldon and the kids. Little did I know that God was about to put a big ol' serving of truth in my heart. He told stories about his childhood and how his parents handled it. He told stories about his own kids. After the stressful week I'd had, it really ministered to me about patience and grace. Owen snuggled up next to me during the sermon and it just filled me how much I love the little guy, even when he pushes me to the brink. And then I started crying when he went to the prayer alter and just poured his little heart out to Jesus. It was pretty amazing.

And that's how we rock the suburbs.

What makes a mom?

2010-05-07T12:34:00.006-05:00

I really really love all the commercials lately that recognize that in a person's life, they will have multiple mother figures. There will (and obviously can only) be one woman who actually gave birth to you, but who says you're only allowed one mother?

It's not weird. It's really not. Growing up, I honestly felt like I had a handful of moms because of the amount of time my friends and I spent with each others' families. There are several now-ladies that Lyss and I "adopted" in college. They gave us Mother's Day gifts and everything! Libby still calls me Mama and calls Sheldon her "new daddy". My brother in law calls his biological mother and my mother in law "Mom" because they both fill that role in his life. I hosted a bridal shower a few weeks ago for my sweet friend Ana and there were 2 women there that she considered her mother. How many women call their mother in law "Mom"? I can name at least 10 on that one. Sheldon and I have watched "The Blind Side" twice this week, and I really like how Leigh Anne tells Michael that Mrs. Oher will always be his mama, but she's there, too. It resonates with me.

"Its all about the mamas lovin' the babies no matter where they came from."

I did not give birth to my stepkids. I am (and obviously always will be) their stepmom. But there's a very key word in that title: MOM. Why would I not love them like they are my own kids? We are a family, and its very frustrating when people (almost always strangers or members of their biological mother's family) get their panties in a wad and tell me that I should be nothing more than a babysitter who happens to be married to their father. That's crap and unfair to the kids. They see me as a mother. They tell everyone that they have 2 moms, and they like it. They know the difference between biological and step, so it's stupid to insist that they use the different terms. Why should we tell them "no" when they say that they want to call me "Mama" instead of "Suzy"? We should not and we will not. I can see how she fears that they are being stolen from her, but how selfish and silly to believe that children have a finite amount of love to give! I know that the vast majority of divorced kids go through a phase where they want their mom and dad to get back together more than anything. The next best thing is to get awesome step-parents that they love like real parents and who love them back. I mean, who wouldn't want that for their kids?

I will be celebrating Mother's Day by celebrating how much I love these 2 beautiful little human beings that God so generously placed in my life and in my heart. Because there's more to motherhood than labor and delivery.

Happy Mother's Day to my mommy, stepmommy, grandmommy, and soon to be mommy friends out there! Special shout outs to my Baby Mama, congrats on your first mother's day, Amanda, and happy "baby's still incubating but I'm totally already a mama" mother's day Sweet Christina) There's more mommies I could link, but that would take a long time. You know who you are!

Neverending trials with my mom

2010-04-17T18:35:00.005-05:00

Every single day, I am aware of how much I want to be living in my own home again. It is not a fun feeling to be 28 and living with your parents. God does not like this. God has put me here because my mom needs me, regardless of what else is in my life or how much it annoys me. He really couldn't care less about what I think about it. He's got plans and this is where He put me.

My mom's health has been declining since I got here over 2 years ago. The past year or so have been just one thing after another. She's had so many knee surgeries. She had the GI surgery. She's had potassium issues that landed her in the hospital. She's currently confined to either her bed or a wheelchair because she can't walk. That being said, things have taken a sharp turn for the worse.

Yesterday, the falling started. I was putting on my shirt, about to leave for work (and the only person awake in the house) when I heard a scream and a thud. My mom had fallen out of bed. She said she was reaching for her glasses on her bedside table and just tumbled. The story has changed a bit in her retellings, which is not surprising. I had to wake Sheldon up to help me get her back in bed. She was sore but otherwise okay the rest of the day. This morning, the okay left the building. Around 5, I heard someone calling my name and saying help me. I thought one of the kids was in the bathroom and sick or something. I woke Sheldon up and sent him to take care of it. When he got to the hallway, I realized it was my mom, so I got up and darted in her room. She had managed to roll out of bed (literally) in her sleep and was laying face down on the floor next to the bed. She said she'd been laying there maybe 5 minutes before I woke up. When she was sitting on the floor, she started kind of babytalking (which I cannot stand - ask my kids.) and telling me how she can't put weight on her leg because she has no knee. I told her that wasn't news. We got her in bed, which was horribly unpleasant since Sheldon has an umbilical hernia and is now hurting pretty bad. If it was just the falling, the okay might still be here. Its so much worse than that. At 7:55, my sweet sister in law called and asked if we got a dog. I said, "Um, no?" She said, "Your mom just called me and told me there's a cockapoo puppy in her room and she has no idea how it got in there, but it keeps licking its jowls and moving its head. She said she was gonna have Cherie check into it." Yea, let's go check that. Go into Mom's room with Cherie, and sure enough, she thinks there's a dog in there. She goes, "Look at the cockapoo!" "Where, Mom?" "Right there! You're about to step on it!" I back up REAL fast because I think she's talking about a cockroach and that's a no-go for me. I ask her where the dog is again and she says, "Right next to the door! He's black, don't you see him?" "Mom! That's a PILE OF SOCKS." "No, it's a cockapoo! Socks don't move or have eyes." HOLY CRAP. She looked at her clock and said, "What time is it, 11?" I said, "No, Mom. It's 4 minutes to 8." She said, "Oh, I hate that clock. It's all cattywompus." "No, Mom. The clock is straight up and down." Over the course of the next 2 or so hours, she tells my dad, Sheldon, Cherie, and me that we're all nuts to think that dog is just socks. I had to put the pile of socks, one sock at a time, on her to prove that it was not a dog. She also told my dad that I asked her to call Lizzie (my cousin). I went in and said, "Mom, why would I need you to call Lizzie for me?" She said, "You told me to call her and tell her you're running late, that it's only polite!" "Mom, what would I be running late for with Lizzie today?" "She's throwing you a shower today, isn't she?" "Um, Mom today is my RECEPTION, and no one throws that for you." "Oh, that makes sense." By the time my brother got here at 12:45, she had regressed further. She said she needed to get changed because Sheldon was taking her to the doctor and asked him to pull her privacy curtain. He said, "Mom, there's no privacy curtain. This is your bedroom." She slurred, "This can't be my bedroom. My bedroom would never be this ugly brown color." My mom's room is white with cream curtains and she has maroon and grey striped sheets. No brown. By 1:15, she was talking (frequently in slurs) to the man sitting on her bed with her, and he was very nice. By 2:30, an ambulance was at the house taking her to the hospital, and she was no longer using complete sentences. By 4, she was completely incoherent and flailing her arms.

She's had a CT scan and is heavily sedated. Her primary care doctor has been contacted and she's being admitted into ICU. Her orthopedist and a neurologist are also involved. My dad said that based on what they'd told him, its most likely one of three things: she OD'd on her meds or 2 of them interacted, she's just gone crazy, or she had a stroke. That's completely his speculation, though. We really don't know anything.

Regardless of the cause, this is bad. This is very bad. Please pray for the doctors to find what's really going on here, for her health and healing, and for our patience and sanity while we go through this with her.

Beautiful Green Spot

2010-04-12T11:47:00.010-05:00

The week before the wedding was anything but awesome. I can't imagine how people who don't know Jesus get through stormy seasons of life. I am overwhelmed 99% of the time - either by the storms themselves or by the magnitude of His love for me, and well, us. Our wedding was this perfect moment in the midst of a storm, and it was exactly the reassurance I needed to know without any doubts, hesitations, or glances backward that I have made a step into my future with my feet placed exactly where God wants them.

Now about that storm...

Have you ever sat down and looked at your life and felt like every single aspect of it was at least slightly (if not completely) a mess? Yea, I'm in that boat. Our finances are atrocious (thanks to a sweet combo of our mistakes in the past, previous marriages, and my job kind of sucking) so we're stuck in our ever-pleasant living situation with no end in sight. We're down to 1 car and then that car died the day before the wedding (at least my parents have extra vehicles that we're borrowing - but not without drama). We have ongoing strife with the kids biological mother. Aside from the things she does or permits to be done to the kids that are physically damaging, she decided to move from Katy to Tomball (which is almost an hour and a half drive - yay Houston is enormous) so we're using even more money every time we have the kids in gas and being forced to eat out every Thursday night. Plus it cuts into our time dramatically. Almost 3 hours of our precious time with them is spent in transit. She's only partially in contempt of court with the move - she stayed in the geographic area set by the papers but she only provided 13 days notice instead of the required 30. She hates the relationship the kids have with me and desperately tries to exclude me at every opportunity. I'm blessed beyond belief that she has been unsuccessful and the kids and I still have a ridiculously awesome relationship (my heart soars and breaks simultaneously when we're dropping them back off and Cherie turns and yells from the porch, "Bye Mama! Bye Daddy! I love you!") It sucks that I can't have lunch with them at school now and that we're not as able to be at their programs and activities during the day because its so far. I try really really really hard to pray for their mom, because the Bible commands us to pray for those who persecute us, but when my heart is so clouded with contempt, it gets hard. When things get really really ugly, and I'm mad/hurt/disgusted, the comfort I have come to rely on is knowing that God is working here. He has plans for us so much bigger than this mess we're sitting in. He will make beauty from the ashes. He will bring us strength and peace. And all of these things will work together for His glory. Does that stop me from looking around for a slingshot and a smooth stone? Obviously not. In the years to come, this will just be the time that we started our beautiful Green life on a stone foundation during a storm. Mike Holmes makes it right, but his work looks shoddy compared to the work Jesus Christ is doing. He makes it right, because He loves us too much to leave us in pits of sorrow and strife.

And that beautiful Green spot? Let's end this with some wedding, shall we?

We have known from the very beginning of our relationship that we wanted to be a couple who glorified the Lord with our love for each other. We chose a wedding date and location that honored Him. We laid a foundation with our relationship that honored Him. We felt such a peace about being with each other, and then everything came together so easily - wedding related anyway - that we could not deny the favor our Father was showing our union. I mean, literally, every little aspect was touched by His hands. The weather forecast started to look ugly for our chosen date, time, and location. I started getting messages from concerned loved ones asking what our back up plan was. I confidently replied that we didn't have one because we didn't need one. The weather would be beautiful. Friday morning, it was black and threatening in Austin. I can honestly say I was never worried. I didn't care if the ground was wet. It would not be raining. At 4:30, the clouds went away. At 7ish when we stood atop a mountain, literally surrounded by friends and family, and promised each other and God that we would love each other for the rest of our lives, no matter what, it was 75 with the beginnings of an exceptional sunset behind us. See? I told you the weather would be beautiful! The Lord blessed us for honoring Him. We got started about 30 minutes late (no one is surprised. I mean, seriously.) and Owen was running around and climbing on rocks instead of standing next to Sheldon like the best man is supposed to (and like I told him to do 4 times) but he's 4 and adorable so who cares? Ross officiated an extremely personal and charming ceremony. I got the ring finger correct on the first try. And no one fell down. Wait, no. Several people ate it on the stairs, but no one fell during the ceremony. It was simple, comfortable, and sincerely about how much we love each other. It was exactly how we imagined it, except with more awesome. I mean, you can't really fathom that much awesome when you're imagining things, really. My girls rallied around me (B - thanks for putting us up and taking the kiddos for ice cream! Mango - thank you for coming all the way from ENGLAND and for taking care of my flowers. Jen - thanks for driving, being so ridiculously hot, and for exuding calm. I love y'all!) and got me up that hill! We had a casual fun dinner at El Arroyo afterwards, and it really just felt so right. Thank you so much to everyone who was there and for all the love and support you've given us!

The Great Kate took our pictures and great is an understatement.

gorgeous sunset and skyline

Group shot! Most of the guests actually made it into this pic!

My amazing girls

my handsome Green men

You can view the entire album of Kate's shots here. She did such a great job and the pictures are better than I could have hoped for!!

Oh, I forgot to blog about something

2010-03-25T12:58:00.002-05:00

So, I'm pretty surprised that I forgot to blog about how I'm getting married next week. I'm usually pretty quick about blogging about ginormous life changes, but I just got a little busy or in love with my blackberry or something to actually blog about it.

Sheldon and I had been planning to do some full on wedding in June or July. We were contemplating a quasi elopement in April with just us and the kids for a few financial and logistical reasons, but still have a real wedding this summer. The more I tried to plan it, the less I cared. I wasn't excited about dress shopping. I wasn't jazzed to go find a venue. I didn't have any joy at thinking about bridesmaid dresses (only the ladies who would be wearing them). So we said, "Forget it! Let's take the money we'd be spending on that wedding (ie his tax return) and use it to get moved into our own place!" So we're making our quasi elopement a super casual public thing. We're getting married on Good Friday on Mt. Bonnell in Austin (LOVE!!) and having dinner at El Arroyo afterwards. We're also having a reception in Houston on April 17th because the vast majority of my family and several of our friends can't be there on April 2nd.

We chose Good Friday because it felt so romantic. Good Friday is a celebration of the day Christ gave His life for us, which is the greatest act of love EVER: past, present, or future. To celebrate our love on a day that honors the greatest love possible just seemed like such a perfect fit.

Everything has fallen together beautifully. The dress I got was the 3rd dress at the 1st store. Sheldon and Owen's attire was found on sale on a whim stop at a department store. Every date that we've wanted for things has been available. My beloved Mango is going to be able to make it over from England (and it turned out this was even better for her than this summer!). The ease of it all has been comforting and tells us that our marriage has favor with God. What could be better than that?!

school picture time!

2010-03-02T14:16:00.006-06:00

Sheldon picked up the kids' school pictures today when he went to have lunch with Cherie. It makes me crazy that Owen has started doing this closed mouth smile thing when he's posing for pictures. When he's smiling naturally, its this big open mouth grin that is utterly infectious. I also wish Cherie's top was a little less saggy in the chest, but overall, I'm just in awe of how beautiful these kids are. Yea, I'm biased. But I can't help it. Also, I love that they gave us photo key chain cards (just like your shopper card at the grocery store or Spec's) so I can have their sweet faces with me all the time. Much easier than pulling out a phone or wallet to brag on them!

Honesty Scraps

2010-02-25T15:07:00.007-06:00

Sometimes Life Has Other Ideas tagged me to do Honesty Scraps like a week and a half ago, and since I was waaaaaaay behind on my blog reading, I didn't see it until today. Better late than never! Here goes:

1. I am addicted to Diet Coke. When I read about the signs of addiction, I knew I had a problem with Diet Coke. Okay, it's way better than being addicted to crack or something. And hey, I'm on step 2!

2. There are days when it's a close race between my cats and my stepkids as to who I love more. I love my stepkids as though they were my own kids (I totally understand how parents who adopt feel!!) so that just means I REALLY love my cats.

3. Someday, I really will finish my BA and become a teacher. I love my little ones on Sundays, but I want to spend my work week with high school kids. Hooray, Social Studies!!

4. I met my fiance' online. (I actually just typed husband and had to go back and edit it. We're so married, just not legally. Soon, though. SO STINKING SOON.) I don't know what his reasons for online dating were but mine was straight up lazy. The ministries I'm involved with at church aren't conducive to meeting single guys, and I totally wasn't about to start looking for a guy in a bar, so I thought I'd give it a shot. We emailed, we spent 7 hours on the phone having our first phone conversation, and he told me last week that when he kissed me goodnight on our first date, he knew I was the last girl he'd ever kiss. The feeling wasn't mutual, but I came around. There was just something about him that I really liked.

5. My 2 favorite sports are college football and curling. Yea, I said CURLING. I know its the mocked sport of the winter Olympics, but I freaking love it! There's a lot more skill and strategy than people think. And flexibility! I bet most of the mockers out there can't get in that position down on the ice to slide a rock.

6. I got a Blackberry last month. My entrance to the 21st century also marked several other firsts for me, including but not limited to first camera phone and first downloaded ringtone.

7. I don't like ham. I love bacon, though. Just something about ham that I don't find all that appetizing.

8. I would rather text than talk on the phone probably 90% of the time. Baby Mama and I keep our love alive and strong because she would rather text than talk 98% of the time. Subsequently, we chatter back and forth all day.

9. I have never watched a full episode of any of the following shows: Lost, Grey's Anatomy, American Idol, or The Sopranos. The odds of me dying and that statement still being true are incredibly good. I don't care if you tell me I don't know what I'm missing. I said I've never watched a full episode. What does that tell you?

10. I fully intend to never buy a 2-story house. I just don't like them. I'm incredibly fortunate that Sheldon doesn't like them, either. If we had millions of dollars and could build whatever kind of house we want, it would be a huge, sprawling 1 story. With bedrooms for 5 or 6 kiddos. :-)

Annnnnd now I'm tagging!

Eryn
Sterling
Christina
Annie
Katy

Faith like a child

2010-02-14T13:00:00.002-06:00

I love serving in the children's ministry at my church. Obviously, I like kids, but there are so many things that I get out of it. I'm not saying every Sunday I have this amazing face to face with God through a giggly 1st grader. I probably wouldn't appreciate it if I did. Instead, God sprinkles those mind-blowing moments throughout the year, when I'm not really expecting them. He just pours Himself all over my face and into my heart through the kids. Today was, as you may have guessed, one of those days where He decided to fill me up.

The children's ministry at GFUMC is based on Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." That means we don't just sit around and sing, "Jesus loves me" and color a picture of Him holding a lamb every week. We actually teach them scripture and about who God is and how He is relevant in their lives.

