Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Keziah Rain!

Your first year has gone by too quickly. Where is the 7 pound cuddle-bug I used to snuggle skin-to-skin underneath my robe? You are walking and talking now. You act more like a little girl and less like a baby every day. Slow down. Mommy's heart can't keep up.

My Christmas Heart

I love having a Christmas baby. Many people resent being born around Christmas time. I will always do my best to make sure Keziah doesn't resent her birthday. I will do everything I can to make her birthday a separate celebration. Hopefully she will always love her birthday. As for me, I know I will always love the fact that she was born three days after Christmas. She was the best Christmas present I ever received.

Last Christmas, I was days away from birthing her. Last Christmas took on a whole new meaning for me. When I heard the Christmas story at church on Christmas Eve, I kept thinking about Mary. How uncomfortable she must have been to be traveling at nine months pregnant. How frustrating to go into labor and then find out there was no room for them in the inn. To face the fact that she was about to give birth and she would have to make do with the manger in front of her. I thought about these things as I rubbed my bulging nine-months-pregnant belly. When the song, "Mary Did You Know" was sung, I pretty much lost it and wept and wept.

This year my refections are very much the same. Only I am thinking more about that first year of Jesus' life. In the book of Luke, chapter 2, we go from Jesus being born to Him being 12 years old. The only glimpse of His babyhood is verse 40, "And the Child grew and became strong..." The first image that comes to my mind when I read that is Mary nursing Jesus. I guess it is because Keziah is such an enthusiastic nurser and is showing no signs of letting up any time soon. Besides sleeping, there is nothing that she has spent more time doing in her first year of life than nursing. To me this is a beautiful image. Apparently many artists throughout the last two centuries agree with me. I did a little art history research and learned that many artists painted the nursing Jesus to emphasize that although He was God, he was also fully human. He nursed on His mother just like any other baby. I was thrilled to stumble upon this video this morning. This is my Christmas heart this year.

Three Things

There are three huge events going on in our lives this month: Working on our new (to us) house; Advent/ Christmas traditions; and planning a totally awesome first birthday party for Keziah. I thought I would share a tiny glimpse on each of these big ongoing events.

The House:

Our house came with this totally awesome breakfast bar that separates the kitchen from the family room. It is made of the same stone that is on our fireplace and the outside of our house. It's a cool detail. Here was the problem. After the original wooden table top got scratched up, someone 'fixed' it by covering it with contact paper. When the contact paper looked bad someone 'fixed' that by painting it red. When the contact paper started to disintegrate into a sticky gooey substance and the red paint was peeling off it, someone 'fixed' it by buying a vinyl table cloth and stapling it the table. Of course I found out all this in reverse order by peeling off each layer in hopes of somehow salvaging the original table top. But alas, it was unsalvageable! Thankfully, my very handy husband decided he could build a nice new wooden table top. It turned out great. He is very talented.

His next project is a mantle for our fireplace.

Advent:

We have many Advent traditions in our family. We are trying our best to squeeze them in despite the fact that we just unpacked all our Holiday items a week ago. This year it is especially fun coming up with new traditions for Keziah. We decided she should get to put the star on the tree this year. (Pardon the tangent, but I just have to share that we got this totally awesome, beautiful, really tall Douglas Fur for only $20. It would have easily been a $70 tree in Tennessee. Oh the advantage of living in the mountains where these things grow everywhere and you aren't paying for someone to truck them in.)

Anyway, we also seem to have a tradition of our traditions turning into hilarious stories. Right after this picture was taken, Michael Paul decided one more branch needed to be clipped off the top and thought he could do so easily enough that he didn't put Keziah down. As a result of his somewhat awkward one-handed snipping of the branch, he accidently snipped the cord of lights and shorted them all out. So we had to un-decorate the tree, buy new lights and start over the next day.

Party Plans: Not much to say here, just making preparations. But I'll give you a hint about the theme of the party:

The House

The long awaited pictures of our new home. We didn't plan on having beautiful snow in our first house picture, but it sure does make the property look nice.

By the way, it is 10 degrees here with a windchill far below zero so I told Michael Paul to set up the tri-pod and he got three quick shots and we would just have to take what we got. Thankfully, Keziah looked great in all three pics, but this is the best one of us by the front door. I will probably use it for my Christmas card this year.

Going Quackers

We are slowly but surely unpacking boxes and setting up our new home. Tonight Michael Paul set up his record player. This was especially exciting because the record player is one of the things that has been in storage since July. So after Michael Paul listened to the records he has acquired in the last few months (Keziah was dancing and enjoying Led Zeppelin with him), I decided she needed to be introduced to my all time favorite childhood record, Disney's "Going Quackers". I'm posting this video for Aunt JuJu and my parents. (Hey Jules, doesn't this look familiar? - kinda takes you back to when we were two! Remember 'vacuum cleaner hoses coming out of our noses' hahaha - best record ever!)

