Psalm 45:10-11, 13-15

Listen to me, O royal daughter; take heart to what I say. Forget your people and your homeland far away. For your royal husband delights in your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord. [...] The bride, a princess, waits within her chambers, dressed in a gown woven with gold. In her beautiful robes, she is led to the king, accompanied by her bridesmaids. What a joyful, enthusiastic procession as they enter the king's palace!



Ultimate Blog Party 2009

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Picture by Slack12

"If the great Luther, with his stirring message of justification by faith, had with Paul moved on from Romans 5 to Romans 6 with its amazing declarations concerning the now justified sinner's position of identification with his crucified Lord, would not a stifled Protestantism be on a higher ground today? Might it not be free from its ulcerous fleshiness?"
F. J. Huegel, The Cross of Christ


Monday, August 25, 2008

It's official...

Friday was my last day of work. Woo Hoo!


Now it's on to getting things done, like...
  • Cooking dinner without being rushed. Maybe I'll actually be able to stick to my meal plan!
  • Running errands and no longer counting down how many hours until I have to be at work.
  • Responding to e-mails and phone calls in a timely manner. (Hopefully.)
  • Cleaning on a regular (or semi-regular) basis.
  • Having time to plan and actually accomplish things for the junior high ministry, without having to shove them into my extra hours.
  • Can we say scrapbooking? How about sewing? Oh, yeah.
  • On that note, finishing some sewing projects for the baby and home.
  • Large open spaces of time to work on writing/blogging.
  • And endless hours to spend staring at my baby boy (when he gets here).
Ah, isn't it liberating?

Friday, August 22, 2008

Moving-In

We officially moved in with Joe's dad (Chuck) August 2nd and we're technically out of our apartment August 9th. It was a bit of a crazy time considering the junior high camp was in between those dates, but we did it and survived. Boxes are no longer sitting in the living room and everything we'll need (or at least think we need) for the next year has found a place.

The rest of our stuff went to the garage and attic. The only thing(s) we have left to do are hang blinds/curtains in our rooms, put the crib together, take some stuff to the thrift store/dump, which will (hopefully) make room for our desktop computer to be set-up. Other than that we're moved in! And the other exciting news is that this is my last week of work! WooHoo! So, starting Monday I can find myself a new daily routine until little Joe is born and then we'll see what we routine we get into...

This is what moving-in looked like:









I do have things on the wall in our room now. One day I'll take some pictures and post them. I'm waiting to hang things in the baby's room until we get all the furniture in there and set-up the way we want. When it's done I'll post pictures of that too. Just in case you're wondering (and I don't remember if I've mentioned it) the the colors for Joe's room are yellow and green (like a lime green) and the theme is jungle with an emphasis on the monkeys.

; )

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Baby News - Week 28


It's official. We have entered the third trimester! It's crazy to think that this little boy is going to be here in less than 13 weeks (give or take a few days)! We're so ready to hold him and see his little face and what color hair he's going to have...You see, both Joe and I have brown hair, but there's red hair on both sides of the family, a little black/brown from the Indian side, and Joe and his brothers were all toe-head blond as babies and toddlers. We'll just have to wait and see.

Last Thursday, we had our prenatal visit and I had my test for gestational diabetes. I was a little concerned as to what the results would be, because I have 3 out of 4 risk factors for gestational diabetes (two of which I have no control over: being Indian and having a close relative who had gestational diabetes, the third was a BMI that is too high). I got the results back on Monday and the good news is that my glucose is normal. The bad news? I'm slightly anemic.

This wasn't a complete surprise to us, since I've been having some trouble breathing on occasion (usually in the evenings and at night) and I've had a few instances of sudden fatigue and dizziness. I talked with the midwife and she suggested, besides making sure I'm getting plenty of iron rich foods, to take an iron food supplement. I'm sure it will be quite tasty, but it's better that than not having enough oxygen in my red blood cells.


Other than being anemic, everything's fine. We heard little Joe's heartbeat as usual. He was very active on Thursday and both times the midwife pushed the doppler on my belly he kicked it right back. It was funny. Our next appointment is August 28th, we're far enough along now that we have our appointments every two weeks, and as we get closer to the due date it'll be every week.

The big baby news for this week? We start our birth classes on Friday. We decided to go with The Bradley Method. It seemed the most reasonable and practical, so many classes we found involve hypnosis and/or other new age spiritualism. We'll let you know how it goes!




(Oh, and I'm working on the moving-in posts. I just don't want to bombard you with too many posts in one day. Stay tuned!)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Can you believe it?


We're over half way there! This is week 27 of our pregnancy and next week begins the third trimester! Our little boy was been moving and grooving, shaking and rolling around a lot lately. Sometimes he jiggles around so much I wonder just what he's doing in there!

Today we go for a prenatal appointment and to have my test for gestational diabetes (which I'm kind of nervous about). We'll see how it goes.

(Oh, and I'm planning on posting some moving and camp pictures soon!)

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Notes from My Bible



1 Thessalonians 4:4
...that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable...

vs. 4 --> Body is not just the physical, but mental and emotional. These too need to be conducted in holy and honorable ways.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Do We Know the Poor?




an excerpt from Mother Teresa's Heart of Joy: The Transforming Power of Self-Giving

A few weeks before my trip to the United States, someone came to our house by night and said, "There is a Hindu family with eight children, and they have gone several days without eating." I took a bit of rice and went immediately to their assistance. The mother took the rice from my hands, distributed it into two equal servings, and went out immediately.

When she came back I asked, "Where have you been? What have you been doing?" "They are hungry too," she answered. Right next to them lives a Muslim family with the same number of children. The Hindu mother knew they had been out of food for several days. She did what Jesus does: she broke bread. She broke her love and shared it with her neighbors.

I cannot describe to you the faces of those youngsters. When I went it, I knew they were suffering. I could see their little faces. I could see their eyes shining because of hunger. When I left, their eyes were shining with joy because both the mother and children were able to share their love with others. What impressed me most in that instance was that the woman knew. Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affectation? Where is your elderly father or mother?

One day I visited a house where our sisters shelter the aged. This is one of the nicest houses in England, filled with beautiful and precious things, yet there was not one smile on the faces of those people. All of them were looking toward the door. I asked the sister in charge, "Why are they like that? Why can you not see a smile on their faces?" (I am accustomed to seeing smiles on people's faces. I think a smile generates a smile, just as love generates love.)

The sister answered, "The same thing happens every day. They are always waiting for someone to come and visit them. Loneliness eats them up, and day after day they do not stop looking. Nobody comes." Abandonment is an awful poverty.
On one of our nightly walks through London, I discovered a teenage boy, with long, well-groomed hair. He was sitting, thinking. I said to him, "You shouldn't be here at this time. You should be with your parents. This is not a proper place for you to be at this time and on such a cold night." He stared at me and said, "My mother doesn't want me because I have long hair."

There was no other reason. A young man, a mere teenager, rejected by his own people, by his own mother! I reflected for an instant. "Maybe his mother is concerned about the hungry people in India, in Africa, or in the third world. Maybe she desires to meet the needs of all except her son. She doesn't know that poverty, hunger, exists in her own house. It is she who provokes such hunger."

That's why I ask: "Do we know our poor people? Do we know how poor we ourselves are?"

A nation that destroys the life of an unborn child, who has been created for living and loving, who has been created in the image of God, is in a tremendous poverty. For a child to be destroyed because of selfishness of those who fear they may not be able to feed one more child, fear they may not be able to educate one more child and so decide that the child has to die--that's poverty.






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