Dirty Hands

More Blessings

2011-11-07T19:16:00.003-05:00

(Bear with my background info, before I dive into blessings. I'm not complaining, but laying the stage.)

Round 2 for major storms this fall in Hartford. (Round 1 was Irene a few months ago.) Last week we got hit with a weird and totally out-of-the-ordinary snowstorm in October (29th and 30th). Only about 6 inches "stuck" but more fell and melted before and after the main storm. The problem was the leaves still on the trees, the moist trees from previous rainfall, some winds, and a partridge in the pear tree. . . all combined to make heavy branches and therefore lots of limb falls.

Unreal amounts of tree limbs all around. Driving through parts of the area, it's like a forest curbside, with people piling all the fallen branches along the road for the city to pick up. Some of the trees in our apartment complex have more bulk on the ground than still on the tree. Results were widespread power outages, and lengthy ones at that. Most of our friends were out of power for close to a week - 6 days for us, longer for others.

Our basement has drainage issues, so heavy rains (or melting snow) always mean a small puddle in corners, but we have a basement sump pump which does its job. . . unless there's no power. *ahem* With Irene and heavy rainfall, we lost power for 2 days or so, and our neighbor got a hold of a generator after a day, to pump out water. This time around, no generators to be had, so our basement sat in 1" of water for 6 solid days. The humidity was amazing down there (in a bad way ;-D). The problem was that our snow quickly melted because of the fluctuating temperatures in the low-to-mid 30's throughout the week, and the melted snow congregated in our basement ;-).

So anyway, rotten week, right? Nah. Adrian and I truly felt uplifted and blessed by God's provision for us. Great is His faithfulness:

Dear friends from church took us into their home for 6 nights in a row, while we were without power. They truly have the gift of hospitality.
The above dear friends are empty-nesters and also grandparents - perfect combo, with extra space in their home and all the "gadgets" (high chair, toys, crib, etc.) to make hosting a young family easy.
I survived power outage #2 while staying on the GAPS diet.
A gracious hostess who allowed me to partake of food or decline, depending on my own dietary needs.
Most of our freezer/fridge food was saved, transferred in time to a friend's fridge/freezer.
My kefir grains and sourdough starter appear to have survived :-D.
Nothing of intrinsic value was lost in our basement water-log. Yes, we took some losses, but nothing we can't live without.
Grace to thank God for the losses and see them as freeing, not a bad thing. Forced purging can be good!
Outside of a handful of non-important books, the rest of the books all survived, without water damage.
Friends willing to watch the kiddos for a few hours while Adrian and I raced against the humidity to bring up the belongings we wanted to save, when the basement flooded.
A friend's large basement play area for expending 3 year old energy on cold days last week.
Warmth and heat at our host home!
Underground power lines that made electricity in our friends' home possible :-)
A week without internet. Yes, this was definitely a good thing.
The kiddos doing remarkably well with the upheaval of the past week. (Usually Hans' attitude rapidly digresses with major changes like visitors or vacation.)
Our church and Christian fellowship. It was so neat to see the body of Christ help each other, those who did have power (definitely the minority!) open their homes for bed, food, or laundry.
Warm days this week (to spend out doors!) while back home with no elbow room indoors yet (as we ready the basement for re-habitation of the items currently invading our living/dining room).
Friends who immediately and cheerfully drove 30 minutes south to pick up me + kiddos, when we got a flat tire the day we finally make it home. . . these the same friends who just hosted us for 6 days!
A dedicated hubby who spent most of Saturday hauling soggy items to the dumpster and then spent Sunday afternoon and evening "de-oxing" our ditch, scrubbing down the basement with an anti-mold solution.
DRY air in the basement this morning(!)

Counting Blessings

2011-08-30T15:39:00.002-05:00

The past year (since mid-way in Gretchen's pregnancy) I've really been more keenly aware of God's day-to-day blessings. Not for a major life-changing reason (we weren't miraculously saved from a life-threatening situation a year ago, to my conscious knowledge), but God brought me out of a period of a few months of discontent, when I saw fault with everything and everyone. And since then I've been a bit more in tune to God's blessings in the little things.

A few of my friends have been blogging through 1000 gifts, and it's been fun to see them chronicle some of God's blessings in their own lives week-to-week. With Gretchen's birth and newborn-hood I mentally created a list of blessings (there were a lot of them!), but never got around to posting. Life can be very distracting with 2 littles ;-).

This past week Connecticut prepared for a visit from Hurricane Irene and we spent some time preparing, rearranging the basement, insuring adequate supply of shelf-stable foods, etc. The past few days I've been mentally composing a list of God's mercies related to Irene, and I thought I'd actually *gasp* post it, instead of just think it :-).

God's protection over our life and property.
Only 33 hours without power. The original prediction was close to 3 days, and many are still without power, possibly for a week or more.
The wind and rain was less than originally predicted. (Irene was a tropical storm rather than the original Category 2 they predicted.)
No damage of belongings in the basement, despite some standing water and some original problems with the pump.
A handyman husband who figured out how to get the pump up and running (the apartment complex had poorly installed it on multiple levels - it was pumping water INTO our washing machine).
The bulk of the rain happened before we lost power, so our pump could keep the water to a low level in the basement.
Our neighbor offering to let us use her generator the next day, to run our pump and shop vac for a while to drain the remaining water from our basement while we waited for power to return.
Beautiful weather - neither too hot or too cold.
Clean water, albeit not heated.
Still being able to stick 100% to my dietary restrictions, even without electricity and a means to cook.
Losing less than $10 worth of food due to loss of electricity (mainly condiments). On Thursday when the storm was predicted, we had 7 dozen eggs on hand and 3 gallons of cultured dairy (yogurt and kefir). None of that went to waste due to careful planning and a lot of egg consumption! And our deep freeze stayed frozen!
My kefir grains survived :-).

There are many who were hit by Irene much worse, so do please pray for those still without power, running water, or with injuries and deaths, etc. We are thankful that Irene was much milder than some of the more infamous hurricanes in recent history, but it still has a real effect right now in many people's lives.

Societal Conventions, Single Mothers, and Old Age

2011-06-02T12:55:00.004-05:00

Societal conventions are weird. And it's even more bizarre and confusing when they change constantly in our modern society, as tradition is disdained or new conventions are put in place.

I'm not an Emily Post type, but I see the wisdom in certain social graces. I don't worry whether my napkins are correctly sculptured on the table for company (or if we use paper instead!). I believe that thank you notes are a wonderful gesture of gratitude, but my ability to procrastinate means they don't always arrive promptly. My house has a high probability of not being dusted when you visit, but if your visit is scheduled ahead, it will almost certainly be vacuumed. My point in this paragraph is that I feel I'm pretty relaxed in the area of Emily-Post-esque conventions.

That being said. . . the societal conventions regarding what to call people have always amused and confused me to no end. I've waxed eloquent(?) on similar things before, though today's ramble has a different thought process.

I've heard that it used to be a minor insult to call a lady who was a stranger "Miss," assuming she was unmarried. But now ladies prefer being assumed "Miss" over "Ma'am", because "Ma'am" apparently sounds ancient. This could be because of our culture's obsession with youth (very antithetical to the Biblical view of youth and age) or a result of the feminist revolution. Since the middle 1900's we've thoroughly confused "Miss," "Ms.," "Ma'am," and "Mrs.," to the point where people mispronounce and misuse them all the time. . . "Mrs." should have TWO syllables, people!

Now whatever. I don't care that much. But it amuses me when I go to stores and observe what the cashiers call me. "Ma'am" should be a "duh" option, but recently I've been called "Miss" a few times. I don't care except without fail, when I shop I have two children in tow who look remarkably like myself (ie, my PROGENY). So my question to our modern society is this? Is it less of an insult to assume I'm a single mother than *gasp* an old married woman??? Our society is weird.

Am I knocking single mothers? Of course not. I have friends who are single mothers. They do a fabulous job and have more guts than I ever will. Some of them are in that situation because of circumstances totally outside their control, while others are prodigals "come home" so to speak. May God bless their sacrifice, and may I focus more on the plank in my own eye. (I have many planks.)

But my point is that never, ever in a previous society (as far as I can tell) has single motherhood been considered less of a shame or less desirable than being considered "old." (Or even considered to be "normative" in society.) What is so alluring about youth? What's so wrong about growing old? Maybe it's because I'm naive and 27 or something, but good grief. It's not like I'm quaking about turning 30. And I'm really looking forward to 50. The only thing I'm not looking forward to regarding old age is deteriorating health. But increased wisdom and experience? That is worth some creaking joints.

