Life Happens...

It's been so crazy lately. Work has been intense, and I started training the new girl on Wednesday. I won't go into details, but I was pretty drained. The AC at our house, which we thought was fixed, has been acting up again, and this time we're calling someone different (this will be the third attempt at fixing it in about 4 days). I was in the dressing room of a store today and discovered what looked like the beginnings of stretch marks and about burst into tears right there. Yes, I'm aware that being pregnant is a miracle and I promise I'm not a vain person. It was just one more thing and made me feel insecure. At times like this you just need people to say "I understand" and not try to give you the reasons why you shouldn't care about stretch marks, or whatever those things are on my body. Does that make sense? Also, in the last few days I've been told by several people, "I didn't show until I was 6 months pregnant! You shouldn't need maternity clothes. If your thighs are skinny enough you can still wear your normal jeans." (Yes, this was said to me.)

Anyway, enough complaining...I don't like to be a complainer! On the bright side, I have a breakfast casserole cooking for dinner, and I was a good Samaritan at the grocery store today. I saw an older woman crying by an ice machine and asked an employee to check on her and help her. I saw them take care of her, and that made me happy. I'm not sure what was wrong, but they wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said anything. So I at least accomplished a good deed today :o)

I've been missing my family recently. I talked to my sister today about college. Trying to help her pack over the phone is hard! Also, I keep checking up on my little brother to see if he's registered for classes....I want to know what he's taking! And my little sister is probably really happy because they got TV the other day, and internet is coming tomorrow :o) I miss not having my parents nearby. It was such a security thing. However, I do think it's interesting that Kurt and I have gone through the AC being broken, kitchen appliances not working, and other things after my family moved. We have definitely bonded this week. :o)

It looks like we'll be going to Ripley to see Kurt's family in a few weekends, and we have a marriage conference at our church that I'm looking forward to. I figure that as a young married couple about to have our first child, this is a good time to re-evaluate things and spend time together. Of course, I'm sure there will be a visit to my family in September sometime. :o)

Everyone have a great evening!

Introducing.....

Our Baby!!!


These were taken last Thursday, when I was 10 weeks and 6 days. Friday is my weekly marker, so the next day I was officially 11 weeks.



This is the profile....it looks like a little person, finally :o)





These are the first sonogram pictures that I really can't stop looking at. Instead of a little blur, it's clearly a baby :o) We are so excited! Keep praying that everything goes well, and that little Baby is safe. God is good!!

Updates

Just a few notes:

1. Our AC was "fixed" yet we were still having some trouble with it last night. Kurt somehow got it to cool down, but I think if the AC man JUST came to look at it, we shouldn't be having to majorly adjust anything. Just my opinion. But at least my house seems to be cooling down. Somewhat.

2. There are two of our cats that are still at my parents' old house somewhere. The neighbors are leaving food and watching for them so they can get them when they show up. I think they were just irritated by all the moving activity and decided to hide. They are indoor/outdoor, so we really aren't alarmed. I now have cat carriers in my car in case they should be recovered (which they will be).

3. I am learning that more and more people read my blog. I'm not sure if that's flattering or just overwhelming. I basically started the blog because I'm terrible at keeping a journal, and for some reason I've stuck with this. But I don't know....either I'm interesting or people are nosey.... :o)

4. The weekend went well. I am exhausted, as usual. However, I didn't join the receiving line when my family formally joined LBC. I sat and just waited for them. Dad did such a great job. I'm really excited about what God is going to do!

5. Rumors about my family are hilarious and ridiculous. I had several people ask me if certain things were true, and I was just amused. It obviously comes with the territory of my dad's job, and as the oldest child I should be so used to it, but sometimes I am just flabbergasted at what people will come up with. That's all.

