Hmm...

The other day I was bragging to a friend how stable my emotions have been during pregnancy. Generally my emotions have always been stable, but since being pregnant they are even more so. I was explaining this to my friend and I told her I had only cried once since being pregnant.

Then out of the blue, for some random reason, my emotions went off the charts crazy yesterday. I was teasing Luke about something. It wasn’t really that funny and I knew it wasn’t and Luke was getting annoyed and told me what I already knew: That it wasn’t funny. Something just plain broke inside me. Him telling me that my teasing wasn’t funny suddenly meant:

1.       He didn’t love me anymore

2.       He didn’t love our baby

3.       He thought I looked ugly

4.       He thought I was fat

5.       He didn’t want to be near me

6.       He was unhappy with me.

7.       He was going to leave me

I sobbed, sobbed, and sobbed. In fact, I fell asleep sobbing while Luke played with my hair and sang to me. I think I more than made up for all those months of stable emotions!  All I can say is:

PREGNANCY IS WEIRD!

Thought Process (or lack of one)

Am I irrational? I like to think I'm just extra practical, but after an "episode" last night of Kimi in the Kitchen Trying to Cook (the title of my new TV show) I may after to re-think my practicalismness. It started out innocently enough. For weeks I have been dreaming about the evening where I could cook for dinner a recipe I have been dying to try since before I met my husband. I read, re-read the recipe and then looked up similar recipes to make sure I indeed had picked out the best one. I planned my shopping trip, wrote out my grocery list, and tackled the grocery store.

Parmesan cheese. Check

2 packets of 3oz cream cheese. Check. Oh wait, instead of getting 2, 3oz packets I grabbed 1, 6oz packet

Fresh Parsley. Check.

Chocolate. No Kimi, you don't need chocolate. Yes I do, no you don't. Dark chocolate is good for you. You're just saying that to justify it….check.

I'm home now; excited and ready to dive into my awesome recipe. Oh wait…*Groan* leftovers. Pastor Steve said not to throw away food. Fine, we'll have my delicious recipe tomorrow. Oh wait, tomorrow is dinner with my family and the next day is dinner with Luke's family. Monday night. We'll have my delicious recipe Monday night. The ingredients will keep until then. They better keep until then. I better clean out the fridge soon. I'll do that after the dishes. No, I'm going to wake up Luke and see if he will run with me. Oh, laundry. I need to fold some laundry. Oh! I'll go through my closet and pick out clothes for the church garage sale. Later that evening Luke found me with a half cleaned-out fridge, half-finished dishes, clean laundry everywhere, and piles of clothes and knick-knacks to give away.

Monday. It's Monday! Delicious recipe day! Luke calls. Oh…his friends are coming over tonight. He is making nachos for them. I should just make all of them my delicious recipe. Probably don't have enough for all of them. Fine I'll wait until Tuesday. Yum, nachos sound good.

Tuesday. Finally! The day has arrived. Work is over. I'm in the kitchen. It's only 4:30. Oh well, I'm going to start cooking! Okay, here we go. Melt butter and stir in two cups of heavy whipping cream. All-righty! Whipping cream. Whipping cream? Where is the whipping cream? There it is! Wait, what? It's almost empty?! Who drank all the whipping cream? Luke! I bet Luke drank it all.

It never occurred to me that Luke had never before drunk a whole carton of whipping cream on his own.

Luke, Luke, Luke! Wake up! Did you drink all the whipping cream? You didn't? Yes you did, it's all gone. You've only been sleeping four hours? Oh, sorry, but I need to know did you drink all the whipping cream? Wait, why did you go to bed so late? Okay I'll shut the door behind me. Sorry.

Milk is just like whipping cream. Milk will do just fine. It will be the low fat version of the recipe. Ramona cheese is next. Wait, Ramona cheese?? I didn't buy any Ramona cheese? How could I have missed that? I'll just double the parmesan cheese and call it good. Two egg yolks. I love separating egg yolks. This is so strange I don't remember egg yolks being in the same recipe. Oh…um, what recipe is this? Darn, I'm doing it again, using the wrong recipe. Oh well, I'm sure it's similar and I can salvage it. There, there is the correct one. Oh…..this one doesn't call for whipping cream. So I never bought whipping cream and that little bit in the fridge was from a long time ago. I'll have to apologize to Luke later. Ok, what's next? Cream cheese! I love cream cheese. I think Luke likes it to. Okay two packets of cream cheese. What?! There is only one packet here. I KNOW I bought two packets. Where is the second packet? I'll pull everything out. I know it's here. Argh! It's not here. Ah-ha! I bet Luke's friends ate the 2^nd packet of cream cheese. That's where it went. Good grief!

