No, no, I'm still pregnant--pretty sure the title will be in all caps when Littleman decides to quit hemming and hawing.
He's gotta be close. The midwife yesterday said she'd bet on a week to a week and a half. Littleman has celebrated by causing what Gaskin calls "interesting sensations that require all your attention"--aka, painful contractions. (Let's not beat around the bush. It's all Eve's fault anyway. I'm not saying the baby isn't worth it, or that you have to have medication to get through it, or that your attitude doesn't make a difference, but let's be honest--contractions, serious getting-the-baby-down ones, hurt.)
The midwife also said, as soon as she saw me on the table, "oh, yeah, he's definitely dropped", which is a good thing.
So the immanence continues!
Cheers,
Breanna
P.S. My awesome mother-in-law is here this week helping out with the kids; I sit around like a (contracting) slug; and I have to wonder, why on earth did I think this was difficult the first time I did it when there were no toddlers?
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Enter the Kick!
I begin to think that Littleman will teach Tae Kwon Do someday...or karate...or judo...or one of those things where you have to kick a lot.
He's been kicking me HARD the last couple of days, in a vain attempt, I think, to get comfortable in a place that is just too small for him. I tell him that means he needs to get a move on and arrive already, and he just kicks me again.
I sat today and tried to entertain Buddy and Miss Boo today while Merry Maids did their thing. It was surreal, not least because Miss Boo beamingly informed one of the (not terribly merry) maids that she "looked like a princess!" It made the cleaner break into a smile and chuckle, which is nice, because I think she probably had allergies or a headache something. She did excellent work, but seemed depressed.
If I had any doubts about the necessity of hiring the spit-shine done (they washed the cupboard doors and the heater vents) they were laid to rest today; it was a day when just getting up and walking across the room would set off contractions. Maddening ones--they are debilitating, requiring me to stop and deep breathe and remind myself to relax and, in the words of Ina May Gaskin the midwife, "be grateful and graceful", but they do not actually herald labor because they stop again as soon as I sit down and have a drink of water. Most frustrating. If I have to have contractions, I'd rather they didn't stop and I could get hold of the baby already.
On the upside, the people who looked at our house twice have decided to offer on a different place, which gives Littleman a little more bumping-around time. I don't have much patience to wait but I shall have to develop some, it appears.
Tomorrow a troop of realtors are going to come through the house and offer us "feedback". Hopefully all my attentive HGTV watching will forestall any of the obvious comments they might have--things like "well, really they probably ought to put the diaper pail away".
Might I make a suggestion for anyone who's in the house selling/moving arena? Who doesn't want to give an inordinate amount of money to Applebee's and the pre-prepared section at Costco and Pizza Hut? Check out Saving Dinner. It's not something I use all the time--we actually like a bit of repetition in our menus--but for frenzied times it is invaluable. The book is divided into seasons and can be used for a full year. It gives you shopping lists, menus, and recipies to cook dinner six nights a week. The seventh night, the author says, is for you to "spread your wings" and try recipies from other cookbooks, but in practice for us the meals make enough leftovers that the seventh night is leftover night.
The meals are healthy and veggie-heavy, which is nice; although I don't use the low-fat dairy products she calls for on account of having two toddlers that need the fat (and believing that fat isn't bad for grown people, either). The menus include side dishes but not desserts. Since the Husband and I have a hard time eating our way through a whole cake, this is okay by us--I generally make cookies or something at the beginning of the week and that does it for us.
It sure beats having no idea what's for dinner and blankly ordering pizza again, and giving everyone heartburn for the next two days. It's a cheap book, tiny, and easy to take with you to the grocery store if you don't want to re-copy the shopping list. The menus will be a bit more expensive than if you cooked strictly from a pantry (our bill was $118 this week instead of a more normal $80 or so, but that included breakfast and snack stuff) but not nearly as expensive as eating out or eating frozen stuff. Dinner's on autopilot, all the groceries and side dishes are accounted for, and any helpful body can be given the recipie to follow.
