Further Up and Further In

Announcement

2011-05-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've begun a new blog. It's a new era for us, and time for a change.

Saturday, we had our offer accepted on the land we picked out. We will close on July 13. From there, we will begin building our new home. :)

Follow along with us on our journey at this new site: Hand To The Plough

Answering Those Questions:

2011-05-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

So, a lot of you have been asking the question, "Why build, instead of buy?" Here's my answer.

In Virginia, an older home with some need for TLC would be an awesome investment. You'd have those great wood floors, gorgeous molding, staircases with drama, beautiful "bones", etc., and you could come out on top by fixing up bathrooms and kitchen. My friend, Hosanna, has a home like that. However, in Washington state (at least, in this city).....we don't have "lovely old homes in need of TLC." We have homes built in the 70's or 80's in need of TLC. They're almost all "doublewide" type homes, too...Washington is famous for its low-roofed, ranch-style, porchless types. They remind me of glorified campers.

I suspect the reason for that has to do with Washington *ahem* not having been settled until more recently....it doesn't have the "colonial era" homes that Virginia does. Plus, it was settled by hippies...who live in campers. LOL!

There are very few things in our area (Lacey, WA) on the market right now for around $200,000 (our spending limit) that offer 3 bedrooms, an area (den) to teach piano in, and a lot of promise for beautiful upgrades (and hopefully, a yard). Here are some links showing you what's for sale in our desired location that is within our price range:

Link 1 Leaves a little room price-wise for some upgrades, but will still always look like a doublewide on the outside
Link 2 Has a fairly nice upgraded kitchen (not my style), but a very tiny back yard, and some weird, outdated features, such as the wall of wood paneling in the living room. Also, the exterior is less than beautiful, too.
Link 3 Another house, near the square footage of the one we're going to build, and closer to 200K. Leaves money for only a couple upgrades, and still leaves us with a tiny backyard, and.....a red doublewide.

None of these would give us much equity if we put some upgrades into them. Even with new windows and flooring and cabinets, scrubbed & polished & painted---you still have a low profile, ranch-style, not-very-pretty home. Sadly. All of them. We have been watching this trend continue for months, now. Then.......we found Adair Homes.

Adair Homes offers a few selections within our price range. They're not a custom-home company. They are a "Costco" of home building supply. With their home-building scheme, we are encouraged to do a lot of the work in the building and lot preparation ourselves. This saves us money, project by project, and gives us a brand new home at the end, complete with a lot the size we picked. We are NOT encouraged to draw up our own home plan and change things as we go. We had around 4 plans to pick from, and we went with the 1643 (square ft.) plan.

We expect to invest around $220,000 in the actual supplies, land, and labor, and end up with a 1643 sf home on 1/3 acre lot appraised at around $300,000. This is based on the data we read about others who had completed projects with Adair. When we finish our home, we'll have spent the same amount we would have ended up spending with a "fixer-upper" only we have not just an "ok" kitchen, or "refinished wood flooring" but a hand-picked kitchen, a modern open floor-plan, a studio for 2 pianos, and brand new Shaw wood floors.

Granted, we will be working our butts off, just as one might if one purchased an older home and put upgrades in it. BUT we will have a VERY NEW AND MODERN home to sell (should we choose to) in 5-10 years. It will be nice to move into a brand newly-built home after having put the "sweat equity" into building it rather than moving into a place that require months of work, bit by bit, putting up with the mess as we go.

Know this, however, East Coasters: were we to be able to find a deal like THIS ONE or THIS ONE or THIS ONE (OMG, OMG!!) or THIS ONE ............well, let me just say.....we'd have bought it already, and be working on it RIGHT NOW. I mean.....we bought a subscription to "This Old House"!! It's like...in my blood. I grew up in an old home. I am not kidding when I say, "The 1634 by Adair is NOT my dream home." But, it's a good investment for this area. If we needed to move for some reason....we have a lot of good stuff to show for our work. We expect, in 7 years, to have a pretty bangin' newer, beautiful, modern home to sell.

ANYHOW. Without further ado, here is the final choice (I know it's different from Facebook's post, but...we're still vacillating.) .....

The only change we will be making is to build a wall on the left just as you walk in the front door to enclose that "sitting room" into a studio for my 2 (hopefully 2, by then) pianos. The lot we picked is on a busier street...hopefully a good location to put a sign up for my business.

Final Announcement:

We put an offer on the land today. :D :D :D :D

More Money-Saving

2011-05-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Would you believe me if I told you that TODAY.......we just bought THIS?

Yep. It's a Toyota Prius. In the interest of saving even more money for our new home, we traded in the mammoth gas-hog, known as X-Terra:

I can't say I was too sad to see it go.....Violet & I both decided we like the "green car" better. :) It should cost us (we predict) 1/3 the money in gas per month. It feels, actually, pretty roomy inside. I was surprised when we hooked up the car seats and took it for a spin. It's used, so the leather seats it boasted were a bit more affordable. Wow, leather seats make it really easy to twist around and tend to children in the back seat! They also make it pretty comfy for long rides: it's easier to slip and slide your bottom around and get more COMFY! The hatch back makes for a great diaper-changing station.....and the elbow room in the back seat made us suspect we could even fit a 3rd child in there.....should that event come to pass in the d i s t a n t future.

We really hope the gas savings will give us more and more spare change to put into our closing costs, and any upgrades or unforeseen "projects" we might have to do during this home-building process.

Tomorrow Ben & our Adair representative meet the excavator at the lot we picked out. Soon, we will be making an offer, signing papers, and starting to DIG!

Bedroom Favorites: Hello, Gray!

2011-05-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

Last year we spent 11 months in Virginia, living in a townhouse rental. When I arrived, the walls were all kinds of weird colors. One bedroom was orange, one was gray, and the furniture in the gray room was painted a Chinese Red Lacquer, complete with silver spray-painted metal hardware. Not only that, but at the top of the wall was a "Carolina Blue" stripe, about 8 inches long. It was pretty nauseating. I say that...because being newly pregnant, lots of things nauseated me. :)

Here's what it was looking like:

WIth this color blue stripe:

I agonized over that stripe....and dreaded going to bed at night because of it. The landlords told me I couldn't paint, so I slapped this up there as a last resort. (textured, paintable wallpaper in cream color.)

...........and LO....it looked awesome. Not only that, but I paired it with my grandmother's maple furniture.....and a creamy sheepskin rug....

I discovered GRAY.

Now I am obsessed with it. Especially in a bedroom. It is so restful.....so aged.....so timeless.....the essence of softness. It makes me sleepy just looking at it.

By the way....is it GREY or GRAY? I adore how natural textures (stone, wood, furs, straw/grasses, shell, and even water) all flow smoothly through the greys. It's a short step to get botanicals of all shapes, textures, and colors to also compliment grays in a room. Something very dear to my heart....botanical...

Anyhow. Hope you enjoyed strolling through my design dreams. Only a couple short weeks, now, till we know if we are going to be building a home or not!

Favorite Things

2011-05-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to conjure up "my favorite kitchen" these days. It takes me a while to figure out what I like. I have to delve through photos and blogs and examples on the internet for days before a pattern starts to emerge.

"What do I like in a kitchen?"

It's been bugging me since we started discussing the possibility of building a home. Well, something finally popped out at me today while I was google-imaging. (is that a word?)

Black cabinets.

At first I was bothered by it. Why does that look so attractive? What about that is making me so excited? Scroll through and look at some, if you would.

Oh yeah, I am LOVING a faucet over the stove...how brilliant is that??!!!

In particular this one caught my eye (below), and I saw the "french hens" and something began to make sense. The black & white speckled french hen, coupled usually with creams, yellows, and red....brightly colored ceramic dishes, and racks and racks of wine. Also usually some wire mesh coverings on the cabinet doors, and some criss-cross wood panes on the glass cabinets. I'm thinking this is treading close to French country.

Here are a few more that stood out to me:

Especially this one, below. Something about the exquisite combination of old and new, clean and simple with delicacies, the oh-so-necessary botanical element, and the craving for stone (on top of the armoire), and iron. All completely satisfied. This.............this room is definitely All Me.

This kitchen with its black and white tile reminds me of something else I know I love: Maxfield Parrish.

Here are some Parrish paintings. You can see the use of the black and white checker pattern in his art.

He did do some paintings that were more than kitchens. :)

And not all caricatures.

Anyway.....back to kitchens. :)This one (below) is a bit busy for me. It has nice aging, but too much stuff. I love the contrast of the natural brown wood grain against the black rubbed-off cabinets.

Another thing I discovered I love: bell lanterns. :) (below)

A bit too much white here (below), but I love the black against the white....and the copper pots. :)

Another one of my top favorites: Once again the beautiful grain of the wood is really brought out by the black. I think that grain in wood contains subtle, darker striating, which is accented when used near black. The wood alone would have melted mildly into the creamy white walls. But with black, I can see much more texture in the wood. Adding it to the ceiling, as well, is even BETTER.

I noticed, too, that the textures in the woven basket-like stool covers (above) and the baskets in the cabinets (below) were brought out by the black. LOVE.

Violetisms for Today

2011-04-20T11:12:00.001-07:00

It started out as an inspiring conversation about forgiveness.

She said, "Mommy, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to do that."

I said, "I forgive you."

She said, "You always forgive me. You always hassto forgive me. We always hassto forgive people."

I said, "Yes, do you know why?"

"No."

"Because God forgave us. We forgive people because God forgave us."

That's when it went off track. "I know dat. I don’t know everysing........I know addigators. I never seen addigators....I don’t know their names. Maybe one is named Francis."

Then it made another hairpin turn.

She looked at her feet.

"I always have sandals on. Like Jesus."

Quick Takes

2011-04-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

We've been doing a lot of talking and praying lately......and......

1. We decided we're going to be staying in Washington....post-military.
2. We are looking for a small lot in Lacey, WA (suburbs of Olympia) on which to build a home. (Ben's contract ends in April, 2010. We have one more year of paychecks, so we decided to start home-shopping now, before he faces a period of unemployment)
3. We will be building a house there. :)
4. We are selling our van to give us some capital to accomplish all of the above. ($14500, in case you're interested)
5. Ben is still in school, finishing up his second set of courses.
6. We quit Violet's ballet, because of her lack of ability to respect her (albeit not-very-good) teacher.
7. We are hoping to get her into some sports soon....perhaps soccer.
8. Grace is crawling
9. I sewed an entire dress for Violet....and it is FINISHED.
10. I am still teaching 4 students, and no more have signed on. There is still very little interest out here "in the country."
11. The new home plan we settled on has an office in the front of the house, which will become the piano studio. I cannot WAIT to get comfy in that room and start up a studio for real. My goal is about 10 hours a week, totaling 20 students. :)
12. The frenzy of planning has taken its toll on our family. I need to spend a lot of time in prayer to not become overwhelmed with this decision and all it means.

We would appreciate all your prayers.

Household Gods

2011-04-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

I recently was convicted about that feeling I kept getting at the end of every day, "Wow, where did the time go? I didn't get A.B. and C. done." In prayer one morning, God showed me that computer stuff was getting in my way. I think maybe stay-at-home moms everywhere can identify with this. We rule our own time...our work is "never done"....and the computer (with its promise of social interaction without ever leaving the house) is always there, within reach. With those 3 things creating the Perfect Storm, I got a little carried away with facebook and blogging....and internet shopping.......and reading up on other people's blogs....and photos.....

*sigh*

The morning I was referring to I was sitting in bed sort-of dreading the day coming up...with its promise of "I'll get that done this morning"....which always turns into "halfway through the afternoon and the breakfast dishes are still piled up." .......and then suddenly all the other things I had to do that day started barking at me from the sidelines, too. Laundry jeered from the hallway, bread demanded to be made, coffee begged to be roasted, and the guilt of not fixing my husband lunch to take to work started to creep up. From the distance I could see my sewing project waving to me sadly......instantly my hands went to my iPhone for "comfort" from social networking. These jobs were cracking the whip over my head, and I just wanted to retreat to something FUN!

In the midst of all this, a phrase started to form in my head........household gods........and I remembered the frequent referrals to them in the old testament as being something the Israelites turned to and then back to God....then back to the idols, then back to God. I realized I had set up my own household gods around me everywhere. Everywhere I turned, there they were, set up, commanding me to bow down. I let them rule me, and I forgot my First Love, Jesus Christ. I repented of this idolatry, and asked God to be first again. I prayed for the power to abide in Christ and bear fruit instead of worshipping at the feet of laundry and dishes....and facebook.

PS. That's one of the reasons I've been cyber-silent for a few days......more on the rest later.

Spring in Yelm

2011-03-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

Would you believe it if I told you I am sitting in our SUNNY backyard and typing this?? Yep...we have sunshine. :) And--it's 58 degrees out right now. AND--there are flowers on my plum tree! AND my husband is mowing our lawn for the first time all year! Oh, wait. That's my neighbor. We still haven't mowed our lawn.........

We just got back from a family walk to our tiny little "downtown" here in Yelm. We're about a 5 minute walk from "The Corner." There you can find "Prairie Lanes," the local bowling alley, "Prairie Dental," a home with a charming picket fence, blooming muscari, and perfectly combed pea gravel drive. The office is downstairs, the family lives upstairs. At the light is Tim's Pharmacy, and across the street from that is a framing shop/art gallery that offers art classes for children. Around the corner from Tim's is the White Horse Tavern, frequently populated by bikers, and down the road a bit of a drive is my favorite store of the year, "Bullfrogs & Butterflies," used kids' clothing & toys. Across from there is the Yelm Timberland Library, where Grace, Violet & I spend time every couple of weeks.

We walked past Cochran Memorial Park, where we fed the ducks during the winter.....

Tim's Pharmacy & Gifts was our destination for today....they just opened up "Holy Grounds" espresso shop (The name is actually reflective of the owners' religion; they consistently have scripture quoted on their digital sign in front of the store.) in the back, where they serve espresso creations made from Batdorf & Bronson roast. B&B roasters are one of the most famous names in Western Washington. We got REALLY lucky to have this place within walking distance of our little country home.

Tim's Pharmacy is one of my favorite stores in this small town. They have a GORGEOUS assortment of gift items, stuff you'd never expect to find in the middle of the prairie. They have everything you'd think, "I have to order that on the internet, no one local would carry that." For instance, the "Scrapbook Nook" was a huge surprise...a place I linger in for hours, if I have no children with me. They also have some very unique home decor stuff, too. I bought Violet & Grace's "jewel berries" here, which I used in their bedroom decor. Then there's the handmade truffles...not to mention the huge variety of gourmet teas & candies....oh yeah, Ben bought me my Willow tree birthday figurines here. :)

Anyway. Spring is here.

Ben is napping in the grass behind me....

Violet is barefooted.

I think I like this town today. Maybe we'll stay.....................

Baby Food 180

2011-03-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

I spent the morning..........drum roll................making BABY FOOD in my kitchen! I know, I know, I've been a Scoffer of those who slave away pureeing and straining away the day when Gerber's commercial kitchens do it far better, for far cheaper. Or, at least, it used to be cheaper.

When Violet was starting baby food, someone forwarded me an internet coupon that was for $1 off 2 double-packs of Gerber's organic baby food at Target. There was no limit. I used that coupon to buy her entire supply. I think I spent about $30, and Violet feasted on pureed goodness for over 2 months. I even had some left over to give away when Violet had moved on to fist-feeding.

I had read the ingredients labels, and realized there was no real difference between Gerber's foods and what I might prepare in my own kitchen. Gerber's carrots included: water, carrots. What more could you ask for? I wasn't concerned about the nutritional aspect at all. I just didn't want to take the time.

Now, it's 3 years later, and I have no coupon. The price of Everything has gone up, and baby food is WAYYYYY up. It's now $1.29 for a Gerber's double pack. NOT organic! Also, Grace is a much heavier eater than Violet was. For instance, her breakfast this morning consisted of the following:

1 whole banana
1 whole buttermilk wheat pancake
2 scrambled eggs
2 slices of pear

It would cost me around $60 a month to allow her to eat Gerber's every meal.

ANYHOW.

This morning, I prepared the following:

3 turnips
1 carrot
1/4 onion
2 T butter

(steamed, then mashed with the butter. No straining, she doesn't need it to be that smooth. *WHEW* at least I don't have to strain it, too!)

Cost: < $.50 This will last her 6 or more meals when paired with a protein and grain.

It was so delicious, I ate some myself!

Then I did a vegetable turkey broth blend:

turkey bouillon
1/2 red pepper
zucchini
onion
celery

Pureed, then, because it was too runny, slightly thickened with flour. Turned out not so great. The flour made it taste thick, not fresh & sunny like veggies should be. Also, the bouillon, I realized after, was too salty for baby food. Not a good choice. Oh well. Live and learn.)

Cost: $1.25~ It made enough to freeze and use for weeks to come. If I decide to use it....I'm also a little concerned about the wheat flour....

Next, I pureed some leftover brown rice to make a rice cereal, and added some butter.

NOTE: I read recently that pure butter is an easy way to add "good fats" to baby's diet. You can put it in just about anything...and they love the taste, of course. Raw butter is the best.....but I can't afford that, so I just add a dollop of Kirkland brand. ;)

Cost: negligible. (I buy rice in bulk from Costco, and it's pennies per pound.)

Then I roasted some sweet potatoes, mashed them with butter, and have about 6-8 meals' worth.

Cost: $1~

Finally, I pureed some leftover chickpea soup. Just a cup, to see how she digests it. I haven't done much with beans with her....they tend to be difficult to digest. But so far, her stomach has taken EVERYTHING....and loved it. :)

So I have a freezer/fridge full of baby food for 2-3 weeks, and spend under $5 on everything. I supplement with eggs and yogurt with her, too, but that's about it!

P.S. This food is becoming more of a necessity because of the breast milk issue. I know that 9 month olds are rarely eating so much solid food. We are still working on getting her to accept formula...having more success with raw cow's milk....but hopeful for mommy's milk in the long run.

Back In Business (Almost)

2011-03-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, y'all may have noticed I have been struggling with breastfeeding Grace recently.

Last Saturday night was the Time Change, and a combination of the lack of sleep, Grace's 2 top teeth coming in (and her refusing to nurse for 2 days because of the pain), and an unusually busy week to follow, caused me to drop in milk production drastically. Monday I began pumping with my manual pump, with zero results. I determined the suction just wan't hard enough to match Grace's 9-month old suction. I went ahead and started Grace on formula Tuesday (since she didn't seem to object to the bottle with her teething, just nursing), only to have her categorically refuse to drink it, in any form we could concoct. I had been introducing her little by little to cow's milk (raw) for the last 2 weeks, anyhow, so we just let her drink that and water for the rest of the week.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all insanely busy days for me....I barely had time to think about trying to pump or nurse or up my production at all. It wasn't helping at all, that's for sure...

Finally, I realized she wasn't going to start up again any time soon I capitulated on Wednesday night, and went out late that night to Wal-Mart to buy an electric pump, hoping it would match her strength. The most expensive one they had was barely producing anything. At this point, I didn't know whether I just had no milk, or my pump wasn't working. By Thursday, I was down to 1/4 oz. per pumping session. . Finally, Friday, I managed to see the lactation consultants at Madigan...who sent me home with a lovely (free) Medela double electric pump. I've been pumping 4-5 times a day, trying HARD to get it up to 8 times....as they recommended....and I'm taking fenugreek, drinking a LOT of water, & having a beer each evening.

So far, so good.

Milk production is definitely UP. I can mostly see an increase first thing in the morning during breastfeeding (Grace returned to nursing--but only when first waking up in the morning), and later at night when I pump. She will only consent to nursing once a day, and the other pumpings I just give her in a bottle. But I'm ok with pumping/bottle feeding. As long as she's receiving the health benefits, I can handle one nursing session a day.

I guess.

*sigh* My baby is growing up.

Sad Mommy

2011-03-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Ugh. Grace has been on a Nursing Strike since her top teeth started to pop out YESTERDAY. I have a pretty glum outlook on getting all the way to 12 months with breastfeeding her. She screams and thrashes and fights when I offer her nursing, and throws her head back and just CRIES....like I'm trying to harvest her organs or something. :(

She'll take a bottle, but I cannot pump at this late stage. I tried using my hand-pump yesterday and after a half an hour, I got about 2 tablespoons. I think it's because her suction level is so high that the manual pump is just not strong enough anymore. I am racking my brains to see if I know anyone who has an electric one I could borrow.....any offers?? Anyone??? I can't afford to shell out that kind of money to buy an electric one at this point...just for a few days (I hope). Right now, she's on raw cow's milk, and the occasional drip she gets from me before throwing her tantrum.

Sad, sad, sad Mommy. :(

Link Love

2011-03-12T08:37:00.000-08:00

I'm sending you over to my sister's blog today, for an inspiring word on Marriage. It rang true to me at a time where I'm feeling All Alone in treasuring the institution of marriage itself. Read and be inspired to continue the "good fight of faith" for your spouse....the reward is a little closer than heaven.

Butter & Other Oils

2011-03-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

This is kind of in response to Denise's comment about Lard. Just a quickie, since I don't have much time today....I'm making gnocchi for dinner for the first time (in an attempt to try a "healthier" pasta...another topic of conversation amongst friends recently!!) and need plenty of time for mistakes!

I was reading up on butter to make sure I had this all straight. The thing about lard is, it has a pretty high smoke point. You can go ahead and heat it up and, unlike butter, it's not going to brown or burn before your veggies are done. Now, there are a lot of other oils out there that have higher smoke points (macadamia nut, for instance), but are also very high in saturated fats.