The unit we're in right now is on worship. We've taught them that worship isn't just about singing a song about God. Every single thing you do in your life can be (and really SHOULD be) an act of worship. We've colored pictures for God. We've written Him love notes. We've danced and, of course, sang. We talked about how God made each of us different, and made us good at different things so that we could use our talents to worship and praise Him. It's been pretty cool. Today during large group, instead of the usual format which is we sing 3 or 4 songs then break into 2 groups (1st and 2nd grade and 3rd-5th grade) to have the main lesson, we had Worship Day. We sang, we danced, we clapped, we prayed, we read scripture, and we raised our arms up to our Father to ask Him for more of Him and more of His love. Frequently during praise & worship, my kiddos get distracted. They're in a room with a bunch of kids (mostly older than them), with friends they don't (usually) see the other 6 days of the week, with music playing. Put those factors in with a 6 year old attention span and, well, you get the picture. Because of that, I was a little skeptical about how well my class would do with the intense worship day. The majority of them waned at different points, but towards the end, when the singing turned to clapping and dancing, God was like a hurricane force wind moving in that room. I'm sure there are people tempted to say, "Oh, kids are just followers; they epitomize the mob mentality and were simply succumbing to peer pressure," but friend, I FELT HIM THERE. My eyes literally welled up with tears as I heard their little voices raising up to proclaim their love for Jesus, when I saw the smiles on their faces with their eyes closed just being with the King. I have prayed more than once for the adults in the church to get it the way the kids do. It is impossible to not feel overwhelmingly blessed to be a part of something like that, to witness faith in the purest form that way. It will change your faith in amazing ways.

God uses kids. He loves them, and they love Him back. They aren't like us in their need to know all the details. They just believe because they love. I mean, I know how annoying the "why" phase is for kids, but most of them don't have that with God. They don't ask why their parents love them, and they don't ask why God loves them, either. They just know and accept that He does. I have one little guy in my class that I absolutely ADORE. His mom told us today that he made God a valentine, and wrote in it that he loves God more than he loves his parents. When his teacher asked how they could make the world better (trying to get them to say "recycle" or "use less water") he said, "We can tell more people about Jesus Christ." He is completely right! At 6 years old, he embraces a love and truth that most adults just don't get. God wants ALL of us to love Him the way Little Man does. He doesn't change. WE DO. We get wrapped up in all the details of life and forget the most basic truth in our lives: God loves us and knowing Him makes our world better. FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD... I want a faith like that, don't you?

Pray for our kids. Pray that they don't lose this excited love and adoration for Jesus. Pray that as they change, that part of them stays the same. Pray that they will never be embarrassed to jump and shout how much they love Him. They're going to change the world. God is moving in them, and I'm excited for it. Children between the ages of 4 and 14 are the largest population group in the WORLD. A population that large with a fire for God can't help but change it!

*sigh* God, You're so cool. And I love You!

happy valentine's day!

2010-02-13T16:36:00.002-06:00

Sheldon and I are both working this weekend, so a romantic outing (or much time together period) is out of the question. This afternoon, before he was heading out to work for the night, he said, "Baby, can I just give you your gifts now, since tomorrow we're not really gonna see each other?"

Yea, he's good.

Then he went and got me Taco Bell! All those guys who went to Jared got nuthin' on my boo!

Short month, Short entry

2010-02-06T18:17:00.007-06:00

Sooo..... hi. How are you? Nice.

My mom's been in the hospital since January 18th. She had surgery (again) on her knee to remove the original knee replacement and put in an antibiotic infused cement spacer. She's at a rehabilitation facility called Cane Island right now, and her doctor is worthless. Minimal progress on that front, but hey, the kids are getting good at steering a wheelchair.

I've been working a ton at the store, which isn't bad because I get to work at 8am Monday thru Friday most weeks and am almost always home by 3, unless I have a random late day of covering for someone who called out. I'm happy there. It's all good.

We have actually begun to make wedding plans. Real, actual wedding plans, as opposed to just, "Hmmmm... Maybe _____ would be fun!" The nice thing about having an extremely small scale wedding is that there isn't nearly as much to plan. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

We've had 2 classes (out of 9) for our Marriage Matters class and we loooooooooooove it. It's so simple and yet it's something that no one really thinks about. We get so into our emotions and what we want and expect that we totally forget that we're dealing with another person and not some perfect creation in a movie. So far so great!

Now for pictures of my heart:

and the funniest video EVER:

It's official!!

2010-01-23T20:52:00.002-06:00

The judge approved our divorce papers on Wednesday, and our final hearing was Friday morning at 8:30. Poor Sheldon. Denver called the house to get some information for the paperwork at the hearing and since I was at work, Sheldon had to talk to him and get the info. Not that D was rude or anything, but that's so uncomfortable and awkward, to say the least. But Sheldon's a trooper and was polite about it, despite the fact that he said he was fighting the urge to tell D off. I'm glad he refrained. Deep down, he knows what he did to me, what he put me through, that he is a liar and all the other things that make him an awful person. He changed so much, and I'm afraid that everything in him that was good and wonderful is gone, all the things that made me love him have been discarded. What a loss.

I am incredibly blessed to be with Sheldon. He is crazy and ridiculous and grumpy and stinky and generally fantastic. It is the best feeling to know that I fully belong to him now, that there's not still D lingering with the courts to prevent me from being 100% his. Now that I'm divorced, I actually feel that giddy, engaged feeling. I'm ready to be committed to him in every sense of the word. I'm ready to make the commitment to him legally and, more importantly, with God. He and I really will spend the rest of our lives together. He will stand by me in the good times and the bad. He is ready to face good years and not so good years with me. We do not go to bed angry. Every day we work to make us work, and we make sure that we include God. Its how marriage was supposed to be. I'm so lucky!

Here's to going Green!!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T19:44:00.002-06:00

I'm not making any specific resolutions this year because, well, I failed last year. Instead, I'm just resolving to be BETTER. I'm already leaps and bounds ahead of who I was a year ago, and I trust that I will be even further ahead in a year.

I was so sad when I started 2009 and I was so happy when it ended. Not happy because it was ending, but happy because of all the new, better, amazing things in my life. I started the year feeling pretty isolated, with none of my best friends in the same city, and most not even in the same country, as me. I was still praying for my marriage to be healed. I was kind of desperate. I was desperate for change. And 2009 sure did bring the change!

Towards the end of the year, I was more disappointed that my divorce wasn't finalized on time than I ever in a million years would have guessed I'd be! The times with him and the times missing him feel like distant memories these days. In their place, I am building new, wonderful memories with the family God has blessed me with. I don't feel like I'm intruding or forcing myself into this new family. Instead, it feels like these 3 people were placed into my life by God, hand picked to fill my heart in places I didn't realize were empty! I mean, sure I had thought my heart wasn't intact anymore, but I have been proved so very wrong. God knew they were waiting for me, and He was shaping me for them, for me to fill a void they had in their family. In 2010, we (all 4 of us!) are eager to make our family of 4 a family of 5. What gender the 5th member should be depends on who you ask, but no matter what, he or she is waited for and already loved. He/she is already being prayed for by his/her parents and big sister. We call him/her "Promise" because we believe that God has promised us a 5th member of our family.

I went through a lot with my parents, mostly my mom, this year. My mom had 7 or 8 (I stopped counting) surgeries this year, most of them on her left knee. She is not a good patient. It wore on me so much to be taking care of her seemingly non-stop. Sheldon and I had only been dating for a few weeks when she was rushed in for emergency surgery. For the first time in the whole ordeal, I had someone to take care of me. I had someone to let me just unload all the feelings I had. I had someone who would help me take care of her (although he missed the really fun weeks when I was setting up her iv for her at least once, sometimes twice a day), someone who would spend time at the hospital so I could have time to do things that I needed to do. It showed me so much about who he is, deep inside. It taught me about his character, and I knew even more certainly that I had found someone so incredibly special. We were at the hospital spending time with my mom the first time I told him I loved him, in fact! Having a partner, a true partner, to walk beside me and hold me up through all of this stuff has been HUGE. God knew how much I needed it, and in His (always) perfect timing, He gave Sheldon to me.

I finally started working again this year. I don't make a million dollars, and I only work 30 hours a week, but I like where I am, I've already advanced in the company, and for now, it's perfect for me. It helps me to spend more time with my family (the ones I had before and my new one) and doesn't feel beneath me, which I was afraid would happen when I was having so much trouble finding a job. Just like with Sheldon, God put this job here for me at the exact right time.

I am so grateful for the blessings I have. If it wasn't for Jesus, I know that I would not have made it through the months upon months of heartache and agony I went through. I would not have made it through the months of nursing and being pretty much a servant for my mom. He sustained me, and His promises kept me. He is so faithful, and He loves me so! He has changed so much of what was bringing me down, and I'm glad that I went through the awful parts because it taught me to trust in Him and seek Him first all the time. It changed a lot of who I am, and how I see things. I'm grateful for that.

So for 2010...

Sheldon and I start the Marriage Matters course at our church on January 25th. Its a 9 week course that we know will set us up for success with our marriage. We've both seen the ugliest parts of marriage, and we know that no matter what, this time around will be different and better. We strive to put the Lord first in our lives and our relationship, and this class will give us tools to really do that. It also will help us with communication and other things, all from a scripture perspective. We're STOKED! With God, we cannot fail. The class will be finished in March, and we'll be getting married probably in June.

The year is just full of so much hope and promise. I'm blown away by all that God has already done, and I can't wait to see what He has in store for the next year!

I can't remember, a more awesome December

2009-12-26T13:15:00.011-06:00

I'm a little behind on some of this, but whatever. At least I'm pretty current for Christmas and, well, MY ENGAGEMENT!!

It snowed this month in Katy, something very rare. I was working the entire time, feeling like I was inside a snow globe because of the way the flakes were falling and my view through the front windows. I managed to sneak out on my lunch break to snap a few pics of my car.

Later that evening, we picked up the kids for the weekend. We found this amazing snowman in the neighborhood so we had the kids pose with it.

Since before I was born, we've had a waving Santa in front of our house. Cherie and Owen LOVE IT. The first time they saw it, they went running and now they always tell him hi when we get home. Here's their 1st meeting:

And here's their adorable Christmas outfits. Owen has a reindeer sweater to match my nephew Isaac, and Cherie has a red and black velvet and glittery dress that matches my niece Natalie. Love it.

Christmas Eve was straight out of a movie. Here's what the kids were doing after I let them watch the Santa tracker on norad.org:

And here's what Sheldon was doing after I, I mean Santa, wrapped all their other gifts:

55 screws in that kitchen. His hands were killing him, and it took 4 hours to assemble, but it was totally worth it to see their reaction Christmas morning. They had no idea Santa would bring them something like that and they LOVE IT. It came with dishes and they got a bucket of food. Plus the burners light up and make sounds. They've been playing with it all day today.

Finally, my ENGAGEMENT. On Thursday, Sheldon talked to my dad, got a sitter, and took me out for a nice dinner. Before dessert, he got down on 1 knee, pulled out a ring, and asked me to be his wife. Obviously, I said yes. And not just because the ring is AMAZING. He's also pretty amazing, so it was a no-brainer.

Blessed n stuff

2009-11-11T20:55:00.003-06:00

I wish my life was fully without drama. Its not something that should be blogged about, but its something that is very unlikely to ever not be a part of my life. Blending a family is tough at best. Even fairy tales have drama, remember? Sleeping Beauty grew up away from her parents and Cinderella slept in a fireplace after all! I am, however, so incredibly fortunate that God places these amazing moments in the middle of it that just make all the anger, hurt, and frustration that are at times excruciating and overwhelming totally worthwhile and small in comparison. Oh how He loves us!!!

For Halloween, we went to Dallas. My dear friend Chris married his beautiful bride Karen so the kids got some fantastic Bunny and Fox time. Bunny let Owen eat way too much candy, but holidays are meant for a bit of spoiling, right? I'll eventually post pictures of the kids in the pumpkin patch in their UT shirts (Thanks, B!!) and their costumes (Cherie was the greatest Hannah Montana ever, and Owen was too precious as Optimus Prime) but just know that it was so much fun.

*UPDATE!!* here's the pictures from the pumpkin patch and in their costumes:

November 7th, my hunny turned 30. We were so fortunate to have the kids with us that weekend. They were great sous chefs helping my mom and I cook a big birthday breakfast, and in the midst of it, Cherie and I got matching pedicures of hot pink and sparkly purple alternating toes - hers with white polka dots and mine with french tips. During the day, my brother and his beautiful babies came over and there was mass adorable playing in the house. That evening, we took a little road trip to New Braunfels for some Wurstfest. Cherie was introduced to the Tilt-o-whirl and Owen had his little heart broken because he isn't tall enough. Next year, sweet boy, next year. We rode the Ferris wheel as a family, and I discovered that Sheldon is TERRIFIED of heights so we all laughed at him a little. The time we spent laughing and just being together was perfect. The kids were so well behaved, they can't wait to make it a yearly thing, and I am optimistic that some day, I will get Sheldon to suck it up and eat more of the traditional German food because I love it so much. His Grandma Loebel wants me to win, too!! I want to get Cherie a little maedchen outfit next year. She loved all the costumes people were sporting! Owen just needs one of the super cool chicken hats.

God blessed me in such a powerful way on Sunday morning. During large group at KIDS Place, they had a prayer alter for the kids. When I watched Cherie timidly make her way up there then just throw herself into a passionate prayer, I almost burst into tears. That girl is very smart, very sensitive, and very perceptive. When I look at her, I can see how HUGE the plans God has for her are. He has so much ministry planned for her, and so many souls will be won for Him and His glory through her. I am blessed and HONORED to get to watch that, to be someone that she asks questions about Jesus, and to have God trust me to play a role in her spiritual upbringing. HUGE. My heart and soul cried out huge thanks to Him for that moment. I will tolerate all of that afore mentioned excruciating and overwhelming hurt, anger, and frustration for one more second of witnessing that pure faith of a child.

I am striving to be completely content in the imperfection of my life. I have an amazing man at my side who loves me after he loves the Lord, just as he should. He strives to be the type of man that the Bible commands him to be, as my mate, as a father, and as a man in general. Its refreshing! I'm not sure if that's the best word, but it fits. I get to have these 2 amazing kids in my life to love and build relationships with. I have a job that I enjoy going to (oh, and I got a promotion and a raise). We're looking to have our own home by early December. I have fantastic friends and family. My life will never be drama-free or perfect, but I am blessed with the perfection that comes in the midst of the imperfection. Because oh how He loves us!!

Anguish or awesome?

2009-10-25T17:40:00.002-05:00

Today I had my first major outing since my 5 hours in the ER in the middle of the night Thursday night/Friday morning. My temperature spiked to 100.2 briefly yesterday afternoon, but has otherwise stayed under 100 for over 24, plus I'd been on antibiotics for over 48 hours (which is the recommendation to end being potentially contagious) so I headed to church. I made it to the zone coach meeting (we only have 2 a year... I can handle that) at 7:30 and taught my class at 8:45. Unfortunately, my lungs started to ache and I started to get woozy during the praise portion of service, so I spent the sermon snuggled up against Sheldon.

We had a guest speaker named Daniel Henderson because today was our church's prayer conference. The part of the message he was preaching that I actually got was to start your prayers in scripture. This is imperative because prayer is meant to be a CONVERSATION with God, and what better place to start a conversation with God than in His word? It's so simple and seemingly obvious, yet we as Christians forget that part all the time. When we pray passionately, and pray scripture based prayers, then God will answer them and delight in them.

There's also a part that emotionally filled me, and I didn't even see it coming. I know Mr. Henderson had no intention of doing this for me, either. But that's part of how awesome God is. He loves to just sneak little things in there for His beloved children. It came out of one small sentence said in passing to kind of stir up images to people to be more compassionate towards each other, to feel their anguish. It had to the total opposite effect on me. He said, "Agony over broken marriages, broken homes, broken families." Until today, every time I've heard mention of "broken marriages", I've felt a little sting. After all, no one actually wants to be a divorcee, no matter how bad the marriage was. Today, instead of that oh-so-familiar sting, I felt something completely different. I was AWED BY MY GOD. My God took 2 people who come from broken marriages, from broken families, and put them together to make a new family. He patiently and painfully watched all the hurt, anger, and pain we went through with our divorces and when we were ready, He put us together. He placed us next to each other and gave us hearts that passionately love each other and more importantly, HIM. He shaped us through those adversities to create us into people who are determined and devoted to making Him the center of our relationship and the foundation of the new family He's building with us. That is AMAZING. There are a lot of people in the church who look down on us for being divorced, regardless of the reasons for the splits or the fact that neither of us are the ones who initiated them. There are people who see us as used and unable to get God's full blessing from marriage because we've been married before. I was scared for a while that I would always be "used" and now I see so clearly how untrue that is. I see how the woman that was in that marriage is no more, just as the man who was in Sheldon's marriage is no more. We're new creations, and we were designed from the beginning of time to walk the paths we have walked to bring us to the present, where we are 2 people preparing to spend a lifetime together, loving each other and loving our Lord.

Getting divorced SUCKED. But then again, it also gave me the greatest gifts I've ever received. So at the end of the day, I guess you could say I'm grateful. :-)

Everybody knows that OU STEALS SOCKS!

2009-10-17T14:56:00.003-05:00

I love the rivalry. I really do. I love Sooner jokes. I truly believe that OU sucks.

That being said, I found this video from iamsecond.com on a friend's facebook page and it's a great reminder that there's something MUCH larger than this rivalry.

Watch the video and remember that win or lose, we're all second to God.

Why you so smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiley?

2009-09-24T23:00:00.002-05:00

I'm just going to take a moment to count my blessings, mkay?

-I have a great family. Especially the ones who leave snarky comments about adorable shirts on my sweet babies.
-I have a fantastic boyfriend. If only he didn't snore... God, could you help us out on that one? hehehe
-I have the most amazing friends anyone could ever ask for. Smart, funny, loving, talented, generally awesome, etc. They can make the darkest day sparkle like a Cullen in the sun. (Sorry, I just wanted to toss some Twilight in there for good measure.)
-Have you seen my baby kitties? I mean, seriously.
-We have tickets to the UT game this weekend which means 2 MUCH NEEDED days in Austin with some of those afore mentioned friends and that amazing boyfriend.
-Oh, and I got a job today.

I trust the Lord to provide, and He does not disappoint.

Prayer request

2009-09-22T13:24:00.003-05:00

After spending Thursday afternoon thru Sunday evening with Sheldon's kids, the deal is sealed and my heart is so theirs. Would you please pray for their safety and that God would put the balls in motion to place them in the safest environment?

