The Predictable 2 pm
I’m not writing this to complain – honestly – or to seek advice, or any other reason really other than this is my blog, and I like to be 100% honest, and well, there. (Now that I’m done I realize this is the longest post I have ever written. 
)
I am so happy with my schedule. I am probably too comfortable if truth be told, but I feel like God’s blessings and some hard work have gotten me to the point that I can say I am completely content with how our daily life at home runs. Someday I hope to post a little schedule “blueprint” sheet that I’ve made a couple and revised a couple of times in the last 2 years in case anyone who is entering “the life with little ones at home” would benefit from seeing something practical like that.
All of that to say I’m so happy, but maybe God is requiring more of me, as He often does with His children. I don’t know, and I’m not sure about it. But anyway, here is my struggle. Yes, it’s probably going to sound like petty whining, but it’s just hard. I don’t know what do about it.
I live in a cul-de-sac with sweet neighbors on both sides. There are teenagers in those homes, and I am always praying for opportunities to talk more to them about their lives, what they believe, and what they think God has to do with all of it. I have had a few great conversations with the girls, ages 14 and 15, but I haven’t seen much of any of them since I have been so sick and tired the last few months. I really do love my neighbors, and I feel humbled that God has put us here between them so providentially.
One of the neighbors is a boy who is about 13 or 14 years old. He is the sweetest thing. He often comes over to rake our leaves, cut the grass, and there have been a few times he has asked if he can help me with the kids, take a walk, etc. I trust him although I don’t know for sure if he believes Jesus is Lord of his life and how he makes decisions and what-not. He wears all black all the time, and he hangs out with other guys who wear all black all the time, but I see right through all of that to his tender heart. He is gracious and sweet, and our children love to see him.
There is this problem, though, that has seemed to escalate over the last few months, and is just so happens that it has coincided with my afternoon schedule getting more manageable and easier for me. Every afternoon at precisely 1:45 to 2:00 pm – somewhere in there – he gets on his skateboard and starts: RRrrollllCRASH! RRrollCRASH! Sometimes it gets quiet for a second and RRrollCRASH! And sometimes he rolls away to see a friend or take a ride, and it is quiet for a while.
I have been criticized by some people for keeping my house too quiet, but I stand by my preference. I love the ticking of the clock, the rustling of the wind outside, the peacefulness of afternoon naptime. My kids know that if they are awake, this is “quiet time.” Maybe I’m crazy, but I have trained them that for at least those 2-3 hours every day, our house is going to be quiet. We go so hard all morning, and Meredith doesn’t nap in the morning anymore, so after lunch and some reading it’s time for naps and quiet. It’s so nice, and that is when I get work done on the computer, read, or sleep. I don’t do any loud cooking or cleaning, and everyone has gotten used to it. But when the skateboarding starts, you can hear every little sound and the crashes sound like someone hammering on our front door! Meredith always wakes up, and most of the time she doesn’t go back to sleep. I’m not a tyrant. If she doesn’t nap, she doesn’t nap; no problem, except that from 4 to 7 pm, it is a terrible situation to console her while cooking and doing whatever else I’m doing, even when Eric is home. What am I going to do?
One day (remember this, Emily?!) I walked outside (okay, I stormed and huffed and puffed) in my t-shirt, nasty hair, and bright pink plaid pajama pants (RUN FOR THE HILLS!) and said, “Please stop. Every time you hit the driveway Meredith wakes up and starts crying and screaming. I need to get a little sleep, or I’m going to fall apart!” And with the rudeness equal to an elevator shutting in your face I raced back inside my front door. Eric was pretty mad at me that day. It got better for about a week, but then it started again. I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t think he goes to school most of the week because sometimes it starts around 12:30; I just want to yell out the window, “Shouldn’t you be in school?!!!”
OKay, I could go on and on and so prove that I am a mean, hormonal pregnant woman, but I am hungry and will go and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead. I don’t know how to end such rants, except maybe: Feel free to regret that you ever clicked on my blog today.
Hibernating
Well, not really. I am alive. For once I think ever, I don’t really have much to write about on my blog. Get out!
We are doing great here. I am still feeling much better although I have felt so tired lately. I know I am pregnant and fatigue is normal, but everyone in our family has seemed extra tired. I think we have been on undercover fighting a cold or something. Anyway, I’ve also been working on a couple of design projects, feeling designer’s block, discouraged, etc. I am excited about my high school reunion site, though. Check out the comp drafts and let me know which one you like better. So fun.
