Monthly Archives: August 2013

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (XII)

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Five Favorites

One

Sleep. I’m wishing I was getting more of it. Today was an insane day where I was going from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. with a short break in between my (crappy) endocrinologist appointment and my mani/pedi. (I know… I live a tough life. I’ll be making up for it by having to call Social Security tomorrow and find out how the duck they managed to screw up Daniel’s SSI this time.) It was hard this morning because my tabby really wanted to have Mama time but I wasn’t able to go back to sleep with him on top of me purring. #tabbyproblems On the plus side, I got to see my evil twin and my sister-in-law before they move to Washington. I’ll be seeing them again this weekend to bring them dinner and return their coolers. (They brought over all the beer and frozen food they weren’t going to be able to take with them.)

Two

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. Like almost everything The Bloggess says, this is MAJORLY NSFW but incredibly funny.

Three

My mother-in-law. My very wonderful mother-in-law took over Daniel care for me this weekend so I could get a break and get some rest. This is a woman who is taking care of her terminally ill husband and getting even less sleep than me so it was amazingly sacrificial of her to do this. She also got me FOUR boxes of Trader Joe’s Coffee Latté and Cream Bars.

Four

$tarbux Fruit and Cheese Bistro Boxes. Seriously, this is like the best bistro box made by $tarbux. (OK… it’s the only one I can eat for allergy purposes or because lettuce is rabbit food.) If I pair it with a venti ice water, it even works to fill me up without doing bad things to my blood sugar.

Five

The creativity of some of the people at Metanoia. We have a couple women (Gladys and Hortense) who are creative in a completely amazing and scary way. Last summer, they built a fountain with its own water source in the church parking lot. They transform the office/classroom wing into a Haunted Hallway for Halloween and transform our fellowship hall into a five-star restaurant. As a fundraiser for the congregation, they created a 50’s diner in our fellowship hall… complete with booths, checkered flooring, costumes for the wait staff, and actual records hanging as decorations. Duuuuuuuude…

Go love up Hallie and the others.

{Virtual} Coffee Date (vol. 3)

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{Virtual Coffee Date}

Karianna at Caffeinated Catholic Mama made this into a link-up. Woohoo! Once you’re done here, go visit her and the other coffee drinkers.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about my father-in-law having hip replacement surgery tomorrow at 12:15 p.m. PDT and how it’s a bit more dangerous because of the cancer. I’d also ask if you could pray for him/send positive energy/good thoughts. I had a

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about how much I appreciated my mother-in-law taking care of me this weekend by watching Daniel and letting him get filthy and covered with Greek yogurt. I appreciated that she took over Daniel duty so I could sleep, rest, and go shopping for Jon’s birthday presents. She also put on an incredible spread for a small family birthday gathering at a moment’s notice.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about the book I’m currently reading, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson (a.k.a. The Bloggess) and how I feel like I’m totally going to hell for reading it because it is so incredibly wrong but so insanely funny. Let’s just say that it explains her fondness for taxidermied animals doing weird things and leave it at that.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’m kind of nervous for my endocrinologist appointment tomorrow because I haven’t been testing my sugars regularly, I haven’t lost a boatload of weight, and haven’t been obsessively tracking my food intake.

Thanks for having coffee (or tea) with me. I promise I’ll try to be less depressing next week.

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: 10 Survival Tips To the Expecting Mom

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The topic this week: 10 survival tips to the expecting mom.

Oh boy… I have had probably the weirdest motherhood experience on the planet so it’s weird to think that I’m qualified to offer advice. On the other hand, mi amigo Thomas and his wife Alison are preparing to welcome twins around Christmas/New Year/Candlemas and he put out the word that he needs advice on what they’ll need in terms of gear so I think I’ll make this a dual post seeing as I’m getting a late start (and backdating this — I was traveling today).

01.) Trust your body. For those not in the know, my wee bairn was born at 29.5 weeks because I developed HELLP Syndrome and the only way to save both of our lives was to deliver Daniel by c-section. The reason I lived was that I had medical professionals who caught it before it morphed into full-on HELLP Syndrome so that I was actually already in the hospital when ish got real and they were able to intervene enough to get me to a hospital who could handle it. I also knew that there was something really wrong and I spoke up (OK… actually I sobbed my eyes out — this is ME we’re talking about) about the fact that I knew something wasn’t right so I found out (later) that they were watching me pretty closely when I was in my local rural hospital.

