CD recommendation of the month...or year

At the high recommendation of the amazing and talented Joel Hanson, I picked up the recent Tim Hughes worship CD on Sunday. It's been playing in my car ever since. It's a great collection of really solid songs. Like the following!

When the Tears Fall
I've had questions, without answers
I've known sorrow, I have known pain
But there's one thing, that I'll cling to
You are faithful, Jesus, You're true

When hope is lost, I'll call You Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call You Healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart

In the lone hour of my sorrow
Through the darkest night of my soul
You surround me and sustain me
My defender, forevermore

When hope is lost, I'll call You Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call you Healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart

I will praise You, I will praise You
When the tears fall, still I will sing to You
I will praise You, Jesus praise You
Through the suffering still I will sing

When hope is lost, I'll call you Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call you Healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart

-Tim Hughes

Well, we talked ourselves right out of that one

Whoa...two posts in one day. Watch out, blogworld.

So tonight is our fifth of six summer weddings. Needless to say, we are BURNED OUT! And we've gotten a little lazy. Two weeks ago, we attended the ceremony and not the reception. But that's a WHOLE other story...

We totally talked ourselves out of the wedding tonight. I'm on worship this weekend, so we knew that I would just be meeting Dan for the reception. But Dan's working until late this afternoon and didn't want to shower and rush out again. Nevermind ironing wedding-appropriate clothes, which takes my husband about an hour. It just became completely not worth the hassle and we are skipping. I could care less--I've never met these people. It's a college friend of Dan's and his girlfriend of many years.

Here's the bonus. Unfortunatley, we don't have their new address to send a gift. So, we have a giftcard to Marshall Fields to have some fun with. I'm thinking a new shower curtain is in order. Hold me back.

Here we go

I've heard and read that pregnant women have weird dreams. I have had weird dreams my whole life, so I was anxious to see how much weirder they could get.

Lately I haven't been sleeping very well. I blame it on my trips to the bathroom every two hours. Needless to say, I haven't had time to dream. Or something like that.

This all changed last night. For some reason, I fell asleep fast and I can only remember getting up once on account of my bladder. AND, I had a dream. Here it goes...

It was the first day of school. I had somehow turned into the meanest middle school teacher ever because I had homework due on the first day. And it wasn't just a little assignment. They had to create a movie about their lives and present it to the class. They seemed to enjoy it.

In the middle of class, I decided it was time for lunch. (Leave it to the pregnant teacher to decide she wants to eat). So I sent the class to the cafeteria, but it was a half hour early, so the lunch ladies were not happy with me. I remember feeling bad about screwing up, but my class had already gone through the lunch line, so it was too late. So I got a piece of pizza and headed back to my classroom.

On the way back, I ran into my friend Nicole. Nicole is a fellow teacher. She teaches fourth grade in New Hope. Not sure what she was doing in a Coon Rapids middle school. But she saw my pizza and decided to grab some for herself.

Seeing Nicole is the last thing I remember. I probably had cats jumping on my bed or some other interruption. No biggie. The dream was going nowhere fast.

What does it mean? Am I going to be a crazy pregnant teacher?

Stupid people suck, too

I've done three things to prevent blog spam, and as of this morning, it was working. I was excited. I thought I had won.

Then my last post got four random comments. It's a little annoying. I don't care about your diabetes site, and I certainly hope you aren't serious about bookmarking my blog.

GET LOST, BLOG SPAMMERS!

Music therapy

After my not-so-stellar day (see previous post), Dan and I went out for a sandwich at Bear Rock Cafe last night. Since it was basically a perfect September evening, we strolled around the Shoppes at Arbor Lakes for a while. We checked out some super expensive, really awesome digital cameras at National Camera Exchange. (Our digital camera was ruined when we tipped the canoe in the BWCA...). We also sat in those awesome massage chairs at The Sharper Image. Also very expensive, but that didn't stop me from sitting there for a good ten minutes. We moved on to Borders, which actually had some stuff we could afford. Jackpot!

Last week I happened to catch a group called The 5 Browns on the Kare 11 Today Show, and I wanted to get their CD. I love that this Borders has so much music. It's almost as good as the Har Mar Barnes & Noble. Anyway, The 5 Browns are Juilliard-trained, piano-playing siblings. They are incredible. Four of the songs on the CD are five pianos, ten hands. Amazing sounds. The rest are solos and duets. Also amazing sounds. I listened to the CD in the store for about five minutes while Dan browsed the Fantasy Football magazines. After hearing only a few songs, I knew I had to buy it. So I did, and when I got home, BONUS, it's a duel disc. I didn't know what that meant until I read the instructions, but basically there is a CD side and a DVD side. So I actually got to see a couple of the songs played and an interview with the siblings. So cool. I still haven't heard the whole CD (I keep replaying Scenes from West Side Story), but I'm anxious to hear the rest.

