Because if you're not always organized, and you do something like, say, toss part of your baby's play gym into a random box somewhere when she's 1.5 years old, by the time your next child arrives 1.5 years later and you move into a smaller place, the play gym will be a thing of the past.
Seriously, I'm going crazy looking for the missing piece. I have the floor mat and one arch, which of course doesn't stand up without the other arch. I've made significant headway in this area since Lizzie was born, but I'm paying for past negligence in a big way.
Ughh.
Friday, January 8
Thursday, January 7
ummm...
After almost a month offline, I'm stumped about how to get going again. So I'll start the new year off with my favorite Christmas present, and my favorite photo.
Favorite present: the first slobbery, wet kiss from a sweet little 2 month old
Favorite photo: Nevermind. Beloved is going to have to set up the camera again before I can share the photo. Oh, the suspense. It'll nearly kill ya, I'm sure.
Favorite present: the first slobbery, wet kiss from a sweet little 2 month old
Favorite photo: Nevermind. Beloved is going to have to set up the camera again before I can share the photo. Oh, the suspense. It'll nearly kill ya, I'm sure.
Tuesday, December 15
a niece is born
We have our first niece on Beloved's side, as of 4:28 Eastern time today. Autumn Grace, welcome to the world. We're so glad you're here.
And if you know us and you're wondering what niece we have on my side, well, she's right here.
And if you know us and you're wondering what niece we have on my side, well, she's right here.
no idea what to title this, part II
read part I here
This is the first time in my adult life that I've moved into a place I didn't choose. And it's also the first time that I've clung to Jesus in the middle of the night on a weekly basis, crying out to him to sustain me. It's the first time that my marriage has been transformed by a singular set of circumstances. It's the first time that I've been able to consistently turn to my God as my "first phone call" rather than seeking out people.
There are still details up in the air. But God. And through it all, I've come to new conclusions about faith.
I've learned that faith is not a feeling or a possession. It's an action. It's a decision we make every day, sometimes every moment of every day, to place our trust and our hope in Jesus regardless of what is happening in or around us. It's a choice to find our strength, our security, our future, and our joy in the Lord even when we are drained, scared, hopeless, and burdened. It's the stubborn will that places one foot in front of the other to do the next thing, to fight the next battle, when we can't see past today. It's a fight we endure while the flaming arrows of the Enemy bombard us and we are continually tempted to throw in the towel on our beliefs about God, our relationships, and our responsibilities.
It's an action. Faith makes us say aloud, all day long if we have to, "God says this is so; therefore it must be so, even if all the evidence around me for a good long time has told me otherwise." Faith calls us to look long and hard at the character of God and who he has shown himself to be. Faith is messy because it believes in spite of emotions, in spite of logic, in spite of human failings. Faith doesn't make situations pretty or easy or joyous, but it makes them do-able. Faith can't be packaged up and taught merely in Sunday School. Faith is lived out in our actions every day. Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see is not a concept that we pull off a shelf when we think we need it. It's not a "belief" we hold. It is what allows us to carry on when everything around us and in us tells us we simply can't.
I am learning this as I grow ever so slowly in my faith.
This is the first time in my adult life that I've moved into a place I didn't choose. And it's also the first time that I've clung to Jesus in the middle of the night on a weekly basis, crying out to him to sustain me. It's the first time that my marriage has been transformed by a singular set of circumstances. It's the first time that I've been able to consistently turn to my God as my "first phone call" rather than seeking out people.
There are still details up in the air. But God. And through it all, I've come to new conclusions about faith.
I've learned that faith is not a feeling or a possession. It's an action. It's a decision we make every day, sometimes every moment of every day, to place our trust and our hope in Jesus regardless of what is happening in or around us. It's a choice to find our strength, our security, our future, and our joy in the Lord even when we are drained, scared, hopeless, and burdened. It's the stubborn will that places one foot in front of the other to do the next thing, to fight the next battle, when we can't see past today. It's a fight we endure while the flaming arrows of the Enemy bombard us and we are continually tempted to throw in the towel on our beliefs about God, our relationships, and our responsibilities.
It's an action. Faith makes us say aloud, all day long if we have to, "God says this is so; therefore it must be so, even if all the evidence around me for a good long time has told me otherwise." Faith calls us to look long and hard at the character of God and who he has shown himself to be. Faith is messy because it believes in spite of emotions, in spite of logic, in spite of human failings. Faith doesn't make situations pretty or easy or joyous, but it makes them do-able. Faith can't be packaged up and taught merely in Sunday School. Faith is lived out in our actions every day. Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see is not a concept that we pull off a shelf when we think we need it. It's not a "belief" we hold. It is what allows us to carry on when everything around us and in us tells us we simply can't.
I am learning this as I grow ever so slowly in my faith.
Friday, December 11
traditions
I'm a tradition kinda girl w/ traditions coming out of my ears, so when Every Chapter asked me to write about my favorite, I was happy she fed me an answer.
No where else in San Diego (or all of California, to my knowledge), can one start his Christmas evening with an appetizer of Swedish meatballs while watching girls of Swedish heritage sing Santa Lucia in a beautiful museum... and finish with Swedish rosettes, American apple pie, Greek baklava, and Danish pudding for dessert, chased by some hot glug from either Denmark or Sweden, while watching Baile Folklorico dancers from Mexico.
