carefully crafted

heritage shower

2012-01-18T21:24:00.006-06:00

We had a lovely shower at my parents' church on Sunday, December 4th. It's such a blessing to feel so loved!

It was such a surreal day... I just couldn't believe that we were the ones who were opening baby stuff! Such a blessing and dream come true for us.

Can you tell we're happy? :)

her name

2012-01-04T21:43:00.004-06:00

Our baby girl will be...

Avery Jordan Parrish

Jordan is both Lance's middle name and my mom's maiden name... and we both just loved the name Avery. Anyway, we love the name, and we love her.

tying up some loose ends

2012-01-01T20:33:00.002-06:00

I’ve mentioned several things in passing but haven’t circled back to address them, so here is my attempt at tying up some loose ends:

I think we’re settled on our baby’s name… we just need to make sure there are no major familial objections, and then we’ll be 100% sure. I’m excited to start calling her by her name. Maybe. Sometimes I get choked up when I say her name, so maybe calling her by name is not a great idea...
My glucose test came back great—in fact, in the nurse’s words, I passed “with flying colors.” I was so thankful to hear that! I even told the nurse on the phone that she made my day. Ha. Oh well… I’m sure she’s used to talking to crazy pregnant folk.
We had a very busy December (with several wonderful Christmas celebrations) and are facing an equally busy January, but we are way too blessed to be cranky about that.
We went to our birthing class, which was very informative. We didn’t stay to watch the delivery videos, as we had both seen them before at some point in life… plus the class ran long, and we had plans that night, so we had to head out. One cool thing is that one of the nurses who taught the class is one of my doctor’s nurses, so it was neat to hear her go on and on about my doctor and how wonderful he is.
Sweet Lance painted the nursery (and the once-yellow closet!), and we set up the crib yesterday. We are hoping to get Baby’s room all set up this weekend! I feel 100% certain that I will cry. However, I am so excited to have a space for her… plus I think it will help me feel less panicked about how close we are getting to her arrival… and just to help me process a little bit more that she will actually come live with us and have a room and her own stuff. I hope to have pictures to post soon!
We had a shower at my parents’ church on December 4^th and felt SO blessed by the love we received there. My sister got some great pictures, so I will post those soon. It was surreal to actually be the one opening stuff for a baby though (after hostessing more baby showers that I can count on my fingers… and maybe toes). I kept getting a big lump in my throat as I opened things. It kind of feels like a dream…
On a more serious note, I had mentioned my sweet friend Erin and her baby, Emma, in a previous post. Things are not looking great for little Emma right now… and after three rounds of genetic amniocentesis testing, they have not yet been able to diagnose the root of Emma’s problems, and it is EXTREMELY rare to go that many rounds without any answers. We are still praying fervently for a miracle for baby Emma. I ask that you take a moment whenever you think of it to lift her up as well.

gender reveal

2011-12-29T21:05:00.006-06:00

These are about 10 weeks late... but I wanted to share some of the pictures of us sharing with our families that we are having a little princess. We went to eat at a restaurant that has been my family's favorite since Terra and I were little. I bought pink onesies and put them in gift bags and had everyone open at the same time. Everyone had thought we were having a boy, so everyone was so shocked. It wasn't any big party, but it was such a special night for us.

catching up on the bump

2011-12-28T19:39:00.008-06:00

I fell a little bit behind with all of my belly pictures (with Christmas and all of that), but we have continued to document the growth of my belly (which means the growth of our little baby).

25 weeks:

26 weeks:

27 weeks:

This week was the shower at my parents' church, so this is me and Baby Girl in front of my parents' Christmas tree.

28 weeks:

For this Sunday, we were actually on the high school retreat and forgot to take the weekly picture... so this is me on a Tuesday morning before work... looking sleepy and kind of puffy. Ha.

29 weeks:

30 weeks:

I cannot begin to express how thankful I am every single day. I love feeling Baby move, and I love the aches that remind me that I'm carrying somebody around with me, and I love that every doctor's appointment has gone so great, and I love seeing Lance's face light up when he feels her move, and I love that I cry every time I try to pray for her by name. I'm humbled and grateful and blessed.

oh... the comments

2011-12-27T17:15:00.005-06:00

For posterity's sake, I wanted to record some of the comments I've gotten lately:

An older lady at my office told me I looked really small for 6 months pregnant. I told her I appreciated hearing that I look small because I always feel huge. She replied with, "But your doctor seems to be okay with the size you are? He's not worried?"

This was quickly countered by...

A brand new attorney who is a couple of years younger than I am asked me how far along I was. I answered that I was about 6 months. She stared at my stomach and said, "Oh wow! You're that big and you still have THAT far to go?!"

Then today, another older lady at my office told me that the baby had dropped. I said no, I've just been carrying her pretty low--low enough that I still have a waistline because she's down so low. She just raised her eyebrows and shook her head and said, "I think that baby looks REALLY low," as if I should be concerned.

I was also told over Christmas by an extended family member that I needed to remember that I'm not REALLY eating for two since I'm pregnant... And then this same family member commented on our picture from Vegas (the one where I'm wearing a white shirt and a colorful scarf and standing out in front of some waterfalls and such), "I didn't know you were already wearing maternity clothes at that point." Umm... that's just my shirt. A normal shirt. A size XS shirt, actually.

And I was told by an individual from church that she never remembered being as big as I am right now. Awesome.

But lately, people at church have stuck with the, "You look great!" which I love. Why can't everyone just tell me how awesome I am and how jealous they are of my smokin' bod? Clearly that's the best choice!

pretty!

2011-12-02T07:15:00.001-06:00

I love seeing this first thing in the morning!

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super speedy

2011-11-28T22:37:00.003-06:00

We have had a busy but productive season 'round these parts! Brief update... readysetgo:

We are about 75% done registering. I need to make one more pass at Target, but otherwise... nearly done!
We are down to only a handful of gifts to buy for Christmas! I have about half of the ones I have purchased already wrapped and under the tree, which leads us to...
All of our Christmas stuff is up! Except the wreath I decided to make, which is still IP. AND I just ordered our Christmas cards, which is SO much better than when I ordered them on December 19th last year!
We are secretly testing out a baby name this week. We aren't sharing it yet, but we're both stewing on it this week. This is MAJOR progress for us!
We went Black Friday shopping and got some awesome deals... including... (drum roll please...) a DYSON! I have wanted one FOR.EV.ER. People were extra nice to me thanks to my belly. I was in the checkout line and on the phone with Lance and told him how much I needed to potty but that I would/could hold it unless Baby kicked me... and the nice guys behind me held my spot in line so that I could go to the bathroom! That HAS to be because of Baby--no one is that nice on Black Friday.
I have my glucose test this week. I am a little nervie about it because my dad is diabetic, and I have heard that increases the odds of gestational diabetes... but when it comes right down to it, the condition is either already there or it isn't, and I would rather take care of myself and Baby like I need to if that is an issue. Although I am praying it won't be.
I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I love how homey our house looks right now. And I love buying gifts for people. And I love opening gifts from people. I just love Christmas.
I will admit though... one thing I am not super fond of is that we are constantly getting things asking for donations... which I understand... but my hormones are making it hard to deal with. I cry at some of the donation solicitation things. It's ridic. I'm ridic. No denying.
We had a fabulous Thanksgiving. We celebrated with Lance's fam because mine was on a cruise that we were supposed to go on before Baby popped up in all of her joyousness. Instead, we basically lived in pajamas and spent a ton of time together and a ton of time sleeping. It was awesome.
I'm trying not to be stressed over all that's coming up: my company Christmas party is Friday night, our birthing class is Saturday, my parents' church is having a lunch/shower for us on Sunday, then NEXT weekend is a high school retreat... and then it's nearly Christmas! And our nursery still isn't painted, and Baby remains unnamed. Eesh! I'm trying to just enjoy the moments because I know they're going to pass SO fast. I feel unbelievably blessed to be preparing a nursery and coming up with a name for our healthy baby girl. I don't want to complain or whine or grouch my way through these times. I could not ask for more. So I will be busy among my blessings with a smile.

Summary: I am blessed. I am thankful. I am so happy. And I love Christmas. The end.

more belly!

2011-11-19T09:04:00.007-06:00

I'm so thankful that everything is going great and looking just like it should. I'm so amazed and humbled by this whole experience. I'm finally starting to feel the baby moving quite a bit, which is awesome (and brings me peace that things are still okay in there!). Lance has been able to feel several times now, and I love that too. I must admit... I cry a lot... just because it seems impossible to put all of the emotions into words, so sometimes I express them through tears. I know, I kind of pity Lance. :)

I'm also realizing that I wore the same denim skirt 3 out of the last 4 Sundays. It might be time to branch out....

Here is 21 weeks:

22 weeks:

23 weeks:

Here we are at 24 weeks:
Also, one of my dearest friends (and my college roommate) is pregnant as well--about 5 weeks behind me. She went to the doctor this week to find out her baby's gender, and they found some major developmental issues with the baby... as in possibly not survivable developmental issues. I am praying daily for a miracle for them. I ask you to take a moment to lift up my sweet friend Erin and their baby. They are seeing a specialist on Tuesday, and my prayer is that all of the issues will miraculously be gone and that they will have a happy, healthy baby in another 20 weeks. Our God is still the God who has power over life and death and the ability to bring healing in seemingly hopeless situations... and I am praying that He shows us His power and brings glory to His name. Erin and her husband are so faithful to the Lord and are already praying that He will bring glory to His name regardless of how things turn out. I am blessed to be her friend. And I am looking forward to witnessing a miracle!

girls weekend!

2011-11-13T19:14:00.002-06:00

My goodness, things have been busy around here! Last weekend, my mom and I drove up to Hot Springs, Arkansas to visit my sister. Somehow, I didn’t manage to take a single picture while I was there, so this will be an imageless post.

We drove up there on Thursday after I got off work… but I’m not 100% certain that was a great idea. It took me over an hour and a half to make the (usually) one-hour trip to my parents’ house thanks to rush hour, and then we ate a super fast dinner and hit the road. We left around 7:30 (which I think was nearly an hour later than we’d hoped). It was already dark at 7:30, and we had a great talk on the way… then just 15 minutes short of the Arkansas state line, my mom got pulled over for a bogus reason (driving in the left lane instead of just passing, despite the fact that there was a police car on the right shoulder, and the law says to move over, but whatever…) but only got a warning… but then couldn’t find her license. We even stopped to look through the car for it and couldn’t find it… so that added another 30ish minutes to the trip by the time we got stopped and then searched the car. I started getting really tired around 11:00, so I yawned for the entire last leg of our trip. We finally got to what we thought was our hotel, only to find out it wasn’t our hotel… and our hotel was one block away. Gracious. On the upside, my mom found her license, but we were so tired and cranky AND it was 1:00 in the morning before we got to bed. Rough start.

Friday, however, was great! Mom and I got up and ate breakfast at the hotel, then drove to my sister’s apartment, where we hung out until lunchtime. Sister and her husband treated us to lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant, and then we walked around their little mall. It reminded me of Abilene’s mall but with Razorback paraphernalia everywhere. Then we dropped Sister’s husband off at the apartment, went to get ice cream and then Sonic, and then went on a driving tour of Hot Springs (including showing us their church). All the trees up there looked so beautiful! The colors were just gorgeous. After that, we went shopping at an antique mall and found some really fun stuff! I bought a bunch of old books to decorate the house with (I will probably never read any of them… except maybe Moby Dick… but honestly, I bought them only for their looks.). Mom and Sister found some fun stuff too… and just about everything was priced really well. I bought six hardback books (plus a book for Baby) for $21, which is much better than the hardback books I almost bought at Anthropologie for $16 apiece! After our antique mall excursion, we ate dinner together and then went back to Sister’s apartment for awhile longer.

We started off Saturday the same as Friday—eating at the hotel and heading to Sister’s apartment. Then we went to lunch with Sister and her husband and hit the road to come back home. It was a super speedy weekend, but we had such a blast! I feel so blessed to enjoy time with my family so much! --and I love that we are dramaless!

This is the longest I have ever been out of town when Lance was home, and upon my return, he told me that he has a new respect for me and how long I stay alone during the stretches of summer when he’s gone on trips and such. Ha.

I've been working on a million different things--I'm now half done shopping for Christmas!--so hopefully I'll have time to update more soon. I think it's about time for another belly update... just as soon as I have a free minute!

lookie what i did!

2011-10-31T21:12:00.001-05:00

I usually don't take much time to be crafty, but I made this wreath!

I totally stole it from a blog I follow, but I am just so excited at how cute it turned out! I love how it warms up our front door.

I have so much more to write about... But for now, I will just share my lovely fall wreath. :)

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a whole month of belly

2011-10-18T21:46:00.008-05:00

I can't lie--I'm super excited that people can actually tell I have a baby belly and not a chubby belly these days. It's hard to believe that there's an entire little person in there. I love it though.

Also--as a side note--I am noticing that my photogenic-ness varies greatly from week to week. Ha.

Here is the 17-week belly:

Here is 18 weeks:

Here we are at 19 weeks:

Here is week 20 (which we took at the end of the day instead of in the morning before church... I usually dress a little better than this for church!):

it's a girl!!!!

2011-10-09T21:59:00.001-05:00

Me oh my! I was so sure it was a boy. We are so excited! More to come....

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no good at secrets

2011-10-05T21:44:00.001-05:00

We had our big ultrasound today and found out our baby's gender... And we aren't sharing until we can tell our families at dinner on Friday night. Why did I do this?! I stink at secrets!

On the upside, our little lovie looks wonderful and healthy. I'm so thankful.

I never thought I'd be so excited about a tiny femur. :)

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you can tell?!

2011-09-25T19:02:00.001-05:00

I walked to the mailbox today, and my across the street neighbor yelled out, "You have a bump! Oh my goodness!"

It's the first time that someone who didn't already know I was pregnant knew I was pregnant. It made me smile. Every step of this journey makes me so excited.

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bump pictures

2011-09-21T19:27:00.010-05:00

I have been taking pictures, but I'm not sure there's a ton to see yet. I really think I'm starting to get bigger now.... so hopefully the next round of pictures will be more distinct.

Here is 13 weeks:

Here is 14 weeks:

Here is 15 weeks:

Here is 16 weeks (although this shirt hides it more than the others):

So excited and thankful for growth and progress and health and a belly. :)

some firsts

2011-09-18T21:43:00.001-05:00

I have had some exciting firsts lately:
-I bought my first maternity pants. They are much comfier on my tumtum, but they kind of fall down right now. I'm sure I'll grow into them...
-I received my first gift for baby! A sweet friend in my Bible study gave me a Bible storybook. What a great first gift for our little lovie!
-I bought a Doppler and have been listening to baby's heart beating away every couple of days or so.
-We saw ACU play at Cowboys Stadium!
-We are about to replace all of our carpet, and this is one of the most daunting tasks we have faced as homeowners. It rather overwhelms me. It's the first time we have made this kind of purchase for our home. It's scary!