How could you say no to that?

clarification

2009-09-03T00:08:00.003-05:00

I reread my last entry and realized that it just might appall some real moms. I just want to clarify that I'm not trying to be their mother. They have a mother, and she will always be that to them. My role will be their step-mom, and that's exactly what I want to be. I mean, I obviously want to be more to them than just "Daddy's girlfriend" or at some point "Daddy's wife" (yea, I just said that). We were very clear with the kids that neither of us will ever ask them to call me "Mom", that it will always be up to them what they call me. I'm not trying to adopt them or turn them against their mom or anything like that.

I hope no one took it as anything other than that.

Motherhood 101

2009-09-02T00:16:00.002-05:00

Last week, I got to experience being a mom. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with kids (some of them may have even been your kids, in fact), but this was an entirely new arena for me. I was the mom in the story.

Sheldon has 2 beautiful kids. Cherie is 7 and Owen is 4. On Tuesday, we went and had lunch at school with Cherie. SO FUN! That evening, his ex called and said the a/c was broken at her house and could he take the kids for the night. Well, he was on call for work, and I live about 10 minutes from their school so the obvious solution was for them to stay with me. We got them dinner, I made Cherie a lunch for the next day (she said she was just in the mood to bring a lunch instead of buying a tray), got them situated in bed, got them up the next morning (Cherie is an easy morning kid. Owen - not so much.), and got her off to school (Owen only goes in the afternoons). Drinking my coffee while I got them breakfast, doing her hair, etc. was so good. It's a routine I could get very used to. I'm crazy about these kids, y'all. During visitation on Thursday night, I was assured that the feeling is mutual. We went to Target to get Owen a new backpack for school (Transformers, of course) and it looked like his face hurt the grin was so huge. It redefined beaming for me. Before dinner, we were in the car and talking about the future with the kids, and Cherie informed me that she wants to call me "Mom". I thought my heart was going to EXPLODE. There's a Psalm that says "I will make the barren woman the mother of joyful children." I honestly feel like they're the fulfillment of that for me.

Sheldon is fantastic. He's normal and likes the things I do, but he also encourages me to grow spiritually, which is something that's been lacking in every relationship I've ever had. He supports me in every way possible and has all the attributes I know that God has always wanted for me in my match. Okay, he's not that tall, but I can still wear heels and not look silly, so that's an acceptable compromise. Our relationship feels very natural and, quite frankly, pleasing to God. We want the same things in life and for our children. He said the way the kids and I are with each other is more comfortable and easy than any of the other women he's dated since he and their mom split. All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord. I believe that Sheldon and I went through our first marriages because they were molding us into who we are now and how we fit together as a pair. All the things that I was insecure about before I'm honest with him about and he takes extra care in those areas, strengthening them and enabling my growth. I'm an individual, with my own interests and activities, but instead of feeling like those things are taking away from my relationship with him, I know that they enrich it. He honestly makes me feel like the scripture about a good wife being a woman who is to be treasured above rubies. He has seen me crying and venting and generally ugly, and he doesn't care. It doesn't bother him that I'm human. So basically, he's exceptionally good for me.

I like being in this family. I like cuddling on the couch and talking about things we want for the kids, how excited we are about getting them into church and raising them with Jesus in their lives. I like when we talk about growing old together. We've decided that our dating time is in dog years or something. We're pretty sure we've been dating at least 6 months now. And we're certain that we're very much in love and blessed by each other.

My new address...

2009-08-13T01:32:00.004-05:00

Okay, not really. I swear I feel like I live at the hospital! Apparently, the reason I haven't found a full time job yet is because God still needs to me to take care of my mom a little bit longer. My mom was admitted on Saturday night to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and vomiting. After 2 days, 2 x-rays and a CT scan, she called me Monday night a little after 10pm to let me know she was being taken in for emergency surgery because they found a bowel blockage. By Tuesday morning, they'd removed 8 inches of her small intestine, her appendix (if you're already in there, might as well!) and approximately 2 liters of fluid that were just chillin' in her abdomen. Her small intestine had gotten wedged between some scar tissue and subsequently pinched closed. She's in ICU now, waiting for a room to free up in the med/surge wing (should be tomorrow), but she's feeling wonderful and her gastrointerologist told her tonight she's doing remarkably well. I feel pretty confident that this will be her last surgery for a good long time and that she's finally on the road to independent living again!

The biggest difference between this round of hospital time and the 2+ months in the spring has been Sheldon. After how amazing he's been for me this week (and because I met his wonderful children), there's no hesitation left and we are officially a couple. He sat in the ER with my mom and me on Saturday night and helped me get her settled into her room. We were there until 2am. I was with him when she called me about surgery on Monday night, and he just held me and let me vent about it. He told me that I can always talk to him about it because he wants to be there for me. He went with me to visit her at the hospital last night and is going again tomorrow. I've been taking care of her for so long now and it gets hard and really wears on me. To have someone in my life again who wants to and enjoys taking care of me is so good. He is exactly what I need in my life right now.

why you so quiet?

2009-08-06T01:00:00.002-05:00

Every time I've felt a tug to blog in the past 6 weeks or so, the urge has left me rapidly. I was talking about it with my amazing sister in law today and after several people nudged me about my lack of entries recently, the real reason I've been so stinkin' quiet hit me: I just wasn't ready to share with everyone what I've really been up to. I started this blog to force myself to be fully honest, so it's time to rip the proverbial band-aid off and talk about what many people already know.

When D posted on facebook about his new girl-whatever, it hurt me REAL bad. But that announcement was the nail in the coffin of our relationship. I am fully at terms with the fact that I will love him until the day I die, but I'm so not in love anymore. I can't be in love with someone who can do the things to me that he's done to me. I deserve better than that, for 2 reasons: 1. I could not and would not ever do those things to someone and 2. because of Who I belong to. Its just not what God would ever choose for me. When my tears dried and the sting was gone, I knew I was over it. So I've been dating. I started dating a few days after I got back from California in June. I've been on dates with some awesome guys and some, well, not so awesome guys. There was one that I could see a real future with - smart, stable job, respected me, loves the Lord, made me laugh, and was way into family - but that didn't pan out after a few weeks. Now I've been seeing someone for about 3 weeks. My parents think he's great. His parents think I'm great. He treats me AMAZING. He loves the Lord and has morals and beliefs that compliment my own. I'm hesitant to say that I'm his girlfriend, but in practice, I obviously am. I'm not rushing in to things, especially since my divorce isn't final yet, but I'm pretty happy about things.

I'm so ready to be divorced. All that's left is for us to split up our debt for paperwork and then for him to file the final decree. I don't encourage divorce, and I do believe that God has called us to stay married, but I also have come to fully embrace the belief that sometimes things break because they need to be replaced, not because they need to be fixed. God's best for me is to be divorced. I've seen more and more as I've been going through this that there are people that this is true for. I don't regret that marriage because I learned what I really want, what really matters, and that I'm better than the BS reasons I was fed. God was there and God has blessed me through it.

So that's that. Now I just need a full time job (because I do love being with Baby A a day or 2 a week, but...) and to move out on my own again. God has a plan for me, and I know 100% that I am making choices with Him now.

So there you have it. Now I'll do my best to be a more consistent blogger again.

We're all just big kids.

2009-07-01T14:14:00.004-05:00

Okay, okay. I've slacked. I've given you little nudges and waves, but nothing of substance. Well, yesterday God gave me some substance, so I'm going to pass that along to you. Here's a scripture and some Beth Moore (from her Breaking Free Day by Day devotional) to set the mood, per say.

He has torn us, and He will heal us; He has wounded us, and He will bind up our wounds. Hosea 6:1

Are you beginning to see the intimate activity of Christ when we're devastated? And to think, this is the same One we accuse of not caring when the crushing moment comes.

Perhaps the most profound miracle of all is living through something we thought would kill us. And not just living, but living abundantly and effectively - raised from living death to a new life. Yes, it's a life that is indeed absent of something or someone dear to you, but it is filled with the presence of the Resurrection and the Life. Will you continue to sit in a dark tomb or will you walk into the light of resurrection life?

I was so mad at God for so long, friends. It was obvious. And I'm not going to pretend I don't still have moments where the little girl in me wants to throw a tantrum and be mad at my Father because I'm not getting what I want. There's a reason we're called the CHILDREN of God and not the offspring or some such other word that would indicate becoming adults in Him. You can reach spiritual maturity, obviously, but that doesn't make you any less prone to childish fits and behaviors. The thing that makes us MATURE is knowing that we're doing it and striving to get past it. That's what I feel it means to walk in the Light.

When everything fell apart, I was pissed, but I knew God was there. As it dragged on for a year and a half, I got mad and felt ditched. I was angry that God would leave me in such a crappy position for so long, answering my prayers with resounding "WAIT"s. But He tore me, and now He's healing me.

Going to California got me away from my present. I mean, it took 2 days to get there, so OBVIOUSLY it was a necessary distance. Things were put into a different perspective for me. New things were introduced to my heart, and I got to see that it's not as shattered as I thought it still was. Still a bit fragile, still exceptionally vulnerable, but the wounds are becoming scabs and the scabs are becoming scars. Scars show we've loved. But now I'm ready to love someone else. Someone who won't discard me. Someone who loves the Lord more than he loves me, because I will always love the Lord first, too. Ahhh the maturity.

let's have a quickie

2009-06-25T13:12:00.001-05:00

California was AMAZING. I had the best time with Hayley and those are memories for a lifetime. The trip was very good for my sanity.

There's been other new additions to my life that are good for my sanity, but I'm not quite ready to blog about that just yet. All I'm saying is that God is good.

Transition.

2009-06-09T23:12:00.003-05:00

I had fun in Dallas last weekend. I'm excited about California this weekend thru the 21st. In the mean time, I am not excited or, well, happy. Here are some scriptures to sum up my heart.

How long will you forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will you hide Your face from me? How long must I lay up my cares within me and have sorrow in my heart day after day? How long shall my enemy exalt himself over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten the eyes [of my faith to behold Your face in the pitch like darkness], lest I sleep the sleep of death, Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted, leaned on, and been confident in Your mercy and loving-kindness; my heart shall rejoice and be in high spirits in Your salvation. Psalm 13:1-5

Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me! Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help! Draw out also the spear and javelin and close up the way of those who pursue and persecute me. Say to me, I am your deliverance! Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek and require my life; let them be turned back and confounded who plan my hurt! Let them be as chaff before the wind, with the Angel of the Lord driving them on! Let their way be through dark and slippery places, with the Angel of the Lord pursuing and afflicting them. For without cause they they hid for me their net; a pit of destruction without cause the dug for my life. Let destruction befall my foe unawares; let the net he hid for me catch him; let him fall into that very destruction. Then I shall be joyful in the Lord; I shall rejoice in His deliverance. Psalm 35:1-9

For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection; [they will be] slanderers, intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. Although they hold a form of piety, they dent and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. II Timothy 3:2-5a

Wordless Wednesday - Aunt Suzy style

2009-06-03T22:39:00.003-05:00

God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy

2009-06-01T16:45:00.004-05:00

I heard that song 3 times on my drive to New Braunfels Friday night. It 100% sums up the way I feel about my life these days. I mean, crazy isn't always a bad thing, so it's always applicable, especially on the verge of a summer weekend in the hill country. I think the best word to describe the HC is "simple". Everything is just a little slower, a little more relaxed, and a lot more fun. It's about a cotton dress and sandals as opposed to an outfit and tons of makeup. The #1 cosmetic you need is sunscreen. That and lotion are the only ones I packed, actually. You drink beer, you laugh, and you just enjoy life. It's so easy being there.

I'll be accentuating this post with scoreboards, just be prepared for that. They're a necessity (apparently, so is wearing a rubber at all times. HA! You girls are crazy for the Andy.)

My original plan was to leave early Friday morning and have Hula Hut lunch with Libby in Austin. That didn't happen because, well, I was up until after 5am Friday morning doing stuff around the house. So then I slept most of the day Friday, got up in the late afternoon and puttered about doing the rest of the things that needed to happen before I hit the hill country. I finally left just before 10pm. BALLER, I know.

I took advantage of the drive to pray. I just wanted to get the full effect of the simple easy atmosphere of the HC and recharge. I wanted to really feel Him filling each of us up with a happiness that can really only come from Him. He was faithful and came through, big time.

On the drive, I discovered that someone else was just as crazy as me and started a radio station that fulfills my dream. I discovered 106.7 Santa FM. Apparently, it's a station in transition out of San Antonio, but who cares? I got to listen to a crapton of Christmas music with a bag full of shorts and swimsuits in my backseat. That's a win. Whitney wouldn't let me listen to it on Saturday on our way to the river. She apparently does not appreciate the awesomeness of listening to Sleigh Ride when it's 95 degrees outside. I just wanted to feel like I lived in the southern hemisphere!

About an hour and a half into the drive, I realized that I had forgotten my insulin and subsequently wouldn't have enough for the weekend. Eh, whatever. I knew I could just hit a pharmacy in the morning and get another vial. Easy. When I got to NB, my life was SAVED by Ben C. (who was graciously letting us all crash at his house for the weekend). He is a diabetic supplies salesman, so he just happened to have some insulin in his fridge. AMAZING.

Friday night was all about beer pong and just a relaxed party vibe. Unless you're the birthday girl, Whitney. Scoreboard: driveway - 1, Whitney - 0. She is about as accident prone as she is beautiful. She had been at Ben's for less than 5 minutes when she tripped on the driveway and sprained her ankle pretty good. That stuff only happens to her, I swear.

Saturday we got to the river a good 2 hours after we had planned (no surprise there) and discovered just how bad New Braunfels needs rain. To float the full trip on the Guadalupe river would take almost 8 hours. WHOA. We had picked the Guadalupe instead of the Comal because we wanted to float longer (the Comal float typically takes about 2-3 hours) It gives you more time to drink beer and relax. Kids, there was a lot of not relaxing about this trip. They dropped us off past the main bend and told us it would take us about 4 hours to float. What they didn't tell us was that the river was REAAAAAAAAAALLY low. There were a lot of places where it was only 3 or 4 inches deep. What that means is we got stuck on a lot of rocks. And that I got my butt kicked. Scoreboard: Guadalupe River - 12, Suz - 0. I am so sore and have random scrapes and wounds on my appendages. I got minimally sunburned, mostly in a strange spotted pattern on my legs. Partial sunscreen fail. But it was the least burned I have ever gotten on the river, so I'll make that a tie between me and the sun.

The majority of the party people went to see Cross Canadian Ragweed Saturday night but I said my goodbyes and headed up to Burnet for a little bit of Ross time to finish up my weekend. That was pretty uneventful and just generally relaxing. I like spending time with Ross and his family. They're just such good people, you can't be in a bad mood around them. I got home yesterday afternoon around 4:30, was passed out cold by 10:30 and slept all day today. I'm calling it recovery.

I believe that this weekend was so important for me. I needed to just go and kick back with some friends, laugh a lot, remember why I don't like Miller Lite (it does NOT taste better. Bleh! Bud Light por vida), and generally enjoy life. God was quietly preparing my heart because my divorce papers finally arrived today, 5 weeks after he filed. You know what? I was totally fine. I'm walking with God, and trusting Him to make things work the way He wants, which will always be better than what I want.

So there you have it. God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.

happy hour is 2-4.

2009-05-22T16:49:00.002-05:00

Last week, the unthinkable happened at the house. I was out of diet coke for 3 DAYS. I know. Instead of being a grown up and going to the store, I just started hitting Sonic for a Route 44 Diet Coke easy ice on my way to and from various places, hence the title. Half price drinks at Sonic from 2-4! GENIUS. My favorite part was when Mom and I hit CVS to get some of her prescriptions and figured we'd just pick up some diet coke there. Um, there wasn't a single diet coke in the entire store. No 12-packs. No 2-Liters. No 16oz bottles in the cold box. It was BIZARRE. So I went to Sonic. I mean, it was raining, and I'm a delicate flower.

In other news, well, there's not much other news. Tonight I'm going to a hockey game with my cousin Hayley. I have pretty much no holiday plans. Next weekend I'm getting my Hill Country on with a Saturday float of the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels/Gruene for Whitifer's birthday and then finishing the weekend out in Burnet with Ross for his birthday. That means I have to miss my sweet niece Natalie's dance recital, but I think she'll survive, contrary to my mean brother's words yesterday. The first weekend in June, I'm headed up to the Big D. Bunny and Silver Fox are closing on their new house on the 5th, and Jen's baby shower is on the 6th. There will be some good times with Liz and the Saucer, too, because that's the kind of girls we are.

Because I feel like I need to include it...
It's been about a month and I still haven't seen divorce papers. I don't know how I feel anymore. I have these moments where the memories and subsequent feelings roll like a slide show across my heart and it hurts so bad that I can't stop crying. Sometimes I just don't really feel anything. And still other times, I'm just mad and over the whole thing. I know for certain that I am better than I thought I would be, blessed by my friends, and strengthened by my Lord.

you can mail that?!

2009-05-15T19:25:00.008-05:00

Today, I went to go collect my mom from the hospital. Again. When we got home, I had to wait to pull into the driveway because the mail lady was getting something out of the back of the van, and it would have been rude to just run her down. She pulled a large red object out, and I came thisclose to peeing my pants. My friend Christina is AMAZING. Seriously. I honestly don't know how I lived before I had her in my life. She made me the most perfect gift!

Obviously, she put a lot of effort into it. It's super meaningful yet very simple and extremely effective. The ball really is a ball of joy. It's COVERED in scriptures! I want everyone else to be blessed, so here they are:

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds" Psalm 147:3

"You turned my wailing into dancing, You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy that my heart may sing to You and not be silent. O Lord my God I will give thanks forever." Psalm 30:11-12

"He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:21

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

"Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and joy in His dwelling place." I Chronicles 16:27

"Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

"Let all who take refuge in You be glad, let them ever sing for joy. Spread Your protection over them, that those who love Your Name may rejoice in You." Psalm 5:11

"You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is a fullness of joy..." Psalm 16:11

"He restores my soul; He leads me to the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Psalm 23:3

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. At His tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy..." Psalm 27:6

Seriously, Christina. THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. The timing was perfect, you are such a wonderful friend, and I am so blessed by you! Love you!

tidings of comfort and joy

2009-05-12T23:34:00.003-05:00

Giggle away, kids. We all know I love Christmas music. Moving right along.

