To blog or not to blog? That is the question

I had to quit this blog for a while because of some personal issues I was going through. In a nut shell, I just found it more helpful to turn to personal journaling for a while to work through some things and avoid the public platform for a while. But I miss blogging, and I'm thinking about getting started again. Thinking ...

Little A turns 7

Once there was a girl named Little A,
Who was celebrating her 7th birthday.
She got up early and woke her mom and her dad,
It was the most exciting day she ever had.
Her parents and sister gave her a Nintendo DS,
And her Daddy made her a special breakfast.
They dressed her up in special clothes,
And wondered at how fast their baby grows.
Happy Birthday to our baby girl, now seven,
We're so glad you were sent to us from Heaven.

Weekend pictures

Here's an "after" shot of the shelves!" You can see we have hung World War II photos of our grandfathers and great uncles next to the shelves, and we have filled the curio cabinet to the right full of mementos from B's grandfathers' careers in the federal prison system (which were a great part of B's heritage). The office is finally starting to take shape.

 

Here's a photo of our "Snow Angel" that Big A took out during the big snow storm last Friday. Don't you love how she's sticking out her tongue to catch snow flakes?

Birthday photos

This is my birthday present from B and my inlaws -- a bookcase for the office. It is from WoodYou Furniture. It's pine, and you get a deal because you stain the wood yourself. We had it in the house for about a minute before Riley claimed it as her new home.

Birthday celebration number one: Best friends from college S and J came over with their kids and brought Olive Garden for lunch!

We all grew up and multiplied!

B gets to work on staining bookcase. Birthday weekend project that is not yet complete. (Quite a job with all those coats of polywhateveryoucallit required.)

Sunday evening birthday party at inlaws involves tirimisu, eclairs and pecan tassies. LOVE!

The bookcase is coming right along!

My 37th birthday ... and the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Today is my 37th birthday. It is also the 37th anniversary week of Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973). It's always been sad for me that my birthday came just hours after this baby-slaughtering legislation became law in America.

For today, I'd just like to ask that if you honor the sanctity of human life, and if you would like to honor my birthday, please do something in the name of LIFE this week.

This Sunday is Sanctity of Human Life in the Assemblies of God. Here are two great articles from the Pentecostal Evangel (the weekly A/G magazine). One is on the abortion deception, the other is on a great organization that is doing something to make a difference in the lives of women who are suffering with the difficult dilemma of an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy.

Abortion Deception


Promoting Life One Woman at a Time

There is something else I would like to say. There may be people I know, friends, maybe even family members, who made the difficult choice of abortion and are living with the scars today. Please don't think that because I feel so strongly in my pro-life stance that I believe there is not forgiveness for those who have made this choice. The Lord has much grace for every sin, and so do I. I don't think less of anyone who has sin in their past -- Lord knows I have sin in my past, and I have it in my life every day. We are all a work in progress.

The Bible teaches that all sin is sin (whether it is gossip, slander, theft, murder, etc). God does not grade it on a scale. The most important tenet of Christianity is forgiveness and restoration for all those who ask Jesus for it. I hope dearly that my zeal to save the lives of babies does not come across as judgment against those who have already made the choice. For those who have had abortions, what I wish for you is healing in the name of Jesus. And for those who might find themselves considering it, please walk into a Pregnancy Care Center and learn that there are options -- your baby can be saved. People will help you. And you can go on with your life.

I guess I just felt compelled to say all that this morning. I'm not speaking to anyone in particular. I don't know anyone personally who's ever come to me and said, "I had an abortion." But if they did, I would say, "Have you asked God to forgive you and heal your scars? Let's get you some help. Because I love you, and God loves you."

Let's heal women and save babies. That's my passion, and it is reignited every time my birthday rolls around.

Mr. Brown goes to Washington

What an encouraging night in American politics. What an irony that the Senate seat which would undo the super majority in Congress would be that of Ted Kennedy's. Obama went to Washington on a high, thinking he could do anything he wanted,started printing money left and right in late-night secret meetings that he promised would never happen ... And even ultra-liberal Massachusetts said, "No way. We will not have this in America."

Brown was a real class act during his interview with Meredith Viera on the Today Show this morning.

Analysis by CNN: Brown's win changes political narrative for 2010

Having fun during the snow break

The girls have had five days off of school due to the snow and extreme, dangerously cold weather. Because of said weather, they can't even get outside to play in the snow, so they've been cooped up all week. The babysitter and the girls have been creative in finding fun inside activities. Here's some fun photos of the Spa Day that Big A and Big K put on for the little girls:

Narnia commeth

Apparently we live in Narnia now. I should have known it when we moved in to a house with this lamp post:

The high in Narnia today should reach 8. But don't let that fool you, as the wind chill will only get to -20. That's MINUS rhymes with LINUS.

Skip, our horse in the barn, is starting to look an awful lot like Tumnus, and I believe he spoke last night, asking to be let into the house. I'm pretty sure I just saw the White Witch in the front yard, or was that a snow-covered ever green?

On writing

"Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it."

---David Sedaris, interview in Louisville Courier-Journal, June 5, 2005

American writer

I get these "daily quotes" on my gmail homepage every day. I love this one from today. I think it describes bloggers in particular. I think it describes ME in particular. Blogs give wanna-be-writers a platform to say what we think and feel about something, and it makes absolute sense to us when we say it. So much so that it's incredulous, disappointing, even sometimes hurtful when we realize that a reader has taken what we said and filtered it through their own views and experience and suddenly what seems like brilliance to us turns out to be something we wish we hadn't written at all.