I have lots of pictures of almost all of the above, but I've been too busy/tired/whatever to post them yet. But get excited. They exist and will be posted soon... :)

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lovely

2011-09-09T15:02:00.001-05:00

My current state is no longer a secret at the office, but I am doing my best to be as "normal" (or how ever normal I am anyway), so I don't talk too much about it.

Well, apparently a girl I work with noticed my not-so-flat stomach and asked a coworker if I was pregnant. My coworker informed her that I was.

Today at lunch, the girl who noticed my stomach congratulated me... and then said, "I was afraid to ask because I wasn't sure if you were pregnant or just REALLY bloated."

Awesome....

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annivegabirthaversary

2011-08-29T21:22:00.006-05:00

We had a fabulous time celebrating our 5th anniversary as well as both of our birthdays in Vegas! We saw three wonderful shows, ate all kinds of food, and just had a blast hanging out with each other. A few of my favies (before each of our three shows):

It's kind of fun that Baby P is hiding out in these pictures... like a teeny tiny Where's Waldo. I mean, at this point, there wasn't even a bump... but it's fun when you look back and know the bump's on its way. :)

back and better than ever

2011-08-24T20:26:00.004-05:00

Admittedly, six months is enough for anyone to give up on ever reading my blog.

It’s been quite a six months.

We started off this year pretty rough. We suffered a loss, we owed a lot of money to the IRS during tax season, I found out that I had some health issues that had to be resolved asap… Basically, it was a very hard time for us. I cried a lot, honestly. I wrestled with the Lord. To be fair, things weren’t all bad—I have a wonderful husband, loving family, and supportive friends that walked through all of it with me. We even took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate our 5th anniversary during June, and that was wonderful.

And here we are six months after my most recent post: our hearts have healed, our bank accounts have recovered, my health issues have been 100% taken care of, and we are closer than ever.

And we’re expecting!

And that’s the best news of all.

We found out about Baby P’s existence the morning we left for Vegas (yikes). Thankfully, I felt good throughout our trip (overly emotional though—I cried during the Bellagio fountain shows. What the what??). I had blood work and a sonogram done a couple weeks later, and we got to see our little blobbie with a little heart flicker. And I bawled my stinking eyes out on the table in the sonogram suite. Poor ultrasound lady. Everything is looking really good. I’m at about 12 ½ weeks right now, and we just started sharing our news with people other than family.

Yes, I have felt icky—nausea pretty much all the time, major fatigue, other lovely symptoms. However, everything looks great, so I will take every moment of feeling bad. Totally worth it.

As always, I'm so thankful for God's faithfulness.... and excited about this new journey!

some house decor pics (finally)!

2011-02-13T14:35:00.002-06:00

I've been meaning to get some house pics up here. There are only two areas of my house that are done-ish, so here they are:

This is on the wall in my kitchen (sandwiched between the pantry and the fridge).

This chest of drawers sits right where you enter the kitchen from the garage.

Hooray! 2 pictures!

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testing 1 - 2 - 3

2011-02-09T22:42:00.001-06:00

Well, I downloaded the app so that I could blog from my iPhone, and I really thought it would help make me a more regular blogger. No such luck so far. Oh well. I thought I should at least give it a try so that I can convince myself to do this more often.

Here's hoping...

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2010, we hardly knew ye

2010-12-31T14:43:00.002-06:00

When I look back at this year, I am completely amazed. Amazed that we survived it, amazed that our whole lives have changed, amazed at God’s faithfulness. Mostly that last one. I’ve been terrible at keeping up on here this year because of everything that’s been going on… so here is my condensed look at our year:

January:
-We had just turned down a job offer that would have moved us to Midland. We finally had some peace in our lives and looked forward to a peaceful year ahead of us…
-We bought our plane tickets to Europe, thus making the trip official. There’s no backing out when you have non-refundable plane tickets.
-We were contacted by PR regarding the youth ministry position. So much for our peaceful year.

February:
-We began the interview process with PR.

March:
-PR offered Lance the job… and we accepted. Peaceful year? What peaceful year?
-We told God that we were following where he called us… and that because of that, we were trusting him to handle the details (like, oh, say… where we’ll live!).

April:
-We began the painful process of telling Legacy folk that we were leaving. We cried a lot.
-Lance led singing for his last few times at Legacy.
-We began packing up our house to get it ready to put on the market.

May:
-Since we had already purchased the aforementioned non-refundable plane tickets, we went to Europe… despite the fact that we had JUST started at PR and our lives were so crazy. We become trans-Atlantic travelers for the first time ever. We had a wonderful trip and totally enjoyed ourselves.
-As soon as we got back, summer stuff began at PR.

June:
-We celebrated 4 years of marriage.
-We put our house on the market.
-My little sister got married.
-Lance was gone an awful lot.

July:
-Our house was still on the market.
-Lance was still gone an awful lot.
-We began looking at houses in Arlington.

August:
-Our house was still on the market, and we began seriously looking at houses in Arlington. We spent every Sunday afternoon touring homes.

September:
-I got an email in the middle of church one Sunday morning that we’d gotten an offer on our house. After reading through that offer, we realized it was someone we knew from Legacy… and that his agent was someone from Legacy… and we cried and thanked the Lord.
-We began packing… like REALLY packing.
-We were still looking at houses and struggling to find something we loved.
-We began starting down the barrel of selling our house without having somewhere to go and making arrangements to stay with Lance’s mom short-term.

October:
-We made an offer on a house that we liked but didn’t love.
-We found another house like a week later that we LOVED and made an offer.
-I worked my tail off and gathered every bit of financial documentation about us in 24 hours (and let me tell you – they required a LOT of financial documentation!).
-We packed up our entire lives.
-We closed on the house 3 weeks later. We got an amazing interest rate and a great price… and we bought our house from another CoC minster. Coincidence? Doubtful.
-We moved into our lovely new house on Halloween weekend. Still can’t believe we ever thought it would be a peaceful year!

November:
-We had two youth retreats in November – one being the weekend immediately following moving into our house. Yeesh. That was stressful.
-We hired a painter to paint all of our common rooms during Thanksgiving week. What a difference that made! It started feeling like OUR house.
-We unpacked.
-We began shopping for Christmas.

December:
-We took our trip to NYC.
-We unpacked.
-We put up all of our Christmas stuff which made it look so much more like a home, and we finished up our Christmas shopping about two weeks before Christmas and got everything wrapped and under the tree.
-We celebrated our first Christmas in our new home, and we enjoyed time with both of our families.

We’re still not done unpacking, and there’s wall painting and floor tiling to be done still… but it’s starting to really feel like home. We have singlehandedly kept fast food businesses in the black this year with how much we’ve eaten there. We can barely button our pants (but we do intend to change that)… but we survived it. At times this year, our marriage felt like a business arrangement as we did our dead-level best just to keep up with everything… but looking back, I feel like we’re stronger because of it. We followed where the Lord called us, and He blessed us.

God is so faithful to His children. In fact, one of my New Year’s resolutions for 2011 is to begin a journal of stories of God’s faithfulness in my life. I believe in and worship a God who continues to move and act in my life. He’s not just the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He’s also MY God. I stand in awe of the things He does, and I want to continue to remember those… and I want to pass those down so that my children and grandchildren will know that they are part of a legacy of faith.

I think my verse for 2011 is going to be Psalm 116:7 – “Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” Here's hoping for a more peaceful year in 2011!

magical pictures

2010-12-09T19:54:00.007-06:00

Here are some of my favorite pictures from our magical trip!

Seriously... this trip was such a dream come true. I've always wanted to see NYC at Christmas, and it was everything I hoped it would be. Magical!

yeesh.

2010-12-07T20:41:00.001-06:00

I have been a giant failure at blogging lately. Things are still so crazy. Super speedy update: We had our common rooms painted a couple weeks ago, and they look so good! They are a beautiful, neutral beige… SO much better than yellow! And it was totally worth hiring someone – they look AMAZING, and it took him 3 days to do 4 gigantic rooms. That would have taken us 4 months, 97 cans of paint, 15 sessions of marriage counseling, and we STILL wouldn’t be done. Let’s see… then we enjoyed Thanksgiving, and I went black Friday shopping and got a new TV for our bedroom. We left on December 1st and took a short trip up to New York City . I have always wanted to go at Christmastime, and right now one of our college friends is playing Pumbaa in the Lion King on Broadway (and he has a one-year contract), so we wanted to go up there even though we just took our trip to Europe this year. It was a wonderful, magical Christmas trip! (We saw the tree, watched the Rockettes, ice skated in Rockefeller Plaza , window shopped, bought me a Tiffany & Co. necklace… MAGIC, I tell you. MAGIC.) I did get kind of sick on the day we flew back, and I still have kind of a man-ish voice, but it’s getting better now. Lance and I hung curtains in our dining room last night, and I am SO excited about that. Our house is finally starting to look like we live there. We have some paint color samples on the wall in our bedroom and bathroom, but I am having a much harder time picking those colors than I had picking the common room colors. Sometime soon, I need to post pictures of the house with its new and improved décor and pictures of the NYC Christmas magic. I absolutely cannot believe that Christmas is in 18 days! So exciting… and yet, so much to do still!

chaos chaos chaos... new house.

2010-11-02T22:15:00.001-05:00

It has clearly been a long time since I’ve blogged… but with good reason. This past month has been total chaos. When I last blogged, we had made an offer on a house that we liked… but we didn’t really love it. We didn’t have that… feeling when we first walked in the door. We were negotiating on the price with the homeowner, and we were kind of struggling because we didn’t love it. We just wanted to make it work.

Well… so then we went to see another house… and we did have that feeling. We loved it. It was everything we’d been looking for.

And now we live there.

Amazingly, it’s only been 3 weeks and a few days since we went to see the house. We made an offer, negotiated quickly, found a mortgage company that could help us close in 2 weeks instead of a month, closed, and moved in.

The floor plan is awesome, and it feels gigantic to us… even though it’s really only about 300 square feet bigger than our NRH house. It has a formal living and dining, a giant master closet, an island kitchen with tons of storage, a long driveway, an almost-quarter-acre lot, a big backyard… and yellow walls. For some reason, the old homeowners painted every wall in the house yellow before moving. So… we’ll be painting. Even with the yellow walls, though, this house is an answer to our prayers. We just love it.

Of course, right now, we are mostly living out of boxes. I’ve unpacked some dishes and most clothes, and everything else is still in a box or a force-flex bag. I’m not the tidiest person in the world, but I definitely like organization. This, my friend, is NOT organization. It brings back fun near-panic-attack feelings like I always have when I’m out of control.

Anyway, I have a lot of pictures of the house, but I haven’t had time to upload them or do anything fun like that. I hope to have a picture post soon… because our new house is just lovely.

Thank you, Lord!

confessions and blessings

2010-10-05T20:32:00.000-05:00

I’ve been a terrible flake about writing on here lately. Honestly, it’s because I’m just overwhelmed.

My life is a constant flurry of activity these days. Our closing on our house in NRH is in 22 days. Today we are making an offer on a possible new house in Arlington . Our home office is pretty much packed up (yay), but then I remember that I haven’t even really touched the kitchen… and there is a TON to pack in there. I’m just exhausted… and we have a family retreat this weekend, a fifth quarter next weekend, a family festival, a junior high retreat, and a high school retreat… all before Thanksgiving. Yeesh. My back is full of knots, and I keep getting stress headaches. Well, stress/sinus. I always struggle with allergies when the seasons change. To summarize – I’m busy, sleepy, and don’t feel too hot.

Every time I sit down to write something, it ends up being more of a to-do list… and it sounds so negative… so then I give up and quit. Instead, I am going to try to focus on the good things happening in my life:

We found a house we like enough to make an offer on… and it’s even cheaper than most of the houses we’d looked at, so we’ll be able to put quite a bit down (at least 20%, maybe 25%) and have a nice low mortgage.
Our house sold in this terrible market (totally all God).
We are going to NYC the first week of December regardless of what else happens… so I KNOW I will have a little break and be able to get away for awhile. And I’ve always dreamed of going to New York at Christmastime, so I am just SO excited.
Even though I sometimes get sad and miss my Legacy friends, we are finally getting to a point that we’ll be able to start attending some PR grow groups and hopefully make some friends there.
I’m still in a non-Bunko/supper club group with some of my Legacy friends, so I get to see them and catch up at least once a month. I never realized what a blessing that could be for me.
I decided that I really want Ugg boots to wear in NYC while we’re there since it will be so cold, so I went and tried some on this weekend and liked them enough that I’m ordering a Discover cash back bonus card to go buy them… hopefully in the next week or so. They were delightfully comfy and warm… which is good because that is MUCH more than I normally spend on shoes. (And someone come hunt me down and kick me in my face if I ever wear the Uggs with Soffe cheerleading shorts. I still don’t get that look. If it’s cold enough for your feet to need Uggs, don’t your legs need pants???)
I’ve been reading through my Bible, and I got really bogged down in Isaiah and Ezekiel, but I’m now to the other side of those (just finished Daniel, actually), so hopefully I will pick up the pace and perhaps be able to finish reading through the Bible this year.
Christmas is getting close! Yesterday I numbered off the days until Christmas so that I could do a countdown. Today makes 81 days until Christmas! I am so excited about that. I love Christmas. I mean, really. It’s ridiculous. I love Christmas. Did I mention I love Christmas? Well, I do.
We are (sort of) beginning to get into a groove at PR. I am starting to know names and be able to talk to people… and find my way around the building without getting lost (hallelujah!).
I have a really wonderful husband. He takes such good care of me and is so patient with me when I go through phases like the one I’m in now (borderline panic attack at least once a day). We’re SO different, so I know he doesn’t necessarily understand how I’m feeling, but he loves me and cares for me through it. It’s also been a big blessing to see him really thrive in his new job. Sometimes he gets overwhelmed, yes, but he just has all these new ideas and gets so excited when kids really get it. He has a precious heart.