In my personal experience with lard, you can cook veggies faster in lard, and they remain a beautiful "fresh" texture inside, while being hot and crisp on the outside, rather than getting "butter-logged" and wilted as with butter. I notice this particularly with asparagus...which has those delicate "buds" on the tips. Butter tends to saturate into it, making the buds nearly soggy before the rest of the stem has cooked, whereas lard kind of speed-sears the whole thing super-fast. It tastes more asparagus-y. :) Also fried eggs in lard are SOOO much more Egg-y, and less crispy, overcooked on the bottom-y. I have NO trouble getting them to go over-easy with lard, too, though I do with butter.

SO! Trying to find the best oil for your meal, you should consider a couple of charts.

Actually, Denise is right. The olive oil smoke point is pretty high, and it has a pretty low saturated fat content, as well. It's a good combination for the most part. The only time I hesitate to grab my bottle of EVOO from the cabinet is when taste comes into play. I can always tast that Mediterranean earthy flavor in whatever I cook when I use EVOO. My substitutes so far have been butter (low temps, of course) on things like fish and sauteed carrots (which I like to soften a bit before they're ready to eat), coconut oil (unrefined) for desserts, and my newest experiment, safflower oil. I absolutely ADORE coconut oils for confections. Anything sweet--cakes, cupcakes, scones, etc....it's a DREAM oil. It makes cake crumbs glisten! :) :) :) I'm still not sure about the safflower oil. It seems totally flavorless, and I don't always want a lack of flavor. However, I did use it in the last batch of pancakes I made. I didn't notice any difference in flavor between them and the coconut oil batch.

I know coconut oil gets a bad rap sometimes, but if you use the unrefined stuff, it has a much lower saturated fat content than the refined stuff. Plus, it has a special antimicrobial chemical in it called lauric acid, which is also found in breast milk. Good for you, basically.

Ok, that's my Two Cents So Far. :)

Lard

2011-03-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

I found a VERY interesting article from Food & Wine magazine on Lard, the rejected fat. I just want to know, though.....do any of you use it? Would you after reading this article? I have looked for it in my grocery store, and can only find the partially hydrogenated kind. Once I tried rendering it myself, but my pot is not heavy enough, and overheated it much too quickly. I ended up with smoky, pork-flavored grease, and some delicious pork cracklings. Too bad. :(

Violet Said

2011-03-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

I thought I might as well share the little book I've started. We began capturing things Violet said over the last week, and have quite a few started up already. (Some Ben wrote, some I wrote.)

Enjoy!

25 Feb 11

Me: I want to eat your ears.

Violet: No, you hassta eat food!

Me: But your ears are so tasty! And they're nice and cold.

Violet: But---Dey're not sup-PO-sed to be cold!

"I don't like those pants because they are so long. And I am so short. My skin is so short. LIke the saggy baggy elephant. I'm so wrinkled!"

26 Feb 11

Violet, overheard playing many characters in the closet: "You don’t know everyssing. Yes, I do! You’re not GOD! Yes, I know everyssing, like GOD! You’re NOT de bess mother in the werd. So--GUBYE!"

"Do you know!! that my Momma said I could roll my pants up in the store.....cuz dey were seven dollars!" (they were seven dollars....I don't know how she knew that...)

(She was hoarse from being sick) “I have a.......a.........bran' new voice!”

28 Feb 11

“Mommy, do you love your churdren?” Yes, I do love my 2 girls very much!” “Will you love your two boys when dey come?”

2 Mar 11

Sobbed: “Daddy, you broke.....my happiness.” upon receiving a spanking.

“I open cookies cuz dey’re yum inside!” upon getting two Oreos.

“Wow, you look a little stupid. Mommy, you look a little stupid and a little pretty.” upon seeing Susi dressed up in spandex to go running.

3 Mar 11

“Daddy, when you were sleeping, you put stinky breath in my air.” after spending the night with me (on the same pillow) because of a bad dream.

“Mommy, do you know girls have to match and boys have to match?” (The reason we have to have 2 more brothers for her.)

“You don’ like diss one, do you mom? You hate dis one. Becuz you has to be still.” while I was doing the plank during morning exercise.

5 March 11

During prayer time this morning: "Please hep my mommy not to be grouchy when she's exu-sizin' "

I told her I was too busy to listen: “The truth is, I just can’t concentrate on what you’re saying...” Violet: “ *sigh* Aright, enough truff.”

Growing Up

2011-03-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

Violet's newest task this week was to learn how to load the dishwasher. I'm constantly amazed at how interested she continues to be in doing "chores." I hated chores growing up....

There's a principle in Suzuki pedagogy that says, "If the parent continues to show excitement with a child's new skill, and even after hundreds of repetitions never shows boredom or indifference, the child will continue to be as excited about and dedicated to the skill as when it was brand new." (paraphrased)

How true this is in every aspect of child-training! If I continue to praise, show interest in, and affirm her work, she wants to make it a "surprise" every time! When she puts all her clothes away in her drawers with *none* sticking out, "Close your eyes, Mom," she says, "It's a surprise!" I tell her I'm amazed and so SO pleased with how well she did. She does a happy dance, and bounces around the room. :)

So far her daily tasks include:

dressing herself (tights, socks, everything)
clearing the breakfast table & wiping it down
Loading the dishwasher (still with help), adding soap, starting it
Sorting and putting away the clean silverware
flossing/brushing teeth
setting the table for meals, including napkins
getting her own drinks, except milk (gallon jug)
sorting laundry (darks, whites)
giving herself a bath (except hairwash)
donning pajamas
*VERY important* Playing with Grace in the mornings till Mommy & Daddy wake up. :)

That last one was a HUGE accomplishment for us. Ben & I very much enjoy our mornings together, now that he's home for breakfast-time, and not being awakened by bouncing children at 7AM has been great!!! Violet keeps Grace occupied in their room with toys & water-bottle till about 7:45 when we get up and greet them. She is VERY good at this...we barely hear a peep from them before we're up on our own. I highly recommend this to other parents!!

I love my little precious Violet.

On Sugar

2011-03-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

So, I've blogged in the past about my attempts to "Health-i-fy" our lives. Specifically, in the food department, I've been quite fluctuating, because of the higher prices I encounter the more "pure" I go. Organic brands, local options, raw and fresh are all 2-10 times the price of run-of-the-mill grocery store items. One of the things I keep going round and round on is sugar. Ben is taking a nutrition course and has concluded (based on what he's read) that basically most sugars are processed the same way in the body (glucose being the basic concept for "sugar"). Raw sugars, organic sugars, unrefined turbinado sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar, ......it's all going to go to energy and out the body in heat in the end.

Up until now, I had been buying what I thought was unrefined, less-processed organic sugar at $.79 a pound from C*stco. Regular Wal-Mart white sugar is more like $.29 a pound. Then, I read an article by Sally Fallon (related to the Weston A. Price Foundation) which said that those ones you buy like "Sugar in the Raw" and "Cane Crystals" and what-not are all just regular white sugar with a spot of molasses poured back in to make it look browner and "healthier." Basically, they're just dyed white, refined sugar. She advocated (if you use sugar at all) using a product called "Rapadura" which is actually unrefined cane sugar. You can read about it here. However, it costs $6 a POUND. We used it mostly up in my birthday cake....which is a hard thing to take. I don't think that's a luxury we can afford, if that's the only healthy way to consume sugar.

Yesterday, I bought my first 5 pound bag of wal-Mart white sugar in 3 years. :( It looks so.....evil and glowing-ly white sitting in my glass canister on the counter. My teeth start to feel gritty and ache a little just when I look at it!!

At any rate...

I need to know what's what in the sugar world. I know random facts about sugar....and I know there are a lot of expensive and not-so-expensive options to sugar....but I'm not sure which way to go, yet. I'm not totally ready to give up sugar, either. Especially not with my new ice cream maker. :)

Tell me what you use in your kitchen, why you use it, and how you feel about it in terms of your family's health.

Then and Now.

2011-02-28T13:01:00.000-08:00

Years ago.....we visited the Carousel at the Zoo.

And then again this past Saturday. :)

How time does fly....

Over the Weekend

2011-02-28T09:47:00.001-08:00

I guess it was shooting a little high to expect I could post over the weekend, but I still beat myself up for not trying. ;) You're welcome.

We decided to have a traditional Saturday this week, and plan a fun outing together, shop a little, and eat out for dinner. It hasn't happened in a while, because Ben is in school, now. He tends to be "here, but not here" on the weekends. Though we're technically free to do what we want, he usually has some chapters to read, leftover from the week. Saturdays kind-of run into the weekdays, now. (Like "normal people," I'm told.)

We braved it to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. It was pretty awesome. We saw some of the native NW creatures in the cold, wet environment they were probably used to. By the time we left, it was--appropriately--snowing.

We saw a very cool Cuttlefish, doing its thing: (surprise ending, watch the whole thing!)

We also said hello to the walruses, and one of them came right up and said, "Hello" back to us!

We ended the day at the Tacoma Mall, where Ben collected his "reward" for being a satisfied customer with AT&T: a "microcell tower" which brings 100% bars of service to our phones when being used in our home.

We finished with supper at BJ's Brewhouse , and then shopped around for some killer deals at H&M, picked up my birthday coupon's-worth at Victoria's Secret, and made our way home by evening. It was an awesome day! And a very good excuse for not posting. :)

Sunday after church, we were invited to our pastor's home for an impromptu lunch, and ended up staying most of the afternoon with the girls, just talking, laughing, taking it easy. It was like---ALMOST like---being at home with family. I can't say how much I appreciate this church right now. It has us almost feeling like we have a real home here.

Today's agenda: making invitations to an Irish tea party for some church ladies. :)

Life. (and Death)

2011-02-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well, my Grandmother passed away on my birthday. She was "not responding" in the last hours, and my parents and sister were there with her, and called me to talk to her. I was told she responded to my voice, and Violet's voice by starting to breath more quickly (more than 10x per minute), and her pulse went up, also. I was glad to have one last chance to let her know I love her. I can't imagine how she is right now....outside of Time and Age......somewhere in the presence of Jesus, feeling fresh and fast and limber.

Her life was a sweet fragrance. Her presence was never often enough....and always, always a complete delight. I can't say this about many people I've known in my life, but I never knew her to cause discomfort or grief to anyone. She was a completely gracious and tenderhearted woman. As I said in my last post, I'll never be able to say enough about her, and the Rich Blessing she was.

All my piano lessons were paid for by her, all my life. Then when I went on to receive teacher training, it was all funded by her, as well. I owe all that to her.

I can't help but to be warmed by the significance of her leaving on my birthday. I'm honored. We had one final celebration, then on to Heaven. (But I wish I could have been there)

Sadly, I spent many hours yesterday and today trying to find a way to make it to the funeral, then heard the disheartening news that it had been moved a day earlier, Saturday at 2. I am not going to be able to make it. I can't leave Grace, and I can't take her on an all-night flight. :(

Today and tomorrow are going to be hard. I already am experiencing regret at having decided not to go. I really, really want to be there. I really want to honor her memory. I want to see the faces of her family, and mourn & celebrate with them. I want to play for her service.....to thank her, in that way.....for all my talent is because of her generous heart. And she loved to hear me play.

*sigh*

Still, I know she'd want me to stay home, and not try to brave the airports & weather and do all that driving just to make it there in time for her funeral. She hated risk. ;) She worried a lot about our safety while traveling.

I guess this is just Life.....interrupting and being annoying......even in the face of Death. I just have to sit at home and twiddle my thumbs and get on with my life. She's gone from here, now.....and I'm sure it doesn't make a difference to her whether I'm here or in Virginia during her funeral. But I now have another thing to grieve.

Birthday's Eve

2011-02-23T08:42:00.001-08:00

Here's Present #2, so timely delivered after a restless night's sleep, and too-early awakening by baby girls.

I intend to soak thoroughly once the girls are napping. :)

Backsliding Already

2011-02-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

Despite my promises to post something "less melancholy" yesterday, I managed to let the whole day slide by without writing. Well, my excuses are these:

1. Ben took the laptop with him for school and didn't get back till the afternoon.

2. I ended up on the phone with a friend for a delightful 2+ hours of pure TALK (which hasn't happened to me in years)

3. I had some serious planning to do regarding groceries/budgeting.

About that last one: Gas is up to $3.29 here, and soars to $3.45 in some "elite" gas stations, and I have had to reconsider some things. For instance: Costco is a cheap way to buy bulk, quality items. But we live 30 minutes from said store, so I have to figure in the massive $5-$6 that trip alone is going to cost me. I know that sounds little, but when talking groceries here, cents usually inspire us to make our choices. Remember?

I had been spreading our shopping out and going only every 2 weeks to avoid the frequent driving, but that has resulted in the loss of a lot of fresh produce. I was throwing lettuce out every week...and usually other things, as well. I'm going to try to streamline a bit, and do some intensive meal-planning. My friend, Laurie, does her shopping that way. She plans out every meal, has sandwiches at lunch, and buys only exactly the ingredients she needs to cook those meals (plus lunchmeat & bread).

We only have a Wal-Mart and a Safeway nearby. I'm LOATHE to shop at WalMart--not just because of the stigma, but the quality of their stuff is usually pretty low. Especially produce. Where would I LIKE to shop, you ask? Trader Joe's, Farmer's Market, and WINCO!!

I HEART WINCO!!

But all these places are 30 minutes plus from me.

Anyhow, a few weeks will show whether my micro-managing style will do it for us. I'll post later what I decide to do about Costco, too. Renew or not renew....

This Blog

2011-02-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

It dawned on me that the Golden Rule should apply to blogging. I am so disappointed when my friends don't post for a while....and I rarely have the time to call them to catch up or chat. So, this is my attempt at reaching back out to those of you whom I haven't heard enough about in a while. I'm still here...and I'm going to be writing more often. I hope that you reciprocate!

So, just a peek into the "window into my life" that my sidebar profile promises is there: My grandmother is dying. Her birthday is tomorrow....mine is Thursday. We are very close. We have always tried to celebrate our birthdays together.....usually with daffodils present.

She is like me. We love flowers....we are both taken up with beautiful things. Her home, when I was a child, was like a museum made for little girls. There were cast-iron birds hovering over glass vases in her living room. There were little dwarves carved from wood hiding on the mantlepiece. There were cinnamon graham crackers in a special drawer that she showed me when my mom wasn't looking. "You know where they are, now" she said. She had a magnificent sheepskin rug in her bedroom that we used to lie on in wonderment at the luxury.....after naptime. Her bedroom had sliding glass doors out onto a patio that overlooked, not a yard, but the woods. Her woods were quiet, mystical, scented, and if you stepped carefully, you might find precious moss, or lenten roses, or pixies.

Birds flocked to her feeders in the picture window. Her home was magical...it had windows in all the right places, letting in just the right light, and displaying exactly what you wanted to see.

The deck in the back smelled of cantaloupe rind, and promised picnics and sunshine and Breyer's vanilla ice cream.

Grandma is the most kind, gracious, gentle, smiling, and beautiful woman I have ever known. I never once in my life saw her become angry. She was very wise. She used to send us money at Christmas and our birthdays.....but when we became old enough to understand, she sent her money to foreign countries to buy goats and heifers for the impoverished people there, sending us the notifications in the mail instead. We were disappointed, slightly, but we understood....and we respected her.

....there was a forest of camellia bushes in her yard/woods. She would take us there and wander about, seeing which one was about to divulge its blooms. There was no grass at Grandma's house. She lived in the woods. With the lillies and the birds.

I grieve as she wanes.....for though I know it's impossible, I had the silly hope that one day my daughters would have her, too. I want her for them. There is no other Grandma like her. Precious lady.

*sigh* I didn't start out wanting to write about her, since I know there are not enough words to tell who she was and what she meant to me. Dear, dear lady. But, that is the way of fingers that type and words and thoughts, I guess.....

More tomorrow. Not so melancholy.

Everything is Changing

2011-02-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

I recently told a friend I had quit telling everyone our plans for the upcoming year....because they keep changing. We don't know what we're going to do when we grow up yet.

Just 6 short months ago, I welcomed my husband into our new home, after having given birth to our 2nd child, moved cross-country, and said Hello Again to the military. We (mercifully) found a wonderful church immediately, settled into a routine, and new school schedule (Ben is home a lot), had our first Christmas here, and.....promptly began talking about moving and changing jobs.

The military offers us certain paychecks and certain deployments. Getting out gives us Uncertainty. It may provide freedom to decide on a job that both satisfies & provides. It may not promise us proximity to our family, but it will definitely give us more time as a family. No other job outside the military demands 12-15 months of family separation. BUT, this "other job" may not exist. We may never find it...the Recession might keep jobs, money, and housing (not to mention a church & good community) from us for....who knows how long?

We have a conversation about Options almost every day. One day we'll feel we're leaning towards re-enlisting, the next we'll feel comfortable about even Poverty outside the military--"as long as we're together."

In the mean-time, we take our lives one day at a time here. We enjoy our church family, invite people over, talk about our friendships, and I continue advertising for the studio. I think privately, we both know in our hearts that we'll not be able to predict what we're going to do in 12 months, when our ETS date strikes. The piano students may or may not come....the job we're hoping for may or may not present itself on the east coast. We may or may not have to tell our friends here Goodbye. AGAIN. But the long talks we had will come as a comfort to us later, once we've made our decision. "Well, we did talk about it a LOT. We did the best we could," we'll tell ourselves.

It's difficult to have these conversations about the future. I fight with the reality of letting go of our little community we're rooting into right now. I want to watch my friends' children grow up. I want to become accustomed to Thursday night rehearsals, Wednesday night home group, and Tuesday teaching. I REALLY don't want to move again.

But I miss my friends on the east coast, too. And my family.

Even if we move to Virginia, it might not last. If Ben pursues a job with the F.B.I., they might move us anywhere in the CONUS for his first assignment. Two years, we will have spent in Va. with our family, finishing up school.

So, like I said. It's one day at a time. I hosted a Valentine's party this past Monday. It was exciting meeting new friends, seeing old ones, and getting to know their kids (again). I pushed aside the thoughts (as always) of how temporary these relationships are....and pretended for a bit......that this was our Home.

I guess, (as always) I am longing for Heaven, when all my relationships are eternal, and everyone I love will always be present.

So you were wondering about soy....

2011-01-10T11:33:00.001-08:00

I found a pretty succinct write-up of the problems with soy. From Tom Valentine's True Health:

"Vegetarians have long championed soy foods as the "ideal" source of protein despite the scientific facts that disprove the notion. Textured soy protein, which is more widely used in packaged and refined foods and meat products (hamburger extender) than most of us ever imagined, now has three antinutrients that should make anyone think twice before making it a major part of the diet. The three antinutrients are: (1) a large amount of phytic acid, which binds up and prevents absorption of minerals, especially zinc, calcium, and magnesium needed by the body; (2) trypsin inhibitors, which cannot be refined out of the soy mash (trypsin is an important enzyme in digestion); (3) isoflavones, genestein and daidzein, three phytochemicals that have now been shown to have antithyroid activity.... [Researchers found] that soy isoflavones, which are now being especially hyped for possible anticancer activity, are the most potent of the thyroid inhibitors followed by daidzein and then genistein. In a previous study, the team of plant chemical researchers had found similar antithyroid activity in some known bioflavanoids, including...quercertin. Most of the bioflavanoids, however, have not been found to inhibit thyroid function to any detrimental degree....No other dietary staple has so many antinutrient drawbacks as soy. Conversely, no other food has so many public relations firms and lobbyists working for it."

This may be difficult to read, but go over it carefully. If you can get through it and retain it, it should stick with you when you're looking at ingredient labels in the grocery store, and you see soy products listed there. Those are just the antinutrients, too; the worst of the products. There's also the high estrogen content worth considering.

This Just Happened

2011-01-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

Violet was sassy.

Her daddy reached for the wooden spoon.

Violet said, "Umm.....Daddy, I have sum-sin to say to you. I'm gonna say, 'Yes, Sir.'" "Yes sir."

Ben was quietly contemplating this. I was trying to stifle laughter.

Violet looked quizzically at him and said, "Are....you sinkin' Sinkin' about it?"

Ben say, "Welllll.....yes. Yes, I am."

*Siiiigh* "Oh good."

And, she walks off.

I crack up.

The Grass Is Greener

2010-12-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

This green and gray is starting to get me down in ways being snowed in for 6 weeks last winter never did. It's a strange thing to have my back yard frozen in an absurd green shade....never needing to be mowed for weeks and weeks and weeks.....topped off by the eternal grayness of the sky. It's almost as if someone has a painted a picture of a rainy summer day, and plastered it to my window for the last 3 months. The sun reluctantly reveals the rain at 8 AM, and hastens away to sunnier parts of the world at 4 PM. The "air of coziness" within our home has been replaced by full spectrum light bulbs which burn away the darkness after 4 to help out with S.A.D., and give our home the advantage over the outdoors....its brighter inside than outside. Weird. Just weird.