02.) You *are* strong enough to get through “IT” whatever “IT” may be. One of my co-workers gave me the best advice possible when I confided in her that I was terrified of labor: it’s one of those things that nobody can do for you and by the time you’re there, you’re so busy living in the moment that you don’t have time to be scared. It actually even held true for my insane horror story of a delivery — I was so focused on getting through it that I forgot to be scared. It wasn’t until the adrenaline kicked out and I was off all the drugs they were giving me to keep me from going into multiple organ failure that I realized what had happened and completely broke down emotionally. Thankfully by that point, my mommy had arrived (I was in Montana and she was in California) and she was able to help me work through them. (I also had the most awesome high-risk OB on the planet who came back across town to sit by my bedside and talk me off various emotional ledges.)

03.) Trust your mama instincts. Believe this mama when she tells you that you will *KNOW* that baby better than anyone else. You’ve carried that precious sweetling for 9 months and you will get to know them so intimately that you will turn mama grizzly bear on anyone who opposes you. You will learn what their schedule is and what lullaby calms them down. You will also learn what a normal baby cold is and what RSV is and you might even save their lives with that knowledge… twice.

04.) Believe it or not, babies do come with an instruction manual. I kid you not: The Baby Owner’s Manual. I didn’t use my copy much because having a preemie with developmental delays is kind of like showing up to play basketball… with a badminton racquet. For someone with a typically developing baby (or two), I think it would be useful.

05.) The first month is going to suck at times. It gets better. There are going to be magical moments when your baby is asleep on your tummy and is taking a nap with you. There are also going to be times when you’re sobbing because YOUR-BABY-IS-CRYING-AND-OHMIGOSH-YOU-JUST-WANT-A-FREAKING-SHOWER!!!!!!!!!!!! As my friend Janelle has said to me many a time when I’ve been flipping out because my life is so freaking hard, “it’s just a season.” She’s right. You will develop a rhythm and you’ll get the hang of things. Meanwhile, bribe people to bring you food and clean your house with offers to let them hold the baby… but only if they don’t have any upper respiratory viruses and have washed their hands up to their elbows according to ICU protocol and applied liberal amounts of alcohol gel. (I am just slightly OCD.)

06.) Invest in some kind of baby-wearing apparatus (not the right word but oh well) be it a mei-tei, an Ergo, or a Moby wrap. Seriously, this was the best thing EVER for church because I could have Jon or a parishioner help me get my Moby wrap secured and Daniel would sleep on my chest or take a bottle while I worshipped. It also was a nice way of having Daniel on me (and keeping him relatively happy) while also being able to do things around the house. The Moby wrap site also has MLB ones… including the Detroit Tigers. (This is a hint for Thomas.)

07.) Own whatever decision you make. I hang around crunchy attachment parenting types on Facebook who breast-feed, cloth diaper, think circumcision is barbaric… and I did totally the opposite. I was too sick to breast-feed (and really, I needed the sleep to avoid spiraling further into post-partum depression) so we went the formula route. Cloth diapering confused the heck out of me… so we went with Pampers. We chose to circ Daniel… and I feel no regret about it nor do I feel the deep need to justify any of this. *YOU* are the mama. The parishioner/”helpful” friend/grandmother/random person on the street isn’t. That’s all that matters.

08.) Make some kind of deal with your spouse or someone else to watch the child while you go run an errand, get a pedicure, go to $tarbux, etc. I know you totally love your baby. That’s awesome. What is even more awesome is getting to leave the house and be human for an hour or so. You can pump enough for a feeding and go have coffee with a friend or go out and have a date night with your husband.

09.) There are some indispensable things to have on hand. Other things, not so much. What I found to be useful were…. a pack n’ play (for travel), microwave steam sterilizer, a car seat with extra bases (one for mom’s car and one for dad’s car), a bouncer or swing (either one — just something to put the baby down into safely so you can drain your pasta or eat dinner), stroller (it helps), and a sense of perspective. That last one isn’t something you can buy in a store — let’s just say that if you understand that there are some things that will not matter in the grand scheme of things, it will make parenting easier.