Finally, I am so thankful for the Lord’s faithfulness. Throughout this changing churches/selling a house/buying a house/moving process, one of the stories that the Lord brought back to me over and over was that of Abraham. God called him out of where he was without showing him exactly where he was going. God was incredibly faithful to Abraham, and the only times things didn’t go well for Abraham were the times that he tried to manipulate his own situation instead of following where he was led. God just kept reminding me that I need to trust and not try to shape my own situation into what I think it should be. Amazingly, of all things, that is precisely what this past week’s sermon was about – about God calling Abraham to an unknown place and the faith it takes to move there. What a confirmation! Oh, He’s so good to me.

So… I’m still a little overwhelmed by the number of boxes that need to be packed and the arrangements that need to be made… and my allergies are still less than fabulous… but I know I am protected and loved and cherished by the King of kings… and that He will provide for my every need. After all, I’m worth more than sparrows and lilies.

immeasurably more

2010-09-09T20:37:00.002-05:00

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Our lives have been an adventure of blessings lately. Over the course of the past few weeks, we have gone from fearful, worried, hand-wringing, terrified about selling our house… to a house that is under contract and an option period that ends tomorrow. And the blessings don’t stop there.

So basically – here’s the story. Saturday, August 28^th someone came to view our house (obviously always a good thing). The only comment they left was that buyer preferred a different color scheme… which made me cranky since I figure most people just assume they will repaint whatever house they buy. Anyway, no harm, no foul. We went to bed Saturday night and got up and went to church Sunday morning (as is our custom). During church, Lance got up to sit with a boy from the youth group who was getting baptized, and an elder stood up to make a veeerrrry long announcement (no joke – like 7 or 8 minutes) about budget stuff. Needless to say, I got bored, so I checked my phone to see what time it was. Well, now that I have this fancy iPhone, I also happened to see that I had gotten 3 emails while I was at church… and lo and behold – we got an offer on our house! So I (obvi) immediately begin crying and want to tell Lance but he’s sitting on the front row. When church ended, I ran over and told him, and we were so excited. We went out to lunch with Lance’s mom, and I was reading through the offer (a 22-page PDF… on my iPhone screen) and realized it was a contingency and said, “Oh, we need to not get our hopes up too high then,” and I asked Lance to print the entire PDF out for me when we got back to the church since reading the tiny print was making me batty.

When he printed it out, we realized that God had orchestrated this entire situation – we know the buyer’s agent, the buyer, and the people involved in the buyer’s contingency. They all go to Legacy, and we know, trust, and love them all very much. This has been an incredibly peaceful, easy process. AND thanks to the aforementioned contingency, our closing isn’t set until the last week of October, so we still have 6 or 7 weeks to try to find a house in Arlington!

Oh my goodness, the Lord is taking care of us! Honestly, if I had tried to come up with my perfect situation, it would not have been anywhere near this great. God is absolutely watching over us and guiding our every step. And how this is increasing my faith! When He calls, He leads. He provides. He blesses. And then He smiles when I am somehow amazed (yet again) at His faithfulness.

Okay, I know this is already long… but I also have to share that the Lord had just really been putting particular verses and Bible stories on my heart throughout this process. One of the main ones has been, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us – but to your name be the glory because of your love and faithfulness.” (Psalm 115:1) And God gave us this situation in the midst of chaos – in the midst of a 27% housing market decrease in July – and took care of every detail… and I didn’t do a darn thing. Couldn’t if I wanted to. I had NO control. And all I can do is marvel, stand amazed, and give the glory to Him… the One to whom honor is due.

To end, the verse that has been soothing my soul for the last week as we work out all the details of our housing contracts – “Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” (Psalm 116:7)

Praise the Lord. Amen.

attitude check

2010-08-17T19:41:00.001-05:00

The other day I was commenting (or perhaps complaining, if I’m honest…) about how long it’s taking to sell our house and how it’s so hard to still be in limbo and still trying so hard to keep the house so clean all the time. My sweet husband listened and nodded… and then goes, “Well, I think our situation is pretty great. We HAVE a house to sell, which not everyone can say… and we are looking to buy a house near my new job where I am being paid MORE… and we have the money to buy ANOTHER house when it all works out… so I feel like things are pretty good overall.”

Wow.

Humbled much?

And it’s not like I can be mad at Lance’s sweet face even though he totally (gently) put me in my place.

Anyway, I’m working on my attitude. I strive to be a non-negative Nancy , and sometimes I fail I guess. I know how much I prefer to be around joyful people, and I long to be a joyful person myself, and I think I’d gotten in a complainy funk. (Disclaimer: everyone goes through ups and downs. My desire to be a joyful person and to be around joyful people is in no way a desire for others or myself to be fake-plastic-Stepford Wife happy all the time even though life can be a roller coaster. I’m speaking in broad generalizations.) I’m trying to change my prayers… thanking God that he’s given us SO many blessings that we are having to figure out what to do with them all… and thanking God for the day that he will resolve our situation and amaze us with his goodness, as he always does. He’s proven himself entirely faithful, entirely gracious, entirely awesome. He loves me unendingly, immeasurably, incredibly much. He has given me every good and perfect gift. And he adopted me and engraved my name on the palms of his hands. He’s not going to forget or abandon me now (or ever). He’s too wonderful for that. So until he shows me exactly what he’s got planned for me, I’m going to rejoice that he’s leading me—that he’s gone ahead of me and prepared a path and a place for me.

****

“I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. …those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

-Psalm 34:4,5,7,8,10b

bulleted list

2010-07-27T20:10:00.002-05:00

Some things to know about me lately:

I......

totally found a new favorite Sonic drink this weekend: Diet Dr. Pepper with raspberry. Oh. My. Word. SO good! It even beats Diet Dr. Pepper with cherry or Diet Coke with lime for me. It’s THAT good. Seriously.
have such a love/hate relationship with my Garmin. LOVES: never completely lost, can change route or destination on the fly, can even search specific places. HATES: I feel a compulsion to beat the expected arrival time displayed on the Garmin, which turns every trip into a race against the clock. Coming back from camp, I needed to avoid part of I-35 where there was some major construction, so I had to go the long way and STILL managed to shave nearly 15 minutes off my time! If I get pulled over for it, I’m thinking a cop won’t buy my “but, sir – I have to beat the Garmin” excuse. Oh, and also in the “hate” category: the Garmin has started giving me directions at strange times. I was in the middle of nowhere… just me and some cows and those big white birds that hang out with cows… and there not even any other roads. Suddenly the Garmin says, “Turn right.” I yelled “Are you kidding me?!” out loud to the Garmin. Strange (both the Garmin and me probably).
spent like 4 or 5 hours organizing nametags at camp this weekend. It was tedious, meticulous, detail work… right up my alley. Ha. Well, until the slipcover things that the nametags went in started scratching my hands.
shopped for a baby shower gift to be from my entire section at work… so I had like $250 to shop with. That is definitely the most I’ve ever gotten to spend on baby stuff, and I LOVED it. Maybe someday I’ll get to buy that stuff for me…
invested a ridiculous amount of time in trying to get some more CDs into my iTunes… and naming everything appropriately. I need to load it all onto my iPhone, and I would really like for it be right before I go to the trouble to do that. My perfectionism rears its ugly head yet again.
am only blowdrying my hair like twice a week now. The rest of the time it ends up in a ponytail or a braid or some other hairstyle that doesn’t have to be dry when I get to work.
think that about covers it.

mini update

2010-07-25T21:08:00.003-05:00

It took me 2 months to tell about my 8-day trip. Be impressed.

Hmmm... well.... in exciting news, we paid off our truck a couple weeks ago! We went out to Texas de Brazil to celebrate the fact that the only debt we have now is our mortgage! We are so excited about that... and we feel so pleased and so proud that we were able to do that already.

Also, last week, I got an iPhone 4! It's a lovely little piece of gadgetry.... by far the fanciest phone I've ever owned. I'm still learning how to lose it, and I live in constant fear that I will drop it, but otherwise, it's fabulous! AND it has a pink bumper on it. Amazing - I know!

Lance is gone for his final week of camp this week. I could not be happier to get this week over with so that he can be home with me where he belongs. It's hard for him to be so busy and gone so much. I'm soooooooo ready for us to be able to spend time together and really invest in our marriage.

We have our house on the market, and we've had some lookers, but no offerers yet. We're praying and trusting... and would appreciate any additional prayers you would like to offer on our behalf.

We've had lots of questions about how things are going at PR and how we're doing... and things are going well. I'm ready to move closer (no more 30-minute drive, please!), but Lance is loving his job and is doing a great job. He has felt so called to ministry for so long, and I love seeing him rockin' and rollin' and doing such a great job. It's also great to see him so happy and so excited about his job.

I am very ready to be out of transition. I don't deal well with change, and I feel like I've been in a constant state of change for 4 months. I am ready for stability. I'm like a small child - I thrive on routine. And naps. And snacks. Anyway, I'm ready for things to settle.

day 8

2010-07-14T21:13:00.005-05:00

On our last full day in Rome, we went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica/Square. The Vatican was incredible, and I had booked a tour with a company... which was incredibly fantastic. We saw all kinds of sculptures and paintings and tapestries... but the highlight for me was the Sistine Chapel. We had been warned that the company that restored the Sistine Chapel walls and ceiling actually owns the rights to the images, so you're not supposed to take pictures. It was strange - there were guards yelling "Quiet please! No pictures!" in the chapel, but people were taking pictures all over the place. If you know me well, you know that I am a rule follower through and through, but I asked Lance to go ahead and sneak some pictures since everyone else was doing it. Ha. Okay, but really - I was completely overwhelmed by the Sistine Chapel. I just sat with my mouth open staring at the walls and ceiling. It was SO beautiful. It was kind of almost a spiritual moment for me.

I'm sure that this picture is not big enough for you to tell, but one of the things I learned about Michelangelo is that he never used female nude models - only male nude models. Because of that, he really didn't know how to paint female nudes... so his females are big, muscled, buff men... with breasts. It's kind of funny.

St. Peter's was incredible as well. I don't know that I can even really explain how massive it was...

I really wish I had more words to describe the experience of being there... but I really don't. Ha. Oh, it was beautiful. What an amazing way to wrap up our trip.

day 7

2010-07-08T19:56:00.007-05:00

Day 7 was definitely our most random day in Rome. We started out going to St. Peter in Chains Basilica, which holds the chains that allegedly held Peter when he was in prison. It also has Michelangelo’s statue of Moses. It’s a rather unassuming basilica (I would have walked right by it if I hadn’t been looking for it), but it’s a pretty cool place. It’s also one of the oldest basilicas in Rome.
We also went to the Spanish steps (not as cool as I’d hoped) and Trevi Fountain (WAY more crowded than I’d hoped), as well as Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. The Spanish steps were quite grand, but there was some construction being done on them, so it was hard to get good pictures. That made me a little sad… but it was still a really neat place. After taking some pictures on the stairs (and getting some cash at a nearby ATM), we headed up Via Condotti to leave. Via Condotti is home to some of the highest-end shopping in the world. It definitely put the Champs Elysses to shame. We passed Burberry, Bulgari, Jimmy Choo, Cartier, Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Hermes, Armani, Louis Vuitton… probably more. It was a long street… and I felt poor on it! Anyway, then we attempted to go to the Mausoleum of Augustus. TOTALLY underwhelming. It was inaccessible to the public, had orange construction netting surrounding it, and had trash scattered around it. I was actually angry that I’d walked that far to see that. Ha. Anyway, then went to the Pantheon, which was a pretty amazing place. The technology/architecture was so advanced. It was such a neat thing to see. We actually ate lunch in the piazza there in front of the Pantheon… and then we got gelato. Fabulous! After that, we went to Piazza Navona to see the Fountain of Neptune and then to Trevi Fountain, which was SO packed with people. We had to elbow our way down to the front, and even then, we had to stand off to the side to take our pictures. After that, we headed back to the hotel to rest (we were completely exhausted)… and then we ventured out that tonight to get the tiramisu I’d read so much about. It took us so long to get there that we ended up eating just tiramisu for dinner that night!

day 6

2010-06-30T19:20:00.006-05:00

After the most dramatic/traumatic early morning flight in history, we arrived in Rome. We really very nearly missed our flight, ran through the airport, got ignored by everyone pretending they don't speak English only to discover they do... it was pretty terrible. Anyway, we made it to Rome. On our first day there, we saw the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. It is just incredible to see these things that have stood for 2,000 years. I don't think there's all that much explaining to be done, so here are some pictures:

I kind of had to drag Lance along to the Colosseum because he was so bummed by our morning flight issues... but we both ended up absolutely loving everything about the Colosseum. It was absolutely incredible.

day 5

2010-06-22T21:24:00.007-05:00

Day 5 (and our last full day in France ) was pretty incredible. See, when we were planning this trip, I kept asking Lance what he wanted to do in Paris and in Rome… and the ONLY thing he had his heart set on in Paris was making the trip up to the Normandy coastline to see the D-Day beaches in northern France. We booked a D-Day beaches tour through Fat Tire Bike Tours (mostly because it was all-inclusive, so I didn’t have to arrange a hotel to stay in or a taxi to get us to the beach or whatever). We got up Sunday morning with our picnic lunch packed and boarded the train for Bayeaux , France. Now, I have thank the Lord at this point—I hadn’t really looked at the time on our ticket, and I thought our train left at around 9:30, so I thought we had plenty of time. Well, we pulled into the big station to get on the big train from our little commuter train at like 9:04, and I pulled out our tickets just to check… turns out our train was leaving at 9:10!!! So we were power walking through the station, trying to read the signs in French… Anyway, we made it on our train just fine, and I just kept saying, “Oh, thank you, Lord!” over and over. I have NO idea what we would have done if we’d missed our train! Okay, so we took the train into Bayeaux , France , which has to be one of the – if not THE – most picturesque towns in history. They have a chapel in the center of town (also called Notre Dame, actually) that was built 100 years before the Notre Dame in Paris . Oh, it was beautiful there. I felt like we’d stepped back in time. We ate our picnic lunch there, walked around a bit, and then met our tour group. Our tour guide (her name was Rose) was born and raised in Bayeaux. She was wonderful.

First, we went to Pont du Hoc. Obviously, the full history of this place is pretty long… but the VERY condensed version is that the Germans had set up fortifications atop this cliff overlooking the sea. There were big machine guns and bunkers and such. Well, the American planes bombed the shnikey out of Pont du Hoc… and then a very brave group of American Rangers scaled the cliff and overtook the German soldiers who were still there. (As it turned out, the German guns had been moved a mile away. They were found later.) Anyway, the pictures of the “after” of this place are incredible – it looks like Swiss cheese. For whatever reason, the craters were never filled in, so it’s now just this huge Swiss-cheese-looking field atop a cliff.