Christmas was, for us, a few days of rushing around realizing we had no idea how to do Christmas with our family. It's the first one we've spent at home together, other than the one when Violet was 2 weeks old, and we were all sick. Ben has spent 2 Christmases in Iraq, and we spent the other two with family. By December 22 all we had was a tree. No presents or food. We decided to make a run for it, and do everything. I shopped for him, he shopped for Violet and me...I bought food.....I cooked all day, glad for the distraction (from boredom) and he wrapped presents, and we finally stuffed the stockings Christmas Eve. I had cooked all day, and wanted a break, so we went out for sushi Christmas Eve, and decided to make it a tradition. The restaurant was so empty, it echoed as we walked in, and the server looked at us almost in disbelief. We had Christmas Eve communion at church....it was way too short! We left church reluctantly, disappointed no one there looked like they needed an invitation to Christmas dinner. So we headed home.....to our little house which glowed so brightly with its full spectrum light bulbs.

Christmas morning we were awakened by Violet at 6:30 AM. This was the bright spot in our Blasé Holiday. It was awesome to see the delight in our little girls' faces ......even Gracie was in love with her Bunny. (though moreso the wrapping paper from all the presents). I cooked the entire rest of the day, and we feasted on 11 different dishes that night. I cooked because.....well, there was nothing else to do.

Yes, this all sounds a bit sad. But it kind of was. We talked to our family on the phone, and listened longingly to the background noise of cousins and babies and teasing grandparents....and it was hard. It's hard not to have it all. To be home last Christmas with cousins and everybody.....was awesome. But there was an Ache, knowing Ben was not there. This Christmas, we had Ben.....but no one else. It wasn't as bad, but it was still lonely. I'm amazed at the power Family has over our lives. You just don't realize it until it's missing.

For now, I just can't wait to take the tree down and get back to work. I have scheduled Dr. appointments for all of us in the upcoming weeks. Ben will start school tomorrow, and we leave town for my aunt's in Vancouver Thursday. Stay busy, forget how far the east coast is. And Florida. That's my goal. The grass is always greener.....well, it's greener here in Washington than anywhere on EARTH....but it doesn't help. The sky is still grey. And my house glows brighter than the sun.

Something Important

2010-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Since giving birth to Violet 4 years ago, and beginning my own experiences with breastfeeding, I have been on a journey that not many women have experienced. Here's how I finally googled it: "Why do I feel so sad when I breastfeed?"

I read a lot of books and articles on breastfeeding, heard a lot of chatter from friends, all full of the gushing warmth of how special the bond was, how amazing the rush of hormones....the preciousness, the glow, etc. I usually just nodded and thought, "I've got to get in better tune with my feelings about this." I'm usually one to push aside discomfort rather than confront and define it.

What I experienced during breastfeeding was a rush of sadness, deeply painful vulnerability, hopelessness.....and a lot of other negative emotions. I struggled hard to control these feelings and not let them affect my feelings towards my babies.....but I couldn't help just pulling them off my breast after a certain amount of time. Both my girls learned to be super-fast nursers.

I never put it into words.....until the other night. I definitely tend to be slow about these kinds of things. It may seem ridiculous, but after 12 months of breastfeeding Violet, and 6 months of breastfeeding Grace, I finally asked the question, "Is this normal?" Turns out, it's not. Or at least, it's not "healthy" normal. It happens to other women. It's called, D-MER. Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex. And people should know about it. If you're reading this, please tuck away this information and be ready to pull it out in conversation if someone you know mentions something about dysphoria during nursing. It helps to know you're not crazy. :)

Here's the link

Here's some basic information.

Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex is a newly recognized condition affecting lactating women that is characterized by an abrupt dysphoria, or negative emotions that occur just before milk release and continuing not more then a few minutes. The negative emotions, or dysphoria, that a mother with D-MER experiences oftenmanifest "in the mother's stomach" - a hollow feeling, a feeling like there is something in the pit of the stomach, or an emotional churning in the stomach. Mothers report varying types of emotions with D-MER ranging from dread to anxiety to anger, these emotions fall on the D-MER spectrum which has three different levels. The common thread between these levels, is the wave of negative emotions or dysphoria, prior to letdown, when nursing, expressing and with spontaneous letdowns, that then lifts within another 30-90 seconds, and then usually repeats with each letdown.

A key piece of D-MER is that a mother with D-MER feels absolutely fine except just before her milk starts to flow. D-MER is a brief feeling, not more than 30 seconds to 2 minutes, only and always beginning before let-down. This is not postpartum depression and most of these mothers feel perfectly fine except for that pre-milk moment. A brief interval after the negative feelings appear, the milk begins to flow.

Simply put: D-MER is physiological, not psychological. It is hormones, not past experience or repressed memories, that cause it.

We're quite sure now that D-MER is linked to a drop in dopamine that seems to occur whenever milk is released. In a mother with D-MER at the time of letdown dopamine falls inappropriately, causing negative feelings. All of the suggestions made for treating D-MER are based on our belief that transiently inadequate dopamine is responsible.

It's time for a new post

2010-11-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

Time flies! No better way to express that than by telling how your children have grown...

Grace is very close to being able to sit up on her own. We still keep the boppy behind her, but she almost doesn't need it. She's in LOVE with food....we started her on some baby food...earlier than I'd wanted, but it seemed to help with my slow-to-keep-up milk supply during a growth spurt. She now will consume 3 jars or more at each meal. :) She is a crazy-enthusiastic learner. We began some "don't touch" training this past week, and she's already learned to obey that one! It's so precious to gain obedience from your child....it just makes me want to give her ANYTHING SHE WANTS!! She loves to taste everything, meet new faces...(new mouths, especially, since she wants to stick her eager hands into eveyrones mouths)

Her smile is breathtaking...and we all perform for her for the benefit of it. Especially her big sister, Violet. :)

Violet began some pre kindergarten this fall. A big workbook from Costco helped out a lot...it gave me some much-needed confidence to dive into homeschooling, too. We don't know yet, if we'll always keep her home schooled, since she is such a people-lover, and would ADORE being in a classroom. :) Tonight she has her first ballet class since moving here, and we're all excited to watch that.

Violet is soaking in the company of her father. She absolutely adores him. I get to feast my eyes on the long-awaited sights of the Girls bonding with their Daddy...and I almost forget the 2 1/2 years of separation.

We returned from block leave...well.....exhausted, pretty much! Time zone changes are never worse than when you have children.....ugh. We're still, if you can believe it, unpacking. Ben brought back a trailer from Va. with a lot more of our belongings on it that had been stored at Mom's. It has filled our poor garage to nearly overflowing...and we're just now starting to let things trickle inside. It's good to have a couple more pieces of furniture, tho...the house was a bit sparse!

I'm full steam ahead with my piano studio...bringing in the kids as fast as possible. That has turned out to be a very slow pace, however, what with very low interest in the ads I've placed. I feel we as a society might be at a strange place in advertising....between newsprint ad and internet ad. No one reads newsprint anymore....but not everyone looks online for services. Still, I decided to just go ahead and create a website. Our church also offered to help out with advertising.

Yes...our church......thank GOD for the Body of Christ. He has placed us in a wonderfully flourishing church, which we both felt instantly at home in, first Sunday we were there. We went to home group this past week, too, and felt welcomed in, and right at home. Looking forward to possibly....well.......long-ish term involvement there. Praying about ways to get involved too, even with little ones.

Ben begins ALC next week. It goes through thanksgiving, but should be a "gentlemans course" where he's allowed to come home at night. After that, it's SCHOOL! I'm looking forward to that....and weighing our options for exiting the Army. We are both a little curious what Civillian life for the Forshey family would look like.

Theres so much unknown in our future....we have no idea where in the entire world we'll be...what we'll be doing.....there's just this big blank. We are going to have to totally rely on the Lord for very clear guidance.

It's a New Era.

The Last 5 Weeks

2010-10-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

That title is in reference to Pregnancy. Any woman knows the last 5 weeks are the HARDEST, no matter how sick you were in the first weeks....the last 5 are the hardest to wait.

I find it interesting that the Promise of Redemption for the Human Race was finally fulfilled in the form of a pregnancy. A Divine Pregnancy. It wasn't like, a Divine Earthquake or something instantaneous. It was a 9-month, very gradual thing. Mary had to wait those last 5 weeks just like anyone.

These days, man...the waiting....the waiting is killing me!

(We're reading Luke in church these days)

An angel visited Mary; it was awesome. He appeared to her in an amazing display of Miraculous God-ness!! Direct from God on His throne, came Gabriel. He gave Mary the message, revealing that He had not forgotten about the suffering of the Human Race after all. Look! Mary! God is choosing you to help fulfill all the prophesies of the Jewish faith for hundreds of years! The world will rejoice with you at this blessed fulfillment of the promise of God! FINALLY! The Curse has been broken!

Then......the angel goes away.

Month after month goes by...........her feet swell........her stomach gets pushed aside, and she has horrible heartburn.......her nose swells.......her belly expands...the stretch marks appear........and there are still 5 blasted weeks left till this baby pops out!

Ughhhhh. Pregnancy.......waiting.......it's compared to the groaning and agony of the earth awaiting its final redemption. (Romans 8:22) I remember getting to the point where I would begin to doubt the baby was EVER going to pop out. REALLY!! I know it sounds ridiculous, but......it happens!! I know, too.....in my heart......I begin to wonder if Jesus will ever return, and wipe the rest of the tears from my eyes, heal the hurt of the curse, and bring us all Home to be reunited with our families.

The waiting......man, the waiting is hard.

*******************

I was thinking about all this, and staring out the window at the unusually bright PNW sun this afternoon, and Violet said, "What's wrong, Mom?"

I said, bluntly, "I'm thinkin' about Jesus, and when He's going to come back here and take us all to Heaven."

"Oh!! Is He comin' TODAY???"

"Well.....*ahem* ....maybe He is. I don't really know. He said He's coming.....soon."

It was pretty easy for her to believe......I mean, she asks me every morning if her daddy is coming home soon today. I answer, yes....and she believes me....because he does. I should be right there with her, believing that God, even moreso than Ben, is capable of coming Right Now.

I really hope we are living in the "Last Five Weeks."

Family Life

2010-09-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

These days are pretty awesome.....barring the periodic surfacing of painful memories and missing my East Coast Friends (see last 2 posts), we have a pretty idyllic family life right now.

Ben is only working till noon on most weekdays. We've also had a few random "DONSA's" and 4-day weekends. The girls are loving all the attention from their daddy. Violet said this morning, "Where's my daddy?" I said, "He's at work today." "Will he be gone for'longtime?" "No, he'll be back at lunch." Long pause...........*mutters* "He does that a lot." It's easy to get spoiled by this holiday-like lifestyle right now. We ADORE having him around so much! Violet is completely a Daddy's Girl, and Gracie flirts with him every waking moment. :)

Ben started "coaching" me through some Crossfit workouts yesterday. It left me pretty whipped. I thought I was doing well with 3-mile runs until 10 minutes (Yes, TEN) left me wobbly in the legs, and pretty Ouchy the morning after. I'm looking forward to beating this workout, tho. As long as my milk supply doesn't suffer.....I plan to rock it out with Crossfit! Size 6 jeans, I am coming for you!!!

Did I mention I'm loving our new "Home Life"? I really, really am. Setting up house has been mega-fun for me. I adore cooking again for our family.....and have done a couple of overhauls of our nutritional habits (which included a lot of peanut butter sandwiches). We found a local butcher shop (really, just a couple miles from here) and bought a quarter cow, and half a pig to store in our freezer. I am amazed how cheap it is to get meat that way. It's all grass-fed, too! I also ended up with some of the less-popular stuff like lard, organs, etc, which I plan on learning to use. I hear liver, especially, is a nutrient-rich food--especially for growing kids. I'm going to try my hand at rendering lard, too. I read some interesting articles about lard being a much healthier source of "oil".....better than the heavily processed canola/vegetable oils. Also, CHEAP. (and tasty!!)

We also started buying raw milk. My mother-in-law went on a raw milk diet with very dramatic results, and that, coupled with our recent studies on body-building nutrition, convinced me it was worth it to go that route, even though it costs over $9 a gallon. Reading up on Crossfit.com's website, I found some pretty harsh criticisms of alcohol-consumption while working out. We decided it would be nutritionally smart to swap out our weekend whisky sours for raw milk in our diet. It was a 1 for 1 swap, price-wise. :) (No, we're not alcoholics, we just like to chill with a drink now and then!)

Also, it turns out that raw milk is hugely beneficial to muscle growth. It turns out it has a 70% higher protein content than the "perfect protein," egg whites. We're sold. And, it tastes really good!

Moving on.

Soon, we will be hopping on a Space-A flight to Virginia! Block Leave starts on October 8th. We'll be spending a few days with Ben's side of the family, then moving down to my side in Southern Va. We have plans to make it as far south as Greenville, NC to see my grandmother, then we zip back up to Williamsburg for a little touring vacation. I'm looking forward to that. We have reservations at a very nice bed & breakfast cottage. :) All this time we'll be driving around our new X-Terra, freshly picked-up from the dealership where it has been waiting for Ben since May..... Poor Ben. He gets heart palpitations every time we pass an X-Terra, and starts panting like an overheated dog. :P He's very much looking forward to his Man-Truck. He was kind enough to buy me the van first.....and now he's got his Reward!

We had originally planned to drive cross-country again with our girls in the X-Terra. However.....between budgeting for said trip, and perusing plane ticket websites......we found it was going to be hundreds cheaper for Ben to do the trip himself, extra-fast, while the girlies and I flew back on a super-cheap ticket we found. SOOoooo.......*looks sheepish*..........once again, we find we have changed our plans! Violet & Grace & I will be staying one extra week at Mom's while Ben drives back. We'll meet him at Seattle airport on Nov. 1st instead.

We're just never quite as rich as we think we are.

Maybe one day......we can actually afford a Real Vacation.......like, to a "Destination".......complete with tour guides, famous places, cool accommodations, and yummy local food. The Army kinda forces our hand......by moving us so far away that we have to go visit our family any time we have Leave.

Ok, Work is calling.....it sounds like......"Mommy---I goed Poo!" :)

I must vanish back to my coffee-scented home with my little girlies and my sweet husband.

The Unpacking...

2010-09-21T15:30:00.001-07:00

Since last post, I have been in a spiritual place of "Diagnosis/Analysis/Research." Over the last year, and especially the summer, I experienced so much: life, death, parting, and reunion. So much of the spiritual significance of these events caused so much pain in me, and my natural reaction to pain is to compartmentalize it. So....essentially.....when my poor husband reappeared, home from Iraq, I was a total compartmentalized mass, very tightly wound, emotional, and difficult to analyze.

I wrote the last post right before Ben arrived, and it was the first clue to unravelling the mass of Life and God that has been hurled at me over the year. My study of Genesis truly shed the first light of understanding of all This. The Curse--that is so real (Oh! Do you remember that Eve, the first mother of All the Living....had her son slain by her other son in a fit of jealousy? Oh, that pain!) ...... and, my cry for the Cure to be expressed in my life.

Since moving out here, and mourning the departure from my Virginia home, I've settled in, and recovered my mothering instincts. I have opened my eyes a bit, and noticed that they have been closed for a while....and I looked down to see my (emotional) fists clenched pretty tightly. This whirlwind of events has put me into a very protected, compartmentalized, "Survival" mode, and it has been a slow, tedious process getting out of it. But I have begun to let the light come into my eyes a little deeper. I have breathed. I have taken note of my surroundings. I see my children, now. I smell the smell of Home. I have begun looking around my "Room" and unpacking my little boxes of Disappointed Hope, and Bittered Sweetness. Inspecting them is hard. I have had to lift up a lot of those little boxes to my Father and say, "Here, this one hurts still. Will you fix it?" Once in a while, I'll unpack one I think is labeled, and find it contains something very different than I expected....and volatile. Sometimes I quickly close the box again for later. I still have to make it through the day.

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

The Lord led us to a church here in Yelm. When we arrived, they were in the midst of "rebooting" their little congregation. The pastor was fairly new, only there about 3 years, and they were going through a season of restarting a lot of things, small groups, children's ministries, hiring a new worship leader, and renaming the church itself. We immediately felt latched into the people there, eager to begin this new journey with them. Then we heard we'd be studying Luke next. I dove into it when we got back last Sunday, and began to read......lo, and behold.....the story of the Great Plan for The Cure.

It has been 1 step forward, 2 steps back for me, making it through the fog of pain from the last year. I still cry a lot, and ask God why He didn't just overwhelm the earth's pain with His Goodness.....why does it have to be creeping? Why is the Way so narrow? But tiny gleams of the Mercies that surround me are beginning to shine in. Tonight Ben & Violet tickled on the living room floor. I laughed and laughed and laughed....and cried....and realized I missed my own Daddy. What used to be my Daddy, that is. Some of those labels, like "Disappointment" can be very misleading.

In the end, I still pray for the swift return of Christ.....for He will wipe EVERY tear from our eyes. There are still many more to cry....

The Curse is Real.

2010-08-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

You know, the Brokenness is HUGE. The Holy Spirit led me to Genisis last night, as I was thinking of my friend, who is grieving the loss of her baby daughter, and hurting for her again. I read the Creation Story, about the amazingness of the intensely beautiful and tenderhearted God-fashioned creation. He made MAN (which is amazing in itself)....then He made a woman for him, and was pleased at the delight they found in each other. "Be fruitful!" He told them....have sex, make babies, enjoy the incredible bounty of motherhood, fatherhood. He even put them in a place as amazingly beautiful as The REAL Garden of Eden, where He caused food to grow for them so they wouldn't have to do anything but just revel in each other and their Breathtakingly Beautiful Children. Think about it. Right?

So, He invented and created this beautiful thing called Relationship. He invented children and motherhood and fatherhood. The intense tenderness and attachment we have for our children is God-breathed. He did all that, and then made SURE we would just have mostly that to do...since there was no WORK! :) I love that...pure, unadulterated enjoyment of Family. (and the Creation, of course.)

Then, in a *moment*........disobedience. CRASH, SMASH................Brokenness. The precious relationships were broken and shattered at their core. Death was the final punishment. SMASH, CRASH.....ripped apart from our loved ones.....emnity between husband and wife replace the perfect unity and love. Futility and strife in parenthood ("greatly increase your conception and pain in childbirth") replace the tender enjoyment....the frustration of being a mother of willful children was born. Adam, the father, was now cursed with the ever-present frustration of having the mission to just feed his frikkin' family. No satisfaction or passion in work, now...just sweat and making food happen. Unfulfillment at every turn, misunderstanding and hurt form between the World's First Lovers...... brokenness. The perfection of relationships between all family was now broken and futile...and ends in death.

What a gut-wrenchingly sad picture. How we deal with it every day....some more than others. My friend has been cruelly ripped apart from her precious daughter by Death, because of this curse. Because of this Curse, bit by bit over the years, the Love of my life, who so fulfilled and excited me, who holds my heart in his hands, has been held back from me, tearing me away from my heart, leaving me with an iced-over version of our love....what it "would be" like. I have had to fight so hard for my marriage over the years that I forget what it feels like to just be in love. The pure joys of motherhood have been soured for me by missing the father of my children. All because of the Curse. The explanation for death--physical, emotional, psychological....and for broken relationships.....can be found in Genesis.

I am so familiar with this Curse. I experience it every day. I am a wounded, broken person. I live in a world that is twisted and filled with broken people. The most tender beauties in my life, my darling children, are a source of frustration to me....and that is because of the Curse.

However.

There has been a Redemption.

The God Who wept over the Brokenness (that is so REAL to me) planned a Plan. He provided a Cleansing. We all know about this...we know what This is.

Think about it a moment, meditate on what God did with His Only Begotten Son. He planned it out....He made Redemption happen, and caused the Curse, the Horrible, Bitter Curse of Brokenness......to DIE.

Now.

Where is that Cure? Where is that sweet water, that healing stream.....that redemption in my life? The Curse--I know Its power. I feel it at every turn. I feel the pang of death and sadness and unfulfillment. I have many words to describe That. But this Redemption....if it was so powerful it conquered the Curse....then where is its power in my life? I want to feel it, to let it wash over me, to live in it. I want the Redemption to BE the power in me that OVERCOMES the Curse. I know for sure that I live in a cursed world....but actually, I live in a redeemed world! What is up with that?! REDEEMED! Bought back! Purchased out from under the CURSE!

I'll put it plainly: I want to live completely out from under the power of 1.Sadness 2. Unfulfillment 3. Guilt 4. Pain 5. Misunderstanding 6. Hurt 7. Frustration 8. Fear 9. .....well, the list goes on and on.

So, this is my prayer for now:

God, I know and accept your plan for the salvation of my soul. This I am familiar with. But, this world still reeks of the Curse. It has penetrated my family. MY relationships are broken. Where is the power of this Awesome Redemption? I want to take hold of it and let it rule over my entire life. Give me that power, Lord Jesus! Amen.

Back In The PNW

2010-08-22T13:16:00.001-07:00

Notice the change in my blog? Yep. We're back. Hello, Mt. Rainier! We can see you from the end of our street!!!

We got here last week sometime....I can't remember when, it's all a blur. :P I've been steadily and sometimes frantically unpacking stuff every day since then. Our house is a 3 bedroom Duplex with a big ole garage, nestled at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in the town of Yelm, Washington--about 20 minutes from Ft. Lewis. We are just across a "field" from a beautiful water conservation park, which means it's got water features (pond, stream, fountains) supplied by "reclaimed water" from the city. It makes a lovely walk in the afternoons...and there is also fishing! Our town also features a composting/organic waste pickup service, as well as a recycle can 2x as big as our garbage can. We're also charged extra per month if our garbage can "overflows." :) I love it. We also have no a/c, since the weather is mostly pretty mild out here...70's most of the summer, and 40's in the winter. I'm looking forward to lower electricity bills!!

