word to the wise

try not to get pregnant during a planned bathroom renovation. especially a master bath renovation, adjacent to the place where you sleep...and keep you clothes, and dress, and do laundry, and keep all the stuff that used to be in said renovated space.

i am trying to keep my cool and not have a total control-freak meltdown, but i swear there is drywall dust hiding in the deepest darkest corners of our house, escaping all my attempts to get rid of it, waiting for a day to come out and spread itself all over my bed. and just when you can say "well, this is sort of clean and livable," the next day you come in to find that work has been done to create more dust.

i think what doesn't need to be said here is that, despite my overall emotional calm (with the exception of my weepiness around babies and baby subjects), you can say that i'm having one of those pregnancy freak-outs.

this has been an on-going project for about a month now. and that is a very long time to be put out of your bedroom. to have who-knows-what floating through the air and landing on your sleeping textiles. and to have to cover all of your belongings with sheets and blankets, which then, invite a surface for laying tools and plumbing fixtures on, as if there are not personal belongings under the sheets and blankets. little known fact about me: i have slight fear/obsession with air quality (i hold my breath when i walk behind running cars, or when walking through a cloud of cigarette smoke), and pregnancy has not made that any better. i am convinced that with breathing all of this, that somehow my baby will suffer. that he or she will be born with asthma or underdeveloped lungs or something else of the respiratory sort. toxins. toxins, everywhere.

are these rational fears? probably not. am i a little bit of a control freak? it's not unlikely. but still. that does not create within me some newfound patience or acceptance for things out of my control. it just makes me want to pull my hair out.

so please. pray for me and my sanity. and pray that no other tropical weather systems come through with their 90% humidity, causing everything to take 3 times as long to dry. and pray that this thing is finished by the end of next week. please. please, God, please. please. i am not learning any lessons here. i am only going slowly insane.

in other news, i have an ultrasound on friday. i'm hoping little monks stays modest and doesn't give away whether he or she is a he or she.

i also made a very terrible nutritional decision today. i was caught off-guard when my boss came in to work and immediately grabbed us for a pow-wow. before i knew it, it was 1:15 and i had become more hungry than i can remember being at any one point in my life. my muscles felt similar to the way you might feel while trying to drive a tractor after running 5 miles. i broke out in cold sweats. i don't remember anything that was said to me. i was shaking. as soon as i could i got in my car and drove to the shortest fast-food drive-thru line i could find. which was whataburger. and they were advertising patty melts. and i ordered one for $5.35 (not the meal, mind you--just the sandwich). it was delicious while it lasted. that was 8 hours ago. i am still regretting it.

the end.

16 weeks and some change

this title was meant to be literal, but then i realized it's pretty metaphoric...

pregnancy has forced us to face some pretty raw truths--not only about our lives, but about life in general. it's pretty apparent, that if there's some aspect of how we live that we're not satisfied with, that we have a very limited amount of time to do something about it. sometimes in life, God allows you just to meander around, choosing this path or that, reversing and turning around. and then other times (like now), you're more like one of 100 sheep trying to fit through a narrow gate, with a border collie nipping at your heels. change--although apparent--is not easily circumnavigated. it's tight, and awkward, and chaotic.

since finding out about the arrival of "little monks," we've been forced to assess our finances, our marriage, our jobs, our geographical location, with whom we surround ourselves, and where we go on sundays (and also the insane amount of stuff we have no storage for in our 20s house with no garage, which has also been daunting, but not nearly as mind-warping...for some of us). all of the other extra fluff in your life is stripped away, slowly, until you're left with the basics: God, family, friends, and health.

there are ways i pictured myself as a mom. but the way you picture it is never the way it turns out. i'm sure even those who planned their pregnancies according to a certain place they were in life would say that having a child was nothing like they thought it would be. i thought that we'd be comfortable enough financially that i could make the choice whether to stay home or go back to work. a part of me even dreamed that i would have had a thriving at-home stationery business. i thought we'd own our own home. and that we'd be close to family.

