Pregnancy Brain, Neighbors & Yard Crashing

So, words are not coming so easy for me right now. A few have suggested that maybe it is “pregnancy brain”… so I tried to think about being pregnant with Co… was my writing spurred on by the pregnancy or inhibited? And you know what? I couldn’t remember. (Exhibit A? Perhaps)

Other possible blame holders are as follows:
-sickness [I finally stopped being nauseous last week… and then promptly got strep throat.]
-processing a lot of private info not fit for the the world wide web [though I love you bloggy friends dearly]
-time [sometimes the question is: should I complete morning hygiene or blog? or should I eat breakfast or blog? or should I sleep or blog? or should I read my Bible or blog? so currently though I have not written much… my clients, the tiny person growing inside of me, my tired body, and Jesus thank you for taking one for the team.]

Still, the lack of blogging should not be mistaken for a lack of stuff going on in our lives…. no, sir! I can honestly say that my life has never been so full or so good. More mornings than not, I find myself sitting at the kitchen table eating steel-cut oats and sipping tea with my enviably sweet husband while Cohen entertains us with his songs, dances, or “shows”, wondering is this really my life? Could it really be this beautiful and simple? And somehow it is. [And by “somehow” I mean, of course, thanks to Jesus]

It is not perfect, naturally. We have spats. Sometimes he’s tired from a pressing week at work. Sometimes I am overly emotional and reactionary. Sometimes Cohen doesn’t sleep for days on end. Sometimes the mail comes and it is all bills. Sometimes my clients all decide to all fall apart the same week. Sometimes one of our dogs runs out in the yard, cuts her side 8″ long and 3 layers deep, and we have to spend $300 we weren’t expecting to.

It is not perfect, but it is good.

Yesterday it was sunny without a cloud in the sky. After two weekends of rain forcing us to cancel our plans, we were able to have a work day in our “yard”. The excavator came Friday evening and when David, Co, and I got home from our Whole Foods run [ps- don’t want to cook dinner? Just go to Whole Foods on a Friday evening- samples galore! Co said, “Mom, this is the BEST grocery story ever!”] there it sat in the yard. I thought both of my boys were going to have a hard time going to sleep just knowing that piece of machinery was on our property.

We got up around seven and I tidied the house while the boys started learning the excavator. I took off for an hour or so to have prayer with Mom, Aunt Deb, my cousin Emily, and few friends at the church. When I returned, my in-laws were in the yard with work gloves on, our dear friend Nick was loading his truck with the debris and my husband was digging out some giant stumps left behind when the dead trees and out of control bushes were cut down to make room for the… well, house.

our house before any yard work- can you even see the house for all the overgrown bushes & untrimmed trees?

Work was in full swing, which was good cause I have big plans for this yard between now and when this baby arrives. [think: siding, a wrap around front porch, patio, pergola, privacy fence, garden, playground, and yes- even grass 🙂 ]

The day went pretty much that way from there on out. We lost Nick to his wife for a few hours (but kept the dump truck 🙂 ), gained my brother in law Tim and my brother Matt and my mom in the afternoon, and just kept at it only stopping briefly for lunch. Our yard is just under a half acre and with 60+ stumps to be removed and truckloads of ivy to ball up, we made a serious dent in the project, getting more than half way through the yard.

Here are some photos of the yard before we touched it so you get an idea of where we started two years and some 30 truckloads of brush ago:

side yard by the road, not that you could see the road!

front "yard" (zero sunlight!)

there were more than 10 of these horrid bushes around the house!

ivy choked 10 trees in the yard! the stone wall is behind all of that brush

our yard is more than 70' wide, but only 20' was usable due to the brush (all ivy & poison & thorns)

I found that though I love yard work [especially if I get to use a chainsaw], I wasn’t much help. That whole no-heavy-lifting-or-twisting-from-the-middle-pregnancy-thing kept me from the kind of work I normally love to get deep into. Around the same time I had that realization, I also realized how awesome it would be to have Yard Crashers come with a crew and complete a massive project in two days! What is wrong with those people who turn down the help at their local home improvement store? Seriously? I am willing to bet they have never tackled a half acre of space that has been overrun by various kinds of ivy.

But I digress.

One side of our yard has an old (and somewhat dilapidated) stone wall. On top of the wall were growing these ugly, unkempt vines and bushes. Unable to reach our neighbor (her daughter rents the place), we weren’t sure if the wall and ugliness atop it was ours or hers and the surveyor wanted $350 to tell us. So midway through the afternoon we just decided to hack it all down. David and I have had many conversations in the past week about that mess of vines… I wondered if they wanted the privacy that it provided. David assumed that if it were theirs, they would have at least trimmed it. Eventually Saturday afternoon we decided that we would assume responsibility for the mess (by hacking it down, mind you) and then if they wanted the privacy back we would plant something in its stead… something, you know, attractive.

our stone wall w/ the ugly on top of it

the wall sans ugly growth... still in process, but so much better!

My goal was to have it all down (all 175+ foot of it!) and cleaned and the neighbors side raked up before she got home. While I was inside helping my mother in law make dinner, I saw her car drive up and have to go through her yard to get past our truck, which was still parked there.

Oops.