There are so many people who attend this festival now that my old go-to parking plan, walking plan, and eating plan were abandoned several years ago. I've since adopted a willingness to walk much further and eat much less (never a bad thing for the waistline anyway). But we still make this event a priority. It doesn't even need to be entered on the calendar, really. We know it's the first full weekend in December, and our schedule always makes room. Even last weekend, when we had an infant, a tired 3 year old, and we moved the next morning.
read the full version over at Every Chapter.
No where else in San Diego (or all of California, to my knowledge), can one start his Christmas evening with an appetizer of Swedish meatballs while watching girls of Swedish heritage sing Santa Lucia in a beautiful museum... and finish with Swedish rosettes, American apple pie, Greek baklava, and Danish pudding for dessert, chased by some hot glug from either Denmark or Sweden, while watching Baile Folklorico dancers from Mexico.
There are so many people who attend this festival now that my old go-to parking plan, walking plan, and eating plan were abandoned several years ago. I've since adopted a willingness to walk much further and eat much less (never a bad thing for the waistline anyway). But we still make this event a priority. It doesn't even need to be entered on the calendar, really. We know it's the first full weekend in December, and our schedule always makes room. Even last weekend, when we had an infant, a tired 3 year old, and we moved the next morning.
read the full version over at Every Chapter.
Thursday, December 10
no idea what to title this, part I
After 21 months of uncertainty, we finally have some direction. We now know that we are not moving 550 miles away, or 350 miles away. We know that we are not quitting our jobs here to search for jobs elsewhere. We know that we are not able to keep the condo we bought 5 years ago as a step up to the house we wanted. We know that our former daycare provider, beloved though she be, will not watch our kids anymore because she's too expensive for our new budget. We know that, as of last weekend, we are now renting a little apartment close to church, close to friends, and closer to work, and that our unit number is our favorite number: 7.
The funny thing is that my response to this varies greatly. I am emotional from the toll of job loss, home loss, daycare loss, dog loss, etc, and having pregnancy hormones through the thickest part of it didn't help. Lack of sleep doesn't help much, either. But that doesn't mean that things were always bad. I have been all over the map with my emotions: excited, adventurous, hesitant, scared, exhausted, spent, frustrated, angry, jealous, impatient, humored, ambivalent etc.
But God. 21 months ago I would have said that, as much as I'd like to think I could handle something like this, I'd probably fall flat on my face.
And then I'd eat some chocolate.
But God has been God - he's worked in both of us to grow our perseverance, and he's strengthened us when our strength was gone. When we couldn't plow through one more discussion of the options before us without just walking away from each other, one of us always hit our knees and found the perseverance to keep going and the strength to lift up the weak one. When we couldn't handle one more tantrum from Pink because our nerves were raw from the many business phone calls, the taxing discussions, the up-in-the-air quality to things, and the overall drain of life, we found the strength to love her as Christ has called us to, even when that meant seeking her forgiveness and leaning on God for reconciliation. When we had 1.5 weeks to move and had no idea what zip code we'd land in, we found the faith to walk ourselves into the office of an apartment manager and apply for an apartment that wasn't exactly what we wanted, but was exactly what God was providing.
part II to come...
The funny thing is that my response to this varies greatly. I am emotional from the toll of job loss, home loss, daycare loss, dog loss, etc, and having pregnancy hormones through the thickest part of it didn't help. Lack of sleep doesn't help much, either. But that doesn't mean that things were always bad. I have been all over the map with my emotions: excited, adventurous, hesitant, scared, exhausted, spent, frustrated, angry, jealous, impatient, humored, ambivalent etc.
But God. 21 months ago I would have said that, as much as I'd like to think I could handle something like this, I'd probably fall flat on my face.
And then I'd eat some chocolate.
But God has been God - he's worked in both of us to grow our perseverance, and he's strengthened us when our strength was gone. When we couldn't plow through one more discussion of the options before us without just walking away from each other, one of us always hit our knees and found the perseverance to keep going and the strength to lift up the weak one. When we couldn't handle one more tantrum from Pink because our nerves were raw from the many business phone calls, the taxing discussions, the up-in-the-air quality to things, and the overall drain of life, we found the strength to love her as Christ has called us to, even when that meant seeking her forgiveness and leaning on God for reconciliation. When we had 1.5 weeks to move and had no idea what zip code we'd land in, we found the faith to walk ourselves into the office of an apartment manager and apply for an apartment that wasn't exactly what we wanted, but was exactly what God was providing.
part II to come...
Tuesday, December 1
i like her way of thinking
As the afternoon progressed on one of our busy weekend days, Pink could think of nothing more than squeezing in a little family time:
"Mommy, tonight can we eat popcorn & watch a movie? I thought it would be fun if we skip the food and just eat popcorn with our movie."
We didn't try it, but I'm tempted...
I am, however, a little disconcerted at the thoroughness of her thought process. If she's pulling out all these rhetorical tricks on us so she can eat popcorn for dinner at the tender age of three, hmmm...
"Mommy, tonight can we eat popcorn & watch a movie? I thought it would be fun if we skip the food and just eat popcorn with our movie."
We didn't try it, but I'm tempted...
I am, however, a little disconcerted at the thoroughness of her thought process. If she's pulling out all these rhetorical tricks on us so she can eat popcorn for dinner at the tender age of three, hmmm...
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