(Whereas it doesn't seem like it would be kind to the grandmas when, after they ask, you have to admit that you were just going to make up something to do with cube steak and that they're on their own to figure out what, because you're bent over the counter being grateful and graceful--oh, and that there are no potatoes.)
Cheers,
Breanna
He's been kicking me HARD the last couple of days, in a vain attempt, I think, to get comfortable in a place that is just too small for him. I tell him that means he needs to get a move on and arrive already, and he just kicks me again.
I sat today and tried to entertain Buddy and Miss Boo today while Merry Maids did their thing. It was surreal, not least because Miss Boo beamingly informed one of the (not terribly merry) maids that she "looked like a princess!" It made the cleaner break into a smile and chuckle, which is nice, because I think she probably had allergies or a headache something. She did excellent work, but seemed depressed.
If I had any doubts about the necessity of hiring the spit-shine done (they washed the cupboard doors and the heater vents) they were laid to rest today; it was a day when just getting up and walking across the room would set off contractions. Maddening ones--they are debilitating, requiring me to stop and deep breathe and remind myself to relax and, in the words of Ina May Gaskin the midwife, "be grateful and graceful", but they do not actually herald labor because they stop again as soon as I sit down and have a drink of water. Most frustrating. If I have to have contractions, I'd rather they didn't stop and I could get hold of the baby already.
On the upside, the people who looked at our house twice have decided to offer on a different place, which gives Littleman a little more bumping-around time. I don't have much patience to wait but I shall have to develop some, it appears.
Tomorrow a troop of realtors are going to come through the house and offer us "feedback". Hopefully all my attentive HGTV watching will forestall any of the obvious comments they might have--things like "well, really they probably ought to put the diaper pail away".
Might I make a suggestion for anyone who's in the house selling/moving arena? Who doesn't want to give an inordinate amount of money to Applebee's and the pre-prepared section at Costco and Pizza Hut? Check out Saving Dinner. It's not something I use all the time--we actually like a bit of repetition in our menus--but for frenzied times it is invaluable. The book is divided into seasons and can be used for a full year. It gives you shopping lists, menus, and recipies to cook dinner six nights a week. The seventh night, the author says, is for you to "spread your wings" and try recipies from other cookbooks, but in practice for us the meals make enough leftovers that the seventh night is leftover night.
The meals are healthy and veggie-heavy, which is nice; although I don't use the low-fat dairy products she calls for on account of having two toddlers that need the fat (and believing that fat isn't bad for grown people, either). The menus include side dishes but not desserts. Since the Husband and I have a hard time eating our way through a whole cake, this is okay by us--I generally make cookies or something at the beginning of the week and that does it for us.
It sure beats having no idea what's for dinner and blankly ordering pizza again, and giving everyone heartburn for the next two days. It's a cheap book, tiny, and easy to take with you to the grocery store if you don't want to re-copy the shopping list. The menus will be a bit more expensive than if you cooked strictly from a pantry (our bill was $118 this week instead of a more normal $80 or so, but that included breakfast and snack stuff) but not nearly as expensive as eating out or eating frozen stuff. Dinner's on autopilot, all the groceries and side dishes are accounted for, and any helpful body can be given the recipie to follow.
(Whereas it doesn't seem like it would be kind to the grandmas when, after they ask, you have to admit that you were just going to make up something to do with cube steak and that they're on their own to figure out what, because you're bent over the counter being grateful and graceful--oh, and that there are no potatoes.)
Cheers,
Breanna
Friday, January 7, 2011
Moving Hints and Tips
So you want to know what I'm doing with my time these days? I've discovered a few things about moving that you might find helpful, should you ever decide to embark upon the projects of moving 1700 miles, having a baby, selling a house, and mothering a-3-and-a-not-quite-2-year-old all at the same time. (If you throw in graduating from college or being audited or something in addition to all this it will, of course, make it complicated and I can't help you.)
1. Get a binder. Put a calendar in it.
Then keep everything relating to moving/selling the house in the binder. At least that way it's all in one place, and you've only got the one thing to dig through when you're looking for the "property disclosure" or what day Merry Maids is supposed to show up or when the moving company guy is coming to inventory your canning jars.