Enjoy!

Update and Pictures

Keziah is 11 months old today and I am finally finding time to post some updated pictures. I hope you noticed my new title picture. That is actually the same tree that was in my old title picture which in case you forgot was this:

Keziah was 6 months old in this picture. She has changed so much - not quite as chunky and a lot more hair now! The tree behind her is her placenta tree. It is doing quite well thanks to that wonderful fertilizer. I just had to take some fall pictures of Keziah and her tree before the red leaves fall off. Here are some more shots from today's photo shoot.

I actually have a great excuse for why I haven't been blogging much lately. We finally sold our house in Tennessee and bought a house in North Carolina which we will close on this Wednesday. So the past month and a half has been spent dealing with all sorts of ups and downs dealing with that. I really don't want to go into it all but suffice it to say there were a lot of bumps in the road. But through it all God has been so good to us and blessed us with a wonderful house and property in the mountains that we love. We absolutely can't wait to get into our new home and feel settled. And it will be so nice not being away from my husband for several days each week! I can't believe he has been working and commuting there since July! It has definitely been a challenging fall for our family.

Of course there have been several wonderful moments in the past month. We had a fun Halloween and Keziah went trick-or-treating for the first time. OK, it was one house and that was Michael Paul's parents, but it still counts! She went as a giraffe and she was adorable! I kept meaning to post a Halloween picture and just never got around to it. Well, here it is:

Keziah surprised us last week by taking her first steps in the middle of Home Depot as we looked at carpet samples. I was so glad her Daddy happened to be there. We were so scared he was going to miss that milestone with as much time as he has to spend away from us working. She's still not really walking yet as crawling is much safer, but she will take a few steps with encouragement. It actually appears as though she did not get her Daddy's dare-devil personality. She is so cautious about everything. I am actually quite thankful for this. However, she is still my little monkey and is very good at climbing anything and everything. She is such a neat little girl and I continue to fall more and more in love with her as her personality develops.

Hopefully, I will be back next week with pictures of our new house. And I really hope I can blog more than once in December. It's going to be a busy month trying to set up a new house, celebrate Christmas (I haven't even thought about shopping yet - yikes!) and planning that first birthday party!

I can't believe my baby is almost one! This year has flown by!

Packing Woes

I've always thought of myself as a minimalist. Well, not any more, at least not in reality, in theory maybe. Although I would very very much like to be a minimalist.

We are moving this Friday. I've been packing for two days now and realizing we have a TON of JUNK. The conclusion I have come to is that hobbies = stuff. Michael Paul and I have too many hobbies.

We've always thought we didn't have near as much junk as other people. We have a tiny house. We visit friends houses and notice most people have things like multiple tv's (we have one), multiple beds for their multiple bedrooms (we have one), and other random things like china cabinets, chests of drawers, and loads of toys and baby stuff (some of which we would like but haven't gotten around to buying). Needless to say we've been feeling pretty confident we could move to NC in one trip in the biggest U-haul one can rent. "We don't have near the stuff most people have and people move everyday!" is what we've been telling ourselves.

I'm starting to face reality. One trip would be a miracle.

Back to my hobbies = junk conclusion. We might not have a lot of the things that 90% of middle class Americans have in their homes. But we have soooooo much junk that no one else has due to our insane amount of hobbies.

In addition to packing the conventional stuff that everyone has -dishes, clothes, dvd's and cd's, random doodads, clocks, wall pictures etc. - I have packed several hobby-related boxes.

Here are my hobbies and the number of large boxes I packed of junk relating to said hobby:

Scrapbooking: 3

Crocheting: 3 (I can't throw out a half used ball of yarn)

Calligraphy/ Art stuff: 1

Sewing: 2

Michael Paul contributes the following:

Leather working: 1

Wood working: 2

Building and Painting Models: 1

Collecting and restoring antiques: 3

Not to mention, his big hobby: music. In addition to several guitars and amps, there are no less than 12 boxes of pedals, strings, soldering stuff, guitar tools, music books, and I don't even know what half of it is but it is somehow necessary for his guitar hobby.

Our combined hobby of outdoor playing/ camping equals a ton of space in the truck dedicated to sleeping bags, camp chairs, camping stoves and equipment, rock climbing gear, kayaking gear, hiking backpacks and hiking gear etc. etc. etc.

I am soooooo over our hobbies!

You can't be a well-rounded person and a minimalist as well.

Sailing Flashback

Yesterday I posted pictures of Keziah's first sailboat experience. Sailing means so much to both Michael Paul and me. When we were dating we were continually amazed at how much we had in common. It was so much more than just the same interests and similar views on virtually everything. There were all these weird coincidences in terms of our childhoods. One of which was that we both grew up spending our weekends and summers on sailboats. Both of us have wonderful memories of days at the lake. We are so happy to have Michael Paul's parents' boat to give Keziah the same magical childhood we both had.