David hopped the wall and headed over to talk to her. I was so busy when he came in that I didn’t ask how it went. So he made up his plate and we got a call from the owner and he headed back over. I stayed inside. After all, I am pregnant, right? And he’s the calm, diplomatic one in the relationship anyway. He was out there for a solid half an hour. I kept peeking out the window, thinking I should go over but then realizing I had a house full of people.

As it turns out she has no idea if the wall is ours or hers either, but she’s been mowing under that mess and not trimming it for years because she didn’t want to mess with something that was her neighbors and upset someone. She was thrilled to have it all gone. And apparently she told David her whole life story and her daughter’s to boot. Which made his dinner cold and stomach growl, but also let me know that our neighbor is a single gal in her late twenties who is going through a separation. I think I will be making my way over there soon. So, the moral of this story is: talk to your neighbors.

Funny how something as practical as yard work can uncover ministry, isn’t it?

The evening ended with homemade cooking, leftover Subway from lunch and pizza. My dad and three of my five brothers, my in laws, my brother in law, and our dear friends Nick and Bethny were all lounging and eating and laughing. Joe, Josh and Cohen were building lego airplanes in the toy room. Dad and Paul (father in law) were sitting in the kitchen talking man stuff. My brother Matt was eating us out of house and home 🙂 Nick, David and Tim (brother in law) were joking around and laughing like men who needed to after a day of physical labor. Bethny, Debbie (mother in law) and I were talking pregnancy and babies and grandparents and giggling about Bethny’s parents who have already bought a crib and pack-n-play (she’s 11 weeks preggo with their first grandchild). Only hours earlier, Aaron, Beck and her parents had stopped by to introduce Hudson to everyone. I sat there, surrounded by so many people I love, eating the casserole Debbie made, thinking that somehow this is the life I always dreamed of possessing.

…and this morning, just one day from the first day of Spring, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. What more could a woman want?

Thank you Jesus!

Well I need to get ready for church… I hope where you are the day feels as pregnant with possibility as it does here! Happy Sunday friends!

*more yard photos coming when its more “done”- right now even though there is a lot of progress, it looks all torn up and muddy so its hard to tell*

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Springing Forward

Technically it is almost 7a, but it feels like the middle of the night. Scout and Piper barked and then began that beautiful (ahem, ahem) beagle howling about thirty minutes ago. I looked at the red numbers on the alarm clock for the millionth time and decided I would just get up.

White preggo pajamas, funky woven hat, David’s fur lined zip up hoodie that still comes down to my knees, and flip flops… I was quite the sight walking around the yard while my two miniature beagles sniffed and ran around chasing smells no one else would be able to detect.

Cohen hasn’t slept well in more than three weeks now. And by not sleeping well, I mean he’s up and in our room and very awake between four and eight times a night. It is like having a newborn. And can I say that even typing that makes me nervous? Because soon enough we will have a newborn and if my almost four year old is sharing that same sleep pattern, it is going to be like night of the living dead around here. [so pray for his anxiety, would you?]

Mom came and got Cohen after dinner last night to give us a break have a sleep over with her boys so I was determined to get to bed at 8a and sleep until 8a. Of course, then I started to feel kind of sick and icky and scratchy in the throat and stuffed up in the sinuses. So while I did lie down at 8a, sleep was hard to come by. I got up an hour later to try some homemade remedies for colds (thanks to my friends Aegis & Rachael), even going so far as to shoot a glass of freshly squeezed lemon and mashed up cloves of garlic after using the netti pot. I have to say it helped some, but since I cannot smell, I am not sure just how bad the garlic smell is on me this morning. I am thinking it has got to be pretty bad. (Poor David)

David finished working on our taxes and came to bed at 10p or so. Still restless, I decided to take a hot bath. He grabbed a book and joined in me in the bathroom, sitting on Co’s wooden stool while I tried to get rid of the chills and induce sleepiness. Instead, we talked and I got all awake again. Sometime around midnight, I did fall asleep. But I saw 2a, 3:30a, and 4:45a and then 5:30a…….. WHICH was by then technically 6:30 thanks to our Springing Forward last night.

Although it felt like a kick pants to lose yet another hour of sleep, and although it felt more like a crawl forward on my part, I am choosing this morning to think about SPRINGING forward into SPRING.

Yesterday in the late morning, armed with two tape measures and a very eager three year old, David and I went about the business of measuring in our yard. Cohen dressed himself (as is now the custom on days when matching doesn’t matter) in bright blue and yellow striped track pants, muted blue and gray motorcycle shirt, winter boots, a red Nike sweatshirt, and his fireman raincoat. He carried a tape measure in his pocket- the tape measure was really too big for the size of the pocket, so he spent a lot of time picking it up off the ground and trying to put it back- definitely more time than he was actually “carrying” it. He jumped in every mud puddle and broke up the little remaining ice and snow left untouched by the sun. When he tied of that because his socks were wet (this was a tragedy), he got his tricycle out of the garage and barreled back and forth in our circular driveway. He was in heaven.

So were we. All around the yard, little white and purple buds are poking through the ground. Birds chirped. Squirrels chased each other through the trees, jumping occasionally onto the roof of the house or the garage. A neighbor stopped by to tell us about how years ago our yard had been beautifully landscaped, deciphering for us what actually was under the massive amounts of of ivy we have yet to contend with. Two neighbors have pointed out the peach tree and told us not to cut that down. I think our empty house must have for some time been providing the neighborhood with peaches. *grin*

David and I dreamed and talked and schemed with our measurements and paper and pen. We’re having plans for a large addition drawn up and cannot wait to implement our other ideas: fencing, a pergola, patios, porches, gardens, a “wall” of lilac bushes, etc.