but even with all the uncertainty we face, there is one thing in which i'm confident: God takes care of us. even when it's hard to see or have absolute faith in--He always does. He is faithful when we are not.  kind without a degree of obligation, and loving when we least deserve it. we may not be taken care of in the ways which i would ideally plan. and instead of abundance, it may be just enough to get by. and because of this, i try and quiet the voices that pressure me saying "you have to provide--you have no choice now." i have to do my best, and for that i am accountable. but it's not up to me to be the provider. nor is it up to my husband. the minute we take on that mindset, the power is taken away from God. and when we take that away, we are nothing but frail creatures, thinking that by increasing our income we are more safe, when really, all the added pressure just makes the ground beneath us weaker. we are no safer making $100K a year than we are making $40K a year if we do not place ourselves in God's hands.

that being said, there are certain boundaries that i have always kept, that i will not cross in order to "increase my standard of living." and right now, those are crystal clear to me. i will not sacrifice the basics: God, family, friends, or health. because ultimately, no matter what your values are in life, no matter what you believe, no one at the end of their life is going to say "i wish i'd spent more time climbing the corporate ladder; i wish i'd made more money; i wish i'd gone in on those saturdays when i really needed to. i wish i'd cashed in more vacation days." if they're anything like me (which, i think most people at the end of their life would be surprised at how similar they are) they will say:

"i wish i'd spent more time with the people i loved. i wish i'd spent more time away from the office. i wish i had seen more of the world. i wish i had passed on what i love about life to someone else."

so now, my primary goals as a mom are not to be financially comfortable, to own my own home, or have a thriving business, or any of that. it's to spend time with my family. to not make my children spend too many days counting down the minutes until i'm home. to show them the things that my husband and i love. to teach them to love God and love people. to teach them not to worry, and to spend time outside. to laugh with friends. to take leaps of faith. to go on adventures. to truly love life and be able to pass on the same things to their children.

16 weeks down, 24 to go. we can't wait until you're here, little monks.

hello, second trimester

today i am over 13 weeks and officially in my second trimester. woohoo! i welcome it with open arms and look forward to the time we'll spend together.

what's different so far? my appetite is back. i have eaten eggs (in mixtures) 3 times now. i don't feel sick unless i don't eat. and the exhaustion is wearing away. i met a pregnant girl not long ago who told me her second trimester gave her so much energy that she got 2 more jobs. what?! i can't imagine that, but i'd like a bit of that energy. i still nap some evenings after work. and i'm pretty into hot fudge sundaes.

my tummy looks like it's actually gotten smaller...although part of me thinks the initial pooch was just gas. very real possibility, folks. but maternity pants = awesome. kinda like wearing yoga pants that look like real pants. and no one knows. i'm secretly way more comfortable than i look.

i'm working on learning to sleep on my side (not easy) and trying to eat more fruits and veggies now that i feel like eating. i need to get back on my green smoothie thing.

we also got to hear the heartbeat of our baby for about 5 very faint seconds. the hubs tried to record it on my phone but it didn't work. the doctor said "yeah don't play that for anyone. they're gonna be like 'i don't hear it. you're not even pregnant. stop trying to get out of things.' " he's funny. we like him.

also. the business of being born. watched that. informative. had a minor freak-out. let's just say our "birth plan" is subject to change.

still think it's a boy. everyone around me calls the baby "he." i'm sorry little baby if you are a girl. please don't develop a complex. we love you either way.

an update of sorts

well. there are no updates on the bathroom. mostly it's just empty minus the stripped shower, the toilet, and the washer/dryer. it smells funny, too.

but, it's the least of my worries, currently. want to know why?

we're having a baby!


and we are thrilled! i meant to start a scrapbook of sorts to journal the stages of pregnancy, but that hasn't happened so far (i'm a little over 11 weeks today) for multiple reasons: first of fear. secondly, pregnancy is exhausting--i mostly work and sleep...and try to eat. and also i suppose i just don't realize how quickly this will pass. i will never be pregnant for the first time ever again. 


so here is where i start. but first a recap:


i knew before i peed on the thing that i was pregnant. the way my husband and i found out was not exciting or magical. it actually happened surrounding a big fight. i (like a girl) decided to drop hints about pregnancy just to feel him out. and he (like a guy) made an insensitive remark, and i (like a girl) peed on the thing, and left it on the kitchen table for him to find when he got home. and after we fought and then made up, we got to share in our excitement and he got to tell me how sweaty his palms had been. maybe if i'd been a little more direct and he'd been a little less thick-skulled, we could have watch the very dark "you're preggo" line appear on the stick together. oh well! it's over and now we're just excited.