This is also a good place to put your lists, as in
2. Make lists.
I don't know about you, but I have a brain that doesn't want to forget things. It fights against this kind of forgetfulness by reminding me about things more than I want it to. From some of my reading I wonder if this is a female trait; it certainly doesn't seem to bother the menfolk I know as much as it does the women--the men seem to have some sort of "minimize" button in their cerebral operating system that allows them to ignore an idea until it's time to do something about it. For me, it's more like I've got a bunch of annoying popup ads that keep interrupting the stuff I need to do today, and they won't stay minimized. I'll be making the coffee, and my brain will break into my happy, early-morning thoughts with DON'T FORGET ABOUT THAT DEPOSIT! IT'S DUE IN THREE DAYS! If I tell it to shut up about that, it will say DID YOU PUT THE HAIRBRUSH IN THE HOSPITAL BAG?
So I put these things on a list. It helps the brain shut up a bit, although nothing silences the plaugey thing permanently except accomplishing the task. If you're moving, you'll want to have a few lists, with titles like "Selling The House", "The New House", "People to Notify" etc. Keep them in one place, and keep them updated.
3. Don't be afraid of hiring things done.
Granted your budget will dictate how much of this you can do, but consider carefully what you can afford. I am not a dowager and am weirded out by strangers cleaning my house, but I also can't bend over *at all* anymore, so if the tub is to ge scrubbed, someone else has to do it. Run the numbers. Merry Maids, doing a one-time deep scrub for us, will cost about the same as our one-a-month Costco run did when we were buying disposable diapers. (Luckily we're not buying them anymore and we've let our membership expire, on account of no Costco in the land to which we travel.) This deep scrub, which involves luxuries like having the cupboard doors and baseboards washed, will be possible to maintain, even when Littleman arrives and sheds his glow of new-baby havoc over all things. It's worth it.
4. Don't be proud when staging your house.
My sister says home sales are about catering to a buyer's fantasy world and she's right-- in this world no one eats toast (because toasters are nowhere to be seen on the counters), there are no toys visible, everyone keeps fresh flowers and fresh fruit on the tables, and there are no water spots in the sink or garbage cans in the bathrooms.
Nobody lives this way. But you can fake it for showings--put away some of your furniture and all of your knicknacks, hide the garbage can, invest in a few carnations. Make sure your house smells good (like bake bread the hour before the showing) but not suspiciously good (don't get vanilla-cinnamon potpourri--the buyer will only wonder whether you're covering up cat pee).
Perhaps this all seems like too much trouble, or even a little deceptive, especially when you don't even get the house this neat for company. Boo hoo. You want to sell the place, don't you? Do it anyway. Of course the presence or absence of your coffee table doesn't really make a difference to how big the room is. But buyers are silly, and they will judge the room better if your table is neatly packed away into the garage.
5. Keep it up.
I did most of the fiddly work--like choosing which select toys we were going to keep out (vs. pack into the shed) and tidying closets and cleaning out window tracks--weeks ago before I got this pregnant. Last weekend the Husband and I put the finishing touches on the place before we began showing it. I've been putting in about an hour a day to just keeping it all up; the goal being that we could make the house show-ready (hidden garbages and all) in an hour or less. (The realtor gives us more notice than that, but I'm an overachiever.) A hidden benefit to putting away all your stuff is that the kids can't scatter as much of it around, so there's less to keep after. But you have to keep wiping down counters and taking fingerprints off glass, and if you just do a bit each day it never gets overwhelming.
6. Take help.
Whether from someone who offers to help you with your driving itinerary (thanks Baba!) or someone who offers to bring you deli chicken, TAKE IT.
Those are my tips--anyone have more?
Cheers,
Breanna
1. Get a binder. Put a calendar in it.
Then keep everything relating to moving/selling the house in the binder. At least that way it's all in one place, and you've only got the one thing to dig through when you're looking for the "property disclosure" or what day Merry Maids is supposed to show up or when the moving company guy is coming to inventory your canning jars.