It never occurred to me that his friends have never done that before and would have no reason to eat a whole package of cream cheese in one evening.

Luke, Luke, Luke! Wake up! Did your friends eat the cream cheese? No? Did you? I know they did. Where is it? I bet they have it. Oh, sorry. You're still trying to sleep? I need to know where the cream cheese is! Okay, I'll shut the door quietly. Good night.

Cream cheese, where is that cream cheese? The recipe calls for two packets so I KNOW I bought two packets…um, wait. 2, 3oz packets. Right. I bought 1, 6oz packet. Thank goodness! That was a close one. Oh, I should probably apologize to Luke…

Coffee 101

"Luke, how do you make a pot of coffee?"

Note: I knew perfectly well how to make a pot of coffee, but I was feigning ignorance so he would make it for me and well, he saw right through that.

With a smile Luke gave me my first coffee lesson:

"First you take your sassy,
you put your arms around her,

look at her cute, little freckles,

tell her how cute she is,

you kiss her nose,

and then you make her coffee"

Thanks for the coffee lesson sweetheart. Now I know why it always tastes better when you make it!

Reason #23 Why I Love Him So

Crowded Gym, sweaty bodies, loud grunting sounds coming from the free-weights section, music with a rhythm to keep us going, long line at the drinking fountain, my husband in the center of it all. Women. Beautiful, tanned, toned, strong women in hot yoga pants with tight tank tops. Agonized I turn to him knowing I don't look like that. He is staring straight at me from the opposite end of the room. He slowly lefts his right hand and points his index and middle finger toward his eyes and then extends his arm and points his fingers right at me. Satisfied, content, and full of appreciation and awe I continue my workout. I know exactly what his signal meant.

He has eyes only for me.

Oh, the Knowledge

Yesterday evening Luke took me on a date to Bayou on the Bay. It was our first Creole cuisine experience together and Bayou will definitely be seeing us again. Not only is the restaurant in the heart of downtown Bellingham which always makes a fun environment, but they really captured the Southern/French atmosphere. I could easily picture us eating out in New Orleans, Mobile, Guthrie, and so on rather than Bellingham in Northwest Washington. During dinner which consisted of Alligator, crawfish, prawns, fried potatoes, vegetables, rice, seared tuna, and cornbread I started listing off to Luke the new experiences I have been through because of him and the things that he has taught me. Here is my list, not a complete list, but the list I came up with over dinner:


Luke has taught me to:

• Drive a stick shift
• Grill a steak
• Ballroom dance
• Sing "O Holy Night" on key
• Barter with street vendors
• Bench press
• Stand up to sleazy men
• Shoot an assault rifle
• Mix drinks
• Replace car brakes (saves a couple $100)
• Change the oil in my car
• Buzz heads
• Wakeboard
• Play video games
• Make the perfect gravy for biscuits and gravy
• Gourmet cook
• Tell the difference between quality furniture and cheap furniture (he takes everything apart right there in the store!)
• Play poker
• Never give up
• Chill out
• Sit still

Luke has given me an Appreciation for:

• Hockey
• Fine Wine
• Any and all types of Seafood (minus oysters)
• History
• Fancy clothes
• Muse (music band)
• Opera
• B&B's
• Watching movies not in fast forward mode
• Filmmaking

Luke has inspired me to:

• Become the best cook EVER
• Pray more
• Whine less
• Be content no matter what
• Run a marathon (or ½)
• Be spontaneous (Luke is very spontaneous)
• Give up my pettiness
• Eat healthy
• Trust God more
• Stay calm in the midst of strife
• Not take it personally

Like I said, this is what I came up with over dinner. I'm sure there is more, but this is a good start.

