Am I There, Yet?

Change is my middle name.  I happen to like change.  I get bored with the same ol’ routine.  There are times when I’ve resisted change, but more often than not I’ve embraced it.  In fact, I took the Clifton Strengths Finder test (based on the books, “How Full Is Your Bucket?” and “Living Your Strengths“) and discovered that one of my biggest strengths is Adaptability. 

It’s that time of year again.  It’s time for change.  It’s time for a new year and for all of us to decide we need to make changes in our life.  I’m one of those people.  I make goals or resolutions.  Usually they’re the same every year:  develop a better quiet time routine, eat healthier, be a better mom and wife, become more organized.  There’s nothing on my list that is too crazy or unattainable.  I’ve added a new goal to this year:  to give birth to a happy and healthy baby.

However, this year I’m feeling extremely resistant to change.  I’m ready for 2008 (bring it on) but, I’m sick of change.  I’ve undergone enough change in the past two years to last a lifetime and I’m ready for some normalcy…whatever that is.  My head is still spinning from all the change we’ve encountered and I haven’t had much time to adapt before I find myself facing more change.  I’m tired.  Maybe I’m just getting old.  My adaptability feels more like a curse than a strength.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s in store for us, as a family, this upcoming year.  Change is inevitable.  After all, we’re having a baby.  We have to move again at some point, this itsy-bitsy two-bedroom condo isn’t going to cut it for too long.  Josh’s job role is changing at the church.  We’ll probably have to buy a new car because there’s not enough room for three car seats in our current car (as much as I love my zippy little sedan.) 

I just thought I’d blog some of my thoughts as I face the New Year.

Speaking of change, an interesting phenomenon has happened to me.  I’m not a creature of habit.  When I go out to eat, I typically like to try a new place or a new menu item.  However, I discovered a restaurant in NYC that I’ve been to probably a half a dozen times and every time I’ve gone I’ve ordered the same menu item.  How weird is that?  I’m surrounded by some of the world’s finest restaurants and I have thousands of choices facing me and I go to the same place and order the same thing.

Anyways…I like this item so much that I’m trying to figure out how to make it at home.  I’ve attempted twice and haven’t gotten it right just yet.  So, when I perfect this dish I’ll share it on my blog.  Until then, it’s gotta stay under wraps.

Happy New Year!  May this year bring lots of joy and happiness.

Merry Christmas!

We are having a fun Christmas season.  I hung 5 stockings up this year…one for the baby.  It is just another way for us to get excited about our new addition.  We have our ultrasound on January 2nd.  Hopefully we’ll be able to find out the gender on that day.  The kids will still be on their Christmas break from school so they’ll be able to come with us to the appointment.  This will be a fun way to get the kids involved in the pregnancy.  I’m feeling much better and I can’t remember if I posted this or not, but the second quad screen came back negative.  I had a feeling the first test was wrong.  Much ado about nothing.

The kids are doing great.  Lilly was invited by her sensei to start kickboxing.  She’s excited about that.  She did 42 sit-ups in one minute last night.  She’s a driven little girl.

Lilly was with Josh last night in the car when they got into a fender bender.  Josh was driving down a road when a car pulled out of a driveway right in front of him.  Fortunately, Josh wasn’t going very fast and minor damage was done.  The other driver claimed liability and his insurance is covering our damage.  The most important thing was that everybody was O.K.  Lilly was shaken up, but she’s O.K.  She asked, “Is that why we have to wear seatbelts?”

Titus is sick.  He has the cutest raspy voice and he’s a cuddle bug right now.  So, we’ve been taking it easy and cuddling on the couch a lot.  He’s been a total sweetheart.  Yesterday he offered to help me clean the house.  He dusted, swept and mopped the floors and Clorox wiped every surface he could think of.  He started bossing me around…telling me that I needed to vacuum again because he could see stuff on the carpet. 

Titus has a daily ritual.  Every morning we drop Lilly off at school and we pass by a grumpy looking crossing guard.  Titus asked one day why the crossing guard was so sad.  I said, “Maybe he’s lonely.  Maybe he just needs somebody to smile and say hi to him.”  Titus thought about this for a moment and said, “I’m going to smile and wave at him every day.  Maybe that will help him be happy.”  So, he does.  Every morning, Titus smiles and waves at the grumpy crossing guard and he’s starting to get a smile and a wave back in return.  This morning, the crossing guard was on the other side of the car directing traffic and Titus couldn’t see him.  He was sad and said, “I didn’t get to make the crossing guard happy today.”  There’s always tomorrow.

My Christmas shopping is done.  The gifts are wrapped.  The packages are mailed.  I’m still addressing Christmas cards.  Josh said I should write a Christmas letter so that people won’t forget about us.  The letter is written, but I now have to figure out how to print it (we don’t have a printer at home.)  Those will be a little late, but I don’t think people will mind too much. 