With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. Job 12:12

Gretchen's birth story

2010-10-09T04:51:00.010-05:00

I should be sleeping because it's before 6:00 a.m. and my baby is passed out in the crib next to me, but the biological need for food is competing with my biological need for sleep, and the lure of the food service in the hospital opening in 10 minutes is definitely deciding the winner ;-). Hungry! Feeding another human being takes a lot of calories.

~~~

I woke up Thursday morning (October 7th) at 2:00 a.m. from dreams of having contractions to find that I was. . . having contractions ;-). I was 4 days "past due". The contractions were really mild, though, so I didn't get super-excited, but instead emptied my bladder to see if they would keep up. Yep, and pretty steadily 8 or 9 minutes apart.

I tried to go back to sleep, but yeah right. I gave up around 3:30 a.m. and headed downstairs to putter around, to see if movement would increase or decrease the intensity/duration/happening. Adrian came downstairs around 4:00 a.m. to see if I was in labor, to which I shrugged and said "I think maybe." He started timing them for me (he said there was no way he was going to be able to go back to sleep!), and they were now closer to 5 minutes apart, but very mild and only 20-30 seconds long, so I had no intention of rushing to the hospital right then. My labor with Hans didn't have a clearly established contraction pattern, but I was also worried this time about getting to the hospital in time, as Hans' labor was fast once it picked up, and with this pregnancy I was Group B strep positive, so I was supposed to get 2 doses of antibiotics by i.v. in me before giving birth. . . 4 hours apart, so I needed a 4 hour lead gap from when I got my first dose to when I delivered. But I also didn't want to get to the hospital prematurely :-P.

Finally around 6:00 a.m., with the contractions still around 5 minutes apart most times, they were starting to get slightly more intense, and I was having to pause during some of them, so we called our friends up the street, to heads-up them that we'd be dropping off Hans soon. We dropped him off around 7:00 and headed 1/2 hour north to our hospital, checking in a little before 8:00 a.m.

The contractions slowed down some on the drive, to about 7 or 8 minutes apart on the drive. . . ugh. Then first thing they wanted before I could labor freely was a 20 minute fetal monitor strip, which I was fine with, but after closer to 45 minutes (Gretchen wasn't performing for them with enough heart rate accelerations at first, until I downed some cranberry juice. . . bleh), I'd only had about 3 contractions, 5 total since getting out of the car at the hospital an hour+ before. Hmm. The midwife checked me at 9:00 a.m., when I got off the monitor, and I was between a 3 and 4 (90% effaced) and the few contractions I was now having were very mild. Dilemmas, dilemmas. I did not want to be stuck here forever with a putsy labor!

We opted to walk around the hospital campus to see if we could get my labor moving, and this definitely did the job. We came back to the room about an hour later when the contractions starting spiking in intensity and getting closer. . . but still no established pattern. Although I was hesitant to declare "yes, this is it," I did opt to order the antibiotics at that point, because I knew we were up against the 4-hour window, and I knew I went fast with Hans once contractions got established. It was 10:00 a.m. when I ordered the antibiotics, but it took a while for them to actually get there -around 11:00 when I actually got them in me. By this time the contractions were definitely more intense, but still doable. I wasn't quite ready for the tub, as I didn't want my labor to slow down, and I'd made it to 8 cm without needing it with Hans.

The next hour was rather a blur. The contractions escalated to very intense so quickly, and much quicker than I expected I started getting that light-headed "I'm going to faint" feel that I got just before transition with Hans, that was only relieved by the tub. Before I even had time to act on the desire for a tub I was now having a hard time talking even between contractions. Then I had a super-intense contraction, and gasped "I'm having a premature urge to push! Get Mary (the midwife). And I want the tub." So they started filling up the tub and Mary came in to check me, but it was a few more contractions (slightly milder, no urge to push) before she could check me, just because moving anywhere was slow work and a lot of effort with the very intense contractions. My water broke as I finally got on the bed to be checked, and I got another urge to push, which I fought. Mary said she couldn't feel any cervix, so I could push whenever I felt like it. I was a complete 10! I really wanted to make it to the tub, though!

Thankfully, the tub was right across the hall, but I still needed a wheelchair just to get there. Thankfully the contractions did slow at this point a tad, allowing me to get in the tub just fine. The warm water felt SO good. My only complaint with this tub versus the one I birthed Hans in was that the water was much more shallow (very different style tub!), but I also did like the seat in this one, which was good for positioning options.

I was totally in my own zone at this point, just focusing, and not terribly aware of who was around me most of the time. I was pretty out of it ;-). Just like with Hans, I really didn't have any desire to pop this baby out super-fast, so I went with urges to push, but didn't bear down super-hard, wanting to ease her out to minimize tearing. I've never understood when women say that pushing is almost a relief from the contractions, because they get to channel their anger/momentum into pushing. I just don't find pushing fun AT ALL. Gretchen was born at 12:29 p.m., screaming and hollering and NOT liking this whole outside-world thing ;-). She was 7 lb. 1 oz. with a very rounded head from such a quick delivery, golden fuzz for hair just like her brother. . . and in most other ways looking like a miniature Hans!

We snuggled in the tub wrapped in lots of towels until the cord stopped pulsing and was clamped, then we moved to the bed for placenta delivery and to repair a small tear. Then she latched right on and nursed like a champ (has barely stopped since!). SO much easier to establish breastfeeding with her than with Hans! She's such a good and determined little nurser that she had already brought my milk in by 30 hours postpartum, and at 36 hours after birth, she's already back 3 oz. above her birth weight(!).

With only 1 1/2 hours between the antibiotics (and only one dose, at that!) to delivery, we are held 48 hours at the hospital (just for precaution), rather then my original hope of an early discharge at 24 hours. But thankfully Gretchen's vitals have been great and her blood labs came back clear, with no signs of GBS complications, for which we are very thankful!

Adrian and I laughed after delivery that we didn't even have time to think about getting out all the birth music we'd brought. Ah well. Anonymous 4 (beautiful medieval chants!) still sounds nice post-delivery ;-).

Praise God for such a safe and quick delivery, and for a healthy little one!

There are many more pictures posted to my photo blog.

Update

2010-04-05T19:42:00.002-05:00

So, yep, I'm still alive. Just not getting around to blogging much. Let me see. . . the last year. How to summarize:

Hans is growing and SO much fun. He's busy trying to repeat lots and lots of words and catching on quickly to pronunciation. Still hasn't tried the novelty of sentences, though. He wants to spend every possible moment outside, and thinks it's downright cruel of me to say "no" on rainy days. He'll be 2 in 2 months. *sniff* My baby is growing up!

I spent most of last year trying to fix some health problems I was having, as I mentioned briefly in a post back last spring. I ended up on a restrictive diet for about 6 months, as I tested intolerant for about 40 food items. It turns out that the antibiotics I was flushed through with in labor with Hans (since my water broke early) had pretty much depleted my good bacteria from my intestines -very necessary for digestion! My intestinal problems were causing a psoriasis-like rash that wasn't itchy, but just annoying, because I didn't want it to get worse, and because I knew it signaled a deeper problem. After 2 naturopaths and a lot of reading, I finally cultured some sauerkraut and ate that 3x/day for a few months, and felt much better! Sauerkraut is awesome that way, even if I'm still not a taste fan :-P. I do have some deeper issues that I will have to eventually solve along the same lines, but my worst issues were fixed with the sauerkraut. So yay! I will definitely not be accepting more prophylactic antibiotics for a very weak reason next labor :-P. (It's not like I'd had my water broken for days or anything!)

We also became debt free last fall! Yay! We'd been working to paying off a student loan since we got married, and we finally were able to, by God's grace. Let me tell you, that is an awesome feeling. We are hoping to keep that status until we buy a house at some point down the road, but we'll take what the Lord throws our way :-). We probably won't buy a house for several more years, until Adrian goes into teaching (which is a while off), for various reasons that make good sense but I won't expend your time on here ;-). So now with no more debt, we're focusing more on saving for a hefty downpayment and such.

I had an early miscarriage in December, the week of Christmas. My hormones were not registering as strong to begin with, so I was prepared and was really fine with it, though of course with a little sadness. We had a fabulous time in Minnesota for a week following Christmas, and it was really a great time of family and celebration.

Then we got pregnant again in January! Everything is looking good so far with this pregnancy. I'm 14 weeks along now, and we've heard the heartbeat twice. I'm finally over the hump of nausea, just some occasional flare-ups, but mild. Actually my nausea/exhaustion this pregnancy has definitely been better than with Hans' pregnancy, for which I'm grateful. And Adrian was awesome and took over the cooking and dishes for me while I felt really bad :-). I'd prepared and frozen lots of cooked and cut-up meat, which helped a lot. We hardly had to look at raw meat for 2 solid months!

I have my mid-pregnancy ultrasound scheduled for 3 weeks from now, and we're hoping everything is moving along fine :-). I'm due the beginning of October, Lord willing. I'm actually going out-of-state for care this time. There is a CNM group just north of us in MA that is closer than my previous midwife group, so I'm going to try out their practice this time around. It would be so nice to someday be under the care of midwives less than half an hour away, but for now. . . ah well ;-). I'd rather drive and be comfortable with the care :-). I'm excited to be due within a few days of 3 other friends! Fun times :-)

Budget Tips for Newlyweds

2010-01-02T17:52:00.023-05:00

I was pondering recently about the novelty of setting up a budget when we first got married (It's been over 2 years - hard to believe!), as I was talking with my sister, who has 2 close friends marrying soon. I remember not having a clue what to budget for each category, totally forgetting major regular purchases (like clothes!), and feeling like our small salary would never stretch far enough. Budgeting can be a lot to think about, when added to all the other newlywed things like. . . getting used to living with each other, working out schedules, meals, chores, etc.

I thought I would jot down some of the things I found along the way, that helped us with our budget. I can't promise anything amazingly innovative; these are just things that worked for me.

Important: I'm not saying that everyone has to follow all the things I suggest, or that you're somehow a wiser financial steward if you do them. These are suggestions, not ultimatums. You are responsible for your budget and I am not. I make purchases that some would consider frivolous, and I scrimp in areas where others would think I am crazy. That's okay.

Some background. When we first got married, I was staying at home throwing up all day and trying to stand for more than 3 minutes at a time (aka happily pregnant) and Adrian was working a low wage job. We were scraping to make ends meet. We had a student loan to pay off, a birth to save up for, an impending move, a job search, and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh yeah, and after we moved, we still had to pay rent for our previous apartment for a few months. Can you say tight? But God provided for every expense, and then some. Sometimes I didn't know how.

Adrian has a salaried job now, that uses his educational training more thoroughly. Now we're just tight because we can be, and because we realize that our financial goals will never be met unless we budget and cut expenses. Our initial major financial goal was to become debt free. By God's grace, we met that goal last fall. Our major financial goal while we are still living in Connecticut on an engineer salary (hopefully for 6-7 more years, but we'll see what God has in store for us) is to have 3-6 months living expenses in savings and save up at least 20% down for a future house purchase.

Our long-term goal is to be dirt poor while raising a zillion kids on a private schoolteacher's salary. Everyone laugh now ;-). No, but seriously, that's our goal. And that goal is impossible from a realistic standpoint. But we see the vision we believe God has placed in our hearts (realizing that He may alter the plans we have) and we see how He provided for us when we were on a small wage salary. But we also know that such a crazy financial goal cannot be met unless we buckle down and get serious. We only have one kid now and Adrian makes a decent salary. So we pinch and save. We save for the day when we may have many more kids, private school tuition to think about, and very little salary to go around. So yep, we're weird :-).

Starting off with grocery budget suggestions, since that's what everyone seems to like:

See if you have a discount grocery store near you. I have a Price Rite next door to our apartment complex. I get 99% of our groceries there. For those in the South, a Price Rite is like an Aldi's, only with a much better selection. They are both discount, no-frills grocery stores, where you can get a lot of food for your money, if you don't mind things like bringing your own grocery bags and depositing a quarter for using their carts (given back on return of cart). When we moved from Virginia to Connecticut, our grocery bill actually *lowered* because of Price Rite. The cost of groceries in CT on average is much more expensive than VA, but shopping at a discount store offset this. Another discount store along the same vein is Dollar General Market. Not a really large selection, but they have really good prices, and I enjoyed shopping there in VA. If you can buy most of your staples at a discount store like this, the savings will really add up!

I don't like grocery shopping. I love saving money, but I'm not partial to store-hopping 5 different stores a week to save money. Especially now that I have to buckle and unbuckle a little guy from a carseat for each store I visit :-). One thing I started doing right away when we got married was to read grocery store ads (they come in our Thursday or Friday mail) and pinpoint good sales. Because I have a Price Rite near me, I already get pretty good prices for most items, so I almost exclusively read the ads to look at really good meat deals. The best grocery store sales usually beat Price Rite, plus they have more cuts of meat. I will make a separate grocery store trip maybe twice a month (usually not that often), and only if I can save a decent amount of money by doing it.

I have approximate target prices for meat. I look for ground beef under $2/pound, whole chickens under $1/pound, and chicken breasts under $2/pound as target sale prices. This would obviously vary some per area, but I found this to be a good target in GA and VA as well. I also look for pork picnics and ham (butt portions - shank is not enough meat for your money) for under $1/pound - usually around 80 cents/pound. My target price for boneless pork is under $2/pound.

If I find a good deal, I stock up! I don't go and buy just one pound of meat on sale (the good prices are for the larger packages anyway). What a waste of time, energy, and a good sale. I buy 2 5# packages of ground beef at once, divide the meat into 1# portions, and freeze. If you freeze a whole large package, it will probably sit in your freezer forever. Freeze it in meal size portions, and it will be easy to thaw and use. And it takes about 5 minutes of your time! Same with chicken. Freeze 2-4 chicken breasts together, splitting a larger package. This way you get the better deal of the larger meat packages, while still only cooking for 2 people. If I have the time and the inclination (I usually do), I also cook up some of the meat before freezing. So I might cook 5 of the 10 pounds of ground beef, so I would have 5 individual frozen pounds of cooked ground beef and 5 individual frozen pounds of uncooked ground beef.

I found very quickly after we got married that a whole lot of our grocery budget was eaten up by meat! I had no idea how that was happening until I started looking at the meals I was making. Most of them were meals that I now call "hunk 'o meat" meals. I love meat, and I think meat is very good for you (contrary to popular opinion). Animal protein = good and animal fat = really good. But it's expensive! And most of the meals I was cooking had large portions of meat off to the side. I'd make mashed potatoes and green beans with breaded chicken fingers, and watch piles of chicken fingers disappear before my very eyes. We would sometimes average over a pound of meat per person per meal that way! That's really expensive.

So I started saving "hunk 'o meat meals" (chicken breasts off to the side, roast, hamburgers, etc.) for once or twice a week or so, and focused on a lot of creative ways to stretch meat. This only works if your husband is not a must-have-large-quantities-of-meat-at-every-meal guy. My husband requested meat at every meal when we first married (he's now fine with an occasional complete protein, beans-and-rice type of dish), so I didn't argue the point. Submission, et al ;-). But he was just fine if his meat appeared in casseroles. I'd make sure we had enough protein in the meal, but without consuming large quantities of meat. Two cups of chopped up, cooked chicken is plenty for a good chicken and rice casserole that will yield 4-6 servings. A beef or chicken stir fry with lots of vegetables and good seasonings can make a tasty supper, while not requiring more than a pound or two of meat for 4-6 servings. This tip single-handedly lowered our grocery budget dramatically. I didn't announce "Honey, we're eating less meat." I just did it gradually, and Adrian didn't complain. I later pointed out the change to him, and he was fine with that. While pregnant, I still was able to average 75-100 grams of protein per day.

Don't buy lunches at work. Pack a lunch! If you are making food for 2 people (yourself and your husband, for example), make 4 servings for each dinner. Before you put your supper away in the fridge, portion the remaining two servings into single-size containers to quickly grab as you head out the door the next day for work or school. Plan ahead and you're not caught in the last-minute rush in the morning. They're ready to go. I found that not planning ahead is almost always what introduced unexpected items (like lunches at a fast food place) into our budget.

Don't be afraid to say "no" to meals out with friends. Be real and up-front about your budget limitations. Chances are, one of them will appreciate someone else taking the lead in encouraging fun-but-not-pricey get-togethers. Or save those meals out for very special occasions. It's okay to treat yourself, just budget it, and make it a rarity, not a regular occurrence. Invite your friends over to your house for a meal instead of going out!

Don't sacrifice health to save money. Ramen noodles is a very short-term savings plan - NOT WORTH IT. What you eat has direct consequences for your health, sometimes short term, sometimes long term. Make sure the food you eat provides nutrition, not just filling calories to pad your wallet. I keep a relatively strict grocery budget, but I have my no-compromise areas. We eat almost exclusively real food, not the fake yuck like margarine, fake cheese, spam, etc. Our health is worth it, and our medical budget thanks us.

Substitute more economical ingredients. You don't have to follow a recipe to a "T." If a recipe calls for a particular brand or flavor of a tomato sauce, and you have a cheap off-brand, put that in instead! See if you can approximate the flavorings from the original sauce with some of the spices you have on hand. If a cookie recipe calls for nuts, consider omitting them, if they aren't a vital part of the recipe.

Speaking of nuts, ingredients like nuts tend to go on sale at Christmas time. Consider setting aside a little extra grocery money to buy a pound or two of nuts, real vanilla extract, sugar and flour, and other things that are really cheap before Christmas, to last you through the rest of the year.

Anticipate large purchases. On weeks when you don't purchase meat (because you have enough saved up from a large purchase), make sure you save some of that week's grocery money in case meat is really cheap the following week, and you can then purchase a few week's worth at once.

Ditch or reduce the disposables. I was shocked at how many paper napkins I went through when we were first married. Sure, they're really cheap, but a few packages a month can really add up long-term. I would grab napkins or paper towels for just about any little chore. I finally stopped buying paper towels (they were so expensive!) and limited my paper napkin use by keeping the napkins in a not-so-immediately-convenient location. If you want to go hard-core, use cloth napkins ;-). They work way better, are no trouble to clean (I do not iron mine!), and save lots of money in the long run. And those old-fashioned rags work great in place of paper towels ;-). Just ask your grandmother if that was considered “hard-core” when she was growing up ;-).

Use Tupperware instead of Ziploc. Or reuse your Ziplocs. I freeze a lot of meat, and I can go through Ziplocs like nobody's business, so it's not economical for me to treat Ziplocs as one-use items. I either wash and reuse Ziplocs, or I try to use Tupperware-type plastic containers instead. I purchased several economical plastic containers from Wal-mart that I use to freeze meat in, and I can reuse these over and over again.

You don't need lots of specialized kitchen appliances, matching furniture, and lots of matching dishes. Seriously, start basic. You can build things up. Save up for that Kitchen Aid mixer or that nicer set of pots and pans, or buy some now and some when you can afford it. I remember having dinner with some newlyweds some years ago. They had a nice house and some nice things, but they knew where to set limits. Their dining room was empty. They simply couldn't afford to buy a nice dining room set at the time, so they waited. We had a total of 7 people at dinner that night in their kitchen, but their nicer dish set only accommodated 6 people, so one of us ate off another type of plate. That was okay. They've been married for a while now, and I bet they have a dining room set and more than 6 matching plates, with no permanent psychological damage from all that deprivation ;-).

Don't expect to have the same standard of living that you grew up with. Your parents spent years working to get where they are. They probably started with very little too. Ask them. They probably had less furniture and a lower paying job than you have as newlyweds. Ask them what they had to go without. You may be surprised. Our parents' generation thought budget sacrifices meant not owning a car; our generation thinks budget sacrifices mean not owning two cars or having to share a cell phone.

You don't need a large place to live for starters. Consider renting for a few years until you can afford to buy. Remember, you don't have the same standard of living as your parents. They probably started cramped, and they probably spent a while saving for a downpayment on a house. You know, back before banks handed out mortgages and caused major bank crises as a result (but I digress). Even if you "qualify" for a mortgage, it doesn't mean it's necessarily a wise option at the time. Building equity is not worth putting yourself in a house larger than you can afford or locking yourself into a really high interest rate because you have little-or-no down payment. We are currently living in a 2-bedroom townhouse with 3 people (me, hubby, and 18-month old son), and we do not regret this choice. We think it's well worth it to save up at least 20% down towards a house before buying. The interest rates drop dramatically at that point. Yes, it's cramped, but that's more because we have addictions to book buying and fabric buying :-). We figure we'll only end up with more stuff and more kids (we hope!) over the years, and now is the best time to live small and save big.

Along those lines. . . use the "Was this necessary 50 years ago?" rule. This helps me consider whether a budget item is necessary or a luxury. It's okay to have luxuries, if you can afford them. Most budgets, even tight ones, can squeeze in a few luxuries. You just have to decide which ones will go and which will stay. To do this you have to first decide which ones can go. Consider the possibility of eliminating: a second car (public transit an option?), a cell phone (or at least a second cell phone!), cable TV, magazine/newspaper subscriptions, eating out regularly, etc. These are luxuries! They were not considered necessities 50 years ago, but luxuries. Choose your luxuries wisely and savor them :-).

Piggybacking off the previous tip, enjoy your luxuries. That's right, pick a few luxuries and enjoy them. It's okay to enjoy that carefully-chosen magazine subscription, or that occasional night at a nice restaurant. Decide what you can afford, and then enjoy with abandon. This motivates you to stay on track with the rest of your budget.

Use the "How much will this cost me per year?" rule. A $4 cup of Starbuck's coffee isn't that expensive on occasion. But if you imbibe frequently, consider the long term costs. Twice a week works out to be $416/year. Once a day works out to be $1460/year. Ouch! That could make or break your budget. If you can't kick the habit, consider cutting back. We also work this for monthly expenses. $45/month for a cell phone isn't too bad (though my frugal heart still beats rapidly at the thought), but that works out to over $500/year! We downgraded to a basic, $25/month plan on cell phone, and that saves us $240/year!

Look into downgrading plans. We thought we were pretty serious budgeters and had squeezed unneeded services out of our budget (except “splurge” money), but then we started looking seriously at some of our monthly expenses. We were paying $100/month for combination internet and home phone service ($50 for each service). I called our service provider to see if they had any downgrade options (they often don't advertise them, but will tell you if you ask). It turns out that for half the price of the phone service, the only “damage” we incurred was no unlimited long distance calling and no voicemail (we added back in voicemail for $5/month). With a bit of long distance on our cell plan, this wasn't a problem. That was an easy $25/month less for phone service, working out to be $300/year at very little inconvenience. And for half the price of the internet, our upload speed could be lowered (our download speed remained the same). We haven't noticed a difference at all. Another $300/year at no pain, just because we thought to ask. That's $600 less we have to pay our phone provider per year!

Dave Ramsey (my favorite financial advisor) likes to say Act your wage. If you don't have the money, don't buy it. If you make $30,000 per year, don't act like you make $70,000. Realize that maybe that European vacation will have to wait several years, and your dream home, too. Gourmet food items or designer drapes may be beyond your standard of living (at least as a regular budget item). Work with what you've got, and don't be ashamed.

Dave Ramsey also says to spend every dollar. Nope, that doesn't mean to empty your bank account every pay cycle (stop getting excited!). It means to plan where each dollar will go. If you don't have a plan for each dollar, those extra dollars from each paycheck will get magically frittered away. Trust me! Budget, budget, budget! Create a budget and stick to it. Determine where any extra money for a paycheck will go. For us, we started right away to use any extra money (even if it's just $20) to put in savings. It starts building really fast!

And continuing with that train of thought. . . Save! Money problems usually happen because of either over-spending or because of poor planning, or both. Unexpected large expenses will come up. Your car will break down, you will break your arm, or your kitchen table will break on you. You need an action plan to deal with this. Have an emergency fund. $1000 will cover most unexpected expenses that aren't catastrophic. Build this up as soon as possible and work to keep it there.

Read Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps. Seriously. Having an emergency fund is step #1. But you need to read them all. They have been very useful in keeping us on track with our financial goals. We know we aren't just socking away money for no reason. We have outlined a list of our incremental financial goals, and we can work towards them systematically. Better yet, read some of Dave Ramsey's books, like Total Money Makeover (I've followed him casually online, but I hear his books are fabulous).

Don't forget major budget items! I was a bit naive in the budget department when we got married. I'd never been required to regularly pay a whole household of bills, or keeping track of major budget items. When we set out to create our first budget, we forgot some major columns. Like clothes. And gifts. You know, minor things ;-). Just as a general idea of the types of columns that are helpful, our main budget columns are rent, phone/internet, cell phone, gasoline, grocery, tithe, natural gas heating, electricity, AAA (a real money-saver with two used cars!), car insurance, life insurance, renter's insurance, World magazine, "splurge" money (for things like buying books or eating out or buying books or buying books), travel, household needs, car (repairs, maintenance, etc.), clothing, gifts, and ROTH account. After we set aside money for each of these, all other money gets put right into savings, so as not to tempt us.

Budget for yearly expenses by saving a little from each paycheck. Notice for our budget columns, I list several items that do not come due every month. AAA is a yearly expense and car insurance is twice-a-year. But we set aside money from each paycheck so it doesn't come as a surprise each time. So for AAA, we take the yearly fee and divide it by 26, since we get paid every two weeks (26x/year), and that's how much we set aside from each paycheck. It works beautifully, trust me. Then you don't have a last minute panic attack when you realize oh-my-goodness-the-several-hundred-dollar-car-insurance-is-due-in-two-weeks.

Budget for one-time purchases. It's okay to deviate from the standard budget on occasion for special, one-time purchases. After we paid off our student loan, we knew we really wanted to get a piano. After all, Adrian is a fabulous piano player and he'd been content to live without a piano for over 2 years! We want Hans to grow up with a piano available for listening and playing. A nice digital costs $1000 or a little more. We have that money in our savings, but we wanted to save up slowly, as we built up our 6 months expenses (once again, refer to Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps), so we've been setting aside a little from each paycheck. Delayed gratification is not a bad thing, and it makes the reward all the sweeter. After several months, we hope to finally purchase a piano in the next few months, and it has been worth the wait! We can make this purchase without jeopardizing our emergency savings or going into debt and while staying on a budget.

Oh, and another thing about budgeting. Remember how I said to save some? That means you don't create a budget that uses every last penny on anticipated expenses :-). Assume you will have unexpected needs like the hot water heater breaking (which would hopefully come out of your emergency fund, but expect the unexpected). And also remember, your gross income is not the amount you will receive. If your income is $40,000/year, do not expect to be able to actually spend all of that ;-). You will probably never see 10-20% of that. Pesky things like worker's compensation, unemployment, social security, health premiums, etc. will insure that your salary is shared with others ;-). Account for this when you budget. If you don't know what your take-home paycheck will be, assume 80% of your quoted salary, and you can always be happy if it's more than that :-).

Don't be ashamed of hand-outs. Don't go begging for them and mooching off other people, but if a kind couple approaches you because they remember how hard it was for them when they started out, gratefully except their old washer and dryer or that faded-but-still-usable coffee table or loveseat.

Oh, and speaking of hand-outs, sign up for Freecycle and haunt Craig's List. Seriously, you can get a lot of great stuff for free on Freecycle, if you're willing to sort through all the e-mails. And Craig's List can have some great bargains and a free section. Thrift stores can have some great tide-us-over-until-we-can-afford-nicer-stuff furniture.

Most importantly when you're creating that budget, remember that the money isn't yours in the first place. Thank God for giving you use of it, and remember to tithe off your gross salary (tithe is by definition 10% of your firstfruits) as an act of gratefulness, obedience, and trust. God does provide, and He can most definitely provide for you on 90% of your salary if you trust Him at His Word. Test Him and see if He does not open up the floodgates of heaven with blessings.

And remember, God blesses you that you might bless others. Don't be afraid to give. If you see someone in need, and you have the money, be willing to “splurge” a little for the sake of showing Christ's love to someone else. Perhaps that means helping out a friend who is unemployed, or an extra offering (above your regular tithe) to support a mission trip or a food pantry. Give with abandon because Christ gave with abandon.

Dockers Ad

2009-12-17T13:39:00.002-05:00

I'm really, really, really, really sick of hearing about the Dockers' ad. Seriously. Bleh. As a complementarian, I think they have some good points. But in all honesty, I think they were just trying to come up with a catchy, rugged ad to sell pants. I really don't think there was a whole lot of thought behind it. I have no intention of suddenly becoming a Dockers customer. Sheesh, it's just an ad, people! Also, wasn't Dockers the pants company that had the very pro-homosexual ads a few years back, or am I mixing them up? If so, I'd find it highly ironic how quickly the conservative right went from "Dockers is evil" to "Dockers is awesome." But I digress :-). *rant over*

Hans' first snow (sort of)

2009-12-10T10:30:00.002-05:00

Hans didn't care about snow last winter. He did drool over it, but he drooled over *everything*, since he was teething, so I'd hardly consider that proof of his interest. So I consider yesterday's snowfall to be his first real snow. Because he was actually aware that it happened. (And yes, this is the first snow we've had this winter. Late, isn't it? I'm not complaining. . . )

So I suited him up and he looked like the stereotypical poor kid in a movie who can't move and has his arms sticking out from all the padding and extra clothes. He just stood there looking pathetic, and when he tried to walk he fell down because he wasn't used to his boots. He just sort of laid there in a half-sit/half-lay, not sure what to do, afraid to move, but in a very uncomfortable position. It was so hilarious. If I was a sympathetic mother, I would have cried with him, but I couldn't help myself and started laughing. It was SO funny. Poor guy. He's over the emotional trauma. I think.

So I took him outside. Just in time for it to start raining. Yep, the snow turned to rain. Lovely. So he sat in the snow with raindrops falling, not sure what to do with this funny white stuff. He didn't want to move, definitely didn't want to walk. *sigh* Poor guy.

Sooooo. . . this morning we practiced walking in boots, in normal clothes, inside the house. Hans was still petrified, but with some coaxing he finally got it, and then he strutted around the house in his boots, all proud of himself for figuring it out. Yay, Hans! Then we suited back up, went back outside, and re-tried this whole snow thing.

He was very intrigued this time. It was still a little hard for him to walk in the snow with the boots, but he sure tried! And he succeeded some of the time. He also killed the small, pathetic snowman I made. My son, the murderer. He squatted on the ground and hacked away at it forever. Hmm. Maybe it's a psychological reaction to his mother laughing at his misery yesterday :-/.

My son failed!

2009-03-20T12:46:00.002-05:00

Hans failed Sermon Analogies 101, apparently. Sheesh. We need to train that kid!

I *finally* got his new carseat installed. Carrying around a 9 month boy in an infant carrier seat was getting heavy. On the bright side, I think I have more arm muscles than I used to have :-). But I digress. . .

Anyway, the carseat came in a gigantic box (it was already assembled so required mucho cardboardo), and I emptied it and put it on its side in the living room, thinking that Hans would think it fun to climb into. I mean, *every* pastor I've ever sat under has used the children-enjoy-the-box-more-than-the-gift analogy at *least* 5 times per year. He ignored the box. All morning. All afternoon. Finally come evening he decided to use it to hoist himself up into a standing position and then just whacked it with his hands a few times. That was it. *sigh* My son, the theological dunce.

Hans has a new friend. . .

2009-03-06T19:39:00.003-05:00

I stumbled upon a crochet and knit book that I bought years ago at a used book sale. Most of the patterns in it were clothing, but in the back they had some fun figures to make for play toys. I need to make a Mrs. to go with the lonely farmer, don't you think?

Glad he finds it funny. . .

2009-03-05T08:28:00.002-05:00

When Hans was an itty bitty newborn he HATED hiccups, and they often woke him up or prevented him from falling asleep. But I guess he's gotten over his dislike for them. Yesterday morning he had them and every time he'd hiccup he'd give a little giggle, like he thought it was hilarious. And he kept this up for 20 minutes! It was rather adorable, I thought :-). Hiccup, giggle. Hiccup, giggle. Hiccup, giggle. Hehe.

A rather unique bread recipe. . .

2009-02-26T19:28:00.000-05:00

So. . . as I mentioned before, I'm on this weird agonizing 4-week+ diet to try to figure out where I got a skin rash. So my naturopath doctor put me on both a non-mucus forming diet AND a candida-controlling diet, just to cover all bases and insure that I will have absolutely none of my favorite foods to eat for the next month. :-P Anyway, I've been craving anything close to bread, and specifically wanted to try a pumpkin recipe, so I tweaked another recipe, and here's what I got.

Original recipe was the following banana bread recipe (bananas are a no-no on this diet):