6. I'm at work. Catching up from three days' worth of no receptionist working. I would like to ask all of you to pray for the woman I share my job with(and I know there are a lot who look at this, so I expect a lot of praying). I'll call her P. She has a daughter who has been married for 5 years (I'll call her A) and has a 3 month old baby girl (I'll call her M). Last week, A's husband walked in and told her that he doesn't love her anymore and left. Just walked out. Everyone in the family is distraught, and no one had any clue there were problems (not even A). Obviously, P is overcome with grief for her daughter and new granddaughter, and she immediately quit her job here. So me and Lisa, our office manager/finance person, are trying to cover the bases. We had a girl interview to do reception full-time, which would relieve me as well, and she'll start training this week. Of course they want to see how it goes before I'm free to leave, but it looks like it will be a good situation. Just pray for P, A, and little M. This man was a deacon and had just become a lawyer. Satan will do anything to destroy families. I know they will appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

I'm off to handle more than I can handle! :o)

It's the Weekend.....

.....and I'm heading to Cape for Dad's first Sunday. My little brother and I are following each other (even though sometimes he still seems 5 years old to me...now we're making a road trip together). He is currently over at my parents' old house trying to find a few of the cats. Yes, we can't find a few of them. Thankfully we have sweet neighbors that are going to keep eyes out for them if we can't find them in time, but my mother is really wanting to have all of the pets accounted for. So we get that responsibility before we leave. Anyway, be praying for everything this weekend. The moving truck should be getting there soon, and then Saturday will be a chaotic mess. But it will be good to spend time with my family in the new house and try to help (even though I get exhausted so easily). Everyone have a great weekend!

What's Happening Today

Well friends, I have great news and bad news. Let's get the bad news out of the way first.

1. The breaker that controls my oven and microwave blew out. Therefore, no cooking, and a complete inconvenience.

2. Our AC unit is apparently low on freon (or at least that's what we're hoping). I'm sitting in a 85-degree house, literally sweating, while pregnant.

3. This is all happening at the same time, making for a very uncomfortable and inconvenient situation.

Okay, the good news:

1. The AC people are supposed to come over this afternoon. I praying that it is a quick fix. Otherwise, I don't know how we'll survive the night.

2. I had a wonderful ultrasound today at the doctor! All looks well, and the heartbeat is 150. I saw the shape of a baby, with an adorable profile and it was moving!!!! I saw hands and feet and legs MOVING! My sisters came with me because this was probably their only chance to go to a doctor's appointment. They were so excited, and I was blown away. Kurt will be able to come to my next appointment---YAY! I had his call schedule in hand when I made the next appointment. It will be on August 28---mark your calendars :o) My doctor told me that I am pretty much past the "risky" part of pregnany, which was a huge relief. I'm just so thankful. And my visit was actually much better today. My sonogram tech was so sweet and caring. I will have pictures to post soon!

So, as you can see, a healthy baby FAR outweighs the stress of everything being broken in my house. God is good. But I'd LOVE to have a cool house this evening....

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and encouragement. I've been feeling much better and now I'm just more tired than nauseated (although I still have my moments). I love my friends!

A Part of Me: London

There are some experiences in your life that completely change you and make you a better person. These experiences don't come incredibly often. I love sharing my experiences and letting people get to know me better....so if you want to know me, you need to know that I once lived in London, England for a semester!

This is such a huge part of who I am, and that's why I'm sharing. There's no huge significance to this post, other than the fact that it changed my life personally. But I thought some people might like to see a little of what I did and what it was like. I have so many pictures, and I've only chosen a few!

I went to London in the Spring semester of 2006. There was around 20 of us, and only 3 were guys. This made for an interesting semester, but it ended up being great. For the first and third months, we lived in a bed and breakfast called St. Margaret's, which was owned and operated by the Marazzi family. It has been torn down, sadly, since I was there, but the Marazzi's own another hotel, the Celtic. I hope to visit it when I go again!

In the second month, we lived with homestay families. Brooke and I lived with a wonderful, wonderful family: Tom, Teresa, and Jake. It was so much fun, and we laughed so much when we were with them. They lived in north London, about 45 minutes outside the main part of the city, so we would commute every morning for class on the Tube, the underground subway-like system. Thankfully, we were almost the furthest out of town, so we got seats every morning. But as we got closer and closer in to the city, it was so crammed and crowded. I actually really enjoyed commuting. I got to listen to music, sometimes read, occasionally do last-minute assignments.

