Deeper Thoughts

My mom had the privilege to go back to the town I graduated high school in this week and visit with some friends while my Dad was up in that area at church camp.  She stayed with a very dear family friend of ours whose family is a bit eccentric . . . and who heavily rely on her.  Her oldest grandchild graduated from high school last year.  She has a lot of anger although we're not really sure why.  Everyone has been afraid for years that she'd end up pregnant . . . and sure enough . . .
I asked my mom if she were planning to keep the child.  I know a family who would take the child as our own if she wasn't.  Mom said she was planning to keep it right now, but mostly they're just praying that it is healthy.  The girl isn't sure who the father is, how far along she is, and has been off and on drugs.  She still smokes some marijuana and cigarettes and does who knows what else.
My heart is broken for this baby.  I want one so badly and girls like her get them.
My heart is also broken for the thoughts that ran through my head after mom told me the child might have some problems due to the drug use.  I almost felt like maybe I didn't want it after all, even if it did get offered.  Am I a bad person?  That child will need someone to love it and care for it maybe even more than any other child who hadn't gone through that.
The whole situation just breaks my heart.

Thoughts

So, here are an accumulation of thoughts that have come to me and I meant to write about over the last month, give or take a few that I might be forgetting.  This is what happens when you work at a day camp for four weeks and are completely exhausted all the time.  These are in no particular order.

Gardens take way too long to grow . . . especially when the rain comes all or nothing.  But I do have teeny tiny green beans and a little squash growing finally.  :-)  I figure they'll all grow while we're gone on vacation in a week.

Evidently, there is still some naivete in me.  This camp is the first time I have really worked with people besides just members of the church since the short stint of work I did my second summer of college.  I'm working with several people who are living with their boyfriend/girlfriend.  I get to hear about the "fun" some of them had the night before. . . like the one who turned 19 but partied like she was 21 and the one who came the next day with  hangover -- a very obvious one.  And the co-counselor I worked with last week hit his head on the playscape and then bragged about the fact that he didn't cuss.  I thought to myself, "well, why would you?"  Jeremy says I have this way of putting things that put people in their place even if I don't mean to.  I'm just wondering how all these people can be like this and still claim to be "christians."  Seems like their Bible must say different things than mine does.

I must admit to being proud of myself last week.  I am horrible at being able to say no, but lately I have taken way too much on myself.  I had asked around church to see if someone was already planning a shower for one of the girls who is expecting in August.  No one knew of one being planned and somehow I ended up magically becoming one of the hostesses because I brought it up.  It was planned for a weekend we're going to be gone.  I was supposed to do the corsages.  Another girl who wasn't around for the planning but wanted to help asked me what she could do.  I told her corsages and then I told several of the other girls that I was no longer a hostess . . . I didn't have time or money.  So, I sort of said no even if it was a little late.  :-)

I bought some of the shoes that are supposed to tone muscles while you walk  . . . the Payless kind, not the $80 or $100 kind from Reebok and Sketchers.  They work.  Just in case you wanted to know.

I was beginning to believe that maybe this was our summer.  I kept having weird (or at least random) cravings:  apple pie from McDonald's, biscuits and sausage gravy, etc.  And then, Hurricane Alex came through this week.  Alex is the name we've picked out for our son WHEN we have him.  I don't think I am pregnant right now. . . just PMS-y.  But it could still happen.  Do you believe in signs?

And I found out Francine Rivers, one of my favorite authors, has a new book out.  I'm on the waiting list at the library.  Yay!

To end, here are a couple of quotes from my first/second grade boys over the last few weeks that should make you smile:

• Mrs. Amy, are you a lady already?
• Me to the child:  Is it big or small?  Child to me:  It's small to a person but big to an ant.
• Mrs. Amy, it's raining!
• Me to the child: Why aren't you in the pool?  Him to me:  My leg hurts.  It keeps cracking.  -- I still don't know what that means!

Counting our Chickens

I decided we needed a date so last night we went to check out The Green Mesquite, a barbeque place in Austin that had been on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and also sold pulled pork barbeque.  I'd been craving pork so off we went, to find this place we had never found before.  After circling the block four times, Jeremy finally found a parking place to pull into -- I was SO glad he was driving and not me as he can parallel park and I'm not so sure I can.  Into the tiny place we went and right back out the back door to their outdoor eating area where live music was blaring so loud it was hard to have a conversation.  As Jeremy said, "For cow people, it wasn't bad."  It will at least hold me until I can get some really good barbeque in Memphis in a few weeks.
While we were talking over the music, our conversation drifted to various things like baseball, politics, funny stories from work, and then to the fact that our DVD player has been messing up and Jeremy wants a Blue-ray.  I think working at an electronics store has spoiled him for life to all things simple when it comes to electronics.  I pointed out that I desperately need new tires and brakes on my car and he needs to have his checked because more often than not it sounds like it isn't going to start. . . and it's getting worse.  He pointed out that he knew all that, but . . .