~~~

Banana bread

2/3 cup oil or butter
1 cup honey
4 eggs
5 ripe, mashed bananas
3 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 t baking soda
1 t salt

~~~

Then I did some tweaking and tried this instead:

~~~

Eggless, Milk-less, Soy-less, Butter-less, Sugar-less, Yeast-less, Refined-Flour-less Pumpkin Bread

2/3 cup olive oil (I'm not allowed butter, and I try to stay away from soy - hence most/all vegetable oils - because of some concerns as to the effects of consuming a lot of it)
1 cup maple syrup (I'm not allowed any sweetener - even honey - except 100% pure maple syrup)
1/4 c flaxseed, ground and then whipped up in blender with 3/4 c water (I'm not allowed eggs, so this is the best substitute)
1 large can (3 - 3 1/2 cups) pumpkin
3 1/2 c whole wheat flour (Only whole grains allowed)
2 1/4 t baking soda (No yeast allowed)
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t allspice

Whip together oil and syrup; add flaxseed stuff, and blend. Mix in pumpkin. Whisk together dry ingredients and add slowly to batter. Spoon batter into 2 large loaf pans. Bake for 50ish minutes at 350 degrees.

~~~

Overall, not bad considering the restrictions I had on ingredients. Not spectacular either, but wow, did it taste good considering I was craving bread! I'll take what I can get :-). It was sort of dense, but not brick-like. It was moist enough, at least in its almost-fresh-from-the-oven state, but it definitely wasn't extremely sweet. But um, when the sweetener is $4/cup, I'm not exactly going to be using it in abundance :-P. Overall, not bad if you ever find yourself in the same situation. I even was able to resist all the voices in my head telling me to slather butter all over the bread I was eating. It was hard, but I did it :-).

--

Tomato Soup Recipe and Weird Diet Restrictions

2009-02-25T11:22:00.003-05:00

I just tried a new tomato soup recipe that is very yummy and easy. You can see it here.

Unfortunately, I can't make it for myself for the next 4 weeks :-(. *sigh* I've had a rash on my elbows and knees (and a bit on my shoulders/back) for 5 months or so, and I finally was able to see someone about it. Basically, the suggestion is that I do an elimination diet for 4 weeks, eliminating basically every food I enjoy (all the common allergens - dairy, CHOCOLATE *whimper*, sugar - all types except pure maple syrup, peanuts, corn and corn derivatives, eggs, oranges, etc. - just pick one of my favorite foods, and it's probably on the list). Let's just say it's going to be a long 4 weeks. I predict I (accidentally) lose at least 5 pounds.

I just got back from Trader Joe's where I bought some goat's milk, goat cheese, almond butter, and a few other products. I even have to find alternative vitamins, because mine all contain corn startch.

After 4 weeks I slowly add back in foods by category, in the hopes that some light will be shed. We'll see. The challenge is to still get enough calories (still exclusively breastfeeding) and fats in. No butter! I live on butter. Olive oil, here I come. . .

Birth Survey

2009-02-19T22:07:00.006-05:00

A friend from church, who is a certified nurse midwife, sent this link on to her friends. It's a very comprehensive, nation-wide birth survey that's being compiled. I'd already completed it shortly after Hans was born, but I thought I'd pass it on to any of my readers that would like to fill it out. Eventually, it should provide a great database to learn about birth practices both general and specific to providers. You don't have to have had a natural birth or anything of the sort to fill it out; they want all kinds of births included. You just have to have given birth in the last 3 years. It does take a while to complete (20-30 minutes). I'd encourage you to check it out.

I was reading back through it after I got the link, and it really made me SO grateful again for the great prenatal, labor and delivery, and postnatal care I received! Seriously, I <3 my midwives! They have all the knowledge and skill a birth might require, but didn't feel like they had to use it on every birth ;-).

Breakfast Conversation

2009-02-16T11:57:00.001-05:00

Me: Do you think we should be concerned that Hans is having a conversation with a shoelace?

Adrian: Nah. It's just his current version of a teddy bear.

Homemade Scouring Powder

2009-02-16T10:20:00.001-05:00

I really abhore Ajax and Comet :-P. All that nasty blue-ish residue they leave is icky. I've read a lot of people on the blogosphere who suggested baking soda as a scouring alternative. I tried it and was completely underwhelmed; it just didn't have much scouring power. Then a few months ago I came across this easy recipe on Tammy's Recipes site, and I love it! It works so well, is easy and cheap to make, and doesn't leave that icky blue-ish residue. All you have to do is mix equal parts salt, baking soda, and borax (found in laundry aisle of many grocery stores) in a lidded container for storage. Then just use it as you would a regular scouring powder!

What Math Nerds do on Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T16:09:00.003-05:00

I always knew Adrian was that right guy for me :-). He was in thought yesterday pondering various ways to prove that [sin(theta)]^2 + [cos(theta)]^2 = 1, and he commented that it would be an extremely straight-forward proof if preceded by a proof of the Pythagorean theorem. I agreed, and then got all excited because I remembered one of the many proofs of the Pythagorean theorem that I learned in college, so I sit down and show him. Then he gives me a refresher of how to integrate with trig substitutions. Which was fun, because my calculus is SO rusty. See, calculus is his favorite kind of math, and geometry is mine, so we get to complement each other. Haha.

Then we ate a dark chocolate orange. Because that's always a good idea.

My Mom sent me this :-)

2009-02-12T08:08:00.002-05:00

(click on the comic strip to enlarge it)

What is a wok good for?

2009-02-10T20:37:00.002-05:00

I just obtained a box of random kitchen items via Freecycle. Mainly I got it for the pizza stone - yay, I now have 2! But there are some other interesting items to try (as well as some that will be re-Freecycled or thrifted). Among them, a wok. I've never used a wok, but I've heard they're nice for stir-fry and such. Please share the virtues of a wok and suggestions on how to use it :-).

I love Picasa! and new photo blog

2009-02-10T20:36:00.001-05:00

Seriously, I can't believe it's free. It's such a great, easy to use photo editing program. And it's incredibly easy to e-mail or blog pictures. I started a separate blog just for posting pictures. Certain relatives like seeing Hans photos ad nauseum, and I didn't want to post zillions of pictures on this blog to clog it up.

So if you like seeing 40 pictures of Hans chewing on a block, or 347 of him smiling at me sitting up, then first, you need help, second, therapy is available at www.susanegk.blogspot.com.

Apparently water is more fun than food?

2009-02-06T22:14:00.002-05:00

Hans is only increasing his hatred of food. He cries when I put it in his mouth. Then he shudders. Then he spits it out. But water is another story. The kid has an obsession with drinking from a cup! For a few months now he's watched me like a hawk every time I drink out of a cup. About a month and a half ago I went ahead and let him try to take a drink of my water but the poor guy didn't have clue what to do. No effort to ingest water; water spilled all over.

Then a week ago he was particularly interested in watching me drink, so I tried again, and now he totally understands how to drink and swallow. So cute. He gets super-excited when I let him have a drink. Just water for now. I hate juice :-P. I guess I'll have to break down eventually.

Tonight at dinner, the water in my glass was particularly cold, and I think it kind of gave Hans a shock, but then he kept wanting more. Then he'd be shocked and shudder from the cold, and then want more. Hilarious; Adrian and I were laughing so hard. Hans was pulling on my arm for more water; since he couldn't reach the cup, the arm that held it was the next best thing, I guess :-). Hehe. Such a funny guy. He keeps us entertained.

Photos and YouTube

2009-02-02T08:54:00.001-05:00

My mom downloaded Picasa for me and showed me how to use it to make basic photo edits. One definite advantage is that it's much easier to post pictures to Blogger now! Also, here are two recent YouTube videos of Hans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TguJQYtJMrM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evd-0Tdnkf0

Awwww

2009-02-02T08:49:00.000-05:00

When Hans gets fussy, we walk him in the Ergo. He was pathetic only a few minutes before this picture! Daddy + Ergo = happy Hans.

Look what Hans made!

2009-02-02T08:43:00.001-05:00

Hans has "the knack." Mwa-ha-ha.

Or his daddy made it. Whatever.

Happy Guy

2009-02-02T08:41:00.000-05:00

Can you see his two teeth coming in on the bottom?

My Engineer :-)

2009-02-02T08:38:00.000-05:00

And Grammy thought she bought the blocks for Hans. . .

2009-02-02T08:34:00.000-05:00

Hans with Grammy

2009-02-02T08:32:00.000-05:00

When you're 7 months and your belly hangs out of your clothes, people go "aw." When you're 37, people go "ew."

2009-02-02T08:30:00.000-05:00

2009-02-02T08:29:00.000-05:00

Rant on the Economy and Government Intervention

2009-01-31T12:05:00.004-05:00

Adrian sent me this link a few days ago. His alma mater, Grove City College, publishes semi-regular articles of interest - on current issues, politics, economics, etc. - via The Center for Vision and Values. Grove City is really big into the Austrian school of economics, as is not surprising from this article. Anyway, I'd highly suggest the article; it's a very interesting read. "On Economic Depressions, Then and Now?" is a discussion of depression-era government intervention, and how FDR did more to hinder the U.S. economy than to help it, and how World War II did not bring us out of the great depression.

This article is great stuff, but here's the problem: Americans are too stupid and driven by feeling instead of facts for such truths to take effect. We feel like Bush is to blame for the economy, so he must be. We feel like government intervention will help, so no matter how much good, solid reasoning is thrown our way, it won't change our minds. For that matter, it can't possibly change our minds because we won't even bother to read it.

This is why an unliterary society with popular election is so dangerous! If the discontented and uninformed populace is personally electing officials, they will disgruntingly vote out incumbents who make informed-but-unpopular decisions, because the public wants the congress to cater to their whims. That puts us much closer to a democracy than the original intended republic. Which is why it was a major mistake to change our constitution to allow the popular election of senators. But I digress. . .

By "stupid Americans", I mean we are unliterary. We don't read, or we don't read deeply. We choose ignorance; it isn't thrust upon us. Americans form opinions from the news media, largely, and the media is driven by sensationalism and what the public wants to hear, not by common sense and trying to intelligently change the public's minds. Can you imagine a media effort to convince the public of the facts in the GCC article? Yeah, right! That would be really popular. Why? Because it's not what the public wants to hear.

The public wants to hear that our recession is the result of political mistakes or a few unwise large businesses. They don't want to hear that the solution is for the people to work out the problems themselves via good entrepreneurship, wise spending habits, personal efforts to teach the poor to fish (instead of just feeding them fish), etc. They don't want to hear that their own godlessness in the form of chasing the idol of consumerism is the real problem. It's so much better to think that someone else (read: "Uncle Sam") is the only solution. Whining is much more fun than action. Only thing is, where do we think Uncle Sam gets his funds?

Organizing :-)

2009-01-28T16:40:00.008-05:00

I've been creating a spreadsheet of all the baby/toddler items and clothes that I have - by size, color, gender, style, etc. I do this because I have OCD. Or because I'm type A. Or because it makes thrift shopping a TON easier, and I hopefully now won't end up with 30 warm-weather boy print onesies in the same size (not that I'm speaking from experience. . . *cough*).

Before, all the clothes were stored in cardboard boxes, by size. Then I hit a great after-Christmas sale, where I got to capitalize on the fact that there is actually a market for Christmas-colored storage boxes, and Wal-mart bought too many :-). So I got a bunch of green 18 gallon Sterilite containers for $4 each, and I've been transferring stored clothing to those. This is especially nice since our basement isn't quite waterproof in a heavy rain. But I digress.

I also decided to transfer a few other items to Sterilite storage, like all my maternity clothes. That's what I've been doing just now. Hans is currently totally zonked on my back. Apparently the activity wasn't quite as interesting to him as it was to me. He hasn't gotten my psycho organizing genes, that I know of. But anyway, awwww, so many fun memories with my maternity clothes. I was remembering how much I liked this top or that one, or that skirt. Pregnancy wasn't actually that bad for me for the most part, minus aching hips, not being able to turn over in bed, etc. ;-) I had forgotten how many nice maternity clothes I'd had.

Now if only I can get Hans to figure out that solid food is a good thing, then maybe I'd get to use those clothes again sometime soon ;-). Right now ecological breastfeeding is very effectively preventing that. . . But on the bright side, I'm enjoying this not-throwing-up thing, especially at a time when I have several friends pregnant and queasy. But yay for babies! Always good news :-).

Am I the only one? . . .

2009-01-26T16:42:00.003-05:00

So, when I got married I had the best of intentions to have a weekly menu. All the cool kids were doing it. EVERY frugal blog you read lists menu planning as a reliable way to save money. And then you don't have to put daily energy into food ponderings - What am I going to fix today? I kept a menu for the first month or so, and it worked okay. It sure made grocery shopping pretty easy. Then I got pregnant.

All menu plans went out the window. I was just trying to keep anything down, and I fixed whatever I thought would take the least amount of stand-up time, smell the least, and be most likely to stay down. Any dish that I knew about hours in advance would not work! I had to cook on a whim.

After my nausea left I tried to resume meal planning, but I found out some things. First, I like to not be too tied down to a meal plan. I like food surprises! When I make a casserole, for example (see link a few posts back), I pull out some chicken to thaw maybe at lunch, but I like to not decide what type of casserole I'm making (rice, pasta, add mushrooms or not, etc.) until suppertime. It's more exciting!

Second, I can just stock up on staple items and still not have to constantly run to the store for "one more item" . . . most of the time.

Third, despite all the frugal claims, for me, I cook more frugally when I don't have a meal plan. I'm serious! When I'm at the grocery store, I tend to buy the more economical ingredients, with a few splurges, so when I'm cooking, I end up using ingredients I have on hand, which are the more economical ones. But if I meal plan, I'm not as aware which ingredients are cheaper, so I end up buying a lot of more pricey items that I need for specific recipes. I may or may not know the ingredients are pricier, as the prices fluctuate from week to week, even for staples. So I end up spending more. Whereas if I buy more staple items (and note on my grocery list when I want more specific items, which I don't mind buying. . . but not ALL specialty items), I still cook quite tasty, healthy meals, but for much less.

Has anyone else had the same experience?

Trying to "Winter" this Winter

2009-01-26T14:03:00.004-05:00

I miss my daily walks :-/. I think Hans misses them too - he loved them! But it's just too cold for his mama to get out every day. Granted it's nothing like it could be, as my I-spent-4-years-in-Minnesota husband reminds me ;-), but for this I-spent-23-years-in-Georgia girl, yet, it's too cold! At least for daily walks.

Mainly I'm getting my exercise these days by doing household chores with Hans strapped to my back. I <3 my Ergo :-). I usually do dishes and most cooking with Hans in the Ergo, because our kitchen is small (sort of galley-style), and there isn't a good floor place for him to play while I do stuff in there. And also I hang laundry in the basement with him on my back. At my neighbor's suggestion, I strung several clotheslines in the basement and have been hanging our laundry for almost 2 months now. It's nice mild exercise with little guy (make that 18ish lb guy) strapped on, and the theory is that it's lowering our electric bill. And it delays us having to get another dryer. . . yet. I'm sure we'll get one soon (Adrian has told me whenever I want), but for now it's kind of fun.

Hans cut his first two teeth last week. We've been having some less-than-sound-sleeping at nights as a result. They're not all the way up, but very distinctly teeth now, when he chooses to show them to us. The best way to do this is to lay him in my lap and tickle him. Hehe. Adrian thinks (and I agree) that Hans has the cutest laugh. Ever. Right now he's on the floor talking to a water bottle and growling at it. He's doing this half drag, half crawl thing nowadays, which is pretty cute. No real crawling yet.

Last week I decided to introduce him to the world of food-that-is-not-breastmilk. He didn't take kindly to the idea. He alternated gagging, shuddering, and fussing. I tried banana, and a few nights later carrot and then potato. No success. He'll have to get used to the idea soon ;-). Mommy's Diner won't be available all his life. He was 7 months on January 18th, by the way.

I still have an obsession with sewing cloth diapers. I got a snap press a few months ago, and I love it! Easily a very good purchase. In the long run it'll be quite useful for all sorts of things, not just diapers. I've already been using it for other things, in fact. I haven't taken many pictures of my latest cloth diapers, but they are a major improvement on my first ones.

I'm going to *try* to post a bit more. No promises. I don't have a ton of free time for blogging, so probably they'll mainly be shorter posts, no long detailed treatises. Maybe a recipe here, a daily anecdote there. Or an isn't-my-son-adorable-go-to-this-picture link. Hmm. I seem to be in a dash mood today :-).

Casserole Tutorial and a New Blog

2009-01-25T21:38:00.003-05:00

I've been meaning to post a general tutorial on casserole-making, but never got around to it. I finally did. . . just not on this blog. Check out my friend's new blog, Share It, and read my post on making casseroles.

New Look

2009-01-25T21:36:00.002-05:00

There. I changed the layout, the title, the byline, the sidebar. New skin!

Here are more Facebook pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2486555&l=e4ff8&id=4923951

Facebook picture links

2008-12-19T22:24:00.004-05:00

Thanks to a helpful reader who explained how to do this, here are links to my Facebook albums (in order from oldest to newest):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2450129&l=f15bf&id=4923951

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2451866&l=6b08b&id=4923951

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2457590&l=6c5ac&id=4923951

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2465755&l=56c96&id=4923951

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2469263&l=f5b19&id=4923951

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2469263&l=f5b19&id=4923951

Also. . .

2008-12-19T12:11:00.002-05:00

I've been toying with the idea of moving to a new blog, not changing providers (I, contrary to almost everyone else on the planet, do still like Blogger, even if Google and Blogger together are working towards taking over the world), just a new web address and new name. I'm no longer susaneg (I'm susangk) and I'm no longer an old-fashioned girl (something about being 24, married, with a child disqualifies me). And I feel like my blogging style has changed, my interests have expanded, and my everyday life is vastly different than the original susanegk who posted as "an old-fashioned girl". I feel like I'd feel less like I've outgrown my skin if I just moved, but kept this blog for archives.

No, this doesn't mean I'd post more often, per se, but it does mean the "outgrown skin" writer's block wouldn't be there. So, I'm toying with the idea. But right now the brainblock I have is a blog title. Suggestions appreciated.

Suggestions?

2008-12-19T12:05:00.002-05:00

Sooooo. . . it's come to my attention that I haven't posted pictures of Hans since approximately forever. Or at least about half of his out-of-the-womb lifetime. He's cute. REALLY cute. And you can't see! Haha!