We had classes at King's College in London, in their classrooms. Our classes were Theatre, London History and Culture, History of Science, Art History, and English Literature. History of Science was the only class taught by an American professor---Dr. Parks, who was our chaperone. Let's just say he was pushing 75 or 80 and wasn't the most interesting or fun teacher/chaperone, but he was endearing in his own way!

Dr. Donald Rumbelow and his lifelong girlfriend Molly were our teachers for London History and Culture. Dr. Rumbelow is also the world's expert on Jack the Ripper, so we got a very interesting tour when that lesson came about. He took us to every site imaginable in London, and told us things that were truly fascinating. I loved it, even though it was a walking class, and it became exhausting after awhile!

Art History was one of those classes that you wanted desperately to enjoy, but it was always after lunch, and Susan, our professor, dimmed the lights and used slides for an hour and a half. It was torture to stay awake! But a lot of times we got to go to the museums after class and see what we had just studied in person. That was always so wonderful. And she was the epitome of a classy, elegant, British woman. She was just impeccable.

Theatre was with Ian. He is one of the leading London theatre critics, and we loved his class. He was hilarious and irreverent, but we just loved it. We went to musicals only occasionally. Usually he would take us to plays that were just opening, or he suspected would be big hits....and he was always right! I was able to witness to Ian, because I chose to write about spiritual correlations to the musical Les Miserables for my term paper. It was very evangelical, and he wrote on my paper: "A++! You made me go and open my Bible. I believe you can shout Psalm 100 at full volume." I hope I planted a seed :o)

My favorite class was English Literature with Sarah. I loved this class the most because she was the most passionate teacher I had ever seen concerning literature and reading. I just responded to her and loved learning under her. It was challenging, to be sure, but very rewarding.

We took our Spring Break trip to Wales and Scotland. It was beautiful!! We also took day trips to Cambridge, Stonehenge, Bath (so amazing!) and other places. Brooke and I went by ourselves one day to Oxford and found ourselves in the middle of an extreme animal-rights rally/protest. Only us.

There's so much that I could say about that semester, and maybe I'll write more about it periodically. I think this post is more for myself than anyone else. London was one of those experiences that no one thinks to ask me about, but it is such a huge part of who I am. One of my biggest goals is to take Kurt and my parents. They need to see one of the best places in the entire world!! Your heart probably won't feel like it's about to burst when you see these pictures (like mine does) but just allow me to reminisce :o)

Paul, our spring break bus driver. Oscar, St. Margaret's reception desk.

Jake :o)

Brighton Pier with Patrick. Brighton Pier with the girls.

Teresa's rock star theme 40th b-day! White cliffs of Dover with Patrick and Nate.

Hampton Court Palace, where Henry 8th and Anne Boleyn lived for a time. The girls at Hampton Court.

Jake and I on the Tube to Camden. Cambridge!

Gwen Stefani night at Homestay. Punting the river at Cambridge.

Rock star birthday :o) Brooke and I with the Royal (wax) Family.

My crush in wax. With Brooke in Oxford.

The banquet hall at Oxford---the Harry Potter movie was modeled after this room! Teresa and I on Gwen Stefani night.

At a pub (during the day) at Greenwich. Dr. Rumbelow and I on the Prime Meridian.

Me and my friends Diana and William. The whole group :o)

Me at Stonehenge. Me with Simon, our guide at Shakespeare's Globe

Theatre.

Here We Are.

Today the movers are packing up my parents' house. And I'm stuck at work.

It's days like this where working two days a week is still an inconvenience, because it always falls on the days you just need a break.

Yesterday evening I briefly went over for us to give Dad his birthday gifts (more on that later), and afterward I went upstairs to my room to gather the things that I didn't want the movers touching. It wasn't a lot; I don't have anything severely valuable. But it was things like old letters, pictures, cassette tapes from way back, a few books. You would think that I would've done all of this when I got married and moved out, and to some degree I did. But it's different when all the stuff going to be moved from the spot that it's been in for 8 years or so.