I just remembered: I was going to make this a separate blog post (I lie! I do have something to blog about!), but I just now remembered something funny that happened last week. Eric let me buy something I’ve been wanting so much, which is a Crosley turntable, cd, cassette player (4-in-1). There is a store on ebay that sells them reconditioned for 1/2 to 3/4 the retail price. Well, I was so excited to have it delivered last week. I went to Goodwill (how I love thee!) a few days later and came home to show Eric some records I bought. “You’ll love these, honey! I got them for you.”
“Grease…”
“Saturday Night Live…”
“Kristi, those are MY records that you took to Goodwill a few months ago.”
“What? No, Eric…”
“Yes.” (He’s smirking and laughing hysterically now.) “Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that.”
Well, after a few minutes of “discussing this,” (hee!) Eric says he remembers me asking him to take some stuff to Goodwill, and his records were in the box. I defended myself and said that every good wife who asks her husband to do something like that really means that she wants you to “take some stuff” (and scan and approve for their items first). Right?! Besides, I told him they smelled like smoke. But that argument failed because most stuff from Goodwill smells like smoke before you wash it/ wipe it. Well, now we have several records from Ebay and Goodwill, we can dance in our living room to the crackling melodies of Ella Fitzgerald, and we even have some that he likes.
(I can see our minister now at our wedding ceremony…. “Do you promise to love, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, even when you have to repurchase something at Goodwill for $2.00 that was already yours?”) ha ha ha
The kids and I are memorizing the first couple of paragraphs of Hebrews 1. Oh, what a beautiful passage this is! I just love, love, love talking about the supremacy of Christ! Lydia and I have been googling “Jesus, throne, heaven,” and words like that looking at images and artists’ renditions of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God in heaven. This is No Fairy Tale has been off the shelf for several days lately. I have been talking to Steven and her about how everyone is different, and many of us have different ways of picturing how heaven will be when we get there with Christ. Lydia says that she thinks it will be a lot of blue and gold and light. We talked yesterday and some today about whether or not we will have blankets, beds, and baby dolls there. I told Lydia that I bet there will be millions and millions of different creations that we will see, make, and enjoy from infinite cultures in heaven, and it will bring us so much joy.
Anyway, here is Hebrews 1:1-4 if you haven’t read it in a while. Whooo!
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Whoo!
We say it about 9-10 times together, and then we giggle as we listen to the ESV readers read it!
PS – If you haven’t clicked that link on my sidebar before (Do’s and Dont’s With Babies), you must. I haven’t stopped laughing. My favorite is “introducing baby to pets.”
Flickr: The Commons
I have several gift books and coffee table books containing historical photographs from the early – mid 20th century. Those photographs and their stories fascinate me and open my eyes into the worlds that I never lived and the roads that I never walked. You can imagine my excitement when I read Flickr’s Recent Announcement regarding thousands of photos released to public domain from the Library of Congress! The Library of Congress is hoping that this release will welcome users to tag photos and add their own descriptions and stories behind them. I hope you can get some satisfaction from this new treasure opened up to the public and share your comments and photo-tagging of the collections, too. Happy browsing!
(read more about copyrights for these photos)
Help me choose some frames!
I started wearing glasses about nine years ago, and I went through a couple of good pairs. I have never wanted contacts for various reasons, and my vision has gotten much worse in the last three or four years. That’s fine except that my last pair of frames broke about a year and a half ago, and I never replaced them. I never went to the eye doctor either, so I’ve been going around with bad eyes for way too long. No excuses except my own laziness and procrastination I guess!
Today I’m finally going for an eye exam. Yahoo! I’m really excited. I’m going to get my prescription and order from this highly recommended site, 39 Dollar Glasses. These Laura Ashley frames are the ones I used to wear, and I liked them pretty well. I had them in a dark brown color, so they seemed to go well with my face and go with everything I wore. I need your opinions, as I’m terrible at seeing things for myself and like to have someone else’s opinion who is outside of me, my house, whatever.
First pair: Milan
Second pair: Morgan
I may order two and have one black and one brown, since these frames are not expensive. The thing I don’t like about plastic ones is they don’t stay on my nose as tightly, but I don’t like any of the metal shapes (except this pair a little bit).