I've been working a few days here and there as a nanny. I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but I REALLY like kids. I spent 2 days last week with these 2 precious cuties:

I learned what it's like to have twins! A (the brunette cutie) is 18 months old and K (the blond sweetie) is 21 months old. It's twice the adorable and twice the crazy. Either it was just fun or God is foreshadowing things to come... let's pray over that, shall we?

In addition to finding so much happiness (joy, you could say) in spending time with little ones, I've also been getting SO MUCH out of the current sermon series. We're spending the majority of 2009 doing an intensive study on Genesis. Friends, the lives of people 4000 years ago have so much in common with ours! Oh sure, we have indoor plumbing and diet coke, but the emotions and dreams are the same. While walking through my current valley, I have been uplifted, encouraged, and generally comforted in ways I never could have imagined by the lives of Abraham and Sarah.

Abraham is the father of the big 3 religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He was not perfect. He did not always follow God's instructions. But he always loved the Lord. It is so comforting to see that he was blessed and rewarded exponentially by a good and faithful God. It is a reminder to all of us that God will never expect us to be perfect, and that He will still bless us and never leave us.

A few weeks ago, the topic was the birth of Isaac. Now, this event has been touched upon in several other sermons, because it was a HUGE part of God's promise to Abraham and Sarah. When my marriage fell apart, one of the things I had to mourn was the very real possibility that I will never have children of my own. My doctors have been telling me since I was 19 that I'm so high risk and when I turn 30, that risk triples so its best to have them in my 20's. Well, I'm halfway to 28 and going through a divorce. That does not bode well for having babies. I completely understand the pain Sarah must have felt. Literally, a DECADE went by with no child. She became desperate, made some bad choices, and paid the price. But then God was FAITHFUL and blessed her with a baby, when she was in her 90's. Sarah lived to be 127 years old, by the way. The point is, she was well past the age when she could have children. Menopause had come and gone. But God can do anything. And so I believe it's the same for me. I no longer feel that I'm lacking in some way, that I'm "less of a woman" the way I've felt for the past 2 years when we had tried to get pregnant and didn't, then when I miscarried. Those situations were my Hagar. I'll get my Isaac eventually.

I've been extremely blessed by a handful of the friends in my life these past 3 weeks. Y'all have lifted me up and meant more to me than you realize. I have not collapsed, and I am, in fact, ready for what's next. Let's go to Canaan, okay?

the kindness of strangers

2009-05-07T23:47:00.002-05:00

I went to the doctor today because the antibiotics I took for the gift of strep I received from my beautiful amazing wonderful sister in law are long gone and my sore throat isn't. Here are a few phrases that were particularly meaningful for me during that visit. "I'd like to check you for mono." WHAT? Grown ups DO NOT get mono, dude. You're ridiculous. Then he looked in my throat. Here's what I heard: "Pustules." That is DISGUSTING. Well, it did rule out mono. Apparently, the antibiotics didn't kill all the strep, that there were some patches of a strain resistant to amoxicillian. He didn't say I was contagious, and I told him I'd been around lots of kiddos (so if that includes your children, keep reading!), and he said they were fine and wrote me a prescription for a different antibiotic to finish the job. (Is it Mortal Combat or Street Fighter where that crazy voice goes, "FINISH HIM!!!"? Insert that here.) Then he looked in my ears. Here's my favorite part of that: "Wow, you had a lot of ear infections as a kid, didn't you?" I'm just upset that Sun Meeeeeee didn't mention my earhole scar tissue when she looked in my ears last summer. He informed me that I have a lot of fluid behind my right ear which means I'm about to have a sinus infection. He hooked me up with some drug samples for that.

Now for the title of the post. Tonight I dragged myself to HEB with Mom because, well, we were out of Diet Coke and life's just not really worth living when we're out of Diet Coke. Let's be honest here. Well, I am, in fact, a genius this week. (Saturday night, I locked my keys in the ignition at Taco Bell. Monday I left them on the lid of my trunk over night.) Tonight, I added to the list leaving my cell phone in the tray of the basket at HEB. FORTUNATELY, God is good and there are still truly good people in the world. I hadn't even noticed that I'd left it when the phone rang at the house. The man who found it scrolled through my contacts and called "Mom and Dad" to find out how to get it back to me. He told me that he'd lost his phone one time and someone had done that for him. How freaking cool is that?!

All in all, I'd say life could be worse right about now.

PRECIOUS! just precious.

2009-04-27T21:31:00.005-05:00

I feel like I'm floating along on a bubble of prayer. I know some of them are my own, but mostly, they're prayers that have been said for me. If you're one of the amazing people who have prayed for me, thank you. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I received the most amazing email from a sweet friend of mine from Grace Fellowship. She told me she'd gone to the prayer center to intercede for me, and while she was praying, a couple prayed over her for me (Prayer makes chains like that. It blows my mind in the best way possible.) Jeremiah 17:7-8 was claimed over me. I DO trust in the Lord, and I AM blessed by my confidence in Him.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Romans 12:12,14

I am commanded in scripture to live as a Christian example to my husband. I believe that this commandment still applies during our divorce. I have been strongly encouraged to continue to bless Denver throughout this process. Subsequently, I have claimed Psalm 112 for him. God began a good work in Denver when he prayed to accept Christ before we were married. God doesn't abandon His works, and thus I believe that he WILL be changed. Not necessarily in time to reconcile with me (although that would be pretty great) but rather in God's time, which is perfect. Every time he says or does something that hurts me, makes my stomach clench, etc, I pray that Psalm over him, inserting his name. God hears and answers the prayers of those who love Him.

Do I miss him every single day? Yes. Do I love him? Absolutely. Is my life over? Not even close. God molds and shapes us through every trial and season of suffering we endure. I know without a doubt that I walk with Christ, so I am being molded and shaped. If I am never as happy as I was ever again in this life, it doesn't make a difference. I mean, OBVIOUSLY I want to be ridiculously happy, but its out of my hands and into hands much larger than my own. So I will wait obediently and pray faithfully.

broken.

2009-04-22T03:48:00.002-05:00

Tonight at Alpha, one of the ministers read cards that the other leader's had written during a prayer time beforehand of words of wisdom from the Holy Spirit. One of them was, "Someone is struggling with a broken heart. I see a picture of a heart shattered into thousands of pieces."

At 2am, I messaged Denver on facebook because an episode of The West Wing we both love was on Bravo. He then informed me that he'd sent me an email earlier but sent it to the wrong address and had just resent it. He informed me that he filed for divorce today and asked me how I wanted to handle service.

On top of that heart warming conversation, I have strep throat.

Jesus, I need you now more than ever.

heart band-aids?

2009-04-16T19:55:00.002-05:00

I love the Lord, because He has heard [and now hears] my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The cords and sorrows of death were around me, and the terrors of Sheol (the place of the dead) had laid hold of me; I suffered anguish and grief. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech You, save my life and deliver me! Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low and He helped and saved me. Psalm 116:1-6

I am continually in awe of my own capacity to endure and love. The grass is not greener, and I don't really want your life (unless you drive an Audi, but then I just want your car) and I don't want your pity. I just appreciate your prayers and supplications. Last night was a pretty bad night for me, and I had a pretty nasty panic attack. I was having a hard time even breathing much less praying. Thank you to Dayna and the Spirit for praying for me. When some semblence of calm returned to me, I was able to pray through my tears and, with the help of a ridiculous assortment of medications, eventually got some sleep.

God heard my prayers and those prayers prayed for me, and today I was not in that awful pit that I was in last night. In fact, my heart which was shattered and trampled last night, was restored to the point that I felt chest-bursting happiness for my sweet Cobbs when Eryn messaged me with their amazing news.

I've been wondering for a while when my love was going to run out, when I was going to bottom out and be unable to keep faithfully praying the promises of scripture and loving the people God's blessed me with in my life. God is so good, and I am completely confident that He is living in me because I now know that I will never run out of love. Now, when I will run out of "IN-LOVE" is another matter that only God knows.

the closest thing to a "free lunch"

2009-04-13T15:07:00.002-05:00

It's way better than a free lunch. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love a free meal as much as if not more than anyone, but this stuff, well, it's a feeding that lasts longer than the most delicious and satisfying meal ever could. It, in fact, blows that meal to crap. Okay, I have to switch tones now because this is sounding like a commercial and that is decidedly not my intent.

It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on His own, with no help from us! Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all His idea, and all His work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. Ephesians 2:1-10 (The Message)

I love that that right there, in simple terms, is the best part of yesterday. Obviously, the candy is nice, but the fact that we were sin-soaked and obsessed with the world and ourselves, and God MERCIFULLY sent His son to die for us. We don't ever have to be good enough or holy enough or pure enough to be saved. All we have to do is BELIEVE. Have faith! And not even a lot of faith. Nope. Faith the size of a MUSTARD SEED (Matthew 17:20) is all you need. Reading the Bible, going to Bible study or on missions, prayer, etc., is all HIS work that we do to spend time with Him, not work we do to obtain salvation or maintain our places in Heaven.

Our Easter sermon was about imputed righteousness. This is referring to how God made a unilateral covenant with Abraham that He would make him righteous simply because he had faith in God. That covenant was fulfilled for each and every one of us through Christ. It's referenced and quoted in several books of the New Testament, thus it is a big part of the New Covenant. (For those of you who need some background on that, basically the Old Testament and subsequently the Jewish faith is the Old Covenant. Christ coming to die for us was promised in that covenant and so the New Testament and Christianity is the New Covenant.) There were so many things that Jim said, examples of current life that he included, that just blew me away. I mean, a lot of my problems aren't exactly uncommon, and I know that, but I'd been praying extensively about several of them last week so it was good for me to hear them specifically referenced in regards to God's provisions. On the way to church and again after we sang (so right before the message was delivered) I prayed for God to speak to me and keep my heart open to hear His words to me. Well, friends, it OBVIOUSLY worked.

I appreciated the sermon being on imputed righteousness even more because of a scripture I've been praying over Denver for quite some time now. "For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife," I Corinthians 7:14a Now, I believe that when Denver accepted Christ before we got married, he was sincere and subsequently the Spirit still resides within him, and he is saved because you can't give back salvation, but since he's currently walking around proclaiming himself to be an atheist, it comforts my heart to the deepest parts to be reminded that he is set apart because he is my husband, despite his current view of himself as an unbeliever. [Note: Yes, I know what that entire passage says. Before you cite the rest of the passage and it's message on divorce to me, keep in mind that when I married him, he was a believer. That is all. :-)] The bottom line on that is, it's yet another free gift the Lord gives us out of love and grace. Denver doesn't have to do anything. My faith keeps him sanctified. That's pretty amazing to me, y'all.

It's humbling and empowering all at once. I'm so in awe of God's hugeness.

evil in the world

2009-04-09T00:18:00.004-05:00

Last night, our discussion at Alpha was about how to resist evil. It was awesome to have this topic after the hugeness of our Holy Spirit Weekend (where 4 people - including Sweet Katie - accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!!) but I came away from this meeting with an general feeling of unrest.

I absolutely believe that satan is real and that there is a tremendous amount of evil in the world. I've seen the evil with my own eyes, and even if I hadn't, it's in the Bible which is 100% truth and God's word to us, so that would be enough for me anyway. I just wanted to get that out there before I wrote about anything else.

Tim Barker was our speaker. He's a pastor here in the Katy/West Houston area as well as the accountability partner of our head pastor Jim Leggett. I have the utmost respect for Jim and thus Tim. I felt like he made some really awesome points, about praying the armor of God on yourself and your loved ones weekly if not daily (the pieces of this armor - the Belt of Truth, the Breastplate of Righteousness, The Gospel Shoes of Peace, the Shield of Faith, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit - are outlined in Ephesians 6:10-18). He gave several illustrations about the power of Scripture, and he even offered up a very practical way to defend yourself when you feel satan attacking you (pray for someone who doesn't know Christ. It pisses the devil off BIG TIME. He'd rather leave you alone than risk losing one of his souls).

In our small group, Kevin made a great point. Being aware that there is evil in the world and that satan will try to attack you is kind of like being told that at some point, someone is going to hit you in the face, and you need to be ready for it. No one wants to be hit in the face. It sucks. We also talked about if evil comes from God or from the devil. I personally believe, based on the Job precedent, that evil comes from satan. All of those things that Job endured, losing all of his possessions, his entire family dying, getting nasty boils, etc, were the work of satan, and not God. But his faith was STRENGTHENED. I believe that's the point of it. It's like Dolly Parton (yea, I'm gonna quote her) said, "You can't have a rainbow without any rain." Well, Eve bought the devil's lie in the garden and subsequently, we all get to endure evil in our lives. That's just the reality of it. Here's the part I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. Kevin and I disagree on this part. He doesn't believe that your circumstances per say are actually evil. I believe that a large portion of circumstances are rooted in evil. For instance, I don't believe that living with my parents, while I'm not happy about it, is evil, but I believe that the choices Denver made that led to me living with my parents are rooted in evil. There will always be exceptions, like getting laid off because the economy is bad, etc, but I don't agree that it's right to say that circumstances aren't really evil. What do you think? Can someone help me understand this one?

In other news, my mom was readmitted to the hospital Sunday night with an infection in her surgical wound. After a tremendous amount of drama, she had a 2nd surgery this morning to clean out the wound and drain it. We're hoping that plus hardcore antibiotics takes care of it, and she makes it home for good soon and starts the recovery process for reals.

Hello from our Alpha retreat!

2009-04-04T00:04:00.002-05:00

I love love love my Alpha group. Before the first session, they told us that God puts together the group that He wants together. It's absolutely true. All 4 of the other girls who are in my group and on this retreat are in my room with me right now (Skyleigh is my roommate but Ana, Katie, and Laura are just cool girls hanging out with us) and we're sharing stuff and having a great time. We're having so much fun, in fact, that the people in the room next to us changed rooms because we were laughing so loud.

Earlier today, when I was getting ready to come up here, I was thinking about a statement I heard earlier this week. "Jesus loves you, but He loves everyone." They tried to make it sound like that was a bad thing. That's the point! Jesus loves everyone. He loves every single one of us, regardless of who we are and what we've been and done. We can never be good enough for Him to love us, but He died for us anyway. Just marinate on that.

I'm gonna go have some more bonding time with my girls.

Affirmation

2009-03-29T12:55:00.004-05:00

This morning, right before the service I heard some sad news about some friends of my brother and SIL's. When couples split and it's not a mutual decision, it is gut wrenching and awful. That means I started the service out with kind of a lump in my stomach. Then the lump grew when I looked at the bulletin and saw what the sermon topic today was. GREAT. It was Sodom and Gomorrah. That's always fun filled and joyful! Lucky for me, God is amazingly good and had set up a provision for the lump in my stomach. There was a quote placed towards the end of our sermon notes and when it was read, I felt just this huge wave of peace affirmation wash over me and remove that lump in my stomach.

"If lost sinners will not hear you speak, they cannot prevent your praying. Do they jest at your exhortations? They cannot disturb your prayers. Are they away so you cannot reach them? Your prayers can reach them. Have they declared that they will never listen to you again, nor see your face? Never mind, God has a voice which they must hear. Speak to Him, and He will make them feel. Though they now treat you despitefully, rendering evil for your good, follow them with your prayers. Never let them perish for lack of your supplications." -Charles Spurgeon

* yawn *

2009-03-28T15:43:00.002-05:00

Y'all, I'm tired. Physically. I am just exhausted. I have been all week. Its bizarre. Maybe its sympathy for Eryn, or maybe it's just my hormones, but I feel like I'm pregnant! I have cramps and pains in the right places, I'm just tired all the time, and I want to eat everything. Don't start thinking anything - we all know where babies come from and that isn't happenin' for this lady right now. I have a meeting on Tuesday to hopefully get Medicaid. If I get Medicaid, then I can go see a doctor about this weirdness! Wouldn't that be amazing?!

I'm probably not going to blog about extensively about the wedding since it's been a week and no longer feels all that fresh. Sorry, I know you're crushed. Feel free to ask if you really want to know. Basically, we had an amazing time. Everything was beautiful. The DJ was AWFUL and complaints have been filed about him (I mean, he violated the contract, ignored the timeline we gave him 2 months ago which means things got left out, and then had the balls to wait until the morning of the wedding to get the music together so he called Bunny at 10am ON HER WEDDING DAY to tell her there was a problem with the song she and Silver Fox had selected for their 1st dance! WAY unprofessional, pal.) Our airbrush tans looked so gross at the rehearsal but after we'd all gotten to shower and the color had set, we looked bronze and fantastic for the wedding. Pictures will be posted to facebook in the next day or so, so I'll swipe some and post them here for your viewing pleasure.

I've spent the vast majority of my week either passed out, taking care of my dad, or up at the hospital with Mom. Her surgery on Monday went well, she was moved to the rehab hospital on Thursday night, and she's looking at being released on either April 2nd or 3rd. I'm personally hoping it's either the 2nd or before noon on the 3rd, since I'm heading to the Woodlands on the 3rd for our Alpha Holy Spirit Retreat (more about that in a minute). I have to leave Katy between 4 and 4:30 at the latest, so that could be cutting it VERY close!

The Alpha Retreat. God has HUGE things planned for that weekend, and I'm pretty stoked. I mean, He's already shown me so much this far in the course, and that weekend is pretty intense. I had lunch with Kristen (the Alpha Coordinator for our church) on Wednesday to get filled in on all the leader roles and info about it, and I must admit, I'm overwhelmed a little. I've been praying that God would give me the confidence to not let me let myself get in His way, for me to focus on being open and letting the Spirit move through me as opposed to get nervous about praying the right things or having the right words, etc.

And with that, I'm gonna take a nap for a little bit before I make dinner for my dad. I told you I'm tired.

quick update before I fall over

2009-03-23T21:58:00.004-05:00

This weekend was FANTASTIC. It was not in any way, shape, or form restful, but it was so much fun. There will probably be pictures at some point, but not today. I got home from Dallas at about 4:30 this morning. I had Mom at the hospital around noon today for her knee replacement surgery. The case before her had some complications so she didn't get wheeled into surgery until about 3:45. At 8:55 tonight, they wheeled her into her home for the next 2-3 days, a room up on the top floor! I finally got home a little after 9:30. Needless to say, I am WIPED. I'll do a better update later.

Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs., Silver Fox and Bunny! I love you!

dum dum da dum

2009-03-19T00:49:00.003-05:00

I can't believe it's finally time! At 6pm on Saturday, the wedding of Bunny and Dave will begin. Well, I mean, that's what the schedule says, but we all know how that works... lol She told me tonight it hasn't quite hit her yet. That's totally how she is, though, so I'm not surprised. It'll hit her tomorrow when I get there, or at the very latest Friday when EVERYONE gets there.

I'd appreciate a few extra prayers this weekend, if you wouldn't mind. Pray for Bunny's stress, that this goes as smoothly as possible (because no wedding is perfect!). Also, lately I've been extremely sensative and easily weepy (especially if I have any amount of alcohol in my system. I'm blaming that on my insane hormone imbalance that I will hopefully get to see a doctor about soon... that's another post entirely, though.) Being in proximity to D has an unpleasant effect on me. Pray for my strength, and that God would help me to guard my heart. When I get back on Sunday, there's no time to breathe. My mom is having a full knee replacement on Monday morning. Oh yea, would you keep that in your prayers, too?

GOSH! I'm so needy today! lol Y'all are the best and I'm blessed by you!

forget chicken soup... CHAI for the soul!

2009-03-13T15:14:00.003-05:00

For those of you who live in Texas, you may have noticed that the weather has turned to GROSS this week. It is cold. It is wet. It is suck.

Yesterday, I picked up Jackson, Dallas, and Monica from school. They were running through the house like wild animals (because that's what kids do on rainy days) and I put a mug of water in the microwave to heat up. Jackson (who is 10) came in and said, "What are you cooking?" I said, "A cup of tea." He said something to the effect of "old ladies drink tea."

If only old ladies drink tea, then bring on the Geritol!

Yunno, Jesus was a carpenter...

2009-03-11T23:53:00.005-05:00

I've been furiously working on refinishing my old canopy bed for my sweet niece Natters. I big time underestimated how much it was going to suck to sand that puppy down. My hands feel like shark skin. My nails are scratched up. I feel gritty, but not in the cutting edge tv-drama kind of way. Admittedly, though, while I was sitting out on the back porch, enjoying the beautiful days (before the storms and cold fronts arrived last night/this morning) sanding away on that bed frame, I TOTALLY thought to myself, "Yunno, the Bible says all work is work for Him, and Jesus was a carpenter, so I really DO feel like I'm doing work for Him..." It's okay, I absolutely cracked up afterwards. Today we painted. Unfortunately, I did not get my painting skills from my mother, so there's stuff that needs to be resanded and repainted because, bless her cotton socks she tried. Annoying, but hey, crap happens.

In other news...
I'm SO excited about Bunny's wedding next week! We had her bachelorette party over the weekend and I was reminded, yet again, how fantastic my cousins are. We went out to dinner at Chuy's then had an out of control slumber party at Renee's house up in Magnolia. We laughed. We cried (okay, I cried.). We ate bacon. FLAME ON! I'm heading up on Thursday afternoon and will be there thru Sunday afternoon. I took my dress to get it hemmed and have the boob pads removed (seriously. Who put those in there? What is that?!). Bunny told me a story earlier tonight about how Dave called her this morning and said, "I'm so excited that I'm marrying you in 11 days. I have to get back to work now, I just wanted to call and tell you that." That is AWESOME. I remember how it feels to be loved like that, and I love how much they love each other. Oh no... I think I'm gonna rewrite my toast again. I've been through like 8 versions so far. I want it to be perfect!

Although I'm going up for the wedding, I'm pretty excited to go out on Thursday and Friday nights with my Dallas peeps. I even got a cute new dress for the occasion! Oh who am I kidding. We all know I'm just gonna want to go to the Saucer. lol

Finally, some extra lovin' for my Dallas girls who aren't Bunny.
Megan: congratulations on your engagement. I'm excited to be your Matron of Honor, but I might kill you in the process...
Christina: how did I live before you?
Whitifer: God is good, all the time. Trust Him and seek His will. You can't go wrong if you do.
Jen Jen: I'm still waiting for preggo belly pictures. Put some ketchup on it, okay?

3 years of not so holy matrimony

2009-03-04T22:55:00.005-06:00

On March 4, 2006, I walked down the aisle at Grace Fellowship United Methodist Church on my father's arm, my cheeks hurting so bad from my huge grin, ridiculously excited to get to the end and marry the man waiting there for me, with an equally huge grin on his face. We promised to love, honor, and cherish each other for the rest of our lives. It was FANTASTIC.

Fast forward to 3 years later, and well, you know where we stand.

First of all, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you to every single one of you who has uttered a prayer for Denver, me, or our marriage. Its not like he responded to my text today wishing him a happy anniversary, but its not like I expected him to. Things haven't really changed between us, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. What's that old saying, "no news is good news"? I'm not sure if its so much that as that every day that goes by that I don't get served with divorce papers is one more day that God has given me to be Denver's wife. The way I see it, either there's something coming that is HUGE and 100% God-worked or He knows that I'm still not ready to go through it and so He's putting distractions in Denver's life to keep him from filing. Denver's not exactly the most quick-to-act guy out there, so the fact that he's been telling me for a year that he wants a divorce doesn't exactly say much. Wanting a divorce and actually filing for one are not the same thing. However small that chance is, it's still there. And given the fact that I still love my husband and have strong desire to honor my vows to him, that's the chance I'm looking at. That being said, let's talk about some blessings and awesome God activity in my life, shall we?

Have I told you lately that I love you? No? Well, my bad. I have the greatest people in my life. Seriously. God really pulled out all the stops when He gave me friends. Some people have quantity. Other people have quality. A truly blessed few like me have both. Its kind of ridiculous sometimes how amazing y'all are. The way you love me, support me, entertain me, and understand me blows my mind. Thanks for that.

Last night at Alpha, the topic was prayer. I love love love the speaker. Her daughter is one of my Sunday school kiddos, and their family is just precious. She spoke about the basis of prayer being faith. "Without faith, we're just talkin' to ourselves!" Because I have FAITH, I know that my prayers are heard by the Creator of the stinkin' universe. YES. She also spoke about how there's power in persistence and numbers. That's so true. And that is why I thank y'all so so much for all the prayers you've prayed for us. She also spoke about how the answer to a lot of prayers is "Wait." Y'all, that was a HUGE affirmation for me. I mean, she illustrated about how sometimes it takes time to get to where God wants your heart in prayer by talking about Jesus in the garden begging God to change things if there was another way before He finally came to terms with God's will. I've thought many many times that the answer to my prayers about reconciliation and healing was no. But God faithfully nudged me back to "WAIT." Getting that reminder wrapped in a package of "grow your faith and pray without ceasing" was a perfectly timed moment for me. He knows when I need reminders and when I need a little extra fuel for a fight ahead. Today was set to be a battle, and my Lord strengthened me for it. HE IS SO COOL!!

One of the big questions that almost every seeker and/or non-believer ask of Christians is some variation of, "If God loves you, why does He let bad things happen to good people?" Well, the answer is a lot more simple than they think. Its for one or all of the following: to take us away from a bad situation or behavior, to teach us something and help us grow, or to prepare us to help someone else through a similar situation. Scripture tells us that all things work together for the glory of the Lord, so it makes perfect sense. It's become more and more clear to me since I've been down in Katy that God has plans bigger than me for my being here, that there are things He has intended for me through this. Last Spring, I read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. He discussed this "why do bad things happen" topic at great length. The part about it preparing us to help someone else through a similar situation really spoke to my heart. I never ever in a million years would have guessed that God would have planned for me to use my situation this soon. I'm still going through it! However, His timing and wisdom are perfect. I am getting to know 2 amazing women who are facing similar trials to my own but they do not have the advantage I do of knowing the Lord intimately. I may have mentioned them before, that they are from my Alpha group, and I already know that I love them deeply. They are amazing and special and have beautiful hearts. I'm honored to share my faith and my struggle with them, and I'm blessed beyond belief by my Jesus.

So yea. Today could have so very easily turned into a disgusting pity party. Instead, God gave me some awesome love and blessings and rocked my world.

40 days and 40 nights of consumption

2009-02-26T20:39:00.004-06:00

Last night at the Ash Wednesday service, we apologized to God and each other for our failures as a church and as people. With every wrong of the church that was apologized for, I remembered a moment or season at a church in my past that went along those lines. It really was a cleansing moment. My tendency is always to fixate on things in my past that have been hurtful and ignore the more personal issues that I should be focusing on. Luckily, God wasn't having that last night. He got in my heart and showed me the things that I'm doing wrong right now, the things that really no one else sees but Him but that are so against the woman that I'm becoming and that I project in general. How humbling!! When I received communion, I let the magnitude of that (Christ's body broken for me and Christ's blood freely given for me), really sink in before I went and received my ashes. Ashes are a symbol of grief, of remorse for our sins and failures. I've had ashes imparted before, but I've never let their meaning really go past the superficial aspect of showing everyone I cross paths with that I am a believer. The external image is where the problem was when I was younger. I was so concerned with my appearance as a Christian that I didn't grow my roots. I was a seed in rocky soil. Now I'm becoming a seed in rich soil that produces 30 and 60 and even 100 times the original crop (Mark 4:1-20). I am being consumed from the INSIDE OUT by the Spirit.

Traditionally for Lent you're supposed to give something up as a means of gaining some spiritual insight and growth. I don't see how giving up chocolate or french fries gets you any closer to God, though. This year, I've decided to do Lent a little bit differently. I'm giving up making excuses.

Whatever may be your task, work at it heartily, as [something done] for the Lord and not for men, knowing [with all certainty] that it is from the Lord [and not from men] that you will receive the inheritance which is your [real] reward. [The One Whom] you are actually serving [is] the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-34

I'm going to do something every day around the house, a little chore or task that I don't particularly want to do but needs to be done and makes life a little more pleasant for the other people who live here. Its things I would do in my own home (or wouldn't need to do because there are messes that I just don't make or allow to be made in my own home, but that's a different story...) Its getting into the habit of having a home-servant attitude, because it's things done for the Lord, and it's part of our purpose. So I'm making a concerted effort to do it every day (excluding the days I'm in Dallas for Bunny's wedding, of course) so that by Easter, it will just be a way of life. No more being too tired, too headachey, too upset stomachy. Jesus wasn't too tired to die for me, so I'm not too tired to vacuum the living room.

Your word I have laid up in my heart, that I might not sin against You... I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways [the paths of life marked out by Your law]. I will delight myself in your statutes; I will not forget Your word. Psalm 119:11, 14-15

I have failed miserably thus far at my Bible reading New Year's "Resolution". That's gotta change. The best way to get closer to God is to read the word! Every word of the Bible is GOD BREATHED (II Timothy 3:16) and that in and of itself makes it completely worth my time to read it and fill my heart with scripture. Jesus wasn't too distracted to die for me, so I'm not too distracted to read His word.

What are you changing in your life for Lent?

oh Christina...

2009-02-21T20:45:00.003-06:00

DANG! So I felt like I'd just let a bunch out on my previous post and I set about catching up on everyone else's blog. God went ahead and showed me that I had not, in fact, gotten it all out.

This is a snippet from Christina's blog that just pretty much knocked me on my butt. She was writing about a book called Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot. This quote is a direct quote from the book:

"...I have to give him to the Lord regularly...I've told the Lord I want to be an obedient servant, and He shot back, 'And are you willing to face grief and pain or whatever it takes for Me to make you that?' Even though I felt unable, I said, 'what choice do I have? I know too much to drop the ball now. There's no turning back.' I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid. But He has brought me this far and already my joy is unspeakable."

That's the thing about following Christ's will for your life... its not always the easy path that feels nice. But it is ALWAYS the best path. I have faced huge amounts of pain and grief in the past year and a half, but the growth of intimacy between Jesus and me that it has fostered has been the source of my biggest joy. I wouldn't choose to do it again, and I wouldn't recommend it for others, but when things bring you closer to God, how can they not be worth it?

God is so faithful!!

2009-02-21T20:23:00.002-06:00

I was praying last night and I started going through the blessings in my life, taking stock of all the steps God's helped me take lately, and I was kind of overwhelmed by the progress and awesomeness of it all. Its a fantastic feeling when you can literally see God moving. It helps keep you grounded in your faith and not feel like an idiot. I must confess, I'd been struggling with some doubt. When you have people in your life who aren't believers and you're going through a course on the fundamentals, I think its only natural to question your own faith: why DO I believe that? Thankfully, I was honest with God about it, told Him my struggle and sat quiet. He took care of it!

I believe that I have finally almost completely (or as completely as I probably ever will) come to terms with my miscarriage. The fact that right now is when I would have been due or would already have the baby has weighed on me. Its not a good feeling. But my bitterness towards others and, well, God, has been removed. That's part of faith. Its knowing and trusting God to bless me in His time and not when I want it. Its being mature enough to be realistic and see the bigger picture of things.

I had that dream about God a few weeks ago, remember? Well, God brought it back up with me last night. He showed me with one sentence exactly why He put me in a situation, and holy moly was it huge. He has entrusted me with an amazing task, and I'm excited for the opportunity to be used by THE LORD like that. ME! Me with all my baggage and flaws and ridiculousness! It's just so big time. Pray for me, y'all, that I will be open for Him to flow through me.

I ran into one of my Sunday school kiddos when I was out and about running errands yesterday. Her mom was like, "She really just loves having you as her teacher," and I said, "Well, that's great because I'm moving up to 1st grade with them in August!" They were both (hooray! The parents trust me with their kids!) very excited about that. It was a great confirmation that I'm doing something right with those little angels every week.

I took stock of the company I keep and can honestly say that I have never had such substantial and quality love in my life. The people who are my super besties are some of the most incredible people you will ever meet, and they all think I'm some kind of special, too. No matter how crappy my CIRCUMSTANCES are, I know that they aren't who I am. They are just circumstances, and they will change. But who I am on the inside is constant, and that's the best part of me. That's the part of me that has made me worthy of such wonderful companionship.

With a prayer full of that stuff, its just about impossible to not feel full, isn't it? I hope your lives are feeling just as blessed!

just a smidge vague...

2009-02-17T22:57:00.002-06:00

This afternoon, I was let in on a little secret. And it was a GLORIOUS secret. Here's why that's news worthy. Its not because I'm trying to be like, "neener neener I know something you don't know!" Its worth me mentioning because of the flood of emotions that hearing it filled me with. I have not felt that much sincere joy and excitement about something in longer than I care to admit.

So dear friend and owner of the secret, thank you. And like I told you earlier tonight, I love you immeasurably.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2009-02-14T18:19:00.002-06:00

So, 2007 was the best Valentine's Day EVER. Denver and I did it low key. We went to Central Market when I got home from work and bought the fixins for a fantabulous multi-course meal. We had salad, avocado crab cakes, beautiful steaks, and coffee ice cream and berries. We turned off the tv and our phones, cooked an amazing meal together, then ate it with wine and candle light. It was so intimate and fun and exactly what a holiday about love should be about - quality time with the one you love.

2008 was the WORST Valentine's Day EVER. At 10pm on February 13th, Kelly and Renee arrived in Dallas, helped me load up my stuff (because my car had died that day) and drove me back to Katy. I arrived at my parents' house around 3am on Valentine's Day. I spent the entire time mostly numb and crying on the couch, my heart smashed to pieces.

2009 has been pretty good to me. I spent the day with my family. We threw Bunny her bridal shower and did it Valentine's theme. What better way to celebrate a day of love than by bestowing huge amounts of love on someone as amazing as Bunny? Well, and Dave is pretty okay, too. Tonight we're planning some bowling and I'm happy. I can think of only 1 thing that could possibly make my day better, but this will just have to do.

And don't you worry, I love you, too. :-)

gross or awesome?

2009-02-12T23:21:00.004-06:00

Or a little of column A and a little of column B.

I just got an email from my cousin and I really feel that it needs to be shared.

www.thisiswhyyourefat.com

Some of it made me wish it was October because Fair Food is so bad for your body and so good for your soul.

Enjoy.

What defines you?

2009-02-10T21:07:00.003-06:00

Tonight at Alpha, the topic was "Why did Jesus Die?" I am not going to blog about that, but if you ask me, I'll tell you what I believe, and there will be mention of goats and lambs.

No, I'm going to blog about something else entirely. Kevin, my group leader (he is HILARIOUS and my role is to help him keep conversation flowing and pray for the group), posed some interesting questions. Living in the world and sinning is a lot like being in water and getting wet. They are unavoidable things because of the location. So do you live your life from a place of sin or forgiveness? And if you had to write 10 words that defined you, would you include "sinner"? How about "forgiven"?

I personally live my life from a place of forgiveness. I am 100% aware that I will never ever ever be good enough to deserve salvation. I can never EARN God's grace, love, and mercy. I am a perpetual sinner. I sin so many times every single day that I couldn't possibly count them all! But instead of viewing myself as the filthy sin-covered person that I probably should, I view myself as forgiven. I am forgiven for them all: the sins I don't realize I committed and thus don't repent for, the ones that I am fully aware of and habitually commit anyway, and the one time mistakes. I am covered in the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and thus I am FORGIVEN. You can't really wrap your head around the hugeness of that. I mean, I'm a pretty forgiving person, and even I can't really grasp the hugeness of that. But I don't have to. Because I live by faith.

As for the words that describe me... No. I would not list sinner. Because in my mind, I feel like its so obvious. I wouldn't list "human", "white", "American", or "female" either, because they're so obvious. They just go without saying to me. As far as forgiven, I think I'd chose a larger word that encompasses it. I am so completely a Christian. I am a believer. I am forgiven. I am in love with my Savior. I am a servant. I am so many things that go into being a follower of Christ. Forgiven is HUGE, but there's just more to it for me.

So what about you? How do you live? Do you live your life oblivious to sin? Do you live it accepting and "oh well!" of your sin? Or do you live knowing that you are loved by the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE just as much every single moment regardless of what you are doing on this earth?