My dad sent me a ton of old photos of my sister and me on our old sailboat. They were so much fun to look at and remember to joys of childhood. So I thought I'd post some.

Sailing

We took Keziah sailing out on Michael Paul's parents' boat yesterday. She absolutely loved it. It was a great day for sailing with perfect wind. Keziah was so cute wearing her new sailboat dress. She kept sticking out her tongue to taste the wind. Just had to post these adorable pictures.

A Reunion I'm Looking Forward To

This weekend is my 10 year high school reunion. I won't be going. It's nothing against my high school. I loved my school and had many friends there. It just doesn't look like it's going to work out. Michael Paul will be working. My sister can't go and I don't really want to go alone. Although it would be fun to catch up with people I haven't seen or talked to in ten years, it's just not worth the effort to me.

However, there is one reunion I am very much looking forward to. It will occur in 5 more years. 2015 is a very special year for me and my two closest high school friends. Here we are back in 2000:

Katie, me, and Valerie

I was blessed to have two of the neatest girls for friends in high school. They actually didn't go to my school; we became friends at church. Valerie and I grew up together and really started clicking in middle school. She was funny, intelligent, and she 'got' me. She also had a beautiful voice and I always made sure I sat next to her in youth choir because she made it easier for me to sing. She would share her Halls Defense citrus cough drops with me and we would chat while the other sections were rehearsing. That's probably how our friendship started. Valerie and I were sopranos but Katie was an alto and thus missed out on our youth choir fun and bonding. Then our junior year of high school the three of us decided to sing with the adults in the Living Christmas Tree and very quickly, "Valerie and me" became "Valerie, Katie, and me". Katie was just as witty and smart as Valerie and I was constantly laughing when I was with them. Unlike most of the girls I knew in high school, they weren't petty or gossips or boy crazy. They were genuine, thoughtful, and mature.

So anyway, back to the importance of 2015. That is the year that we decided we would open our time capsule. In 2000, the three of us made a time capsule out of a large pipe and buried it in my back yard. I think we chose my yard because I knew for sure my parent weren't going anywhere for at least 15 years. In it we put small reminders of some of the memories we had together and wrote letters in which we described where we thought we'd all be in 15 years. I don't know about them but I'm pretty sure what I wrote is going to be quite wrong for all of us. I don't think anyone's life unfolds the way they imagine it will at age 18. Katie is a lawyer now in Louisiana and Valerie is a minister's wife and mom to two girls in Alabama. Valerie and I met up a few months ago and I snapped this picture of Keziah with her two precious girls.

When we buried our capsule, I remember thinking 15 years was basically forever. At 18, 15 years is basically your whole life. Now I know how quickly 10 years really goes by and I kinda wish we had said 2020. I very much look forward to the day we open our time capsule and reminisce about high school. 'Til then, I mostly keep up with Valerie and Katie in blog world. (You can check them out here and here.)

9 Months

Nine Months Old. 3/4 of a year! Wow, I can't believe it. She is getting so big so fast.

She can't wait to start walking. She only started crawling a few weeks ago but she is quickly moving on to walking. She would much rather cruise around the house holding on to things. She can even walk just keeping her hands against the wall, no ledge needed. She still face-plants as soon as she tries to take a step on her own. But she gets really frustrated when she can't get from point A to point B by walking alongside something. She will eventually get down and crawl but only after a few minutes of looking around and whimpering. Crawling is so beneath her!

When she does decide to crawl, she is super fast. Every picture of her crawling is out of focus because she comes after me and the camera can't focus and snap fast enough.

Grandaddy visited this weekend and turned this milk crate into an amusement park ride. Up and down and around like a ferris wheel. She had a blast - until she stood up in the crate and we had to stop for fear of her falling out.

Speaking of getting big.... due to a recent growth spurt, we are completely skipping 9-12 mo clothes and moving right on to size 18 months. I've been organizing and packing away all her birth-9 months clothes to make room for fall and winter clothes. A lot of the things I had put away for fall, she will never wear. But I just got a ton of cute things my mom picked up at a consignment sale. I can't wait for cooler weather because they are so cute. In the mean time, Keziah had a blast playing in the box I packed outgrown clothes in.

I love this picture. There is just something about those baby cheeks. I just have to kiss them 100 times a day.

As far as solid foods go, bread and apples are about the only things she is interested in eating. But she is still a very eager nurser and nurses about every two hours. She likes to put a foot up on my chest which is just so cute. And of course she has to grab my necklace if I'm wearing one.

I am so thankful she is a good nurser. My favorite moments in the day are when we snuggle up for a little snack.