This is also a good place to put your lists, as in
2. Make lists.
I don't know about you, but I have a brain that doesn't want to forget things. It fights against this kind of forgetfulness by reminding me about things more than I want it to. From some of my reading I wonder if this is a female trait; it certainly doesn't seem to bother the menfolk I know as much as it does the women--the men seem to have some sort of "minimize" button in their cerebral operating system that allows them to ignore an idea until it's time to do something about it. For me, it's more like I've got a bunch of annoying popup ads that keep interrupting the stuff I need to do today, and they won't stay minimized. I'll be making the coffee, and my brain will break into my happy, early-morning thoughts with DON'T FORGET ABOUT THAT DEPOSIT! IT'S DUE IN THREE DAYS! If I tell it to shut up about that, it will say DID YOU PUT THE HAIRBRUSH IN THE HOSPITAL BAG?
So I put these things on a list. It helps the brain shut up a bit, although nothing silences the plaugey thing permanently except accomplishing the task. If you're moving, you'll want to have a few lists, with titles like "Selling The House", "The New House", "People to Notify" etc. Keep them in one place, and keep them updated.
3. Don't be afraid of hiring things done.
Granted your budget will dictate how much of this you can do, but consider carefully what you can afford. I am not a dowager and am weirded out by strangers cleaning my house, but I also can't bend over *at all* anymore, so if the tub is to ge scrubbed, someone else has to do it. Run the numbers. Merry Maids, doing a one-time deep scrub for us, will cost about the same as our one-a-month Costco run did when we were buying disposable diapers. (Luckily we're not buying them anymore and we've let our membership expire, on account of no Costco in the land to which we travel.) This deep scrub, which involves luxuries like having the cupboard doors and baseboards washed, will be possible to maintain, even when Littleman arrives and sheds his glow of new-baby havoc over all things. It's worth it.
4. Don't be proud when staging your house.
My sister says home sales are about catering to a buyer's fantasy world and she's right-- in this world no one eats toast (because toasters are nowhere to be seen on the counters), there are no toys visible, everyone keeps fresh flowers and fresh fruit on the tables, and there are no water spots in the sink or garbage cans in the bathrooms.
Nobody lives this way. But you can fake it for showings--put away some of your furniture and all of your knicknacks, hide the garbage can, invest in a few carnations. Make sure your house smells good (like bake bread the hour before the showing) but not suspiciously good (don't get vanilla-cinnamon potpourri--the buyer will only wonder whether you're covering up cat pee).
Perhaps this all seems like too much trouble, or even a little deceptive, especially when you don't even get the house this neat for company. Boo hoo. You want to sell the place, don't you? Do it anyway. Of course the presence or absence of your coffee table doesn't really make a difference to how big the room is. But buyers are silly, and they will judge the room better if your table is neatly packed away into the garage.
5. Keep it up.
I did most of the fiddly work--like choosing which select toys we were going to keep out (vs. pack into the shed) and tidying closets and cleaning out window tracks--weeks ago before I got this pregnant. Last weekend the Husband and I put the finishing touches on the place before we began showing it. I've been putting in about an hour a day to just keeping it all up; the goal being that we could make the house show-ready (hidden garbages and all) in an hour or less. (The realtor gives us more notice than that, but I'm an overachiever.) A hidden benefit to putting away all your stuff is that the kids can't scatter as much of it around, so there's less to keep after. But you have to keep wiping down counters and taking fingerprints off glass, and if you just do a bit each day it never gets overwhelming.
6. Take help.
Whether from someone who offers to help you with your driving itinerary (thanks Baba!) or someone who offers to bring you deli chicken, TAKE IT.
Those are my tips--anyone have more?
Cheers,
Breanna
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Before the Storm
Not, probably, a literal storm this time.
You may have noticed that I try not to use this blog as a way to record my own feelings, mostly because I find blogs about other people's feelings ("Gee, I was really bummed by Dancing With the Stars last night, because I wanted her to win...and I'm worried about my cats...and a little hungry...") boring. So although I'm egocentric like all humans and tend to talk a lot about myself, I at least *try* to tie it into something halfway interesting.