10.) You are going to screw up. Suck it up and move on. No parent is perfect and [insert expletive] happens. Unless it requires a trip to the ER (who are more than used to dealing with hysterical parents), consider it a lesson learned. I’ve found that having the number of the local 24-hour Walgreens on hand is indispensable (because the pharmacist can tell you the correct dose of Tylenol to give at 4:30 a.m. when your child is teething) as is knowing the number for Poison Control. (Let’s face it… kids put stuff in their mouths. So do adults when they are in a state of severe sleep deprivation.)

Bonus: Every child is unique. Don’t compare yours to anyone else’s child. This is the biggest mistake I’ve made in parenting, especially because Daniel has so many developmental delays. I would have enjoyed his second year a whole lot more if I hadn’t been beating myself up because he wasn’t doing _______________ which his godparents’ daughter Emily had done at an earlier age. Having to fight for those milestones made them ten times sweeter.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else felt was necessary for survival.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: August 18, 2013

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY August 18, 2013

Outside my window… dark. It’s a full moon tonight though and I’m pretty sure my in-laws’ mew-mews are out being lions or something.

I am thinking… about all that I have to get done this week.

I am thankful… for a good visit down here and for my mother-in-law who has taken on a lot of Daniel duty so I can sleep in and take naps. She keeps me sane on these visits.

In the kitchen… cleaned up the leftovers from the manicotti that a neighbor brought over for Jon’s birthday dinner.

I am wearing… charcoal shirt and running shorts.

I am creating… blog entries.

I am going… to have a long drive back up to northern California tomorrow. I’ll actually be reading through most of it so I should hopefully be able to clear some of the “Mount TBR” on my NOOK.

I am wondering… what my kitties are up to back home.

I am reading… Confessions of a GP by Benjamin Daniels MD. It’s an interesting look at how the NHS looks in Britain in addition to anecdotes about his experiences as a doctor.

I am hoping… all goes well with my father-in-law’s surgery on Wednesday. If you could spare a prayer on his behalf, I’d appreciate it. His name is Ray.

I am looking forward to… my mani/pedi on Wednesday.

Around the house… nothing to report because my mother-in-law keeps a completely sterile house to the point that I could eat off of her kitchen floor.

I am pondering… what things to talk about for Thomas’ link-up. (If you have any thoughts/blog posts/etc on what was helpful when your kids were babies, go participate in the link-up. Thomas’ wife Alison is pregnant with twins and he’s picking the brain of the Internet on what to use.)

A favorite quote for today… ??When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.?? ? C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… solitude.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Daniel starts back to school on Tuesday, Morning Prayer on Tuesday, endocrinologist appointment and mani/pedi on Wednesday as well as my brother visiting, nothing on Thursday (thank God!), and ABA therapy on both Wednesday and Friday for Daniel

A peek into my day… My bed kitty while I’ve been down here. My cats are going to kill me.

Arthur

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

7 Quick Takes: ELCA Presiding Bishops, Helping Jenn Become a Nun, and Cat Bribing.

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

A wine alternative. We have several winemakers in our parish (we’re a cow town in wine country) and Jon will sometimes be gifted wine by some of them. A couple of them know that I don’t drink so I was surprised when I got a call from the wife of one of the winemakers, telling me that she had something for me. The “something” turned out to be two bottles of really good sparkling cider because she didn’t feel it was fair that Jon always got wine and I never got anything. I was seriously touched by this but this person is incredibly conscientious about making sure that people feel included so I shouldn’t have been surprised.. She is one of the few people in the parish who is allowed to have my cell phone number and I keep a couple messages from her on there to listen to when I really need to hear that I’m loved. (She left a message the first night Daniel was in the hospital in January and I cried when I heard it because I totally needed to hear that she and her husband love us and were praying for us.)

— 2 —

Helping Jenn become a nun. I am blessed to have been a part of this.

A family (wishing to remain anonymous) offered to take over her student loans so that she could enter on August 28th. This is a huge sacrifice on their part and Jenn has asked that if people would like to make a gift toward paying them down, it would help them out tremendously. (She writes the BEST thank you emails too.) She has a blog here if you’d like to keep up with what is going on until her entrance on August 28th.

— 3 —

Send Liliana a birthday card. This kid kicked cancer’s butt and all she wants is a birthday card. She loves receiving mail and this would really make her happy. Details are here.

— 4 —

Orphans.Do you see these three darling children?

First row: Brett and Iris.
Second row: Kaia.

BrettIrisKaia

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and they are in the homestudy stage. Kaia has met her family and they are in love with her!!! 🙂

Click on their names to see their Reece’s Rainbow pages.