Happy 9 Months, Keziah!

Conflicting Duality

We just got back from the store. We went to buy cat food and rat poison. Hmmm. What is wrong with this picture??? It would seem that our kitty kat has not been earning her keep lately.

Happy Fall

Fall officially starts tomorrow. My favorite season. I love the colors, the crisp air, the feeling of change. (Check out my new fall colors blog background.)

Fall seems to be the season when I grow the most. Maybe the changes in nature just make me more aware of the changes in me. But is just seems like a lot of the major changes in my life have occurred during fall.

I met Michael Paul in the fall and we got married the following October. I loved having fall colors in my wedding. I loved our honeymoon in the mountains as the leaves were just starting to change. We have celebrated every anniversary by going to the mountains and enjoying the colors. If you pay attention to our marriage ticker at the right you will see that our 6th anniversary is right around the corner!!

Every Fall for the past ....hmmmm....23 years (goodness!) has been marked by a new school year (17 as a student and 6 as a teacher). A lot of people have asked me if it felt weird not going back to school this fall. Honestly I didn't even think about it. This question has been catching me off guard. I usually respond with something like, "oh yeah, school has started, gosh it seems like another lifetime ago that I was a teacher." A dear friend in my small group told me I haven't missed it because I am now finally doing what I was made to do. I have no regrets in deciding to stay home with Keziah full time.

This fall I am keenly aware of how fast my baby is growing and changing. She is looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby. She's crawling all over the house and getting really good at walking around the coffee table and couch. Sometimes she forgets she can't walk without holding on to something and takes a step away from the table - which always results in a painful face-plant on the hard woods.

And yet she is still my baby. I think her recent mobility scared her a bit. She doesn't want to grow up and be super independent yet. After long days crawling and playing by herself, she's been getting really clingy at night. I've enjoyed her renewed interest in cuddle time. We even have gone back to doing some kangaroo care in the moby wrap. At night she crawls up on top of me and rests her head on my belly to sleep. I love this stage for it being the best of both worlds.

I have a feeling she's going to be walking by winter and who knows what else. I'm looking forward to many changes this fall. Happy Fall Everyone!

Football Fun

It's Fall - my favorite season for so many reasons - and one of them is that it is football season. And that means Sunday afternoons watching my favorite team, the TN Titans playing. The first regular season game was yesterday and we killed the Raiders 38 to 13! And the best part is, I got to go to the game with my mom and bring along the newest little Titan fan! She was quite the little cheerleader. We all had a blast.

We went inside to cool off at halftime and Keziah got a little nap during the 3rd quarter.

She loved standing and cheering. Thankfully the person in front of us stayed inside most of the game so Keziah could stand and see.

She had a lot of fun and looked so adorable in her little cheerleader outfit. She will be wearing that every Sunday this fall! GO TITANS!!!!!

The Most Inconvenient Time

My mom has been saying Keziah will start crawling at the most inconvenient time - because that's just what babies do. She was right.

So I woke up this morning to find my living room a complete mess. This is typical when my husband is on night shift. He likes to do projects at 3 AM in the living room and then fall asleep before cleaning up after himself. Last night he was apparently doing something with a guitar pick-up, a soldering iron, and lots of tiny little wires and electrical type thing-a-ma-jigs.

Of course finding my living room a mess was not a big deal before the baby. Now it is. A very big deal. So I put Keziah down in the middle of the floor, a good 5 feet from anything dangerous - or so I thought. I decided the first thing to be picked up should be the charger for the computer - because it is not ours. We are borrowing my in-laws' charger because (shocker) Keziah broke ours by sucking on it. So of course my first priority is to protect the thing that is not ours. And in the 30 seconds it took for me to pick the charger up, Keziah managed to reach over to the coffee table, pull up on it, and go for the one thing I didn't notice - Michael Paul's favorite drinking glass. So it gets knocked off the table and shatters into a million pieces.

So now I have to grab Keziah before she goes playing in the glass. Did I mention that as I grabbed Keziah, she managed to reach out and grab the box of electrical stuff and spill it all amidst the shattered glass.

I put baby girl in the farthest corner of the room and give her a toy so I can try to get the glass swept up while trying to protect my own bare feet and being careful to not throw away the tiny electrical thing-a-ma-jigs that may or may not be important to my husband's project.

And this - THIS - my friends, is when my precious Keziah decided to get on her hands and knees and take off across the floor crawling.

Somehow neither of us got cut on the glass. I got it all cleaned up and even managed to snap a picture of her first crawling.

Yeah, mom was right. The MOST inconvenient time.

I guess it is high time I do some baby-proofing around here. A big part of that will be the discussion on 'cleaning up after yourself' that I will be having with hubby when he wakes up.