Seriously, Pancreas?

2009-02-08T20:23:00.002-06:00

Okay, twice this weekend (Thursday night and again last night) I have had severe hypo-glycemia.

Here's your lesson on type 1 diabetes for the day!

My pancreas produces less than 5% of the amount of insulin needed to support life processes. Your pancreas (unless you're also a diabetic) moderates your body's insulin levels and keeps your blood glucose (sugar) level between 70 and 120 naturally. Anything below 70 is considered hypo-glycemic and anything above 150 is considered hyper-glycemic. They're both uncomfortable, in totally different ways, and both are bad news for your body. Hyper-glycemia causes organ damage with time and puts tremendous strain on your circulatory system, which is why so many diabetics go blind or need appendages amputated. With hypo-glycemia, it causes systems to shut down (they don't have the glucose - fuel - to function) and lead to comas and death. If you saw Memento, his wife dies from hypo-glycemia from insulin overdosing.

So now that you know all that cool science, you can see why I'm so frustrated with my body deciding to drop me in the middle of the night. Both nights I went to bed in the perfect range - one night was 88 and the other was 95. Within an hour or 2 of falling asleep, I woke up feeling AWFUL and discovered my blood glucose was dangerously low. It takes a huge toll on my body and leaves me absolutely exhausted. Its also super scary! What if I hadn't woken up? I could have died in my sleep!! I have no idea what's going on with my body and why this is happening. I haven't changed my diet drastically recently or anything else big.

Anybody want to volunteer for slumber parties to make sure I don't die or anything? Lucie's a good snuggler...

Just a little bit of life

2009-02-03T15:52:00.002-06:00

I spent the weekend in Dallas, and lemme tell ya, it was not perfect. Now, I'm not saying that it was awful or that I wasn't blessed out of my mind on the trip, but I am saying that being there was hard for me a lot of the time. That's the thing about me... I love very deeply. I could literally FEEL his presence because I hadn't been in such proximity in so many months. Obviously, that killed me. Thankfully, I was blanketed in prayer the entire time I was there, and so I only cried a little and never for extended periods of time or in public. God is good like that. Renee has a verse she's claimed for me, and I think it helps:

...to provide comfort for all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion-to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness, instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. Isaiah 61:2b-4

When I wasn't feeling betrayed by my heart, I was filling it with time with some of my favorite people! Friday night I got in way late, so dinner at the Stock's was cancelled. I did get to see Liz and Tom and Shan and Ashleigh (hooray! I finally met her and she is WONDERFUL!!) though, which was very nice. Saturday was my beloved Bunny's 25th birthday. Megan stopped by after class for a little bit, which was fantastic because we never see each other! We did a lot of wedding stuff, which was a huge relief for Bunny. We finalized the ceremony order, picked all the ceremony music, and edited the programs. Then we went to dinner at Cuba Libre with my aunt and uncle. SO YUMMY!!!! Unfortunately, Bunny was exhausted and passed out before 10. Crystal had invited me out for her birthday, so I gladly accepted. Unfortunately, she told me the wrong location, so I didn't see her. But Chris and Karen had already agreed to meet me, then Shan and Ashleigh followed. Jaeger Bombs. lol! SO MUCH FUN! On Sunday, we did more wedding stuff. We picked all the reception songs and filled out the paperwork for the DJ. That may not sound like much, but it took us 4 hours. Then, after a touch of the drama, we established a list of needs and quantities for the bar. That was also no small feat. We rounded out the wedding stuff with a trip to David's Bridal so the bride could see the dresses her maids would be wearing (she is pleased) and a trip to Whole Foods to pick out flowers for the bouquets. We celebrated our productivity with some chicken nuggets watching the Super Bowl (I picked the Steelers last week, so I'm feeling awesome). After the game, I hugged my family (meaning Bunny, her fiance', and his Beast son) and headed out. I stopped by the Stock's house on the way, because I couldn't bear to not see Christina. We planted strawberries and giggled and it was the best possible ending.

God treated me to a beautiful show for almost my entire drive home. There was a thunderstorm passing to the south, which I never hit - I was always just behind it - and the lightning was high in the clouds and just spectacular! It was frequently orange (my favorite!!) and just amazing. I got home, slept a little, and prepped for my day of errands and a night of Ross!

All in all, I would not say that I am feeling particularly happy these days. However, I am striving to feel FULL. I am blessed every single day by the friends and family I have, by the church that I belong to and the involvement I have there, and that helps. I was reminded when I left Dallas how BIG my sweet Lord is. I saw a billboard. Usually I think those billboards are cheesy and ridiculous, but to be feeling hurt and see a reminder that God can do and save ANYTHING was exactly what I needed at that exact moment. Then He put on that show for me, and really, it was a wonderful little drive home.

Next week I strive to put to good use the gift I was given a week ago. One of the sweet ladies in my Bible study group bought my workbook for me. I thanked her by missing class last week and this week. GARK! I need to be a more powerful praying woman, so I need to get my butt to class!

Tonight is week 2 of Alpha. We're praying like crazy for all the seekers who are coming. Last week, everyone in my small group (I'm helping to lead a group) was already a believer. God can and will do awesome work through this course, and we're all praying hard for that. If you have a minute, would you pray for that, too?

And finally, my sweet sweet kids on Sunday mornings. I missed them so much this weekend!! We just finished a unit on the miracles of Christ and now we're starting one on God the Healer. Friends, God is about to blow my mind, I can just feel it. Because WHOA do I need some healing. And He's already shown me how much He enjoys teaching me through those kiddos. Oh, I am as ready as I'll ever be for this.

Have a great week, y'all. And keep drinking water. :-)

the ever popular 25 things...

2009-01-28T01:49:00.003-06:00

I did this on facebook, but my darling Christina tagged me on blogger, so here it is.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note/post with 25 random things, facts, opinions, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 (or none, because I tagged people on facebook) people to be tagged.

1. I almost never purchase clothing at full price. Even my wedding dress was on sale.
2. I was recently diagnosed with Raging Awesome. Its a daily struggle, but I'm learning to live with it.
3. I want to expand on the tattoos on my back. I don't really want tats anywhere BUT my back though.
4. I hate onions, but I love onion rings. Oh, and Bloomin' Onions.
5. I have more than 100 scars on my body. Some are big and some are barely noticeable.
6. I love giraffes SO MUCH. Seriously. They make me squeal a little. One of the coolest things I have ever done was feeding one in the petting zoo at the state fair in 2007. I was more excited than the little kids!
7. I fart in my sleep. Luckily, they almost never smell. Yes, I've asked.
8. I believe that I was designed by God to be a mom.
9. Being serenaded or watching someone get serenaded makes me excruciatingly uncomfortable.
10. Denver's smile when his eyes are twinkling still gives me butterflies in my stomach. STILL.
11. I. Hate. Mustard.
12. I think Eli Manning is incredibly attractive, even when making stupid faces licking oreos.
13. I'm allergic to Benadryl. Specifically, diphenhydramine. It essentially gives me a bad trip on acid. No over the counter sleep aids for me!
14. I don't really like margaritas. Mostly, its that tequila doesn't really like me. We broke up long before I turned 21.
15. I don't eat ham if I can help it.
16. I love mushrooms. YUM.
17. I LOOOOOOOVE curling. Yea, with the rocks on ice. Its the best.
18. I didn't see legitimate snow (as in more than a half inch or flurries) until I was 18, and it was in DC.
19. Don't let my dead-on Wisconsin accent fool you. I've never been there. In fact, I've only really crossed the Mason-Dixon Line once, and it was to go to Pittsburgh.
20. On my dad's side, I'm related to Harriet Beecher Stowe. On my mom's side, my family owned slaves. Gotta love the American Melting Pot.
21. I know where in Germany most of my family (both sides) came from, over 200 years ago.
22. My last name was originally supposed to be Halle, but the "e" was dropped and my grandfather learned to speak English during WWI. Er war 8 Jahren alt.
23. Michael Jackson music makes me happy every time.
24. I think laughing is the best thing ever, after kissing. Laughing you can do with anyone, though...
25. I grew up believing in Jesus, but I wasn't saved until I was 14. I didn't fully develop my relationship with Christ until I was in my 20's. Now He is my best friend.

what dreams may come

2009-01-22T20:44:00.003-06:00

I'm a big believer that God can speak to you in your dreams. I also believe that not all dreams come from Him. Some come from satan, and some are just the fears and desires of your heart being manifested in your subconscious while you're asleep. Regardless of the source, I believe that dreams have a meaning, even if its just information you recently put into your brain (via movie, tv, book, etc) replaying in your brain (such as how I had some dreams about Twilight while I was reading the books.)

That being said...

I had some nightmares Tuesday night. They really messed with me. I was exhausted Wednesday morning, but I was almost afraid to go back to sleep because the visions kept coming back when I closed my eyes, and they were very upsetting. I know I was crying in my sleep. I had tears crusted on my eyes and cheeks when I woke up. I prayed about it all day, every time they would creep back up on me and make my stomach clench and turn into knots. It was a very long day, fighting these dark images. The entire thing just made me feel very much like there was evil at work trying to make me stumble from the path I'm on, because I know with tremendous certainty that I am on His chosen path for me in my life.

Last night, I had the opposite dream. Some of the same main characters from the nightmares, but in a totally different setting. This dream was very quick, not as detailed, and left me with this deeply refreshed feeling of hope and optimism about my entire life. I have to believe that it was God showing me in my dream that I am doing things in my life that bless and please Him, and that subsequently He has amazing things in store for me. It affirmed my belief that I am choosing Him in my life, that I am walking right with Him.

Two nights of dreams made a splendid little microcosm for me. It reminded me that no matter how awful things get, how painful and ugly they are, God is always with me. It showed me that when I choose God, when I trust Him, He will take care of me and bring my hopes to fruition.

And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint. Galatians 6:9

Honesty Scraps

2009-01-19T21:26:00.002-06:00

Megan tagged me to do an Honesty Scraps blog. Now, this seems a touch silly to me, given how ridiculously open I am on this blog. Basically, according to her blog, you're supposed to list 10 "secrets" or little known facts about you. This is really hard for me but I'm a good sport, so here we go!

1. The first time I ever moved was when I left for college. My parents moved into their house about 6 weeks before my older brother was born in 1979. That's the house I'm back living in now. Now those are roots, people.

2. I have a hard time eating spinach. Raw spinach is fine, as are creamy spinach dips, but cooked spinach, from a can or even creamed spinach, makes me totally sick to my stomach. Why? Because when I was in 2nd grade, we had spinach for dinner (as a veggie with the meal) and that night I came down with a horrible stomach flu. Having canned spinach come back out of your nose and blown all over your bed will mess you up for the rest of your life.

3. I'm a dog person. Now, Lucie and Tilly are my heart, but they aren't normal cats. I really don't like cats in general, or the vast majority of cats anyway. I don't like pets who ignore their people. I like pets who are excited to see you, who want nothing more in life than to snuggle with their people, and who truly act like your companions. That's why I love my girls, because that's how they act. They come when I call them (except for Tilly when she's comfy, but she at least acknowledges me), they love snuggles, and they interact with their people. Its a win.

4. I hate to be alone. Hate it. I mean, everyone needs a little bit of time to themselves from time to time, but I don't like to go overboard with it. I don't like going places by myself, even just to the grocery store or Walmart. I'm getting a lot better about that, but you can put money on the fact that I will never go to a sit down restaurant by myself and eat a meal alone. I'll probably never go see a movie alone, either. I've eaten alone in fast food restaurants and in the cafeteria at Jester back in college, but it makes me SO uncomfortable. I'm a social creature, and I thrive on the human interaction. So those of you who've travelled outside of the country by yourselves, I tip my hat to you.

5. I am terrified of those little pink gecko lizards. I'll pause so you can laugh (unless your name is Kelli and you happen to be reading this and you totally feel my pain. I'm so sorry about the one in your car). Now here's why. I used to just think nothing of them like the green lizards that hang out on fences, etc. But when I was in high school, the ones that lived on our house developed a cruel, cruel little habit. They became jumpers. On multiple occasions, I would get home late after a football game, or at like 7:15 in the morning after a lock in, just exhausted, trudging up to the door when all of a sudden, there was a small thump on my head and a wiggle. Yea, it was a lizard landing on my head. That is TERROR. SERIOUSLY.

6. I could eat some form of Mexican food every day and not be sick of it. I love it that much. You do it right and there's nothing yummier out there. However, I don't like onions, bell peppers, or tomatoes. Mostly just go easy on the onions and I'm good.

7. The grossest thing in the universe to me is the noises the mouth makes. Anything involving a slurp, spittle, smack, etc just absolutely makes me throw up. It even carries over to some people's mouth breathing. There are people that I have a hard time eating around. And seriously? Why would anyone POSSIBLY think its okay to chew with their mouth open? I know people who do it and it blows my mind.

8. I have weird hands. I have extra bones in both of my thumbs as well as arthritis in my right hand. The arthritis came from when I cut my ring finger halfway off and pinkie 2/3 of the way off when I was 14. Weather changes tend to bring the most pain, but they get stiff and painful randomly a few times a month.

9. I can do a dead-on Wisconsin accent, but I've never been there. I can just imitate my family really well. As a matter of fact, my dad coached me in the exact way to say "Wisconsin" He used phrases like, "More nasal!" "Stretch it out more!" I've actually only been across the Mason-Dixon line once, not counting a layover in Chicago, and that was to Pittsburgh in November of 2006 for Noochie's wedding!

10. I'm accident prone. Fortunately, the only "bone" I have ever broken was my nose, but not for lack of trying. I've sprained and jammed my wrists, fingers, toes, and ankles more times than I can count, and I've had double digits of concussions, but apparently I have a high enough calcium intake that my bones are strong. I bruise pretty easily and am covered in scars. The night Sgt. Areola and I met, that's what really peaked his interest. We compared scars. Then we made out. He was a good boyfriend, lol! If only I was graceful and didn't fall down so much... or out of chairs... I think Katy's actually only responsible for 37% of my accidents. ;-)

Yea, those weren't that interesting, but I did what I could. Now I tag Eryn, Melodie, and Tiffany. READYSETGO.

Give me revelation! Show me the truth!

2009-01-18T21:29:00.004-06:00

This will be a 2 part blog. I'll start with the amazingness Jesus did in me this morning and end with what the heck I've been up to for the past 8 days.

Starting part:
So, I couldn't figure out why I was having such a blogging block. I mean, yea, I totally got off track when I got sucked in to the saga (I'm only human after all) and then there was suddenly just this wall in my life. My prayer life suffered. My quiet time was suffering. And for the first time in a long time, I felt cut off from God. I started really realizing that last night, and it didn't sit well with me.

This morning after Sunday school, I got it. Seriously, God will use the most random things to show you stuff, if that's what its gonna take. Well, it took Humpty Dumpty. No, I'm serious. One of the preschool classes had been doing that this week so there were all these pictures of little cuties wearing a cardboard cut out of an egg in suspender shorts (adorable, btw). Well, that's what it took. That's how I realized that I'd let some sin in (I'm not gonna get into it, because the sin itself is not what's important here) and I'd gotten pretty wrapped up in it so I just pushed my relationship with God on the other side of my heart and built up little sin bricks. Okay, or huge sin bricks. Well, the thing is, now I know. And I've begun the process of reunifying Germany, I mean, my heart. I already did the hard part, which is realizing what's going on and asking God for forgiveness and help. And by faith, I know He's all over it.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

Ending part:
Last week was probably the most action packed week I've had in months. Lunch with Kacie and the McGuires on Sunday, dinner with Kacie, Dayna, and Megan on Tuesday followed by drinks at Dayna's hotel with Megan's Travis joining us, dinner with Zack on Thursday, shower invites ALL DAY Friday, and purchasing our bridesmaid dresses with my SIL and 3 of my cousins on Saturday. I realized how much I miss social time when I don't have it. This Friday I'm headed to Austin for the night, and I'm peeing my pants with excitement about spending the night at Ross' condo with him and Jen the Puma Chola. Also on the agenda is FINALLY seeing Twilight with Alyssa on Saturday before heading back to Katy. Short trip, but good for my souuuuuuuuul.

sorry, sorry

2009-01-11T21:32:00.002-06:00

I've been a bad blogger. But, it's not my fault.

I was reading Twilight.

I'm available for discussion if you'd like. OBVIOUSLY I loved it. I mean, I started it Tuesday morning and I finished last night. I couldn't stop. I couldn't help it!

I've also been drinking more water. Oh, and applying for jobs and going on an interview, which will hopefully lead to more. So, hey, I'm getting into my "resolutions"! That's good, right? I thought so.

I just wanted to update real quick because I felt so lame ignoring my blog. Well, and I feel guilty because some of y'all (mostly Eryn and Christina) have been so GOOD at updating yours.

I love you!

reflections and "resolutions"

2009-01-03T14:44:00.004-06:00

"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." Jeremiah 29:11

I started 2008 at a super fun party in Austin, surrounded by most of my favorite people. I had a good job with amazing benefits that I was having a paid holiday from and had just been given a raise at. I had a fantastic husband at home in Dallas who called me like 10 times on New Year's Day because he wanted me to come home and snuggle with him. 2008 looked like it was going to be a really wonderful year, even though I didn't eat any black eyed peas.

I was so wrong.

"We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose." Romans 8:28

I started 2009 living with my parents, no job, no more amazing husband (I mean, I still have not been served with divorce papers, but he has taken a stance of callous silence towards me, and refuses to even acknowledge my holiday well wishes.), and no friends in sight. I mean, I have them, but I wasn't with them. 2009 doesn't look like its off to an amazing start, does it? Good thing I already know that your NYE absolutely does NOT determine your new year. I did eat some black eyed peas, just in case. ;-)

My first devotional for 2009 was perfect. Here's an excerpt:

Come to Me with a teachable spirit, eager to be changed. A close walk with Me is a life of continual newness. Do not cling to old ways as you step into a new year. Instead, seek My Face with an open mind, knowing that your journey with Me involves being transformed by the renewing of your mind.

