Time after time

As of late, I am trying to be a more optimistic person. How is it going, you ask? How much time do you have?

So, I woke up this morning determined to take care of financial aid for the classes I have to take throughout the next year-and-a-half. I see the award money right in front of me (in standard form on the computer screen. FSU decided to show me something I am not eligible to receive. I have to be seeking a degree, the young voice said into the receiver. Oh....

Do I want another degree? I just don't know. To get one in education means I am going to be in the industry for the long hull. My lack of excitement and chilly bumps and energy that comes from this revelation worries me.

Does God want me to be a teacher (gulp) forever? Am I strong enough? Passionate enough? Faithful enough?

And what about writing books that interest struggling readers, helping organizations in need market their awesome cause, making movies that inspire people to do more than want, want, want - other sights I believe God has affectionately before me?

"Wait, wait, wait," I say to myself. "Waiting on the Lord," says my friend Evie's Facebook status to me. These are all questions I really, really have to bring to prayer, for more than just a minute every few days...

So I gather myself. I move forward, on to something new.

One book gathering dust on my nightstand is a GRE Vocabulary Flashcard Book. Long ago, after studying the first 10 A words over and over again, three this night, one the next and so on, I recognized that studying in bed is ineffective, but I never moved the book. Until today. The dining room table became my desk. Notebook and pen in hand, I began to write the GRE word and its synonyms on pages labeled NOUN, VERB and ADJECTIVE. On and on I went, sad I didn't remember them from osmosis sometime last year but entertained by the
easy assignment I had given myself.

Then, I recalled what I read in my current professional development book about vocabulary retention. Assigning more than 5-8 words at a time, especially when they aren't being used in every day language, is an ineffective model that students with appreciate for the continuity and ease of completion, but not learn a dang thing from. Oh. Right. I was at 20-something words. Sure enough, I had to re-read many of the terms multiple times for understanding.

Staying positive, I did not give up. Instead, I constructed a few complex little paragraphs about a simple boy's sweet tooth. Looking it over, I smiled, for I had used all 20-something words creatively and even thought about making these little stories for all the words, illustrating them and publishing them to the Web to help other folk who can't afford Kaplan courses -

Gasp! "Hold on Kim," I say to myself. "Again, too ambitious a whim," my close friends would say to me. These would be nice, but unrealistic, for my cartooning skills are only fair and my technology know-how is fairly weak. If this is really, really to happen, it will come to me in prayer, for more than a minute, every few days...

So I gather myself. I move forward, on to something new.

Sweet tooth. Hunger! That's it! Pregnant me just be hungry, which is making me emotional and loony, so it is time for my two-hour treat. What will I eat? No sugar, no, or else I will lose my enthusiasm to the dentist appointment I have been meaning to make, but haven't, because I don't know where my dental insurance information disappeared to. My mind drifts to the cinnamon sugar Auntie Anne's Pretzel I shared with a girlfriend yesterday. No! I will eat lunch, since it is just a little earlier than lunchtime.

As I heat up leftover casserole (the only food I enjoy eating as a leftover) I decide to make some pretzels for myself and a dinner date James and I have tonight. Offering food, gifts, compliments and other happinesses to people always keeps my chin up. So, I put all the ingredients together in a glorious gadget, a bread maker. Won't take long right?

Cripes! 90 minutes?! Recipe books should post the time it takes, just as universities should allow anyone who qualifies for financial aid to be eligible to receive it! Well, I kill some flies, play with the dog, try decoding the city's Metro Ride Guide....before I know it - beepbeepbeep!

I take the dough out of the pan and it sticks to my hand. I did not know, nor was I told, that even pretzel dough has two kneading cycles. The dough, which has now be punctured and scraped, falls back into the pan, where I learn it will rest for another 90 minutes, after I dig through to find the metal kneader and press start.

"Please God," I say out loud, "Don't let this seemingly simple task, too, fall apart!" My hands fall to my sides, helpless and my tear ducts begin to open.

I can't gather myself. I can't move on again to fail. So I will try nothing new... but what then will I do next to pass the day?

Of course, all along this few-hour journey that seemed WAY too tasking, annoying even, I failed to see that God's doors have been open all along, waiting for the magic word, "Yes."

Yes, Lord, I will wait on you, as your servant.

Loving Creator, forgive me for twisting the meaning of waiting on with waiting for. You have no intention to be a puppeteer who moves us through the doors of prayer, hope and virtue. Nor will you come to us who have yet to accept the invitation. We must be willing to get there ourselves - I must be willing - whether on tiptoes, a giant leap or both.