Then we went to Omaha Beach itself. Honestly, I don’t even think I’d ever seen pictures of Omaha Beach other than during the D-Day invasions. During those days, it was foggy and rainy… and men were dying and guns were firing… and there was pain and fear and sadness and anger… and in my head, the entire day is gray. The men are gray, the ground is gray, the sky is gray. In real life, though, Omaha Beach is simply beautiful. The colors are so vivid that it looks like they were photoshopped… but they are really just that color. It is so sad to think of how many men gave their lives on that beach… and it seems almost impossible that that gray, gray day happened here.

After that, we went to the American Cemetery . I’m almost at a loss for words in describing it. It’s immaculately manicured, and there is an unparalleled degree of uniformity and perfection… and it’s also much more emotional than I’d thought it would be. The way the cemetery sits at the top of the cliff, overlooking the very beaches where some of those men gave their lives… It’s humbling and sobering and somewhere between ironic and noble. I was blown away by the number of crosses that read “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms, known but to God.” Our guide told us that only 40% of the American soldiers that gave their lives in the D-Day invasions and related operations. For the other 60%, their families elected to have them brought back home and buried here. There is also a huge wall of names of people that were never found after the wars.

We went from there to some German armaments where the guns are still in place (although obviously not functioning). We also drove through a town that was pretty damaged during the war. They’ve since rebuilt, but there were before/after pictures. I kind of wish I could have/would have videoed everything she said. I hate that there are already some things I can’t remember. I need to watch Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day and some of those kinds of movies now… because, strangely enough, I’ve actually visited those places in real life.

j/k... that was day 4.

2010-06-15T09:43:00.004-05:00

As it turns out, I can't count to 4 correctly. I kept looking at the pictures thinking, "Did we really do all of those things in only 3 days?" Nope. Four. I'm sure that intelligent internet-using kindergartners everywhere are totally judging me right now for my lack of counting abilities.

And - as an excuse/explanation for why it's taking me so long to finish posting about our trip - I got myself addicted to making a photo book on Shutterfly, so I've been spending all my spare time doing that. Well, that and a million other things.

Anyway, day FIVE coming soon. Hopefully I counted that one right...

day 3

2010-06-06T18:09:00.012-05:00

On our last full day in Paris, we went to Notre Dame first thing in the morning. We climbed up the 400 steps to the top of the cathedral, saw the bell towers, took a million pictures of the gargoyles, etc. It was amazingly beautiful. And the INSIDE of the chapel! Incredible! Oh my word.... it's really a shame that pictures can't capture how breathtaking it all is.

After that, we headed to the Musee d’Orsay for me to look at the Monet and Degas paintings I wanted to see… and then we boarded the train for Versailles from the d’Orsay station.

I guess I should pause here to say that we saw some of my favorite things on this day… but it was also the most dramatic day ev. So, first thing in the morning, I went to the ATM to get some cash (we only had 10 euros total between us)… and my card got rejected. I was in a total panic. We had no cash, and I had no idea what was wrong with my card. We went on to Notre Dame and that was so amazing that I kind of forgot about my cash woes for awhile. Then, at the d’Orsay, I asked if they had an ATM, but they didn’t. So, here it is lunchtime, and we can’t eat at the little shops because they don’t take cards… I was stressing. Ultimately, Lance convinced me we should just head on to Versailles (I had read that there was a McDonald’s across from the train station there, and we were pretty sure they’d take cards). I agreed, and we went ahead and bought our train tickets… and then mine didn’t work, I couldn’t get through the turnstile… and I may have cried. Anyway, we got on the train, made it to the Versailles train stop, and ate at the McDonald’s there without incident (all this time, Lance is trying to convince me that it must have been the ATM and not my card because my card had worked at the train station and at McDonald’s) and continued the search for an ATM since I wanted to go into the gardens, and that cost an additional 8 euros, and I didn’t know if they would accept cards. Lance saw a tourism office as we were walking to Versailles , and they pointed out an ATM just across the street, so we ended up with cash… and doing a-okay.

Okay, so back to Versailles.

Versailles was AMAZING. Oh my word. Everything about it was just incredible and immaculate and perfect. After doing a partial tour (from Rick Steves on my iPod), we went out to the gardens (now that we had cash to pay for the tickets!!!) to see the fountains. I’m so glad we did. That afternoon was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was SO beautiful. We even had a crepe at a little café out in the gardens. It was pretty much perfection. It made me wish over and over that I were a princess. I kept telling Lance that I could just see ladies in their fancy gowns strolling through these gardens. Again, pictures cannot do it justice. In person, it's so beautiful that there that these giggles just kept welling up inside me.

When we got back to La Defense (one of the main train stations in Paris), we stopped into the Monop’ (basically a little mini grocery/convenience store) and picked up food for a picnic on Sunday since we were going on our D-Day Beaches tour, and then I had a croissant for dinner… and Lance had McDonald’s again. For shame, I know.

day 3

2010-06-02T21:33:00.010-05:00

Instead, we decided we should go to the Eiffel Tower first thing in the morning and go up then. We still had to wait in a line (about an hour total), but we got to go to the very top of the tower, took about a million pictures, and even ate lunch up there (baguette sandwiches).

After we got done at the Eiffel Tower , we headed toward the Rodin Museum (which we had tried to visit the prior day, but it was closing time already (it closes at 4:45!) to see The Thinker.

The Rodin Museum was really neat overall. I got to see several sculptures I’d been looking forward to (Hand of God, the Kiss, Gates of Hell, etc.), and lots of the sculptures were outside, which was really neat. It was also a much smaller museum… so I think we spent about 30 minutes there… and that included a bathroom break! After that, we headed to the Louvre. Wow. What an impressive place the Louvre is.

We entered through the glass pyramid…

And I had a list of masterpieces I wanted to see (the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, the Wedding Feast at Cana , the Venus di Milo, etc.), so we worked our way through that list…

And then we had a Starbs break… And then we headed back out to see the Egyptian artifacts that Lance wanted to see. By this time, it was getting close to 6:30 (or whatever time the Louvre closes), and I was trying desperately to get back to the gift shop before it closed. It seemed like every which way we turned, there was more Louvre! We made it to the gift shop and then decided to go into the Carrousel mall attached to the Louvre to eat dinner (and, of course, to take pics by the inverted pyramid). As it turns out, Mary Magdalene’s final resting place (ala Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code) is somewhere between the Virgin Music megastore and the Apple store…

Anyway, we ate dinner in the food court there (quiche and bread)… and then I read that the Louvre is open until 9:30 on Friday nights, so we ventured back in! We spent HOURS there... and still didn't see even half of what there is to see. Just amazing!

day 2

2010-05-27T20:44:00.016-05:00

We went to Giverny (Monet’s home) on Thursday morning with Edie and one of Edie’s friends. It was an hour or so outside of Paris , so we just enjoyed the views of the French countryside on the drive out there. Honestly, Giverny was something I really wanted to see, as I have long been a fan of Claude Monet… but Lance wasn’t too keen on the whole idea, so he was mostly going just to be sweet. However, Monet’s home and garden were far more beautiful than either of us had imagined, and Lance was as overwhelmed by it as I was. He spent the entire time we were there with our new fancy-shmancy camera glued to his face, taking pictures of all the incredible flowers.

One of my favorite parts was the Japanese footbridge and the water lily pond. Those have always been my favorites of Monet’s paintings, and it was incredible to see them in real life.

Then we ate lunch a little café near Monet’s home (we both had omelettes and frites) and then headed back into Paris. After we arrived back in the city, we headed toward Hotel des Invalides.

Since that weekend was a military holiday in France , the courtyard of the museum was blocked off, so we ended up just kind of passing through it to get to Napoleon’s tomb. The building itself is just unbelievably beautiful…

And the rotunda in which his coffin rests is just impressive all the way around.

Then we went over to the Eiffel Tower … where we wasted a good 30 minutes trying to capture my joy mid-air.

We were going to go up into the tower, but the line was just unbelievably long (had to have been at least 3 hours) because they only had one pillar of the tower open. Anyway, we ended up scratching that idea, ate dinner, and then went back to the apartment.

frustration!!!

2010-05-27T07:38:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I have now tried to post about Day 2 on three separate occasions, but blogger just will NOT let me upload images. I'm hoping it will stop hating me and allow me to post pictures.... but if not, I guess Day 2 will just have to be a narrative. I'm giving blogger two more days to play nice, and then all of you will just get a lame story with no pictures if it can't get its act together.

Sigh.

day 1

2010-05-19T20:39:00.008-05:00

Okay, so, we flew out on Tuesday, May 5th at 5:10pm. My sweet friend Jocelyn and her preshy little Levi drove us to the airport (thanks again, Jocelyn!!!), and we made it through security in like 7.5 minutes and sat at the gate (or maybe at McDonald’s in the airport…) for almost two full hours until time to leave. Our doctor had prescribed some sleeping pills for us, so after a not-so-tasty airplane food dinner, we each took one and planned to sleep our way to France . No such luck. I think we each slept for maybe an hour or so total… out of a 9.5 hour flight. It was a bummer. Anyway, we landed in Paris at 9:30 in the morning (on Wednesday, May 6th), and our friend’s mom (Edie) picked us up at the airport and took us back to their adorable Parisian apartment – with a view of the Eiffel Tower! – and we showered, ate, and changed clothes… and then headed out for the day. Edie showed us how to use the metro and helped us buy our 5-day metro passes, and then she dropped us off at the Arc de Triomphe.

Lance and I headed up to the top for some cool views of Paris (and some chilly wind gusts!).

Here are the stairs we climbed to get to the top…

Then we walked back down all those stairs (a dizzying feat, I assure you) and headed down the Champs Elysses. Obviously there were all kinds of high-end retailers…

And we stopped and bought world-famous macaroons at the intimidatingly fancy Laduree.

They were amazingly delicious... especially that vanilla one. I believe my exact words were, "I'm going to marry this cookie."

By this time, we had had a VERY long day (since we’d only catnapped on the plane) and we both started getting cranky, so we headed back to the apartment… and went to bed. At 7:30. Yes, it was still quite light outside. Ha. Anyway, we slept a solid 12 hours, so that was great. We were much less cranky on Day Two.

home!!!

2010-05-19T06:50:00.002-05:00

Although my passport does not necessarily show it, I am officially a world traveler! On Thursday, Lance and I returned from a nine-day trip of Paris , France and Rome , Italy . It was really fantastic… and definitely an interesting experience! Oh – and about the passport comment: Since Italy and France are both a part of the European Union, we only got stamped once instead of twice. I was really disappointed by that. I wanted two stamps!

We did and saw SO much on our trip! I’m sure it will take me several days of blogging to go through the entire trip, but I wanted to at least give it a go…

But then Blogger decided to take FOREVER to upload pics... So stay tuned later I guess.

i'm in a glass case of emotion....

2010-04-27T20:32:00.000-05:00

We officially had our first day at Pleasant Ridge on Sunday, and it seemed to be a great success. Lance got such wonderful feedback (as did I) about the entire day, and I am so thankful for that. It seems like we’ve been saying “goodbye” forever; it was prime time to get to the “hello” part.

It was a long day – we left our house at 7:10am and returned home at 9:30pm. We went to first service, Bible class, second service, lunch… then Lance played basketball with some kids from the church from 2 to 4, and then there we had a youth thing at 5:00, church at 6:00, and a reception for us at 7:00. The reception was wedding-style: Lance and I stood, and everyone lined up to shake our hands. I would venture to guess that we met probably 200+ people yesterday. I think I remember 3 names. That’s 1.5%. Oops. Anyway, it was just a very long day. I told Lance that by the end of the day, I wasn’t sure whether I was smiling or just baring my teeth at people.

It definitely made me want to move closer though. We packed multiple changes of clothes as appropriate for each of the day’s activities since we knew we couldn’t make it all the way back to NRH between things. Literally – it was like we packed for a weekend trip. We had changes of clothes and the dog and all of his stuff (he played at Patty’s house) and Lance had all of his toiletries so he could shower… it was a LOT of trouble. I mean, obviously, we will make it work until we can move down there, but it was a strong affirmation that, yes, we do need to move.

I just feel like I’ve got so many different emotions jumbling around inside of me. I’m so happy and thankful that Sunday went so well. (I think we would have been terrified and distraught if Sunday had gone poorly, wondering what on earth the Lord had called us to.) I’m still exhausted from spending a whole day on my feet, shaking hands, smiling, introducing myself, etc. I kind of felt like I was campaigning for something. I should have kissed some babies or something. Anyway, I’m still sad to be leaving some really precious friends (and not LEAVING leaving – I know we’ll still see each other… just not as often as I’d like). I got a phone call and a text from some of our Legacy friends on Sunday, and at the same that it was such a blessing, it got me all choked up. I’m scared that we won’t make new friends, and I’m nervous about having to fit into a new group. I’m confused about a lot of things because our churches operate very differently, so I can’t figure out some things. I’m incredibly excited that our vacation is getting close (although I am not saying how close because I don’t want to announce when we’ll be leaving an empty house behind…). Honestly, knowing that I’m going to have a break and be able to spend so much time with Lance without all the stress of packing, house-hunting, starting a new church, starting a new job, working in our house, etc. is what’s keeping me going at this point. I can’t wait. He’s my bestie.

I am incredibly blessed. Thank you, Lord!

catching up in pictures

2010-04-12T10:05:00.009-05:00

I'm trying to learn how to use our new camera before our trip, so I thought I'd do sort of a picture update of some things that I've been up to lately while practicing my crazy mad photography skillz. (HA.) (Also - as I'm posting these pictures, I'm realizing that they are mostly of things I've been BUYING, not things I've been doing. Or maybe all I've been doing is buying....)

First of all, this past Friday, my friend Emily and I went down to the Main Street Arts Festival in downtown Fort Worth (and ate Reata tenderloin tamales for lunch! YUMMO!), and I bought these adorable earrings. The lady makes them out of antique tins, and she cuts them out by hand. I just love the bright colors and whimsical patterns. I almost bought a necklace of it, but the pendant on the necklace was about as big around as a coaster, so I thought that might be a bit OTT.

I think they are just presh. Can't wait to wear them.