When I bought this house two and a half years ago, one of the major draws for me was the yard. Almost half an acre in arguably one of the nicest neighborhoods in town, the lot was overgrown and neglected, but it had a certain enchanted way about it. Then Mom and I cut down and hauled away 23 truckloads of brush and weeds and our friend Nick cut down ten dead trees and it lost some of the magic for me. Mostly because I realized just how much work was still left to do. But yesterday… yesterday I saw it again… the possibilities.

Isn’t there just something about spring? Just thinking about it makes the words of Hosea 6 and one of my favorite Shane and Shane melodies float around in my mind…

1″Come, let us return to the LORD
For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
2″He will revive us after two days;
He will raise us up on the third day,
That we may live before Him.
3″So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

Spring is that time when all things become new and pregnant with hope and potential once again. It has always been my favorite season, but in recent years I have come to identify with it even more closely. When I think about all of the reviving that God has done my life even in the past year; all of the restoration of things once lost, I am utterly overwhelmed. What had seemed dead and barren, He has watered back into bloom.

He really is as dependable as this morning’s sunrise.

So, this morning I thoroughly expect to hear birds any minute and that gorgeous morning light invading the windows of my little house. And I am going to enjoy every second of it despite not feeling very well and not having gotten a lot of sleep.

In nine days Spring officially be among us… what old thing are you going to ask God to breathe new life into? to send His refreshing, reviving rain upon?

Happy Sunday, friends.

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Sawdust & Parental Victories

So Sunday was officially our first night in our new home. We got back from the airport around 2p and I Could.Not.Wait. to scoop up that little Co Bean in my arms!!!! He came flying down the hallway and tackled me and then pointed to all of the spots I needed to hug and kiss. I happily complied. He hugged my neck a good bit of the evening and I just couldn’t get enough of it. We hung out around my parents’ long enough to get some late lunch and to pack up a van full of our ‘random items’ still in the house. (ever notice just how many random items there are left over after you finish moving?!?!?)

We thought we’d come home to a house with finished odds and ends, but the carpenter was still there working, not having had enough time to finish the bookshelves while we were gone. It was understandable, but we were disappointed….

SAWDUST. If you’ve never lived in a house full of it than I just cannot describe to you what its like. Suffice it to say he’ll be finished this afternoon and then the wall mopping will commence. Well, technically, we’ll shop vac, then sweep the walls and then the floor, shop vac again and then mop the walls and then the floors but you didn’t really want the technical info, did you?

So we’ve been eaten out of plastic cups and plates and with plastic forks and spoons this week. Living it up “camp style” as David calls it. All the food in our frig can be eaten without preparation or actual cooking. Boxes are stacked to the 9′ ceiling in the dining room, still closed and sealed with tape. Upstairs our bedrooms and the bathroom are full of the things we couldn’t trust to survive the dust downstairs.

Come this evening, I don’t know if I will ever have been so happy to mop in all my life.

Amid the boxes and dust and our house that is “really not actually all the way finished yet” (just ask Co 🙂 ), we’ve had a parental victory that I want to be sure to document:

Cohen is sleeping all night in his own room! Sunday when we got home we put his room the rest of the way together and put his clothes in his dresser. He had a bath and we read all 3 of the books I had managed to sneak out of a box downstairs. He read me the story of Mary and Martha and Jesus, and surprisingly, told it better than some adults I’ve heard. We said prayers until we’d prayed for everyone either one of us could think of (though he wasn’t sure he could pray for cousin Lucy since she lives in Texas…? we got that one cleared up). I gave him the flashlight, like we had talked about, and he kissed me dismissively, “turn the lights off Mommy”. So I kissed his forehead, turned off his bedroom light, and expected him to protest… at least a little. But he didn’t. In fact, he got up to pee twice and went back to his own bed without a so much as a peep!

“I hope this isn’t a new house honeymoon thing,” I told David over breakfast Monday morning. But with the exception of one rough(er) evening and a few mild whines about going to bed, he’s done swimmingly. Well done, son!

The house is akin to a middle eastern desert- so what?!?! At least we’re all getting some sleep, right? 😉

Happy Friday, friends… 🙂

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A Happy Kitchen is a Messy Kitchen

I can’t seem to sell David on the idea of putting that phrase up in the kitchen… shucks! 🙂 He must know I’d rely on it a little too much…

Anywho, the cabinets are (mostly) in. We’re waiting on just a few. I had high hopes of having them painted and glazed with hardware on before the move and the wedding, but I think I’ve decided there are just no enough hours in the day and that I could save it for a project sometime later in the fall. Cannot wait for the slate backsplash and granite to be in to show you!!! But until now, this is what we’ve got. I wish y’all could’ve seen David and I actually hanging them… hilarious. 🙂

front view..missing the other one over the window...gotta love 9' ceilings

view into dining room

view into living room..missing a cabinet over the frig

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Saturday Photos

Cohen is at the Fulton County Fair with David today… having a “boy party” that I wasn’t invited to 🙂 Truth is, I was supposed to be having surgery yesterday morning so David planned to take Bean for a little trip so I could rest. Well, the surgery got canceled (don’t you love insurance companies who can wiggle out of paying for anything?!?!) but Cohen had gotten so excited about the weekend, we decided to let things go as planned.

