A Nearly 1 Year Lapse

It has been almost year and I find myself missing this mostly quiet corner of the interwebs, and I am toying with the idea of coming back... how often, I don't know, but I think I am going to aim small so that I don't easily become overwhelmed and attempt to post at least once a week. Doable? Maybe.

A brief catch up, Lucy turned two this summer. I am not sure how that happened, but apparently time is flying by. Lucy is still on the small side, fierce, full of life, and has caught the love of Disney {which makes my heart sing}. She loves: Little People, books, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, being outside, playing with her puppy, and being with friends and family. While I enjoyed the baby stage {who doesn't love the smell of a sweet baby and the nearly never ending snuggles} I am truly LOVING this stage of independence, even though there are days when it drives me nearly crazy. I love that Luc is developing a personality and has opinions about certain things. It now takes us 12 times as long to do nearly every thing because Luc wants to try and do it herself.
  In the midst of the past year I also discovered {in a bit of a surprise to us} that Baby #2 will be making an appearance {hopefully} in early December 2016 and not sooner. Let the chaos expand. Shortly after Lucy turned 1 we began the process to foster to adopt with our county and have had the opportunity to have a few kids in our home over the course of the last six months for differing time periods, anything from 24 hours to a week at a time. We aren't sure what exactly will happen there, time will tell.

Other than that I still find myself: crocheting, addicted to shutterfly, taking more photos of my daughter and golden retriever than I can even admit, working full time, and enjoying life. Of course there are still the days filled with: laundry, spilled milk, cleaning the house, and other misc. chores. Here's to more faithful updates on the blog and thanks for bearing with me in my absence {if anyone is still around}.

How are you?
What is up with you?

Uncertainty abounds....

Never in my life have I felt more uncertain about what I am doing. SERIOUSLY.

Just the other day after several run ins with church ladies (they are a breed of their own, granted a beloved breed, which you have to love and adore, not to mention I am fairly certain the world is upheld on the prayers of church ladies - yes, there are some theological holes in that argument but bear with me and it's my blog so I can say as I want) telling me what day they were having a baby shower for us (for which I am REALLY thankful since I have bought hardly anything for said baby and we have been focusing on our basement) and having to barter back and forth to get them to realize that if I am not in town (out on a mission trip, on an overnight retreat with kids, or at camp for the week) I cannot attend a baby shower, even if it is my own - they have set a date that will work for a shower. ANNNDDD they gave us a deadline to go register for baby.

Soooo Marc and I walked into the store to just begin to look around - I have been doing a little (emphasis on the word little) research on baby gear/stuff/whatnot and I have some AMAZING friends (seriously, I feel bad for the rest of the world because you all don't have my friends) who have been more than willing to offer advice. So we walked in, we signed up to get a registry (which was quite the fiasco when the system went down and that there already is someone with my exact name registered who is not me and the system taking two of the same name and blah blah blah), they handed us the magical wish list gun (which worked part of the time at best) and we were off - to go walk isle by isle through the baby stuff - semi hoping we wouldn't run into anyone we knew as we were debating what on God's green earth we were suppose to be scanning.

My husband and I found ourselves in two separate places, Marc, loved to scan things - because it was fun. I found myself wrestling with questions like:

• Why do babies need so much stuff?
• Do we REALLY need this?
• Yes, I know some things will in fact be nice to have
• Yes, I know we do need some things
• Does EVERYTHING have to make noise?
• Really I want a huge collection of books for baby
• I want toys that don't have to be plugged in or require 18 size D batteries
• Why is everything pink or blue?
• Do people realize there are billions of colors out there - everything baby related doesn't have to be pink or blue?
• Why do girls only get pink?
• Why do boys only get blue?
• Why always pastels?
• Why is anything that is semi neutral colored yellow and covered in ducks?
• Generations have survived without some of these things - why are they all of a sudden necessary?
• How can I further purge stuff we have in our house because apparently our kid is going to have a ton of stuff? 
• Remind myself never to move again
• Also remind me to clean out and purge stuff as we no longer need them
• Yes, I know I can't get rid of stuff right away (there maybe other children down the road - no promises on birthing them myself but we could adopt - or I could forget how awful I have felt 99% of the time I have been pregnant)

The list went on and on and on. I also found myself more and more thankful for the generations of people before me who survived and managed to keep babies alive despite millions of recalls on products (we were looking up stuff online as we were standing in the store - the internet can be a black hole of information as to what is best). I was thankful for the group of people who are already showering our baby with love and prayers and who are anxious for baby to arrive so that they can hold baby, love on baby, and accompany baby (and Marc and I) through this new path we are on.