I also bought these little black books. They are called City Notebooks, and they are made by the Moleskine Company. (There is one for Paris and one for Roma, in case you can't read the bindings.) They each have subway maps, city maps, places for information about the place you're going, a little pocket to hold ticket stubs, and more. They are really neat, and I thought it would look LESS touristy to have a little black book with a map than a giant fold-out one. Plus they give you places to journal, etc. so that we can keep notes on where we go and what we see.I also purchased our four-day museum passes for Paris. They are such cool little passes. Okay, so it's the size of a credit card but thicker like a tiny book...Then it magically unfolds...And there's a giant fold-out booklet inside the tickets that tells all the museums the pass works at and the dates and times each museum is open.
Please excuse my beginner photography skills. I just needed the practice. :)

spilling my guts

2010-03-23T21:33:00.001-05:00

I haven’t kept up on here very well lately… mostly because I couldn’t write about the main thing I wanted to write about. Lance was offered (and he accepted) the position as the youth minister at Pleasant Ridge Church of Christ in Arlington (the church where Lance grew up). This job comes as a tremendous blessing from the Lord in that it is everything we’ve been praying for. Lance will get to be the youth minister for an entire program instead of just having kids for a couple of years, which is what he’s wanted and prayed for. Their offer was also a very generous one, and it will hopefully allow me to fulfill my dreams of being a stay-at-home mom when we have kids. There were lots of other benefits, such as retirement matching, that we don’t get currently but will have at PR, so we are incredibly thankful for the offer. (I feel the need to say, though, that we have no issues at all with Legacy and could/would very easily have stayed for a very long time. There is no bitterness or ickiness in this move… there’s nothing but rainbows and lollipops.) We are staying at Legacy through April 18th (so we will do LTC, Easter, Resurrection Renewal, youth retreat, Acapella concert, etc.). We’ll start at PR on April 25th. We are going to try to get our house on the market fairly quickly, and we want to move down to Arlington to be close to the church… but we really aren’t sure what our timetable on all of that will be.

I have to say, though, that this transition time has been really painful so far. All of our friends have been SO supportive, which has been such a blessing – and far beyond what we could have hoped for. But then we told the kids and the church Sunday morning, and that really broke my heart. I had one girl bawling her eyes out hugging me… saying, “I just feel like I’m losing everyone I love.” My, there were lots of tears. I mean, really… lots of tears. It hurt a lot.

So basically, here’s how I feel right now:

I am beyond thankful that the Lord has provided this opportunity. I am in disbelief that the offer was as generous as it was. I am nervous about Lance being even busier than he is already. I am terrified of trying to sell our house. I am dreading the thought of moving. I am (probably) way too optimistic in where I think we can live in Arlington . I am kind of a fan of looking at houses online. I am overwhelmed by the number of details there are to think of between now and then. I am exhausted from all the crying. I am saddened at the thought of leaving our first house and our church home and our young marrieds friends. I am trusting (or trying to trust) that if God has led us this far, he’s not going to back out now. I am grateful for family and friends that let me talk to them about all of this. I am anxious about starting a new church and having to make new friends there. I am stressed about the number of things that will happen between now and June 1st. I am distracted by all the many thoughts that I cannot seem to quiet in my head. I am wondering how many meals I can make out of the extra 2 pounds of taco meat I made for small group Sunday night (I am STILL a bad estimator). I am completely lacking in coping skills at the moment (one of the items for an outfit I wanted to wear today wasn’t clean, and I stood in my closet so long that Lance finally came in and said, “Honey, what are you doing?”). I am amazed by my husband, who somehow taught class, told the kids he was leaving, gave countless hugs, walked to big church, led singing, made the announcement there, and led a closing song and STILL held it together better than I did. I am thankful that he puts up with the crazy emotions I’m experiencing right now from all of this stress and exhaustion. I am overwhelmed by the number of things I need to remember but terrified to make a to-do list because I do NOT want to see it all in writing. I am fearful of change… and yet, I am at peace because I am fully confident that the Lord has guided (and is guiding) our steps.

And, if I’m really honest, that’s like the Cliff’s Notes version of how I am truly feeling… but I’d end up writing something roughly the length of Tolstoy’s War & Peace if I tried to delve into ALL of it.

I know this is already long, but one more thing.

I am crazy in love with Lance, and I feel SO honored to be his wife. He is incredible at his “job” (if indeed you can call it a job… it’s more of a calling, I think). So incredible that not only the teens will miss him – we had young families and middle marrieds and primetimers telling us what a blessing he has been to Legacy and how much they will miss him. So incredible that about 10 different kids had facebook statuses (statii??) about how wonderful he is and how much they will miss him when we finally checked facebook on Sunday night. So incredible that he’s gotten constant emails and texts and phone calls about how special he is and how much he will be missed and about specific things he’s meant to different people. So incredible, in fact, that apparently PR burst into applause during their second service when they announced they’d hired him. So incredible that he was scared to even make the announcement on Sunday because Sunday was the birthday of a boy in the Legacy youth group that he cares deeply about. So incredible that he checked on individual kids that he was afraid would take it especially hard. So incredible that HE checked on ME repeatedly on Sunday. He’s amazing. If you don’t know him, you’re missing out. I’m just sayin’.

And to close – the verse the Lord keeps bringing to me over and over again – “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” – Exodus 14:14

not my best day....

2010-03-04T21:41:00.000-06:00

I don’t always have it all together, but most of the time, to the casual observer, I at least LOOK like I do.

Today?

I wore two different earrings to work.

And didn’t notice until 2:45.

Yikes.

Behind, as always.

2010-03-01T20:07:00.000-06:00

I’ve been a terrible blogger lately. I mean, wow. Honestly, it’s because I have felt really overwhelmed by everything that’s been going on in our lives. I feel like I’m constantly going and doing and making lists… but that I’m never really done with much of anything. After awhile, that just starts to really overwhelm me and bog me down. Sometimes, it is a tremendous blessing to be so detail-oriented… and sometimes I feel like I’m missing the forest for the trees.

One of the things that had really been keeping me down was just feeling like I couldn’t ever get our house clean or keep up with the laundry. I’ve been trying really hard to cook dinner a lot (like usually about 4 nights a week), and sometimes that puts me in the kitchen from the minute I set foot in the door from work until we eat (which sometimes isn’t until 7:30 or so)… and then dishes… and then a little time to unwind/veg/watch TV/check the ol’ facebook… and viola – it’s time for bed. I collapse into bed pretty exhausted… and then get up and do it again the next day. Anyway, last week, my sweet husband just said, “I want you to know – I feel guilty that I don’t do more housework when I get home from work. I know I could help more, and sometimes I just don’t.” He proceeded to tell me that he doesn’t always know what needs to be done, so I’ve been sending him a list of things that need to be done each day, and he has them done before I get home from work. It’s just wonderful! It feels like magic (more to me than him, I’m sure)! I’m hoping that his contributions will help me feel like I can get a grip on what needs to be done and make some progress.

We actually got a LOT done this weekend. Our house is cleaner than it’s been in a good long while, and I’m hoping to get a bit more caught up and feel slightly less overwhelmed. I’m also hoping it warms up and gets sunny… I think it will help me to be able to exercise outside again. That releases a lot of stress for me.

I did make some super cute bulletin boards to go in our office. Maybe I will post pictures soon… I don’t think I’ve even posted any since we got our new camera. I’ll have to tackle that very soon. Maybe. We shall see.

hernia.paris/rome.taxes.details.

2010-02-06T20:08:00.003-06:00

A week ago yesterday, Lance had surgery to repair a hernia in his tummy. It was an outpatient procedure, but it knocked him pretty flat for a bit there. This was my first experience with a surgery center (as opposed to a hospital), and they cranked him in and out of there pretty darn quick. We got there at 7:00, they took him back at 9:20, and we were home by 1:45. I have pictures from the surgery… but I’m figuring those wouldn’t be super popular if I posted them on here. He apparently tried to get up out of bed as he was coming out from under anesthesia, so several nurses had to hold him down… and the process of him trying to get up caused his stomach to hurt, so they gave him Demerol (or however you spell that), which then made him nauseated, so they gave him Phenegren (or however you spell THAT). Anyway, he was SUPER sleepy for the rest of the day. He fell asleep WHILE I was talking on 5 separate occasions… but he also fell asleep while HE was talking a couple of times, so I guess I can’t be too upset.

He slept a lot Friday (read: ALL DAY) and then rested Saturday and Sunday. I went back to work Monday, but he stayed home and rested some more. By Tuesday, he’d return to work and stopped taking the Hydrocodone, and he’s been doing really well the rest of the week. He’s a bit more easily tired, but even that is getting better.

I have basically spent every waking moment away from work taking care of him, doing housework, or organizing our taxes. I've been feeling a bit stressed/frazzled/overwhelmed by all that I need to do, so I am ready to actually accomplish some of those things and stop worrying about them. I did actually make it to my parents' house and do our taxes today... so I guess I should heave a big sigh of relief. (We're getting money back! HOORAY!)

Some good things: We found a really good sale on the Flip HD camera we’ve been eyeing, so Lance purchased that little beauty yesterday. We booked our flight from Paris to Rome a couple nights ago, so all the big things are done – transatlantic flights purchased, hotel booked and paid for, and intracontinental flight purchased. I have lots of tours and passes to book and buy… but those are much smaller in the grand scheme of planning the trip. Oh, also, my Chi went out (tragedy!), so I ordered a new one less than a week ago, and it arrived a couple of nights ago! (I would love to tell you that my hair looks fabulous and straight the next day… but I was lazy and haven’t even opened the box. Instead, my hair ended up in some weird messy-bun thing that I hoped was cute enough that people wouldn't notice that I didn’t fix my hair.)

Oh, also, I’ve lost about 5 pounds… but I seem to have stalled here. Maybe I will just learn to be friends with those last 2 pounds. They seem to like me a lot…

One final story. I’ve talked quite a bit about how much I love kids and how kids love me and how excited I am to be a mommy someday (still not pregnant. Don’t get ahead of me.). Well, Monday night at Bunko, my friend Brittany was there with her 3-month-old, and her baby was crying to be held while Brittany tried to eat. I offered to hold her while Brittany ate, and she not only stopped crying… she stayed calm and content in my arms for an hour and a half – all the way through Bunko. My Bunko-mates called me the baby whisperer. I love it. Baby love warms my heart.

The title is the hardest part...

2010-01-21T12:03:00.002-06:00

Wow… I’m sorry that I’m failing at blogging. I keep telling myself to do better… but that positive self-talk seldom results in any kind of action. Oops.

Well, good news since the “hungry” blog – I have lost almost 4 pounds (so far – I weigh myself again tomorrow!), which means that I am halfway to my weight loss goal. I’m adjusting to my new level of calorie consumption, so although I definitely GET hungry, I am not CONSTANTLY hungry any more. And THAT, my friends, is a vast improvement! I also went and bought some good running shoes on Saturday, which was an interesting experience. I went to FW Running Co., and they had me run on a treadmill like 8 different times to try different kinds of shoes. It turns out that I pronate really badly when I run, so they found me some shoes that correct that. They were a bit expensive (which is why I have talked about but put off buying them for like a year now…), but they definitely help my ankles and knees a lot. They are substantially heavier than my old shoes (largely because my old shoes had no support in them whatsoever), so it is kind of an adjustment. (And just to be clear – they’re still normal shoes. They’re Saucony running shoes, not like Dr. Scholl’s orthopedic ankle support shoes or anything. I just wanted to clarify in case someone got a really skewed mental picture based on my description.) I got up and ran Monday and Wednesday, but I needed Tuesday and today to recover from actually exercising. I am excited because it’s starting to feel good to eat better and exercise. My pants already fit differently in the waist, which is fabulous. (I mean, granted, they just fit like they’re supposed to instead of being really tight and uncomfortable… but still!)

We’ve also done really well about eating at home instead of going out to eat all the time so far this year. I’ve been trying new recipes a lot, and Lance has even been eating leftovers! (Hallelujah!) I know it’s definitely easier for us to eat healthily at home, plus it saves a LOT of money, so I am pretty excited about it all the way around. I shared my enthusiasm with Lance over how much better we’re doing, and he responded, “Well, but it’s only January. It’s probably going to go downhill from here.” That little boogerface. I really want to do better all year – not just January. Anyway, we have a budget that we try really hard to stick to, but last year, we went over our out-to-eat budget by at least a little bit pretty much every month. I really want us to do better about that, so I’m excited to see some improvement in that area as well.

We’re also making progress on our trip (HOORAY!). Our plane tickets are “on hold” from the American site right now, and we are planning to book them tonight. We’re staying with our friend’s parents in Paris, so that’s taken care of, and we have already booked our hotel in Rome. It’s exciting to have the really BIG things taken care of. If you know me and my OCD tendencies, you won’t be surprised to know that I already have a journal wherein I’ve been taking notes for almost a month. I have a list of tours I want to take, monuments/museums I want to visit, restaurants I want to eat at, flights that might work for us, things to do before we leave for the trip, etc. I’ve also learned to say, “Do you speak English? Sorry, I don’t speak French.”, “Where are the toilets?”, “Will you take our picture?”, and “Check, please!” I learned some other REALLY basic phrases too, but I think those are the ones I’m most proud of.