I am so not the girl I was a year ago. I mean, you can just tell that from reading my blog; you don't even have to actually participate in my life. God took me off of the path I was on (forcibly, I admit) and has set me on a new one. I have this feeling sometimes like the airline lost my luggage, though. There are things from that path that really do need to be lost and gone forever, and I'm good with that. But then there are things from that path that I'm wishing I could've tucked safely in my carry on. BY FAITH I believe God will provide me with the essentials from that lost luggage. He's good like that.

So here's my "resolutions". Remember, I view them more as plans, so that's why the word resolutions is getting quotes. Some of them are small. Some of them are Herculean. But all of them are things that will continue to improve me and make me more like the compliments I receive from my nearest and dearest and less like the girl who lost her luggage.

1. Drink more water. I got really good at this for a while (like, drinking at least 2 liters a day!), then I ran out of drinking water (the tap water tastes funny here), didn't bother to buy more, and so I fell back into my love affair with diet coke. Yea yea, soda isn't good for you, but Diet Coke tastes yummy, and is thereby good for my mood. A can or so a day will suffice, though, not the copious amounts I love to consume. When I'm drinking more water, my skin looks better, and I know my body is happier, even though I pee more often... So bring on the H2O! There's some other stuff I'd like to do for my body, but I don't wanna get over ambitious, so I'll just keep it to myself for now, and then add it on once I get the other things in motion.

2. READ MORE. I read more books in 2008 than I had in YEARS. Literally. YEARS. And I liked it! Some of them were for pure entertainment (such as all the Ya Ya Sisterhood books) and others were for my personal enrichment (A Woman After God's Own Heart was so great. Seriously, thank you a million times for that, Eryn!) But the point is, turning off the tv and spending time in a book is good for your soul, and I'm all about that. I have 2 books set up for growth and development, and then 4 or 5 for entertainment. I intend to get all that read by June at the latest. I'm not a slow reader, and I have the free time, so why not?

3. Read the entire Bible in 1 year. My wonderful church provided us with a plan to read through the Bible in 1 year. I can so do this!! God has so much to tell me, and the easiest way for Him to do that is through His word. Its a commitment to Him and to deepening my relationship with Him. Total win-win.

4. Get more involved at church, in a non-service way. I love love love love love volunteering in KIDS Place. I don't have a heart for (or the gift of) missions, so that's a great place for me to be serving. I've gotten to know more people in the church (since it is kind of a mega-church with several thousand members) but that's service, not fellowship. I joined a small group over the summer but it no longer feels like the correct fit for me. So I'm going to start looking at the "small group menu" and find the group for me. I love the friendships my brother and SIL have formed with the members of their small group, and I know that would be a huge blessing in my life, too. I didn't really get that with the group I joined this summer, plus I don't exactly fit the criteria of the membership anymore. So new small group here I come!

5. Regain my independence. I was applying for lots of jobs and went on several interviews this fall, but then I got sick and was just getting back up to 100% when the holidays hit... well, the hunt slowed. I applied for a few jobs here and there, but not hardcore like I had been early in the fall. I'm getting back on the wagon. I don't like not having a job. I love doing the wine tastings, and I'll keep that once I find a full time job, but its not what I need to be doing. I mean, it provided me with enough money for Christmas presents and my dress for Bunny's wedding (thankfully my toast is free!), but its not enough. Once I find a job, its all about being financially responsible. I'm not a numbers person and I have never been very good with money, so this is HUGE. I made a budget and charts of how much I'll need to be making each month to be able to pay all my bills (including rent on a place all my own, not at my parents' house anymore!!), make a payment towards my debt each month, put money into savings, TITHE, and have a little left over for fun stuff and eventually a trip to Virginia to see my darling Cobbs! That trip would also include some time with my long lost friend Noochie! My ideal is to be working by the end of January and then have enough money set aside to move out the first week of April (the week after Bunny and Dave's wedding!!) I miss having my own home. I miss my things and the feeling of comfort they bring me. I miss the feelings of adultness it all brings.

This blog has been so great for me. It's therapeutic in a way to get it all out and not hide my feelings, my hurts and my joys. But it's also been amazing to see how it's renewed my relationships with some people and become something of a ministry for me. God is HUGE, y'all. He has been all over my life in the past year, in the hurts and the joys. I know that for the first time in my life (because in high school, it was always missing something) that I am actually seeking God's will. I love the Lord, and I truly desire His will for my life. That makes all the difference in the world, and that's where my lost airline luggage comes from - His abundance.

So here's to 2009 - whatever it may bring.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T22:21:00.002-06:00

We all know that 2008 was not the greatest. Oh, sure, there were bright spots and God did some pretty fantastic things in me and my life, but on the whole, yea, not so much.

I've got plans for 2009. I'm not calling them resolutions, because plans feels so much more tangible to me. I've even made a spreadsheet! I fully intend to post them on here, just like I promised Christina, but not until tomorrow or the next day. I've got a few details on them I want to adjust, plus I need to pray over 1 or 2 of them a little bit more. God and I are still working on them. I do know, however, that 2009 will be a year filled with my sweet sweet savior. I spent too many years not on His path and, well, that blew up in my face. He has plans for me, plans to grow and prosper me, and well, I can't think of anything better than that!

So until then... eat your black eyed peas and cabbage, and know that I love you.

gasp NERDS!

2008-12-29T01:30:00.008-06:00

Here it is. The long awaited (mostly by Mandi) post about the Anime Convention Ross and I found. Coincidentally, my brother and sister-in-law found them later. The hotel her company Christmas party was at just so happened to be the hotel next to the convention center. When they walked in, one of the nerds saw them looking around and said, "The people dressed like you are on the 3rd floor." PRICELESS.

So, this was the first picture I made Ross take. I say that because, well, I couldn't keep a straight face and he could so I made him go take the pictures. He walked up to this kid and said, "Hey dude, sweet Link costume! Can I take a picture?" The kid got WAY excited (yunno, since Ross and I are obviously normal people) and unsheathes his sword and strikes this fierce pose.

I actually took these 2. Please be advised that this is actually a female.

These girls were wearing vampire fangs. And they seemed to really enjoy Ross, mostly because he's not ugly and he has facial hair. *giggle*

What? You're in a giant amphibian costume? *click*

There were so many more fantastic outfits, ranging from Harajuku-esque crazies to ninja wannabes. It was GLORIOUS.

what a difference a year makes...

2008-12-24T22:22:00.002-06:00

Last year, Christmas Eve was actually really really fun. Denver and I had some breakfast over at his grandma's (we spent Christmas with his mom's family in North Carolina) then went exploring. We took silly pictures on the cannons and statues at the capital building in Durham. We walked all over campus at Duke (which is really beautiful). We picked up shirts for my brother at NC State and UNC. We got Caribou Coffee on campus in Chapel Hill. We had an intensely beautiful and intimate moment when he took me to meet his mother, which means we went to her grave together. To be in that place with him, holding him and talking to her, I felt for a moment like my heart was going to burst with all the feelings I was experiencing - love for him, absorbing his pain and wanting to take it all from him, wishing I could actually have known her, and a gagillion other things. Then it was dinner and presents with the family at Grandma's. It was really really simple and great.

This year, I got up at 8:15 and scrubbed the toilet. Bernie, Katy, and the kids came over at 10 and we all had brunch. Then I ran a bunch of errands with various members of the immediate family. We went to church at 6 (where another passage from Joel was paraphrased, and I really think God is poking me pretty hard there) and then had presents at the parents' house afterwards. My brother and Katy know me so well. They got me a giraffe and an ELI MANNING JERSEY. I'm feeling so good with my family that I have been really good at not feeling so lonely like I did on Thanksgiving/my birthday. Maybe that'll change tomorrow. Who knows? In the mean time, I'm rocking my jersey and looking forward to pimp cups with my cousins tomorrow.

Merry Christmas, y'all. God bless you!

Total God Day

2008-12-21T23:17:00.003-06:00

Mandi, I'm gonna have to save the nerds for another entry. God was too big today to not blog about it.

I have said several times, to several different people, that one of the biggest things I am angry about is feeling used up and wasted.

A little background: I was 22 when I met him, 24 when I married him, and apparently 27 when I'm getting divorced from him (although I still have yet to be served with papers). Because I have had to come to terms with limits on my life due to diabetes, my 20's have been prime real estate in my life. Those years were the best chance in my life to have children, and I always wanted to have them that age anyway (even before I had diabetes) because my parents and grandparents were older when they had children, and I found that very distasteful. Becoming a mom in your mid-20's has always been my ideal, so when I was 19 and my doctor informed me that when I hit the big 3-0, my status as a high risk pregnancy would basically triple, which means the odds of me being able to successfully have biological children get even lower (which is pretty sobering, let me tell you), I became even more determined that being a mom in my mid-20's was the way to go.

In addition to the beautiful children I've been dreaming about since I was 12 slipping away, I also felt just emotionally used up. I have given everything, "my all", to him and my marriage. I have been the best wife I could possibly be. I'm not, nor have I ever claimed to be, perfect, but I tried. And the used up part comes from feeling like I did as God commanded and gave myself completely to my husband. I feel like I can never be anyone's wife but Denver's, mostly because all the wifely acts and behaviors would feel insincere to anyone else. Those were things intended for him and him alone, and somehow I feel like it would always feel cheapened with someone else. That absolutely TERRIFIES me. I love him so deeply and unconditionally, so how could I possibly ever feel that intensely for someone else? The fact that my marriage being reconciled is God's best for my life is because those things were intended to be just for him. I need to trust God's provision, and I do know that he will provide and fill me. Its just very hard to feel that way when you feel so used up and wasted on the inside.

So here's where God gave me a big blessing this morning and made it relavent to spill that info. I was on my way to pick up my brother for church this morning, and I was listening to Joel Osteen's sermon on the radio. God knew I needed to hear it, and that's honestly why I was running late. If I had been on time this morning, I would've missed it!! Basically, he was talking about enduring trials and hard times at life. The point of going through things is to be a victOR not a victIM. You got THROUGH it. You didn't stay there. God didn't leave you in the tribulation. And by faith, you know He always will. He paraphrased some scripture from the book of Joel. Basically, he said, "God will give you back all the years that are stolen from you by trials and troubles." Joel Osteen, God just used you for my personal prayer fulfillment.

Then after Sunday school, I was really filled with realization at a HUGE way God's really changed my heart. That little boy "Timmy" that I blogged about a few weeks ago, I really used to hope he wouldn't be there on Sunday mornings. I just did not like that kid!! He's still a bit of a challenge, and he still throws fits, but the little guy has wormed his way into my heart with his giant blue eyes. In large group, I sat with him during the songs because he doesn't always participate and that keeps him from distracting the other kids. He has become quite the snuggler. He was holding my hands and wrapping my arms around him. At one point, he said, "Remember when we saw each other at that party (the church Cowboy Christmas) when I had my face painted? Wasn't that just so fun?" It absolutely filled my heart with the purest kind of joy. He eventually climbed up in my lap and snuggled up against me. He popped his thumb in his mouth and started to doze in my arms. Isn't it amazing how a little boy that made me crazy and I could hardly stand a few months ago could turn around and make me love him so much? God's just cool like that.

Do you think it was because tonight started Hannukah? ;-)

Sights of the Season

2008-12-19T23:54:00.009-06:00

Last Sunday, I took 2 of my nieces to the Cowboy Christmas party at my church. I would like to share how stinkin' cute they are with their faces painted:

Dallas

Monica

This awesome car was in the parking lot when we were waiting in line to get on the hay ride. Yes, it really does say, "This is Holy Hip Hop"

After dinner tonight, we partook in one of our most favorite pastimes... we went and looked at Christmas lights! This time, I totally took some pictures.

the afore mentioned LITE BRITE HOUSE

This house is ATROCIOUS. They are in violation of just about every rule of outdoor Christmas decor out there! How many Santas do you need in one small yard? You're not supposed to have more than one anyway, because it causes rifts in the space/time continuum if you do. Not that anyone really instantly notices that there are like 6, because, well, the yard is so littered with Garden Ridge and Walmart specials that you can't really tell what anything is! Maybe that's why they didn't notice the chunks of burned out icicle lights on the eaves...

Except this. My dad was all wrapped up in the fact that Mary has sunglasses on her forehead. Me? Well, I was too busy being obsessed with/appalled by the fact that they have an ADULT JESUS in their nativity looking at the BABY JESUS. Ross said that if you're Jesus, you can be at your own birth. You're JESUS. You can do anything. I still think this is just INSANE.

These are a few of my favorite things!

2008-12-18T12:50:00.004-06:00

I know I'm not the only person out there who is like, "Okay, SERIOUSLY. No." when My Favorite Things comes on the radio this time of year or gets included on Christmas CDs. Its totally SPRING when that song comes on in the movie. Lisle was out smoochin' Rolf in the gazebo in the rain, then there's a thunderstorm and the kids all get Colonial American in Maria's room. That doesn't say Christmas to me!! Is it just because she mentions packages and snowflakes? Is that all it takes to make a Christmas carol now? Sheesh. IT IS NOT A CHRISTMAS SONG, Y'ALL! Anyway, I just needed to address that since I'm about to give a list of some things going on in my life over the next week or so that I'm totally about.

with regards to Julie Andrews...

1. Ross Thomas Lucksinger. I was super stoked believing I'd get a whole night with the most wonderful man in my life, but then the stupid Amarillo airport messed that up. Instead, I get about 2 hours Saturday morning. Hey, better than nothing.

2. Cardboard cut outs. Now, you actually may not have known about the Beacon of Awesome, but its the trifecta of Ross, Jen Hernandez, and myself. So that we can always have the full beacon assembled, we're having lifesize cardboard cutouts made of each of us. Yes, we will take them places and take pictures. We can do things like that because, well, we're awesome. And awesomely obsessed with each other.

3. Donde Esta Santa Claus by Guster. If you do not know this song, or have never heard it, stop what you're doing (okay, maybe finish reading...) and download it on iTunes. That song is THE JAM. Hello?! They hope Santa doesn't forget his castanets?! And they're a bunch of Jews from Massachusetts singing the song? GOLD.

4. Grey jeans. More specifically, cute, insanely comfortable grey jeans for $10 a size smaller than the pants I wore into the store. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

5. Okay, clearance racks in general. I can't help it. I love a deal. I got an adorable pink lacy camy for $2 and then a green dress for $7. Put 'em together and it's a suuuuuuuuuuuuper cute outfit for less than $10. I also got a few new long sleeve shirts (ya know, for the 3 or 4 days a month its in the 30's and 40's before darting back up to 75) and pretty much all for under $10.

6. Sil Pat sheets. Okay, seriously, how did I bake without them? I've been baking 84,000 Christmas cookies this week and those sheets are the greatest thing EVER. Trust me.

7. Natalie and Isaac. Tonight is my brother's company Christmas party so I get to watch the kids. OVERWHELMING JOY. When I was telling Natalie about it last Friday, the conversation was a priceless classic:
Aunt Suzy: Hey Nat, guess what? Next Thursday night, I get to be here when you go to sleep!
Natalie: Slumber party?! (eyes light up)
AS: Maybe. But you'd have to sleep in the bed with me because I might get scared.
Nat: No, Aunt Suzy. I have to sleep in my own bed. But if you get scared, you just holler for me, and I'll come. I'll come protect you.
TOO MUCH CUTE!!!

8. The Lite Brite House. I went out looking at Christmas lights with my parents the other night and my dad took us to see the coolest Christmas lights I have ever seen. Not cool in the breathtakingly beautiful, sparkly traditional sort of way. Not cool in the spectacular, cohesive display kind of way. No no. Cool in the "Holy crap, you just took your childhood to a whole new level" kind of way. This man (I know its a man because my dad saw him out working on it) meticulously strung LED lights in perfect diags (he could write band drill, seriously) over his ENTIRE ROOF. I'm trying to figure out how to take pictures that convey the amazing spectacle.

9. Bowl Pools. Fantasy Football was a bust for me this year (thankfully I played in a free league) so now its time for Round 2 of football gambling: BOWL POOLS! I'm playing in 2 this year, and that means I can be twice as excited when Florida beats the Hell out of Poops and his merry band of dirty cheaters (I love you, Erin). I think the Gators can BOOM, too.

10. PIMP CUPS. After downing several bottles of wine between us on Thanksgiving, my cousins and I have taken a stance on holiday drinking - we're all for it! I came up with the idea that we need pimp cups for Christmas. So I'm making them. I found goblets. I bought rhinestones. I'm craftacular and I love my cousins.

just some scriptures I'm claiming

2008-12-15T11:38:00.004-06:00

"We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose." Romans 8:28

"Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]." I Corinthians 13:7

"But He said to me, My grace (my favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ may rest upon me! So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], then I am truly strong." II Corinthians 12:9-10

"But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined] loss for Christ's sake. Yes, furthermore, I count everything as a loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, in order that I may win Christ." Philippians 2:7-8

"Fear nothing that you are about to suffer. [Dismiss your dread and your fears!] Behold, the devil is indeed about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested and proved and critically appraised, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be loyally faithful unto death [even if you must die for it], and I will give you the crown of life." Revelation 2:10

they're so precious

2008-12-09T23:35:00.007-06:00

Okay, you may not have known, but, um, I'm the proudest aunt ever. I am beyond in love with my niece and nephew. Seriously. How my brother and Katy managed to produce the most amazing children ever is beyond me, but I'm so glad they did.

Here are a few ridiculously adorable pictures from their birthday party this past weekend (Natalie turned 4 at the end of November and Isaac turned 1 at the start of December)

Too much cute, right?

Psalms

2008-12-07T22:35:00.003-06:00

"Nevertheless I am continually with You; You do hold my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to honor and glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And I have no delight or desire on earth besides You. My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the Rock and firm Strength of my heart and my Portion forever. For behold, those who are far from You shall perish; You will destroy all who are false to You and like [spiritual] harlots depart from You. But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God and made Him my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works." Psalm 73:23-28

"The Lord raises the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap and the dung hill, that He may seat them with princes, even with the princes of His people. He makes the barren woman to be a homemaker and a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!" Psal 113:7-9

"Remember the word and promise to Your servant, in which You have caused me to hope. This is my comfort and consolation in my affliction: that Your word has revived me and given me life." Psalm 119:49-50

2008-12-05T19:15:00.015-06:00

I've talked enough about my 84,000 trips to Garden Ridge that I probably should post some of my fine work on here. I'd been procrastinating about blogging because my heart told me there was something big and meaningful coming that I needed to blog about. I'm sure it's still coming, but I couldn't stand not having updated in over a week, so here's this instead.