We know we still need to edit our list some. The scanner went crappy and we were overwhelmed and drove down the street to get ice cream before heading home. We know there are things on there we can probably take off as soon as we confirm that we are getting a couple things handed down to us (we don't need everything new). We know there are probably things we should add that we just didn't think of - we will get to it, in time.

For now, we are overwhelmed at best. I seriously sent this text to my mother "I have never felt more unprepared or uncertain of what the heck I am doing then while we were just registering for baby stuff and we had no clue where to start or what we will need" as we pulled out of the store. It was true in that moment. Since then, I have calmed down a bit, still totally freaked out and jazzed beyond my wildest imagination - According to the app on my phone - today marks 93 days until baby's due date (yes, I realize it could be earlier than that or it could be weeks later - however, we are 93 days until due date). Also I included a picture of our ridiculously happy puppy who has no clue what is about to rock her world. She always will be my first baby.

Pregnancy

I figured after dropping the news in the last post that I am pregnant I should probably do a bit of an update. Baby Marshall is technically due on August 7, 2014, however I am not holding my breath that baby will actually agree, my fear is it will be the world's hottest summer on record and baby will hold out until an eviction notice is given and baby is forced out of the womb. Bring on the ice cream and the lake.

We found out we were pregnant back in December, actually on the same day that we closed on our new house. It was quite the surprise to us and not at all like we had planned, I feel like this is how these types of things generally work out. We are jazzed for sure.

A selfish downfall is my race schedule is pretty much non-existent for a while with baby coming in August. I still plan on running a couple 5ks but no halfs or even 10ks are on my calendar, which saddens me. I am not really certain I can bank on being able to run all that well this summer so attempting to do something more than a fun 5k sounds awful. Not to mention the treadmill makes me sick, literally. However, I have been swimming a TON of miles. New problem, maternity swim suits that are geared towards lap swimming rather than having your stomach hang out, they are few and far between and generally cost way more than I actually want to spend. Next year, I will be back running for sure. I have convinced Marc to run the Tower of Terror ten miler with me down in Disney world, not this October, but the following (yes, this seems ridiculously far off in the distance, however, I want a fun race on the calendar. I imagine registration will open up in February or so for the race). My parents, who took no arm twisting, agreed to come along on the trip so that someone can hang out with baby while we run.

I will also hopefully have Fargo 2015 under my belt (no commitment to distance yet, perhaps the 10k) and some fun summer runs. This summer is shot. Something about being seven through nine months pregnant and running sounds horrible.

I have been feeling less than ideal to put it mildy. Whoever named it morning sickness was lucky, I would have referred to it as all day and every day sickness and still going strong at this point (Yes, I am well aware it dies off for most people at 12 weeks, I am just extra "lucky" or something. No, the drugs don't do anything for it.) It sucks. I puke more than I care to admit and am at the point that I look at food and think "do I want to puke that back up" before eating it. Ridiculous.

We are excited for August for sure.
Bring on the world's hottest summer (which after this winter is next to impossible to imagine).


Any fun or exciting news in your world?
Life throwing you any curve balls lately?

Welcoming a new decade

Today I enter a new decade of life. Good bye 20s and hello 30s.

My 20s were great. The highlight reel:

• I earned my bachelor's degree
• I earned my masters of divinity
• I was ordained
• I took my first call to full time ministry
• I got married
• I traveled the globe
• met amazing people and heard their stories
• smelled and tasted things beyond my wildest imagination
• took thousands upon thousands (literally) of photographs
• I learned more about myself 
• I ran my first half marathon (and have continued to run them)
• I bought 2 houses and sold 1
• I got my a golden retriever, Dakota
• I got pregnant (yep, you read that right, Baby Marshall is arriving early August 2014)
  

Hopes and Dreams for my 30s: (in no particular order)

• deliver a baby (eeeeeek)
• raise a wonderful child who lives to love and serve God
• Travel the globe
• payoff Marc's student loans
• finish the basement of our house
• go on a sabbatical (after 7 years in ministry at my current ministry site I am allowed a 3 month sabbatical)
• continue to run half marathons
• and other races - and place in the top 3 of my age bracket for some race (yes it can be a small race) - now that I am out of the 18-29 age bracket (seriously, how is that age bracket fair to those of us in the upper part of that bracket) it seems like this goal may actually be do able
• Grow in my photography skills 
• also in my photoshop/lightroom abilities
• live in the moment more often
• and live simply
•  keep up on my shutterfly books - I love looking through them when they are finished 
• read lots and lots of books
• crochet beautiful things

This list is only the beginning, as life always goes, we have NO CLUE what we are doing. However, I look forward to the years to come, good-bye twenties, you were good to me for sure. Hello, thirties, bring on the adventures.

"O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (ELW pg 304)