Okay, not really. But Blogger is such a pain with pictures. It is so much easier to load pictures to Facebook. But I'm not comfortable with adding random people I don't know to my Facebook account (if you do have a reasonable online acquaintance with me, please feel free to send me a friend request, though; if you lurk and I don't know you from Noah, please understand my desire for some privacy :-D). I've set any Facebook pictures I've loaded to be viewable to anyone, not just friends, but I don't know how to link to those or if they're searchable. Any help/advice/enlightenment? Thanks!

Birth, death, everything in between. . .

2008-11-19T10:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I realize it's been months since I really posted anything. Such is life. . .

Things are going well here. Hans is growing so fast and is going to be mobile way sooner than I am ready! He can roll over both ways now. One of his favorite things is for Daddy to play airplane with him, or carry him around upside-down. Such a BOY! Hans is getting extremely grabby, as evidenced by his brilliant(?) decision Sunday to grab a steaming bowl of chili. Can you say "blisters"? Poor wittle guy, but he's doing fine. He was 5 months yesterday.

Hans has a new cousin as of a month ago! My brother Ben and his wife Stephanie had their first baby, Madeleine. She is so adorable, and she was teeny - 5 lb. 2 oz. - but is gaining well, it seems. I probably won't get to meet her until spring. *sigh*

My maternal grandmother passed away this past Saturday. She was ready to put aside her earthly struggles, and her death was not unexpected, but she will be missed! She missed meeting Hans (first great-grandchild) by only 11 days, as we are flying to Indiana for Thanksgiving. We will still be able to see lots of other relatives, including my parents and Hannah.

Meanwhile, it's getting far too cold here for my liking. Okay. Fine. It's really not that bad yet. *sigh* Compared to what it will be, at least. But it's interrupting my daily walks with Hans, which is a shame. We'll try to get out on warmer days, mid-day.

Well, that's all for now. Hans has fallen asleep nursing, and I should go put him down and get some sewing done or something :-).

Once upon a time. . .

2008-10-22T11:59:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time I started a blog. I had lots to talk about, and a fair amount of time to do the talking. I wrote a LOT. I commented on other blogs a LOT. I made some real, genuine friends through blogging. I even married one of them :-).

Along the way my blogging slowed down because I had the brilliant epiphany that maybe my ramblings weren't quite as important as I used to think they were. The other reason was that my priorities started changing, and my time became more important. I didn't want to miss out on the here and now while blogging about the abstract. And things like courtship, wedding planning, marriage, pregnancy, child-rearing take up a lot of time :-). And that's not a bad thing.

But I really do miss the community of blogging, I miss the camaraderie; I miss expressing my deepest thoughts through the written word. I still lurk on my favorite blogs, but I don't comment a lot, like I used to, nor do I write as much as I used to (and when I do, my posts aren't nearly as involved as they used to be!).

I'm still here. Even if I only show my face once a month or so :-). I'm busy making my 4-month old giggle from my silly faces, reading Sherlock Holmes with my Honey, discussing theology with my fellow local believers, and I'm sewing, cooking, and cleaning. I'm living the life that God has set before me, and I'm loving it :-).

Cloth Diapers

2008-09-12T08:00:00.003-05:00

***Warning*** This is a long post on a topic that probably does not have wide interest. Feel free to skip, but I've had a number of requests for a post along these lines.

I used disposable diapers with Hans for the first four weeks, while I adjusted to motherhood and recouped from giving birth. Since then I've mainly been using cloth, with an occasional disposable here and there. Now that I'm getting more of an idea of what absorbency I need for cloth, though, I haven't used disposables for almost a month, and I actually get fewer leaks with cloth!

I'm sewing my cloth diaper stash for the most part, with an occasional prefold or bought cover here and there, for variety and ease. My newborn stash consists of a dozen infant Chinese prefolds, 6 fitted diapers, 10 pocket fitted diapers, 2 pocket diapers, and 7 covers. I'm working on my small stash now.

Here is a pocket fitted. "Pocket" meaning it's a stuffable 2-layer diaper, "fitted" meaning it requires a cover and has elastic at the legs to help contain messes. This particular diaper is a sized down Rita's Rump Pocket - printed at 85% to fit a newborn. I recycled a queen size flannel sheet set that I found at a thrift store. The purpose of a pocket-style is to allow customization of absorbency and even more importantly, to allow the main absorbency to be removed for washing and drying, making for cleaner diapers that dry way faster than otherwise.

Here is the Rita's Rump Pocket opened with a suedecloth liner in it, to prevent rashes due to wetness. Suedecloth lining is also good once babies hit the solid food stage and need to have poo removed before laundering. Supposedly poo will fall off suede or microfleece relatively easily - no dunking required.

A note: not all suede is created equal. Alova suede (sold at JoAnn and sometimes Wal-mart) or butter suede (Hancock's) is the stuff that will wick away moisture by letting pee pass through. Fashion suede and microsuede are evil and will repel. Crushed panne velour will also work. Or microfleece. The next size up in diapers that I'm making will be automatically lined with a wicking or "stay-dry" inner, so I don't have to add a liner each time.

And here is the diaper on a really cute baby. I love this flannel print on Hans :-). It's such a "little man" diaper, and the pin is adorable :-).Rita's Rump Pockets close with a single pin, as shown, but most pocket fitteds close with hook and loop or snaps.

Below is a regular fitted, made from recycled t-shirts. It also has a touchtape closure. Velcro is not good enough to withstand substantial use and many washings, so the preferred hook and loop options are either touchtape or aplix, both available online. Alas, I don't have a snap press, but hook and loop is doing fine.

I used the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern for this fitted. I love that pattern! Great fit, a ton of options, and good directions.

Another thing: serging makes sewing cloth diapers go SO much faster, if you have access to a serger. And I love the way the finished product looks.

The inside of the fitted has an external sewn-on soaker. which basically means it's attached (as opposed to lay-in absorption) but it's not all sewn into the inside, which can take a LONG time to dry!

Here is a diaper cover, also made from the Darling Diaper pattern. Any diaper that is not waterproof will require a cover. This cover is made with polyurethane laminate (PUL for short), the waterproof material of choice for diaper making, and bound with fold-over elastic, aka FOE. FOE is wonderful for containing messes and getting a great fit.

This cover is my favorite so far. I tried gussets and I love the way they fit! This is a nighttime cover for Hans, and it contains blowouts really well, even when he's lying on his side. This is also a Darling Diapers cover.

Here is a cover I didn't make. It's a pull-on nylon cover. This is more like the "plastic pants" of yesteryear, but gentler on baby's legs (softer elastic) and more durable. Baby Best Buy sells 2-packs for only $3.99. These are Dappi brand.

Here are some pictures of pocket diapers, which are by far the easiest to use. These are genuine pockets, meaning they have a waterproof outer, unlike pocket fitteds. These diapers do not require a cover, so they make for really easy changes, especially while out and about. I made these with the Rita's Rump Cover pattern (see sidebar of above Rita's Rump Pocket link).

The first two pics were accidentally taken on the B&W setting. Oops! And look how tiny Hans was! This was almost two months ago.

I stuffed this diaper with two washrags, folded together into thirds. Most of my pockets or pocket fitteds, though, I stuff with a 16"x16" microfiber towel that is folded to fit inside. Microfiber towels can be found in the automotive section of most stores. Microfiber should never touch a baby's skin directly, though, as it will dry it out! It makes great stuffers, though, and holds a lot.

Other equipment I'm using: cloth wipes. This is seriously the easiest thing! If you're already using cloth diapers, washing wipes with the diapers is actually easier than having to separately throw away disposable wipes. It's the easiest $8-10 I save each month. For breastfed poo, all I have to do is moisten them with a spray bottle. I took a bunch of flannel and t-shirt knit scraps and serged 2-layer wipes together, out of odd shapes and sizes. 8"x8" is probably ideal, but I've got all sorts of geometric shapes ;-). I also made 2 diaper pail liners out of PUL, and those just get dumped in the wash with everything else. That way I don't have to scrub out my bucket; I just rinse it really quickly with hot water. And I made 2 small wet bags out of PUL, to keep in the diaper bag, so I have something to keep dirty diapers in while I'm out and about.

Washing with exclusively breastfed poo is easy. No dunking or swishing. Just dump in the washer, along with the PUL bag. Do a cold pre-rinse. Then a hot wash with very little detergent (about 1/4 cap). Then dry on high heat in the dryer.

Okay, that's all for now. I hope someone found that helpful. Sorry it was so long! Pictures made it more exciting, though, right? :-)

Resource Recommendations Requested

2008-09-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

I feel so alliterate :-). Anyway. . .

I'm working with the children's ministry in our church to develop a 3-year rotation of lessons for preschool and kindergarten children, that teaches them about the different elements in the worship service. There is an emphasis on Christ-centeredness (so an advent/epiphany lesson that merely states that the wisemen came and brought gifts and had to go back a different way is lacking; much better would be a lesson on Jesus being the true One King whom all other kings bow before), scripture memorization, and other memorization (catechism, creeds, hymns). I need 3 sets of lessons (4 weeks each for advent, 2-4 weeks each for Easter, etc.) for each holiday, to rotate every 3 years, plus lessons on the Apostle's creed, Lord's Prayer, sacraments (from a Reformed perspective), worship in general, confession, pardon, etc. I'm looking for free online resources, and ones from a Reformed perspective would be a definite plus. Suggestions? Anyone?

Hans' first roller coaster ride

2008-09-01T20:31:00.000-05:00

Someone discovered his thumb. . .

2008-08-31T19:02:00.000-05:00

Daddy and Son :-)

2008-08-13T17:39:00.000-05:00

7 weeks

2008-08-05T20:19:00.000-05:00

5 weeks old

2008-07-25T14:23:00.000-05:00

Yay for slings

2008-07-05T18:38:00.000-05:00

2 sling rings (ordered online, specially made for baby slings) + 2 yards knit fabric = happy mama and contented baby.

My favoritest picture so far :-)

2008-07-05T18:32:00.000-05:00

He's getting bigger. . . sniff

2008-07-05T18:31:00.000-05:00

2 days old:

2 weeks old:

I guess all that time he's spent attached to me is paying off ;-).

Hans' Birth Story

2008-06-26T08:21:00.001-05:00

I'm actually sitting here in bed with the laptop with two hands free. *gasp* Two hands free! Hans just finished eating some and fell promptly asleep, but I don't think he's nearly done with his meal, so I'm just holding onto him right now, letting him rest against my chest until he awakens for course #2. He's proven to be a very good eater and is already back above his birth weight. If only he'd take less than 5-10 minutes to latch on for the majority of feedings. . . but I digress ;-). While I'm sitting here waiting to serve the next course, I thought I'd start typing up Hans' birth story, per request.

As a refresher, for the past month Hans had been flipping between transverse and vertex positions whenever it fancied him to do so, much to the emotional exhaustion of his mother who did NOT want a c-section. 2 1/2 weeks before his due date I started going to a chiropractor who is certified in the Webster technique, and Hans flipped head-down after I did a pelvic tilt, and his position was confirmed by my midwife. But then he flipped transverse again a few days later, and continued to waffle back and forth for the next week. He'd always go head-down after a Webster adjustment and a pelvic tilt, though, so I kept going to the chiropractor every day, per suggestion. This mommy was VERY glad that he finally permanently settled in vertex position a few days before labor commenced.

On Tuesday morning (the 17th, 5 days before his due date) I woke up at 6:30 a.m. with my bag of waters leaking. I already had a midwife appointment that morning, so I just went in as scheduled and had the leaking confirmed. As per procedure, my midwife instructed me to check into the hospital 12 hours later, at 6:30 p.m., so they could monitor Hans' heartrate. Because of the slight risk of infection (since the amniotic sac had been leaking), they would also start me on antibiotics at 18 hours, or just after midnight.

All morning and afternoon I had slight cramping that I totally would have written off as indigestion if I hadn't been super-sensitive to any possible signs of labor. But they were really so mild. Only just before we left for the hospital did they start to even have a defined peak to them, and even then they were so mild. About 20 minutes after leaving, Adrian asked me if I'd been having any more mild contractions since we'd left, and I'd just had 4 sitting right next to him and not even flinched, they were so light.

We checked into labor and delivery at around 6:30 p.m., as we couldn't be admitted to The Birth Place (our choice for delivery) on the same floor until I was in active labor (5 cm). I'd been checked that morning and been almost 4 cm, which amused me since I didn't feel like I was in labor. My midwife and I both didn't think I was in active labor, and we both wanted to minimize internal exams, so we just decided to wait out labor starting and not keep obsessively checking for the magic number 5. I did not want an induction, so we'd been praying all day that I'd go into labor on my own. The only thing I'd done to help encourage labor was take a few walks throughout the day.

About 10:30 p.m. I finally started feeling like I was really in something resembling labor,and the nurse said that I couldn't possibly have been in active labor before then, as I was functioning too normally. The midwife had gone down the hall an hour before to lie down, as I wasn't having strong contractions at the time, but had told me to have the nurse get her when I wanted her. I still wasn't convinced I was really in active labor, and I wanted to wait to get her as long as possible, so I was really in labor and could be moved to The Birth Place. I was given antibiotics at 12:30 a.m. (ugh, rotten burning feeling in the arm) and was quite uncomfortable by that time. Finally at 1:30 a.m. I told Adrian to please get Jessica, the midwife, because surely I was in active labor with contractions so close together and so intense, and I really wanted the tub at The Birth Place. She came in and checked me, and I was at 8 cm! No wonder the contractions were one on top of another by then ;-).

So we finally got to move to The Birth Place, and I just got in that tub as quickly as possible. Calling a birth tub a "midwife's epidural" is a bit strong of a description, because it doesn't take away the pain, but wow, I felt so much better after getting in the tub, mainly because I wasn't so uncomfortable with every position, and wanting to change positions constantly. The water held me up and equalized the pressure quite nicely. Also, as soon as I got in the tub my urge to faint (which I'd been having with every contraction for an hour or more) was completely gone.

At one point my body was pushing with every contraction, without my aid. I told the midwife this, and she said that was fine and not to fight it. She asked me if I wanted to stay in the tub for delivery, and at that point there was no way I was going to voluntarily leave the relative "comfort" of the tub ;-); prior to labor, I'd been about 50-50 as to whether I wanted to deliver in the tub. Jessica very nicely didn't even suggest checking me again, as it was really obvious I was fully dilated, and she told me I could push when I was ready. Delivery really didn't take that long, though it was no picnic either ;-), and Hans was born at 2:57 a.m. I was never so glad to have something over with!

The main things I took away from the experience:

I totally see why women get epidurals. Duh. Especially when most labors (especially first-time labors) are so much longer than mine. I had a remarkably short and easy labor, and it was still plenty uncomfortable enough at times so that a c-section sounded like a good idea.

Water births are wonderful options. Period.

Practicing relaxation exercises for birth does help (yay for Bradley). During most of labor I felt like I was not able to relax with each contraction, but apparently I was, as the midwife said she could see me physically relax each time. If I hadn't practiced that a lot, it would NOT have happened.

I made it through *a* natural birth. I would like to make it through 11 more, but I'll take each one as it comes, and one natural birth does not a natural birther make.

And yes, I do still want 12 kids. Because I know half of you wanted to ask that.

The Bradley method was very helpful, but is not what got me through birth. The midwife and nurse tell me they were quite impressed with how well I handled labor and delivery, but in all honesty, I did NOT feel strong at all in the midst of it. The one thing that got me through was God's grace and strength, I'm quite convinced. I was telling Adrian later that a passage from The Hiding Place came to mind. It's a passage where Corrie's father explains to her that God gives us the strength to endure tough times, giving it to us right when we need it, not before, not after:

…that night as he stepped through the door I burst into tears..”I need you!” I sobbed. “You can’t die! You can’t!”…
Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. “Corrie,” he began gently, “when you and I go to Amsterdam- when do I give you your ticket?”
I sniffed a few times, considering this. “Why, just before we get on the train.”
“Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run ahead of him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need- just in time.”

On the night of Hans' birth, with each contraction peak, I felt like God was handing me a ticket. Only one, just for that contraction. No more, no less.

Handel's Messiah is GREAT labor music.

It was worth it :-). *snuggles up to little Hans*

And more. . .

2008-06-23T10:01:00.000-05:00

More pictures of Hans

2008-06-20T13:20:00.000-05:00

2008-06-18T19:38:00.000-05:00

Il vient d'arriver!!!!!!!

2008-06-18T07:26:00.002-05:00

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Pour vous annoncer la naissance de:

Hans Friedrich Keister

n
é
à 2:57 ce matin, le 18th juin

poids: 3005g

Tout le monde est en bonne santé; pour cela, on remercie Dieu de tout notre c
œur!

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Hey, it's me announcing it, so I had to do something a little different! Here's some info in English if you didn't quite get all that... ;-)

Announcing the birth of:

Hans Friedrich Keister

born at 2:57 this morning, June 18th

weight: 6lb10oz.

I just talked to the proud parents and everyone is doing very well. We are so thankful! Labor was 'only' about 5 hours long. (I laughed when Susan told me that. "ONLY?" 1 hour or 10, it still sounds horribly, painfully long!)

I wish I had a picture, but alas! You'll have to wait for that, after Grandma gets there later today, camera poised and ready. I hear he has a lot of hair, is pretty long (21in), and is adorable. :-)

Thank you so, so much for all your prayers.

From the happy aunt on behalf of Susan and her growing family,

Aunt Hannah :-D

EDIT: *Active* labor was only 5 hours :-).

I found them!

2008-06-07T07:20:00.001-05:00

The other pictures reappeared. So many picture files, but I uncovered them.

I thought this was a fun one :-).

Monday night we went to a few stores to look for maternity shirts for Stephanie. Hannah decided she had to try on this peasant-style maternity shirt. She's trying to give herself a belly here, but it looks. . . odd.

A little more normal looking, but still bunchy there, Hannah ;-).

I thought this was such a cute one of Stephanie :-). Brother Dear informed me that comparatively, I look enormous. Thanks, Bro ;-). Hannah called me fat all week, and said she was awfully glad it didn't phase me, because that would have been very unfun. Hehe.

Vaccine Book Review, Pictures, Update

2008-06-06T20:17:00.000-05:00

First of all, Adrian finished reading The Vaccine Book (mentioned here) and has posted a review on his almost-forgotten blog.

Hannah and Stephanie left on Wednesday. We were sad to see them go, because we really had a fun time having them here. I'll post some pictures at the end of the post. Stephanie and I let Hannah order us around in the kitchen, in accordance with her whims and experimental inspirations ;-). We had some mighty tasty dishes! We attempted to use our ice cream maker (wedding gift) for the first time, but unfortunately it was a dismal failure. Note: when the instructions say to freeze the bowl for 6-22 hours, the highest time is definitely recommended!

