Arane's Room!

After much long, arduous work, including a lot of mistakes and re-dos, we have finally finished Arane's room!

Can't you see from the fake smile how thrilled he is to be working on a project that should have taken, at most, a week, but instead took seven months to complete?

I provided moral support for the drilling parts.  Also, I got to try out our new chair.

Benny LOVES the new chair.  I think it's his new favorite place in the whole wide world to be!  You can tell, because when he's grumpy, all you see is black fur, but when he's happy, you get peeks of his white tummy.  He's pretty cute when he's relaxed.

"Stop taking my picture.  Seriously.  I can't do anything about it because I don't want to move, but... seriously."

This is what I call the "mommy and daddy corner."  There's a nice comfy chair and footstool for us to sit in when we feed Arane or get up at night with her, and there's a table for us to put the computer, books, water, and any other supplies we might need.  We'll see what supplies we need when we try it out with Arane, but for now, we only have bibs (not in this picture 'cause I hadn't put them there yet).  If anyone has any suggestions... speak now!

Here is Arane's crib. I'm working on decorating that wall above it, so it won't always look that plain.  :)

This is what's on the opposite side of the window in the picture of the crib, above: bookshelves and changing table.  We got the changing table from a lady on craigslist.  The hanging shelves came with the house, and the standing shelf I had growing up.  It's been through a lot of moves and you can sorta tell, but it's sturdy and does the job.  As you can see, she has a lot of room for toys when she's old enough to play with toys.  For now, she just has a few stuffed animals and things that make noise, which I think will be enough since for babies the entire world is interesting.

Oh, and here's a picture of me, completely with the ginormous belly.

I can't really believe I just showed you that, but really, I'm pretty amazed at how much someone's body can change in such a short amount of time, especially to make room for someone else who is growing so quickly.  Kinda cool!

Count it all joy...

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastnesses.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Justin and I have had a somewhat tumultuous married life.

We got married a month after my 19th birthday.  Not only did we get married, but I moved 500 miles away from my friends and family and church so that he could finish his undergraduate degree.  Justin rented the cheapest apartment he could find (which was all we could afford -- I couldn't find a job no matter how hard I looked), which happened to double as government housing.  The cops said about the neighborhood: "Well, there aren't a lot of murders..."  We couldn't afford to do anything, including laundry, so I washed all our laundry by hand in the bath tub because the apartment came with free water.  And during all this, we were having trouble finding a church that would be a good fit for us, and we were having in-law trouble, and we kept having to call the cops on the neighbors in the middle of the night, and did I mention that Justin was finishing up his undergraduate degree?  Oh, and I got tonsilitis and the swine flu and almost died (at least, that's what it felt like at the time).

Yeah.  Fun times.

And then we scraped together enough money to move out of the neighborhood without many murders, and into a neighborhood without that much crime at all.  People would steal stuff if you left it in the yard, but really, that seems very reasonable to expect when you're coming from the other neighborhood.  We lived there for about six months before Justin graduated from college and promptly lost all his jobs and couldn't find any others.  This was also an all-time low for him health-wise.  While he was unemployed, I got a part-time job doing administrative stuff online and a few months later, that same company hired Justin to do technical support.  Finally, we got to do laundry in a real washer and dryer, though it seems like one of the two was always either broken or about to break.  In the midst of all this, we had a major "kerfuffle" (aka, fight) with the aforementioned inlaws and no longer speak to them.  That was a rough decision to make, and continues to be tough, but the more I think about it, the more sure I am that Justin made the right call there.

After that, we decided that we didn't have anything left to do in Alabama so we moved back to my home town, mainly so that we could be involved more with a local church and serve people better.  We've always had a heart for hospitality and encouraging other Christians and that's really tough to do when you live an hour and a half away from your church.  But it wasn't as easy as just "moving."  Two weeks before our scheduled move, our then-soon-to-be landlord called and said that the apartment he had promised wouldn't be ready in time and would we like a different one.  We didn't really have any choice, so we said yes.  This apartment turned out to be even worse than the very first one (just to give you an example, all the windows were nailed shut, presumably so that everyone would die in a fire someday).  Then Justin had so much trouble driving the giant moving van that he asked our pastor to help him -- which turned out to be a good thing.  They followed me all the way up to WV and got a nice 9-hour long visit.  Our pastor died not six months later, and that was the last time we ever got to see him alive.