This post, on the other hand, is just an exercise in using up time. For some reason I can't settle down to anything today. (I'd like to think this is an indication that I'm about to go into labor. You know, how a mother cat prowls around looking for a nook to have her kittens in?) I tried to read, but foolishly enough picked Chesterton. Since I have the attention span of a toddler today, that made about as much sense as giving Buddy a stained-glass project to work on.
There isn't any housework that needs doing per se. I have done the upkeep bits, like load the dishwasher, as they occur, but I can't settle down to that either.
I've tried knitting and I just keep making mistakes that have to be taken out.
In short, today I've got that feeling that you might have experienced before a big thunderstorm. You look around yourself outside and see the leaves of the plants turned up into cups, anticipating the rain. The air is charged, the clouds are big, but it's not windy yet. The storm is coming, but it hasn't arrived, and until it gets there you walk around feeling like you ought to run around, punch something or hide in a cellar.
It's a very uncomfortable place to be, especially pregnant with no housework to do. I'd like to either be able to settle down, or to start running and punching things (i.e., begin labor already).
Is there any large moral lesson to be drawn from this?
Nope, at least not right now, because I can't settle enough to articulate it. This is self-indulgent time-killing. You're welcome.
Cheers,
Breanna
You may have noticed that I try not to use this blog as a way to record my own feelings, mostly because I find blogs about other people's feelings ("Gee, I was really bummed by Dancing With the Stars last night, because I wanted her to win...and I'm worried about my cats...and a little hungry...") boring. So although I'm egocentric like all humans and tend to talk a lot about myself, I at least *try* to tie it into something halfway interesting.
This post, on the other hand, is just an exercise in using up time. For some reason I can't settle down to anything today. (I'd like to think this is an indication that I'm about to go into labor. You know, how a mother cat prowls around looking for a nook to have her kittens in?) I tried to read, but foolishly enough picked Chesterton. Since I have the attention span of a toddler today, that made about as much sense as giving Buddy a stained-glass project to work on.
There isn't any housework that needs doing per se. I have done the upkeep bits, like load the dishwasher, as they occur, but I can't settle down to that either.
I've tried knitting and I just keep making mistakes that have to be taken out.
In short, today I've got that feeling that you might have experienced before a big thunderstorm. You look around yourself outside and see the leaves of the plants turned up into cups, anticipating the rain. The air is charged, the clouds are big, but it's not windy yet. The storm is coming, but it hasn't arrived, and until it gets there you walk around feeling like you ought to run around, punch something or hide in a cellar.
It's a very uncomfortable place to be, especially pregnant with no housework to do. I'd like to either be able to settle down, or to start running and punching things (i.e., begin labor already).
Is there any large moral lesson to be drawn from this?
Nope, at least not right now, because I can't settle enough to articulate it. This is self-indulgent time-killing. You're welcome.
Cheers,
Breanna
Words Are Very...
...well, the song says "Unnecessary", but since even the song has to use lyrics to explain that it doesn't want to talk, I think we can agree that we need words. Let's try "Important" as a way to finish off the title.
I've been thinking about words lately, and about Christ's title as the Word. I begin to think there is something about language itself that makes it so we can't learn without language--some system of naming and remembering things. Even people that we call "nonverbal"--deaf-mute folks, people who are retarded and unable to learn a language reliably, babies who can't talk yet--must have some system in their heads where they can see a cloud and think some equivalent of "cloud".
Therefore, if language, words, and stories are the way we're built to understand the world, it follows that using language correctly is very important. Especially, I would think, the use of language in prayer.
I caught myself the other day saying "Lord, please help us to sell the house." I realized that's stupid. Apart from Him I can do nothing--not "not as much", but "nothing"--so it's very silly to ask for "help", as though I've almost got it but just need a bit of a boost. What I need to pray, and what I've been trying to pray, is "Lord, please sell the house in Your good time." It's even trickier to remember to pray "Lord, make me a good mother" instead of "Lord, help me to be a good mother". Amazing the places you find pride, like mildew.