no, we did not plan our pregnancy. yes, we wanted to wait. we've been married a little over 8 months, we're broke, we don't own our house, we don't have a 4 door car, we don't have stable or well-paying jobs, and we live far from my family (an hour from his though, thank goodness). and the fact that we're newlyweds just compounds all of that (if you're married, you know). 


but, obviously this was planned by God, even if it wasn't planned by us. and even in our fear we are overwhelmed by the support and excitement of our friends. we are accepting the blessing and trying to move forward with some sort of confidence that this will be a major source of joy in our life.


and let me tell you something--no amount of planning can prepare you for the very real emotion of knowing you're responsible for a life. all the other times i've thought i might have been pregnant were wide-eyed and childlike in excitement. but when i actually knew--when i actually felt it in my body--a wave of emotion overcame by body. as i've repeated many times, i remember standing numb in the shower one morning, not able to think any rational thought except for "this is real. it's really happening." 


after that, the first emotion i was able to put together was a shocked sort of gratitude. as a twenty-something female, i am very aware of the fact that it is not always easy to get pregnant. in fact, at my last doctor's visit, my doctor told me that i had a very high chance of having endometriosis and that pregnancy was my best option--not only to slow the process, but to have children while i still could. well, we followed doctor's orders i guess! but i never thought getting pregnant would be so easy. i never thought, that with all the waiting and...well...frankly, having to work very hard for the things want in life, that getting a child would be something God would just hand over to me unexpectedly. i feel undeserving and greatly humbled.


but onto the nitty gritty.


how have i felt? ok. very very tired. sick to my stomach a lot (only threw up once though). early on i really liked french fries. and i totally get the pickles and ice cream thing. not together (ew), but something about the vinegar in pickles eases digestion (which i'm learning is very important in pregnancy), and ice cream just sounds good because it's cold. things i never thought i could hate, like macaroni and cheese, baked potatoes, and coffee--all sound disgusting. coffee smells like old dirt. and i don't even want to think about eggs. i eat multigrain cheerios almost every morning. with blueberries. sweets and fatty foods make me the most ill. i can eat peanut butter all the time, but pb&j's are not a good idea.


about 2 weeks ago i noticed the lower part of my stomach feeling hard. like it did when i exercised a lot and it wasn't as mushy down there! just this past week (so around 10 weeks), i started not fitting in my pants. it happened so fast! one day they fit, the next they didn't. i can still button most, but it's very uncomfortable. i've invested in belly bands, and stretchy waist-band pants. this past weekend my mom came and bought me a lot of maternity clothes. shopping for maternity clothing is not nearly exciting as you'd think. i know the "big" part of me will be my belly, but putting on giant clothes so that i can grow  into them is almost like buying clothes 4 sizes too big and trying to imagine yourself fitting in them. not easy.


this week the nausea has gotten significantly better, but i haven't gotten over just not wanting to eat anything in general. deciding on dinner is not an easy task. if i can convince myself to sit down and eat a well balanced meal, i usually feel better afterwards. i also can't eat as much as i normally could (which was an embarrassing amount--italians have an extra stomach for carbs). i'm probably learning proper portion sizes. 


i've lost 4 lbs so far, but i hear this is not uncommon in the first trimester. once i feel like eating again i should be on track for my weight gain. and just in the past few days my face has started breaking out like a teenager.


and at 11 weeks my baby is the size of a fig! he/she has fingernails and eyelids and can kick and move his/her individual fingers and toes. my mama says when i first start to feel the movements it's like a butterfly in your stomach.


OH, also. my instinct tells me it's a boy, but pregnancy hormones have been known to be irrational, so who knows. i've also, nearly immediately after pregnancy, have had an immense burden on my heart for how much hatred there is in the world. it's very clear that we have 2 jobs while on earth: to love God and love people. and most of us can't even do that. and christians are in the rankings as some of the worst. so many times we rearrange that equation until somehow it equals "love God and love people who share the same beliefs as you." i don't know how to explain to my child how such a simple command is so easily ignored. i can't even log onto facebook without being disgusted at how people can treat each other. i don't know if the weight is preparing me to be a parent in the world we've created, or if somehow this will be a burden my child will also bear. because honestly, until now, it's never really occurred to me, not in such a heavy heart-breaking way. and because of this reason, if our child is a boy, we have the perfect name for him, that arrived to me one emotional morning in panera. i'll share that later on, since everyone that asks seems to have an opinion on how appropriate a certain name is or isn't. sorry--you don't. it's up to me and my husband. and yes, now i totally understand why some parents don't share their name choices until the baby is born and named. 