I don't know if that's what David Sedaris meant by his quote. I don't even know who David Sedaris is. But it spoke to me. Writers aren't different from other people in the sense that they have the same experiences, the same thoughts, the same relationships that all people have. What makes writers different is that we dare to share them and even have the audacity to try to teach somebody something, or make them laugh, or make them think, by sharing these experiences, thoughts and feelings.

But words can be dangerous. It doesn't always work out the way we mean it to. Sometimes that makes me think I shouldn't write at all. Then I sleep it off and try again the next day ...

Winter wonderland

Here's a photo of campus taken yesterday. We've had about 5 inches of snow and this morning it was a whopping ZERO degrees with a wind chill of who knows what. It's beautiful but fffffrrrrreeeeeeeeeeezzzzzing here in Middle America right now!

The kids were supposed to go back to school today, but it was canceled due to "inclement weather." Around here, 5 inches of snow will cancel school (heck, 2 inches of snow will cancel school) unlike Utah where I grew up. There we had regular 12-plus-inch snowfalls regularly and I had not a day of canceled school in 12 years! Out here snow is rare and they don't have near the equipment or resources to deal with it (we also generally get ice with snow -- not something Utah gets). We also live in a very rural district, and though they eventually get main roads scraped off, it's impossible to make all the bus routes safe.

So Big A and Little A and Angel the puppy are having a play day with the sitter again today. And here I sit at work, amid this beautiful winter wonderland.

I resolve

Some years I make New Year's Resolutions. Some years I don't bother. But when I make them, I really do try to keep them. My friend S and I like to come up with a theme for each year. The one I remember best was 2006: "Extreme Makeover Ashli Edition." At the end of that year I lamented to S that I didn't feel I'd lived up to my theme. S reminded me that I had actually started my own business and quit my day job that year. So yeah, I lived up to it.

I do have many failed resolutions, but I like to think of the successful ones. Like in 2007 when I resolved to lose 15 pounds. I lost 30. (OK, so maybe I've gained 10ish back over the last year, but still ...)

Last year, I didn't have a resolution. But I did have a prayer: We prayed (and asked friends to pray with us)  that the flood house situation would be resolved by March 18 (the one-year anniversary of the flood). God answers prayer! Just a couple weeks after we started praying that way, the county contacted us with a new plan. We had their buy out offer by the end of February. As I said, God answers prayer! It turned out to be a pretty big year.

So this year, I really have some important resolutions. Goals I am serious about. For accountability's sake (both personal accountability and public accounability) I'll share them here:

• I resolve to lose those 10 pounds again.
• I resolve to make a budget every single month and work with all my might to stick to it.
  
• I resolve to use a kinder tone of voice with my family when I am stressed.
• I resolve to blog. Regularly. All three blogs.
• I resolve to plan a less-busy schedule for my family.
• I resolve to plan a family vacation and to visit my extended family in Utah this year (two trips).
  
• I resolve to stop resolving and start doing.

This year's theme: "Resolutions. And I mean it."

Defining moments of 2009

I know I am a few days late for this post, but I've been trying for that long to figure what I wanted to say. What were the best moments of 2009 (thankfully there were many)? What were the worst moments of 2009 (thankfully there were few)?

I finally decided that there really were two defining moments of the past year -- events that literally changed my year and altered my history.

Unbelievably, they happened on the same day.

It was a Sunday in late February. Strangely I do not remember the exact date. I could figure it out if I did a little searching through last year's calendar, but I don't think the exact date really matters.

Defining moment #1:
As I said it was a Sunday. It was just after midnight, so it was VERY early on that Sunday. B and I had just arrived home with Big A from a JBQ Tournament in St. Louis. It had been a very long trip, as the weather was treacherous and a bad accident had shut down the highway for hours. We were exhausted. Still, we flipped through the mail to see what had come in over the few days we were gone.

And there it was. A package from the county. We knew it would contain an offer for them to buy out the flood property that had plagued us for almost a year. We were all nervous as we opened it, because the number they offered would mean everything to us. Would it be enough to pay off the mortgage? Would it be enough to make it worthwhile to sell the property, or would we have to rebuild? Would the contents of that package signal an end to our nightmare?

The answer was incredible. The amount was more than we hoped and prayed for. Enough to pay off the mortgage and good chunk of the rest of our debt ... and still more for a down payment on a new house. The county had been more than fair, offering us fair-market PRE-flood value. The value before the housing market tanked. The deal would also allow us to keep our insurance money, which had been another unknown piece of the puzzle.

Even though it would be a few months before the deal was done and we had the money in hand, that was definitely THE defining moment of the year. We were able to stop living in the unknown and start making actual decisions about our future. Our financial issues were solved at that point. It was our proof that even terrible stories have happy endings.

So we had our moment and then we went to bed. And later than morning, we woke up and soon faced what would be ...

Defining Moment #2
Later that morning I took a home pregnancy test. Even though I was on the pill, I had reason to suspect I might be pregnant. B and I had discussed the possibility for a day or two. I decided it was time to find out.

It was positive. For a few minutes I was upset. This hadn't been in the plans at all. B wasn't upset; he was only excited. It took a few minutes for me to catch up, but I did. It doesn't take a mother very long to fall in love with her baby.

That was a defining moment because it changed our view of the make-up of our family. I realized I had room in my heart for another child. We realized that something we thought we didn't want was actually something we wanted very much.

That moment changed me instantly forever. And it set me up for the greatest sadness so far of my life: miscarrying at 11 weeks and having a D&C. Until that point, I didn't know I could be so sad. Upset? Yes, I knew upset. Stress? Yes, I knew stress. Anger? Yes, I knew anger. But I didn't really know sadness until this happened to me.

These are the two moments that defined my 2009. Now it's onward and upward to 2010.