Eventually, we moved out of that terrible apartment and into my childhood home, which my parents had vacated about two weeks before we had moved to West Virginia in the first place.  It had been empty for about four months and was full of bugs and mold from being all shut up in the summertime.  But still, it was a huge improvement over where we had been for a lot of reasons.

I found out later that when we moved in, I was actually pregnant, so that's fun.  It wasn't long afterwards that I was struck by all-day-sickness and couldn't do much of anything.  We still have boxes that haven't been unpacked yet.  Actually, an entire floor is still in need of attention.

Then, pregnancy.  There's a problem with the umbilical cord that makes it a high-risk pregnancy, though the baby seems to be developing completely normally and actually excelling in some areas.  But still, it's a high-risk pregnancy, which means I have to go to the doctor a lot and get an ultrasound each week.  (She wants me to go twice a week, but I'm not doing that.  Pretty sure she just wants that to make sure she doesn't get sued.)  Also, we can't get private health insurance because it's a high-risk pregnancy, so that's fun.  We're about a month out from Arane's due date and still no insurance, though I did apply for government assistance earlier today.  Fun stuff.

Additionally, we've been trying to buy this house for months and months and keep running into roadblocks that are completely out of our or anybody else's control.  We also keep trying to sell one of our cars, which would effectively remove all obstacles to buying the house, but things keep happening there, too.

If you're still with me this far in, congratulations!  I'm not telling you all this as a woe-is-me story.  Here's the point: after you've lived in high-stress circumstances for a few years, stuff stops bothering you.  You realize that God is looking out for you, and if you pay attention, you can see specific instances where he has provided for you in ways you probably never expected.

For example, when Justin and I were both unemployed, that was probably our all-time low.  It's rough when you don't know where you'll get the money to pay for rent or food.  I know for a fact that we shouldn't have been able to pay for all the bills that we did... miraculous.  And I know that Justin wouldn't have his current job if I hadn't enlisted his help with mine during a particularly busy time for me.  He only had the time to help because he was unemployed, and now this is the best job he's ever had and I hope he keeps it for years and years!


So anyway, all that to say, I'm amazed that I'm not more worried about how we'll pay for Arane's medical bills.  Part of me feels like I should be more worried, but the rest of me knows that I'm only not worried because of God's grace.  I think that if I had been in this situation at the beginning of our marriage, I wouldn't be handling it this well.  God has taught me a lot of things throughout the years, including how not to freak out about stuff that I can't do anything about.  God is good!

Reading with Discernment

I came across this article earlier today, written by my former rhetoric teacher (now co-worker :) ).  She once again articulated what I always thought but could never get down on paper in a reasonably coherent fashion.

You can read the article here.  (It opens in a new window.  :) )

My favorite part:

"...Whatever is true” includes not just beauty but also the whole truth about, well, truth. What’s true and real is that this world is full of sin. It’s ugly, and it warps everything it touches. And evil is evil; it is to be avoided, not desired.

 I think I've been trying to say that for a long time but always failed.

It's important to realize that you aren't going to become tainted by sin just because you read about sin or watch a movie where people sin or, God-forbid, even know a few people who are sinners.  =P  You're already a sinner, and there's nothing you can do to make your condition worse (or better, for that matter :) ).  Isn't it good that God knows exactly how terrible we are and chooses to love us anyway?

And then people's next argument is that "all things are permissible, but not everything is beneficial," which is obviously true.  (Even if you don't believe the Bible is inherently true, I think we can all agree that certain things influence us negatively.)  I think that's where discernment becomes especially important.  For example, if I find that reading books about a certain topic (let's say... romances, because I can't think of anything else) leave me more open to sinning, then I shouldn't read romances.  But someone else might be able to read those types of books without any ill effects, and I shouldn't try to stop them just because it's not helpful for me personally to read about those things.

I'll be interested to read Part 2 in this series, and if there are more parts to look forward to, all the better!  :)

It's Tutoring Time!

Hi everyone!

As you may or may not know, Justin is an excellent math and chemistry tutor.  When we lived in Alabama, we had quite the tutoring business built up -- Justin tutored from 8-5 every Saturday and from 5-10 every week night except for Friday, and I still had to turn people away just because he didn't have time to help everyone!