Well, let me give you some back story.  We got a letter in the mail several weeks ago from our life insurance company telling us that they were being taken to court and that if that person won, everyone who had a policy with them would get a pay out.  I don't know if we'll get anything or really how much even though Jeremy said it could be up to $12,000.  I'm really honestly not holding my breath for it.

He is.

He keeps slipping into conversation, "when we get that check we can . . ."  I keep pointing out that he's counting our chickens before they hatch.  He says he knows, but wouldn't it be nice if . . .

Yes, it would.

Rain

I asked Jeremy last night as we were preparing for sleep on the night of our sixth anniversary, "Do you sometimes feel that we pray for rain but leave the umbrella at home?"

I know my faith has grown a lot over the last year.  Over the last two years.  Over the last three years.

Three years ago in August was when we started trying to get pregnant.

Two years ago we found out I had PCOS.

One year ago we found out the next step was fertility treatments -- and we found out Jeremy had lost the job he loved.

They always say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  And I do feel stronger.  I just wonder if my faith isn't quite strong enough.  Am I acting like I believe God will give my husband a teaching job for this fall?  Am I acting like I will get pregnant?  I'm praying for those things all the time.  So, as I pray for rain, do I take my umbrella with me like it's actually going to happen . . . or am I leaving it at home because I don't really believe God listens?

Just a thought.

Priorities

One of the days of camp training, our manager led us in an activity to help us figure out our priorities.  He asked us to take four small pieces of paper and write our top priorities, one on each piece.  Then, he said, "Something bad has happened and you just lost whatever you wrote down as number four."  He continued in this way until he told us we had lost all four things we had written down.  Unfortunately for him, this activity didn't really work for me.  You see, God is my top priority, so when he said that  my top priority had been lost, I knew it wasn't true.  No matter what happens in my life, God is a constant.  I can't lose Him.  It made me feel good to know that as I thought about it, it felt true.  God is number one in my life.  Just in case you want to know, Jeremy was number two and friends/family were number three.  I couldn't really think of a number four.  The whole point of the activity was to make sure we knew what really mattered.  I do.

On another note, as a follow up to a post from several weeks ago about my co-worker who thought she was pregnant, she's not.  She was telling us that she felt so sad even though she hadn't really wanted kids to begin with.  As she had started to accept the possibility of being pregnant, she had come to terms with it.  She said her husband just couldn't understand why she was crying.  I could.  I pointed out that I could empathize with her -- she had just gotten a bit of a taste of what I've been going through for the last three years.  I do feel bad for her.  Maybe we're more on a level playing ground now and can get along better as we work together another year.

One of my Favorites and Self-Awareness

So, this is really two posts in one so get ready.

One of my Favorites:

Francine Rivers is an amazing author.  Let's be honest, I really want to write like she does.  And aside from her Mark of the Lion series (so good), my favorite book of hers is Redeeming Love.  I just reread it.  It's one of those books you can't put down, no matter how hard you try.  Let me give a short synopsis.  Know the story of Hosea in the Bible?  It's loosely based on that.  It's about Angel, a prostitute in gold-rush California, who marries Michael Hosea, but can't let him love her until she finds God's love.
Here's what caught my attention more this time, though.  She can't have kids because of a procedure the guy who "owned" her for years had performed on her to keep her from ever getting pregnant.  As she struggles with the fact that she can't give her husband children, I'm right there with her, in complete empathy.  Just once, though, I'd like to see a book have to get through a hurdle without it magically disappearing at the end.  If you've had a procedure done to keep you from getting pregnant, how can you get pregnant?  These things don't reverse themselves.  I want to read a book where a woman struggles with infertility and finds out it's okay even if she doesn't have children.  Maybe I should write one.  Maybe I will . . . someday.  It's been in the back of my mind to do something like that for a while now, but I still feel like I'm too wrapped up in the reality of it right now.  Does that make sense?

Self-Awareness:

There's nothing that makes you more aware of just how old 27, almost 28 years really is, than hanging out with teenage/early twenties "kids" all weekend as we all train to be camp counselors.  Did I used to have that much energy, that much uncontainable joy in life?  Why don't I still?  Is 27 really that old?  I'm hoping by the end of the summer that maybe I'll feel a little younger even though I'll be 28 in August.  Either that, or I'll remember why I don't want to go back to being 20 years old.  Not that it was a bad year . . . I've just been there, done that.
It does make me look more at my skin, my flabby thighs, the fact that I would never wear shorts that short -- EVER!  It also makes me so glad I'm not in school anymore, so glad I already know who I'm married to, instead of wondering who's out there for me.
Unfortunately, it also makes me very aware of just how unathletic I am, too. 

Hapari Swimsuit Giveaway

With summer coming, and the thought of working at a day camp all summer, I have been wanting a new swimsuit. So, when I found this post this morning, I had to enter. These are so cute. Crossing my fingers that I can win this giveaway!