I had a hard time going to sleep… and even knowing what to do with myself with Cohen gone. And we’ve only talked on the phone 5x since last night so I think we’re doing pretty good. He called an hour after they’d left last night worrying about where Mama was. I guess boy parties are pretty fun until its dark and you want your mom. But David said he did great and today he’s less interested in talking to me and more interested in the cows and the toys at Grandma and Grandpa Andre’s house 🙂

I did manage to get some things done today that would’ve been incredibly harder with my 3 years olds’ “help”. I got up early, cleaned the basement, went for a run as the sun came up, took Huck to the airport to catch his flight, got ALL (yes, please be impressed- all!) of the wedding decor and flower shopping done for less than $250, checked on progress at the house and measured some things, and then managed to borrow a cute little guy and give his mama a break for the evening.

Whew! If the next two days are as productive as today I might even be thankful for the canceled surgery!

Happy Saturday, friends!

starting the morning off right

Huck... now on his way to live with Amber & Cory in Seattle

a sneak peek at goodies for the wedding

making a wedding crossword puzzle

** check out this cool website and make your own crossword puzzle!

progress on the house- trim & bathrooms

my buddy for the night, Desmond

happy then not so happy

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Still Waters

So… 5 weeks from today I will be waking up to decorate and prepare for a rehearsal dinner.

Unreal.

No one could believe we were really going to try to plan a wedding in 7 weeks, but we’ve made good progress down several giant checklists and while I can feel that there is still a lot to do, I couldn’t be happier about our short(er) engagement. I pick up my dress this afternoon and then after work we’re picking out wedding rings and deciding on flowers.

In 36 days I will be Mrs. David Andre.

Someone pinch me. 🙂

Yesterday was a good one… toilet and sink got installed downstairs (thanks to brother Ben) and the upstairs got primed and painted. I spoke with the electrician and I got a estimate on the trim. I hired someone else to do the tiling this weekend so we can do wedding stuff instead. Upper cabinets are ordered and today I will finalize the carpet and granite installations.

After a year of gutting and remodeling, the idea of actually living in the house had started to feel like a mirage. Even when we got closer and projects were finished, it felt like moving was still forever away. Well, now its weeks… probably only two weeks. And then I will get to fuss over the stuff I really want to… like rugs and painting and window dressings and vases.

Last evening Cohen “helped” Aunt Debbie paint for a little while in my bedroom. He wielded the brush like a pro and kept drawing people on the wall and then covering them up and then giggling. I took him home looking like smurf from his painting adventure. I scrubbed the paint off of his nose and fingers and toes, while he told me all kinds of stories about what his bedroom is going to be like. Then I got in the shower and scrubbed the primer I had spent the afternoon applying off of my nose and my fingers and my toes (apparently Cohen gets his painting “skills” from his mama- ha!) and I dreamed a little about what life is going to be like in that house on the northeast end of town.

David arrived at 8p having had a longer day at work due to a project he wanted to finish. We talked about wedding ideas, finalized weekend plans, did ear candles (yes its true), and decided on our honeymoon location and room and airfare. It was a pretty typical evening (minus the ear candles- I’d hate for you to think I have some strange obsessive compulsive disorder about de-waxing my ears *grin*). We didn’t eat anything special or having anything planned. When he got there I was already in sweatpants and a tank top and Cohen was in his pj’s. We talked through some to-do’s and details, but had no seriously enlightening conversation.

But you know what? It was a wonderful evening.

Sometimes I cannot wrap my mind around where my life has been in recent history to where it is now. Sometimes I want to stop the people around me and say, “Hey this is my life, isn’t it?” Sometimes I find myself praying that it is all real and that God will not let any “other shoe” drop… heck, sometimes I really do want to pinch myself.

But this is my life and I really don’t have to keep waiting for things to fall apart anymore.

Thank you, God. Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU.

While my heart woke up brimming with thankfulness, my Spirit began to recite a familiar psalm of David.

THE LORD is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall not lack.
He makes me lie down in [fresh, tender] green pastures; He leads me beside the still and restful waters.

He refreshes and restores my life (my self); He leads me in the paths of righteousness [uprightness and right standing with Him–not for my earning it, but] for His name’s sake.

Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me; Your rod [to protect] and Your staff [to guide], they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my [brimming] cup runs over.

Surely or only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place. [Psalm 23]

Though this is David’s story of how God was to him, it is also my story of how God has been and continues to be with me. In the last 3 years in particular I have walked through valleys so deep at times it felt like the sun had ceased to exist. I found myself often stumbling through the narrow passage ways, praying for an end to tunnel; begging God for a glimmer of light and hope. And even when I didn’t see a glimmer at the time, I can now honestly testify that the Lord was the Guide and Protector for Cohen and I. The Lord has helped me to climb the highway to righteousness when I knew I didn’t have it in me… and He did it for His name and His renown! Even in the tightest of spots, we have not had need of anything…. that’s the kind of Caretaker the Lord has been to us.