There are blackberries everywhere you walk, and woods just behind our back fence, yet we are only a 1/4 mile from the quaint downtown of Yelm where you can find a butcher shop featuring locally raised meats, a farmer's market, a Mac store, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a food co-op and healthfood store, and also, a Buddhist temple. :D There's also plenty of locally owned stores...the only "chains" I noticed in the area are a couple Starbucks & fast-food places, a Wal-Mart, and a Safeway. Everything else, you have to peer closely at the sign to know what their business is. :) Just down the state road is Nisqually Indian Reservation...famous for the Red Wind Casino...yeah.....and fireworks. :) There's also a winery about 8 miles from us, and the next town down the road, Roy, is famous for their Prairie Rodeo. Yes, folks....Washington has a Prairie, and we're living in it.

Our backyard is 3x the size of our townhouse yard in Harrisonburg. The addition of the "concrete play-yard" of garage, driveway, and quiet street are more exciting to Violet, however, who has mastered the art of tricycling. We're mostly excited about the GARAGE. :D Ben now has storage for his ever-growing tool stash, and we now have an "area" to put a manly-man desk (meaning, huge, functional, but perhaps ugly.) and lots of wires...and I WON'T CARE! Also, having room to store seasonal items is a HUGE break for me. The last house we were in as a family (Ft. Lewis) I had to empty, cull, and re-organize the closets every time we bought a Christmas ornament or Violet outgrew a baby toy. Now, I just put it in a Rubbermaid Tub, and stack it on up!

I've been enjoying the process of decorating the new place, though it does get stressful sometimes. I'm a little stumped with what to do in Violet's room. It has no windows, so my Rule of Thumb in Decorating (always start with window treatments) will not work here. She mostly has toys, toys, and more toys......and likes it that way, so...there's not much I can do with that....other than line the room with shelves. :P It turned out to be a much smaller room than I expected, so we downgraded to the old toddler bed for her, instead of the pretty, recently decorated canopy bed we brought from Virginia. She doesn't seem to mind...

Funny thing: when she first walked in the door and took a tour of the home, I asked her if she liked our new home in Washington...she said, "But, this isn't Washington, Mom! Washington has STAIRS!" Oddly, she remembers our Ft. Lewis home! Another amazing memory feat of hers: we pulled into Madigan Army Hospital, and as we rounded the corner she said, "Mom! Aedon's baby was here!!" *mouth drops open* "You're RIGHT, honey!" July, 2009, Aedon's baby sister was born at MAMC, and we visited her there!

So far, settling in has been (besides hard work) a roller coaster of emotion. There's still no Daddy....and that makes ANY adjustment ten times as hard. Also, Violet has no friends close by, so my work is punctuated with her boredom. :( Grace has graduated the "sleeps through anything in her carseat" phase....and left us with 90 minutes TOPS to accomplish anything out of the house during the day. Grocery shopping is pretty much all we can do anymore. I have been utilizing Amazon for any other major shopping stuff, since we can't go out. The first day I figured this out we were at the Tri-Care office, waiting around, filling out paperwork, etc. She was in the stroller (carseat), and I figured she'd just sleep through all of it. NOPE. She was awake that day from noon (when we left) till way past 10 PM. Once we got back she was so over-tired she would NOT be consoled into sleeping anymore, then awakened 3 times during the night. It happened again the next day when I attempted Wal-Mart...bright little awake eyes peeped at me throughout the whole shopping trip. I was once again awake with her till late into the night, and up with her throughout the night, consoling her back to sleep.

So, yes. My Children Do Not Sleep.

This is why I will frequently turn down invitations from friends in the first 6-8 months. No, we can't go there, no we can't see that, we can't meet them, we can't play there. :( I haven't left the premises since Thursday...and she's finally back to waking only once in the night....and content with being put down to sleep at night (minimal crying...) Ugh. These are hard days...

News from Ben: If you kept up with things in Iraq this week, you'll read about what he's been doing. He's now pretty much finished up and is just awaiting his name being called onto his flight home. That should take place sometime early next week. I expect to get a call anytime after Sunday. In the meantime, he's on "reverse cycle" getting ready to head home...sleeping all day, awake all night.

Preparing for his homecoming has been a whirlwind of emotions. These last 2 months have been devastatingly hard on me. Packing up my home, my infant baby, and saying goodbye to so many family, so many close friends...the Body of Christ in Harrisonburg, in particular....was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was so hard it competed with the joy & anticipation of Ben's coming back. I believe I just emotionally closed up...totally compartmentalized everything for a couple months in order to get through it. Everything, of course, was augmented by having a tiny baby to nurse and the lack of sleep accompanying that. Fighting all my maternal instincts to nestle down and just watch my baby grow was incredibly difficult. Had I known we were going to have Grace...Violet & I would NEVER have made the move to the east coast. It was incredibly hard to uproot with 2 little ones and come back. Not to mention...having to go through saying goodbye to my sister & family BEFORE I left. None of this was anticipated when we decided to come eastwards during this last deployment.

Only in the last 2 days have I felt myself begin to "unfold..." My fists unclench a bit, and my jaw is relaxed...sort of. I have had a horrible pain in my neck since about June...when we started packing.....and it's worsened up till now. Just 2 nights ago I started running again, down our cul-de-sac and back (many reps) and that has helped loosen that muscle knot. At the same time, my heart has begun to loosen up...opening up those tightly-closed compartments, memories of Ben, and anticipation....of his coming home. I'm unpacking his clothes today, and imagining him...remembering him. Soon....so very soon, now.

I'll be posting pics of the house later, as things really begin to take shape. My style is a little cramped with not being able to paint this time....I miss the color, for sure. But, it's also a challenge, and I do enjoy a challenge!

Singing in the Van

2010-08-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

This was in Cheyenne, WY last week. I love my little songbird!

Hilarious!

2010-08-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

This is what you get after putting a 3-year old in a van for 7 hours.

What's Happening

2010-07-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

So, the moving has begun.

I am packing up our household into two parts: One trailer (ours--we own it) will have some large furniture items on it I received from my grandmother, a freezer, and a bunch of other "winter" stuff, and will remain in storage at my Mom's in Turbeville for a couple of months. I'll be leaving Harrisonburg with that first trailer on Tuesday, July 27. The girls and I are going to stop in Lynchburg on the way down to visit with the In-Laws one more time to say goodbye.

We should arrive at Mom's Wednesday. We'll be there for just a few days, visiting and saying our goodbyes to everyone. Then, we will drive back up to Harrisonburg with my sister, Polly, on Sunday, August 1st. Monday morning I'll be picking up trailer #2 from U-Haul, and we'll blitz through the last bit of packing, loading all the personal items, kitchen, bath, and clothing into that, and spend one last night on the floor in the townhouse. Hopefully everything will be A-OK by the next morning, and we'll do a final walk-through with the landlord, settle everything, and be on the road Westward-Ho by Tuesday morning, Aug. 3. If we get bogged down (entirely possible) we still have till Aug. 8th in my contract to be out of the townhouse. Of course, the UHaul is only rented for 10 days total, so we could run into trouble there.

We expect to arrive at our new home in Yelm, WA on or around August 8th, barring any major Events.

Anyhow, that's the PLAN. :) As of now, things are looking good.....may God continue to bless us with good things and cheerful hearts on this Epic Journey. :) At the moment, Violet has a fever, and I'm not sure where that's headed. She has no other symptoms yet, but we'll see how that turns out.

I NEED your prayers, folks. God has to be in this, or I, in my own strength, will utterly fail this task. I don't want this moving thing to become a black hole for my faith, or parenting. It's been a slippery slope trying to gently mother 2 girls while doing so so so so so much else. I live on the verge of tears, with anger hedging me in all about, and guilt a dark cloud over my head. But, I know the Lord will provide me with His strength to maintain joy and gentleness with my children if I just ask Him, and let Him. Please remember our family in your prayers.

Also, Ben.....he's in a state of "hurry up and wait" which the Army is famous for. He's all packed and ready to go, with an expected arrival date of.....vaguely......early September???? If you can imagine being "ready to go" for that long. :( We need your prayers, family....we're in a very vulnerable state right now. May God be glorified in our trials, may they not go to waste and count for nothing but tears. Lord, bring forth the Gold.

As of now, we will be reunited as a family again in early September (possibly sooner.) We expect to be on Block Leave in October, and plan on flying back out to Virginia to visit around. We purchased an X-Terra which is waiting for us in Richmond, and we'll be picking that vehicle up in Oct., driving it around Williamsburg and other fun places....and hitching our trailer up to it eventually (from Mom's)....and finally driving it at a leisurely place back out to Washington via a lot of other awesome places like the Grand Canyon. :) We have an extensive and spectacular family vacation planned for October. We also hope to get to visit with many of YOU guys on the way back out west.

That's it for now! Once again.....pray, pray, pray!

I'm back to packing.

Why I Love Him

2010-07-18T06:23:00.001-07:00

My husband sent me this yesterday. It's our new Theme Song....and......well.......I bawled, and thanked GOD we only have a few more weeks before HE'S HOME!!!!! Ben, thank you, thank you for reminding me of everything I've been missing, and what I have to look forward to! I love you with all my heart!

Remembering & Forgetting

2010-07-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

This is just some of my late-night rambling....sparked by the "next thing" happening. My sister moved to Florida Monday, and now...there's just me left. Next is our Big Move back to Washington, then....Ben. My heart is stirring in me as this big change looms ahead of us.

_____________________________________________

Having someone you love wrenched away from you keeps your focus off of the present.....usually. Usually, I care very little for what we do while Ben's gone, and my heart is halfway "here", halfway in Iraq. Since Grace was born, I've had my focus kind of forced back into the present, in order to just make life happen. It takes a mammoth effort to get this sleep-deprived body to cook itself and its offspring meals, do their laundry, and keep bills paid and errands done. As a result, my heart has patched over its "Sadness holes" where I was prone to stumble and fall into when faced with night-time gazing at my newborn's wide eyes, daddies unexpectedly kissing their little girls, lovers' songs, too-big beds, and husbands holding their wifes' hands in front of me in church. All those holes.....got filled in with Just Surviving.

I read my friend's post tonight....she lost her tiny daughter nearly 2 months ago. Her heart is full of holes, and I know she hasn't been on "solid ground" in that respect for weeks and weeks. I was reminded, then, of what I was forgetting.....and I decided then and there that I'd rather have the holes there to remind me than to have them patched over with mere chores.

Though Chores rule my life right now, they are nothing compared to that haunting look I get from my husband's eyes which are planted in my daughter's precious tiny head. I want to be reminded again of what I am missing, even though it would uncover those holes, and I would be hopelessly stumbling into them all day long. I would rather the sharp pain of Remembering than the dullness of forgetfulness which is "Coping." I do not want to Cope if it means forgetting how my hands look when entwined in my husband's unbelievably large ones....and forgetting that choked-up feeling when our wedding rings click together. I would rather those tears of Missing Him be constantly in my eyes than the dullness of dry eyes that see nothing but laundry.

My goals have shortened themselves into 1. having one day where there is no laundry at the foot of the stairs to be taken to the basement. 2.having a fridge full of groceries 3. reading Violet a book 4. getting more than 2.5 hours sleep at one time......and some longer-term ones might be getting back into baking my own bread, exercising again.....you know.

Confession: I haven't written my husband a love letter in........I can't remember when I last did that. I haven't sent him a package........I can't remember that, either. I think, I have let the lure of The Present lull me into a state of forgetfulness. Its promises to dull the pain seduced me into slowly, slowly weaving a fabric of Activity over the "Sadness Holes"......and as they and the pain disappeared, so did a lot of my memory of my marriage. "Am I still married?" my subconscious asks.

I guess I got Ahead in my chores.....I even went running today. It always feels good......but pointless.

And now he'll be home in 2 months.......and I forget why I am supposed to be excited......but I know I should be......but I think I'm remembering a little at a time.....those hands twined in mine....I remember how that feels......and Violet remembers his "AD" socks (Adidas) when we go running.......it hurts like hell to remember what I have been missing for a year.......but I think I'll go ahead and remember for a while....and maybe I'll be ready when he comes home.

2 Weeks Old

2010-06-11T07:03:00.001-07:00

So, today is our anniversary, and also the 2 week "birthday" of our Lila Grace. As of now, the anniversary is moot. :( Ben's in Iraq, and this 5th year goes stacking up on the shelf with the others.....yes, now it's been 5 years since our wedding. It hardly feels like we've been married that long because of some 29-odd months of separation in there. Still, our love is deep, and we experience more "honeymoons" than most people who've been married 5 years. Every homecoming is sheer bliss.

Lila Grace is a pretty easy baby--all round. She sleeps quite soundly at her "naptimes" all day, which are beginning to take shape into the Classic Trio already. She gets drowsy right at Violet's bedtime, 8 PM, and though she's hard to keep quiet, and must be held and kissed (yes, that's thanks to Ben) till we go to bed together, I'm still thankful that she's already got some form of "schedule." She sleeps in our [modified] bed all night, with only brief feedings--maybe 3-4 a night (long night, though...starting at 9:30 PM, waking up for good at 8AM). I should knock on wood, I suppose, since they're apt to change so quickly.

Still, even doing this parenting alone, I'm managing to keep my head above water ok. Healing up from the birth (bleeding, that is, since there were no tears) has been slow, just because I've had to do everything--EVERYTHING--since Ben left. My High Hills to Conquer so far have been:

A breast infection (high fever, too)
Laundry (Postpartum night sweats have been unREAL, and the sheets have to be washed every morning)
Cooking real meals (I'm SO HUNGRY, but have little time to cook)
Troubleshooting diaper issues. (the homemade ones I invested in are giving me a lot of trouble. Something I could TOTALLY do without right now. But that's another story)

Violet is a joyful, eager helper. She does EVERYTHING I ask, and is such an agile, coordinated little creature, she accomplishes so much more than I imagined possible.

I'm blessed by our family of girls....something I never saw in our future, but something I'm just incredibly excited about. I think it comes from having such a deep love for my husband. Having my femininity multiplied by having girls, each beautiful little creature reflecting that same love and adoration for my man......well, it's just like a dream come true. He deserves it, above all others in the world, in my opinion. And I'm happy to keep delivering more little adoring girls into his care. Ben, you're the King. :)

One last little nugget (er, brag): At 2 weeks post partum, I'm 7 pounds away from my pre-preg. weight. More exciting, though, is that I am already into about half of my regular wardrobe! This is totally thanks to a dedication to pregnancy workouts...mostly SWIMMING. It was a totally awesome thing to give birth and watch my OWN FIGURE pop out from under that belly. What a blessing! It's especially exciting since I'm looking forward to another "Honeymoon" with my husband in another 10 or so weeks.

P.S. Happy Anniversary to Us. Ben, you're the love of my life....Hand-picked for me by God...outstanding among ten-thousand.....altogether lovely....my lover, my friend.

The Story

2010-06-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

So, here's the complete saga of Grace's birth, pictures included.

Day 1, Thursday: I suspected an amniotic leak, but wasn't sure. I got Ben's call letting me know he was flying into C'ville at 11:40 AM. I slapped on a pad, and drove with my sister down to the regional airport there, and picked him up.

We all hung out at Lisi and J's that evening, and walking down to Kline's Ice Cream brought on some heavier contractions than I'd had yet. We decided that with my past experience with Violet (very short labor), we'd better go ahead and call our midwife, who was driving 4 hours to be here with us. She arrived late that night, with my sister, Polly (who is her current assistant), and they slept in the basement/guest room, awaiting our call.

We all slept great that night, no labor signs beyond the trickle and the contractions, and no contractions beyond midnight. Friday, we conferenced about what to do. My midwife checked me out, and I was at 4 cm, 80% effaced. She also confirmed the amniotic leak with a swab test. It was decided we would begin a regimen of tinctures and herbs, after a massage focusing on pressure points triggering the uterus contraction. All day, I had the same strong (but not painful) contractions, took walks, did lunges, tried timing a few. They never did time regularly, and we kept up this same regimen through Saturday, as well, with the same results: Lots of heavier contractions, some time-able, some not, all the way through till midnight-ish, then fading away when I went to bed.

Sunday brought greater determination than ever. I took castor oil, did a couple (ick) enemas, and kept up the tinctures and such. I had plenty of contractions, heavier than ever, painful, and coming on pretty fast. We thought surely tonight was the night. I went to sleep, trying to get some rest before the Big Transition........yet, woke up at 7:30 AM, feeling completely refreshed, labor utterly stopped.

By this time, we were stumped. My midwife and my sister got on the internet and tried to figure out what could possibly be wrong. We suspected Grace's head was malpositioned, as I previously posted. I could feel tiny fingers sweeping over my cervix constantly, so we did a few maneuvers to try to get her to adjust. Here's what some of them looked like
Monday was our Biggest Attempt yet. We started with the position maneuvers, did tinctures every 20 minutes, enemas, and some pretty hard walking. By midnight, I was tired, the contractions were heavy, regular, and everything looked in line and promising. I was told to go get some rest if I could. I fell asleep and AWOKE (hallelujah, we all thought!) at 3 AM in great pain, walking through the heavier ones....doing some Nip Stim, too, to try to keep things going.....

Long story short, what ended everything that night was Fear. Pure Fear. I was obsessing over timing every contraction....hoping beyond hope at the longer ones, devestated at ones that were shorter and less painful.....and in the end, found myself so tired and stiff and sore in the legs from all the workouts that I collapsed in bed to try to "cope" through the pain. This time I didn't fall asleep....but I think my tortured brain and psyche managed to trick me out of going through transition. I got up at 7 AM, contractions petered out, and walked downstairs in shock to have breakfast---still pregnant.

At this point, we decided to take some time off. It was clearly evident that God had complete control over the situation, and was unwilling to allow our attempts to work. Ben and I spent a long time in prayer and tears, giving over our unborn child to her Father, and asking for patience and peace to accept His timing....and His protection. There was still some risk associated with the ruptured membrane, yet we were reluctant to hand the situation over to a hospital, seeing there was a far greater chance of infection occurring at the hospital, coupled with a very good chance of receiving a pitocin induction or C-section.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were able to rest. We spent lots of family time together, went out to eat a couple of times, and played with Violet. Her Daddy taught her to climb our tree. :) We avoided public restrooms, and took great care to keep Clorox wipes on hand for every bathroom break. I kept up with all the antibiotics and immune-enhancing herbs during this time, but held off on all the induction herbs. We both felt like the night of the full moon was going to be The Night.

Thursday, Full Moon: Basically---nothing happened at all. The only signs I'd had throughout the "break time" were some on and off contractions, discharge, and loss of the mucous plug.

Friday morning dawned. I felt refreshed, and at 3 days late, Grace was at the exact same timing as Violet. I thought, "Today is going to be the day." After prayer with my husband, we asked our midwife (still staying with us all this time, the angel!) if we could start up everything again, no holds barred, including a new herb called Cotton Root Bark, recommended by another midwife in town. We threw it all down, even filled up the pool in faith. :) I took tinctures every 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes....enemas, castor oil, and Nip Stim again. I walked most of the morning, taking breaks in the pool to rest my legs. It was actually pretty relaxing. I managed to separate my mind from the work my body was doing, and give in to just resting on God, praising as I labored. Contractions set in regularly by noon, and I was pretty nauseous from all the herbs in my system. Still, it was totally bearable, and my heart was cheerful and at rest.

Sometime that afternoon, maybe around 5 PM, I was resting in the pool between trips to the bathroom (ugh)....and Ben went upstairs to fetch something and I was alone and quiet in the warm room in the warm pool for a few minutes. Words from a praise song drifted into my mind and I sang quietly for a minute, "Once again I look upon the cross where you died, I'm humbled by your mercy and I'm broken inside, Once again I thank you, Once again I pour out my heart." Then, the last phrases, which just repeat, "Thank you for the Cross, thank you for the Cross..." So....after those few moments of praise, Ben returned back down the stairs, and lay down on the carpet and rested for about 1 minute, when suddenly, the first WAVE of pain came over me. I think it was such a shock to finally feel that REAL LABOR pain, I kinda choked, "BEN!!" It scared him a bit.......but, at the same time we were both so thrilled.......well, it was weird.

They came fast and furious after that....increasingly long and painful. He reported this progress to the midwife, still waiting upstairs, and about one hour passed. My sister came down to check on things at about 6:20 PM, and she thought I had a "pushing" tone to my voice, and went up and reported that. At about 6:40, the midwife came down and asked us to start timing contractions. I began to clue into the fact that I was needing to push.....and I said as much. Haha. No one believed me. They were all still waiting to hear those famous words, "I can't do this anymore!!!" that all women in transition utter before they enter into hard labor, and then pushing. :) Me, I was so past the whole "I can't" thing.......after 8 days.........that I absolutely refused to say it, even though I really wanted to.

I fooled them all.

Somewhere around 6:45, there was a POP, and a cloud of white-ish membrane filled the pool. My WATER broke!!!

6 pushes later, my beautiful daughter, Lila Grace was born. It was 6:53 PM.....we think. We were all so shocked, no one looked at the clock.

I was fully intact, no tears or abrasions. She came down so fast, she had some purplish cast to her face, and a bit of swelling.

We cut the cord, and introduced her to her family.

Violet's famous first words about Grace: "Oh, MOMMEE! Now you can CARRY ME!!"

Thank You, Lord, for Your Grace. Blessed be Your Name!

Take Five

2010-05-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

So, last night was un. be. lievable.