Today we had some very happy news at the midwife's office. The baby finally decided to turn head-down! Thank you all for your prayers :-). Although we can't be certain, I'm pretty sure that what allowed the baby to turn was the Webster technique - a chiropractic technique that focuses on correcting the tail bone, soas (sp?) muscle, round ligaments, and two neck vertebrae that all affect the proper shape of the uterus, and when not properly aligned, can make less room for the baby to turn. In my case, one of my round ligaments was really tight, and his head had been on that side of me for some time without dropping. I think (though not sure) that he rotated down Wednesday evening during a pelvic tilt. Wednesday was the first day I had the Webster technique done. Regardless, I'm just glad he decided to cooperate!

We're only about 2 weeks away from the due date now, though Adrian and I are both predicting I'll go into labor a few days late (Aren't we optimistic?). My mom, on the other hand, is really pulling for tomorrow, since she thinks 06-07-08 would be a nifty birthdate ;-). I'm not banking on that date, though ;-).

I made my first non-prefold today! I made a Rita's Rump Pocket diaper and I love the way it turns out. After I make some more types of diapers, if I haven't had a baby by then, I'll have to post some pictures. Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the past week:

Hannah had a little too much fun with photo ideas. Unfortunately I can't find the few pictures with here in them! We had some taken of her, Stephanie, and me, and I can't find them on our computer. Bummer.

Didn't the colors turn out purty in these ones?

Baby K, meet Baby G. :-)

Poke, poke!

Hannah thought we should duel with our giant chess pieces.

Hercules held them for us afterwards.

My favorite :-).

36 (and 1/2) weeks

2008-05-29T19:43:00.000-05:00

Hannah is here for a week, so today she snapped some pictures of me :-). Only 3 1/2 weeks left, give or take a few weeks ;-). The women in my church are giving me a baby shower on Saturday, so that will be lots of fun :-). I'm glad Hannah can be here for that.

In some ways I have continued to slow down more, but I also seem to at times have more energy than usual. Very odd. The pregnancy is going great overall, except that it seems this stubborn little boy has yet to follow general convention and turn head down :-P, so we're praying for him to turn, and I'm doing pelvic tilts a few times per day to encourage him in that direction. Also I'm playing classical music or my voice low on my abdomen. Who knows if any of it is truly helpful :-).

I made great strides in my sewing projects list before Hannah got here yesterday, as hoped, and I'm taking a break this week. Can't wait to start back in on some diapers, though! I got a ton of fleece for free off Freecycle to use as diaper lining (microfleece, to wick away moisture) and diaper outers (regular fleece, water resistant).

I'm kind of blanking out on anything more news-worthy happening recently. I'm mainly been sewing and getting ready for a Certain Arrival. Hannah and I are cooking various concoctions this week, and getting in some good walks. Ben's wife Stephanie arrives Saturday evening and stays through Wednesday :-). I'm sure I could think of more I could say, but it's 9:00 p.m., and my brain officially stops functioning at 8:30 p.m. (often earlier), so I should stop now before I start babbling :-).

Two interesting links

2008-05-10T17:45:00.000-05:00

First, one on Japan's declining population.

Second, one on the financial benefits of stockpiling. Since I just bought 19 lbs of ground beef yesterday at a really good price, this one was relevant to me :-D.

HT: Amy

In other news, I'm working through my lists of things to sew, buy, and do before Little Boy gets here. My latest venture is sewing cloth diaper prefolds. Quite interesting, and addicting too! I'm using up scraps of double-napped flannel, flannel sheets, and old towels, as well as using baby towels and flannel receiving blankets that I got really cheap at a thrift store. I figure I'll use a combination of homemade diapers and store-bought prefolds - trying to balance sanity (not trying to do too much) and economics. I'm forcing myself to take a diaper sewing break for a while, though, so I can get other pertinent projects done, like curtains. When I return to diaper sewing I'm going to try out this pocket diaper pattern.

My sister Hannah and my sister-in-law Stephanie are both going to be here for a few days (Hannah for a whole week) at the end of this month, into June, and we're looking forward to that :-). Hopefully Stephanie will be looking a little pregnant (she'll be about 4 1/2 months along), so Hannah can take some pictures of the two of us together, looking all fat ;-). Their visit is also giving me motivation to try to get several of my projects done before they get here. Like the guest room upstairs. . . should probably be made to look more like a guest room instead of a sewing/storage room with random piles of fabric everywhere :-).

Interesting Blog Post Link on Natural Childbirth

2008-04-22T11:06:00.000-05:00

This is why I tell people that our "current plan" (stress on "current") is to birth naturally in a birth center. And why I say that we'll see how it all turns out, whether I'll really make it through labor without pain meds, without any interventions, etc. Because this fallen world is unpredictable (and so is my ability to handle pain!).

I am a huge supporter of natural birth (though I'm sort of an unqualified supporter until I've gone through it myself), but I think many - and I'm not saying all - in the natural birth camp are missing one piece of the puzzle in the perspective. We women are told to "believe in our body" and "believe in God's natural design for birth", or whatever other variation on the natural childbirth mantra. I believe that God did design a woman's body for birth, and that it doesn't usually have to be a medical event.

But (and that's a big but) this earth is not the perfect "good" world that God originally created. As a Christian I have to remember that this world is darkened by sin, which affects every aspect. Childbirth, of all things, even got individual note in the curse recorded in Genesis! That means that our bodies do not always work according to their perfect original design, that means that childbirth is painful, and that means that we can't guarantee that childbirth will be a "a natural, nonmedical event". Tragic events happen, and more simply, some women don't have the ability or desire (or in some cases, haven't been prepared) to handle pain.

There is a lot of controversy over interventions in labor and delivery, and I think the general obstetrician needs to seriously reconsider a lot of her practices. But the fact is that managed care, pain meds, etc. usually still result in healthy, happy babies. And that's a much bigger thing than whether or not a woman chooses to have an ultrasound in pregnancy, or had an episiotomy in labor, or an epidural, or an induction, or any of the other many intervention options. It's good to remember the big picture - in this case a picture of a cute little baby :-D.

On the flip side, I do highly recommend Natural Childbirth: The Bradley Way and The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth for education on obstetric care and alternatives. Just keep it all in perspective, please.

Fun Visit

2008-04-19T14:47:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I finally got to meet Zan in person! When Adrian got the job here in Connecticut I started mapquesting New England blogger friends, and I was happy that Becky and Zan were both only about 2 hours away. Yesterday I drove up to New Hampshire to see Zan. It was a beautiful day, so a nice relaxing drive all the way up (except for the half hour where I turned down the wrong road - totally my fault. . . ) and we had a good visit together, eating lunch, talking, and spending some time outside while her older two boys played. I got to hold Owen (2 months, about) some :-), even though the poor guy was so fussy most of the time I was there. I did get him to smile a few times, though! It was fun to finally meet Zan after communicating online for almost 3 years(!).

An Ode to Craigs List

2008-04-15T11:59:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm really not going to write an ode. That would be my sister's line of work. I haven't the talent (or current desire to lay aside self-respect ;-D). But I do really like Craigs List. It's become a sort of replacement to my garage sale thriftiness.

Growing up we'd often spend Saturdays March-October hopping from garage sale to garage sale, and saving a lot of money in the process, buying needed household items for much cheaper than we could get them new, or even at a thrift store. There were also the dud purchases, like the CD player that didn't actually eject, or the money wasters like those dust-collecting purple peacocks, or the pink poodle trinkets (I'm not making this up), but we won't go there :-D. Overall, though, garage sales saved us a lot of money.

But the sky-high gas prices make weekend-ly (I decided that's a word) garage sale jaunts a really pricey way to find things. I am planning to go to two larger rummage sales ("tag sales" in New England) next weekend, hosted by a historical society and a church, but those are more gas-efficient.

Craigs List has proved to be a more gas-efficient way overall to find bargains. I got frustrated with the Atlanta Craigs List because everything listed was in mid-town or Marietta, and I did not live near either. But here in Hartford, everything is much closer together, and a lot of the things listed are within a 15 minute drive. I've been keeping three Hartford Craigs List categories minimized (baby/kids, furniture, free), and will check them several times throughout the day. I've found a washer/dryer set, a sleeper sofa, some maternity clothes, a mini-cosleeper, and a free(!) window air conditioner, just to name some of the main items. And I got them for pretty good deals :-).

The key is to be willing to wait. I've been looking for a dresser for Baby and a stroller for weeks (literally), but haven't found something for the price I'm looking for, and in a close enough drive. But because I started looking a while ago, I'm not in a rush and can wait out a better deal.

One amusing note on Craigs List, Freecyle, and other online exchange/selling/giving sites. Mainly this is a random thought I've had about Freecycle. Freecycle is a great site that is designed to recycle unwanted items, instead of tossing them in landfills, etc; you subscribe to the Yahoo group for your area, and receive e-mails of offers and requests. Everything is free. But I do wonder how ecologically efficient some of the exchanges are (just to be cynical :-D). Some of the items posted are only worth a few dollars, and let's face it, with the price of gas in New England, there are some things that I'd like but wouldn't bother to make a separate trip for 10 minutes away, because I'd end up breaking even between gas cost and the benefit of a free item, when I could just pick the same item up at another store when I'm already there buying other items. And if Freecycle is about saving the environment, it'd be amusing if someone made such a monetarily illogical extra trip and on the way added polution to the air :-). Hehe. Just my random thought. Overall I think Freecyle is a great idea.

30 weeks (one week shy of 7 months)

2008-04-13T16:05:00.001-05:00

After much pestering from various family and friends ;-), here is an updated pregnancy picture, taken this morning before church. It is getting so pretty and warm outside, which I am loving, although I am getting overheated more easily, with this extra weight :-P.

The skirt in the picture is just a regular elastic waist skirt I made a while ago, and I made the light green top using Simplicity 3762. I love the way it turned out - such a pretty pattern :-). I'd like to make a few more maternity tops soon, but I've also been working on various other projects, like general clothing alterations and repairs, baby gifts for other women in the church (3 babies born since we came in January, and 2 more due any day). My windows still don't have curtains on them! I am determined those will get done soon, and I have all the material for them. And I think I'm going to make a quilted diaper bag; I couldn't bring myself to register for a $30 one, when I could make one for free using material I already had.

I've been finding myself napping a little more frequently, but still not completely feeling weighed down yet. My only complaint really is achy hips, which come and go, but they're manageable if I'm careful with posture et al. Midwife visits are every two weeks now, since I'm in the third trimester, which means two 45-minute drives out to the birth center per month :-P, but I do want to make sure I get to meet with each of the midwives at least a few times a piece before the birth. Adrian and I have been taking Bradley method classes and finding them very informative. I hope I can give a more authoritative recommendation on Bradley after putting it into practice ;-), but for now I'll just say that we're definitely benefiting from the course. We've had 7 or 8 classes, and a few more to go.

April 2nd was a year since Adrian proposed :-). What a lot has changed in a year! Lots of good things, I think ;-).

Book Review: The Vaccine Book

2008-03-27T18:25:00.001-05:00

I remember my mom mentioning to me years ago how confusing all the controversy about vaccines is, and how she hoped that by the time I had kids, all the vaccine controversy would be sorted out. Yeah. . . right.

I was pretty typically vaccinated through early childhood, and then caught up on any missed shots before entering college (state school requirements), or as needed (tetanus when I had stitches, for example). I didn't get my booster shot for MMR, for example, until college. This probably had mostly to due with the 105.6 degree fever and convulsions that my brother experienced after his first MMR shot :-P. Can you say "emergency room visit"?

A few months ago I mentioned to Adrian that I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about all vaccinations, especially the standard schedule used for infants (especially the vaccine offered at birth, and then loading up several shots at once at successive check-ups - 6 different shots in one visit at age 6 months!), and I wanted to do some research before our baby was born. He thought that was a good idea, but being the wise, level-headed man that he is (*grin*), he told me I had to look at both sides of the issue. That was just fine with me, as I wasn't interested in conspiracy theories or blind acceptance of current practices.

In the last few months I've read (online and through a La Leche League magazine) about Robert Sears' book The Vaccine Book, and finally ordered it last week. It arrived earlier this week, and I devoured the first 10 chapters in one sitting. The rest of the book was polished off in another sitting. I really liked this book.

Now, before I go farther, a disclaimer: "I really liked this book" doesn't mean I completely agree with all of Dr. Sears' recommendations; it does mean that I think the book was well-researched, informative, and very helpful. Dr. Sears is a medical doctor who spent 13 years researching this issue. The pro-vaccine people would think he's too lax and skeptical, and the anti-vaccine folks would think he's way too vaccine-friendly.

The first 12 chapters detail each of the 12 vaccines on the standard vaccination schedule for a child. There are 12 standard vaccines, not 12 standard vaccinated-against diseases; for example, MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) is counted as 1 of the 12 vaccines, since it is standardly given all together, though it can be given separately. Each chapter gives detailed answers to the questions:

What is the disease?
How common is the disease? (mainly in the U.S., but he does bring in some international discussion)
Is the disease serious?
Is it treatable?
When is the vaccine for the disease usually given?
How is the vaccine made?
What ingredients are in the final vaccine solution?
Are any of these ingredients controversial?
What are the side effects of the vaccine?

Then in each chapter he gives reasons to give the vaccine and reasons some people choose not to get the vaccine. Then he highlights [international] travel considerations, options to consider if getting the vaccine (delays, splitting up combined vaccines, etc.), and then a few concluding paragraphs explaining how he views the vacccine.

He does end up recommending more vaccines than I think are necessary, but the nice thing is, he gives the information so parents can make up their own minds, and he thinks that parents have the right to deviate from his opinion.

The last chapters discuss assorted topics such as: the ingredients in the vaccines (more in-depth look at aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, animal and human components, etc., and the controversies surrounding them), collected statistics about vaccine side effects and disease rates, and some very helpful suggested alternative vaccination schedules that spread out vaccinations (no more than two per visit), limit aluminum-containing vaccinations (no more than one per visit, if any), and in the case of one of the proposed schedules, eliminates the vaccines that he considers to be "less important", like chicken pox, for example. Then he gives rather detailed advice for parents who do delay some of the vaccinations, if they would be worth "catching up on" at some point (pertussis and rotavirus, for example, would not need to be "caught up" if vaccinations are begun after age two, since those diseases are really only serious for babies), how many booster shots would be needed, etc.

This book was written in a very level-headed manner. My husband and my brother are two of the most skeptical people I know (I love you both!) when it comes to conspiracy theories, alternative methods, scare tactics, etc. I know that if I find a book (or article) that I can unashamedly show them, then it is one that is very well done, and this book passes that test (I could call it the "Adrian and Ben test"; I would be happy to show it to either, and I think they would both find little fault with it and actually appreciate it. Adrian plans on reading Dr. Sears' book, and I think he will really appreciate it. Dr. Sears' has a real head for spotting logical fallacies and gaps in statistical data.

Dr. Sears also recognizes that information on vaccinations is constantly changing. A nice plus is that this book was published last year, so it is very up-to-date. But just to ensure it stays that way, he is maintaining a website that has a lot of resources on vaccines, and he posts updates to any of the vaccines, as it becomes available.

Notice I didn't come right out in this post and announce which (if any) vaccines we have decided to give our son. That's because we haven't firmly decided (though I have a much better idea after reading the book through the first time). Adrian still wants to read through all the info, and then I'm sure we'll talk through pros and cons of various vaccines, and the pros and cons of delaying those we do decide to do.

Oh, and speaking of Brother Dear, he and his Wife Dear now have reason to think about these sorts of things. . . our little baby is going to have a cousin! Yay :-).

Reading List (roughly in order of start/finish)

2008-03-26T07:23:00.001-05:00

Recently Read:

The Fisherman's Lady by George MacDonald
The Marquis' Secret by George MacDonald
Surprised By Joy by C.S. Lewis
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer
Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing by Sheila Kippley
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
It's Not Easy Being a Bunny by Marilyn Sadler
The Gifts of the Child Christ by George MacDonald
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
Natural Childbirth: The Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon
The Missing Three-Quarter by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
What Men Live By by Leo Tolstoy
Various books of the Bible (We most recently finished Job and Romans)

Currently Reading:

Reading Between the Lines by Gene Veith
Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp
What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff
The Plan of Salvation by B.B. Warfield
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Kantor
The Vaccine Book by Robert Sears, M.D.
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Leche League International
Psalms
I Corinthians

25 weeks

2008-03-08T14:27:00.000-05:00

I'm finally looking pregnant enough to warrant a picture. This is a huge change from even a week ago. And how pregnant I look does vary quite a bit, by outfit. Here I'm in maternity clothes, so I look more pregnant than I do with regular clothes, but it makes for a more fun picture :-). Funny story about the skirt here. I bought it years ago at a thrift store because I liked the fabric and pattern (drop waist yoke), and didn't realize it was a maternity skirt until I got home (I just thought it was rather loose ;-)). I've still worn it through the years, but with a regular top, but I finally get to use it for its original use!