I have seen the Lord prepare a banquet for us right in the middle of trouble, with our enemies looking on. Not to spite them as much as to remind us that we are His; children of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We feasted and dined with Him and been drunk on His company even in the hardest of circumstances. We’ve known what it is to overflow on the inside at times when people would’ve expected us to be coming apart at the seams. He has given us eyes to see into His purposes even when the fog of what was had settled in thickly around us.

This morning what my Spirit was relishing in was this:
He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.

A few years ago I wrote about where I had been and I said I looked forward to someday writing about where I am going. Well, the Lord is leading me beside still, restful waters. I think it might just be as deliciously simple as that.

Thank you God. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

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Fixing Cohen’s House

So…here are the promised house update photos… Cohen asks me every day if his house is fixed yet- its good to be able to tell him “almost!” The long list of to-do’s is getting shorter by the day. Tile and cabinets and countertops need to be installed…upstairs needs painted and carpeted… and fixtures… then! drumroll..final inspection! Hoping to move in less than 2 weeks, without or without the granite (which I am told will take a little longer) 🙂

The next updates I put out will be of us all moved in and decorated 🙂

right inside the back door BEFORE...odd little extra room

just inside the door NOW..all opened up to be a big family room

kitchen BEFORE: tiny and cramped, oddly laid out, closed off

NOW its the dining room! check out that vaulted ceiling! and its now open to the new kitchen

BEFORE was a nasty bedroom that opened from the old dining room

NOW its a great family room that's been opened to extra room to make it extra big (24x12)

BEFORE awkward doorway from bedroom to dining room...

NOW the family room is open to the kitchen, with plenty of space for the washer and dryer to be tucked away

dining room BEFORE (now the kitchen)...weird doorways to skinny hallways

NOW the kitchen (not finished, but you get the idea)

dining room BEFORE...closed off to the old kitchen

NOW the kitchen is open to the dining room

living room BEFORE : closed off

NOW the living room is completely open to the entrance and the kitchen!

half bath BEFORE : no window, small enough to bang your knees on the sink if you dared to sit down

half bath NOW.. more than 2x the size and there is a window!

Co's bedroom BEFORE

Co's bedroom now...carpet and paint coming soon!

bathroom BEFORE: horrible layout & pink..enough said!

bathroom NOW: will be tiled soon... definitely opened up & more comfortable lay out

my bedroom BEFORE..note the fireplace and odd closet/eaves

my bedroom NOW: no nasty chimney! no weird closet!

my bedroom BEFORE...to the right & left were 4' deep eaves that closed the room off

NOW...to the right the eave is completely open, giving the room 4' more on that side

..and NOW to the left is a ledge and another foot of space... instead of a 11x15 room, I now have a 16x15! what a difference

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Candlelight, Engineered Flooring and a Book of Remembrance

I am writing by candle light this morning.

Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Or, like the electricity is down. I guess the assumption depends on your life experience, right? Anyway, its neither. I came upstairs to drink some tea, eat some watermelon for breakfast, and to do some writing. I hate to stir downstairs when Co is sleeping so soundly. But this morning, Mom is asleep on the couch upstairs. I didn’t want to turn on the lights and wake her. And probably the light from my computer is sufficient, but the candles were just calling to me….

Lighting can set a whole new mood. And can I just tell you how much I love the flicker of the tiny wispy flames and the glow from the ones that have burned down such that their flames are closed up in the belly of their body? Love it.

This is a morning where I wish I video blogged…. because I really think you guys would get a kick out of the combo of this amazing candlelight and me (old nightgown, yesterday’s makeup, cave woman morning face) and the whole watermelon sitting beside me on the next seat because its:
a) too big to be on the table and
b) I am too tired to cut it.

Can’t you just imagine me just trying to talk to you about Jesus in that scenario.. in a video?

And that, my friends, is the amazing thing about blogging. I write to you from strange, oddly funny situations all of the time and you don’t even know it. It is kind of like talking on the phone… you can be in your underwear, mopping the floor, and the person on the other line doesn’t even know it. You could even be going to the bathroom if you’re really good. Someone (cough, cough sister Beth, not to name names) used to do that to me all the time.

…Wow. I just went from the ambiance of candlelight to peeing while on the phone. I think that says more about me than I’d care to admit. 🙂

This weekend seemed to disappear into a vapor of frenzied work. The flooring and base cabinets for my our house came in on Friday and David picked it all up in Marysville on his way from work to Bellefontaine. We brought things into the house. Cohen insisted on working hard too so we let him carry the small rolls of padding down the ramp and then it became a play thing for his train and cars. We set the cabinets in place. He tried out the drawers and doors, after getting a quick demonstration from David on how hard you can close said drawers and doors without being in trouble with Mama. We went to Lowes to pick out accent tile and bedroom paint and then closed up shop early to spend some time playing together.