New Blog to Check Out

Hey Everyone, I just wanted to throw up a little advertisement for a new blog. My SIL just started a new blog called Just A Little Bit Downsy. It's a great place to get inside the head of a mom parenting a special needs child. Whether you have 'special' kids or 'typical' kids, you will learn a lot and be touched! If you've ever wanted to ask a tough question of a special needs mom, this is the place to do it. Please go check it out!

Reflections on Birth and Running

I've been reflecting on Keziah's birth a lot lately. This is mainly because of two things - 1, I have finally gotten around to developing pictures from the birth and scrapbooking them and 2, Keziah has not been sleeping so I am up a lot at night. Having looked at birthing pictures all day and then nursing my restless baby all night, I've had a lot of time to reflect on the emotions of it all. I wrote out her birth story here. But I mainly stuck to the facts. How can you put words to the feelings?

One of the things I was thinking about was the glorious endorphin high that hit me right before I entered transition. My sister, the runner, talks about the runner's high a lot. I have only once experienced that point where you have pushed your body so far that you suddenly receive a rush of endorphins that numbs all your pain and you feel like you can go on running forever - it was climbing Mount Katadin in Maine several years ago. It was one of those moments where I was halfway up the mountain and my only option was to keep going up or turn around and go down, but I had to keep going so I figured I might as well keep going up. I thought I was going to die. And then this rush of energy hit me and I felt like I could just go on forever. When I tried to imagine labor, that was the image I always reflected on. I knew it would be like that. You have no choice - that baby is coming - so you might as well just keep pushing through the pain.

My sister was the only person I wanted at my labor and birth besides my husband. She of course had no experience with labor but decided running a marathon would be the best way to relate. Julie trained for her first marathon throughout my pregnancy and completed it just a few weeks before Keziah was born.

Julie after finishing her 1st marathon. She is wearing bracelets I made for her with my initials and Keziah's initials. It was my way of connecting her run with my soon coming labor.

She is running her second marathon in December and is in training again. Today she emailed me this:

i had to get up and do my 6 miles this morning. i just ran in crockett mills so i wouldnt have to drive to town. it was a spiritual expereince. i started at 5 under a bright almost full moon straight above so it was light enough to see even out in the country. my whole first 3 mile lap, nothing stirred, no cars, no animals, no bugs, no wind. it was almost eerie and had i not been in my running meditative state where i feel most connected to God, i might have gotten spooked. one of the coolest things that happened was watching my moon shadow chase my street light shadow. i wont go into all the metaphorical meanings that made me ponder. then on my second lap, the sun was coming up. i got to see it go from black sky full of stars and moon to first light to a bright pink and orange horizon to sun rise. and to top it all off i ended up doing 6.5 instead of 6 and at a 9:40 pace and i was able to sprint at the end up a hill. i felt so strong, like supernaturally strong, like there is no concievable way i should be able to do this after just 4 weeks of training, like i had reached some new level of mind/body, and i could draw no other conclusion but that it came from God.

I could relate. My labor was a lot like that. Some weird meditative trance-like state. Knowing God was providing me some undefined strength to keep going. Reaching some new level of mind/body. Everything around me was quiet - like the world stopped. This morning the world stopped for Julie's run. It was like that when Keziah was born.

Maybe it was just lucky timing for me that my endorphin kick came right at transition. Pushing Keziah out seemed effortless and pain-free. I never felt that "ring of fire" people talk about. I never felt myself tear. I felt high and numb and yet not loopy like I was on drugs. It was incredible and I totally understand the runner's addiction because I could easily get addicted to birthing.

Ina May, the famous midwife, talks about the ecstasy of natural childbirth. She often has people reflect on the image of Bernini's "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa" because this is the face a woman makes in natural childbirth.

As I comb through my own birthing pictures I do indeed find one of my face in ecstasy. Not a great picture, but I can see the ecstasy on my face. And that is indeed how I felt.

Friday Five - Skillz

Friday Five: I got Skillz (and some non-skillz). Yes I know I'm making up words - it's one of my many skillz!

For Friday Five, here are three of my "mad skillz" (aka things I can do that you might not know about) followed by two of my non-skillz (aka things I can not do)!

My Skillz:

1. Shoot a gun. Although not quite as good as Michael Paul, I am a decent shot. I got really into shooting in Montana while visiting family. I was determined to shoot a prairie dog while there but alas I never got one. I am itching to go back because somewhere on that huge ranch, there is a rodent with my name on it! My husband works the night shift and I am alone at night a few times each week -but believe me - I have no hesitations about pulling out the shotgun and shooting an intruder.

2. Carpentry/Plumbing. No I am by no means as good as a professional (or my husband for that matter) but I have found I can do a lot of house projects by myself if I just set my mind to do them. I installed all the shoe molding in our house which included cutting complex angles thanks to our archways and bay window. I also have fixed two minor plumbing problems in the past few years. And I can pretty much fix anything with enough spackling! :o) When it comes to renovating a room - I am also really good at the demolishing part of the project.