So now that we're in West Virginia, we're trying to build that business back up.  One of our friends got a flyer made for us (you know who you are! :) ) and today I sent that, Justin's resume, and a short introduction to all of the chemistry professors at Marshall University, as well as to some high schools in the area.  Please pray that these professors and teachers will think of us when someone could use extra help!  We trust that God will provide students at exactly the right time, both for us and for them, and we're hoping that time is now.  :)

If any of you need tutoring or know of someone who does, please don't hesitate to contact us.  Justin is a wonderful tutor.  He really cares about each student he gets to interact with, and we've never had someone come for just one tutoring session.  I can personally testify to his ability to explain difficult concepts, because I was abysmal at math and didn't know the first thing about chemistry before we got married.  Even though we don't sit down and have math lessons or anything like that, I'm much more confident with advanced math than I was three years ago!

Posting Regularly

Justin, at a previous apartment, sitting grumpily at the computer.

So I thought I'd say a word or two about posting regularly.  I often see people say, "Sorry for not posting in a while," and then go on to tell you all about why they haven't posted.

The fact of the matter is that I have a lot of things to do.  Justin and I both work (he does more than I do most weeks).  We're selling a car, working on the house, buying the house, trying to get the garden in order, outfitting a nursery, preparing in other ways for a baby, staying involved with our church, reading books, keeping up with friends, volunteering our time and skills (such as they are, in my case :) ), and on top of all that, trying to keep a household running smoothly!  There is always something else to do, often something that really can't stay undone.

My goal with this blog is to keep far-away friends and family updated and to keep a sort-of-record of what's been going on lately so that I can read through it later, too.  But in the grand scheme of things, if it comes down to a contest between making dinner and blogging, what do you think should win?  Probably making dinner.  Food is necessary for life.  Blogging isn't really necessary at all.  It's a just a bonus.  :)

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that I don't plan to post regularly.  We'll see what happens, and I hope you all will be understanding.  It's easy to forget that people on the internet do things aside from what we see them do.  :)  I'll post as often as I reasonably can, but I don't need another thing to feel guilty about not doing!  I'm just not making any promises about regularity, that's all.  :)

Piles Beget Piles

Image from www.theexpeditioner.com -- not my house!

In my house, piles beget piles.  This is an amazing phenomena that occurs when one solitary item is left in a place it doesn't belong.  Before you know it, the out-of-place object spawns five or ten other objects, and continues to multiply if left to its own devices.

Not everybody has this problem.  My mom, for example.  For as long as I can remember, she had two piles: one pile of school books and papers in the dining room, and a mail pile on the kitchen counter.  Occasionally she'd have one or two other temporary piles (around Christmastime in particular), but they never lasted long.

This is definitely not the case for me.  I didn't take pictures because that would be embarrassing, but here's what happened last week for me.

I left one dish in the sink to soak.  It had baked-on potatoes which just weren't coming off no matter how hard I scrubbed.  While I was upstairs doing laundry, Justin helpfully stacked a few more dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the (empty) dishwasher.  So what had been one, manageable dish became about ten dishes, which effectively made the sink unusable.

Another place this often happens is the dresser.  The dresser has four things on it: a lamp, some flowers, a picture, and a jewelry box.  That is all that belongs there.  Unfortunately, it's a very handy place to stack... well, everything!  Every single morning and night I clear off all the accumulated debris.  I don't know how things accumulate overnight (well, actually, I do... a certain someone stays up later than I do :) ), but during the day it's almost entirely my fault.

It happens a lot of other places, too.  We live in a three-story house and if you run up and down the stairs for every little thing, you don't get anything done!  So we make a pile at the top and bottom of each staircase of things to go either up or down.  The idea is that we'll take something whenever we use the stairs.  Sometimes that works, but mostly Justin gets tired of stepping around things (he has bigger feet than I do, and consequently they take more room at the top of the steps :) ) and makes about five trips up and down, carrying things to the appropriate floor.  It also happens on the bathroom counter.  If I leave a hairbrush out, soon a towel joins it, then the toothpaste, then the hair dryer, then one of the cats decides that it looks like a comfy spot to nap, etc.  It never ends!

Thus far, I haven't found a long-term solution.  Right now, my theory is that if we just put things away, things won't even have a chance to spawn into piles, but that is far more easily said than done!  "I'll do it later" isn't a good option, and "I'm tired" isn't a good excuse to avoid something that takes about two seconds to do.

But oh well.  We'll keep trying!

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!