The Depravity of Man

2008-03-06T09:02:00.000-05:00

Ashley has an interesting conversation going on her blog, related to the depravity of man. She has been discussing Christianity with a coworker who is an atheist, and is asking for advice, especially relating to explaining the depravity of man. I encourage you to check it out.

Baby Clothes Are Entirely Too Cute

2008-03-01T19:57:00.000-05:00

*happy sigh* Aren't baby clothes just absolutely adorable? I've always thought baby girl clothes were the cutest, but I don't know. . . I've decided that baby boy clothes are incredibly cute too (maybe I'm just prejudice at this point, though).

I've been so strong and not bought anything yet for this baby. . . until this morning :-). I found out the church across the street from us has a thrift store, open two mornings a week, and all this month they're having bag sales on clothing, $5 for each brown paper bag (grocery sack size) stuffed with clothing. So, I stuffed 3 bags. Adrian found a suit, a tie, a buttoned-down flannel shirt, and a wallet, and the rest of that bag and 2 others, I stuffed with this:

120 pieces of cute little boy clothing :-D. Mostly size newborn to 9 months, So, factoring out the suit et al, which took up about 1/3 a bag, I got the baby clothes for just over 10 cents each. Not bad, especially since I only chose ones in really good condition, and there were a lot of them that were brand new. I love thrift stores :-).

The Common Sense of Fecundity

2008-02-18T08:47:00.002-05:00

(Alternate Title: We're trying to help save the planet, not destroy it, by seeking to have children early and often.)

Why overpopulation is not only a myth and clever lie, but the opposite of the real problem: ever heard of a demographic winter?

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.

Edit: Here's an interesting article on the film.

HT: Amy and LAF

Interesting Verse in Nehemiah

2008-02-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

Hmm. Adrian and I have been discussing recently what our thoughts are on nursery, Sunday school, children's worship, etc. We'd really like our son in worship with us from a very young age, but we've been wondering how young. We would both love to skip the nursery and have him with us from infancy, but that's hard to do in a church that doesn't have a sound-piped crying room with a one-way mirror (we meet in a non-church facility, so not an option). We'll see. We'd like to be open, realistic, but also not put our child in nursery "just because", and certainly we don't want to remove him from the preaching of the Word if it is unnecessary. By the way, we're not making any promises on our child-rearing techniques until we've had 5 or 6 kids. But I digress. Anyway, in our devotion readings this morning, this passage in Nehemiah caught my eye:

Nehemiah 8 (ESV)

1And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 2 So Ezra the priest on the first day of the seventh month, brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard."

This is the only time in scripture I've seen a distinction, where those who are called to hear the Word are only those "who could understand what they heard". We have other scripture that mentions assembling all the men, women, and children. Or the New Testament passage that indicates that Timothy knew the scriptures from his infancy, or more literally in the Greek, from the womb.

Hmm.

He's a Boy!

2008-02-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

We got to meet one of our midwives on Thursday and also had an ultrasound, and we have a healthy, on-track-for-development little boy in there :-). He's been keeping his momma hungry and also reminding her of his existence by kicks throughout the day. I've felt flutterings and such for 4-5 weeks, but they became stronger kicks in the last 2 weeks. Adrian can even feel the kicks now, which he thinks is fun :-). We're at 21 weeks now; hard to believe!

I've been waiting to put up wall hangings in the nursery until we found out the gender, so now I'll lay aside the Sunbonnet Sue hangings, and hang the needlepoint animals instead ;-). My brother Ben and I stitched the four hangings several years ago, as an early project, and I coaxed them from Mother Dear a while back. Wonder if Boy remembers those. . . I also have a cross-stitch of the alphabet (a quilted Q, an L with ladybugs, etc.) that my mom did years ago, that needs to be reframed.

Two reader questions, the first for anyone, and the second for mothers:

(1) I have about 2 yards of some really adorable light green lightweight flannel, with red and blue clowns all over it. It screams "boy", and I want to make something with it, but not sure what. I could make a baby quilt with it, and I might, but a certain dear friend is already making me one, though I guess one can always use a second baby quilt. Any other ideas, though?

(2) What sorts of items are really necessary to have for a newborn? Create a list of the essentials for a newborn, or the extras that you feel were invaluable. I think it's downright ridiculous how many "necessary" contraptions and such there are for babies now!

(3) Bonus question: we're leaning towards cloth diapering (after disposable for the first month, probably), for various reasons. I'm not hugely enthusiastic about the all-in-one-options, mainly because of the cost and because and it's so much more complicated looking! Give me some old-fashioned prefolds. Does anyone have recommendations for brands/sources for prefolds and diaper covers. Cost and quality are both important to me. I've heard that diaper covers, specifically, have gone down in quality, so I'm looking for recommendations on good ones. As far as prefolds, I know not to get Wal-mart ones.

Oh, and to preempt, yes, we have a name picked out, but we're keeping it secret until the little guy is born. And no, he's not going to be a junior ;-). Nor is his name Enoch (sorry, Hannah).

A Connecticut Yankee (!)

2008-01-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

(Warning: ridiculously long update, to appease all curiositers)

And yes, I made up that word.

We finally got back internet 2 days ago, and it was so nice to be able to access e-mail again! It took me a while to sort through all my messages (still sorting, in fact). It was rather nice to be "unplugged" for a while, though. I didn't realize how mapquest-dependent I was, though, especially in a new place! I'm VERY glad to have mapquest back :-).

We had a nice but busy December. In mid-December Adrian's parents and brother Lane and my parents and sister Hannah all came up to Blacksburg to see Adrian hooded for his doctorate. Yay! Glad to have that final step done. Adrian defended in June, but this was the first opportunity to walk.

Then after everyone else headed back to various parts of the US, Hannah stayed with us for the next week to cook for us and help pack. That was an enormous help! I'm really not sure how the apartment would have gotten ready to move without Sister Dear :-). That week was my last week of queasiness, and it was nice not to have to cook during that time.

Then the Friday before Christmas, Hannah, Adrian and I headed to Georgia to spend a few days with my parents. We got to stop at Jessie's house in NC for the night on the way. I think Jessie has benefited from being smack-dab on the way from Atlanta to Blacksburg :-) - I stopped there a few times earlier last year on my way up to Blacksburg to visit Adrian. Always fun to see her, of course :-D.

We had a nice visit at my parents' house, and it was wonderful to visit my "old" home church again, and attend the Christmas Eve service there. Even though I lived in Georgia from the time I was 4 months old, this was the first Christmas I'd ever spent there! We'd always gone north to Indiana. So it was a nice change. And we had Ashley and Paul over for Christmas dinner. Good times. Mom, Ashley and I talked while the rest played Settlers of Catan.

We left Georgia the day after Christmas, with Hannah coming back with us (what a trooper!), and scurried back to Blacksburg to finish up packing. We loaded up the truck on that Friday, the 28th, and drove a little more than 1/2 way towards Connecticut, stopping to spend the night with our friends Anna and Brandon in northern Deleware. We towed Adrian's car behind the truck, and Hannah and I took turns driving my car. We got to bed at midnight (we didn't get in until 11:00 p.m.), and were up at 5:00 a.m. to get an early start to Connecticut. The rest of the drive to Connecticut was less eventful than the previous day, fewer missed turns and other delays (like, say, unhooking and rehooking the car tow dolly late at night, in the dark, and rain, and freezing cold - yay for the police spotlight that I never removed from my car).

The first thing I noticed when we turned onto our new street was the discount grocery store directly next door to our complex. "Hey, is a Price Rite like an Aldi's?" was my first reaction. Talk about convenience, and savings! Price Rite has officially become my new favorite store.

Two men from our church up here met us after lunch to help us unload the truck, which was a huge help, because I was about zero help with lifting heavy things for (a) safety reasons and (b) wimp reasons. Adrian and I both looked officially dead by the time the truck was unloaded; I think Hannah was the perkiest of the three after the fact. And she sure did her part carrying things in! Adrian and the other two men carried in load after load of heavy items, including all those books ;-). I kept myself to lighter items, and did sit down for rests at intervals, and was able to make it through all right. After Hannah flew home early Tuesday morning, though, I did take two long naps that day, totalling 5 hours. And then 5 more hours the following day (!). I'm finally quite recovered physically from the move :-).

I even started cooking again last week after Hannah left! I think Adrian is rather glad to have me able to cook again, and even if I'm not cooking anything terribly complicated, it's still real home cooking, and he didn't get much of that the month+ before Hannah took over for me ;-). I didn't have to even think about preparing meals between December 14th and January 1st, thanks to Hannah and Mother Dear, and believe me, that thrilled me :-). Now I'm happy to be cooking again. I was nauseated for about 7 weeks, so that's not all that terrible, actually. I expected much worse, even though it was no fun while it lasted. I'm glad to be back to eating meals in less than an hour now.

The downstairs of our townhouse is pretty much organized, except for a few minor things. Before Hannah left she helped me make a good dent in kitchen organization, and then Becky and Katherine drove over from Rhode Island last Friday, and Becky and I got the rest of the downstairs in place. They were our first dinner guests in our new home, too :-). (Hannah doesn't count, since she's family and since she cooked all the dinners while she was here.) Why is it so much easier to get things unpacked with help? Hmm. The upstairs is slowly getting unpacked. The second bedroom will serve as our guest room and sewing room for now, until Baby takes over. We'd like to use an Arm's Reach co-sleeper, so the baby may not move into the second bedroom for a while. Hopefully :-).

Our townhome has a full, unfinished basement, but it's pretty finished for being advertised as being unfinished. It certainly is nicely climate-controlled, and the concrete floor is painted, which helps with the looks. And we have washer/dryer hook-up! No more laundromat! The climate down there is so nicely stabilized that we're going to keep almost all of our books down there (on our really snazzy metal utility shelves that we bought a while ago for the purpose), which really helps in freeing up space in the rest of the townhouse. Considering we decided on our dwelling sight-unseen (this nauseated, exhausted pregnant woman did not relish the idea of flying up to CT by herself last month, amidst attempting to pack), we're very happy with it. It's a nice place for us, close to Adrian's work, and 15 minutes from our church.

Finding a church up here ended up being a lot easier than one would think it would be, in an area that is only 1% evangelical. We got on the PCA website and went to the list of churches in Connecticut. There weren't many choices, granted, but we love the one we found. It turns out we know several people who know the pastor, and Adrian had already met the music minister, who used to be on staff at his brother's church. It looks like there will be lots of opportunity for Adrian to use his musical gifts, which is very nice. And the people are all very nice and welcoming. There are several other women in the church who are expecting, including a few in our home group, so that'll be nice support for me.

And speaking of pregnancy, I'm back to square one on birthing options, of course. I was SO sad to leave our midwife in Virginia because she was simply wonderful, very knowledgable, a Christian, level-headed, etc. I was really excited about homebirthing with her. Our current leaning up here is a birth center that is 45 minutes SW of us. It's located in a hospital and midwife-run, natural-birth oriented, etc, but with the benefit of a regular maternity ward on the same level, should the need arise. We're touring it a week from today, and I hope it works out. A birth center was my original desire in Virginia, but there wasn't one near us. My skirts have been tight since just before Christmas, but I'm still holding out and just wearing the looser ones. I'm still not noticably pregnant to other people, but I can definitely tell a difference. I finally gained a few pounds after just barely holding onto my pre-pregnancy weight all through the first trimester. My current plan is to sew myself a few maternity skirts, but mainly buy tops via thrift stores. We'll see.

There. No one can possibly accuse me of not giving a long enough update :-).

Really Quick

2007-12-27T09:49:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting amidst boxes and paperwork, waiting for Adrian and Hannah to get back with the moving truck. I've spent the last few weeks packing and finding an apartment and traveling. We're finally almost ready to move. We're loading the truck tomorrow and arriving in Hartford on Saturday. I'll be without internet until January 7th. Until then, au revoir!

Life Update

2007-11-30T09:10:00.000-05:00

(I'm out of clever titles for now. . . )

So, yes, I haven't forgotten that I own a blog. I've just been curled up in bed sleeping or reading, or generally just avoiding the computer and the-front-room-that-is-too-close-to-the-kitchen-smells ;-). I am fairing nausea better than I thought I would, but it's still not jolly. Oh, and note to people whose blogs I read: if you post pictures of food, I probably will just skip right to the next post; same with descriptions of food :-).

Adrian has been the sweetest, waiting on me hand and foot, doing the dishes for me, and finishing supper when I'm unable. He's the best :-).

I'm at 10 1/2 weeks now. I've been to the midwife once, and am going back for a more complete exam, bloodwork, etc., in another week and a half, but even though I finally found a midwife I really like, we're back to square one in January because. . .

. . . We're moving to Connecticut the last week of December! Adrian's grueling job search finally paid off, and he has accepted a job in Windsor, CT, just north of Hartford. A few weeks ago, when he first flew up there for an interview, I started googling blogging friends who live in New England, and Zan is only 2 hours away, and Becky less than that! So I was pretty happy about that :-). I've never even visited New England, so this could be interesting. I've always been intrigued by the area, and all of its ties to history, but various relatives are already chuckling at the thought of me living in such a cold, northern state. I'm going to have to get some warmer clothes. Or drink hot tea constantly. Or both.

We had a good Thanksgiving with Adrian's brother Arne and various family in Louisville, and we're going down to Georgia for 4 days at Christmas, just before coming back and moving. So that means I'll be frantically packing to get it done before Christmas week.

A Little Taxonomic Exercise

2007-11-13T14:01:00.000-05:00

I've observed with amusement the variety of responses we've received from friends and acquaintances, regarding our pregnancy announcement. And so I give you a classification system:

The Presumptive (Type I):
Before we've even taken any pregnancy tests, certain peoples were already asking, "So, are you pregnant yet?"

The Expectant:
When told that we have news, "Susan must be pregnant."

The Incredulous:
"I heard from someone. . . *pauses with questioning/unbelieving look* . . . that. . . you're pregnant?"

The Curious:
"So. . . were you and Adrian hoping to start a family this soon?"

The Presumptive (Type II):
"So I bet you weren't expecting to be pregnant this soon, were you?" *wink*

The Consoling:
"I wanted to let you know that I've never regretted any of my children. . . "

Hehe.

Reformation Day: A Reminder for our Times

2007-10-31T14:00:00.000-05:00

Today is Reformation Day, a holiday celebrating the great faithfulness of our forefathers in the faith, as they defended the Word of God in the Middle Ages. On October 31st of 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famed ninety-five theses onto the castle door of the church at Wittenberg. He was challenging the Catholic church's practice of indulgences, and what ensued is what is commonly known in history books as the Protestant Reformation.

Many Christians today (myself guilty at times!) look at our culture today and think that there is no hope for the Gospel, and that we are indeed sinking into greater and greater unbelief, heresy, and corruption. We are prone to see the earth on a freight train headed straight towards a great engulfment. We see our current political situations, the unBiblical laws passed, the millions of our children who are murdered by their own parents each year, prayer stripped out of schools, Gospel truth replaced by moral relativism, and the "Christians" in our society following mammon and Hollywood more readily than Jesus. And we take a VERY pessimistic view of where our glove is headed. We think there is nothing that can be done.

But look at Europe at the time leading up to the Protestant Reformation. The Word of God was held captive by a religious elite who were corrupt to the very core, hiding theft, adultery, greed, swindling, and lies underneath the guise of the name of our Lord. The Gospel was not being preached to the masses; instead they were hearing select portions of scripture read to them in a language not native to them, and the public were being taught that they had to help earn their righteousness. They were so frightened of the future of their souls, and so frantic to do anything to earn their way into heaven, that the poor would give away some of their last pennies to buy off a few years from purgatory or to save their souls from hell. The masses murmured rote prayers in penance, trusted in priests to be their mediators before God, and lived in utter fear and spiritual darkness.

That, my friends, is despair. That sounds like a place where the Gospel truth would never spread. That's a society sinking into greater unbelief, heresy, and corruption. The Word of God was not even available to the masses! Yet God was still sovereign, even when His church came to the brink of self-destruction. He used a monk who was bold enough to challenge the powers that were, and He used corrupt church counsels and men who were still searching for the truth to accomplish His will. And look at the fruit it has born! Churches around the globe still benefit from the courage of men like Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, and others. God's church continues to spread, not because all the factors are aligned in its favor, but because God is in His heaven, and He is still ruling.

So when I get discouraged and am tempted to adopt a very pessimistic eschatology, I remember the Protestant Reformation, and give a prayer of thanks to God for always preserving a remnant of His people. And I remember a brave monk in 1517, and all the reformers who came after him, who were willing to die because of their beliefs, letting the truths of God be their dying cry:

Sola scriptura - Scripture alone

Solus Christus - Christ alone

Sola gratia - Grace alone

Sola fide - Faith alone

Soli deo gloria - To God Alone be Glory!

Make sure to read some of the excellent posts linked at the 2007 Reformation Day Symposium.

Answers to Various Questions

2007-10-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

First of all, I think it's hilarious how quickly I got comments on the previous post. Y'all are very perceptive! I also find it interesting that the phrase I used is common to Australia too; I didn't realize it was that wide-spread.

Our projected due date is June 22nd, though that has not been confirmed by a physician or midwife; I'm just going by online sites on how to calculate it. I'm 6 weeks, 3 days along (for those who don't know, those weeks are never calculated from conception, in case you're starting to count backwards to our wedding date. . . ). We think it's hilarious that our due date is exactly 9 months from our wedding day :-).