3. Flip. Thanks to my many years as a competitive gymnast in my childhood, I can still do quite a few gymnastics tricks. I haven't tried flipping since Keziah was born and I'm a little nervous to try it now - I think I might finally be too old. The last back flip I did was on a trampoline last summer while I was 3 months pregnant. But I have not lost my flexibility; I can put both feet behind my head and I can still do a backbend and pull myself to standing.

My Non-Skillz:

1. Roll my tongue. I absolutely can NOT roll my tongue. I have been trying my entire life and I have never done it - not even once by accident. I have had several people try to teach me including my 6th grade spanish teacher who after an entire semester of trying to teach me insisted I take french as my foreign language. When I went on a mission trip to Nicaragua, all the children made fun of me because I could say no spanish words with an r in them. I know it is a small thing but it is very annoying not being able to do something that everybody else can do.

2. Memorize. I can not memorize. OK, technically I can - given enough time and lots and lots of effort. But it certainly does not come easy. If something is not logical or I can't come up with some clever way to remember it, I find it very difficult to learn. This is probably why I hated history in school. It was just a lot of names, dates, battles, places etc. to memorize. Even though math is very much my strength, I did not have my times tables completely memorized until the 6th grade. It wasn't for lack of practice. I did my flash cards regularly. It just took that long for them to finally stick.

3 and 2 make 5 - Friday Five and I am done. Thus I conclude my week of posting all about me.

Thursday Three ...A question

Question: Suppose the government hires you to be the only person working in a missile silo deep deep underground all alone for a month (you're the guy who has to be there to push the big red button should war break out). You have to stay there by yourself for a month with no contact to the outside world. All your basic necessities such as food, clothing, and even a Gideon's Bible will be supplied for you. You get to pick three and only three personal items to bring with you. What would you bring? (Note: there is electricity in the silo but no tv/cell phone/ internet reception)

Answer: I would bring an ipod with all my favorite music on it, a large book of fun math and logic problems, and a large box of peanut m&m's. I think if I could work math problems while listening to music and munching on m&m's, I would be quite content alone for a month.

What three things would you bring?

Wednesday One

One Hymn:

I love hymns. I love more modern praise music too. But I really love the lyrics of the old hymns. Those people knew how to write good lyrics. My current church sings very few hymns and the ones we do sing are completely jazzed out to a more modern, black-gospel style. Sometimes I miss the hymns being sung the old 'First Baptist' way - the way I grew up. Recently I have gotten back into all my old hymns because singing is the only thing that puts Keziah to sleep in under 15 minutes. Every night I sing several old hymns to her at bedtime. I have been truly amazed at how many I remember by heart.

It seems like in every other genre of music my "favorite song" changes every few months. But I have had the same favorite hymn since I was a little girl. It always rings true to me no matter what stage of life I am in. I sing this one to Keziah every single day. So for One Wednesday, I will share the lyrics of my one favorite hymn:

Be Thou My Vision

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, thou my true word,

I ever with thee and thou with me Lord;

Thou my great Father, I thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;

Be thou my dignity, thou my delight;

Thou my soul's shelter, thou my high tower:

Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:

Thou mine inheritance now and always;

Thou and thou only first in my heart;

High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven's joys, O Bright Heaven's sun!;

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Tuesday Two - 2 Pet Peeves

Continuing with my week of letting you know more about me, today I am sharing two of my pet peeves (along with a little ranting!)

1. Being interrupted. No not in conversation. I do that myself all the time (so my huby claims). But being interrupted while I am in the middle of something. If I am interrupted mid-task, the chances of me returning to the task are almost zero. I lose my motivation. If I set out to scrapbook for the day, or organize the closet, or whatever, I will make sure I have eaten and peed before I start. I won’t even stop for bathroom breaks. I won’t answer my phone. And it drives me mad for darling husband to say, “can you stop for a second and do such and such.” I won’t start a task if I know I will be interrupted. This is why I have to know what my day looks like in advance. If we are expecting company I have to know the exact time they will arrive. If we are going out, I want to know when we will leave so I can plan my activities accordingly. I will absolutely not start to clean the house or begin a project if there is the slightest chance I will have to stop before it is done. Having a baby has certainly made this more challenging. But it doesn’t bother me at all to not be able to begin a project, only to be interrupted. So basically being a mom just means I am not doing near as many projects as I use to.