Our Christmas will be low key this year.  We’ll be hanging out at home as a family.  We’re all looking forward to it.  On Christmas Eve after church we always open up a gift.  It’s always pajamas.  We climb into our new pajamas and drink hot chocolate and read the Christmas story.  Christmas morning the kids are allowed to dig into their stockings when they first wake up.  The excitement in this ritual usually wakes us up.  We’ll have a Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls, fruit, eggs, coffee and hot chocolate.  After breakfast is cleaned up and put away, we’ll all sit down together and open gifts.  This year my parents will be joining us via webcam.  They want to watch the kids open their gifts.  That should be fun.  We’ll have a big lunch.  I’m still working on the menu.  It’ll probably be ham, potatoes, salad, egg nog, etc…  Dinner will be leftovers.  We’ll spend the day playing with the kids’ new toys, puzzles and games.

That’s it…nothing spectacular.  I don’t have any big plans over the Christmas break.  I’ll take the kids to see Enchanted.  We haven’t seen that, yet.  I may take them to Manhattan.  They want to see the tree at Rockefeller Center.  Maybe we’ll take a horse and carriage ride through Central Park.  They want to go to Dylan’s Candy Bar again.  Other than that…we’ll just be hanging out at home.

I’ve been feeling lonely lately.  It’s been hard for me to connect with people on a friendship level.  I have lots of “surface” relationships…but, nothing that’s gone past that.  There are two women in particular that I’ve really connected with on a relational level.  The type of relationships where you seem to never run out of anything to say…the type of relationships where you can find lots of common ground.  Unfortunately, both of these women will probably be moving away before this upcoming summer.  Right now they both live at least a half hour drive away from us.  One of them works full time and both are very busy.  So, I haven’t done much to pursue these relationships beyond what has already taken place.  Anyways…I’ve been talking to God a lot about my loneliness lately and last weekend I happened to run into both of these women and had some great conversations.  It felt great to connect with both of these girls.  They’re both really fantastic people with lots to offer.  Anyways…I don’t know what is going on there.  I also met one of my neighbors.  She just moved here this summer and has a young boy.  He’s younger than Titus, but they seem to really like each other.  Anyways, we were talking and I mentioned that we moved here from Oregon.  She said, “Really?  My family lives in Klamath Falls!”  What?!?  I told her we moved here from Bend and her eyes got huge.  She told me that she would ski Mt. Bachelor every year and how in the world could we move to New Jersey from Central Oregon?  She commented on how we must be experiencing major culture shock.  Anyways…that was a fun connection to make.  I’m sure I’ll continue to see her around.

I don’t know if I’ll be posting before Christmas or not.  I have a couple of thoughts about some things I’d like to blog about…but, if I don’t get to those soon then I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas!  I hope this season is bringing joyfulness and thankfulness to you and your family.

If somebody would’ve asked me twelve years ago where we’d be today I doubt that I would say I’d be living in New Jersey, pregnant with our third child.  But, life is an adventure and there’s nobody else I’d rather share this journey with.

I have a wonderful husband who adores me.  He loves to serve me.  He keeps me laughing.  He’s a wonderful father.  Most importantly, he desires to live a godly life.  He’s a man of integrity, wisdom and love.

I love you, Josh.  I think I’ll keep you around for another 12 + years. 

It’s official…I’m becoming everything that I said I wouldn’t.  Now that we’re having child #3 we have to get a bigger vehicle.  Chances are that it’ll end up being a mini-van.  I swore I’d never drive a mini-van.

To top it off my daughter is student-of-the-month at her school.  That means I get the “My child was student of the month at _________________ school” bumper sticker to go with the mini van.  That is two steps closer to being a soccer mom.

*sigh*

I woke up really early this morning with a bloody nose.  Sorry…I know that’s gross.  It was one of those that took a long time to get under control.  I’m sure there’s some medical explanation…maybe it’s some pregnancy hormone related thing.  However, as I stood there nursing my nose I was trying to remember the last time I had a bloody nose like that.  I got chills when I remembered when it was.  It was during the summer right after high school.  I was working with an organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Arvada, Colorado. 

Since it was early in the morning and I couldn’t get back to sleep, I spent some time praying for the families and friends of the victims both at the YWAM base in Arvada and at the church in Colorado Springs.  That poor church has been through so much already.  This is the last thing they need.  They’re still in a healing process and they’ve been wounded again.

I don’t have words.  There’s nothing I can say to make things better.  But, here’s my soap box speech to the media.  I said this right after the Virginia Tech tragedy and I’ll say it again.  Let’s not focus on the creeps who did this horrific thing.  Let’s focus on the heroes and victims.  I think the Omaha mall shooter summed it up when he said that at least he’ll be famous now.  Let’s not honor that request.  Let’s not make those people famous.  Let’s not even remember their names.  But, let’s celebrate the lives that were cut tragically too short.  They are the ones who deserve recognition.  They are the ones we need to focus on. 

I’m climbing off my soap box now and will continue to pray for those who were wounded, those who lost loved ones, those who are giving medical attention to the wounded and those who are working on the investigation.