I took variations of black and blue cohosh all day, after my morning chiropractic adjustment. At 6 PM, we began a series of physical therapy-type positions, from heinie in the air to draping a leg over the edge of a sofa, to being literally hung in the air by a scarf (thanks, Ben) to get Grace's head to slide back up, then back down in the correct position. Having done a few afternoons of research, plus palpations we had decided Gracie looked something like this:

During pregnancy, I have always carried very heavily in the front, hanging low. I tend to have a pretty curved spine, and just out of sheer laziness, tend to let it go "swaybacked" even more when pregnant. Resultingly, Grace's little bum stuck out the front pretty far, and never would allow her head enough weight on it to make contact with my cervix. In other words, instead of us being all stacked up straight up and down (her knees, bum, head, my cervix), she hung out away from my body too far to engage her head.

After several different relaxing positions, we saw Grace's body just STREEETCH out upwards. There was one point where I stood up from one of the maneuvers and everyone exclaimed, "Your belly just totally changed shape!" Indeed, it had flattened out and gone upwards. I immediately began to get heartburn. :P We had GREAT success starting up labor after that. I could literally feel her head hit my cervix, and as Ben and I walked our neighborhood for the next 2 hours, contractions came in steadily. By 11 PM, they were getting pretty strong, painful, and I was walking the halls with all the lights off, doing lunges during contractions. I felt the need to concentrate while pulling her little body upwards towards my chest during contractions, to settle her into a good stacked position over my cervix. By midnight, I began to get very sleepy, and asked our midwife if I could sleep a little. We all went to bed.

I awoke with strong contractions and lots of pain at 3 AM. I labored on the toilet (very easy to feel the position of the head on the cervix that way), spiraling her body downwards while clutching my belly to me for about 2 hours. Unfortunately, the lunges had worn my legs out so bad that I couldn't really do any walking. I was exhausted by 5 AM, and crawled back into bed, assumed the "Runner's Position" with a pillow under my leg and tried to fall asleep. I was unable to, since the ctx kept right up with me, becoming more and more painful, longer, and close together each time. I was crying (whining) to Ben and gripping his hand by the "end"...rather frozen in pain....

Last thing: I got up to use the bathroom, and everything stopped.

We suspect this is because of spending so much time in bed, frozen in position, immobile, and lost my alignment. To confirm that, when I got up to walk around before breakfast, my left hip felt painfully out of alignment. Poor Gracie is squirming around trying to get back in position at the moment, and we are headed off to the chiropractor this morning to realign, and start over.

I don't have any stats at the moment, other than I lost my *ahem* mucus plug.....which is progress, still......but we're avoiding cervical checks to diminish the risk of infection.

Keep praying. Though we're learning a LOT through this, it's exhausting, disappointing, messing with all our minds....we could use prayer for strength for me, too. I slept 3 hours last night.

The Low-down On Grace

2010-05-24T07:27:00.001-07:00

So, for the curious, here's what's happening.

Thursday night, I noticed a trickle...which I suspected was amniotic fluid. I had some cramping low down, and some irregular but fairly strong "squeezing" contractions. I've been having good braxton-hicks for weeks, now, so the only difference was the pain in the low-abdominal cramping. We thought it would be a good idea to bring our midwife up to have her nearby (she lives out of town) just in case. Remembering Violet's birth, we got to the hospital at 9.5 cm, and there wouldn't have been time for a 3+ hour drive in there, had Grace decided to go ahead and come that night, following her older sister's patterns.

Instead, what happened was, I went to bed to rest, thinking I'd wake up in the middle of the night and deliver her. I slept restlessly....awakening the next morning completely normal, labor stopped, belly soft. Basically, that pattern has repeated itself for the past 4 nights, the only difference being that the "labor" that starts up in the afternoon has been getting more and more intense.

We suspect Grace may have her hands up by her head, perching herself a little too far away from my cervix to engage her head, and begin the cascade of events that is Labor-->Delivery. So what we have now is my body and her body in a kind of distant relationship. I seem ready to do my part, based on the fact that I have dilated to 4 cm, and can have some pretty hard contractions sustained for several hours. She, on the other hand (possibly) has gone ahead and punched a hole in my bag of waters with her little flying fists....but with her hands where they are, and no "engagement" between her and me, we are reaching a point of no return every evening. With the aid of some herbs and tinctures and yes, even castor oil, I begin laboring, but with no head to really push things through to the next stage, my body just gives up after 6 hours or so.

Anyhow....today I had a chiropractic adjustment and we're going to start the tinctures and herbs and enemas again today, hoping to close the gap between Gracie and me, and get the 2 of us working together on getting her out.

The stats are:

I'm 4 cm dilated
80% effaced
her head is at station -1
contractions are sporadic, not timeable (weren't with Violet) and become pretty strong and painful in the evenings.

From my emotional perspective, I am struggling right now. My mind is weary with this "trick" my body (and hers) keeps playing on it, and though I've been getting decent sleep each night (interrupted, not great, but decent), I awoke this morning feeling pretty bushed. I think the contractions went on during sleep last night. I see the grace in this situation, but it is hard for me to embrace it whole-heartedly. It's a "Bearing GIft", as my mom wrote in a song--a gift that is hard to bear, but Good, ultimately. Had I been at the hospital when my water "broke", within 24 hours I would've been forced into labor with pitocin or other means....possibly even ended with a C-section...and my risk for infection with broken waters would've been faaaar higher than it is staying at home with my own germs. However, Grace definitely would've been born by now. So.....I struggle with accepting this gift from God right now.

My husband is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. When he touches me, I feel his strength transfuse into me, and I am making it through this with his support. My family nearby (all THREE sisters in attendance, praise God), and the incredible treat of being able to see my daughter fall in love with her daddy again.....not to mention our midwife, who is gentle and wise, and a total comfort to me.....I am surrounded by Blessings. I just need to draw strength from the Holy Spirit and fully turn my body over to Him and His perfect plan for our family.

My thoughts and my heart turn frequently to my dear friend who just lost her infant daughter, Gwen, last week. Her birthday is today, and my heart wants Grace to be born for her on her birthday. But, God is God, and it is His timing that will take place, not mine. The pastor who spoke at Gwen's funeral last week said something I've been drawing on since I heard it. It was something like, When things are happening that hurt, confuse, and disturb us, causing us to cry out and question God...answers usually don't flow from God's throne, but we ask Him to draw near to us, to let us see His face, and take comfort in His nearness, with or without understanding His will. I am praying for nearness in this situation. I just want to see His face, and dwell in peace in His plan for Grace and me.

Pending...

2010-05-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed and delighted to tell you that Ben will be arriving in Charlottesville Thursday at 4:45 PM. He will be here, Lord willing, a whole day ahead of schedule! At this point, it is a very good thing, because of the weird cramping I've been having. I awoke this morning just aching in my hips and legs, and exhausted, as if I'd been running all night long. It could be from swimming yesterday, but we will pray and wait and see what that turns out to be. In my lovely ideal world, Grace will wait a few days after Ben's arrival to get here herself, just to give us some time as a family with Violet before the wonderful upheaval.

My heart is hovering between joy and sadness, since as most of you know, dear friends of ours lost their baby girl last weekend, and then a sister to an accident just an hour later. It has been a devastating few days of coping with these losses and so strange to be mixed with the impending JOY of my husband's return and the birth of my daughter. God is a Holy God, however, and I pray that during this time of birth, death, life, extreme sadness, and extreme joy that beyond all else......He will draw near to us. In times like these, answers are not clear, words cannot express, and mostly I just want to see His face.

As always, your prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Near the End

2010-05-18T00:06:00.000-07:00

So here are the Preg Stats:

I've gained a little less weight this pregnancy. I'm at about 26 pounds of growth at the moment. Depending on how much longer she waits to "pop out" (as Violet says), it could shoot on up towards 30. :D With Violet I was at 30 pounds. We shall see.

For all my complaining, I really do feel remarkably good for being in the last few days here. As of right now, I have 7 days till my official 40-week due date. Violet was *barely* 3 days late, so my expectations for being close to that mark are high. The only thing that bugs me, really and truly is the inability to sleep. For instance, it is 3:10 AM as I type this, and I doubt I"ll get back to sleep before dawn without some kind of sleep aid. This part is frustrating for me, since, while coping with Fibromyalgia all these years, I have learned to treat sleep like a "drug for the cure." When I don't sleep, I hurt. *sigh* I haven't had a cervical check yet, partly just to keep the Mind Games at bay....I don't wanna know if I'm 2 cm, because it'll drive me crazy to find that out and then stay there for 10 days. That's how it was with Violet. I was 2 cm for nearly 2 weeks!!

Contractions have been predictably strong starting after 2 PM most days. Nothing more than braxton-hicks, of course. No real labor pains, yet. It's funny to watch one of those suckers squeeze down on my belly, contracting so firmly around the baby that I can practically see the outline of her little bottom and knees. It's sometimes so strong that I could set a water glass down on the flat part of her back! Valerian in the evenings usually settles these contractions down to where I can relax and get to sleep. However, she seems to be one of the causes for sleeplessness for me after 2 AM. She gets to wigglin' and squirmin' and tickles me awake! She feels pretty big right now, but being this size at this stage of development has not deterred her movement in the LEAST. She is like a Tazmanian Devil in there.

Me at 38 weeks.

Ben leaves Iraq tomorrow. We heard that another ash cloud settled over Europe this past week, and Ben's "mid-way stop" is usually Ireland, one of the hardest-hit areas. We are just praying that the delay is over by the end of Wednesday, when he'll be landing there. As of now, we expect him in sometime on Friday. Violet's dance recital has dress rehearsal that day, so I'm praying that God works out some scheduling miracles surrounding his arrival.....time and place! We got her costume last Tuesday.

I can't wait to fall back in love with my husband this weekend....and experience the birth of our second daughter. All the other stuff going on surrounding his return is beginning to pale in comparison to my longings to hold his hand and look into his eyes again, and watch him hold our daughters. Violet, too, is keeping track amazingly well of how many days till his return......and keeping a mental list of things he's going to do with her when he comes back. They include eating Baby Bell cheeses together, him throwing her up to the ceiling so she can fly, sitting on the porch and blowing bubbles, swimming at the pool, reading books endlessly, singing to her at bedtime, and cuddling in bed in the mornings. Also, getting and giving kisses and Big Hugs.

Prengant & Stupid

2010-05-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

So, I have been trying to write an insightful post about the parenting topic "Teaching your children to share." Instead, because I am pregnant, and cannot keep a thought in my head long enough to get from my cortex to my fingertips.........I am posting something that keeps making me laugh.....over and over and over again, helping me to forget how stupid I am. Thanks, Jenny!

...and some thoughts on that last post

2010-05-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

Reintegration.

restore (elements regarded as disparate) to unity.

• restore to a position as a part fitting easily into a larger whole : it can be difficult for an offender to be reintegrated into the community.

That's my dictionary's definition.

It is my current mental battle. I am a little weirded out by how much less excitement there is about this upcoming 2 weeks of leave compared to last time Ben had mid-tour leave. I feel more guarded and calculating than I expected. There's still joy and excitement, driven by those warm rushes of "remembering" kicking in about how much I love him and what a joy it is to see my husband playing with our daughter.

Don't judge me too harshly on that last one....the "remembering" thing is Real, folks. You do forget. It's just like when a loved-one dies--you don't love them less as you heal and forget. It's just human nature. Time passes, heals, and the brain clamps down ever-efficiently on the "need to use" information, and lets go of mere sentimental memories. It's sad, alarming, sickening, and guilt-driving at times. But.....I push it aside, trusting, once again in God's goodness.

God is good. God's plan for us, our marriage, our family.....is a good one. I have to kind of cling to this as a promise, since my emotions tend to lie more in the realm of the afore-mentioned "alarming, sickening, and guilt-driving." I would even add "dread" to that list....when it comes to the part of reintegration that involves re-entering child-training with Violet. That was a very, very difficult time for us last time. I'm pretty skittish thinking about doing it again with a much older, far more willful 3-year old, who will now have the added drama of a new baby sister.

I don't have any major lightbulbs on this topic. Partly because it's evening, I'm pregnant, and I can't keep a thought in my head long enough to write it down. But, mostly because this is only my second time. Think about the second time you had to deal with a marital argument. Do you even remember that? Waaaay back then??? Remember how frightening it was? How helpless you felt? Well, here we are. Reintegration #2. We've done it once. Now it's time to do it again....with 2 children. One, a newborn, the other, a more aware, more willful 3-year old. Frankly, I'm petrified. I know we can complete this part of our lives victoriously, and with joy. I just.....want to soooo badly! I'm a little afraid of stumbling around so badly in the process that we come out scarred, with scarred children.

Part of me is a little petulant. I want this to be easy, I feel like we deserve pure joy at the homecoming, and not the "Dread" part. I know that's a sinful, selfish thought, however....and I battle that one daily. I allowed myself to indulge in that concept far too deeply last time, and it did me a disservice.

I'm going to leave this thought incomplete.....because I am feeling that way tonight. No brilliant or comforting answers, yet.

I know, as always, I need to root myself in Christ and take joy in Him in order to make it through this upcoming storm. I'm off to do some of that tonight.

Pray for us.

The End Is In Sight

2010-05-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

Ben will be home HERE with us in approximately 19 days. This is SOOO strange and wonderful! I have been going back over old pictures to try to "remember" a little and cut through some of the strangeness that is reintegration. This time around, we have a little experience in the ups and downs of this phenomenon. We also have a lot more to deal with, though. Lila Grace will also be arriving in about...3-4 weeks. So, new baby, new Daddy, and a myriad of upheaving events soon to follow.

Here's how the next few months are looking for us:

May 21-ish: Ben arrives

May 22: Violet's first dance recital...a massive 3-hour event, lasting way past her bedtime.

May 25: Grace's due date

June 5-ish: Ben's departure

June 8: Big family Birthday Party, introduce Grace to family

Starting in June, find a house for us to rent in Olympia, WA, sign lease over the phone (??)

July 1-15: Begin dissembling borrowed home, returning items to family members, packing trailer for storage at Mom's.

July 20-ish: Pack up van, drive across the country with the help of my sister, Polly

August 1st-ish: Arrive in Washington at new home, unpack POD into new home

August 15: Ben arrives home from Iraq at Ft. Lewis

September 1-ish: Ben's 30 days of leave begins. We fly Space-A to Washington D.C. area, hitch a ride to Richmond where we pick up our.....drum roll.......new Nissan X-Terra.

September 1-30-ish: We commence a massive round-the-country trip with our trailer of goods attached to our new vehicle....from Virginia to Florida (to see my sister), and back North-Westward to Washington to settle in our Olympia home by the end of the month.

We then look forward to somewhere between 2 and 8 months remaining at Fort Lewis before the Army packs us up and sends us to another post. Specifically, past December, 2010, we don't really know where we'll be or what we'll be doing.

Our life in a nutshell. Crazy, huh? At the moment, though, it's hard to think much past my husband's return and the birth of my second daughter. I bought a tiny carseat and 2 tiny pacifiers yesterday, then dreamt about giving birth all night long. :)

Ups & Downs

2010-04-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was A.W.F.U.L. One of the Worst Preggo Days this time around. Those kinds of emotional days are normal, I'm sure, for pregnancy. However, top it with a weirdly stressed-out 3-year old*, a deployed husband, and the fact that my sister (on whose "normal family" aura I have heavily leaned during this deployment) suddenly starts asking me to help her start packing......to move.......I think you will grant me some slack that I took myself out to a fancy Italian place for dinner and *gulp* had a glass of wine with my puttanesca.

*sigh*

I remember August.....August, 2009.......the sun shone brightly in the PNW, but gloom cast itself over our family life. Our house looked like a refugee camp for weeks before the Big Move. I still suffer PTSD from this mammoth event. I packed up everything in our home, sorting through what to take with me to Virginia, and what I could do without for a year, while the final days of Family Togetherness eeked on towards the inevitable deployment date. Must keep packing. Stiff Upper Lip. Don't think about this "last trek in the park," the "last tickle-time" the "last barbecue as a family".....gotta get those boxes packed. The stress showed itself in things after the dust settled here on the East Coast---things like, I managed to bring brandy snifters (all 4 of them) and not a single wine glass. One of my salad forks made it, while the other pines for its mate in storage in Tumwater. Every single piece of a massive maternity wardrobe (I hit a lot of good sales....1.99 clearance at Gottshalks, for instance) remained in Washington!

Needless to say, it was The Most Stressful Time of my life. My wedding wasn't even quite this bad. It holds a close second, but man......that move......was........baaaaaad.

And, so.....talk of packing up households and gathering boxes from liquor stores......and what to take down, what to sell, what to keep.....it sends me quivering into my house, clinging to my newly-painted walls, crying, "Not yet! Not yet!"

I tried to calm myself by working on baby stuff last night, and writing my husband a long, pitiful email. Mostly, I just should've gone to sleep....but, the still, quiet house lures me into my computer desk, promising to "get stuff done" if I only just stay up! So, then follows a night of restless, light sleep.....a Too-Early morning....and a day of unmotivation.

Still, I did manage to purchase my home-birth kit....and a special uterine toner to help speed up Gracie's arrival for Ben. :) That, I am excited about. Plus, Ben called and we were able to talk for over an hour......So, my day turned out pretty nice in the end.

;) Thanks for asking!

*Violet was diagnosed with Lyme Disease after a tick bite sprang up a Bull's Eye rash. She's been unusually emotional (could just be part of being 3), and even a little sick (could be just a cold)...and is on day 8 of penicillin.

Easter Pictures

2010-04-07T18:58:00.001-07:00

HHelping out with the Easter Egg Tree

Easter Basket---it was so much fun making this the night before!

Yummy treats!!

Aunt Tessi got one, too!

Searching for eggs

The Three Forshey Cousins

R..E..A....C......H......

GOT IT!!!

Yummy surprises. :)

Lookeee!

They could be ANYWHERE!

Special "Name Eggs"

My Easter Toes

One for Grace, too!

Dance Class Clip #2

2010-04-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

Dance Class Clip

2010-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

Pregnancy Blues

2010-04-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

I find my brain is so unreliable, I haven't been able to keep a thought in my head long enough to write it down on my blog! Hence, the lack of updates. :(Really, that is the actual reason for lack of updates, I promise you. I cannot tell you how many times I've thought to myself, I'll have to remember to write that on my blog. I've logged in several times this week to start writing, only to come up with a total Blonde Blank. It's like throwing a hook in the water, and drawing it out again and again........empty!
I can only sleep on one side, because my blood veins do weird things to my lungs on my other side or back, so that I can't breathe. I lie there until my shoulder hurts so bad, I flip to the other side and sweat it out until I can't breathe, then back to the left.....
I can only eat about 1/3 of a normal meal. I have to eat all day to stave off the hunger (and ensuing heartburn), and if I "cross the line", my belly is so stretched out it HURTS.
My belly is so stretched out it HURTS!! I keep menthol lotions on it all day to keep the pain to a minimum.
My back itches constantly from the skin being so stretched. I can't reach my back to scratch it. :(
I thought of something else to put right here, but by the time I'd pressed "enter", I'd forgotten it. Really. I'm not making that up.
I am in constant fear of missing some important appointment, because my brain is on vacation these days. I've already missed one ballet class for Violet for just plain old forgetting.
Grace is a VIOLENT kicker. I've actually raised my voice at her already, and she's not even born yet! I said to her today, "Son of a GUN, child! Stop that!" and I lifted her little clawing fingers up off my poor, squished bladder. Ever had someone stick a finger into your bladder from the inside? NOT PLEASANT!
Braxton Hicks ALL DAY.....EVERY day!
My feet swell ALL DAY....EVERY day!
I......am......soooo.........soooooooooo...............tired. ALL. THE. TIME.
I have SEVEN MORE WEEKS TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dance!

2010-03-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

Violet's been thoroughly enjoying her dance class, and recently they introduced the kids to the Hokie Pokie. I got the biggest kick out of watching her do it when we got home. :)

I'll try to post a clip of her class I got a week ago...it's too long for Blogger right now. Also, SUPER cute!

The First Week

2010-03-12T12:23:00.001-08:00

So, a week has gone by since my last thoughtful post, and oddly enough, my daughter threw another monkey wrench into my musings over schooling by...............drum roll.............. giving up her afternoon nap!

*MOSTLY*

As I type, she is currently dozing in her room. But, she has not napped all week, and has slept solidly through the night, from 8 pm to 8 am! I, needless to say, am a happy mommy!

So, our first week as a napless family has gone, much to my surprise, quite well. I admit, I dreaded this day, especially as my second-born is coming along. However, things were not as I expected. My mom came to visit Monday and Tuesday, and spurred me to ferret out some "mommy/toddler playgroups", which seriously helped us out. Our first attempt at M.O.P.s wasn't successful, seeing as it turned out to be a study group of sorts for Moms with nursery available for toddlers. I wasn't comfortable leaving her in a strange nursery, a whole floor away from where I was. Plus, the topic of study wasn't riveting. We decided to drop that one and move on towards something more inclusive of both moms and toddlers.

Next stop: Friday play group at a church member's home. This one was much more successful. I even ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in 5 years since I left H-burg! It was a full basement of toys and babies, but I did enjoy fellowshipping with other moms my age, and watching our little ones play together. Violet had a blast, in spite of being the oldest one there, by a full year! She does love babies. :)

This gives us a pretty good variety of activity now, including dance, gymnastics, play group, and swimming during the week. Not to mention warmer weather introducing our back yard to us again! Oh yeah! I have a back yard!