So, if you are a fan of piano music (and if you aren't, you should still give it a try), go out and get this!

Mean people suck

Middle schoolers live for screen printed t-shirts. This one is one of my favorites. Click here to buy one for yourself! But I digress.

My five-foot professor made me cry today. She made me very small. (And not in a "fit into size 6 jeans" sort of way). For the record, I didn't cry until I was in my car and driving away from Bethel as fast as I could. (Screw their 19 mph speed limit. Seriously.) Okay, let me back up.

I met with the reading education department head today to turn in my portfolio for licensure and fill out the right forms and everything. There were a few instances that classified this woman as "mean" during our time together today. First of all, when she took my portfolio (without opening it for a second, by the way), she assured me that she would go through it all by the end of the week and that I would probably have to revise some things, so I shouldn't get too excited about having it done. Awesome. Then she went on to address my participation (or lack thereof in her eyes) in a reading clinic we conducted in July. Forgive me if I was in the throes of morning sickness and wasn't thrilled to be driving 45 minutes everyday in rush hour to take part in the most unorganized clinic setting EVER! She took my "half-heartedness" (her sweet words) as a red flag for my participation in the whole program. (By the way, this portfolio is the end of the licensure program, and the masters is done by April. Nice timing if you seriously are concerned about me). She just kept going on about how I don't seem to have a passion for doing this and she wanted to make sure I wasn't just staying with the program because I had already taken this many classes. THEN, as we were talking about my being pregnant, she had the guts to tell me how hard it will be complete the last class with a newborn and that I would probably have to finish the class at another time. "Because right now, it all seems fine, but once that baby comes, it won't be!" I'm not stupid. I know it isn't the most ideal situation. But frankly, her skepticism makes me even more motivated to do it!

So as I'm completely stomped into the dull carpet of her poorly-lit office, all I want to do is scream, "CAN'T YOU TELL MY PREGNANCY HORMONE-INDUCED EMOTIONS ARE A LITTLE FRAGILE RIGHT NOW?" But I didn't. I smiled, nodded, and left.

I left so hurt, discouraged, and questioning of my abilities and future plans. I don't think it was her job to make me feel this way. But for some reason, she felt the need to do so. Unfortunately, she isn't just the department head. She is our primary professor for this program and I'll have her for a class again in October. Hooray!

This is reality

I have been in training all week for new English Language Arts curriculum that our district's middle and high schools are adopting this year. It's a fabulous curriculum, and one of the things that makes it so fun is that it includes lots of movie clips. There are clips from Cool Runnings, October Sky, Hook, and more that tie into thematic elements in the units.

Today we watched a clip from E.T. I haven't watched this in years and watching the clip made me want to see the whole movie. Anyway, from this clip has come the "funny movie quote of the day" which I will share with you now.

This is in the last 10-15 minutes of the movie. Elliot and his brother have escaped with E.T. in the van and told their friends to meet them at the park with bikes. So they all get to the park to proceed with the plan. These friends that are meeting them haven't seen E.T. yet, and as Elliot opens the back of the van, the boys are struck silent and still. Elliot explains that E.T. is an alien and they need to get him home. As Elliot begins to unfold his plan, one of the friends gets smart and asks, "Can't he just beam himself up?" To which Elliot promptly replies, "THIS IS REALITY, GREG!"

Indeed it is. :)

Bonus!

This is silly, but I'm excited.

The same pregnancy hormones that make me want to fall asleep in the mid-conversation or be careful about what I eat because I never know if it will stay down have some benefits. My fingernails are growing like mad! That's right. My otherwise thin, weak nails are strong and of decent length. Someone said my hair is probably growing faster too. Can't tell yet. I'm just enjoying having nails long enough to click on a table for the first time in my life!

Yes, cheap thrills. But I'll take them when I can get them.

:)

It's alive!

When I saw my doctor for the first time two weeks ago, it was too early to hear the baby's heartbeat. No big deal. She was very upbeat about it and reassured us that it usually isn't audible (with this crazy doppler machine) until 9-12 weeks.