I've never known what it's like to live in a house for a lifetime. This is the longest I've ever lived in one place. So I suppose it's all relative. I went through drawers and came up with a pile of things to throw away. When I put them in the trashcan I thought....this trash represents so many years and so many emotions! There were moments while I was gathering my special things that I tried to become emotional and couldn't. Then there were moments when I would just walk around my house and kind of take it in for the last time, as I'll always remember it. The hardest thing is that even though I will still live here awhile, I can't go to that house anymore. A new family will be there, she'll decorate it how she likes, and they'll just live there like we did. But it won't be a place where I'm able to go anymore, and that just hurts.

I think it's just today. I won't be able to watch as the things are packed up slowly. If/when I go over tonight or tomorrow, it will be this sudden transformation that I won't recognize. I'm not trying to make this a depressing post, but it's all I can think about today. I've not talked about the move or anything much, and that's by choice. But today it's just unavoidable.

As I was saying earlier, last night we gave Dad his presents. It was a good time together, albeit brief. Tuesday night we're going to all go out to eat, and I'm looking forward to that. All I'm going to say about my Dad at this point in time is that I'm just proud of him. I'm so proud of the fact that I'm his daughter. On his last Sunday at CHBC, I was incredibly selfish. All I could think to myself was, Thank goodness he's my Dad and I never have to stop seeing him. And he'll be my pastor again! Again, not the most selfless way to think, but I'm just being honest. There's no adequate words to describe the relationship I have with my dad. It's just something that I've always known, and as I get older, I start to see qualities in both of my parents that I never knew existed. It's a good feeling.

I'm not sure how I'll handle the next days and weeks. But I am so confident that God has had His hand in showing my parents where to go, and that gives me a great peace. Also, I've been given the blessing of living close to them in the future.

So I end this post by saying Happy Birthday to my wonderful, wonderful Dad, and lots of love to my favorite people in the world :o)

It's Been Awhile...

....and I've been busy!

We have been in Cape this weekend getting some things done for my parents' new house. It's been nice to be with my parents, but I have definitely missed my hard-working husband :o(
We have been able to spend some good time with friends and Dad was able to put a good dent in getting his office unpacked and ready. Tonight we have another get-together with friends, and then it's back to Jackson Sunday morning. However, I'll be making the drive back here next weekend for Dad's first Sunday. As if I would miss that! A lot of driving, but definitely worth it.

Monday is my sweet Dad's birthday....the movers will be packing up the house, but I hope we'll somehow be able to celebrate. I'll save my comments about my dad for Monday...I could say so much!

Just wanted to do a quick post..I'm sure everyone is sick of the Christmas pictures and music. :o) Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Christmas Cheer!

Yes, that's right. It's July, but I'm doing a Christmas Cheer post. I have waited long enough. After all, it's only 5 months away, and so we need to be getting ready. So to get everyone in the spirit early, I've decided to highlight a few of my favorite representations of Christmas. If you're one of those who does NOT celebrate until December (i.e. my husband), this post is not for you. For everyone else, here they are!

First of all, I love the images of a colonial Christmas. I don't know what it is....it's just the perfect setting to me. I think I would adore Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas. I loved it when it wasn't Christmas! These are so wonderful:

And of course....the Nutcracker! I enjoy going to the ballet, but just listening to the music at home is wonderful. When the overture comes on, it's just beautiful.

So here is something that I have come to appreciate and love in Jackson:

Yes, Mistletoe Marketplace is one of my very favorite events. First, it comes in November, which gets everyone in the spirit early. Second, the vendors are really unique. Expensive, but unique. I think I might treat myself this year to one or two things, just because. I think I'll start saving. It's just a wonderful experience.

Christmas fireplaces!!! There is nothing better than a fireplace and a Christmas tree.

And then we have the wonderful television specials, including (but NOT limited to)

Celtic Woman Christmas Celebration. I still have this on my DVR from last Christmas and watch it all the time. Combining Celtic music and Christmas is just.....perfect.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town! A classic, and probably my favorite of the original Christmas specials.

And you can't forget Rudolph! So adorable....

My favorite Christmas movie:

And then there's Santa...

Part of me will always believe in him :o)

And then there's Jesus.....

Leave it to Him to have a birthday on the best holiday ever :o) And my whole soul believes in Him!

Merry Christmas, just a little early :o)