Resultingly, I think I'm settled into keeping her out of a preschool for now, since nothing I saw in town here so far has lept out to me as a delightfully interesting experience for my daughter, and most are in the middle of a semester right now, anyhow. I'm not sure how long my energy can keep up with hers, though, what with the loooong, napless day, but....we shall see. At the end of the week, I'm tired, have plenty of braxton-hicks, and even starting to swell a little bit (thank you, Gracie), but we are both definitely fully entertained and best of all, sleeping through the nights! The activity will make the days pass quickly, I am sure. I just have to remember to put my feet up before the end of the day and keep pumping the fluids!

*****NEWS FLASH*****

70 MORE DAYS TILL BEN COMES HOME!!!!!!!!!

Education Second Thoughts

2010-03-04T18:59:00.000-08:00

I always assumed I would homeschool my children. I was raised that-a-way, myself, and did fairly well with it. Now, I'm confronted with my 3-year old, chomping at the bit to learn....all kinds of things....and I feel, basically, cornered.

On the one hand, I have my ideals for educating my child: 1. One-on-one is a very high quality experience for young children, rather than a classroom setting. I have seen it be the most effective way to acquire a skill. 2. I want to be in control of both her time-management (no standing in lines, having to sit still and wait for her turn, detracting from the actual learning process), and the content of her curriculum (Christ-centered, if you will). 3. I know no one else on earth cares as much as I do (no employed teacher, certainly) what her reaction and success rate are to the information she's processing. i.e., I don't want to rush her into a skill-set if she's not developmentally ready, and I want to see how well she processes certain styles of teaching (verbal, visual, tactile, etc.) and have the freedom to adjust my teaching style to suit her needs. All these things I have learned as a one-on-one teacher over the last 15 years.

On the other hand, those 15 years of experience in teaching a subject having given me a rut (negative slant) or a root (positive slant) in both the method I use to teach, and the subject I teach. I am very familiar with my material (Suzuki piano), and very, very familiar with the process I use to teach the material. I have this awesome tool I use to create this awesome result in my students. I do it quite well, if I do say so myself. Well, to expound, what this has done for me is made me VERY reluctant to dive into say, mathematics, geometry, phonics, spelling, and art....VERY unfamiliar subjects to me, with basically ZERO method....on my own child! I mean, basically, I've never seen someone teach a 3-year old to read. Do you think I was watching when my Mom taught my siblings to read???? NO! I was reading myself through 6th grade!

So, on the one hand, I have this very high standard for education, making me reluctant to provide my daughter with anything less....and on the other hand, I see how much effort and time a professional educator puts into his/her teaching method/materials, and I'm left feeling VERY under-qualified to just dive into teaching my child to read. I KNOW that there are professionals out there with skills WAY beyond what I can drum up from my own memories....and I don't want to cheat Violet out of the "Suzuki Equivelant" of Kindergarten. I remember stumbling along as a brand-new piano teacher, before I had my Suzuki training, and how awkward it was to "learn" to "teach" with my only resource being my 4 year old memories of my own teachers. I don't want to do that to Violet. See??

So, here I sit. Wishing, basically, that my mom would just move up here, and homeschool Violet! After all, she has had 30 years to try and adjust and prove her methods on all manner of different skill sets, from mathematics to spelling to drama and political science. Dangit! Why should I have to go back to school and study (of ALL things) elementary education when my Mom has been doing nothing BUT elementary education for 20 years?!?!! Come on, Mom! you can't retire yet!! You're a GOLD MINE!

Yes, so......where that has put me is in a whole new place of respect for people who go to school to study "how to teach a 4 year olds phonics." In other words......School. I'm seriously thinking about sending Violet to a school of some sort. Hmmmm.....

Life

2010-03-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll be 28 weeks pregnant....and there are 81 days till Ben comes home! We've been pining for spring, with a good 6 inches of snow still on the ground in lots of places, and piled over 12" deep in our front yard, too. The dirty, gray, icy, windy days are beginning to get to me in ways that 8 months of Seattle rain never did. We managed to venture southwards last weekend to sunny Greenville, NC (eastern carolina, close to the coast) to visit with my beloved Grandmother for our birthdays. She took a fall the day before I arrived, and refused to be treated for anything but the pain until I left Monday! (tough lady) She didn't want to spoil our birthday visit, she said! To finish things off, I managed to slip and fall myself on Sunday night, before I left, and bruised my bottom pretty badly. That's another story....

But, both of us are another year older in spite of the drama!

Violet and I manage to get out to the pool 2-3 times a week for exercise. She's learning to swim! She is like a mermaid under water, and adores going from me to the steps completely submerged. She's still trying to get the hang of floating, and getting her head above water to breath in between underwater stints. Genetics are not on her side, unfortunately....her dad canNOT float to save his life. He sinks. Always. So, I'm working with her to find buoyancy somewhere in her chest as she holds her breath while lying on her back in the water. It's there sometimes!

In other random news: We've decided to try a home birth. (Big news, I know) Ben will be here for a brief and sweet 15 days, and we want to try to keep things as low-key and home-based as possible. Neither of us were really looking forward to the drama surrounding a hospital birth....rushing in, going through whatever scheduling nightmares and hospital policy phenagling that comes with birthing in a corporately-run operation....not to mention being separated from Violet for a couple of days, losing sleep (Ben, mostly), etc. So, we're going to just wait at home, basking in each other's company, waiting for Grace to appear, and just pop her out in our bedroom! :) I'm really, really set at ease by this plan. I was NOT looking forward to all that I described during the oh-so-short 15 days Ben will be with us. I am very much confident in my body's ability to birth this baby quickly and easily. Violet's labor was short and sweet, but for the interference of a panic-stricken intern who managed to give me a 4 cm tear to remember him by. I will not miss the narrow hospital bed or the stupid CLOCK on the wall directly in front of my face constantly reminding me how long this was taking!!!!! :P

Anyway...

I've begun collecting a few things for the tiny wee girlie.....bit by bit accumulating some clothing for her arrival, in addition to cloth diapers. Oh, Oh...I found a local woman who MAKES them!!! I know, how great is that!! They're on average $1 cheaper a piece than Bum Genius diapers, and identical to them---only one step better in that they are "front-loading" rather than having the insert go in from the back. She's making them in custom colors for me, too, folks! :) Whoopeeee! Let me just insert here, how incredibly awesome cloth diapers are for your budget. When Violet was 18 months old, and not entirely potty-trained (still wearing a diaper at night) I calculated I had already spent $1100 on diapers for her during her lifetime. ELEVEN HUNDRED! I determined then and there to use cloth next time, no matter how much work it was. Turns out, tho, that these modern velcro-shut, pop-in-the-washer, adjustable-size diapers are just as easy to use as paper. You just have to wash them, that's all. :) I'm totally into it.....TOTALLY.

So that pretty much sums it all up! We're looking at a couple more trips coming up this spring...a wedding and Easter. Other than that it's a beautiful routine we've settled into. I'm so thankful for the friends and family that surround us during this deployment. It's made the time pass so much more quickly, with much more joy than sadness. :)

Things I Love:

2010-02-14T18:53:00.001-08:00

My husband's laugh, The wrinkles around his eyes, A certain Look in his eyes reserved for me....ownership. Being owned.

Violet, talking nonstop nonsense when sleepy, The way her tongue curls up when she says "S's"

The smell of sleep on my Loves

Boy choirs

Dove milk chocolates

Sushi

Red wine with conversation

Cherries

Wood floors, Old, old furniture, Completely spotless glass

Backrubs

Harp music

Umm......*whispers* Disco.

The look of pride in a 5-year old's eyes when he's accomplished a miracle at the piano.

The look of pure unself-conscious concentration on a child's face when learning a skill.

Teaching. Anything.

When people listen. and then offer a relevant reply. Considering something from a new angle.

Driving fast, Flying.

Acquiring a new skill...remembering an old one: Yo-Yo tricks.

Sad, sad string music....John Williams

Old friends...easy friendships.

The Body of Christ....found all over the world. Heaven. Redemption.

Folding warm laundry

Decorating a room from scratch, Curtains.

Dance

Old, old, old things. Bent for unknown reasons.

Unsolved mysteries.

The Uniform....and, oddly, the Army it represents. Wildly imperfect, treacherous, difficult, but now become familiar. Love of the familiar.

Childhood memories. My Dad, playing Monster with the neighborhood kids after dark in the summer. The ease of acquiring "perfection" that comes with childhood. Moments outside alone after dark in the summer.....these were perfection.

Recently, Local Agriculture & Market, and the people dedicated to it.

Piano pieces I can play with my eyes closed.

My unborn child wriggling in my womb

Great photography

Mountains, Creeks, Huge, huge NW trees.....Sprawling, leafy, bracken-y Eastern trees, North Carolina Beaches.....Waves. The smell of sunburnt skin

Perfectly-cooked fish

cracked black pepper....raw cabbage salads....cilantro

Paint....and plenty of time to swirl it around on a canvas.

Jewels, gems, glittery, sparkling, amazing.

Bows. In little girls hair.

Hoop earrings.

Clothes. and shopping for them. Clearance. Clearance. Anything. Boots. Clearance.

Eyeshadow.
Kisses.

Flowers...........................rich, velvet-silk petals, crunchy stems, dirty green under my nails, thorns, glorious fragrance.....pollen dust....grit-covered bulbs, crisp and promising....hard green talons pushing up through snow and dirt......brilliant unbelievable shades of purple......

hyacinth bells that say, "Eat me, I am cool and purple and beautiful!"

polka dots.

Round things in general. Swirls, curly-cues, dotty backgrounds, truffles (because they're round AND chocolate!), peony buds, my daughter's cheeks.

My daughter's cheeks. Ah. and biting them.

A good Tool. Like a jogging stroller that is smooth.....running shoes that support....a sharp knife...a lemon zester (because nothing zests like a zester), soap that lathers, a good paintbrush, a Mac laptop...

Good haircuts.

Flavors.....interesting, new flavors!

Fragrant flavors, such as pickled ginger. Fresh basil. Black tea. Good coffee..... Fresh, raw-milk butter...... summer peaches.......mangos.......sourdough bread.

The scent of lilac.

and lavendar.

Clean sheets. Sheepskin.

Coming home.

Ben coming home.

Such a GIRL!!!

2010-02-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

Just tonight, we discovered a secret in our email inbox. Daddy had bought Violet a present! It was in the mail, coming in THREE DAYS!! Listen to her response.

Worship

2010-01-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, this deployment gets me down. So much of my life's goals and the closest desires of my heart are wrapped up in the man I am missing.... husband, father of my children, friend, lover.....that I feel really just empty of anything but grief for all that is being withheld from me.

Today has been one of those days. Joy has eluded me. I started out my long evening alone after Violet was put to bed with a plan for forgetting everything as quickly as possible with internet shopping, watching t.v., and *not* looking at the dirty kitchen I have come to hate cleaning. I saw a little too clearly how pathetic I looked. I glanced quickly away from my bible sitting there, not yet put away from church, and retorted, "Lord, do you really satisfy the desires of my heart?"

Soon after, my internet browsing brought me to this.

My conclusion is that God deepens the desires of our hearts, drawing us further upwards and further inwards towards Him and Holiness and Eternity. Images like these, of the God transcended into manhood remind me of exactly how incredible it is to have quickened the interest of a Holy God, and exactly how far He will go to bring us into that realm of deep relationship with Him.

Random Update

2010-01-30T07:09:00.001-08:00

So, by now, we've reached the halfway point.....until R&R, that is. We're halfway to May ~20, when we expect Ben home for a couple of weeks, and our little Miss Grace shows herself. :) We've settled on a first name, but middle name is eluding us. She may end up with Grace as her middle name, but we'd still call her "Gracie."

Things have been in a kind of regular upheaval here since early December (or, Thanksgiving, really), what with traveling, settling down, getting restless, traveling, settling down, and then getting restless again. I've come to discover that it is partly the condition of this house that keeps me from ever getting totally comfortable just staying put. There is nothing like a crappy rental with cheap linoleum and industrial carpet in the bedrooms to make a perfectionist housewife want to get away! Also, of course, all my lovely friends on the east coast, so tantalizingly accessible! :D

Earlier this month, we spent 9 days with my friend, Denise, and returned home pretty exhausted. We managed to fly down to her place for free, thanks to a military flight (from which I bumped not one, but TWO retired Colonels, because I out-classed them as a Space-A passenger, and rode behind a 3-star general in a shiny blue and white 8-seater federal gov't plane with leather seats!), but the way home was blocked by some weird, inexplicable scheduling mysteries at the AFB I was trying to fly out of. By day 8, Violet had started sleeping poorly because of nightmares, and neither of us were much company to Denise & Elyana after a poor night's sleep, so....we purchased commercial tickets and flew home to D.C. the next day.

Sleeplessness has continued since we returned home, unfortunately. Nightmares persist, a head cold and fever were visited upon the Muffin, then passed onto me, and only since 2 nights ago, have we seen an entire night of sleep, lasting more than 8 hours. I buckled under my midwife's suggestion to take Unisom to help out with sleep, and got a good 10 hours night before last. Whew, man, that stuff is powerful. I felt like I'd been asleep for days, and had dreams all night that I was supposed to be somewhere, but couldn't wake up!

We've pledged to try to stay at home for a while, until the sleeping issues work themselves out. Anyone is welcome to come visit us, though, whenever you might be passing up our way! We still have an entire floor to offer you, complete with pull-out sofa bed, and private bathroom! :)

To be perfectly honest, I see God's hand at work, keeping me here with sleep issues. I've begun to see major dissatisfaction at work in my life, and traveling around has kept it at bay. God wants me to put my expectations for satisfaction in Him, and not in the things I'm surrounded by. "Coping" is not the Abundant Life He has planned for His children, and I think I need to learn how to put my roots down in Him, and not seek satisfaction in my current house, family life, decor status, or everyday activities. It is hard....the first week at home, still struggling with sleep issues, surrounded once more by these hideous walls and industrial carpet.....honestly, I nearly lost it. But, then I began to see there was something "there"....and God spoke to me about my contentment issues.

Soo....that's where I am right now. Learning to let the annoyances of this transient military life roll off of me, while the desires of my heart are rooted in Christ alone. I find God is giving me many opportunities to test myself, to see if my contentment really is in Him, or in...say.....my laptop, which I took in for a minor repair, and ended up in the shop for over 2 weeks (no skyping with Ben!), and may have to be entirely replaced by Apple. Or, say, my van, which displayed a flat tire first thing in the morning, when my plans for the day revolved around being in town for the majority of the day.

He is good.....and wants so much, much more for His children than just a day spent with "fun activities." He wants my heart, and He wants ALL of it.

I'm grateful for all the prayers I know y'all have been offering up on my behalf. Please add "Contentment" to your list for us.....as this is the primary lesson God's been teaching me.

Other random updates include:

1.Violet is taking dance classes! She is totally in love with dancing, and as soon as my laptop is restored to me, I'll post some videos. It's such a joy to watch!

2. I discovered I had an allergy to penicillin.....a horrible rash broke out on my tummy, which I thought was stretch marks at first (and grieved over them---my FIRST ever!), but then was advised by my sis. to get them checked out. That itchy, horrible rash is now mostly gone, and now I have to say, "Yes." when they ask me in triage if I have any allergies to any medications. :)

3. There are a few plans in the workings for some traveling....I will be spending some time in N.C. with my aging grandmother, hopefully once more before she passes on. I love her dearly, and her absence in my children's lives is something I hope heaven will make up for. We're also coming down to So. Virginia for a "Decade Party" in March sometime. My mom, Jeremiah, my Dad, my m-i-l, and my sister all have a major birthday this year. We're all coming down to celebrate!

4. Belly is growing and growing.....I know I need to post pics, but I have no laptop at the moment. :) I'm almost in a large size top (or very long-waisted "small") in order to cover everything, though the bella band is still plenty sufficient for bottoms. What a great invention! Also, thanks to everyone for loaning your maternity clothes. I've been very careful with the loans, and very grateful. Ebay has helped supplement some other pressing needs, like, swimsuits and coats.

5. Heard from my midwife that I still have "marginal" placenta previa. That is, it's still very close to the cervix, and they need to monitor its movement...hopefully it will continue to grow backwards, away from the cervix to ensure a safe labor/delivery. I have another ultrasound scheduled for Monday. Until it's far enough away, I'm to "lay low." So, thank God for the swimming pool.

That's about it for now! We're fighting off this last cold, but....God is good, we're healthy, and it's not the worst one we've seen!

How Will I Ever Choose???

2010-01-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have a coupon to spend.....and I'm going for some winter-clearance boots, since Violet managed to break the zipper of my black leather ones I've worn for years. I'm down to these 2. HOW WILL I EVER DECIDE??!!!

It's A.....

2010-01-05T12:20:00.000-08:00

For All You Tea-Lovers...

2010-01-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

....I just found the coolest Tea Curiousity in a unique thrift store here in H-burg called, "Save & Prosper," run by west-europeans (of dubious nationality...) for like, less than $2.

Take a look:

It comes out of the package in pre-formed discs, and instructions say to use one disc per 250 mL of boiling water....about a mug's worth of tea. It dissolves into typical shredded tea leaves when it's dropped into the pot of water. I tasted it cautiously this morning.....with sugar....and BAM! It is one of the most complex flavors I've ever experienced in TEA before! It felt like a merlot or cabernet...very mellow, yet dark, and oh-so-fragrant.

Anyone ever seen or heard of this before? Do tell! I'm thoroughly intrigued!

Countdowns!

2010-01-01T14:13:00.001-08:00

4 more days till we find out the sex of the baby!!!!!

138 Days until Ben comes home for R&R!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully our baby will be born very soon after that.....

THEN.....

7 more months until we move BACK to the west coast, and find a new home to welcome BEN BACK FROM IRAQ FOR GOOD!!!!!!!

I'm looking forward to counting down and counting down and counting down........

Back to Bar Soap

2009-12-28T11:04:00.001-08:00

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a long time, now. Since my "switchover" to Organic, I have found many things that actually IMPROVE my budget! One of them is homemade soap. I don't make it myself, mind you, I find someone local who is already outfitted with the skills and materials, and purchase from her! Recently, a farmers' market vendor has satisfied all my needs. The bars are about the size of a computer mouse (I'm unsure how many ounces that is), and made of completely pure, biodegradable, organic ingredients. I was even able to find one for my kitchen that is anti-microbial. (Rosemary and tea tree work quite well for fighting cold germs and kitchen scum.)

The best part of bar-soap is that is ENTIRELY cost-effective! I spent $4 per bar, and expect each bar to last at the very least, 1 year. With just 2 of us in this household, I wouldn't be surprised to see them still around 2 years from now. They're just as gentle as your creamiest shower gels, too, and you can even buy ones made from glycerin, tempered further with oils, butters, and natural essences of all kinds. The scents are usually more "earthy", which, for me, is a bonus. I tend to favor things that smell somewhat "green" rather than the thick, floral smells from commercial perfumiers.

Another added bonus: the packaging waste presented by bottles and bottles of shower gel (however many you purchase in a year's time) is completely absent in bar soap. If the homemade soaps come wrapped at all (some are just sold out of bulk boxes, fresh-cut from a slab), it is usually a bit of brown paper or a sticker or ribbon. Far easier to return to the soil than a plastic bottle.

So, we are "back to bar soap" these days, enjoying the earth-friendly, pocket-friendly aspects alike!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

Photo Dump

2009-12-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

This December found us traveling again...we went to Pennsylvania to see my cousin, Mandy, get married. After that 2-day event, loaded with lots of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all in old, familiar places of my childhood....we continued the drive eastward to Toms River, NJ to visit with my other cousin and her husband. They showed us the sights in NJ, including the boardwalk at Point Pleasant....which boasts an aquarium, too, even during the winter! We had a blast, and Violet quickly warmed to Ryan & Rebecca, and now talks about them. They were just married back in October, and I think perhaps Violet remembers some of that event, as well, since she keeps saying, "Ryan is married.....to Rebecca!"

:D

Just as soon as we got home, we had just gotten out in the nick of time to get groceries to re-stock after our travels when we got DUMPED with SNOW! Over 2 feet piled into the Shenandoah Valley, and we have been house-bound, it's been so deep. 2 days, now, of sitting around the house, watching the snow plows go by. Seriously, folks, snow-plowing is like my newest favorite spectator sport. I almost want to cheer when they go by! I'm pretty bored, and Violet is fed up, too, with movies and reading books. The snow is too deep for her to play in (up to her waist), and too powdery to make a good sled track. So, we're just waiting it out.

Anyhow, without further ado, here are some highlights of our December.

Divers cleaning the shark tank. Better than daytime t.v.

This is an "I love my camera" shot!

Up the Boardwalk!

Beautiful New Jersey Shore!

Under this pile is my trash-can....you can just see the handles peeking out!

The whole Valley is snowed-under!

"Would You Like a Peanut?"

2009-12-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

There was a game they used to play that Violet called, "Tease Me." She would hold her hand up high with a little stone in it, and say, tantilizingly, "Would you like a peanut? Would you? Would you like one?"

Ben would say, "Yes, I would like a peanut, I would!" and he'd reach up, up in the air for it,

......only to get tickled mercilessly by Violet, the Teaser!

Such great playmates!