So we made an appointment for today to give it another shot. She tried again with the doppler. (It's basically like a microphone that she pushes and prods into my belly). After at least five minutes of pushing and proding, she said, "Well, he's not going to cooperate with us today." I was a little disheartened and nervous, but before I could say anything, my doctor proceded, "So, let's take a peek!" I really didn't want to do an ultrasound because my insurance only covers one, and I didn't want to "waste" it this early. Well, she assured us that this would be coded differently and wouldn't count as our one ultrasound.

Instead of a regular "on the belly" ultrasound machine, this was a sort of camera-wand thing that went "into" me and right up to the uterus. (That wasn't too graphic, was it?)

At first, the screen was pointed away from me, so instead of watching it, I was watching my husband, doctor, and ultrasound technician watch it. Then the music to my ears from the technician. "There's baby...and there's the heartbeat!" I said, "Let me see!" So she turned the screen and my doctor pointed everything out to us. It moved around a little bit so we could see the little buds of arms and legs, and the ever-present heart fluttering away. It even stretched out perfectly so the technician could measure from it's head to butt and see that it is measuring exactly what it should for 10 weeks.

I've known I'm pregnant for about 6 weeks. I've been exhausted for at least that long. I've been nauseated for almost that long. But there is something so amazing about actually seeing this little being that's taking up residence in my amniotic fluid for the next 7 months. I've just been believing it's there. Now I know it is. That's cool.

Now the nausea (which is supposed to go away by the end of the first trimester--only two weeks away) seems a little more manageable and March 15th seems WAY to far away. :)

FYI

People are stupid. It appears as though allowing "anonymous" comments is pretty much the same as inviting spam into your e-mail inbox. It was getting ridiculous! So I changed some things in the settings of my blog to only allow comments from registered users. Sorry if you aren't a registered user (mom, dad, Vicki, etc), but maybe this will be the push you need to become one! You don't have to actually have a blog in order to be a registered user. But I digress....

Have a happy Friday and a fabulous, autumn-like weekend, everyone!!!

:)

One with nature...quite literally

I've missed a lot in blogland this past week. But I think I have a decent excuse: Dan and I were in the Boundary Waters.

We set out with friends last week with plans for a lot of canoeing, portaging, and camping. And we certainly did a lot of all three. Overall, the trip was really a blast, but we did have our fair share of adventure.

If you heard about the fires up there, I'm sure your first question is if we were close to them. We were! Not too close that it was scary, but close enough that it was fascinating. We saw the huge clouds of smoke and the planes dumping water at the source. It was actually pretty amazing.

As we set out the first day, we were dealing with a little bit of wind and quite wavy water. Dan and I have never canoed together, and our tipping the canoe withing 200 yards of shore showed that quite clearly. We still aren't sure what happened, but we were in the water before I could say, "I think we're going to tip." The cold water was shocking at first, but eventually felt kind of refreshing. All of our stuff was pretty wet, so that was a bummer, but it ended up drying in no time. Shortly after we got everything packed up and tried again, we decided to switch partners. I got the great end of the deal, paddling with a former Boundary Waters guide. Not sure how I lucked out. Maybe they felt sorry for the pregnant woman. (Speaking of which, my dad was very pleased that his grandchild has already been plunged into the waters of the BWCA.) The rest of that first day was pretty windy, but our solace came at the end of a very long portage, where a perfect campsite was just waiting for us.

The second day of paddling was very calm, and we ended the day early at another great campsite. That night, we had a fantastic time around the campfire, enjoying shooting stars, northern lights, and loon calls. Ahh, Minnesota.

The third day was another windy one with two-foot waves on the water. It was a struggle to get to the campsite that afternoon, but luckily we got the one we were counting on. Our adventure that night was sleeping on a hill. We were on an interesting slope, so we had to sleep diagonally in our tent. In the middle of the night, we ended up scrunched at the bottom corner of the tent and had to squirm our way back up, only to keep falling down the hill until morning. Not to mention the ants that moved in....

The last day of canoeing was another calm one (thank goodness), and we got back to our outfitter by early afternoon. After a stop in Grand Marais for lunch, we headed to Blue Fin Bay, just south of Lutsen. It felt great to finally shower, relax on the deck facing the breezes of Lake Superior, and enjoy sleeping on a real bed.