So what do you think? And, by the way, what face shape would you say that I have? I think oval or diamond, but I’m not sure.
Hooray
Hooray for feeling better! I just have to write because I know so many of you coming here have heard my prayer requests (and whining) about “morning-sickness.” For the last 3 or 4 consecutive days I have felt much, much better. I must be at the “magic” 12 or 13-week mark in which my hormones start leveling out enough for me to feel pretty normal. I go for my first OB checkup this week (we are planning to have another home-birth), so I should find out a little more about my pregnancy then. If not, no worries. I do know that I have been a little dehydrated; my midwife told me that at our last appointment. It is so so hard to get enough water in when I am chasing around three little ones! I can tell the fog of the first trimester has lifted, though, and that is enough for me.
Eric knows I feel better. I have been cooking and cleaning up a storm. I laugh and tell him that I have over two months of neglected housekeeping that I have to catch up on before something else hits! Seriously Lydia went to bed tonight with a red eyelid and some weird drainage, and that can’t be good. Tonight she smashed four fingers in a heavy metal door, and then she knocked out her baby sister who fell backwards hitting her head on the hardwood floor before bedtime. It was not a very restful Sabbath for us or a very fun day for Lydia! Tomorrow will likely be a hard one, so I doubt I’ll be on the computer very much more this week. I also need to do some more personal candidate homework before our primary in SC. I do care very much about this election, and I’m struggling quite a bit with who to support.
Thank you for visiting my corner of the world and praying for me through these hard weeks. I so appreciate your encouragement.
The best part of all of it is that I am much more able to wake up early and spend time with Jesus and my husband in prayer, and that has been so scant in the past several weeks. I feel like a new woman! Actually I am a new woman!
Healing
Wow, I don’t really know how to express the emotions I have from reading the comments from my previous post. They were so diverse and detailed (oh, how I love to read good stories from other people’s lives), yet the unifying thread in all of them was the sincerity about the trials so many of us face with our dreams, doubts, disappointments, and sins. I was also so humbled to know more about the trials other people face, and I am surely put in my place. I really appreciate that so much, and the words you wrote were much needed. Thank you.
I have honestly been too exhausted to write, but if I don’t write more soon about what has been on my heart, I will forget, or it may lose its novelty in my mind. During the last several days this poor pilgrim gal has seen some stunning healing from the hands of the Almighty Creator.
Eric led the worship for another MCO retreat, and this time Lydia went along with us and got to hang out with the other children there. It was a great time but a hard time for Eric and me. Long-story short and details minimized, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to talk at length one night with a good friend who counseled me about some sins in my life and things that are just too large and cancerous to ignore. I was then able to talk honestly to Eric and be free to share some things that have been buried, albeit unrealized, deep in my soul. We had a three-day conversation with some pauses for food, fellowship, sleep, worship, and emotional release. By the end of the weekend, I will just say there was this fantastic, complete healing that happened between the two of us. There were dangerous enemies lurking in our marriage, and Jesus healed us from them. Praise Jesus. The ironic thing was that the weekend’s theme was concerning “healing,” although it was geared towards those in the medical profession and their role in God’s healing.
Yes, I have a super husband, and yes, I love him deeply. I have loved him for years, and he has loved me. But no, we haven’t had a perfect marriage. We have had a lot of outward pressures, but we have also had inner sources of the things that have weakened us. I didn’t realize until recently that I was walking around with some anger and bitterness that had festered for years, and it was leading to other sins and opening the door for satan to advance. Praise be to God that He showed me these things by His grace.
The key to the healing that has happened is confession — first, confession to God and then to others. There is no foolish talk here of telling myself I’m sorry or forgiving myself. It’s about acknowledging my sin before God and asking in faith in the strong name of Jesus to be healed. It’s about realizing that I have left my first Love, and that is my first step away from peace. I want to end these thoughts with the words of life that have been my bread in the last several days, and if I may encourage you, wherever you are in your journey, God knows your sin, and no matter what you think about it, it is serious, and it is serious enough for Jesus to give His life to cleanse you of it. God will heal you, and your joy will be sweet.
James 5:13 – 16
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Psalm 32
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. SelahI acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. SelahTherefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. SelahI will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
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