How about this one--"Lord, let me..." fill in the blank with a good deed or state of being. As though He's preventing you from doing good, instead of being the only One who can enable you.
These are tiny mistakes in word choice. I don't think God ignored my prayers for the years I made them, but now that He's made me aware of them I realize how they've hampered my own thinking. It's important to choose the right words in prayer not because they somehow make God answer prayer more, but because they put me in the right frame of mind to see His mighty hand.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting we be dishonest in prayer and say things we don't mean because they sound religious. But I am saying that regardless of emotion and how things look ("after all, I'm not paralyzed or anything, I can exert my will to be a good mother") we can choose to state in prayer what we know is true. We can say things like "Lord, you know better than I do how I feel this morning. I can't see You at all, but I know You haven't left me because You promised to stay with me and You keep Your promises. So I'm asking that You would make me feel Your presence, because I'm very tempted to despair." Or things like "Lord, I need You to give me patience, or I'll pick up these precious children You've given me by the toes and smack their heads against the wall they just daubed with chocolate pudding." (Well, I doubt I'd really ever swing my kids like rug beaters, but I might yell something mean at them and that would be almost as bad.)
You see how thinking about the words we use influences how we think?
In turn, how we choose to think influences how we feel. (Yes, you can choose whether to bow to your emotions, as though they're weather, or to work on them, as though they're housecleaning. No one condemns you to have a dirty house or a depressed heart--you may succeed more or less in changing the patterns that lead to each condition and you may never have the same house/heart as someone with fewer natural disadvantages, but the choice is yours--be overwhelmed, or start working.)
How we feel influences what we do, and of course what we do is the fabric that makes up our lives. Do you really want your life fabric to be a big, cheesy swath of polyester printed with "I DID IT MY WAY"? (No, that is not an inspiring song. It is, as a radio preacher I used to be able to get once noted, the song they sing in Hell.)
So we've come from what seems like a piddly detail, choice of words, all the way down to the very fragrance we leave behind when we die. Think about it for the next few days and try to catch all the times that you use words in the wrong way, especially in prayer and talking about God. Don't think that just by using what might be called Christian Cant that you will be safe from inaccuracy. Asking for "travelling mercies" might work only if you are around people who know that you mean safety, not mercy that goes travelling here and there.
It's a wholesome discipline, especially for someone who likes to write, like me. It's also a bit overwhelming to notice how much wrong thinking I do, in a quiet way, that the wrong words allow me to mask. At heart I'm still a daughter of Eve, pretty sure I know best and that I need what God has told me not to take, and that I can do all things because I'm awesome that way.
You help me to catch this tendency and I'll help you, okay? For the record, we are trying very hard to say that God is the one selling our house, not that He is helping us to sell it. Ridiculous how difficult this is for us to remember!
Cheers,
Breanna
I've been thinking about words lately, and about Christ's title as the Word. I begin to think there is something about language itself that makes it so we can't learn without language--some system of naming and remembering things. Even people that we call "nonverbal"--deaf-mute folks, people who are retarded and unable to learn a language reliably, babies who can't talk yet--must have some system in their heads where they can see a cloud and think some equivalent of "cloud".
Therefore, if language, words, and stories are the way we're built to understand the world, it follows that using language correctly is very important. Especially, I would think, the use of language in prayer.
I caught myself the other day saying "Lord, please help us to sell the house." I realized that's stupid. Apart from Him I can do nothing--not "not as much", but "nothing"--so it's very silly to ask for "help", as though I've almost got it but just need a bit of a boost. What I need to pray, and what I've been trying to pray, is "Lord, please sell the house in Your good time." It's even trickier to remember to pray "Lord, make me a good mother" instead of "Lord, help me to be a good mother". Amazing the places you find pride, like mildew.
How about this one--"Lord, let me..." fill in the blank with a good deed or state of being. As though He's preventing you from doing good, instead of being the only One who can enable you.