Here I am, Good Shepard, packing on the prayers I "need" to say, even trying to tell myself what I "need" to hear from you, but embracing not this time I have to spend with You in the comfort of my home, in the intimacy of ME time. Help me to drop everything and enter prayer (DEEP - oooh, and thanks for the new acronym for my students) each moment I think of prayer, rather than sticking it on a nightstand with the intention of sharing it later, for You are worth everything! Your smile is the very optimism I seek!

Thanks be to You, Divine Truth, for building my integrity (What and who AM i going to be as I continue to grow up), for igniting my imagination (elitist vocabulary brought down to earth in comic-strip stories) and for sticking with me (like premature pretzel dough) through these grossly trivial matters of today, and those sure to arise tomorrow.

Oh, the infinite ways You enable us to recover from hardship and know love! Gosh, I haven't yet a clue!

And so, here I rest, ungathered, unmoved,but once again, all new....

What a morning

And it's only 9 am. So last week I finally got some new running shoes and decided, well, might as well start using them. I went for a short run on Saturday and that went well. So this morning I woke up at 6:15 and stretched and such until about 6:30. Got all my running gear on and headed out the door. I'm doing a program to "Finish a 5k" so I will be working up to running a little over 3 miles. My first run had me run for 10 minutes at about half speed, and then walk for 2 minutes, and do that 3 times. So yes, I can for 30 minutes this morning, and stupidly I picked a lot of hills, which is making my legs shake at the moment. I was able to get through it and finish, and get to work on time, so things went fairly well.
As far as the rest of the week goes, I'll go for a swim tomorrow, another run on Wednesday, another swim on Thursday, "off" on Friday, so I'll probably do some yogo, then a run on Sat and Sun. I will also be starting to keep a better food journal, so that I can realize how much junk I eat and that I don't really need, and hopefully figure out how to keep some calorie intake down, and increase my calorie output, so as to lose the weight I'm supposed to be losing. Anyhoot, time to get crackin on work. Have fun ya'll!

Photo ops

Just want to put up some photos from the 4th and some from last night. Sundae was pooped from swimming for about an hour and was just so stinkin cute.

Logan and Jules. He's getting so big.

Logan preparing for his first birthday cake

Logan with Nama and Pawpaw

So stinkin cute

Super pooped

Cuddling with mommy

Well I suppose that's enough photos for now. I got new running shoes, so my running training will begin starting either tonight or tomorrow morning (depends on if it's raining). Somewhat apprehensive, but ready to get back on the running horse. Haven't swam since my previous post, but that will get under way again too. I had an off week, but now I'm ready to go again.

Poor Sundae

Sundae feels like poo now and it's because of me. Why?

1. Because she has such good walks this morning and was behaving, I put her first taste of applesauce in her dish - about 1 tsp. No sugar added and organic, but perhaps still too sweet than she is used to.

2. When we went outside to play sticks, one of the sticks I threw appeared to hit her in the head/face somewhere. She immediately went into gag reflex. No blood or markings were visible, but she has had occasional gag reflex for the last 30 minutes now. Boo!

Bottom lines: I need to stop giving Sundae people food. Rats!
I need to learn to throw better. Lucky James!
Sundae needs a couple of prayers this morning so she feels better. Gracias!
My love for our "goober" is bigger than I thought. Sigh :)

Have a wonderful, happy Friday!

You Know You Are Pregnant When...

... you are at a clothing store and get excited about finding something cute AND elastic waist-banded.

...you frequently remind Husband to take advantage of the meal decision when you has no craving.

...you swear the temperature changes 20 degrees in a matter of seconds and Husband looks at you like you are nuts when you say it is too hot in the house.

...the idea of additional fake liquid butter on popcorn at the movie theater sounds wretched.

... you want to ask every pregnant woman you see how far along she is. You know you are newly pregnant when you resist, fearing you may offend someone who isn't really pregnant.

...you can't eat beans because that is the latest reference everyone, including you, are using for your baby.

... you enjoy the bland taste of plain cheerios any time of day and consider writing the CEO of the cereal company about help in paying for the next five years of $4 boxes because the Costco value sizes go stale too quickly.

Our little Kidney Bean

8 Weeks and Counting!

Kim signing on for the first time with exciting news that our precious gift was seen for the first time today by James and I and our doc.

I have known Dr. Dixon for a while now and greeted him this morning with a, "Hi Stranger!" He excitedly introduced himself to the proud father of what he called our lima bean. James says he is really cool. Down-to-earth and straightforward, I know Dr. Dixon will do his best to make our journey special and comfortable.

So, back to the baby. The estimated date of delivery (EDD) was confirmed for February 14. I'd rather not label the day according to its holiday, because it makes me think of pink, red, purple and all things girly, and this is not exactly how we envision welcoming a handsome fella' into the world if you know what I mean. Of course, it will be impossible to know the gender until 18-20 weeks, and we certainly aren't favoring one gender over another. We simply want a healthy child.