Now we're home. Getting to everything we left here for a week. Dealing with mosquito bites, bruises, scratches, and sunburn. Realizing that I have class tonight and don't feel like going. I'd rather sit outside on a rock and watch the stars. Although, seeing the kind of stars that we saw is nearly impossible this close to the city. What a shame.

So, I'm back in the saddle. And even though it's nice to be home, I can't wait to do it again someday!

Growing

I like to grow things. I prefer growing things like flowers and plants, but once in a while I end up growing green stuff on left-overs in the fridge.

My favorite thing about spring is taking a trip to the nearest garden center and buying flats of flowers and bags of soil. My bare deck becomes a beautiful sight of potted and hanging plants.

My latest growth? A baby. In my uterus. I’m pregnant! Come sometime in the middle of March, Dan and I will be the proud parents of a little one. We’re beyond thrilled! I’ll try not to bore you with the details of the months of childbearing ahead of me, but I’m sure there are a few pregnancy stories in the future of this blog.

We had our first doctor’s appointment this afternoon. It was very helpful to get some questions answered and it made the whole thing that much more real. My nurse practitioner says the baby looks like a little shrimp, all curled up, right now. Next time I see her, it will apparently look like a jumbo shrimp. I'm hoping that somewhere down the line it will actually resemble a human being.

So far, the first trimester has brought mandatory daily naps, an unpleasant, constant nauseated feeling, and an awareness of my habits and how they affect the being growing inside of me. My doctor says the rather distasteful side effects are actually good. They mean I have a good amount of pregnancy hormone in me and everything is doing what it's supposed to. Nice to know when I'm working to keep down crackers and soup.

It's funny. I find myself faced with this reality once in a while. I'm not just pregnant. I'm going to have a baby. This state of being pregnant will actually end, and we will have a child. Sometimes it's still really beyond me. It needs to sink in. I think it will. When I can't button my jeans or zip my winter coat, when I demand that my husband fetches me Dairy Queen in the middle of winter, or when I cry at the baby food commercials. Watch out, hormones.

So, today, we celebrate. It's fun that we get to tell people this secret we've been keeping (rather unsuccessfully) for about a month. Yay!

Updates galore!

1. Ruby (the cat) is doing well. We never did figure out what she swallowed. But she never puked again and has just recently regained her playfulness. Maddie is happy about that. Ruby's belly is still a little bare. I remember from when she was spayed, it takes a while for the hair to grow back.
2. The painting is happening, slowly but surely. As of today, we have at least finished the livingroom so that we can move furniture back to where it belongs. For three weeks, the couch, loveseat, two tables, chair, and piano have been housed in the middle of the room. The cats will be losing one giant fort.
3. The spider I blogged about earlier today is still at large. The web, in the meantime, has collected more bugs and other stuff.

Hope your weekend was happy. The weather sure was. Happy end of July!

I hate spiders

I really do. I think they are creepy. In my humble opinion, eight legs is just too many for one body. Don't even get me started on centipedes.

Last night, I was cleaning up some stuff in the dining room and my eye caught a very large spider on our sliding glass door. At first I couldn't tell whether it was inside or outside, so I kind of freaked out. Luckily Dan was downstairs, so he couldn't make fun of my jump. Once I was confident that it was, indeed, outside, I became rather fascinated. This thing was big. Well, for me. Don't go telling me stories of the biggest spiders you've ever seen. I've witnessed my fair share in Haiti, but I've tried to block those from my memory as much as possible. Anyway, the spider last night was big. The body alone was probably the size of a large bean. Except it wasn't really shaped like a bean. Work with me. With the legs, the total size was probably an inch and a half across. Okay, now that I'm describing it, this thing doesn't sound that big. Please don't make fun of me. I think when it moves it just seems THAT MUCH BIGGER.

Anyway, as I watching this MASSIVE thing move, it became clear that it was spinning a web. A big web. I couldn't see the actual web in the dark last night, but you could just tell this spider was hard at work. My mind shifted to the famed spider Charlotte, and I almost expected to see "SOME PIG" scrawled across its work. But I didn't. So I went to bed.

This morning, as I grabbed something off the dining room table, I was reminded of my little friend and went to check out the finished product. It was amazing! And huge! Still no "TERRIFIC" written anywhere, but quite impressive nonetheless. There were even some small bugs caught in the web; some snacks for the spider to enjoy later. That might be fun to watch too.

I'm not going to lie--I'm definitely not dying to get outside on my deck anytime soon. I couldn't spot the spider while I admired the web. That means it could be anywhere. It means it could be waiting for the sliding door to open so it can descend onto the first head that exits to the outdoors. Now that's a pleasant thought.