The day before Thanksgiving, Mom and I went over to bake cookies with Natty. I know I'm biased, but seriously, look at this kid and tell me she's not adorable:

Decorating was decidedly less fufilling this year. When it's your own home, there's something deeply satisfying about it. The past 3 years, making the apartment cozy and festive for Denver and the girls just made me feel right. Even though most of the decorating I did this year was my decorations just at my parents' house, it still didn't feel the same. I like having them up regardless, so here's some pics of highlights.

That empty stocking hook sucks.

Lucie says, "Look, Mommy! I can help you unwrap decorations!"

until she gets tired and takes a nap on our stockings.

my beautiful Hallmark tree in the dining room!

Yea, I made that wreath. Garden Ridge hooked it up.

my amazingly wonderful UT tree and my super cute nutcracker pillow that magically matches my bedding (totally unplanned. I've had that pillow since high school)

I'm thankful for...

2008-11-26T15:01:00.002-06:00

I saw this on For Once in My Life I think it's a good idea for me to do it, because, well, after the year I've had it's hard for me to find things to be thankful for, and I need to change that. I've been saying for months that when all is said and done I want to petition to have 2008 stricken from the record. This morning on the radio, I got a perspective change. They said, "2008 has been a year full of worry. Instead of calling it that, let's call it a year of all that we lived through." I'm going to embrace that outlook.

In no particular order:
1. I am thankful for Denver, because he has shown me that I can love unconditionally and hurt more than I thought it was possible to without dying.
2. I am thankful for my parents, because they haven't kicked me out and have (not always cheerfully) provided for me during the past year.
3. I am thankful for kitties, because Lucie keeps me from sleeping alone and because Tilly is a retard.
4. I am thankful for my cousins Kelly, Lizzie, April, and Erin, because they are hilarious, they are loving, and they are just as ridiculous as me.
5. I am thankful for Grace Fellowship, because having an amazing church home really makes such a difference in life.
6. I am thankful for Kauri, because she's always praying for me, she gets me out of the house, and she doesn't think I'm crazy.
7. I am thankful for For Once in My Life (Mel), because she fills my heart and lets me cry without being a weirdo.
8. I am thankful for The Cobbs, because of the women Eryn and I have become, because Bo doesn't like tuna helper, and because Jackson is freaking adorable.
9. I am thankful for Anna, because everyone needs a friend with a cool foreign accent. Also, because she believes in me and reminds me that my heart knows what it's doing.
10. I am thankful for Ross Thomas Lucksinger, because he is the most amazing man in the world. Normally, that title should be for my husband, but these days, Ross is the one who loves me properly, and I appreciate him more than I will ever really be able to say.
11. I am thankful for Jen Hernandez, because she is a light in my life, and a total gift from God to keep me going.
12. I am thankful for the triumphant return of my period, because it renewed my faith in God's eventual blessing of children for me.
13. I am thankful for the Bible, because it's God's gift to me. It's His word, His promises, His comfort, His heart, His everything.
14. I am thankful for Bernie and Katy, because when little sister's world falls apart, having Big Brother and Big Sister to take care of you helps so much.
15. I am thankful for Natalie and Isaac, because they are beautiful and hilarious and fill my heart with overwhelming joy.
16. I am thankful for Renee Long, because she rescues me, even though she swears she doesn't.
17. I am thankful for KSBJ, because they don't play commercials and because I needed more positive jams in my life.
18. I am thankful for Whitney, because she proves that no one is perfect, regardless of the packaging. However, she's so amazing in her flaws and dorkiness and I love her so much.
19. I am thankful for the clearance section, because I'm poor but I get to own cute clothes.
20. I am thankful for Emily, because everyone needs a friend they've known since before they could do multiplication, especially when that friend is awesome AND takes you for mani/pedi on your anniversary 2 weeks after your husband tells you he wants a divorce.
21. I am thankful for my Sunday school class, because those kids are freaking hilarious and I'm learning so much from them.
22. I am thankful for electricity, because we didn't lose it during Ike and so many did.
23. I am thankful for SoMellifluous(Christina), because she's a fountain and she gives great hugs.
24. I am thankful for the Little Jen Jen that Could, because we're the only ones who think we're funny, Oh My Dad! Sudoku.
25. I am thankful for the internet, because blogger, twitter, gmail, and facebook are addicting.
26. I am thankful for knowing who my true friends are, because when your life falls apart, the ones who stick around are the ones God really wanted you to have.
27. I am thankful for my sweet sweet savior because He is always there, because His love never goes away or gets selfish, because my purpose in living is to glorify Him, because He is good all the time, because He provides, and for a million more reasons.

With more thought, I might change some of that around, but those are the main ones that came to mind. A lot of it seems small, but I have to cling to whatever I can these days.

Thanksgiving break?

2008-11-25T11:07:00.000-06:00

Is everyone on Thanksgiving break and that's why no one is blogging?

I log in and I just hear crickets chirp.

I miss you guys. What's going on in your worlds?

prayer request!!

2008-11-18T18:24:00.002-06:00

I just got an email informing me that one of my serving partners, Christina Mirabel, was in a serious car accident. She's in a body cast with herniated and fractured discs. Praise God she wasn't killed, but still, that's horrible. She's a mom and her youngest is only 5. It's the holidays, and she's in that cast for 2 months!!

Please pray for her comfort, for a speedy healing, and that her family is taken care of!

why I love Sunday school...

2008-11-17T16:01:00.003-06:00

There is nothing in the universe that makes my soul tingle more than when a child gets that huge grin and gives me a hug. I like kids. I can't help it.

I have this one little boy in my class of Kindergartners who has been more than a little difficult for me. We've been praying for ourselves more than him, because he doesn't have bad days... he has every day. I mean, he's hit, he's kicked, he's yelled, he's cried, he took his pants off once, and, according the the teachers who had him last year, he used to be a spitter. This Sunday, God finally gave us a break. This little boy, we'll just call him Timmy (cuz that kid was always falling in the well) had one of the best Sundays of his life, I'm convinced. He did what we asked with minimal discussion, he played nicely with the other kids, he kept his pants on, and he even gave me my 3 most favorite moments of the day.

1. When we were in large group worship, he pointed out a hot air balloon out the big windows. I don't know if you've just sat and watched a hot air balloon cruise across the sky, but there's something so calm and wondrous about it. Then it changed paths a bit so we got to talk about how it was like the cow jumping over the moon. We were pretty oblivious to everyone else in the room, and it was just a cool little moment.

2. When he had first arrived in the classroom, he was telling us (safe sanctuary policy is that there must be 2 adults present in the classroom at all times for there to be children. We don't want to get in any scandals like those CATHOLICS after all... lol) that he has really good deductive reasoning. We asked for examples, but he was kind of thrown. Anyway, when he and I were watching the hot air balloons, he totally busted out some deductive reasoning.
Timmy: That balloon is pretty slow isn't it?
me: yea, it is.
Timmy: is it slower than a snail?
me: no, I think its just a little bit faster than a snail.
Timmy: more like a slug?
me: maybe.
Timmy: Are snails or slugs faster?
me: I don't know. I've never raced them.
Timmy: It's slugs. Because snails have that shell and it slows them down.
DEDUCTIVE REASONING! You can't argue with that. You just can't.

3. And this one is my absolute FAVORITE. We were talking about Jesus dying for our sins so that we can be with God, because we started a new unit on Romans with the kids this week. So Timmy tells me that God is 4 parts, not 3. I said, "Are you sure? What are they?" And he goes, "It's God, Jesus, the Spirit, and Santa Claus!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SO AWESOME.

See why I love kids?

nuggets of, well, weird.

2008-11-09T19:34:00.002-06:00

I've had a busy weekend of tastings, and each tastings provided me with at least one memorable moment.

Friday, I was at the Spec's in downtown Houston. That tasting was awesome for my self esteem. As soon as I walked in, Marvin (the head of demos for that store) came over to me, calling me baby and had all my stuff set up and ready to go for me. I've heard stories about how fickle he is with who he likes. Then there was Dante. That boy decided he looooooooves me. Seriously, if you aren't feeling so hot about yourself, spend 3 hours near your own Dante. He told me I was beautiful in no less than 5 different ways, compliments galore! What a sweetie. So here's the memorable nugget of weird for that tasting. This couple walks by and one of the other reps goes, "Hey would y'all like to try some wine?" The man turns, and announces to half of the store, "Oh, no thanks. That's the wine that gave her diarrhea!" CLASSY.

Yesterday, I was at Spec's in Sugarland. This was decidedly less eventful. The nugget was more hilarious than "classy". I was pouring samples for 2 men who were very obviously a couple. One of the distributors was there stocking her wines and said to them, "Oh, your wives will LOVE that wine!" The 3 of us CRACKED UP. She had no clue! I went and explained to her after they left that their wives probably wouldn't like the wine, since they're gay. She joined in the laughter.

Today I was at HEB in, well, a melting pot of non-white races. I think I saw 10 white people total for the entire 3 hours I was there. I saw what Amy Winehouse would look like if she was black. Seriously. This woman was covered in random tattoos that didn't piece together or anything. She had the thick black eyeliner winged out. She was wearing the weird head wrap scarf thing. And she was a hot mess. She ties for the weirdest nugget of my "adventure" though. I got a tranny. That's right. A TRANNY. She was cute, but the fake lashes and nails combined with the slightly off voice made me question her gender, and so when I checked her ID and saw that her name is Brandon, I knew. And I laughed.

Gotta love my job!

no, it's not because he's black.

2008-11-04T22:43:00.003-06:00

It's because he's LIBERAL.

I'm not a conservative because I'm stupid, y'all. I'm a conservative because that's what life has taught me.

I hate big government. That's the bottom line.

I think wellfare is a crock. I'm all for aid, but not for lifers. I'm not a fan of a system where illegal immigrants and people who have no concept of "birth control" are living on government money and can get healthcare when I can't. No, not everyone on wellfare is like that. But the vast majority of the people in my neighborhood in Dallas sure were. Liberal Denver agrees. I was denied unemployment wages. I was denied medicaid. I couldn't even get food stamps if I wanted! Why? Because when I was still living with Denver, we made more than $30,000 a year between us. And now because I live with my parents. My dad is 65 and claims social security (because use it while it's still there, right?!) so that makes me ineligible. I would love to have a job. I apply for jobs. I've even gone on some interviews. But until then, I have student loans that aren't getting paid (and so today I learned I can't get a real estate license if I decided I wanted one), I have a wonderful bill from the hospital for $9,000 that I got today (if I had just stayed home and tried to suck it up like I usually do because I can't afford to see a doctor, I could have had a heart attack at 26 because my heart rate was so accelerated or worse, died because my organs could have failed), and my parents somehow find almost $500 a month to pay for my insulin and pump supplies. Public healthcare would be AMAZING. They gave me some information about some program that I have to provide all kinds of forms saying where I live and that I pay bills in my name (which I don't, since I don't have a job) so that I can go to the cheap clinics (not HOSPITALS) an hour away from me. AWESOME.

I believe in immigration. We're a melting pot, after all! I appreciate the jobs that so many illegals do, because I don't want to mow your lawn, cook your food, paint your house, or clean up after you. I don't think they're stealing jobs from Americans. But I do believe that they are breaking the law being here illegally, and then things fall back into the whole healthcare issue.

I believe in abortion. I think that when a woman is raped or the victim of incest, or when the mother's or child's life is at risk, abortion is excellent. But I think that the women who have had several abortions because they just keep getting pregnant are an awesome argument for being pro-life. I bet a prescription for birth control is cheaper than all those abortions.

I believe in gay marriage. I think you have no control over who you are attracted to and that saying that love can only happen between a man and woman is a violation of the separation of church and state. I don't think gay marriage ceremonies should be performed in churches, per say, but that's not a legal issue. Gay couples deserve spousal rights.

I believe in stem cell research. That's purely selfish because I know it impacts diabetes research and well, I'd like to see it cured in my lifetime.

I am a fan of energy diversification. That's totally our future. I mean, we aren't still using steam to run trains, so obviously we evolve. But in the mean time, my car runs on gas. Drill domestically. Seriously.

I'm technically a moderate, but I sit decidedly on the right side of being a moderate.

So excuse me for not peeing all over myself with delight about the new liberal president. The world didn't end, but its not like it got magically better.

get in the spirit with a ringer!

2008-10-30T21:19:00.006-05:00

Halloween is fun. I'm not dressing up because I'm not going to any parties and I don't have kids to dress up with (yea, I'm gonna be that mom, look out) but I still like Halloween. I prefer to go with a strictly autumnal theme for seasonal home decor, but that's more because I like to decorate in 2 month spans. Anyway, Halloween. There are 2 key elements that go into being prepared for Halloween if you are a non-costuming adult. Candy and a Jack-o-lantern. We got super cool candy to hand out, which was the easy part.

The jack-o-lantern part is a bit more difficult for me. It's been 12 years since my traumatic carving accident, but I know that I will die without ever carving another pumpkin. Mom and I were going to just put a candle in one of those plastic pumpkin buckets. We didn't see any at the store today, so we changed the plan. I was just going to paint a face on a pumpkin. So we picked out a nice big one and brought it home. Here comes the part about the ringer. My brother called and said he and Natalie were getting ready to carve theirs. I asked if he wanted to do ours, too. He knows about my fears and totally agrees with my decision to never carve a pumpkin again, so he gladly agreed. Natalie and I designed the face together. I think he's pretty awesome...

My adorable face design assistant:

My adorable distraction from the actual carving:

what? still sick?

2008-10-27T16:52:00.003-05:00

I know, I'm shocked, too. I've been fever-less for almost 24 hours, and that right there is probably the biggest blessing. I discovered last night that I can lay on my back again. That's been a pretty nasty issue since I got home. When I would lay on my back, my chest would get tight like my lungs were collapsing and my throat would feel like it was closing. In addition to being REALLY uncomfortable, that's kind of terrifying. I have some awesome headaches (which are obviously not from being dehydrated since I drink 2-3 liters of water with electrolytes daily) and have picked up a fierce honking cough. The antibiotics (1500mg of amoxicillin daily) are pretty rough on my tummy so I will be pretty happy when I finish the 10 day run and my stomach can heal. I made the grave error of going to the grocery store with my mom today (hey, it's her birthday) and ended up ridiculously exhausted. On top of that, for no apparent reason, my entire body is swollen. I went to put on the jeans I wore to church yesterday and they were uncomfortable because they put so much pressure on my pelvis. They weren't snug yesterday. I don't think I just gained 15 or so pounds over night, either. My face is puffy, too.

Eryn has ordered me back to bed, so that's where I'm heading. I'll probably take a pill to settle my stomach on the way.

Thank you so much for all your prayers, guys. I know that that's playing a huge role in my healing. The more I've read about sepsis, the more I know how blanketed in prayer I was all night in ICU.

about last night...

2008-10-24T12:28:00.003-05:00

I woke up at like 6am yesterday with my throat on fire. I figured it was just super dry (which happens when I sleep on my back sometimes) so I got some cold water and curled back up in bed. My mom woke me up at 11 to see if I wanted to go run errands. I realized it was not just dry throat and declined in favor of "sleeping it off". I got up about 12:30 to make chili as I had been promising I would. I almost didn't make it because I was getting really light headed and sick to my stomach. I hurried up and then retreated back to bed, noting that I was starting to run a fever. I spent the next 3 or so hours shivering under 3 layers of blankets because I had such horrible chills. Finally at about 4:30, I wrangled the strength to grab my cell phone and call my mom (in the other room mind you) for help. We checked my temp and discovered it was 102. That's 4 degrees above normal for me. Upon standing, I went woozy, darted to the bathroom and puked for dear life. That was enough for Mom and she insisted on a trip to the ER.

I got to the ER, still shivering, and they instantly labeled me as urgent given my temperature. When they discovered my pulse was racing at 160, they didn't waste time. I had an EKG, a CT scan of my head, and chest x-rays, in addition to several bags of IV fluids, blood cultures, and a throat culture. I no longer felt silly for going to the ER. My mom left me around that point because she said she wasn't feeling good. My nurse came in and told me that my strep culture had come back positive. That sucks, but at least it's not pneumonia, right? Well, then like 20 minutes later she comes back in and asks if the doctor has been in because I'm being admitted. Not why or anything, just that I'm being admitted. Well crap. So I call my mom, who has decided she needs to camp out in the bathroom because her entire digestive system was revolting. She ended up sending my awesome brother up with my things, which I totally appreciated. My nurse comes back in and tells me I'm going to ICU because I have sepsis. Not gonna lie, that freaked me out a bit. I got to ICU, had more holes poked in my arms, was hooked up to an IV, a heart monitor, and a blood oxygen monitor, and frequently a blood pressure cuff, so I had to get a nurse every time I have to pee (and when you're on IV fluids, trust me...) The nurses last night were telling Brother Bear and me that I would probably be in for 2 or 3 days. Yea, that's expensive when you don't have insurance. I'm glad I was there, though, because my heart started racing in the middle of the night when my fever spiked to just over 103. My nurse woke me up around 5 (for the umpteenth time) and told me that my mom called and she's now in room 515. Seriously? Good lord. I'd been on hardcore IV antibiotics all night to get the infection under control, which worked because my temp was holding steady at around 99 and my heart rate was back down under 100. I was bracing myself for nasty hospital lunch when my nurse came in and told me I was being discharged! So I'm at home with antibiotics and lots of rest. Either I'm really lucky I went in early or they sent me home because I don't have insurance. Probably both with a bit more of the second one. That sucks, but I'm pretty sure I'm stable. And my brother's optomism on that was, "If you relapse, you'll never have to work again because you'll own that hospital!"

is that stalking?

2008-10-21T13:29:00.002-05:00

I have my list of blogs on my page, obviously. I know all of those people. But there are some other blogs that I read of people who I just kinda know in real life, but because I read their blogs, I feel like I really know. Does anyone else do that? And does that make me creepy?