And its a good thing too because Saturday morning began at 5:30 when David and I met at the house. He started cutting the vents in the subfloor and I finished second coats of paint in the entryway, stair well, and living room. When that was done, David moved on to fitting the vents underneath the cabinets (quite the project) and with the help of my dad, I started laying the engineered flooring. Several friends along the way, including David’s dad Paul who was an incredible help all day. I laid flooring from noon until midnight. Sometimes cutting around corners or in closets proved to be a little tricky, but all in all, the floors went down very fast. By midnight, David and Paul and my brother Ben had brought the appliances in. I went home soon after, realizing why it is that my cousin AJ uses knee pads when working on floors! I found out at church Sunday morning that David and Ben had worked until 5...in the morning. After a few more hours of work from David and I yesterday afternoon the downstairs is 99.9% finished and I cannot keep thinking about how much it looks like a real house with flooring and appliances and cabinets…. almost there! (pic coming later today or tomorrow)

To celebrate we went to a movie (whose title is not worth mentioning) and then to get some pizza with my our friends, Nick and Bethny. We worked right up until the movie started, so we pulled up in my grandpa’s pick up truck full of scrap wood to be burned and in our work clothes. On the short drive from my our house to the theater, I was lamenting that we hadn’t thought to grab a change of clothes. David smiled at me and said, “I’ve been waiting my whole life to have someone to do these kinds of things with.” So I decided to love our work clothes and the pick up truck and especially the fact that we have couple friends that would still claim us. Having couple friends is tricky, since everyone has to like each other or it just doesn’t work. The two ladies have to like each other. The guys have to both be able to hang and talk. And the lady from this couple has to like the guy from that couple, etc. I feel thankful to have such good couple friends already. I was also glad Nick and Bethny just wanted to walk over to the pizza place adjacent to the theater. I mean if you’re going to eat in sweaty work clothes, what better place to do it than a place called “Tubbys”- right? 😉

Even with the busyness of the day, something I read yesterday morning has been running like a news ticker through my mind. I went to my church for worship and then scooted across town to another church to be introduced and then back to hear the tail end of the sermon at my church. I am hanging out with the teen girls from the church across town and the pastors wanted for the rest of the smaller congregation to say hello to me and visa versa. Deb, one of the pastors of the church, delivered the message and she spoke up not focusing on the past. In her closing she mentioned one verse at the end of the book of Malachi. Something about it grabbed me, the way verses do when the Lord breathes into them for a particular time and space and person.

So this morning, by candlelight, I read the book of Malachi. Though, arguably the most well known verse is about how God promises to bless the tither, the rest of the book to that point is about how faithless the people are… about how the groan and complain, point their fingers at God, and are wearied over the opportunities to serve Him. In short, they’re a good bit like an unruly teenager, never knowing how worthy their parent is of respect or how good they really have it.

Then at the end of chapter three the book takes an unexpected and short lived turn as the Lord, speaking through the prophet Malachi, lets us in on some valuable information:

“Then those who feared the Lord talked often to one another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His Name.

And they shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I publicly recognize and openly declare them to be my jewels (My special possession, My peculiar treasure) And I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.

Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and the him who does not serve Him.” [Malachi 3:16-18]

Do you see what I saw? Did you catch the precious insight? In the midst of the Lord’s righteous anger being kindled and His direct statements about how He will judge and cleanse and distinguish between the sheep and the goats, He paused just long enough to remind us of His heart. Can’t you just see Him, roused and speaking with Might, voice sounding like the rush of waters… and then His thoughts turn from all that is wrong to remember those who are right…

…those who loved and feared the Lord were speaking to one another and the Lord “listened and heard it“. It makes me think of Psalm 145, where David describes what should be,

“One generation shall laud Your woks to another and shall declare Your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wondrous works I will meditate. Men shall speak of the might of Your tremendous and terrible acts, and I will declare Your greatness. They shall pour forth [like a fountain] the fame of Your great and abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of Your righteousness and justice….” [Psalm 145: 4-7]

In the midst of all of the sin and unfaithfulness and deceit and pride, the Lord took notice of those who were extolling together His goodness and might. While a larger crowd was throwing up their hands and shaking their fists at Him, He paused to notice those who were encouraging one another with the truth; those who loved Him more than the present circumstances. Not only did He listen and give heed to their words, but He wrote down the names of the faithful in a book of remembrance. I don’t think it is that the Lord was concerned He’d forget (though that’s the reason we keep lists!). I think He wants to someday open that book one day and remind us just what it means when He says to us, “well done, good and faithful servant”.

So the Lord wrote down the names of those who…. reverenced Him, who worshipfully feared Him and who thought on His Name.

Can’t you just see the Lord pausing to be blessed by the fragrance and aroma of that righteousness and then His chest puffing out a He proclaims that those who are His? He refers to Himself there as the Lord of hosts, aka the God with an angel army. So, in essence He’s stating the depth and breath of His sovereign reign and then right behind it publicly announcing His intent to lay hold of those who are His…His jewels, His special possession, His peculiar treasure.

I love the imagery of Christ coming back for His Church- His bride. My favorite moment in every wedding is that second right after the groom catches his first glimpse of the bride walking toward him. In a ceremony of intent and purpose and in the seriousness of covenant making, there is that one particularly vulnerable second… that one second you cannot rehearse or prepare for. You can rehearse the vows and the speed at which to walk, but no amount of practice can prepare you for that moment.

I see the Lord in this passage, tears caught in His throat, a little taken aback and in awe of the beauty and blessing from those faithful lips. To me its not unlike a groom who finds that the air is suddenly sucked from his lungs with one look at his beloved. Then just as a groom publicly and openly claims as his own the bride, the Lord boldly and ashamedly states His intent to possess the righteous ones who really love and serve Him.