Remembering

2009-12-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

Violet asks me to play movies of her and her Daddy EVERY morning at breakfast. Here's one of her favorites. She'll watch it over and over and over again.....pressing the space bar as soon as it's over. :)

The Post I Have No Right To Post

2009-11-30T18:38:00.001-08:00

So, after such a depressing post last time, I figured I owe it to my readers to share the brighter side of my life a little. Truly, God does allow times for mourning, and times for rejoicing. I might add that...in my experience....one must haul oneself out of the Time for Mourning into the Time for Rejoicing. Otherwise, it might never come.

In my case, I am on a learning cycle with this one. I grieve, I mourn, I weep, I cry out for help, I wait for answers, I demand comfort......then I remember that it's actually still my move. God has already given the Gift (salvation and his Holy Spirit)....it is my duty to stand up, strengthen my weak knees, and lift up my hands. My Mom used to call this, "The sacrifice of praise." Ever wonder what the psalmist meant by that? Surely, I used to think, praise came from a heart overflowing with joy and thanksgiving. Was it such a sacrifice to offer up the welling joy in praise? Well, now I understand. We must praise. And in times it feels better to weep and mourn, it is then that praise becomes a sacrifice. And, just as in most Old Testament sacrifices, once the gift is on the altar, the fire comes down from heaven, and the Holy Spirit consumes it. Or you. Me.

This is the power in Holy Spirit-living. This is what is keeping me going when my heart literally faints within me over missing my husband. My friend, Denise, said recently in a f/b post, the fact that these deployments get harder and harder just illustrates how much more deeply we fall in love with our husbands. As we grow closer, the separations are more and more painful. This one, for us, is just sickeningly hard. I sometimes feel like no time at all has passed.....We've been at the 2 month mark for YEARS. How can I ever make it another 9 without touching the face of the one I love? The hardship of watching our precious child grow up without the nurture and closeness of her father is excruciating at times. No pleasure of parenting, fellowship, excitement, or anything this life has to offer is not tinged with the hollow bitterness of missing the one I love.

So, it is in that low state of mind that the Holy Spirit reminds me that even in the "completeness" of marital joy.......there is nothing eternal. Remember? Then I do.......I remember. And, I remember what one thing I can have complete joy in doing all by myself.....alone....before God. And that is worship. It is hard....I would rather continue mourning, but....my hands go up, and I start singing the first worship piece that comes into my head (sometimes with a pout on my lips, too, oh yes!).......and God comes down. It is like oil and wine on my head.

God. Is. Faithful. That is all I have left to say. He WILL draw near to us when we draw near to Him. And we WILL find complete fulfillment, even in the depths of despair and loneliness.

Thus ends my sermon to myself. :)

These Days

2009-11-27T17:40:00.001-08:00

What's really been going on is a procrastination of sorts....wherein I feel if I put off writing a blog post, more time will have passed since the previous one, and then time will have gone by ......more!

Yeah, it's all about passage of time these days. Even going to visit family holds with it enough bittersweetness to be more bitter than sweet, and I find myself relishing the feeling of "Good, that one's done" more than I relish the actual time spent with family. This is how it goes when the love of your life is absent. Even the enjoyment of time spent with family is hollowed out by that feeling of missing the One Who Owns Your Heart. I'm closer to being with him again with every passing family trip, and getting them checked off and getting us closer to his return is more exciting and meaningful to me than actually seeing my friends and family.

Sound twisted? Well, I guess it just goes to show exactly how powerful our love has become. I really do pine for him.....besides, it's War that's twisted. I'm just doing what I can.

*sigh*

So, Thanksgiving. . . . . *check*

Christmas. . . . . . . . . . . .

Some Traveling. . . . . . . .

My Birthday. . . . . . . . . . .

Easter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

and then Ben.

Another Pregnancy Update.

2009-11-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

So, after all that getting up at night for a 4th meal, baby must've done some serious growing, 'cause my BELLY popped out yesterday! Seriously, it seemed like it happened overnight. I suddenly realized, I can't suck it in anymore. It's definitely a Prego Belly.

The nausea has definitely become more mild....I'd even venture to say bearable. Thank goodness Tessi, my sister, came to stay with me for a month, giving me such a relief from housework so that I was able to spend what energy I did have on responding to Violet's needs. For a while there, after we first moved in and I was throwing up with no relief, I wondered if I was going to make it through this pregnancy by myself. God is merciful, though, and it's looking like I'm going to do fine.

The hunger, the demanding, mind-consuming, obsessive HUNGER that I experienced the last few weeks has been dizzyingly strange! Last pregnancy I could hardly eat ANYTHING. I lost 10 pounds in my first trimester, and was just back to my regular body weight and beginning to show a belly at 6 MONTHS! This time around, I'm eating ALL DAY LONG and even once at night, and my belly is out at 2.5 months. Yep, they say they're all different!

At the moment, I feel relatively normal, except for needing to much on fruit and cheese all day long. I do still retain some food sensitivities, though nothing consistent other than, "if I had it yesterday, I won't be able to stomach it for weeks after." Leftover nights are a thing of the past. It was a struggle for Tessi to fix meals for exactly 3 people, with no extras. Any more than that and she'd be eating it by herself for days!

Another saga I've recently overcome has been the Insurance Company Battle. Not that our insurance isn't pretty good......I mean, we get decent coverage, as far as the medical world goes. (that is, the things we value for our true health like, chiropractic, massage for my FMS, and herbal supplements are never covered). It's just that, the staff are incapable of solving a problem for you in one step. You must get passed around, you must fill out forms (the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper and fax), you must wait for responses in the MAIL, people!! and you must eventually start over again with your own help from smart insurance beneficiaries you find on google! Yes, Google was my biggest source of assistance in accquiring healthcare from my dashed insurance company, if you can believe it. Once I knew the answers to my questions, I could then call up Tricare and prompt them to answer my questions correctly!

Anyhow, as it stands, I am downgraded (which is really more of an upgrade, if you ask me) to TriCare Standard, so that I can see any "network" provider and they will pay for all my maternity care. As of now, I will be getting a midwife to attend the birth at the hospital, and receive all my prenatal care from her, as well. Thank goodness it's not my original PCM, a 60+ year old Army dr. who also is chief of family planning at the "women's clinic" here in town.......i.e., "head abortion doctor."

As for exercise, I'm still running, and I'm still trying to push myself back up towards 3 miles 3 times a week.....but it's slow-going when pregnant. The blood increase thing kicks my butt. :( I'm also religiously working on my core muscles. Last pregnancy I was NOT in good shape in that area, and ended up with torn cartilidge between my ribs on my left side. There's a HOLE in there, which I can fit 2 fingers into, and it still provides me some pain once in a while. I really hope to avoid that this time around.

So there you have it. Biggest hurdle overcome (nausea), and lots of happier times to come, I hope!

Mothering

2009-10-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

This post is an effort to glean from my readers' thoughts, experiences, and tactics for dealing with some child-raising issues that have developed for us recently. 2 things have arisen recently with our daughter, which raise questions with me, as I find myself almost tongue-tied when responding to her, so great is my ignorance for dealing with these issues. I hope you will comment liberally!

Firstly, LYING. How do you teach a child to tell the truth? When do you gauge they are old enough to understand the difference between what they *want* the truth to be, and what really happened?

Here's the scenario: "Violet, go to the bathroom and wash your hands." she obeys. 2 minutes later, she comes out with an absent-minded look on her face. "Did you wash your hands?" I ask, feeling that they are still sticky with supper, and indeed, she has not. "Yes, I did." is her confident reply, while looking me straight in the eyes. Hmmm.....what is going on here? What should my response be? Is it even important yet, that I point out to her that there is a difference between the truth and an untruth? She certainly carries no deception in her. Guilt, she sometimes has, when she is caught in a wrong (playing with books and toys during naptime). I know how to read guilt in her. But in this, there is no guilt. I am not sure how to proceed. What do you think?

Secondly, there is consistency in obedience. As Violet grows older, I want her responsibilities to grow with her. With baby #2 on the way, I want to be able to say, "Violet, go bring me such-and-such." while I'm nursing, and have her do it. However, she gets easily distracted, especially when I send her on an errand in another room, where she is not under my watchful eye, conscious of my command echoing around her. I understand that this ability to retain a command and accomplish it without supervision comes with growth. However, I am seeing complications with just letting her mature in this without responding to her actions, in addition to another bad habit forming during this "growth period."

Here's the scenario: "Violet, go upstairs and get into your bed and wait for me." She trots towards the stairs obediently. On the way up, she pauses on the landing to reach for blankie. This reminds her of "paci" and she detours to my bedroom for paci. Once in my room, she sees "Mr. Putter & Tabby" on the floor, and decides to plop down for a read. When I get upstairs, she is nowhere near her bed, as I've asked her. I call her, and usually she responds with a guilty start, and hurries towards her bed, bottom first, hands splayed protectively. Obviously, she's had a rush of conscience (and memory), and realized she's disobeyed. It is difficult not to apply the stick of training to assuage the guilty conscience at that point, since she's realized that she has technically disobeyed. However, I'm reluctant to administer a spanking for "forgetting" or "getting distracted" with one so young. Yet, how DOES one help a growing child to retain a command for more than a few seconds? I dislike just letting it slide, for then I begin to notice the trend worsening, where she will not even run straight away to the stairs at my command, but while still in my presence, she will delay obeying while reaching for this toy, or finishing up with that puzzle, or something like. See my dilemma?

Tell me your thoughts on this, friends. I am eager to hear of your successes/failures/untried theories.

Finished Product

2009-10-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

So here is the downstairs, for your inspection. We did not choose the paint color, it was given to us by the owners. Most of the furniture you see came with the house, but the wall-hangings are my own.

....as is the little Girl in the last few photos. :D

She puts this on and then tells me, "Mommy, I'm a Sleepin' Booty!"

Mystery Solved!

2009-10-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago I blogged about a phase Violet was going through that made her super-clingy at bedtime. She would hold me tightly or reach for me crying, "Mommy, I neeeeeeed you!" and would go on and on with that after I left the room. I fluctuated between trying to be firm with her, calm her down, and tell her to stop crying and just go to sleep...to holding her for 45 minutes or more, singing to her, stroking her face, trying to lull her to sleep. Nothing seemed to be successful. She went in and out of this for over a week. Some nights I'd tell her firmly to go to sleep, and she'd just do it, other nights we'd go over and over with the screaming sessions.

Then last night, something clicked.

Once in a while, in the past weeks, I'd hear footsteps upstairs, trekking into her bathroom (she has her own personal bathroom in the house). I assumed she was using the potty, and hopping back into bed, as the footsteps never continued for more than a few seconds. ALSO, once or twice, I'd gone into her room in the morning, and found her in her bathroom. Not something I thought unusual, she was just getting up and going potty first thing! Well, last night, I heard the footsteps again, after a long session with her (crying, "Mommy, Mommy, I neeeeed you!") and I had told her this time not to get out of bed since I'd already taken her potty before I left. I crept upstairs and opened her door. She WAS in the bathroom, but NOT going potty. She had dragged her pillow and blankie into the bathroom, turned on the light, and was setting up camp on the floor in there for the night! It dawned on me, then.....she had been doing this for DAYS now.....and it was probably the only thing that had kept her calm on those non-screaming nights!

POOR BABY!

I asked her what she was doing, and she confirmed to me she was going to sleep (of course, silly mommy). I told her it didn't look very cozy, and why don't we just try the bed again? She broken-heartedly obeyed, and then (poor thing) choked out, "Mommeeee, Mommeeee.....wujjyou fix my bed? It's broken!" I looked up and saw just the bones of her canopy up there, no fabric yet. We still hadn't gotten a cover for it since the last one had acquired some bugs living in it after being in storage for 5 years. She was truly distraught over the barren look of it, and my heart melted. I found an old quilt and jimmy-rigged it over the "rafters" and she giggled for joy! Then I brought her up a nightlight and put it right beside her bed so she could look at it while she dozed off. This made her even more happy! I also left the bathroom light on, and told her she may get up to use the potty, but she must lie back down in her bed when she was finished. She seemed perfectly at ease, though tired, when I finally left at 8:45 pm.

She slept peacefully ALL night long, till 8:30 the next morning! I went to check on her after I got up....still sound asleep in the bed!

I won't even begin to describe how guilty I felt over this .....I've tried to tell myself I'm still just learning, to be a mother. It's just that---she's such a fearless creature in every other respect that it never dawned on me she could be scared of her room, or her bed, or just the darkness. Silly me!

Anyhow. We went out to buy canopy fabric today. :D I'll be posting pictures of it AND the rest of the house pretty soon. Keep watching!

I Miss You, Love!

2009-10-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

This piece was our first dance at our wedding. It's Peter Gabriel's, "The Book of Love."

How great a thing is the Love that God has created for a man to enjoy with his wife. Every year of our marriage that goes by is a bountiful harvest of oneness, comfort, tender friendship, and divine grace worked out between us. I look forward to year after year of learning my husband, learning to be Christ towards him, growing in grace and in oneness. I hope we grow old enough together to know the "things we're all too young to know." If not in this life, then in the next!

Praise God for His Love lavished on His children by giving us each other!

Preggo Post

2009-10-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Well, this is just a kind of glorified status update for all y'all who've been phoning my sister (LOL) to ask her how I'm doing! :D

Truthfully, this pregnancy has been mildly less difficult than the last. Last time, I threw up every single day until I was well into my 8th month. I suffered daily migraines from month 7-9, and had pretty intense rib/hip pains, too. This time around, by 7 1/2 weeks pregnant, I've only thrown up once, and had 3 migraines, and I'm running 2 miles twice a week and working on my core muscles to keep those rib pains to a minimum. The nausea is relentless, though, and my food preferences/cravings are utterly unpredictable, senseless, and difficult to get a handle on. I am struggling, honestly, right now, with balancing life with a toddler, a new home to settle into (you'd be amazed how long it takes to get the final boxes unpacked and stuff up on the walls!), getting food cooked, and appointments kept. I've missed 2 very important bills so far, and paid the price for them both.....and missed Violet's gymnastics for this semester......and *not* written many letters I should've written.....and obviously fallen behind on blogging......some days it feels like all I get done is a conversation (over the course of 4 hours, intermittently depending on connection and Ben's schedule) with my husband, and the dishwasher emptied. I'm lucky if I can stomach making Violet a PB&J for lunch, the closest thing to homemade food I can do at the moment. P.S. I haven't done my hair but twice since moving here September 19th.

On the other hand, my sister, Tess, has come up to visit, and has faithfully cooked and done dishes every meal for days, now, and lifted a huge burden off my shoulders. Not having to be in the kitchen is a really big blessing. She's also gotten some painting done, pictures up, and furniture rearranged. It's been great. However, my Violet has taken this opportunity to begin expressing her separation (from her Daddy) anxiety. She goes from intense playing to desperately wanting my attention, then back again to her very focused play (not involving me at all), and then demanding that I come "taste her milkshake" and "sit me and watch me" in the tub, and then dissolving into begging tears of, "Mommy, I neeeeeeed you!" at night when I put her to bed. I have spent upwards of 45 minutes just calming her into bed so that I can get up and leave without her clinging to my neck.

I'm frightened of what is appearing before me here.....before I even have the second child to care for! Two? Who can have TWO?! I wonder sometimes....

So, I feel half the burden is lifted, having such great help at home with daily tasks, but this new thing looming before me called, Mother of Two.....I just don't know. I'm not handling single mother of one very well right now.

I would love to hear what some of you mothers of two are thinking, reading my struggles. What are your methods of dealing with Household Stuff, and more than one child? Do your children cling to you? Do you play with them endlessly? Do you teach them to be alone? How do you get anything done? Please comment.

So.

2009-09-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

So, there's a new baby coming. :) God works....soooo mysteriously. If you had asked me 2 weeks ago about our move and Ben's deployment, and did a new baby fit into this at all, I would have answered in the negative. It just doesn't make sense for our family right now, I'd have said.

Huh. So, now I'm thinking about the next year. I'll have a 3 year old preciousness, a studio of a few students, I'll be pregnant (and hopefully *not* sick as a dog), and be bringing a new piece of preciousness into this "temporary" house of ours with its borrowed furniture. Ben won't be here, but when I do give birth, he'll probably come home for the delivery, and then a few short weeks later, he'll be back for good! Our newborn will get to know his/her daddy in a way Violet did not. Huh. It's just ....so......mysterious!

As my life unfolds before me, I'm struck by how utterly unpredictable it is, yet how retrospectively God-directed. There's always a variation of this thought: "So, wow, I never thought I'd be doing A, B, and C, but....yeah, I can see now how God would've worked that for us, and why He did! Thank you, Lord, for directing our lives!"

I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, I'm excited about getting back into teaching, I love having my sister just a mile down the road, available for coffee or the library at a moment's notice....I'm scheming about visits to long-unvisited family members, seeing places I've not seen in years......it's a good season. I miss my Ben, but again........I can see the Good Hand of the Lord at work in our lives. He is a merciful God. Merciful. I can see now, that He has *not* given our family more than we can bear. He has provided a Way.....and since the last deployment (the loooong, 15-month one) we are stronger, and we see His face more clearly through the fog of separation from each other.

I came across a letter I'd written Ben during the last deployment....and was reminded of how consistently sad I was, how very much I grieved over his absence (and ever-possible death) every single day. How different this time is. God has truly grown us stronger. Our marriage bond is stronger, deeper, our faith has the seasoned perspective of having a 15-monther under our belts.....Violet has made us closer, too. Having children does that to you. :) We both feel that Joy is actually available to us! Last time, I had not the strength to lift my arms in praise. This time, I know that I can, and while I don't do it consistently, I feel the strength to do it when God gives me the grace to remember!!

"Lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed."

God has accomplished this in our lives. Where we were weak, He has made us strong. It has taken years, but He has done it.

I am looking forward to this pregnancy.

And Christ's Return, which is the True Source of Joy.

I have an announcement to make....

2009-09-21T16:47:00.001-07:00

Picture's worth a thousand words....

:)

From The Road

2009-09-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Today found me wakening to the sound of flies buzzing around my head. Something about Wyoming...

Yes, we're in Wyoming, that great state (?) famous for Custer's Last Stand, and the Battle of Little Bighorn. The mountains by that name, Bighorn, though, probably beautiful in themselves, have begun to lose their attractiveness to us all, since we've been seeing nothing BUT mountains for the last 1000 miles. However, as we were driving along the interstate, and saw signs like, "entering Crow country" I grew excited and had Lisi pull out the iPhone and wikipedia the famous Custer's Last Stand. Very exciting story, very bloody, and awesome to think of what was going on right on the hills we'd been passing....hundreds of American soldiers massacred, and Indians' rights violated. Sad...very sad piece of history, but cool to be driving right through it.

Anyhow, as far as our actual travels go, it has been a mixture of insane stress, and lovely relaxing moments. My nephew has been pretty miserable, what with the lack of sleep. He's just figuring out how to take a decent nap in the car. As a toddler, Violet rode with me to California once, and it took her 3 days of car-napping to get more than a 20-30 minute nap. By day 4, she was up to 2 hours, solid sleep. So, yesterday, Judah finally slept about 1.5 hours. We were all much happier, then!

The KOA cabins we'd reserved disappointed us slightly. The first one was a bit cramped for all of us....although, more in the sense that waking, crying babies woke everyone else. I think were we all adjusted to the time zone change, the traveling sleep and all, we could've shared the 2-bedroom cabin just fine. We may try it again in 2 nights. We had to reserve another cabin pretty quick once we got to Yellowstone, just because we all wanted a good night's sleep. Camping can be fun if you're expecting it, and want to just "go camping" for a few nights. But setting up, taking down, cooking over a new fire every night is a bit wearying after a while, especially when you all start out overly tired. :(

Anyway, the scenery along the way has been mouth-dropping beautiful. At one point, a bald eagle flew along-side our van for a moment, across a backdrop of a crystal-clear Montana river, with sweeping mountaisn behind. It was pretty amazing! Yellowstone park was also incredibly beautiful, and even though I'm so NOT into fishing, sights of fly-fishermen everywhere we drove got me seriously thinking about planning a family trip to Yellowstone once our family's a bit older (namely, Violet, and whoever else we've got by then!) to learn that very skill!

Well, that's all for now, folks. It's been a learning experience so far, and we've got another week to go on learning!!!

Just So You Know...

2009-09-05T16:16:00.001-07:00

These Forsheys could use your prayers right now. This is Ben's last night with us, and the tears are flowing heavily all round. Violet has demonstrated her perception of the situation by *not napping* for three days straight. When Ben goes out of sight, she says, "Where's my Daddy? Is he gon-away for sree days? Far far away?" :(

Ben and I have both been sick with a stomach bug for days, and Ben even burned a fever last night of 101 degrees. The moving keeps dragging out, longer and longer.....no one could've guessed we had so much stuff. Then, our brilliant plan for ridding ourselves of extra stuff by having a yard sale was a total flop, since it poured rain all morning. Not one person showed up. We packed up all the yard sale stuff to try again next year. The trash people missed our garbage this week.....so we're having to load cans on our already full trailer to haul them repeatedly to the dump ourselves....of course, we have extra trash this week since we're moving.

Anyway.....those are just a few of the trials we're dealing with right now. Prayer is coveted.