I took the first pregnancy test two weeks ago tomorrow, and another (different brand because I'm cautious) the next day; both were positive. For the first several days my main symptoms were just hunger and a bit of tiredness, but late last week I got that unpleasant queasiness that now seems here to stay a while :-P. But no really awful nausea/vomiting. Just enough to make me feel really bleh and make me want to not do much at all, especially with the added tiredness that comes with the first trimester. I actually delayed starting to write wedding thank you notes, thinking that if I did get pregnant the first month, that would be a good activity for me while I languished in bed, so this works out well :-).

Even though I'm becoming terribly sensitive to smells, and don't have any appetite, and have queasiness, I'm actually faring better right now than I thought I might, as I am keeping down food (even though it takes me a long time to force it down!). Adrian, thankfully, doesn't mind it when meals aren't gourmet, and he's taking my whims about smells quite well. (Honey, didn't you say you liked that smell yesterday?) He's wonderful :-D. I'm VERY thankful that I started a prenatal vitamin, cod liver oil capsules, and a B supplement several months ago, so I don't have to adjust to those new smells/tastes as well, because the latter two are strong.

As for cravings, I haven't had many, yet, except for fresh fruits and vegetables (especially fruits!), so I definitely splurged on my grocery trip yesterday, and bought more fruits than I usually do. Right now I'm mainly preferring really bland foods, though. Even my cravings for dark chocolate have disappeared temporarily (Don't faint, Jessica!).

As to what our birth plans are. . . we don't know yet. Part of it is, we don't know if we'll still be in Blacksburg in June. Adrian will hopefully be done with his internship and have another job, which may be here, or it may be in California, or Nebraska, or New York, or South Carolina, or Timbuktu (actually, only lower 48). I am looking at options in Blacksburg, though, because we may be here, and I do need to see someone before too many more weeks have passed. My first choice would be a birth center with a midwife, but the closest one is an hour and a half away, which isn't my idea of a fun drive, while in labor. And the closest midwife who delivers in a hospital is still over an hour away. I've spoken with a midwife who does home births, and I really like her (not alarmist, very experienced, etc.), and we do live one minute (literally) from a hospital with a birthing wing if an emergency arose. Also this midwife recommended a local family practice that does birthing as well, at a more personal level than most OB/GYN practices, and at a nearby hospital. So answer: I don't know :-).

Names? We've only briefly discussed ideas. I have a friend who insists I need to send her a full list of our possibilities, but I simply don't have one yet. We do like Germanic names, though, or other Northern European names (Swedish, etc.). We're both of German descent, with other European mixed in (Swedish and English for me). We want names that have not been overused, but also ones that most people have at least heard of, so the poor child doesn't have to spell his name for someone every day of his life. And no, Hannah, Enoch is currently NOT in the running for a first name for a boy. We also don't know yet if we'll find out the gender. Part of that will be determined by if we have an ultrasound. We'll see :-).

Baking Experiments of Late

2007-10-28T17:40:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite novel kitchen gadgets that we received for our wedding is a pizza baking stone. I've always gone with the old pizza-on-a-pan method of cooking, and it's sort of funny how I came about the pizza stone. I had planned on registering for two regular metal pizza pans, but Wal-Mart didn't have the particular size I wanted, and the pizza pans at Bed, Bath, & Beyond were $15 a piece! I noticed that BB&B also had a complete pizza baking set (stone, wood "shovel", rack, and cutter) for the same price, so I registered for the stone instead. And we both love it! It gives a great firm crust that is still chewy. Mmmmm. Highly recommended.

One of my next cooking experiments I hope to embark upon is sourdough bread. One of the women at our church makes fabulous sourdough bread, and I'm going to get tips from her. For now, though, I have a bun in the oven.

Playing House

2007-10-17T15:29:00.000-05:00

Growing up, one of my favorite pastimes was playing house with Hannah and/or with friends. We'd organize our play kitchens, our baby nurseries, create forts, etc., and play shopping. I liked doing this because my dream was to someday "play house" for real. I am LOVING setting up my own (our own) house now :-). It is so much fun, and a fulfillment of many dreams.

It is quite a bit of work, though. Getting into a routine of shopping (and learning the location of stores!), making menus, creating a budget, etc. takes a lot of initial legwork. And then there is the great task of organizing! Adrian moved into the apartment in early June, and I brought up two loads of my stuff during the summer, then we added wedding presents on top of all that, so there were literally humongous piles to sort through and organize. Of course, being the type-A, hyper-organization freak I sometimes can be, this wasn't all that bad of a task, just very involved :-P.

Oh, and meals are great fun to prepare every day. Due to teaching, tutoring, wedding planning, and the distractions of a certain young man *cough*, I haven't regularly cooked meals in quite some time, so I'm really enjoying getting back into the kitchen. I think Adrian appreciates it too ;-). He admits his diet has vastly improved. We've greatly appreciated all the helpful wedding gifts people gave us, and are enjoying using them. We received a pizza stone, and I am completely sold on the idea of baking pizza on a stone, after just one try; vastly better than metal pan-baked!

Oh, a word of advice to all the young ladies who, like me, fill hope chests in their single years. I suggest focusing on specialty and handmade items that are priceless, not just cookware that can be bought at any department store. We were blessed with a lot of basic cookware like mixing bowls, casserole dishes, etc., even some that we didn't register for (but were nicer than we had!), so I'm glad that most of my hope chest items were handmade or more particular items (like a glass bread plate a la Laura Ingalls Wilder, or teacups, or a handpainted bowl, or handmade quilt). Anyway, just a suggestion. We couldn't believe how generous people were!

I feel bad, because as is often the case with weddings, I won't be able to really thank some of the gifters. Even with the precaution of having a few people to tape cards to gifts, we still have some cardless gifts, and one or two with a very generic first name on them. As a suggestion, please write your last name on a wedding card!

It's different being in a completely different area, and adjusting to a new set of stores and a new church. It helps that Adrian has lived here for a while :-). And I just spent most of today at various government agencies changing legal identification, etc. Long story as to why, but I had to go to the DMV three times! But it's done now :-). I'm officially Susan Garrison Keister. Yay!

Finally, a post! :-)

2007-10-09T12:52:00.000-05:00

I finally decided that if I keep waiting for time to post, it's never going to come, so I'm posting anyway :-). Our professional photographs have not yet arrived, nor our video, but they both should be forthcoming the next few weeks. Meanwhile, we've been enjoying select photos by family and friends. For a more complete group of photos, see photo links in previous post. Many thanks to Grace True for providing the photos for this post :-).

We had a wonderful wedding day!

Family and friends started arriving on Thursday, my groom among them :-), and Friday consisted of a whirlwind of activity, including decorations and last-minute decorations at the church all afternoon.

Our longtime friends, the Trues, put together the flower arrangements.

And they did a beautiful job!!!

I felt like on Friday I was constantly being accosted by someone for a question, help, etc., which was rather necessary, but exhausting. But, I had already promised Adrian that Saturday was my day of delegation (not doing tasks myself), and I wouldn't worry about anything once the ceremony started :-). I'd planned the wedding all summer, and I wasn't about to not enjoy it from over-busyness! My mom is the one who really brought me through that last week, in fact, as I was finally wearying of wedding details. Mothers are wonderful :-D. But I digress.

Anyway, the rehearsal was very helpful and amusing, as we had quite a collection of witty people at the gathering, so it was a light, fun event.

Twins!

The rehearsal dinner was even better than the rehearsal. We made the mistake of asking various family and friends to "roast" us, and they did a really good job! Lane and Ben have both posted their roasts on respective blogs. My abdominal muscles were aching after Ben's roast of me :-).

After a late Friday night, we started pictures the next morning around 9:30. By this time I was done with any personal tasks, and was able to just enjoy the day. I wasn't nervous or stressed or anything, and I really felt so relaxed throughout the whole day. It was wonderful :-).

Here is our ridiculously cute flower girl, Ila Keister (Lane's oldest). Her mother, Sarah, made her beautiful dress and headpiece.

And here is the cutie ringbearer, Ila's brother James, held by Adrian:

Maid-of-honor Hannah Garrison and Best Man Lane Keister (you can just barely see my hair and veil):

Jessie was able to come down mid-Friday, and was vastly helpful Friday and Saturday, running to and fro, accomplishing an untold number of tasks :-). She and the Trues were WONDERFUL errand women :-). Here is Jessie, holding Edmund, who is Lane's youngest - only 2 months old! Awwwwwww.

This picture takes some explaining:

I decided that I didn't want to have a whole train of bridesmaids, making the rehearsal and ceremony much more complicated, but I did have several friends I wanted to honor. I asked Hannah to be my maid-of-honor, and I had no more bridesmaids; however I had 9 "bouquet maids".

I processed on my dad's arm with only a white Bible in my hands, and then after the congregation was seated, Anne's Theme was played on the harp while the bouquet maids slowly filed to the front from the back row of the sanctuary, carrying one to two roses each. They handed me the roses individually, as they came up to where I was in the front of the sanctuary. Then the last maid tied a ribbon around my bouquet, and they all returned to their seats down a side aisle. It was a nice touch, I thought, and was a simple way of honoring my friends :-). I got the idea from a woman in my church. The above picture is all of us practicing just before the ceremony.

Back in the bride's room just before the ceremony:

I made Hannah's dress and Jessie and I made mine together, in July.

Dr. and Mrs. Adrian Keister!

Link to Some Photos

2007-09-24T12:40:00.000-05:00

One of our friends, Camila Mota, has saved some pictures on the Internet for us to see. We thought we'd pass along the link. In addition, Ashley has a few pictures on her blog. Enjoy!!!

Miscellaneous Items on Blogging

2007-09-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

1. Yes, I finally took down my book lists. I haven't accurately been updating them since April or May, ever since I started wedding planning, and I'll be merging my blog with Adrian's soon anyway. I've been reading in the past few months, but not updating!

2. I've had several people mention to me that they're unable to comment to my blog because of the way I have comments restricted. I wish I didn't have to restrict comments! But I've had blog troll problems in the past, lifted restrictions after a few months (without announcing the lift), and had the same problems again. Rinse, and repeat. It's irritating, to say the least.

To comment to my blog, all you have to do is establish a Blogger account, though. You don't have to give out personal information, or pay a dime. And you don't even have to register a blog, just an account. Visit blogger.com and sign up. It's pretty straightforward, I assure you!

3. I think my sister Hannah is bribe-able, and with payment of dark chocolate, she will probably post some wedding details and preliminary pictures next week, on Monday or Wednesday. So stay tuned for that.

4. I think this will probably be my last post before the wedding. I'm going to lie around and sip tea and eat bon-bons for the next 5 days. . . or frantically get ready for everything. One of the two ;-). So, adieu until early-to-mid October. Adrian and I will be back from our honeymoon trip on October 5th.

Last-minute advice, anyone? :-)

Autumn?

2007-09-15T07:31:00.000-05:00

Hmmm. Around the blogosphere everyone seems to be experiencing delightful signs of autumn, whether it be crisp cool air or even the start of leaves changing. Australian friends are a noticeable exception, of course ;-). Well, in Georgia the heat has dropped off, but it's still rather warm and humid, and NOT FALL-LIKE. Hmmmph. I have a wedding in a week, and I want it to feel like fall! Autumn is my favorite season of the year (Adrian's too), and it would be marvelous to have a fall crispness in the air :-). I'm still holding out hope, because in Georgia the change to fall is very sudden, and usually a few days before the official start of Autumn.

Oh, and poll: when is the first day of autumn? I seem to be running into discrepancies online. Some sites say the 22nd; some say the 23rd. So our wedding is either the last day of summer or the first day of autumn. And it's so funny, because I have a friend whose birthday is the 22nd, and one of Adrian's nieces has that birthday as well, and of course Bilbo and Frodo have that birthday. So much competition for the 22nd of September!

I know I haven't been able to response to all your lovely comments on the courtship post. Glad several of you enjoyed the book :-). Ashley is coming over soon to stuff tulle with birdseed, so I better go!

Interesting Critique of the Courtship and Betrothal Movements

2007-09-10T20:27:00.000-05:00

Here is a very interesting online book that is a self-proclaimed response to the courtship and betrothal movements. It is written by Robin Phillips, son of Michael and Judy Phillips, who are well-known in the courtship and betrothal communities for their writings, particularly Best Friends for Life. Unfortunately, I don't know how to copy and paste parts of a PDF file, or I'd give a sampling of the book, but let me just say, if you are an advocate of either betrothal or courtship, in whatever form, READ THIS BOOK!

It's. . . interesting. . . refreshing. . . largely true, to say the least. I like Robin Phillips perspective. He doesn't think recreational dating is a good practice, and he understands problems with our culture's general view and practices related to romance, but he also has some very good critiques of commonly-held views in courtship and betrothal circles. He attacks the movements, not all courtship. It's a very good read.

I'm feeling mischievous. . .

2007-09-10T08:07:00.000-05:00

Go here. . .

Engagement Pictures

2007-09-04T19:17:00.000-05:00

Per request, here are some pictures. Mother Dear took our engagement pictures in July on Virginia Tech's campus. She did a lovely job, I thought :-).

Okay, okay, this is not an engagement picture. This is a picture of Adrian and me sorting through books. We were lining up L.M. Montgomery books to put on the shelf. This is the 3rd and smallest bedroom in our apartment, and we're using it for a library/office.

I love this picture, with my hair squished between me and Adrian :-).

We took this picture for Hannah, and other obsessed Narnians :-D.

This is on a bridge on the duckpond, near where Adrian proposed.

This is our "official" engagement picture. I love Adrian's smile in this one :-). And actually, our coordinating clothes weren't planned on our part.

4!

2007-08-29T20:15:00.000-05:00

No, the title of this post does not mean I'm excited about the number 4; I'm actually more excited about the number "four factorial," or 4 times 3 times 2 times 1 - written 4! in mathematical shorthand. 4! is 24, and there are only 24 more days left until September 22nd :-). In some ways that seems still a loooonnnngggg way away, but mostly now it is seeming really close! That's only a little more than 3 weeks. Wow!

So, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, contrary to popular opinion. And actually, my wedding planning workload severely decreased about 2 weeks ago (finally!), so I'm finally not living and breathing wedding details (until week after next, when last minute details will consume my time until the wedding). But I've also been babysitting a good deal, some days up to 10 hours, so I've still not found a whole lot of blogging time.

I actually think that I will be able to blog more once the wedding is past. Not having a long-distance relationship with Adrian (partly through e-mail and chat) will help me focus my online time more. We'll see, but I'm hopeful! Adrian and I will probably merge our blogs after we're married, but I'll make sure to announce that if/when it happens. We'll probably just use his blog, for ease of transfer, rather than establish a whole new blog. I may have to make his blog a bit more feminine, when he's away at work ;-). Do you think he'd notice if I changed the background to pink?

Update on books: I now only have about 5 books in my possession! *cries* All the other ones I kept out in July went up to Blacksburg a few weeks ago. I couldn't part with Jane Austen, so she stayed, as did my Bible and a few other books I hope to read in the coming weeks.

My dress is done!!! Wow, it's been a while since I updated on wedding plans, because my dress has been done for a while. Jessie came for 2 days in early July, and we had a fantastic time sewing and getting almost everything done in that time! Jessie is a wonderfully fast sewer, which helps :-). And she's great company! Oh, and we figured out that blood smears come out of my dress fabric better than. . . other things. (inside joke) I also made my veil a few weeks later. And my garter. And Jessie made the ringbearer's pillow and flower girl basket while she was here! Very cute. I'd post pictures, but the pillow uses my dress fabric ;-).

My parents and I had a good time in Blacksburg in July, carting up most of my belongings in a U-haul. We arrived to an apartment that was still in need of unpacking and organization, so we spent our 5-day visit mostly sorting through stuff and organizing. The apartment still needs a lot of help (tons of stuff not unpacked!), but at least one can navigate through the rooms now. I'll roll up my sleeves and dive in after the wedding :-). I can't wait to get the apartment organized and sew some curtains and such!

Hannah and I just visited Adrian again a few weekends ago and had a good time. Adrian's church gave us an engagement party, which was fun. Then Hannah gave me a bridal shower last weekend with women from our church. Fun, fun!

Things are coming together. I do feel like my life is sort of in limbo right now, though! A good kind of limbo, though. Hopefully when we're married and more settled, I'll be able to write more posts of substance. Until then, life updates are going to have to be the main event ;-).

Tim Keller, on marriage

2007-08-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

My pastor has given Adrian and me nine sermons on marriage to listen to; it's a series by Tim Keller, PCA pastor from New York City. We've been trying to listen to one or two a week, and then discuss them over the phone. I highly recommend them, and I think I speak for Adrian too when I say that :-).

Tim Keller defines deep marriage oneness as coming from the process of two people journeying to a common horizon. For the Christian, this common horizon is heaven, and the journey together sanctifies. The whole series just oozes grace, but I especially like what Keller has to say about the sanctifying effects of marriage. He talks about how focusing on this common horizon and on sanctification can give a married person a vision of what God wants his spouse to become, and what they will be someday without the shackles of sin. And we should want others to catch that same glimpse of the beauty of this person.

Keller talks about the "glory self" and the "dross" in a person. The glory self is the person deep inside, the potential that God will bring to fruition in glorification. We get glimpses of this glory self in others sometimes, just as we get glimpses of a covered mountain when a wind blows away the clouds of fog for a brief moment. The dross in a person is the sin, the filth that God will slowly burn away through trials - and one of the ways He purifies people in this is by marriage. Marriage is a very sanctifying experience.

Now comes the part of one of his sermons that particularly struck both Adrian and me. Keller is speaking about dross and says that a non-Christian (or any spouse that is not Christ-centered, since Christians are not immune to self-centeredness) will look at the dross, the filth in his spouse and become disillusioned and discontented by his spouse, and say "I can envision someone better." This is why marriages end; one spouse wants to seek for someone who is better.