if there is one thing i want my children to learn while growing up, it's that nothing gives us any excuse not to show love towards other people. no matter what they've done or how they live. against my human nature, i want to do my best not to talk about people in a negative way in front of my children that would cause them to have a negative disposition towards someone different from them. and i'm a firm believer that you're a far better teacher by your actions than what you say you believe. and hopefully by showing them that we still love them even when they screw up, somehow they can understand that God does the same with all of humanity. and that he asks the same of us. easier said than done, that's for dang sure, but we can at least try. as one of my old pastors said, "oh, christianity isn't deep enough for you? you want deep? love your enemy. that's deep!"


and as of now we're not finding out the sex if we can help it. as a family friend put it "there are far too few good surprises left in life." i don't think our baby will care if he/she is wearing the appropriate gender color. but as i've heard, digital imaging is pretty detailed these days so let's hope baby keeps his/her legs together enough not to spoil it for us :)


so here's where we are at week 11. moving onward. hoping God continues to prepare us for the immense task of raising a child in this life. 

demo update

one day and a one-man crew at a time, our bathroom is becoming a semi-usable laundry space. and even still i have to pick pieces of drywall out of the washer before i put a load in. 

these are some photo updates, thanks to my wonderful camera phone

the wall that once separated the bathroom from the linen closet

a close-up of the giant cast-iron pipe in that once-wall that i suppose is going to cause a pretty big lack of options in our space planning

the once-was closet and stack of re-usable wood trim

header above the bathroom doorway, which should be coming down in order to create a more open space. at least, that's what i think is going on so far. i think the plan has changed 10 times, and will continue to change when we uncover things like gigantic unmovable pipes. even if the placement of everything stays exactly where it is, at least it will be getting a facelift!

and in other news, i claimed this beauty (one of a pair of beautiful white marble table lamps) on our last shipment of lamps when it came in at work. i can see them across the showroom from my "desk." even though i got them for a ridiculously low price, i'm waiting for a fat paycheck to bring them home. aren't they great?! perfect for my white/gray/navy bedroom

the new normal

four years ago i moved to pensacola. since then my life has been a constant series of adjustments. at first i hated this place, but now i've adjusted. now it is my home. i'm rooting for the underdog. 

to a certain degree there are many choices we can take that determine our outcome in life, but in the grand scheme of things, we are not even near to being in total control. as proverbs states: a man can plan his course, but the Lord directs his steps. i realize this pretty frequently, perhaps more than most, and at this point i've realized that it's better not to fight it and just adjust. to some it may come across as apathy, but really, i'd just like to avoid anymore worrying than i already do. there's no need to worry about where i'll end up, or when i'm supposed to have kids. God will figure it out. and eventually i'll say "ok, you win. let's see where this adventure takes me."

i'm always discovering my new normal. this is my new normal:

-being a florida resident

-marriage. and all the stuff no one ever told you about it

-a partially demolished master bath

-wondering what in the world my degree means, or if it means anything at all

-retail work schedule

-weekday afternoons at the beach (under a big hat, and usually with a coverup on unless i'm taking a dip because i'm pale and i detest putting on sunscreen)

-working with a bunch of women that are my mom's age...and loving it

-not knowing what my paycheck will be

-(due to the above) days when i am thankful to have a landlord who will hold our rent check for a few days

-the "i wasn't even drunk last night" hangover

-thinking the auburn (or insert football team here) cheerleaders look like babies

-friends with babies. so, so many babies

-being at least 3-6 hours from your family

-realizing that 3-6 hours is a lot further than you thought

whatever it is, or whatever normal looks like for you, it's never what we thought it would be, is it? normal is constantly being redefined. and i'm ok with that. 

what is your new normal?

tiny setback

earlier, when i said the master bath was an early addition, i didn't know how early "early" was. but now i know it was a really early addition. because there are cast iron pipes below this bad boy. meaning the toilet must stay where it is, unless we want to embark on a big nasty (and much costlier) renovation.

back to the drawing boards...