I'll be enjoying the inside of my air conditioned house this fine Sunday, thank you.

Do you know what it means to be held?

Song lyrics of the month...and they aren't Nichole Nordeman!

My mom bought the new Natalie Grant CD for me, and the song "Held" is extremely powerful. The lyrics alone aren't going to do the entire song justice (although they are awesome alone), so you need to actually hear the song sometime. You could go to www.nataliegrant.com and try to listen to a snippet. (If your computer's speakers are as crummy as ours, that's not going to be great). You could listen to KTIS long enough to hear the song played. (Wouldn't be my first choice, but I'm trying to help you out here). You could download it onto your nifty iPod. (Yeah, I don't have one either). You could go to Northwestern Bookstore, where the CD, Awaken, is currently on sale for under $10! The choice is obvious!

Held
Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling

Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held

If hope is born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held

Two noticings...

1.) I have links to the blogs of 19 people on this site. The names of 8 of those people start with "J." Weird.

2.) Check out letsbefriends.blogspot.com. It's got some cute pictures of unlikely animals posing together.

And have a happy Tuesday, all. :)

The power of women

No, I'm not some crazy feminist all of a sudden.

I just started a book called The Secret Life of Bees. I'm not very far, but I already loved the quote that started off the first chapter. Enjoy it with me...

"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." -Man and Insects

How true!

I'm an old married woman...

If you read my husband's blog, the fact that it's our third anniversary isn't news to you. He totally outdid me with an amazing photoshop creation, too. Nothing fancy here!

Three years. Sometimes it feels like it's only been a few months. At other times, it feels more like a decade. In a good way.

I really couldn't ask for a better partner for this journey. Dan makes me laugh like no one else. He knows when to talk, when to listen, and when to leave me alone.

Saying yes to his proposal on April 14, 2001 is definitely at the top of my "good decisions" list. Deciding to walk down that aisle 15 months later is up there too. :)

Perspective...

We Minnesotans have the priviledge of observing the "dew point" in addition to the regular temperature. The combination of the two results in a "heat index." For instance, the current temperature is 87 degrees. The dew point is 65 degrees. The heat index (what it really feels like) is 90 degrees. When the dew points exceeds 50 degrees, things get pretty sticky. Beyond 60 degrees is just plain oppressive.

The dew point the last couple of days has been in the mid-60s.

The dew point on our wedding day, July 20th 2002, was 85 degrees. The weather broke all kind of records that day. The heat index was WELL over 100 degrees. It's a wonder we could breathe at all.

So as we sat at an outdoor wedding this evening (our third wedding of seven this summer), wiping sweat off my face every other second and feeling my clothes sticking to me with great force, my only thought was...

"honestly, it could be worse."

Of procrastination and painting.

When Dan and I moved into our house last June, we knew it would need some work. Hideous wallpaper on the kitchen and bathroom walls, a baby blue ceiling fan in our bedroom, multi-colored mismatched outlet covers, and so much more. We took care of the MOST vital problems last summer. Wallpaper came down (albeit, not without a valiant fight), paint went up, kitchen cupboards were transformed from dark wood into white. As this summer approached, I was reminded of all of the projects we didn't get to last year. I sat down, made a list of everything we would need to complete these endeavors, and made a giant trip to Home Depot over Memorial Day weekend. I figured if I had it all, I could get started right when school got out. Surprisingly, I didn't start right when school got out. In fact, it's July 15th and our walls have yet to absorb a single drop of paint.

Now, before you accuse me of COMPLETE laziness, you must know that I deliberately started on Monday (realizing that my summer break was 1/3 done), only to find that prepping a house for painting is really the biggest job. I have been taping off windows, trim, doors, cats, whatever. I'm on my third roll of the lovely blue painters tape. We've bonded in the process. At this point (after one more trip to Home Depot yesterday), I think I'm actually ready to start painting. Dan will be happy when it's all finished. We'll finally have blinds on the windows and furniture won't be crammed into the middle of the room.

I'll end with a home improvement tip. Painting a house's ceilings is one of the best ways to update the look and make everything seem bigger. You don't even realize how NOT white they are until you start to paint them. We did our bedroom ceilings last year and I'm anxious to do the rest in the next day or two.

Wish me luck. It's going to be a long couple of days, but I'm confident that it will be well worth it. :)