These are tiny mistakes in word choice. I don't think God ignored my prayers for the years I made them, but now that He's made me aware of them I realize how they've hampered my own thinking. It's important to choose the right words in prayer not because they somehow make God answer prayer more, but because they put me in the right frame of mind to see His mighty hand.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting we be dishonest in prayer and say things we don't mean because they sound religious. But I am saying that regardless of emotion and how things look ("after all, I'm not paralyzed or anything, I can exert my will to be a good mother") we can choose to state in prayer what we know is true. We can say things like "Lord, you know better than I do how I feel this morning. I can't see You at all, but I know You haven't left me because You promised to stay with me and You keep Your promises. So I'm asking that You would make me feel Your presence, because I'm very tempted to despair." Or things like "Lord, I need You to give me patience, or I'll pick up these precious children You've given me by the toes and smack their heads against the wall they just daubed with chocolate pudding." (Well, I doubt I'd really ever swing my kids like rug beaters, but I might yell something mean at them and that would be almost as bad.)
You see how thinking about the words we use influences how we think?
In turn, how we choose to think influences how we feel. (Yes, you can choose whether to bow to your emotions, as though they're weather, or to work on them, as though they're housecleaning. No one condemns you to have a dirty house or a depressed heart--you may succeed more or less in changing the patterns that lead to each condition and you may never have the same house/heart as someone with fewer natural disadvantages, but the choice is yours--be overwhelmed, or start working.)
How we feel influences what we do, and of course what we do is the fabric that makes up our lives. Do you really want your life fabric to be a big, cheesy swath of polyester printed with "I DID IT MY WAY"? (No, that is not an inspiring song. It is, as a radio preacher I used to be able to get once noted, the song they sing in Hell.)
So we've come from what seems like a piddly detail, choice of words, all the way down to the very fragrance we leave behind when we die. Think about it for the next few days and try to catch all the times that you use words in the wrong way, especially in prayer and talking about God. Don't think that just by using what might be called Christian Cant that you will be safe from inaccuracy. Asking for "travelling mercies" might work only if you are around people who know that you mean safety, not mercy that goes travelling here and there.
It's a wholesome discipline, especially for someone who likes to write, like me. It's also a bit overwhelming to notice how much wrong thinking I do, in a quiet way, that the wrong words allow me to mask. At heart I'm still a daughter of Eve, pretty sure I know best and that I need what God has told me not to take, and that I can do all things because I'm awesome that way.
You help me to catch this tendency and I'll help you, okay? For the record, we are trying very hard to say that God is the one selling our house, not that He is helping us to sell it. Ridiculous how difficult this is for us to remember!
Cheers,
Breanna
Monday, January 3, 2011
Nope
False alarm.
The midwife says I am to sit with my feet up and drink lots of water and get lots of rest. I barely managed to keep from laughing directly into her face, because she's a very nice person. I am trying... when the kids aren't actively strangling each other with the sock monkey.
We'll keep you up to date. :)
Cheers,
Breanna
The midwife says I am to sit with my feet up and drink lots of water and get lots of rest. I barely managed to keep from laughing directly into her face, because she's a very nice person. I am trying... when the kids aren't actively strangling each other with the sock monkey.
We'll keep you up to date. :)
Cheers,
Breanna
Stuck in the Elevator!
On TV shows she always knows exactly when labor begins, is overwhelmed with pain and/or has her water break in the elevator, and then gets stuck there, causing Hilarious Results.
In real life, you spend all night with contractions and wonder if it will be Today, Tomorrow, or the Next Day.
If you are related to me no doubt you will be getting update calls and texts as the day rolls on, but this is your official post to let my blogland friends know, it Seems Likely this morning that I will be meeting Littleman before too long.
Of course it could all be smoke and mirrors. But at the moment the contractions are convincing.
I'll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Breanna
In real life, you spend all night with contractions and wonder if it will be Today, Tomorrow, or the Next Day.
If you are related to me no doubt you will be getting update calls and texts as the day rolls on, but this is your official post to let my blogland friends know, it Seems Likely this morning that I will be meeting Littleman before too long.
Of course it could all be smoke and mirrors. But at the moment the contractions are convincing.
I'll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Breanna
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