My Small Part

For my future children…


Background
 Apart from God and my family I love my church most. Most people ask themselves "Is it Friday yet"? I always ask "Is it Sunday yet"? Perhaps this is because more than half of my growing up years was spent as a pastor's daughter. As a pastor's daughter I would attend church regularly. There was Sunday school, Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service and prayer meeting on Wednesdays. I loved it all. At first I loved it because it meant seeing friends and getting to color and sing songs, but as maturity set it and my faith became my own I fell in love with the teaching and learning aspect of church. I still remember the first Sunday when I actually sat still and listened to the sermon. I was about seven and that morning I told myself I was not going to fall asleep, but I was going to listen to Daddy preach. I was hooked from there on out. J

Service
You hear about service allot these days in the church - Having a servant's heart, a servant's mindset, putting yourself last and other's first. I love this dynamic about God's people in His church. I was never one to quickly volunteer. My sister Kristi always took care of that. When we were kids and the grownups were in a church business meeting, Kristi would rally as many of her friends as she could and go tackle cleaning the church basement. What would I be doing? Drawing on the chalkboard or playing tag with the boys. Service was her thing finding a husband while playing tag was mine. As I grew older I gave myself the excuses that there weren't any service opportunities in the church, I wasn't good at anything, and no one needed me. However, I couldn't get over the fact that the Bible clearly says we are to serve one another. So little by little I started stepping out. Once I stepped out of my selfish and self-centered bubble I was shocked by how many places there where to serve. There was Nursery, cookies for Fellowship Crossing, Meals Ministry, Neighborhood Outreach, Greeter for Titus Two and so many more. As I started off slowly with these simple tasks I realized my love for my church was growing. Serving others and forgetting about me has brought such joy to my life. 99% of the time service acts go unnoticed. But if I were doing them just to be noticed that would cancel the point of doing them. Recently I was given the opportunity to be in charge of door prizes for a church function. I know I can't sing, I know I can't bake half as well as others, I know I'm awful at decorating, but I sure as heck can come up with random questions and cute prizes!
Don't ever give yourself reasons not to serve. Don't try to justify it like I did for too long. If you think there are no service opportunities, you're wrong. Look harder and step further out of your bubble. Christians serve one another. It's as simple as that.


Galatians 6:10 "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith."

Catch-up

The wedding blog post will have to be postponed for a little while. My computer which holds all my wedding pictures is slowly dying. We have to twist the charger just right and then hold it in place while we use it. It's pretty inconvenient having to type one-handed! That little laptop has seen me through high school and college and the fact that it was a gift from my employer helps me not to be upset that it is in its final stages. Eventually we will have a new computer and then I will blog about our wedding day.
I guess you can call this post a "catch-up post", a rundown on what we're up too and where life is taking us. First let me say that I am in love with being in love. Growing up I would hear grownups talking or read books about "hitting the wall" in your marriage. According to these sources "hitting the wall" is supposed to take place shortly after your honeymoon. I can honestly say that I have no idea what they were talking about. On my wedding day I couldn't imagine being more in love with Luke, and then the months started to go by and my love for him kept growing. We hit our first year anniversary and it was stronger still and now here we are. Hardly past the newlywed phase, I know, but it still keeps growing stronger. Sometimes I'll ponder how this can be possible with a girl like me in the marriage. For those of you who know me well, you know that I have a quick temper, an even quicker tongue, feelings that are easily hurt, and a tendency to be lazy. My emotions can be up and down, I "must" have my way, and selfishness is my constant enemy. So how does this add up?
Simple: Lots of grace, lots of forgiveness, and lots of chocolate chip cookies on both our parts.
A huge blessing that happened since my last blog post is that Luke received a promotion at work. The best part of that promotion was the fact he was able to work day shift for four whole months! Oh what a vacation that was! During those four months, our condo wasn't the cleanest, our laundry not always folded, and dinner was often toast with peanut butter. That's because we were having so much fun being on the same schedule for the first time in our lives. As soon as work was finished we would be out and about and all over the county. Our date budget probably tripled during that time, but at least we saved on our grocery and energy bill! Luke is now finishing up three months of swing shift. I was dreading swing shift with all that was in me, but surprisingly, it is not half bad. I'm able to accomplish so much in the afternoons when I'm off work and I simply stay up until Luke get's off. I average about 5 ½ to 6 hours of sleep a night and believe it or not, but I haven't gotten tired…yet. On swing shift, our condo is definitely at its cleanest and our budgets have been lowered because I have the time to carefully plan meals around coupons and specials. Soon though Luke will be back to night shift and I can't quite remember the exact pros and cons of night shift, but I'll soon find out.

 
So this post wasn't exactly the catch-up or rundown post I was hoping it would be, but it's a start. One of my resolutions is to post more on my blog. Since I don't keep a journal, this blog is the only source my (in-the-future) six or seven children will have to read. So really, this blog is for my sons and daughters and I will try to keep up on it for them.