So this morning I am basking in the love of my Heavenly Groom, who claims me as His own, though sometimes I am admittedly a very peculiar treasure 🙂 Be encouraged this morning to know, friends, that the Lord is blessed by the fragrance of your praise and that He remembers those who reverence Him and worshipfully fear Him and who think on His Name.

Happy Monday!

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Whirlwind Week (in Photos)

So I know I posted a heavy blog last week and then haven’t written… the buzz and the comments probably should energize me, but to be honest, writing about that topic kind of took it out of me.

…and then the week just got B-U-S-Y in the best kind of ways.

I am writing lots of words these days, just not much of it for public viewing, but I promise more is coming SOON.

This is where my time has gone:

NEWBORN:
Cohen and I watched a 2 wk old a few days (and nights) this week. We fell in love with him and his brothers…but boy, I had forgotten how lack of sleep feels…are my eyelids still twitching? Yep.

Cohen & I's new friends... Fadi, Ramzy and Shadi... eating ice cream... We ended up discussing whether or not God hates the devil...impressive conversation for 7-12 yr olds

meet Eli, Fadi/Ramzy/Shadi's new baby brother... I mean, how stinkin' ADORABLE is he?

sickness came to the baby's house, so Eli spent a considerable amount of time with us.. Cohen was awesome with him! Not jealous at all! He kept telling me how NICE the baby was

Exploration:
We may not be living in the house just yet, but that doesn’t keep us from parking in the driveway and getting acclimated to our (soon!) new environment. Thanks to Mom and Aunt Deb for filling Co’s head with stories about a big monkey-like, yellow eyed Big Foot… made for some good stories as we hiked around!

exploring the new neighborhood... this pond is 0.8mi from our house!

we hiked all around... think we're going to have some good adventures here

Cohen was convinced Big Foot lived in the woods and thought this hollow tree might be one of resting places, he had to show me how he could fit. naturally, he and Big Foot are roughly the same size

Zoo:
Mommy/Cohen date today to the Columbus Zoo… in one week, my little boy will be 3. Someone may need to come and revive me Thursday the 29th. My heart may not be able to handle it. 😦

I will say though its nice to take trips without diapers. To see the rest of our zoo photos, click here.

at the zoo, petting and grooming the goats

we road the train..he had more fun than it appears here

we road the carousel

he might be the smallest, but he's in charge...make no mistake about it

yep... and here's where 90% of my busyness came from... but he is cute, isn't he? 🙂

Drama:
…as in a play. *grin*

began a drama for church about these (cryptic, I know- details to come)

Playing Catch Up:
One really nice thing about moving home, is that week after week, I am reconnecting with friends I had long since lost touch with. I must equally thank Walmart in Bellefontaine and Facebook for helping me to find my old friends 🙂

caught up w/an old church camp friend I met when I was like, 7. You have to love facebook!

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Oh for the silliness (4 funny stories)

I woke up this morning trying hard to hold onto a ridiculous dream- ever done that? It is fading, so I am going to try to get it down.

I was with a group of ladies – some friends in real life (sister Beck, Bethny, & realtor Bryn) and others TV personalities (Melissa from Biggest Loser and the Patti from the Millionaire Matchmaker (not that I would ever watch it (EVER– so don’t judge me 😉 ))) So we’re fighting with a group of guys (none of whom I can remember) and we decide to play a prank on them. Somehow in the dream, it was uber funny and clever though in awake life its kind of sinister- blame it on Melissa.

We chartered a small plane and somehow in the teeny tiny Bellefontaine airport like 20 planes were taking off at once…I have never actually been there, but in my dream it was a cornfield with planes like I have seen from the Wright brothers era… anyone know how close that is to the truth? Anyway, our idea was to pretend one of us had died. So we made one of the girls hide from sight and in her stead we hung from one of the feet of the helicopter-ish plane this fake dead girl. Now, the fake dead girl was a rainbow colored sponge (life size) that looked just like the traditional cookie-cutter shape. And we were all high-fiving one another because of how clever we were and how it was going to really trick them.

And of course it did. Because it was a dream. Dreams are like that.

I probably just lost half my readership with that… What is up with Kate McDonald!?!? Here I thought she liked to write about Jesus and all, but what is going on in her subconscious is just plain freaky…. Can’t you just hear it?

If you are one of those dream interpreters- DON’T.

So, moving on….
Yesterday I drank so much water that in the evening, I kept wondering if I had drank too much and was going to hurt myself because that can happen. I didn’t feel well this weekend and yesterday I was battling a headache and general body aches left over from not feeling well.

So I had two solutions: water and massage.

My grandparents got me a massage for my birthday and so after I had dropped Cohen off, I called and made an appointment with the lady for 2p. I cleaned my new house so that my Pap and my brother Ben will have a clean workspace on Friday when they finish leveling the floors downstairs. There is nothing like the DUST that comes from renovating! I moved tools, sorted wood and nails, separated the extension cords, and swept the downstairs.. about three times and I feel like I could have swept forever and never be done. There is going to be extreme satisfaction in the next few weeks as we cover it up with new hardwood flooring and dry wall- blessed dry wall.