2. Feminism. Seriously. Everything that comes with it. No, ladies, you can’t have it all and do it all and not sacrifice something. Men and women really are different. There really are a lot of things a man can do better than you! And news flash - there are many things you can do better than a man! Stop trying to be both. Men aren’t out there trying to be both - they’re not stupid - they know that would just make life harder on themselves. Why make life harder on yourself. Embrace your femininity. Let your man take charge every now and then. Give him back the pants and relax. You don’t have to do it all. If you ask me, feminism has enslaved more women than it has liberated making them feel pressured to have careers and take on leadership roles all the while feeling guilty for not having time to devote to their husbands and children. I also believe the feminist movement is directly responsible for the fact that many men have forgotten how to be gentlemen -opening doors, paying for things, walking on the street side of the sidewalk, and standing up when a woman enters the room. These things were done because men use to see women as highly valued, precious, and worthy of extra attention and care. But a few women somehow mistook this for being seen as weak and wanted no part of it. And now the rest of us are paying for it. Furthermore, concerning that whole ‘barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen’ stereotype - what’s wrong with it? Sounds like a dream life to me!

Monday Many: More about Me

In continuation with my week of telling you all about me, today will be more random facts.

-It annoys me that there is no number that starts with an M for today’s alliteration, thus my using the word many.

-I love having my head scratched and people playing with my hair even if it makes it frizzy.

-I hate white baseboards and trim in houses; I hope my next house has stained wood trim - it hides the dirt.

-I hate cleaning floors, but I love doing laundry and organizing things.

-I think Super Mario Bros 3 was the best video game ever and I recently got to play it again because my parents dug out my old Nintendo from the closet.

-I truly believe I became my most authentic self the day I met my husband. Before I met him, I never felt completely comfortable around anyone because I knew they didn’t really get me so I always tried to hide certain aspects of myself. When I met Michael Paul, all my masks came off and all my walls came down.

-I love sarcasm. My mom is very sarcastic and it always made me laugh. My best friend in high school (Hey, Valerie!) was the queen of sarcasm and I thought she was hilarious. I can be pretty sarcastic myself but I’ve learned throughout the years that not everyone appreciates sarcasm and you have to be careful or you will offend someone.

-I was so ready to be a mom that I didn’t care about any of the things I would have to sacrifice. The absolute only thing that I was a little sad about giving up was sleeping in. And then God turns around and blesses my sox off not only by giving me a baby but a baby who likes to sleep in ‘til 10 most mornings.

-I really struggle with fear and worry and have lost a lot of sleep over the years playing out dreadful scenarios in my head. This has gotten worse since Keziah was born.

-I’ve struggled with insomnia off and on throughout my life. A few years ago, I got really into “Poker After Dark,” a TV show that comes on at 2 in the morning. I made Michael Paul teach me how to play Poker and for a few months we played a lot of Poker just the two of us. We would wager things like back massages and foot rubs.

-Sometimes when I can’t sleep I try to come up with a hard math problem and then solve it - this relaxes me and distracts my mind. If I can’t come up with a good problem, I count in my head until I fall asleep. I like to wake up the next morning and see what the last number I remember saying in my head was. My record is 1,387 counting traditionally. Sometimes I count by 3’s or 7’s but I don’t remember my record for those.

-I really struggled with depression in high school and still do from time to time.

-I am very introverted and somewhat socially awkward. I have had no less than five people come up to me in the last ten years to tell me that they “hated me when they first met me because they mistook my lack of social grace for snobbery, but that they really liked me now that they got to know me.” I learned to laugh at this statement and I have actually tried really hard to work on this trait of mine.

-Being introverted, I often decline invitations to hang out with people and ignore phone calls because I can only handle so much human contact or I go crazy. I love solitude. I love blogging because it is low stress, human contact on my terms. It irks me when extroverted people take it personally when I decline an invitation. It is never personal, it is just me trying not to go crazy.

-In my ideal life, I would live in an old farmhouse on a few acres nestled between mountains, grow all my own food, have chickens and goats, and have 10 children, mostly girls but a few boys, whom I would homeschool while my husband worked with his hands building things all day.

I guess “many” turned out to mean 15.

Tomorrow: Tuesday Two!

Sunday Six: 6 of my Favorites

1. color - green

2. drink - coffee (black)

3. place - tie between Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness and Glacier National Park

4. sport - football (Go Tennessee Titans!)

5. children’s book: Bridge to Terebethia

6. flower: gerber daisy

Saturday Seven: All About Me

I’ve been attracting new followers who don’t know me personally so I thought I’d spend the week blogging all about myself. And you family and friends who do know me might still learn something about me! Of course I had to come up with a creative (i.e. nerdy) way to share this info so I will be sharing a few facts each day, the number of which will be chosen based on alliteration with the day. We’ll start with Saturday Seven - 7 random facts about me!