For those of you who have been to Paris and/or Rome, what was your favorite/least favorite thing that you saw/did/visited/ate/took a picture of/thought about later/would do again/would never do again/etc.? Also, what did/would you wear/not wear again, and how much do you recommend packing? (Those are some of the most open-ended questions ever asked, but I would love to get some more direction! Then I can write it down in my journal!!)

~~~~~~~~~~

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Exodus 14:14

the long and short of it...

2010-01-05T18:44:00.000-06:00

I’m hungry.

That’s the short version of the story.

Long version: Lance and I both realized at the beginning of December that we’d put on some weight that we wanted to lose, but I knew that I would just fail at that during December. We had 4 Christmas parties, 3 Christmases, constant baking and fudge-making, clients sending tasty treats to the firm, etc. With so much deliciousness, I knew I would absolutely fail at losing weight during December… so we decided to just enjoy December without worrying about it.

But now it’s January.

I started back being uber careful what I eat yesterday… and I have pretty much been hungry ever since. It just takes a few days for my stomach to adjust to this. I had been snacking like crazy—actually, “snacking” probably doesn’t even encompass what my life has been like for the last month. More like “grazing.” Yeah, probably grazing. It was a constant, slow eating… typically of chocolate. I don’t have as much to lose as I did the last time we did this (it was 15 pounds last time; this time, it’s more in the 7ish ballpark), but making the choice and the change is still pretty darn hard.

I also stopped running when it got so frigidly cold out, and I am going to start running again… but probably not this week since it will stay in the 20s for like two whole days. (PS – this weather gives me some MAJORLY strong opinions on global warming, but I will hold my tongue. Maybe. At least for today, I will hold my tongue.)

The main thing I’m trying to prepare myself for is the fact that I will probably only lose a few ounces this week… even after being starving all day. At least, that’s how it was last time we did this. After that first week, the weight started coming off fairly easily, but at our first weigh-in, I cried. Yes, cried. Pretty hard. (It did not help that I was STILL hungry, mind you.) Anyway, I’m trying to emotionally steel myself for stepping on the scale and seeing the same number I saw the last time I weighed. Even after being hungry for days on end.

I know it’s everyone’s New Year’s resolution, but I really want to get healthier. I’m not overweight at my current weight, but I can/should be less. I also want to eat healthier, drink more water, start running again… and hopefully lower my cholesterol by doing all those things. Yes, I already have high cholesterol. Not terribly high, mind you, but I want it to be lower, and it will only get harder for me to lower it as I get older. I just like feeling good, having my clothes fit well, having energy, sleeping well at night, etc. Oh, plus, I like looking good in pictures and not looking at a picture and going, “Is that my face? Why’s it so round?!”

Lofty goal(s), I know. I must be making progress though. I AM stinkin’ starving, after all. That MUST mean something…

Oopsie daisy...

2009-12-28T19:44:00.002-06:00

Wow… over a month. That may be the longest I’ve ever gone without blogging. Since November 25th, I have (in roughly chronological order):

-Attended the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game
-Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and Lance’s family
-Braved the Black Friday crowds to do some shopping
-Put up my Christmas tree/decorations
-Went to the firm Christmas party and won a $100 DSW gift card
-Shopped with one of my friends from work (first outside-of-work thing with a work friend)
-Helped hostess a baby shower (and held Levi while he took a sweet little nap in my arms)
-Hosted Bunko at my house
-Had dinner with a friend that I hadn’t seen in months
-Attended a junior high Christmas party
-Took a day off work to do all my Christmas shopping (and yes, dragged Lance along too)
-Went to a friend’s graduation party (for his masters)
-Made 8 batches of fudge
-Went to the Legacy staff Christmas party
-Wrapped every single gift under our tree… except for the 3 Lance wrapped on Christmas Eve (Yes, I did indeed wrap many gifts for myself.)
-Attended the Legacy Family Christmas program (while Lance went to a Cowboys game)
-Participated in Secret Santa at work
-Bought a Snuggie for my Secret Santa person (it was on her list!)
-Attended the UT/UNC basketball game at Cowboys Stadium
-Planned/hosted the young marrieds Christmas party
-Purchased a DSLR camera (waiting for it to be shipped…)
-Had a white Christmas!
-Watched It’s a Wonderful Life with Lance (it was the first time he’d ever seen it!)
-Celebrated Christmas with my family and Lance’s family
-Saw Avatar in 3D on Christmas Day
-Purchased next year’s Christmas necessities (boxes, tissue paper, wrapping paper, bowls to send fudge to Lance’s office, etc.) the day after Christmas… and let me tell you – the Christmas spirit ends at midnight on Christmas night. Walmart was full of Negative Nancies that morning!
-Played with the day-old puppies Lance’s brother’s dog had on Christmas morning
-Came down with some kind of ugly allergy/sinus/cold thing that I am not enjoying in the least
-Returned to work after a splendid 4-day weekend

I am incredibly sad that Christmas is over… but I had a wonderful holiday and am so thankful for all of my precious friends and family. I just feel like I have so many things to be thankful for! Anyway, sorry for the blogging hiatus, but it has been a very busy time! Hopefully I will do better soon…

I guess I could make it a new year’s resolution… but I always fail at those…

the thankfulness post

2009-11-24T22:35:00.002-06:00

Since I’m 25 and Thanksgiving is right around the corner, here are 25 of the things I am the most thankful for:

The love of my life. I keep thinking that I couldn’t love him more if I tried… but then I end up loving him more anyway.
My wonderful family. I’m so blessed to not only love but actually LIKE my mom, dad, and sister!
My cozy house. I’m loving making it ours. I never seem to be done with it… but I’m enjoying the ride… and the progress.
Our little pup. We rescued him four years ago now, and he is just a great little dog. Until we have babies, he is a great substitute baby!
Our church family. We are so blessed to have friends of all ages (most miraculously – our own age!) at our church. It genuinely makes it feel like family.
My now-paid-off car. It keeps the rain out (the Saturn did not) and gets great gas mileage. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
The basics. I am thankful that I never question whether I will have anything to eat for the next meal or whether I will have a place to sleep that night or whether I could get very sick and not have access to healthcare or anyone to take care of me. As much as I complain about the costs of food and housing and healthcare, I wouldn’t trade it for the alternative.
Our health. We have gone through seasons of poor health, and I am thankful to be healthy and strong.
Music. There is something about music that just speaks to my soul… and nothing blesses me more than a Rich Mullins/Third Day/Casting Crowns/Mercy Me/Nicole Nordeman/Caedmon’s mix.
My job. Although still trying to determine my trajectory in life, I am incredibly thankful for my job. I am a happier, less-stressed person because of it.
Opportunities. I feel like the Lord is really putting me in positions where He can use me. I’m certainly a flawed instrument, but I am thankful He is using me!
My friends. I feel so blessed to have friends that genuinely care about me. Some are college friends, and I am pretty much positive that we will be pals forever. I love that.
The holidays. I am thrilled to have a few days off work to spend with family and doing fun holiday-ish things like I love. Plus we have like 4 or 5 different Christmas parties this year.
Our upcoming trip. I haven’t taken a vacation in about 16 months now (it will be almost 2 years total by the time we leave), and I am looking SO forward to our trip to Europe . It gives me something to hope for and dream about.
Chapstick. I would be absolutely miserable without it. When my lips get chapped, I purse them and stop talking. Without Chapstick, I might be mute. (Others might be thankful for that, but I would certainly not be.)
Affection. I don’t think I would survive in a world without hugs and physical touch. It is absolutely essential to my existence.
Other ministry families. It has been an incredible blessing to spend time with some other youth ministers/wives that understand what this crazy life is like. I am so thankful to have that network and support.
Kids. I really love children… and most of the time, they love me back. I love that. That blesses my heart.
Sunrises and sunsets. I think they are just incredible evidence of God’s creativity. Every one is unique.
A happy marriage. (I know this seems tied to #1, but bear with me.) Lately, I have been saddened to realize how many marriages include putting each other down and treating each other badly… even in public. Lance and I are not perfect, but we are happy… and we try to reflect that in the ways we talk to each other and about each other. I am thankful for that.
Acts of service. I love the opportunities that arise even in small acts of service. For example, last week, I took dinner to some friends that just had a baby. I ended up talking to them for almost an hour… and I put that sweet baby to sleep in my arms about 10 minutes into the visit and just snuggled her for the rest of the time. I went to bless them but ended up being blessed myself!
Modern conveniences. I am so thankful to have a nice washer and dryer and microwave and cell phone and computer and DVR (oh, I love DVR!) and a Scentsy pot and a dishwasher… my life would be even more complicated without the little things I sometimes take for granted. (Okay, my life would not be any more complicated without a Scentsy pot, but it is a nice addition anyway.)
Maturity. In no way am I through growing, but I am thankful that I can see progress in myself. It lets me know that all of the things I experience really are shaping me.
Others’ sacrifices. I’m thankful that soldiers have given their lives to protect me and shield my freedoms. I’m thankful that my parents sacrificed to put me through Christian school and through a private college. I absolutely would not be where I am today (or who I am today) if others had not paved the way for me to be here.
A lot of things about God:

His faithfulness.
The way He listens to my prayers and answers them specifically.
His sense of humor.
The way He pursues and romances me. His grace.
The way that He knows me intimately and desires for me to know Him intimately.
His Son.
The way He speaks to me.
His love.
The fact that He gave us the Bible (and the fact that I have access to it).
His justice.
The freedom we have in His Spirit.
The fact that the Spirit intercedes (I know the Spirit has had to intercede for me a LOT).
There’s more. I am thankful that there is even more than THAT to be thankful for about God!

smiles in my heart

2009-11-19T21:16:00.002-06:00

Well, the last few months have been a roller coaster, and I have very little doubt that the next few months will continue to be a roller coaster, but let me share some things in my life that cause me to praise the Lord:

We paid my car off this week! I am thrilled about that because that means we are making progress toward getting out of debt… and it also means that we are inching ever closer to being able to start a family. (I’m assuming that the like 3 people that read this know me quite well… but I long to be a stay-at-home mommy when I have little ones, so we are working very hard to make that happen, and we have to get some of this stuff paid off to achieve that goal.)
My shoulder is doing much better! I still have “on” days and “off” days, but overall, I am feeling MUCH better, and I have even been able to hold babies without pain. Thank you, Lord! (Just FYI – I still have the divot and probably always will… but I am fully content to be pain-free and divot-ful.)
I ran two miles a couple of weeks ago! Granted, I’ve been a lazy bum for the last couple of weeks, so I have only run one or two days since then… but I had never ever run that far in my life. Also granted, I think it took me 30 minutes to run 2 miles… but let’s not talk about that. [Writer’s note: A few months ago, I said I was praying for the day that I could say, “I went all day today without pain AND I ran two miles.” Praise the Lord! That day is here!]
I am officially started on my Christmas shopping! I’m done buying gifts for Sister’s fiancé, I’m almost done with Mom, and I’m making progress on Dad and Sister. Lance isn’t sure what he wants, and we have NO idea what his mom and brother want, so I’m nowhere near done… but progress is a good thing!
I have two days off work next week! I’m very excited to have the Thanksgiving holidays coming up. I love spending time with my family and having some time off work… and it means I get to set up my house for Christmas! HOOOOOray!
Our house is getting prettier! This past weekend, my friend Corie’s dad (who is a general contractor) came and began installing crown molding at our house. While he did that, I painted in our bathroom. The weekend before, we painted trim in our entry hall. Things look all construction zone-y at our house right now, but it is looking more like we want it to look… and closer to actually being DONE, which is pretty remarkable. I’m starting to believe that we’ll never actually be DONE, but I am excited about crossing a few things off the list.
We are at peace. We have had a lot of things going on the past few weeks. We’ve had some big decisions to make (we finally made them – hooray!), and we have felt a constant sense of uneasiness as we tried to make the best decision possible. We finally have some peace back. I have to say, though, that I am incredibly, overwhelmingly blessed to be married to Lance. In the midst of constant strife, we did not fight with each other. We never went to bed angry. We were each other’s support and encouragement. It is a tremendous blessing to be married to someone who views marriage as a priority and a ministry.

Thanks for all the blessings, Lord. I appreciate them.

the countdown begins…

2009-11-13T16:47:00.001-06:00

There are only 42 days until Christmas! Oh my word, I love Christmas. I am so excited to drag out all of my decorations and begin my Christmas shopping… well, continue my Christmas shopping, I guess. I already ordered my mom’s gift (super cute! I would post it on here, but I think she checks this thing sometimes…). Lance has a guys’ night at church tonight, so he will be gone until midnight, so I am taking tonight to do a little shopping on my own. I prefer to already have gifts purchased by Thanksgiving so that I can put up my tree the day after Thanksgiving and not have it be all nakey underneath. In order to achieve that, I try to do at least half my shopping in November and have the gifts already wrapped before Thanksgiving. I may be a little obsessed… I am much more interested in the interior of my house than the exterior. We usually wrap our tree trunk in lights, but that’s about all we do outside. Inside, though, we put up the tree (always with gifts!), decorate the mantle, hang stockings, burn Christmas candles, have a Christmas centerpiece on the dining room table, hang up all the Christmas cards we receive… Well, I say “we,” but I guess that’s really me. Lance just indulges my Christmas obsession and helps out where he can (or where he has to since I’m so short and he’s so tall). Anyway, I’m excited. I already numbered my calendar to count down to Christmas, so it gives me something to look forward to every day.

And I know Christmas is kind of consumery now (okay, really consumery), but I love the time with family, and I love seeing people’s faces light up when you get the perfect gift or completely surprise them. I love eating cinnamon rolls with Lance on Christmas morning. I love hearing Christmas songs on the radio and (sometimes) singing them in church. I love hearing “Happy Birthday, Jesus” from time to time (cheese, I know). I love wearing scarves and coats and going to the mall and seeing all the little guys waiting in line to see Santa. I love making lots of fudge and cookies (I bought cookie cutters for this year… something to look forward to!). I love wrapping gifts. I love opening gifts. I love buying Buddy Christmas gifts even though he has no idea what’s going on. I just love it. And I love that everyone knows the story of Jesus’ birth. Whether they heard it from Linus or a Sunday school teacher, they know the story. I love that.

Basically, I’m counting the days. Very literally. Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve!

catching up still - state fair

2009-11-05T19:28:00.009-06:00

Lance had never been to the State Fair ever in his life! Isn't that crazy?! I just HAD to take him, and I took a Tuesday off work so we could go on Dr. Pepper Tuesday ($3 instead of $15 to get in!). Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it rained that Tuesday. A lot. Ha. We had fun anyway though. We stayed at the fair for a couple of hours and then decided to make the most of a free day and went and saw a movie and just had fun all day. Here are some State Fair pics...

Us in front of Big Tex. Lance was a bit underwhelmed by Big Tex talking... but we listened to his whole speech anyway!

Lance's favorite part was sitting in all the new Chevy Camaros...

We got fabulous fried State Fair goodness - corny dogs for Lance and funnel cake for me!

There's no place I'd rather be than with my sweet hubs... even in the middle of the fair in the pouring down rain. We really had a great time. And then we got in the car and immediately shed our socks and shoes (they were nasty wet)....

Hopefully we'll get to go back again... in the sunshine this time!

just another reason i love jesus

2009-10-28T20:36:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday, I was pondering what I should blog about since I have still been too lazy to upload state fair pictures onto my computer. After awhile, I decided I should write about how just desperate I have been for the Lord lately. I mean, everything goes through seasons, and I have just been in a season of constant longing for God to be present in my life. And it has been really cool. Truly – just yesterday, I was pondering how great it feels to be close to the Lord.

And then another storm hit. Somehow I managed to make one of my friends mad at me… just by being myself, really. I didn’t do anything – especially intentionally – to make this person get upset… but it happened. Again. Like it always seems to. I was really upset when I first found out. There were tears… and I only ate about 5 bites of supper before I just had to put it away because I wasn’t hungry anymore. I had my iPod playing my Christian music mix, and somehow it just played all my favorites – If You Want Me To (Ginny Owens), Shaking Like a Leaf (Rich Mullins), This World Has Nothing for Me (Caedmon’s), Let It Go (Superchick – random, I know), Underdog (Audio Adrenaline), Man of No Reputation… I mean, just great song after great song. It just encouraged me and reminded me that this life is so transient – and I have an infinitely wonderful Father who loves me like crazy… and a Savior who endured lots of pain and feels my hurt.

As I was getting ready for bed, I was thanking God for drawing me so near to Him right before this happened. I was still blue, though. I mean, it’s hard to realize (yet again) that your personality tends to tick people off or push people away. I’ve wrestled with that enough in my lifetime; I would prefer not to cry those same tears again. It didn’t rock me to my core this time like it has in the past… and I knew that was because of the closeness I have felt with the Lord lately.

Lance and I got in bed and were just kind of talking. We started talking about how the Lord answers me with very specific signs when I ask for them (I will definitely have to do a blog post on that in the future…) and what a blessing that is to hear a word from the Lord like that. Then we kind of got quiet… just lying there in the dark. I’ll be honest – my heart was aching. Not breaking, but definitely aching.

In the silence, I asked God for Lance to tell me just that he liked me… and I would take that as my word from Him that He created me and loves me. Then I kind of backpedaled out of that and said, “No, Lord, I know that you made me… I’m just struggling and need some encouragement. But I know you made me and love me.”

After several minutes of silence, Lance just goes, “I think you’re special.”

And I burst into tears. Of course, then I am trying desperately to explain through my sobs and sniffles that he just blessed me beyond what he knew. And I felt so comforted. I slept in great peace… because I am absolutely adored by my King… and He went out of His way to tell me that.

