General Update :)

Hi everyone!

A lot has gone on this week.  This is just a collection of thoughts from throughout the week.

On Sunday, we worked in the nursery at church.  There are two little girls and one baby boy.  The little girls love reading books -- and thankfully, Justin also loves reading books!  He prefers the books with a good ratio of picture to text.  Too many books that are about Bible stories, etc., have way too many words per page for two and three year olds to listen to, so he steers the girls towards easy books like Dr. Seuss and the Tom and Pippo books.  The baby boy has learned to sit up and he scoots around on his bottom if there's something he wants to get to.  I mostly watch him and Justin mostly watches the girls.  :)

Remember this?  Well, all this stuff is now out of our room and into Arane's room.  I moved a few empty crates down from the attic and put all of our movies and video games there.  We have a surprising number of movies and games!  It's really nice to have them in our room and not in Arane's room... much easier to put things away when you don't even have to go in the next room.

I know a lot of people say that you shouldn't have a TV in your bedroom, but we haven't found that to be the case.  (Granted, we can't actually watch TV on our TV.  But we do watch it on our laptop, which lives on my nightstand table, and we haven't noticed any ill effects from that...)  We like to watch movies together, and sometimes Justin will play video games in there while I do something on the computer.  It's spending time physically together while doing separate things.  :)

So anyway, that corner of the room looks a lot better now.  I'm hoping to hang up pictures soon, and then finally post some decent pictures of our bedroom, which is pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.

We've been fighting a battle against cat fur lately.  This is the first year that we've had two indoor cats, and while I really like them both on a personal level, I wish they didn't shed so much!  The little one, Seamus, has light, long fur that literally floats in midair and then it eventually settles into drifts.  It's like a dust bunny except made out of cat fur.  Yucky... so we've been vacuuming and sweeping and dusting like there's no tomorrow to keep it under control.


In other news, we're getting a new roof put on the house.  They've been here for a week and a half and I'm pretty sure they just started on the shingles this morning.  It's an asbestos roof so they have to overlay that with something and then overlay that with shingles.  It takes a while.  I'm ready for them to be done because I'm kind of tired of having workmen climbing all over our house every day.  :)  They're also leaving a lot of debris in the yard so we haven't been able to get it mown in a few weeks.


The other thing that's been on my mind is a Christian perspective on entertainment.  We take a fairly liberal stance compared to a lot of our Christian friends... though still conservative compared to a lot of nonChristians.  Apparently there's a controversy about The Hunger Games books and movie because it has a kind of violent premise that includes children trying to kill each other.  People think that the whole book/movie should be condemned just because of that.

But here's the problem -- you can't categorically say that something is 100% wrong if it isn't clearly stated in the Bible... you should apply biblical principles and take into account your own weakness.  Of course people killing other people is wrong.  There's nothing "wronger" about it just because it's kids killing kids.  I'm pretty sure we all know that you're not supposed to support people killing each other, and watching a movie where that happens isn't going to change our minds.  I haven't read the books, but in the movie, it was very clear whose actions were good and whose actions were bad.  It was a little simplistic, actually, though I get that it was aimed at a younger audience.

Anyway, that's what's been going on here lately.  :)  Nothing too exciting!

Pregnant: Week 29

Hi everyone!

We had a doctor's visit yesterday.  I had to do the blood glucose test, which frankly wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had led me to believe.  =P  I also got the "okay" to make a 14+ hour round trip over the weekend in a few weeks, so that's cool.

For those of you who don't know, it's a girl.  Her name is Arane Faith.  "Arane" is said "air-uh-nay."  Emphasis on the first syllable.  She seems to be doing pretty well, judging by the amount of time she spends doing aerobics and practicing her punches.  :)

This is her first picture, taken about 2 months ago.  I'm sure she's gotten bigger!  She actually looked a little like an alien in a lot of the pictures (she's still growing, give her a break... :) ).