Hearing and seeing the heartbeat was a lot of fun. Golly, does it move fast or what!!! I haven't smiled so big in a long time. James' face was the best - such love in his eyes. Also, it was surprisingly easy to make out the head and arms in the picture. Extra gladness swept through me in knowing that the size of the body does eventually catch up to the head, which is ginormous right now. As the brain develops a lot this week, wish me luck in eating a lot of good brain food.

All in all the visit went well. Dr. Dixon said not to be concerned with gaining or losing weight right now because I am a healthy person. He was glad to hear I was able to stomach skim milk with cereal this morning (and I was ecstatic because I couldn't imagine being lactose intolerant for 9 or more months!). As for an ant bite I received over the weekend that swelled up larger than a golf ball, he decided it was in our best interest to prescribe an antibiotic. It won't affect the baby and without it I risk greater infection, which could affect the baby. Luckily, it's a small capsule. For those of you who know I have had foot pain for the last 5 or so days, Dr. Dixon also cancelled out the possibility of a clot. He says it is likely a bone or ligament injury. Unfortunately, no antinflamatories are possible. So, we will monitor it and if the pain worsens or persists, may look into a perfectly safe steroid shot.

Our next appointment is the first week of August with my second-choice doctor since Dr. Dixon is on vacation. I am very happy about this as well, since I would like to meet any doctors who may be on call during my labor prior to the pain and pushing.

Next up on the mom-to-be to-do list is scheduling a dental cleaning and exam. Wish me luck - the offices are really hard to get into here. Scheduling an appointment for sometime in the second trimester shouldn't be too tough, but it is still nerveracking because I know healthy teeth and gums are VERY important. I also will be needing new eye glasses or at least new lenses, since my perscription has changed and the fatigue has made contacts less desireable (more work).

Well, James and I need to run to the store for my weekly Ginger Ale run (and new pumpkin pie craving). We will try to find a way to upload our sonogram pictures soon.

Thanks for tuning in! We love and miss you all!!!!

SUCCESS!!!

FINALLY!!! EVERYTHING WORKED TODAY! Why today and not yesterday? Well, let's just say I had some more stomach problems and uh ya.. hopefully you can get the picture. I wake up, hit the snooze and do my in-bed morning stretches (curl, uncurl, close my eyes, get stepped on by Sundae, get licked by Sundae, push her off the bed, curl, etc) and then the alarm goes off again and I try to wake up. Luckily Kim was waking up at the same time and Sundae was ready to go do her thing, so that got me up and going. Start eating my energy bar, hit the bathroom, get my suit on, fill up my water bottle, make sure both pair of goggles don't break, and BAM.. no I didn't run into the door (whew). I got to the pool and oh man that was awesome! Nice warm up, did a 400 IM KDDS, 3 sets of 4 50's (Fly/Free, Back/Free, Breast/Free, Free) on the minute (yes that's ridiculously slow, but I didn't want to completely die on my first practice) and then did a 100 IM "fast"ish. Short cool down and got out. About a mile of swimming in 40 minutes. I was pretty stinking proud of myself. Got home and just about collapsed, but in a good way. Took a long shower, got dressed and hit hte door for work. Now, I know this will probably make Kim mad, but I went to Chik Fil A and got a Chicken Biscuit and Dr. Pepper because I knew I'd be dragging all day if I didn't have something. It's already working and although my eyes are ready to be closed for a good 2.5 hrs, not gonna let em (well I can't really, I have support group and batteries to change, not to mention all the other stuff to do).

So yay!! Hah, I have to mention Kim and I's adventure from last night. So as we're going to have a baby and trying to buy a house (I'll let ya know how that turns out, obviously) we've been saving money, and money we have saved! I've never had so much money in a Savings account before in my life (pretty cool feeling)! So in this money saving mode, we have cut out a lot of things, mostly buying stuff we don't need (clothes, shoes, movies, etc) and been staying in the house doing nothing. Well that's gotten to be really boring so we decided, ok let's go do something. Then we remember BINGO! So we ate some food, went to the bingo hall and as soon as I turned in I thought "I just aged 10 years" but it was ok. We walk up to get some supplies and the lady is like "We JUST cashed out." BUMMER, "We'll come back next week" So with that idea shot, the mall is right around the corner, do we dare tempt ourselves? Why not, we need the exercise. So we walk and find stuff we want, but somehow still have the will power to not purchase. As we leave a store Kim realizes "I don't have my phone." (Does "pregnancy brain" start this early?" So we back track go to one store, go to another, go to another, nothing. Walk to the car to see if it was there, nope. Walk back in, start asking people, nothing. Back to some more, ask, maybe there was a phone turned in. They check.............. HOT DOG!! (all that in about a 2 hour time span). So needless to say, we got our exercise for the day. And that should do it, HAVE FUN YA'LL!!