~~~~~~~~~

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! – 1 John 3:1

catching up... cowboys stadium

2009-10-19T20:47:00.000-05:00

Our church group took a tour of the new Cowboys Stadium awhile back, and that stadium is absolutely incredible.

Lance and me...

Apparently it takes a lot of escalators to get all those fans around that place...

The TV screen was mind-boggling. Apparently the Jonas Brothers got to play xbox on it. Now Lance wishes he was famous enough to have Cowboys Stadium bow to his every whim. Maybe someday. :)

We went into the locker room... and it was super cool, but it already smelled like feet. Expensive, well-paid feet... but feet nonetheless.

Romo and Witten's lockers. They're besties - like Lance and me. :)

Acting out my favorite thing Marion Barber does. In front of his locker. I really love when he stiff-arms people in the face. Maybe I have some pent-up rage....

It really is a beautiful place!

Last but not least.... our tour guide was one of the architects of the place, and he gave every detail about every single thing. It turned a 1-hour tour into at least 2 hours. Like - the gift shop was closed by the time we got done. Anyway, he was wearing hysterical socks, so I took a picture of his feet. Everyone laughed at me. Really though - hysterical.

coming soon, i promise...

2009-10-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

As is par for the course of my life, we have been going 90 to nothin’ lately. Grandpa’s funeral and such were on Friday; then Saturday was Giveaway Day; then Sunday we had a parents lunch and an area-wide youth thing (followed by dinner); then Tuesday I took the day off so we could to the fair (for Lance’s very first time in life!), and it rained, so we only spent a little time there and then went to see a movie and to Lance’s high school’s choir concert; then Wednesday was church; and now I am leaving for a junior high retreat right after work today. (I’m only staying until tomorrow morning though – my sister is also coming to visit me this weekend, so we will have a girls only day on Saturday!)

Anyway, I have Cowboys Stadium pictures, State Fair pictures, etc… I just need to find the time to make those magically appear on my blog! Maybe if Sister has homework this weekend, I will do it then. Or something.

the past week

2009-10-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

I had written a very cheerful and incredibly optimistic update that I was about to post (well, just as soon as I added the pictures to it)... and then my grandfather passed away this last Wednesday. Things moved very quickly - the visitation was Thursday night, and the funeral was on Friday. My sweet husband led some songs and was a pallbearer. To be honest, my grandfather and I weren't very close, so his passing is hard mostly because I don't have any grandparents any more.

Anyway, I'm still sorting through some of the weird emotions from all of this... but I will post the more cheerful update at some point soon.

divot update

2009-09-28T20:09:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, I went to see my ortho guy, and (first of all, I waited like 45 minutes to see him because the EMG doctor hadn’t sent over my test results yet…) he told me that my MRI is definitely clear and that my EMG was normal too. He said the divot was caused by a steroid shot I got when I was sick back in March.

Note to self: Self, never get a steroid shot again. The end.

He told me that the best thing he could recommend for me was to get a second opinion. I have to be honest – that is the first time a doctor has ever told me to just go somewhere else. I certainly appreciated his honesty, but I was a little frustrated by the fact that he didn’t know what was wrong.

Anyway, my college doctor (the one who diagnosed my lipoma and then took care of me when I was holey) just moved to Southlake and opened a practice up there, so I went to see him on Wednesday afternoon.

He agreed that the divot was caused by the steroid shot and said that he thinks all the pain I’ve had is because my shoulder didn’t heal correctly from that car accident in 2001. He said I should rest my shoulder and then try to strengthen the muscles around the joint in the hope that that will provide enough strength/stability. If that doesn’t work, then I will have something called prolotherapy in an attempt to tighten up the joint itself.

I’m having a hard time though… mostly because I’m still in pain. Some moments are worse than others… but last night/this morning, I’ve been in a lot of pain. It’s frustrating. I’m trying to do everything I’m supposed to… but it’s hard when it hurts. And right now, it hurts.

And I’m afraid that I’m losing momentum in my new-found running. I was up to 1.5 miles a day, but now I haven’t run in nearly two weeks. I’m not sure what to do about that.

I’m determined to talk about happier things, though. We toured the new Cowboys Stadium on Saturday, so I will have to post pictures of that and talk about how fun that was sometime soon.