A Christian should look at his spouse, and not ignore the dross blindly. And he should say, like the non-Christian, "I can envision someone better." But the Christian should be envisioning his spouse as that "better" person, purified and sanctified; he should want the perfection that his spouse will become - the glory self that has been glimpsed - not chase after someone else's perfection. And he has the privilege of helping his spouse grow into that person. Wow. That is the promise, the beauty of the Gospel.

My Sister is Awesome :-)

2007-08-08T12:17:00.000-05:00

Hannah has been up in Quebec for 6 weeks (getting back in 3 days) studying at a university there. Glad it's her and not me. French is a beautiful language, but I cannot speak it, and my reading comprehension of it is limited. Anyway, so my mom just e-mailed Hannah asking her how her money was holding out for the trip, and this was her response (shared with Hannah's permission):

Hehe... funny you should ask about the money. First of all, let`s start of by saying that Dr. Chesnut suggested that we bring about $300 for spending money. At a recent meeting of our group to get stuff straight about the flight home and everything, he asked how that was doing for everyone. Every other person said that they had needed way more than that... about $700. You wanna know how much poorer I am after this trip (okay, so not including the actual price of the trip!) - including having to buy a couple textbooks, going on a $25 shopping spree to a Goodwill-type store near here, buying some bus tickets, eating out a few times, buying a lock for a locker, paying $10 every week to be able to take my lunches to school with me, various other small expenses, etc? I changed $20 of American money into Canadian money when we first crossed over and I haven`t needed any more since. As a matter of fact, I was able to give about $200 of `leftover´ money to the churches here who have blessed me so much. How, you might ask, if I only changed $20 at the beginning of the trip? Well, for our lunches, Dr. Chesnut gave us $45/week to buy them. The first week I bought lunches, but then I realized that if I made my lunches like I do at home, I could save money there. Mme Robillard provided me with bread and carrots and fruit and such to made lunches and I paid her $10/week. Also, there were a few times I didn`t end up eating supper with my family because I was invited elsewhere at church or they were out of town or something, and most of those times Mme Robillard gave me $10 per meal when that happened since she didn`t have to prepare it. Plus Dr. Chesnut gave each student $45 to buy the bus pass for the month of August here, but thankfully I didn`t need the bus pass since I walk to school, so I just used some of that money to buy a few one-time bus tickets that I`ve needed and pocketed the rest. Ah, how I love saving money! Yes, yes, I know... all in all we spent a lot of money for this trip. Just burst my bubble.

And you probably didn`t want to know all those little details, but there you have them anyway. :-) So, yeah, my money is holding out just fine.

People think I'm careful with money, until they meet my sister :-). The funny thing is, she's been plenty social while she's been there too. It's not like she's been hiding in a closet. It just goes to show that you can have fun, with people, and do it cheaply :-D.

Congratulations!

2007-07-26T16:43:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Lane and Sarah Keister on the birth of their third child! I can't wait to meet little Edmund, as well as all of the rest of them, in September :-). Lane explains their choice of names here. I just love the name Edmund :-).

When I marry, Lord willing, I'll have 13 nieces and nephews(!). Fun, fun :-).

Our Story

2007-07-23T19:50:00.000-05:00

One of my pet peeves is wedding websites that have "coming soon. . . " permanently published as the couple's story of how they met. I'm a female, so I like details! I love hearing how a couple met :-). So I vowed quite a while ago that I would definitely publish a story of how I met my future husband, when the time came. Of course, now I also realize why that story so often doesn't materialize. Time just gets away from you! So finally, 7 months after we began our courtship and 3 1/2 months after our engagement, here you go. I think some of you definitely pieced most of this together, but I still occasionally get questions from people who have read my blog, and still aren't quite sure how Adrian and I met. No, this doesn't contain every single detail (that's known as "privacy" ;-D), but I hope it satisfies some curious brains:

I dabbled in internet forums and blogs throughout college, finally signing up for my own blog in fall of 2005, soon after graduating college. My purpose in doing so was two-fold: (1) to have an outlet for my love for writing, and (2) to meet like-minded young women. I actually vowed to my mom that my purpose was not to find a husband online. *laughs nervously* Ah, irony.

I had briefly interacted with Adrian before I started blogging myself, both on his blog (which he had recently started) and a few other blogs. He seemed well-informed, but that was about the extent of my impression. Oh, and he liked math and was reformed in theology; I thought that was neat. Through the next year+, Adrian and I blogged quite a bit back and forth, going in spurts of greater and lesser blogging activity. At first we started out very casual, before later moving to deeper and more involved conversations.

Adrian intrigued me. He was very knowledgeable on a variety of subjects, very interesting to converse with, and his awareness of God's grace permeated his posts and his comments. I thought of him merely as a friend for quite a while, but the more I got to know him, the more I realized just what a dear brother in Christ he was, and how well-suited he seemed for me. He made me laugh, think, debate; sometimes he made me furious! He challenged me to think. He competed with me in math and constructively critiqued my poems. We discussed literature and debated every topic under the sun. I even challenged him to a debate on whether his blog background should be changed to something more exciting and easy-on-the-eyes than black (bleck!); I won that debate handily, for the record :-). Actually, I've remarked to Adrian that it's rather infuriating that I seem to win the inconsequential debates, and he always seems to win the more weighty ones. Ah well.

As we got to know one another, I found it quite amazing - and amusing - just how much we had in common. I mean, c'mon! The guy was a bigger math geek than me! He loved classical literature :-). He had a great taste in music. We had similar views on marriage, children, family life. We had almost identical views on Biblical doctrines and practical outworkings of those doctrines. And the man oozed the grace of God. So I watched, and waited, and typed, and prayed. Meanwhile my family had kept abreast of our internet activities, and I think my mom had read just about every word Adrian and I had ever typed to each other, since all our blogging interactions were public :-). Adrian's brother Lane had also interacted a bit with me, on his blogs and mine.

On November 1, 2006 Adrian e-mailed me, "casually" asking if he could come for a visit to meet me and my family. He said the reason, of course, was to claim a prize he had won a while back, on one of my geeky math posts in which I had offered cookies to the solver of a ridiculously-hard math problem; Adrian had solved it, naturally, but had never claimed the prize. In all my smart-aleckness, I e-mailed back, telling him that if the reason was for the cookies, we could overnight mail those to him, and save him time and gas money ;-). The man takes teasing very well, you must know; he revels in it, in fact. Good thing, or I'd drive him nuts! Anyway, Adrian came and visited for 3 days in early December, and we had a grand time. We met for the first time in person on December 8th, 2006, at approximately 1:25 p.m. At the end of his visit, he asked my dad for permission to court me, and my dad granted it. I accepted when Adrian asked me as well :-).

So we began a long-distance courtship. We've been very blessed to see each other every month since our first meeting in December, even with 6+ hours of driving time between us the whole time. I flew to Minnesota to meet Adrian's parents in January, and then I drove to Louisville, KY in May, to meet more of his family. Adrian spent 10 days with our family over his spring break in March, and he also drove here in June for my brother's wedding. We spent Valentine's Day together in Blacksburg, VA, where Adrian was finishing up a degree in Mathematical Physics at Virginia Tech. My parents were able to drive with me to Blacksburg in July as well, and Hannah plans on coming with me to visit Adrian in August.

I also drove up to Blacksburg in April, over my spring break from teaching, and Adrian proposed to me at the duck pond on Virginia Tech's campus, at sunset the day I arrived. I recounted the proposal in a separate story, so make sure to read that as well. I hadn't found the man of my dreams, as I've told Adrian several times. My dreams of the man I wanted to marry were far too small. Adrian surpassed those dreams; God has a tendency to bless us far more than we can imagine or ever deserve. So on April 2, 2007, when Adrian C. Keister got down on both knees and proposed to me, I said yes to the man beyond my dreams.

On September 22, 2007 when, Lord willing, we are joined together as man and wife, we will sing a beautiful song of God's grace, love, and sovereignty - a hymn that Adrian first introduced to me almost 2 years ago. Only God knew at the time that we would one day sing it at our wedding. Great and unsearchable are His ways. God also has a sense of humor. Not only did I end up falling for an "internet guy" after all, against my firm insistence to my mom, but the young woman who named her blog "An Old-Fashioned Girl" certainly found her husband in a very new-fangled way :-).

Soli Deo Gloria

hyperventilating

2007-07-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

I'm going to go through book withdrawal this summer! Not reading so much as gazing. I'm only keeping about 15 books out until the wedding, and I have 25 boxes packed and ready to take up to Blacksburg next week. Almost all of my wonderful theology books are packed. And literature! I packed most of my copies of Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, etc. And *gasp* - I packed Anne of Green Gables! It seemed like such a heartless thing to do. But I only saved out the books that I think I will likely read in the next two months, and I felt like a traitor deciding she was not one of them. But if I'd saved her, I would have wanted to save out the other 7 Anne books, and the Emily books, and the Pat books, etc. *sobs*

My room looks really bare right now. This is strange!

This post is written in honor of Jessica Slagg :-), who I undoubtedly thought of while I was composing it.

Ramblings of a Bride-to-Be

2007-07-01T12:13:00.000-05:00

When I registered this blog in late September of 2005 (my first post was actually not until October 2nd), the second post I wrote was a musing on the words "awesome" and "awful." Adrian commented to that post, his first (of many!) comments to my blog, and directed me to a hymn that demonstrates exactly what I was discussing, namely a misunderstanding in our culture of exactly what awe is, and what it means for something to be awesome or awful.

This September, Lord willing, almost 2 years after that blog exchange, we will sing How Sweet and Awful is the Place at our wedding. We wanted a solemn but beautiful hymn to open the service, and this one fit the bill! I love the old Irish melody and the words are simplify lovely and rich in meaning. I think it will be neat to sing this hymn, especially, because of our history with it :-).

Okay, so everyone wants to know more details about the wedding. I'll list some major ones, and feel free to ask for more details on comments. I'll probably oblige, assuming you ask usual questions. Don't ask me to post pictures of my dress, though :-).

So, our wedding is set for September 22nd, around noon or 1:00. My pastor will be officiating, and it will be held at my home church. Lane is the best man and Hannah is the maid-of-honor (those were really easy choices for us to make - hehe). Oh, and Lane's daughter (3 1/2) and son (almost 2) are going to be the flower girl and ringbearer (all the girls say "awwww"). We're Presbyterian geeks, er. . . traditionalists, so we've chosen to use the PCA BCO marriage service as the template for our service. The reception will also be at my church.

My church's sanctuary is in tones of green, so we chose burgundy, ivory, evergreen, and a medium dusty rose pink as our colors. Hannah and Ila will be in burgundy dresses, and Lane and James will have burgundy vests to match. Hannah's bouquet will probably be ivory roses with some really dark red roses mixed in, tied with a pink ribbon, and Ila will carry a flower petal basket with ivory rose petals. I'll explain my bouquet in a different post, as I haven't completely ironed that out yet :-), and it's a whole other explanation. I'll be in ivory for the sole reason that I don't want Adrian to think he's marrying a ghost, and I would definitely look ghostly pale in white!

Um, I'm not really sure what else people want to know, so if you're curious about something, feel free to ask :-). I'm sure I'll be posting more in the coming weeks.

Oh, and for those who are interested, we will be initially living in Blacksburg. Adrian has an internship there in a fiber optics lab (same type of stuff that his doctoral thesis covered). We're not sure where we'll end up more permanently, though, until he secures a more permanent job after the internship ends.

We Have a Date

2007-06-27T08:03:00.000-05:00

*throws confetti*

Lord willing, we'll be married on. . . Frodo and Bilbo Baggins' birthday. Kudos to anyone who knows what date that is off the top of your head. When we were looking at possible dates, I was the one who knew that. *proud look* Adrian must allow me to look exultant, since overall he clearly bests me in any and all Lord of the Rings trivia. He's read the books oodles of times, and I've only read the complete trilogy through once (some of the books and the Hobbit more than that).

I will post more wedding plans in the days (or weeks) that follow, as I know that female minds like details for these sorts of things ;-).

Oh, and for those who really don't want to utilize Google or Wikipedia, and just aren't LOTR geeks, our wedding date is set for September 22, 2007. Yay!

A Bibliophile's Idea of a Good Saturday

2007-06-23T13:28:00.000-05:00

The owner of this blog is currently gleeful because she picked up 28 George MacDonald books at a yard sale. . . for FREE. She will return to her regular (er, irregular and spotty) posting when she has finished rejoicing :-).

Life, in General

2007-06-22T05:45:00.000-05:00

So, my brother is married. Yay! We all had a wonderful time. The wedding last weekend was beautiful, and it was so much fun to see lots of family friends. Of course, I was especially partial to the bearded fellow from Virginia :-D. I finished the quilt two weeks earlier than I needed to, which was a huge relief. Oh, and the wedding cake turned out nicely as well. I'll try to post some pictures of both soon. It is so nice for us all, I think, to now only have to discuss plans for one wedding. My poor mother was getting the two weddings confused ;-).

Next on my projects list is Hannah's maid-of-honor dress. She leaves for Quebec next Saturday (the 30th), and I'm determined that I will have her dress made before she leaves! It shouldn't take long. Then in early July Jessie is going to spend a few days with me and help me sew my dress :-).

I have been pleasantly surprised by a decent number of tutoring slots this summer. Tutoring is scarce during the summer, but I've had 6 tutoring slots each of the last two weeks, and have even more scheduled for next week. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to continue making some money, while giving me a goodly amount of time for sewing projects, etc.

This morning I'm off to smock with a few women from my church. This is our third or fourth meeting, and I'm so excited to be learning to smock, after wanting to all these years :-). It's a slow process, as I haven't been working on it much at home, but it's fun.

So, what is everyone else up to during these summer days?

Frugal Alternative to Registering For Niceties

2007-06-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

Registering for china and silver used to be standard practice when a couple married. This has sort of fallen by the wayside of late, as fewer and fewer couples opt for traditional china and silver, instead choosing casual ware or more modern alternatives.

Well, I'm a traditionalist, so I still really like the idea of a household having a good set of china and silver. Adrian and I both hold a rather Puritan view of the Sabbath, but we'd like to celebrate it like a wedding, not a funeral. My mom grew up having a big Sunday noontime meal with china and silver every week, and that's the sort of tradition Adrian and I would like to establish as well.

Well guess what? China is expensive! And silver is more expensive! I would have been open to registering for china, even though about $80 per place setting is a really good price ($135 is a much more common price per setting), but I choked when I saw silver prices. New silver plated flatware easily can cost in excess of $300, per setting. And solid sterling silver is even more. *gulp* So I decided silver was a luxury we would pass by ;-). Multiply by 8, and that's a lot! Plus, considering Adrian and I would (a) like a lot of children and (b) like to be regularly hospitable to both couples and families with children, we figure 8 settings may not be very helpful in the long run.

Well, I'm a thrift store and garage sale nut. Two years ago I found a set of china at a thrift store for $20. It had 8 place settings (missing teacups) and a few serving pieces, and was in very good condition. (I might add here that buying used china and silverware is only really a good deal if it is in good condition! If your china is forming cracks under the glaze of the pattern - I forget what that is called - getting it for cheap is not a deal!) Anyway, so Adrian and I figured we could just find additional pieces of the same china pattern on E-bay or Replacements.com.

In addition, last Saturday I was out garage sale-ing with Mother Dear and Ashley, and I found a set of silver plate flatware, 8 place settings and several serving pieces, for $20! This was Oneida Nobility Plate, which is good stuff! A woman was selling off her grandmother's silver for a song, so I jumped on it. Then I headed to E-bay and Replacements.com to look at adding to the original 8 place settings.

I've discovered, by the way, that Replacements.com may often have a better selection (and it's an invaluable resource for finding the name of your pattern), but usually E-bay is way cheaper. Including my garage sale finds, I've bought (approximately) 16 place settings of my china pattern and 19 place settings of my silver plate flatware pattern for a total of only $300. That is an incredible savings! And that includes shipping and a silver-storing anti-tarnish box.

Now, the china place settings do not all have teacups and I am missing one soup bowl. But I do have 16 dinner plates, 16 salad plates, and 15 bowls. I would eventually like teacups and saucers (and a tea/coffepot), but it's really not on my list of high priorities. My original set of china came with 8 saucers, and I've since found 2 teacups on E-bay, so to get a true complete 16 settings, I would need 14 more teacups, 8 saucers, and 1 bowl, but as far as strict dinner china is concerned, I have pretty much 16 settings. And Jessie surprised me for Christmas with the sugar bowl and creamer for my pattern :-).

Anyway, that's my frugal rambling for the moment :-). Anyone else like to share thoughts along similar lines?

Atlanta Bridal Fabric Source

2007-05-30T15:11:00.000-05:00

Not sure if this will benefit anyone reading this, but I might as well type as not ;-). I've been having a horrible time trying to find the type of bridal fabric I want! I've spent hours online and at major fabric stores (Hancock, JoAnn, etc.) with no success. I want an ivory satin with some sort of a subtle, same-color design, either embroidered or a jacquard fabric.

Anyway, through a chain of sources, someone recommended Gail K. Fabrics to me, reportedly the best selection of bridal fabrics in Atlanta, and now I believe them. I have never seen so many bridal choices, or different trims for that matter. So, I'm a very happy girl today, since I finally found my material. Big load off my mind. If anyone is near the Atlanta area and wants an incredible selection of fabrics, go to Gail K. Fabrics on Cheshire Bridge Rd in Atlanta.

Oh, and a lot of Hancock Fabrics stores are going out of business, and mom and I stopped off at the one near us, while we were in that area, and I found a beautiful tiara for 70% off. It's the same store where I got the maid-of-honor and flower girl fabric for 60% off. *smiles* I love saving money.

Stay-at-Home Economics

2007-05-29T10:02:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting article on the economics of a woman staying at home.

HT: Ashley