— 5 —

It’s a girl! Some of you know that I used to be part of the ELCA so I was watching news of Churchwide Assembly with a cocked ear because we would be electing a new presiding bishop (the head of the ELCA). On the fifth ballot, Elizabeth Eaton, the bishop of Northeastern Ohio Synod was elected, beating out Mark Hanson (our current presiding bishop) and Jessica Crist (my former bishop from Montana).

I was never a fan of Mark Hanson for many reasons so I’m glad that he’ll be gone. My feelings about Jessica are mixed. Her assistant to the bishop threw us under the bus in Montana and there are some who feel that more could have been done for us. Thing is… Jessica always treated me like an actual person vs. “the wife of the pastor at _____________ Parish” and I appreciated that. The reason I would have been chill with her being elected bishop was that when she found out about me having Daniel, she hauled butt to the hospital (at 7 a.m.) and my first lucid memory after my night of trauma and c-section is her sitting by my bed, holding my hand and explaining to me that I had just had a baby. I don’t know that I will ever be able to express how much it helped to have her there, considering that it was during a period of 36-48 hours where my memories are hazy. That kind of pastoral care is rare. She also did a good job of talking to the congregations who wanted to leave over the sexuality decisions in 2009 despite the fact that they were really rude to her and pretty much just came to the meeting to find out the process to leave the ELCA.

Anyway, my friends who have served with Presiding Bishop-Elect Eaton are happy for her but are really sad to lose her because she was an awesome bishop for them. I think that speaks volumes about her fitness for the job — that her pastors are bummed to no longer have her as bishop. I also have Facebook friends who are talking about “the stained glass ceiling being broken” and I’m trying not to roll my eyes too much. It’s a church that is used to female bishops — Jessica Crist is the head of the Council of Bishops so you can’t tell me that there are no women in leadership. I mean, it’s cool that Presiding Bishop-Elect Eaton is the first female presiding bishop in the ELCA but it’s hardly surprising.

— 6 —

Cat-bribing. I’m down in southern California with my in-laws for Jon’s birthday and I have their cat Arthur in the guest room with me. Once he realized my mother-in-law wasn’t going to come sleep with him, he vanished under the bed. I grabbed a thing of cat treats and shook some onto the cat spread next to me. Guess which kitty is now next to me munching on cat treats? Yep… Mr. Mama’s Boy. I’m hoping he stays. He is a fabulous cuddler even if I did get a cat bite infection from him in January.

— 7 —

Why I love my mother-in-law. She stocked the freezer with 4 boxes of Trader Joe’s Coffee Latté and Cream Bars. Enough said.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Conversion Story Link-Up: On the Path

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Conversion Story Link-Up

Amanda of Worthy of Agape is hosting a link-up of conversion stories and as I’m a convert, I thought I’d share mine. (How many are you surprised? Leave me a comment and let me know if you are.)

My parents aren’t religious and raised us without a faith. My dad is pretty much secular humanist/atheist material and my mom was raised Episcopalian but is more of a Buddhist these days. (She has said, however, that she would totally become Lutheran if Jon was the pastor of the church in town which is a pretty big compliment to him.) Despite this, I grew up with a belief in God even if I wasn’t entirely sure who or what God was.

There are a couple of events that stand out:

[+] When I was 6, my neighbor Mrs. G invited the evil twin and I over to bake cookies at Christmas. After we finished baking, she read the Christmas story to us from a book of Bible stories for kids. Sean (the evil twin) and I both loved having people read to us so we asked her to keep going and ended up hearing all about Jesus’ ministry, the Cross, and His resurrection. I don’t know if she realizes it but almost 27 years later, I point to that afternoon of baking cookies as the place and time when the seed of the Gospel was planted in me.

[+] When I was 9 or 10, I was pretty much an avowed atheist and used to daydream about someone stepping up and proving that the Bible was a fake book meant to deceive people. Thing is, I could picture people like Mrs. G and her family as well as my friend Emily still believing and continuing to worship God even after and I think God used that to show me that there was something there that I wasn’t seeing. I also unfortunately had a run-in or two with people who tried to aggressively “win my soul to Christ” which made me more determined *NOT* to believe.