1. I have an identical twin sister but most people can tell us apart just fine.

2. Every pet I have ever had growing up lived years beyond its life expectancy despite the fact that we never took our pets to the vet to get yearly shots and only fed them dry kibble. They were a chihuahua named Paco (16.5 years). A calico cat named Tiger (15+ years - we’re not sure because we didn’t get her as a kitten). Two hamsters Allie and Blondie (3.5 years). And now we have our tabby cat, Pumpkin.

3. I had a teaching certificate in math grades 7-12 but I let it expire because no one could ever pay me enough to teach in a public school again. It was the worst 2 years of my life.

4. I was very much an overachiever in school and always the teacher’s pet. I always took the AP and honors classes and graduated valedictorian. But deep deep down I always wished I was the girl who got the solos in the show choir and the lead role in the school play.

5. I have naturally curly hair and I hated it very much growing up and complained about it all the time despite the fact that I always got compliments on my hair from strangers. At 16 I made the conscious decision to start loving my hair and I have ever since.

6. I love rainbows and waterfalls and always feel like God is talking to me when I see one.

7. I have always felt like I was born way too late. I am constantly drawn to things that remind me of a simpler time. I hate technology (even though I am currently using it to tell you this - yes I see the irony). I love antiques. I hate my car. I’d rather walk locally and wish I could take trains to travel. I hate cell phones (mine broke today). I refuse to get a smart phone. And I refuse to change my font color from white just so all you people with iphones can read my blog on your phone. I am not on facebook and don’t intend to be.

Stay tuned for Sunday Six - More About Me!

Some Very Random Thoughts for World Breastfeeding Week

I really really wanted to post something for World Breastfeeding Week. It's this week in case you didn't know. I've been brainstorming since last week and haven't come up with anything that makes a complete post. So in an effort to not let the week slip by me, I decided to just start typing and get over the fact that this will be very very random. So here goes ... My Very Random Thoughts about Breastfeeding:

I hate the term 'breastfeeding'. It sounds like all I am doing is feeding my baby food from my breast. I am convinced that breastfeeding is only maybe 30% a nutrition supplying system. The other 70% involves developing the immune system, comfort, emotional support, bonding, psychological health, and even spiritual health. I like the term 'nursing' much better because it seems to convey something deeper.

There are a lot of myths out there that drive me crazy. One is this: Everyone told me that if she was latched correctly it wouldn't hurt. WHATEVER. Nursing hurt like H-E-double-hockeysticks for a good month in the beginning. Everyone assured me she was latched properly but I was always worried I was doing it wrong. Now I have met several women who had the same experience I did. Here's an interesting tidbit: the fairer your skin, the more it will hurt in the beginning. I am really glad I stuck it out. Now it is quite enjoyable. But I wish that whole 'it shouldn't hurt' phrase was never uttered. Maybe more women wouldn't give up so quickly.

I really believe in children weaning themselves. I have no plans of weaning Keziah just because she is __ months old. There is a ton of research on the many many benefits of extended nursing. Despite the fact that many Americans find nursing toddlers disturbing, there is no research indicating that it is in any way psychologically or otherwise harmful.

I have loved each and every milestone Keziah has passed, but my favorite has to be when she figured out how to find the breast and latch herself for night feedings. Because we co-sleep, this has enabled me to sleep through many a feeding. What more could a sleep deprived mama ask for?

Baby K has lots of different types of feedings. There's the "I'm starving, all business, very efficient" feeding, the "whimper whimper suck suck" comfort feeding, the "I'm bored with my toys so let's play with booby now" feeding, and the nighttime "I just want to know you're still here" security feeding (that one's very short - just a few sucks and back to sleep). But my all time favorite has to be, "Oh look, new people, I want to show off my mommy, so I'll act like I really want to nurse and then as soon as mama gets relaxed, I'll pull off real fast and turn my head and smile at the strangers so they can bask in the glory of my mommy's magnificent booby!"

Happy Breastfeeding!

PS For some hilarious breastfeeding comics, check out one of my favorite blogs, Mama-Is

Foster Falls

It's been a while since I've blogged. Yes, I'm still here! We have been crazy busy working on our house to get it ready to sell. It is now officially on the market so everyone pray it sells fast. We can't wait to get to Asheville. Michael Paul has started his new job and so far he likes it. He has been home for a week and we are enjoying a lot of quality family time before he has to go back to work. Yesterday we went to Foster Falls to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement. We got engaged at this waterfall 6 years ago and haven't been back to it since. It was really fun going on a little hike and playing with Keziah there. We had the whole place to ourselves because no one else is crazy enough to be out in this heat. When we got engaged there was a ton of water coming down, but this time there was just a trickle. Even still Keziah was wide eyed and mesmerized by it. She seems to really enjoy nature and we are so glad. Here are some pictures:

Thankfully, Michael Paul volunteered to carry Keziah on the hike. She's almost 18 pounds now!

Snack Time!

Splash Splash

I love playing in the dirt!

I found a stick!