My head is still spinning about the fact that Christmas is less than three weeks away.  Crazy!  We’re doing well.  I just wanted to do some family updates.

Me:  I’m feeling much better.  The nausea has subsided a bit and that helps a ton…especially since I’m still trying to unpack boxes and find a place for our things to fit.  This was a much bigger task than I expected.  I pared down my kitchen stuff before moving here, but now I’m finding out that it wasn’t enough.  I still have one box worth of stuff I need to find a place for and no space to put it. 

I’m now 17 weeks pregnant.  I had to get the blood work done again for the Quad Screen this week.  I’ll find out the results next week.  I’m now at that stage where I have nothing to wear, but am having a hard time justifying buying new clothes that I’ll only be wearing for the next five months.  Why did I get rid of all my maternity clothes?  Oh, yes…now I remember…I wasn’t planning on getting pregnant again. 

We have our 20-week ultrasound appointment over Christmas break.  So, it’ll be fun to take the kids with us when we find out if they’re having a brother or sister.  They’re pretty excited about that.

Josh:  Josh has been pretty busy and we haven’t seen him much lately…but, that should slow down next week.  He had his first grappling tournament last weekend and he won 1^st place in his division.  He was pretty excited about that, but his excitement subsided when he ended up in bed the entire next day with food poisoning.  He was pretty miserable.  I told him the doctor was wrong about food poisoning and that he was really experiencing sympathy pains for me.  He spent the rest of the week trying to play catch-up at work and finish some of his schoolwork.  He’s set to graduate from Fuller Seminary next Spring with his master’s degree.  We’re both ready for that to be done.  It’s been a great experience, but it’ll be nice to have it behind us.

Our 12-year anniversary is next weekend.  We’re celebrating tonight.  We’re headed to Philly for a Babyface concert.  (We’ve been fans since high-school.)  It’ll be nice to take a break from real life for the evening and just enjoy some time together. 

Lilly & Titus:  Both are doing great.  They both earned their blue belts in karate last night.  They worked hard and are very pleased.  Our schedule has changed a tiny bit since moving and they’ve adjusted well.  Lilly doesn’t ride the bus anymore since we moved out of her school district.  I’m taking her to school now.  The only minor snag is that Lilly’s school gets out 20 minutes before Titus’ school and their schools are only three blocks away.  It’s worthless to go home because we would just have to turn around and come back.  We’ve managed to pass the time by grabbing some hot chocolate while we wait. 

That’s about it.  I did manage to get our Christmas tree and lights up.  That was a big priority for the kids.  Even though we still have moving boxes stacked up in our living room, we have a decorated Christmas tree to distract us from the mess.

Hope all are doing well and enjoying the holiday season!

Lilly’s school is celebrating the different countries around the world this month and the teachers have asked the families to do a report about their cultural background.  They want to know about special traditions and holidays each family celebrates.  They want each student to bring in flags from their native country and they have asked each family to bring a favorite dish from their native country to share for the International Food Tasting Festival.

I love this idea.  Lilly’s classroom is extremely diverse.  This is one of my favorite things about NJ.  Even the “white” kids have diverse backgrounds.  This morning I overheard a dad speaking Deutsch to his daughter when we were dropping our kids off at school.  I would love to participate in a project like this and hear what all the children have to say about their native countries.  I’d also love to try all the food…Yum!  I’m excited that Lilly gets to participate in this celebration.

Well…Lilly’s not very happy about this project at all.  She was in tears last night in the back of the car.  She said, “I don’t understand why we can’t we be from a country.”  I tried to tell her that we were born and raised in The United State of America and that’s our country.  If you go back far enough, Josh and I we are an eclectic mix of many European nationalities.  We probably have ancestors from every European country…but none of those heritages have stuck with us.  We’re down-home Americans.  I was born in California, Josh was born in Iowa, Lilly and Titus were both born in Oregon and our new little one will be born in New Jersey.  Josh’s dad was a war baby born in England, but moved to the States while he was still an infant.  The rest of our parents were born in the U.S.  Our lineage shows that we both have many generations of ancestors born in the U.S.  We listen to country music, barbeque hamburgers, drink lemonade, eat watermelon and watch football. 

Lilly didn’t like this answer.  All of her friends are from someplace exotic and they all celebrate other traditions and holidays.  They eat food mostly from their native countries.  This is exciting to her.  Being born in America is boring to her.  That makes her different.  She feels like she has no story.

I’m going to make her work on this project anyway.  We’re going to make an American flag and talk about the 4^th of July.  The food choice was a little bit more difficult.  Lilly’s favorite meals are spaghetti (Italian) and tacos (Mexican.)  I was trying to think of something that was truly American and since the chocolate chip cookie was created in America, we’ve decided that we could make a batch of chocolate chip cookies to send to school for the tasting festival.  That will be our special cultural food.

This seemed to cheer her up a bit.

We all have a story and something to contribute.  This is something I want to teach my children.  They have much to give.