After that I got the clippers and started trimming my wild yard. I wanted to use the chainsaw, but yesterday I just could not keep the chain on that thing. I’d cut a tree or two and then the chain would come off…this happened over and over again until I decided rather than start cussing, I would just use the clippers. Sometimes it is just not worth it.

I hopped in my car around noon, exhausted and feeling like someone barely over the flu. I took one look at myself in the car mirror and just started laughing. If I had a camera handy I would have taken a photo- I swear. I had twigs sticking out of my hair everywhere (it looked like a nest) from bending down under bushes to cut them and my face had so much mud on it that I looked like I were to be in a play playing a woman twice my age… oh the lines! the lines where the mud had cracked on my face and the dust in my hair made it almost a gray color.

I didn’t have a camera, so instead I drove through the McDonald’s drive thru and got a coffee.
Someone needed to see this.
Oh, friends, you should have seen the look on the girl’s face when I pulled around to get that black coffee.
And I didn’t explain.a.thing.
Now that’s a prank, Subconscious!

I went home, de-twigged, and got a shower. I drove to home where the lady does massage. She was nice. It is pretty funny to compare my massage experiences in the last few years. Shall we?

Seattle: trendy top floor suite downtown
Ohio: someone’s house, middle of nowhere

Seattle: views of the city while you wait
Ohio: cornfields while you wait

Seattle: zen decor
Ohio: birds, all things country

Seattle: soft music floating through the air, coming from who knows where
Ohio: cd player on a desk

Seattle: beautiful receptionist
Ohio: the dog

Seattle: the softest robe you’ve ever worn
Ohio: your own clothes

Seattle: herbal tea blends
Ohio: juice from someone’s blender

Seattle: private room with 9′ ceilings, zen to the max
Ohio: a converted bedroom

Seattle: the best looking person ever is massaging you
Ohio: your grandma is massaging you

Seattle: you never have to see this person outside of this setting
Ohio: this person knows everyone in your family

*GRIN* So I was met by the dog and led into the converted bathroom where the cd player was playing some nature cd (I kept wondering, are those really birds chirping? or is it the music?). I got down to my skivvies and had an AMAZING 90 minute massage complete with a paraffin treatment for the hands and feet. It was delightful! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa… I couldn’t have liked it more in any other setting!

After my massage was done, she made me a fruit drink in her blender and we sat at her kitchen table and talked about life. It occurred to me at some point that she might be a little lonely, that I might not be able to leave without her feeding me supper, and that perhaps Jesus wanted it just that way. So we talked about parenthood, how to make hummus, the local Amish store and natural food store that is for sale, and when I could work him in, Jesus.

I will be going back…after all…

Seattle: hundreds of dollars
Ohio: $40 for the whole two hours

and..

Seattle: no time to talk
Ohio: time to talk about Jesus

I left her house an hour after the massage was done and went to the Amish Store to buy seeds for my garden. I like to just wander in that store…I sometimes wish I could be half Amish… all of the good food and old ways of doing things and the slow pace of life BUT someone get me the internet! You know?

So I got out without buying everything in the place (so tempted) and got in my car. I rolled down the car windows to enjoy the breeze and decided to just drive for awhile. After driving awhile, I realized I was on the road where one of the local farms I found online exists. So I started looking for it. The road was wooded, so I saw a few potential driveways and pulled in- anything growing? greenhouses? nope. On the third try I saw several buildings and greenhouses and one plot of ground with tiny shoots coming out of the ground- this was it!

I pulled into the drive and slowly started back- now was this also a private residence? I wasn’t sure. So I went slow and then I saw someone down the drive. She looked up at me so I kept going. But then she started to move away from the drive and started to confer with another person. I slowed to a stop. Maybe I should just leave. But I was half way back the drive. I told myself they advertise online, after all, I can’t be the first person to stop by. Plus I was all jazzed about my seeds and my garden and for a second I thought to myself how excited they might be that I want to buy local and all of that. So with that thought in my head, I pulled confidently forward and rolled my window down. “Is this_____?” She nodded nervously. I got out. I told them I had found them online, that I am going to garden, and that there are things I want to buy local. The guy walked away and she said that the website says they sell at the farmers market and she told me when that was.

Driving away, I kept trying to figure it out… I mean, I drive a Honda Accord wagon with a car seat in the back. My windows aren’t tinted and I am not shady. I mean with my hair in a ponytail, sweats, tennis shoes and no make up, I look about twelve. What was there to be nervous about? It wasn’t even dusk yet- what was the deal?

Maybe they are just reclusive people? You’ll have that, you know.

I recounted the story to my mom later who giggled the whole time I told it. When I had finished, I was annoyed.
“WHAT?!?”
“You really don’t know?” she asked. She loves to know something I don’t.
“No- what?”
She hesitated- and then burst into laughter again. Annoying times four.
“C’mon on, Mom…seriously…what?”
“They are real selective who they let on their property, if you know what I mean,” she said with a wink.
“Yea I caught that…” I said slowly, still obviously not getting it “…but they advertise online with an eating local website…”
“Oh sure… they grow local and they sell local…GROW and SELL… you know what I mean?” she said with all kinds of emphasis, giggling and winking.

Oooohhhh…..

OOOOOHHH…

Got it.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge… so here’s to wishing you all a lovely, silly, funny, joyful, laughter filled day…

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