There is a slight "variation upon normal" with the umbilical cord which means she may come out kinda small.  Did you know that umbilical cords are supposed to have two arteries and a vein?  I didn't.  But they are.  This one has just one artery and a vein.  It doesn't seem to have affected her at all because she's bigger than average, according to the reading and studying I've done.

In other news, this is how I'm looking this week:

My mom, who lives about 8 hours away from me, has been asking for a picture for a few weeks now.  I finally took one today while talking to her, so that's why I'm in sweat pants, a tank top, and no shoes!  Usually I wear cuter pregnancy clothes (why not, if I have them?) but it was 90 degrees outside today and we don't have the A/C units installed yet.  Kinda warm.

The box at the very bottom of the picture actually has baby clothes (newborn - 12 months) in it.  We bought that whole box completely stuffed full with things bulging out of the top full of baby clothes last week for $100!  So far I've counted 65 articles of clothing, and I've only washed about half of it.  Pretty neat!

Here's my baby stash so far:

I haven't even started washing her cloth diapers yet, but that's next on my list after I get through all of these clothes.  My goal is to finish by the time we have our baby shower (co-ed, hosted by our church -- fun!) in a few weeks.  There are sorted but unwashed clothes everywhere... in piles on the floor, on top of the wardrobe, in the box, etc.

Underneath all the clothes in this picture are diapers, wipes, a few Dr. Seuss books that Justin bought for Arane, a picture frame, and some cute little baby shoes.  :)  We are still working on her room, but she's got a crib, book case, diaper organizer thing, wall shelves, a high chair, and a pack'n'play in there, along with a few little things that for some reason got put there instead of with the other little things.  I think she's almost all set!

The Purpose of Knowledge (and This Blog)

"The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate." ~Francis Bacon

This quote is a little long and cumbersome to read, but please, even if you're like me and often skim over long quotes, read it.  Diagram it if you need to.  It's important.

This basically summarizes my philosophy on life.

(Warning: This post will be fairly rambly.  I have so many thoughts about this idea and it's hard to organize them in a way that is easily put on paper.)

Why should we strive after knowledge?  "For the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate."

How does this apply to me?  My main calling in life is to be a homemaker.  I have other jobs where I actually earn money, and they do take up a significant amount of my time, but I consider those to be of secondary importance.  Consider what a homemaker does: cooking, laundry, cleaning, errands, and general upkeep of the house.  These are very practical ways to help relieve man's estate, which in its natural form is not good, and if you want to do a good job you have to study quite a bit and learn about a wide variety of things.

(Have you ever worried that you might get some sort of wasting disease from sitting on someone's couch?  That is the natural state -- just think about what happens if nobody did any housework for a week.  It's not a pretty picture.  That kind of feeling is what homemakers typically try to avoid.)

It's important to glorify God.  One of the most common opportunities we have to glorify God is when we choose to obey him!   Please note that God gives very few homemaking tips in the Bible, aside from in the Old Testament law, which I believe we are not called to follow anymore.  This means that to glorify God in my homemaking, I have to follow the spirit of the law.  Homemaking's primary function is not to create perfectly clean houses that smell like fresh baked cookies.  Its primary function is to create a place where we can grow closer to God and to each other.  The best way to do that is to study the Bible and apply what it teaches us.

It's also important to relieve man's estate.  In fact, it's not just important, it's commanded in the Bible.  Really, there are too many verses to count.  Just think about all the times the Bible says to "love one another" and to help people in any way that you can.  I'm pretty sure that all kids can use our help.  :)

In our family, we kind of follow traditional husband and wife roles.  My husband is the main breadwinner, and he works really hard at that.  I'm mostly in charge of the household and everything pertaining to it.  I say "kind of follow" because my husband does some housework (anything related to the toilet, trash, and household repairs, and he also sweeps the floors regularly), and I work part-time.  I tell you this because my taking care of the house definitely relieves my husband's estate, which I got to see before we got married and trust me, it was not pleasant at all.

So all that to say... it's not about your methods for keeping house and caring for your family.  It's about why you keep house and care for your family.