Until then, I would appreciate your prayers, and I eagerly anticipate sharing something like “I ran two miles and was pain-free all day today!” I’m just praying for that…

~~~~~~~

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” – Psalm 27:14

emg

2009-09-20T21:59:00.000-05:00

Well… the EMG was pretty awful. I cannot lie. I got stuck with needles in my arm, shoulder, and back. I got shocked in the forearm, upper arm, and neck. It took 2 hours. There’s not really a good way to sound like it was fun (other than just out-and-out lying, which I try not to do).

Results? My nerves are totally fine. Every test was normal. Yes, I have a giant divot (and it is ever deepening), but every nerve is transmitting properly. My muscles respond. Even the muscles/nerves IN the divot (yes, I got poked there too) responded completely normally. This is simultaneously wonderful and awful. I don’t want nerve damage. Nerve damage is terrible. The downside is that I’m still not sure what’s going on.

Oh, and here’s the way the appointment started: The doctor had me push against him and pull and do all kinds of things to test my strength. Then he goes, “Well, you have visible atrophy, but you have excellent strength, so that’s good. At least that means you don’t have Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

WHAT?!?!

I had NO idea that was even a possibility.

I had prepared myself to be strong and super tough during this test… and right there, before I’d even been stabbed or shocked, I was choking back tears. Wow. I am absolutely thankful that that’s not what it is… but… wow… how scary.

My precious husband drove me to my appointment, and he came back after an hour, and the receptionist escorted him into the room where I was… and I had a needle sticking out of my arm, and I MIGHT have been crying. (I will neither confirm nor deny that possibility…) He came over and kind of rubbed my hair and had this terrified look on his face, so I said, “Why don’t you wait in the lobby until this is over?” And he did. And then he took me to Kincaid’s and to get ice cream and skipped church to take care of me. I love him.

Oh, PS, I was feeling like a wimp for crying during the test until the doctor told me that he had a guy pass out on the table once. Then I felt less wimpy. Ha.

Say a prayer for Wednesday. I go to see my orthopedic surgeon again, and I am praying that he knows something that the radiologist and the EMG man didn't know and that he can tell me what's going on. I am in increasingly more pain, and I want relief. Say a prayer that we can figure out how to make that happen for me.

the divot

2009-09-15T19:54:00.000-05:00

I had my MRI last Tuesday morning, and I really didn’t think it would be any big deal (especially given that this was like my 6th or 7th MRI in my lifetime). This was the first MRI I’ve ever had where the doctor requested that it be done with contrast. He told me there would be an injection involved. I’m thinking, no big – something flu-shot-like. Well… I was wrong. Quite wrong. I had to sign separate releases just for the injection part… including one accepting or refusing a blood transfusion if necessary! They brought in a doctor to do the injection part (so I had a doctor, a nurse, and a tech in there) and had me lie on the Xray table (while they all wore lead vests and I wore a hospital gown). I actually don’t even know what all went on because I wouldn’t look. I know I got multiple shots of Lidocaine, but I don’t know how many. I know they stuck me several times for the actual dye injection part… but I mostly know that because I have a cluster of holes surrounded by a bruise. I know that at one point the doctor told me that I was doing really well – that she came off the table when she had this done. I know that later on, I yelped, and the doctor said, “Wow… you must take a long time to get numb. Most patients are totally numb by now!” (I also know that I received additional Lidocaine injections at that time.) I also know that at one point I had my head tilted back so that I wouldn’t see what was going on, so when I yelped, the tears that filled my eyes actually rolled up my face and over my ears.

Anyway, tomorrow (Wednesday) is the day of the EMG test, so I am even more nervie about that… given that this was supposed to be the easy breezy test. At some point in life, I must have really wronged my doctor. This is quite the revenge plan.

I don’t think the picture below does justice to the pain… but you can see the little holes and the bruise… and the divot in my arm. Pwetty!

Say a prayer for me tomorrow... I am super scared. The MRI was supposed to be the test that was no big deal at all, and I still have a bruise an entire week later. I'm ready to have nothing but sunshine and rainbows to talk about... but for today, I apprecaite your prayers. :)

how am i gonna live today? with a positive, positive, positive, positive attitude...

2009-09-03T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I am trying to have a positive attitude anyway. If I am fully honest, I haven’t blogged recently due to the fact that I have had kind of a rough week.

Well, actually my rough week started in 2001.

Okay, that’s only partly true.

Basically, I got in a car accident in 2001 and hurt my shoulder. I did the physical therapy thing and haven’t really had an issue with it. Well, my left arm is longer than my right thanks to that… and my left shoulder slopes down, so I can’t keep any straps on my shoulder… and it sometimes ached when it would rain… okay, but other than THAT, it was fine. Anyway, at the beginning of the summer, Lance and I were driving to Best Buy, and he was playing the license plate game (basically like “slug bug” for out of state license plates), and he called “Ohio” and hit me in the arm. He never hits hard in this game… and I think he only plays it because I talk incessantly when we are in the car because he is a captive audience, so random state names are sometimes the only thing he has to add to the convo. Evs. Anyway, so I start BAWLING crying after he hits me. At first, he thought I was kidding… and then he got this shocked and kind of sickened look on his face and was like, “Wait… are you serious? Like, for real?” Anyway, it hurt for a little while and then stopped bothering me again.

And then I developed a divot.

I’m really not 100% sure what else to call it… it’s just… a divot. It’s in my left arm right at the bottom of my shoulder muscle, and there’s just a big crater-y thing in my arm. I wasn’t too sure about it, so I went to my family doctor and told him the whole story (yes, including the license plate game part), and he told me I had good range of motion and good strength, so I probably just needed physical therapy again. Well, I don’t really like physical therapy that much, and I figured that if I was okay, I didn’t need it desperately or anything.

And then the divot deepened.

(This sounds like the dumbest golf story of all time. Such is my life.)

I finally got nervie enough to schedule the physical therapy, but I was doubting whether that was what I actually needed, so I asked a guy from church who is a physical therapist to look at my shoulder and see whether he thought that PT would help or whether I should go see a specialist. We walked over to their house one evening last week (they live in our neighborhood), and he moved my arm all around… and even discovered that my arm could move around in the socket, which is notsogood. He said that he would recommend at least having an ortho guy take a look at it because he couldn’t really figure out exactly what would be wrong (whether neuro or muscular or whatever) and gave me the name of a guy he said was really good with shoulders.

Sooooo Monday I go see the ortho guy. I tell HIM the whole story, and he moves my shoulder all around too. And yes, he even moves it around in the socket to see how much motion there is… but he was MUCH rougher than Richard was. Anyway, now I have to go on Tuesday to get an MRI (and they will be injecting me with something… possibly in the shoulder – ouchie pouchie!), and then the next Wednesday, I have to go get a nerve test where they will poke me over and over with needles to see how my nerves/muscles respond. The doctor pre-apologized for the nerve test. I take that as a terrible sign. And – fabulous – I was sore for several days after my appointment, so that was not fun.

Depending on what these two tests reveal, I may be facing a surgery on my shoulder here pretty soon. I’m nervous about all of it – the tests, the appointments, the possible surgery, recovering, paying for all of it. I’ve been praying about it a lot, and I am hoping that great joy is just around the corner…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS – Update from previous post: Buddy is doing MUCH better (praise the Lord!) and really wants to be back to his normal, active self. We currently will not let him, which he does not appreciate… but we can tell he’s feeling a ton better, so we are thrilled with that. There – my daily dose of positivity.

poor buddy baby

2009-08-27T21:08:00.000-05:00

My preshy dog hurt his tiny back, and he is just more pitiful than words can express. Lance took him to the vet today, so he now has two medications and is not allowed to jump AT ALL for 3 weeks. If you know my dog, you know a few things: 1. He already loves you. 2. He loves to jump. He jumps when he's happy and when he has to potty and when he wants to eat what you have and when you're holding a baby and when you walk in the front door and... well, he just loves to jump. I'm not sure how to keep his paws on terra firma for 3 weeks, but I will definitely try. And just because he's cute:

So say a little prayer for my pup and his back... and hopefully he will back to his old self in a few weeks!

chris lee's wedding

2009-08-19T20:56:00.000-05:00

Our dear friend Chris got married at the end of July, and we had a wonderful time. If you want to see their beautiful professional pictures, you can see Erin's fabulous blog. She is incredibly talented. Wow. Here, though, you will just see pictures of Lance and me. So sorry.

Kasey Spain, my sweet freshman year across the hall neighbor (affectionately known as my ATH... and yes, I still call her that). And for some reason, my eyes are overly enthusiastic in this picture.

Sweet Aaron Rector. So glad he's back on our continent!

Awww Luke! Haven't seen this kiddo in forever.

My sweet loves Stefie and Katie. Such beautiful girls. It was just wonderful to see them and catch up with them.

Okay, so Lance, Chris, and I took this picture on the first day that Lance and I met... way back at Kadesh 2002. After that, we took it every six months through school... and on our graduation day and on the day Lance and I got married. Love it. I will have to hunt down some of those pics and post them. They are fabulous.

Um, and I just realized that I don't have a single picture with the bride. She was a beautiful one though! Congratulations to both of you... and thanks for giving me the opportunity to see lots of my friends! It was a wonderful night!

milestone day

2009-08-11T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today, I ran a mile. That may not seem like any big deal… and if you’ve been running for years, it’s probably not to you. To me, though, this is huge. I haven’t been able to run a mile since… college? Maybe? I think I ran a mile like twice all the way through college. I am a terrible, terrible runner. And today, I ran a mile.

I’ve been getting up and running in the mornings before work. When I first started about a month ago, I could barely, BARELY finish a quarter of a mile. Yes, it’s sad. I know. Every day I have forced myself to run a bit (sometimes a matter of mere steps) further than the day before. Well, except for the day that Buddy wrapped his leash around a rosebush. I was too cranky to finish that day. Let’s not talk about that. I have a couple of goals in my new-found runningness: 1. I want to run at least a 5k. Maybe a 10k, but I get overwhelmed thinking about it, so I choose to focus on the 5k. 2. I want to run a mile in 8(ish) minutes. I have never, never done that.

I should also mention that my natural running stance is more like Phoebe than anyone else…

Like, it makes people laugh. I have been working very hard to run in a way that will not make people laugh. I guess that’s my third goal. 3. I want to run without anyone laughing at the way I run.

I also feel like I should mention how very, very much I hate mornings. Lance has a video of me attempting to hit him for trying to wake me up on our honeymoon. Youch. Anyway, I have been waking up early, and I have to say, that part is going far better than I’d anticipated. I get to see a sunrise every morning, and I start my day awed by my God and His creativity. It has been a blessing. Every morning, I sing in my head, “Who paints the skies into glorious day? Only the splendor of Jesus!” And this week, I’ve been running with my friend Lorrie and her dog Fudge (who is FAR better behaved than Buddy), and that has been great too! We spend our warm-up and cool-down time just talking about stuff. However, I can’t talk while running. Too hard.

Anyway, today is (quite literally) a milestone for me. Hopefully there are many more to come.

summer = almost over....

2009-08-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

It’s hard to stay caught up when life is so busy! I genuinely thought I was going to get a break, but VBS was last week, and it was ridiculous too. I even skipped on Tuesday to go to the grocery store and was still absolutely exhausted. Plus there was a summer youth series at Legacy Thursday night. You know it’s a rough week when Friday is your only day to not do church stuff… And I must admit, my house was a disaster, and we had very few clean clothes. Yes, it’s true. And it wasn’t even bothering me until Thursday morning. I knocked a bunch of things over trying to get ready, and it made me so cranky. Anyway, Lance and I stayed home and just hung out Friday night… and then I spent all day Saturday cleaning while Lance was at a Kids for Christ rally thing. Oh yes… there was a church thing on Saturday too! We were also taking food to some folks who just had a baby and hosting small group at our house Sunday night, so I also made pork in the crockpot and baked 4 dozen cupcakes on Saturday… and then I begged to go swimming, so we went to some friends’ backyard (they weren’t even home!) and swam for awhile.

Since the last time I posted, probably the most exciting thing that’s happened was that my friend Chris Lee got married. (And that happened on July 31st, so obvi not much too terribly exciting has happened since then…) He is the one who introduced Lance and me, and he is very special to us. Chris and I were actually in an MPulse group together the summer between 7th and 8th grade and then were in a Kadesh group together the summer between 11th and 12th grade… and we have stayed friends ever since! The wedding was very sweet, and it was a tremendous blessing to see some college friends again… and I will have to post pictures soon… after I take the time to upload them.

Well, also, we had 18 people at our house for small group last night! I guess that’s exciting too! Holy moly! We were packed into our house, and we started running out of food there at the end… but it was a lot of fun. I am definitely going to have to find some more good recipes for large groups of people. I probably can’t make spaghetti every time!

Can I just tell you how ready I am for summer to be over? There is just too much going on in the summer to try to even breathe. I loved summer when I got to be a part of summer. When I just get to be extra-super-busy and husband-less but still working while it’s uber hot outside, summer loses some of its appeal. Yes, I am now 25, and summer is officially lame.

two whole weeks...

2009-07-24T10:00:00.001-05:00

Nothing terribly eventful happened the week of Lance being at Cornerstone (praise the LORD! Cornerstone was when my mom was hospitalized last year…). Lance was gone from Sunday to Friday and came home on Friday (yes, with more tire trouble on this trip) and left for another camp on Sunday. During the approximately 36 hours he was home, this is what happened to my spotless house:

We washed pretty much everything he owns so that he could repack and leave again. It was out of control.

Sunday morning, Lance began loading his suitcases into my car. Buddy HATES suitcases because he is smart enough to know that they mean someone is leaving. He just cried and followed us around all morning. This was the heart-breaking sight I got to witness while Lance was loading the car:

(The people before us had cats, so we have a cat door into the garage. Buddy can fit through it but prefers not to. He mostly uses it as a giant peephole.)

I rode down to camp with Lance in an empty rental van (I bet we looked hysterical) and spent the day down at Three Mountain, explaining to everyone that, no, I will not be staying for camp because I have to work. I rode back with John West that evening, and he and I had a ridiculously long conversation about fruit. I didn’t think it was weird at the time until Lance asked me what we talked about, and I said “fruit” and then I realized it was weird. Evs.

To keep myself occupied when Lance was gone, I cleaned the house, watched SYTYCD, and shopped. Shopping is my activity of choice when Lance is gone. It’s one of the few things that I genuinely enjoy doing by myself. During the two weeks he’s been gone, I have purchased/ordered the following:

Plus some other assorted things... mostly things I deemed too boring to take pictures of/blog about. It’s a good thing he came back. I would have shopped us into the poor house. Well, that and I missed him like crazy.

Since Buddy was my little four-legged bestie for the past two weeks, here are a couple shots of him and his cuteness/hilariousness:

And now my love is home again, and all is right with the world!

almost caught up...

2009-07-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

On Friday and Saturday, we got ready for Lance to go to camp and for me to help hostess a shower. We did lots of running errands and laundry and some working in the yard… I don’t even remember what all, but I know that I went to Walmart, Target, Hobby Lobby, the bank, took Lance to get a haircut, picked up a UHaul trailer, and Target again that day. Then that night I was dusting and knocked over something glass and cut my finger and started bleeding and made Lance clean up the broken glass. Yes, sometimes I’m a baby, and I’m okay with it.

On Sunday, Lance’s group left for Cornerstone during Bible class time. I always get sad when he leaves, but there were kids and parents and other assorted vagabonds (not really) all around when we said our goodbyes, so I tried to be strong. It’s times like that that I completely love my giant, Victoria Beckham-style, face-obscuring sunglasses. They hide tears like a champ. Anyway, he left, and I went to church. After church, I went back to Walmart (yes, again) and then went home and cleaned my house like crazy. I cleaned from maybe 12:30 or so until 2:30 and then got ready to head to the shower. I took my fondue fountain to the shower, so I had a ton of stuff to take – the fountain itself, the skewers, a vase to put the skewers in, the chocolate, some marshmallows and pretzels left over from the last usage, the paper goods, the glass plates and cups from the church, some ribbon, etc. I got there like 25 minutes before the shower was supposed to start (which was 5 minutes late for the early I was supposed to be) and hurriedly set up the fountain (people were already there and standing around!). About halfway through the shower, the dirty dishes are piling up, so my friend Corie and I started doing dishes… and never ever stopped. For like an entire hour, we stood at the sink washing dishes. The shower ended at 5:00… and small group was at my house at 5:30 (hence the hours of pre-shower cleaning)! I cleaned the fountain enough to stick it in the box (and splattered chocolate on the front of my khaki pants – super!) and threw all my stuff together and ran to my car. I pulled up to my house right at 5:30, and people were already arriving! I ran in, changed pants, and turned on some lamps/lit candles/tried to be a good hostess. Then, with guests there, I stain treated my pants. Um, hello, I cannot have a chocolate stain on my khaki pants. My guests can wait. We had small group until like 8:00 or so, then I ran up to Central Market to get my groceries for the week. You can tell what an exhausting day it was by the fact that this is one paragraph and one day.

I promise - more pictures/fewer words for the next post.

another busy week...

2009-07-16T20:36:00.000-05:00

After the July 4th holiday weekend came another busy week. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) On Monday, we had Bunko, and I always have a lot of fun there. I sat with Stacey and Jenn (and another girl whose name I don’t remember, but let’s not tell her that) during dinner, and I love getting to hang out with them. They crack me up, and I don’t get to see them all that often. Plus, about halfway through the night, Jenn let me steal Abigail, so I got to snuggle a preshy little baby for the last half of the night. So fun!

Oh, plus I had a doctor’s appointment Monday morning and another one Tuesday afternoon. I did have a nurse/technician person whom I don’t think had ever drawn blood in her life. I’m a pretty easy case (I’m so pale that my skin is practically transparent), and I have had a lot of blood drawn in my lifetime without ever having any problems with it. Anyway, first this girl looked completely lost in the world when I asked her to do my left arm instead of my right since I was heading straight to work after the appointment and was worried I might be sore. She put the tourniquet on my arm and had me squeeze the ball thing and ran her finger back and forth across the inside of my elbow for – no lie – at least 30 seconds… before looking at me and going, “Do you know if you have good veins?” WHAT?! Talk about scaring a person to death! Anyway, it was a bit ouchie pouchie, but it didn’t bruise, so I guess I can’t complain too much. That’s the only interesting thing that happened at either doctor.

So then Wednesday, I picked up dinner and went straight to church after work (like always). I knew there was a girls’ lock-in, and I had planned to stay for like an hour, but I ended up staying until almost midnight. Yikes stripes. I am too old for that. I think the girls had fun though. They turned on the blacklights, wore neon clothes, and had a girls-only hilarious-dancing dance party.

This picture was my attempt at taking pictures of the dancing without a flash. It simultaneously makes me happy and makes me dizzy. (Notice that Jesus looks really sad in the background. That somehow makes these pictures more entertaining.)

Obviously, I was sleepy on Thursday (I AM 25 now, you know). Then Thursday night was a summer youth series at Richland Hills. It was great to be there (I saw Sister’s bf Brent), and the speaker was fabulous (as if Patrick Mead is ever unfabulous), and it was a lot of fun. I got home at like 8:30 and was just wiped out. I basically sat on the couch for like an hour until Lance got home and then went to bed. I’m so much fun.

I'm almost caught back up to real time...

july 4th

2009-07-13T20:54:00.000-05:00

I guess the next major event post-birthdays was the July 4th celebration. I had July 3rd off work, which was just fabulous. Lance and I had a great Friday together, spending all day just hanging out and having fun. We touched up the paint in our bedroom and set up our brand new chair in the corner of our bedroom. It looks fabulous, and I love it.

That night, we went to the Rangers game with Philip and Jocelyn. We had the best seats in the house – the all-you-can-eat seats! It was hot, hot, hot out there. Our seats were in the top deck of the Home Run Porch, and if you went up the steps, there was a buffet of ballpark food – nachos, hot dogs, drinks, popcorn, peanuts, and grilled chicken sandwiches. I think the grilled chicken sandwich thing is weird, but I most certainly enjoyed my fair share of nachos.

Let’s be clear that this was for some reason an incredibly unflattering picture night. I’m not exactly sure why it was so bad for me. I had a great time, but I look pretty homely.

Lance and me...

Philip and Jocelyn... (and she looks better than me, and she's 8 1/2 months prego. FAB. She is a super cute pregnant girl though.)

The four of us...

There were fireworks after the game…

On Saturday, Lance and I went and saw Transformers II… and then we’d planned to go to Kincaid’s, but it was closed for the 4th. We went to Chili’s instead. Don’t worry – after church on Sunday, Lance took me to Kincaid’s so that I wouldn’t be disappointed. Then we went home, and Lance made homemade ice cream with our new ice cream maker to take to small group.

All around, it was a fantastic holiday. I'm super thrilled to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave... especially when it involves baseball, ballpark nachos, going to the movie theater and Kincaid's! What a great country!

our berfdays

2009-07-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I am like WEEKS behind on major life events… but I have a good excuse: I have been ridiculously busy. That’s always my excuse… but I am always behind… and I am always busy, so I think it’s a valid one.

Well, for any of y’all that don’t know, Lance’s birthday and my birthday are super close together (his is June 25th; mine is June 27th), so we always have lots of birthday festivities. On Thursday night (his actual birthday), he had a summer youth series, so I went and got him a cookie cake while he was gone. (And yes, if you’re wondering whether I am just cheese enough to light candles and sing “happy birthday” by myself, I did.) We had some cookie cake and talked for awhile (since we hadn’t seen each other yet that day), and then it was bedtime.

Our tradition has been to celebrate birthdays on the 26th since it’s the day between, so we went to Cheesecake Factory on Friday night. I was so full that it was truly painful to breathe… and I brought home fully HALF of my meal. It was just fun to go on a date and spend time with my love. And I love this picture of us from just before dinner…

Saturday (my actual birthday) was the birthday marathon. Well, first of all, I had my Cheesecake Factory tiramisu for breakfast. Yeah, I’m pretty much a health nut. Then we drove to Arlington for birthdays with Lance’s family. We went to Splitsville, which was a really cool place. Apparently, I am WAY out of bowling shape (was I ever IN bowling shape??) because my booty was sore for days. The food was really good, and it was the cleanest bowling place I’ve ever been to. SUPER clean bathrooms too – bonus!! Then we came home and cleaned house for awhile, and then my family came over that night. It was great to see them and spend time with them. We don’t get to do it nearly enough. Aaaaaand it turns out that this is my ONLY picture from the day. Swell. Why do I carry a camera and then only take one picture?

I should point out that Patty made a cake, so we had cake with lunch… and my mom had made a cake, so we had cake with dinner (and take this moment to remember that I had tiramisu for breakfast), so we felt pretty roly-poly when we went to bed that night. It was definitely a fun weekend.

It’s pretty hard for me to believe I’m 25 now. I know, I’m still among the youngest of my group (my summer birthday has almost always made me the baby of my class), but it astounds me that I’ve been alive a quarter of a century. It just seems like a long time. In some ways, I still think of myself as like 18… but in other ways, I feel super old… so I guess 25 is a pretty good age for me. It’s just now beginning to sink in, which is saying something since my birthday was 2 weeks ago!

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“I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me.”
Psalm 3:5

a new place to call home

2009-07-08T15:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I blogged for a good long while at my last blog address... but I have decided to turn over a new leaf. A blogspot leaf. Some of my old posts were full of happiness, but many were filled with struggles and trials. I am hopeful that I can start over with a new URL, a new look, and yes, a new outlook as well. The Lord was incredibly faithful and amazingly mighty in every single situation I blogged about in my many wordpress months, and I am going to work hard to remember that through any trials that may come my way in the future.
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"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17