Thoughts on Moving & Crying

2009-09-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

This has to be one of the worst moves we've ever done. I've been sick to my stomach for 3 days, now, cramps, nausea, unable to eat hardly anything. At first I figured it was a virus, but now I'm beginning to wonder.....maybe I've give myself ulcers. I know I've always been a pretty introverted person, not prone to outbursts, expression of emotion, or crying. But these last few days of packing up my home, planning a cross-country trip, and making plans for the rest of the fall (including more trips, visits, a new studio, school, classes for Violet), and our trip cross-country, my own human methods for dealing with stress have completely broken down. My usual, "suck it up and drive on" attitude has just utterly failed.

I find myself a complete psycho-wreck. I argue with myself over every decision. "Should I take this? Pack it? Sell it?" must be applied to every household item. I feel my mental faculties breaking down, now, when I look at my kitchen-aid, and ask myself if I can live without it for a year. Frustration sets in, and I begin cussing when a cabinet won't shut properly, or the door isn't left open when I thought it was, and I run my elbow into when passing with a box. Violet is ever-sensitive to my emotional status, and she begins to worry, which shows itself in the frequency of her, "Momma?"s They turn into near-shrieking, "Momma-Momma-Momma-Momma-Momma?!"s and I bark at her, "STOP TALKING!!"

She looks at me in wonderment when I appear in the room, and says, "Did you yell???" I apologize, swallowing down guilt, and try to explain what frustration is. I ask her to keep her voice quiet. She says, "But, can I say, Momma, Momma?" I then find myself making a rule that she may only say, "Momma" one time, then she must wait. For Momma's sanity. Gosh, who DOES that?!

Once my husband came home, I curled up in a fetal position on my couch, the only thing left in my living room besides boxes, and just forced myself to look at the coming year....without Ben....in a new home.....and let it out. I cried for 15 minutes without stopping....and my stomachache went away. At least, for a little while. It came back that night after I shared some of Ben's chicken wings at our favorite, B.J.'s restaurant. Mistake. :(

The rest of the afternoon, however, went beautifully. The Holy Spirit definitely gave me rest, and I managed to get quite a lot done.....and spent time with my family, too, at the mall, and got a lovely haircut. :D

I told Ben, "Remind me that I need to cry more often. At least once a day." It just has to be done. Apparently, one must train oneself to cope, whether it be to "suck it up and drive on" for some or "cry it out" for others.

Share my burden of grief with me as you look at these pictures. Remember my home? The one which received the award for "Best-decorated in Your Neighborhood" from Equity Housing? *Sigh*

Good thing my real home is in heaven.

Uncle

2009-08-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I just had to write about Judah, and his Uncah Ben.

Judah rode from Lynchburg up to Harrisonburg with Ben in the truck, during which ride, he would say repeatedly, "UNCAH? Whatcha DOIN' Uncah?" in the highest-pitched voice you ever heard on a little boy.

Ben would say, "I'm drivin', Judah. Whatchyou doin'?"

"I'm ridin' inna BACK, UNCAH."

Then a minute later, "UNCAH, Whezz my Momma, UNCAH?"

"She's right up there ahead of us in the car with Aunt Susi and Sofi."

"OOohh."

then a minute later,

"UNCAH?" "Whatcha doin, UNCAH?"

"Drivin' the truck, Judah. Whatchyou doin?"

"I'm ridin' in the back, UNCAH!"

It was super-duper cute!

(Now I need to have a little boy!!)

Here they are, bonding over "diggers."

Gramma Sandy dumped beans out for the diggers.

Recent Happy Chaos

2009-08-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

My brother, Sam, got married this past weekend, and we've been just chaotically busy up until the big event. It's been a blast, though, and we've been basking in the awesomeness of having beloved family surround us. I love hearing, "Aunt Susi" all the time....my little nephew is The Cutest Boy I've ever seen! (Sorry, Sam...)

Enjoying "Noduhz" at Uncle Sam's reception.

My Three Sisters: Polly, Elisa, Tess
The lovely couple.
Cousins.

Questioning Sanity

2009-07-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

Either I have way more stuff to accomplish than most people, or my mental faculties are way below average, or everyone else is as miserable and crazy as I am. I'm here to ask for an evaluation from my friends, and for your sakes, I hope it's not the third thing.

I'm just wondering if anyone else struggles like this. I'm wondering aloud.....because in times like these a girl needs to hear other people's lives are as crazy as hers is, in hopes that she's not either fit for the psych ward, or just plain SLOW IN THE HEAD.

So, I feel like I have a lot to do......but when I tried to list the things I was so busy with this week to a friend the other day, I could only come up with about 4 things I did all week. Let me try to accurately describe our summer activities. We're doing some planning (cross-country move, Deployment, 2-week vacation) and some packing, and just everyday life. Every day I make a list of several things from the Pack, Move, & Vacation list, but it's gotten so bad that I feel pretty good if I get just ONE thing done.

I tried to take a closer look at my day-to-day life to see what was holding me up from just "getting stuff done" by the end of the week. Today, Monday, seemed like a great day to start!

Here's how my day was planned: Arise, breakfast, gymnastics, lunch, leisurely afternoon to accomplish some PM& V stuff. Instead, it went like this: I woke up too early, felt terrible. I told Violet to play in her room for 40 minutes to catch a few more winks. Too hot. We both got up by 7:30. Hello, arthiritic hands. Hello, messy, messy Violet's room. Good morning to Ben, for whom I made coffee and sliced fruit. Check email. Find a threatening letter from a horrible eBayer I've been dealing with for 2 weeks, which makes me furious, so I immediately respond. I kiss Ben goodbye, fearing I've put our account in grave danger. Now, with the accusations of being a liar and a thief ringing in my head, I search HIGH and LOW for the leotard to dress Violet for gymnastics. It's not where it should be......it's in the depths of the van where it was tossed last Monday during our emergency pee-in-the-bushes incident during negotiation with a person who rear-ended us. Whole Other Story. I finally find it, and we dash off LATE, with an extra errand (mail a package) thanks to the Horrible EBay Person to do before gymnastics. We arrive late to gymnastics, and it's HOTTTT. There's no a/c in this state, not even in a gymnasium. I realize my phone is malfunctioning, and I've missed a call from Ben 2 hours ago, needing some info from home....which I don't have.....and I call him back to tell him that and then dash back to the Mommy and Me class.

We finish up class with a meltdown from Violet. She falls on her wrist, hurts herself, and screams all the way out to the car. (This, after I've assured the teacher she's ready for the 3-year-old class). All the way home, it's, "Mooommy?" "Mooooomy!" from the back.....and this continues all afternoon. I think she gets this way when I get stressed. She's just wanting affirmation from me.......but it actually makes everything worse. She doesn't care if I answer or not. In fact, whenever I say, "What?" or "Violet..." she just continues with, "Moooomy? Moooooomeee!" So I try to ignore it.

On the way home, we get stopped at the Main Post Gate for a random vehicle check. Random. Huh. I have to declare the presence of Ben's gun, and make sure all that's on the "up-and-up." I think it surprised the guards that it was actually stored properly. Still, I was trembling....we had a shooting at the PX last week, and the MP's are pretty cranky. 5 of them stood around me talking about whether it was legit. I called Ben to let him know we'd miss him for lunch, which I'd planned would be yummy roast beef sandwiches, and basically hung up on him, because I was getting questioned by the guards.

When I got home, he crankily admitted to me he'd locked himself out of the house. I let him in, and he flew to collect his gear, and I stuffed a PB&J in his mouth as he ran out the door to his motorcycle safety class. Family Lunchtime=Failure.

I decide it's a good time to cool off, being that it's past 90 degrees...so I go into the back yard to fill up the pool. Did it rain? Why is the porch all wet? Oh. It's because I left the hose on all night. The yard is like a sponge......a wet one..... Moving on from thoughts of the massive electric/water bill this month.....I plop Violet in the pool and hope for respite to gather my thoughts about what to get done this afternoon. I am interrupted by "Moooomy! Hafta go pooootty!" We go....and I swallow a huge lump in my throat as I see freshly-cut grass stuck to wet feet scatter as she runs across the carpet to the bathroom. *Ching* "Vacuum carpet" is added to the list alongside "clean up Violet's room," and "fix dinner," and "laundry." This happens again 5 minutes later. "Mooooomy, Hafta go potty!!" We troop across the carpet again, scattering more grass ......again I swallow, trying not to imagine my afternoon getting swept up into the Black Hole of Housework.

*SIGH* Why is it so hard? I can manage a list....I CAN just "get stuff done." It's the 99 other interminable things like bottom-wiping, sheet-changing, grass-vacuuming, mess-cleaning, tear-dabbing, story-reading, husband's-shoes-picking-up, meal-cooking, kitchen-cleaning, and clothes-putting-away that I can't seem to get the hang of. It's like I'm 2 people, living 2 simultaneous lives. I'm the maid, picking up, cleaning up, fixing, cooking, and wiping.....and I'm the Wife and Mom, loving, nurturing, teaching, being the companion, planning, and accomplishing helpful things for Ben. Golly, that almost sounds like THREE people!!!

The other day Ben took Violet from me for about 40 minutes to go on an errand. While he was gone, I 1. whipped up a dessert 2. cleaned up the kitchen 3. made dinner 4. emptied the dishwasher 5. picked up the whole downstairs 6. started a load of laundry 7. folded what was in the dryer 8. was leisurely browsing the internet when he got home with her.

So I've still GOT IT! I just can't tap into that Super Woman within me when my daughter and husband are around. Great.

Fearless

2009-07-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

Violet loves bugs. She runs after them and picks them up. She brings me "cute" little pill bugs, ants, and most recently........bees.

Yes, bees. Your standard, stinger-enforced, black & yellow, fuzzy bumblebee. She follows them around our clover-ridden lawn, coaxing them to stand still, please, and tries to pick them up. One day she succeeded. She brought me a mysterious handful of something, and said, "Here, Mom, here ya go." I took it, unknowingly, felt it buzzing, and then frantically started flapping my hands. "Oh, goodness!!!! It's a bee!!"

I immediately tried to downplay it, since fear of bees is not necessary. They're not really out to get you, just.....pollen. 'Course, in my childhood, I stepped on so many barefooted (not to mention being stung into infinity when a farm-hand mowed over a ground-hornet's nest in front of me and my dad) that I have a horrible fear of them. So, having no background like that, she's still not afraid of them.

Here she is, following them around hoping one will land.

Here she's picking one up.

Later, she did get stung by one. I watched her through the window, she reached for it and drew her hand back sharply. No tears, though, she just looked concerned. She sat there a minute, then came inside squeezing her finger. "He pinched me." is all she said.

My little fearless girl!

Vaseline Adventures

2009-07-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

It was a classic scenario. I was leisurely showering and dressing when some information began leaking into my frontal cortex.......it was quiet. Tooooooo quiet. Foolishly, I argued with myself. "She's fine....there's nothing she can get into too badly that I can't clean up. Take advantage of her diversion, whatever it is, and enjoy some time to yourself to do your makeup."

Bad, BAAD Mommy. Foolish Mommy!

After a face like this, though, how could you be angry?

No, I just swallowed my disappointment at having lost the next 6 hours of my life to multiple hairwashes with dishsoap, carpet cleaner, laundry, and wiping, wiping, wiping vaseline off of EVERYTHING.....and calmly explained that vaseline was just for thermometers. Not for hands. Not for pillows, Not for hair. Not for carpet.

She understood. "Fer-Mah-mitters in your BOTTom." Nodding.

"Yes." I said. "Thermometers in your bottom." Sigh.

Violet's Chore

2009-07-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

We trained Violet to do this at 18 months. She takes such pride in helping Mama in the kitchen, and this was her first chore she can do literally all by herself. What a joyful thing to watch training in action!

I have to give credit where credit is due, in this case. Michael & Debbi Pearl wrote a book called To Train Up A Child, which gets a lot of flak from different circles around the country. People seem to object to the Pearl's concept of TRAINING a child, vs. disciplining (punishment for disobedience, usually on a graded scale) or nurturing him (showing him kindness and gentleness and "leading" him to obedience). The Pearls use an illustration of a dog to prove their point, and many people seem to take offense at that, claiming that children are people, not dogs! How can you treat your child like a dog? What I got from the "dog dissertation" was quite different. Let me attempt to explain. Chapter 1 reads:

"Careful training can make a dog perfectly obedient. If a seeing-eye dog can be trained to reliably lead a blind man through the dangers of city streets, shouldn't a parent expect more out of an intelligent child? A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can't a child be trained not to touch? A dog can be trained o come, stay, sit, be quiet, or fetch upon command."

When I read this I actually got excited. I thought, Of course we should train our children, and not just irritatedly discipline them when they "cross the line"! I mean, we bestow that amount of dignity upon a mere beast, should we not bestow it on our own offspring? Shouldn't we offer them an opportunity to be in control of themselves enough to accomplish tasks that make them a real help to their family? What a source of pride for a 2-year old to be able to see his or her actions contribute to an adult world! I trained Violet to withdraw her hand on the command, "Don't touch!" at age 6 months. What a delight to see a wobbly, chubby 6-month old withdraw her hand with a toothless grin when told! She has been such a delight! The training process has, indeed, been joyful for us.

I think that the belief in Original Sin is fundamental to this training process' success. One must understand that unlike the dog, whose nature is subject to a mostly benign instinct, the child has an evil instinct. If you can accept this, you might come a little closer to accepting the idea that you are fighting for your child against the evil nature inside him by instilling an instinct to obey at an early age. The method of doing this, the Pearls go on to explain, should be matter-of-fact, tempered with a consistent JOY. You are joyful, seeing your child learn to curb his evil instinct and use self-control, with the consistent help of a switch in your hands, and the affirmation of a smile on your face.

I have to say, as Violet has matured, we have almost grown past the "training the Obey Instinct" portion, and have altered our methods into something which includes more rationale.....but, thank the Lord, the Instinct To Obey is still within her, and even if she struggles with whining or other issues, she still comes when called, and drops it when I say, "Don't touch!"

What a precious muffin! We love her so awfully much!!

Summertime!

2009-07-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a little of what we've been up to in the last 2 weeks since Ben's been home.
We found a "Splash Park" in Tacoma.....ladies, you should see if your city has one of these! They're TOTALLY awesome!

We picked strawberries one morning....only got about one flat's worth, because they grow so TINY out here, that it took all morning to get just that one flat! Apparently strawberries need more sunshine than we have to offer in order to get as huge as they are in NC.
Neighbors set up a "Pool Co-op" on July 3rd, and everyone on the block brought their pools to one yard to fill up. We all sat out in the yard and watched the kiddos run from one to the next, keeping cool. We had close to 90 degree temps on July 3rd and 4th! It was SOOO exciting!

July 3rd we went to our church's Block Party and Car Show. They produced a real wing-dinger of an evening, complete with a hot-air baloon and fireworks!
.....and free cotton candy! Violet's first!

So, what do you think brought the dirt onto THESE toes?????

The Raspberry Farm, of course! Yes, we went picking again, and Violet found the chickens very interesting, too. Ah, the country life....I do miss it! It was pretty amazing, just eating such luxuriously sweet raspberries off the 9-foot tall canes.....totally organic, totally sweet, totally huge. :) We've been eating them for breakfast every morning for DAYS!

We had a bit of a cold spell, and even a tiny, little spurt of a thunderstorm, where we actually saw rain for the first time in 60 days!!! During the cold spell, we bundled up in jackets, and went bike-riding. Violet is pretty passionate about see-sawing, we found out!
GYmnastics continue to be a highlight in our week. Violet is learning to hoist herself onto the bars, jumping with two feet on the balance beam, and beginning the basics of the cartwheel. She's getting so good, she's at the "top" of her class, and we're considering adding another 3-year old class to our week to see how she'll handle that. I'm THRILLED to see her becoming skilled at this at such an early age. As a piano teacher, I almost dread beginning her music lessons......if you're a teacher, you'll understand. But, watching her learn in someone else's class is totally AWESOME. :)

Gymnastics!!

2009-06-29T13:47:00.001-07:00

Violet seems to have found her calling in life.....

I have trouble getting her to leave. She breaks down in tears and actually runs away when I tell her it's time to go. It's so amazing watching her get better each week. She now will swing by herself on the bars, and even walks a few steps without support on the balance beam. She can jump with 2 feet, do a forward roll, and attempts countless new things each week.

The place we go to is NASA gymnastics, and they're dedicated to training kids for competition and excellence, and they start YOUNG (there's a 20-month old in her class). They're very well-thought-out and structured classes, too. I'm just amazed at the progress Violet's made in 3 weeks.

We will be attending all summer, and eventually I'll remember to bring the video camera. For now, these are just from the iPhone. :)

Too Much Fun

2009-06-26T21:14:00.001-07:00

Back during our weekend in Portland, we left Violet with Jenny & Jeff while we galavanted through the big city all weekend---except for those few precious hours Ben spent on a BIKE! I can't tell which was more fun for him, the weekend getaway, cruise and all.....or the hours whizzing around the large yard on Uncle Jeff's Yamaha! :D He taught both his girls to ride.....though Violet seemed far less fearful in the end. Just looking at all the controls, flipping gears with you left foot, clutch with your hand, brake here, gauges there....it was toooooo much. I will need to get used to riding BEHIND first! That was hard enough!!

Ben said, laughing, when we'd made our final round of the yard, as I jumped off from behind breathing hard, "I must say, I've never been held so tightly!" I must've begged a thousand times in a high squeaky voice, "Ben, slow dooowwwnn!" I really didn't think I'd be that scared, but....I sure fooled myself!

Her PREFERRED method of travel!

Sometimes, a girl just has to post a picture of a shoe.

2009-06-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

......and here is That Shoe. Just browsing the internet for accessories for the "Homecoming Outfit" I always indulge in, THIS popped up. This is one of the most heavenly designs I've ever seen.

Don't you agree? :D

Linky-Link

2009-06-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

A friend from church wrote a post that greatly interested me, regarding Pacifism (non-violence). This is a topic that has cropped up repeatedly in my family/friends circle (homeschooler/hippies enter the military....you get the picture). He's writing a pretty straight-forward opinion that is rather inarguable. I'm interested to see, especially, what my family has to say about it. :) Dig in, guys. Thanks, Dan, and welcome to my micro-blogosphere.

Science vs. History

2009-06-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

I recently read about a scientist accused of "starting with the desired conclusion and working backward to the evidence." Think about this for a moment. When trying to prove a theory, we begin with a theory, do we not? We then test the theory, trying to prove it wrong. If we cannot prove it wrong, we allow it to stand as True.

However, we also reject "bias." Is not the process of theorizing also a form of bias? If we reject bias AND theory, together, we are left with mere facts, scattered about, which we must pick up and paste together the best we can. Even then, when pasting them together, we eliminate certain conclusions that we have previously theorized are "impossible." For instance, if we see a human person affixed to a structure of impossible height, and no presence of any machinery or assistive device that would allow him access to that height, we could look at the facts, and then *reject* the conclusion that he flew there, because we are biased into thinking Human Flight is impossible. With this biased starting point, we begin what we call the scientific process. We might subtly develop other "theories" in our mind, though we might not realize they are there, but they read something like this: "Well, he didn't fly there, we know that. Did he climb?" and we look for evidence to support the climbing theory. Or we say, "Well he couldn't have flown, but he might have been catapulted from a distance." and we search for pieces of "evidence" that support a catapult theory.

That sounds terribly amateur, but isn't this the Scientific Method?

Actually, I have a much better Method worked out for diving truth, and it's called "I SAW IT HAPPEN," or, History (I SAW IT HAPPEN AND I WROTE ABOUT IT).

10 or 40 people approach you, the scientist, gazing at the mystery of this human person at this impossible height. They, one by one, privately from each other, tell you they were there, a moment ago, and watched this person fly up to this height and settle there of his own accord. "Human flight?" you say, "Impossible. These people are all crazy or lying." However, they continue to file by, each with his own unique story of what he was doing and how he saw this first miraculous example of human flight. "Preposterous," you say, "I can't understand how so many crazy, lying people got loose today, all in the same day."

Sadly for you, you have just missed out on the first and only instance of human flight. Though the 10 or the 40 will go on to document their, you have already theorized in your mind that human flight is impossible, and so you reject all evidence, testimony, and history that supports it.

And you call it Science.

And you say it disproves the Resurrection.

In my opinion, History beats Science every day.

American Spirit

2009-06-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

A major news network just did a story that is heart-warming to my generation. Go here and read it.

I'm filled with hope that not just the economy can recover, but that the next generation will grow up with a new (old) concept of ownership, responsibility of self, respect for hard, hard work, and will renew and re-prove the belief that the dreams of home, wealth, and family can be HAD NOW through perseverance, dogged determination, creativity, and the humility to dig through someone's trash rather than swipe a card they can't pay off.

Long live Craigslist & Freecycle! I believe they are the gateway into a new economy, one that is built on True Free Trade. :D

SUCCESS!

2009-06-15T14:32:00.001-07:00

The cottage cheese is a Go, my friends. It is spectacularly the FRESHEST and most FRAGRANT and palette-pleasing soft cheese phenomenon I have ever placed on my tongue. VERY delicious. I highly recommend it. When you put it in your mouth, visions of happy cows in sweet-smelling clover, warmed by sunshine come to mind. You can almost hear the babbling brook, too. :) Yes, it's that good. It's as easy as heating up a gallon of milk, pouring in 3/4 c. vinegar, waiting for the curds to separate, then rinsing them in cold water. It took me like, 10 minutes of prep time (+30 minutes of waiting).

Once you get done rinsing, you have a mass of pretty, fluffy, white curds. To get a creamy cottage cheese consistency, add back some of the whey and/or cream or half n' half.

We are delighted!!