[+] The summer before 5th grade, my friend Emily invited me to go to camp with her church at Camp Hammer. I went with her and enjoyed myself. We studied the story of Joseph and his brothers from Genesis, memorized Scripture, enjoyed ourselves, etc. One of the counselors talked me into inviting Christ into my heart which I did because I wanted to please her. It didn’t totally stick because I went back to my regular life after camp but the seed didn’t completely die but instead stayed dormant until I hit middle school.

When I hit middle school, something in me wanted more. I started praying the Lord’s Prayer as kind of a “covering my bases” situation so that if this Jesus stuff was true, I might not be risking a trip to Hell. (I didn’t know it at the time, but I was totally living out Pascal’s Wager.) I also tried to teach myself as much as I could about Christianity. Mrs. G and her husband told me that they would totally take me to church if I wanted but I didn’t accept because I was completely afraid that people would find out that my parents weren’t religious and give me a hard time for not converting them.

When I hit eighth grade, the depression started in and it got worse when I hit high school. Looking back 18 years later, I can see how completely ill I was mentally and emotionally. I started thinking about death and probably wouldn’t be here today if God hadn’t finally made Himself real to me in the spring of 1995. On one really bad night (which I don’t talk about even in passworded posts), I ended up giving my life to Christ. After that, I sought to educate myself on Christianity and what people believed, buying out almost the entire section of religious books at my local bookstore. My friend Kyle invited me to church with him and I got involved in the choir there. I became part of a community who loved me because I was Jen and not because my parents were there.

During my freshman year of college, I discovered that I hadn’t been baptized (long story) so I went to the pastor of my college church and asked him if I could be baptized. I expected a lecture and an inquisition on my faith but got the following answer: “How’s a week from Sunday?” I was baptized during Memorial Day weekend of 1999 in a baptismal font (with warm water) by a guy in a Harley Davidson shirt and swim trunks. I’m sure Easter Vigil baptisms at a Catholic church are prettier but this worked.

It’s been 18 years since that night in the spring of 1995 and it’s amazing to me now (18 years later) that I’ve been Christian for a longer portion of my life than I was a non-believer. I’m married to a Lutheran pastor and have a degree in Religious Studies because I never quite stopped trying to learn about what people believe. 🙂 It blows people away that I’m a convert because I apparently “talk a good game”. As much as I wish I’d been raised in the faith, I think my background gives me an advantage because I can talk to people about faith things and do so knowing how not to completely screw it up. I can also look at the last 18 years and see the things I’ve been able to do because I chose to say “yes” that night. I’ve taught Bible studies in medium security prisons, taught Koine Greek to prisoners, held the hands of dying people, preached sermons, sung special music with Jon, had some life-changing conversations, and learned about some fascinating sub-cultures (I am a religious sociologist at heart).

The song “Who Am I” by Casting Crowns describes all of this well:

Yes Lord, I am Yours.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (XI)

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Five Favorites

One

This video. It’s handy for those married to introverts so they can understand their spouses.

Two

Breaking Pointe. This show takes place at Ballet West in Salt Lake City, Utah. They had a 10-12 episode run last summer and it was interesting so I decided to watch again this year. The weird thing is that the principals in the company are all my age so you’re seeing people at the height of their careers while they’re relatively young by the world’s standards.

Three

CycleProGo. I’m learning the Sympto-Thermal Method of NFP and my temperature is consistently too low to chart on paper so I’m charting online. This has been really good because it asks me a lot of really important questions and it might actually help whoever my teaching couple is (I’m doing the Home Study Course so I think they’re randomly assigned?) to get my data more quickly.

Four

Jim Gaffigan. I recognized him because he was on That 70’s Show and I had no idea that he was so funny on his own. He’s kind of the Catholic “it guy” right now because he’s got 5 kids, is faithful to the Magisterium, and is open about his life. I think his book will be one of the next ones I download.

Five

Gingerbread tabbies. I refer to Cullen, my boldly-striped orange tiger cat as my “gingerbread tabby”. He’s my buddy at night as he’ll climb on my hips and purr asthmatically. When I was pregnant with Daniel and Cullen would climb on my stomach and purr, it was enough to make Daniel start kicking him. 4 years later, Daniel still terrorizes him though I’m holding out some hope that the two of them will eventually be friends. This is a cat who has a Hobbes personality but most resembles Cringer (the green tiger from “He Man” who becomes Battle Cat) in practice — he is afraid of days that end in the letter Y and months with numbered days.

Go love up Hallie and the others.