7 Things About Me

 (that is Henry waving)

I don't normally participate in these kinds of things, but I have really enjoyed reading 7 things about some of my favorite blogger friends. So thank you Stasia, for nominating me for this one.


7 things about me...

1. I love Jesus  and seek to be more like Him everyday.

2. I am usually really awkward when I first meet someone or have a first conversation with someone that I have met, but haven't really talked to. Example: This past Sunday at church a girl was waiting to talk to me in the hall. I have been introduced to her, but it had been a while. I new her name, but when she reintroduced herself I repeated her name instead of giving her my name. I just have to laugh at myself.

3. I cut my own hair. I have never been the girl that enjoys going to get my hair done. Two years ago I was on vacation with my Mom and Sister and I talked my sister into cutting my hair after watching a You Tube Video. I been cutting it myself ever since. I typically watch a few how to videos on Saturday night, and then cut my hair Sunday morning before church.

4. I normally have no less than 4.5 projects going on at one time. This would be great if I made the time to blog about all of these projects.

5. I play the trumpet. It has been a few years since I have played, but I am starting to miss it.

6. I get overwhelmed very easily. This is why I say "NO" so often. (#4 may contribute to this.)

7. Some of my favorite things are the color green, spray paint, cooking, learning to take better pictures, decorating, a nice cup of coffee, staying up late to enjoy the quite (I don't this often anymore, I need my sleep), a good nap on Sunday afternoon, a date night with my husband, a fun little adventure with my boys, and getting to have a conversation with an adult that doesn't get interrupted by a kid.

I am nominating anyone that would like to participate. If you post 7 things, please let me know so that I can come check them out.

Linking:

Organizing Our Life

Sounds so serious, "Organizing Our Life"!

So here is the thing...I am one of those people that likes to be organized, but I have to work REALLY hard at it. It doesn't come naturally to me. I am pretty good at organizing stuff, but not my TIME. I am also one of those non-committal types when it comes to my time. I don't have to have routine, but I do like to know in advance if you need me to do something.

So this is what happens....my house is nice and clean and organized, until I decide to paint something, or rearrange something, or whatever. At that point there is no laundry getting done or any picking up after myself until the project is complete. And dinner, well, I had that planned out, but then did not execute the plan.

Thankfully my husband and boys love me, and have gotten used to how I am about certain things, but I needed to make a change. Everyone else in my house likes routine, and order. They all function much better with a well executed plan. I know this, and have been fighting it, but it was time to get my Mommy rear in gear. The start of a new school year was the motivation that I needed. I really want this year to be great, not, we got it all done, but it wasn't fun in the process.

I have been going through our home and working on getting rid of the excess, and organizing the stuff to make our days flow better. I have established a cleaning routine that works for ME! I am much like my kids and am having to learn that you do the important stuff first AND THEN move on to the "projects" or blogging, or tv, or whatever. I know this sounds so simple, but I was really doing it all backwards.

Do I have it all together? NOPE, but things are going much better. We are a homeschooling family, and as much as I like the freedom that comes with that, my son works much better with a pretty strict routine. School has gone well so far, everyone has clean laundry that is put away most of time, and we still have time to do the fun stuff. I still have a lot to learn, but I am happy with the progress and feel like it has been a good change for our family. 

What does all of this mean for you, my readers? It means that I have been working on adding blogging back into my life. I have missed it, but I can't let it take over, so I am taking it slow. I'm still not really sure where I want to start. I have done so much, and have so much to share. I do know that I want the blog to be more of a combination of all of the things that I set out for it to be in the beginning (see my blog header). Somewhere along the way I kind of went more in a decor/diy vain. That will still be a focus, but I think I want things to be a little more personal and real. I used to think about decor A LOT, and while it is still something I enjoy, I have learned to let it not take over.

If you made it through all of that, you deserve a cute pic of my littlest sweetie.

He was having a hard time putting his shoes on, and not thrilled that I was taking pics of  it.

Crystal Blue

Yesterday was my birthday! It was a great day and everyone did a great job making me feel loved and special. I was treated to lunch, I received gift cards to some of my favorite places, money to go shopping, my sis made me a Paula Dean strawberry cake, my husband and daddy took care of dinner, I was showered with sweet hugs and kisses from my sweet boys, my phone was blowing up with sweet messages on facebook all day....and I got this!

 source

I saw it while shopping with Cade a week or two ago and mentioned that it would make a great birthday gift. He was a sweet boy and made sure his Daddy knew about it.

Do you know how old my other blender was? I have been married for 15 years and my husband had it before we got married. It was starting to sound very worn out and may or may not have been mangled pretty bad do to operator error. Let's just say that I am glad this one doesn't really come apart. It should make it's life span much longer.

I have always been a smoothie and protein shake drinker, so I am looking forward to putting this thing to use. I am also excited that it is pretty enough to leave out on the counter.

Thank you to everyone that made my day super special!

Tag...

Jesse from Good Girl Gone Glad has tagged me in this fun blog award.
Thanks Jesse!

To accept this award I must list 10 things that make me happy and then pass this award along to 10 fabulous blogs!


10 Things that make me happy are as follows:

1. My Husband
2. Hearing my son laugh
3. Knowing that son #2 will be here soon
4. Sunday afternoons with my family
5. Drinking black coffee (I'm really missing this)
6. Sleeping in
7. Driving in the car by myself in complete silence (you know what I mean if you have a talkative little kiddo)
8. Hanging out with my sister
9. Lunch with my mother every week
10.Spray paint

Now to pass it on:

Intentionally Katie
Blooming in the South
The Proper Pinky
Hug and Release
Just Another Day in Paradise
Bower Power
My Life in Transition
History of the Harveys
The Briggs
Good Food, Good Friends, Good Life

Little Man's Birth Story

Since I will soon be having baby #2 I have been thinking a lot about the birth of our first son. I want to remember everything that I can about it and realized that I have already forgotten so many of the timing details. I was originally going to post this on my private family blog since it is really for me, but decided to post it here. If it helps just one person, then I'm happy for everyone to read it.

I have always had a very low tolerance for pain and because of that always just assumed that when it came time to have children I would just get an epidural. I never really gave any other thought to it. Then, one of my pregnant friends told me that she was believing God for a Supernatural childbirth without pain. She had been reading a book called Supernatural Childbirth by Jackie Mize. I really thought she was crazy. I have been a born again, spirit filled, tongue talking Christian most of my life and had never heard of this. I still didn't really do anything with this info at this point, but when she had her first child without pain I knew there was more to it than I had thought. I ordered the CD when I became pregnant with our first son. I began to see things in the Bible in a way that I had not before. I'm so glad that God is patient with me. I began to see from the Word that pain from childbirth is under the curse. Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for the curse for us so that we could be free from it. This includes pain during childbirth. I listened to this CD every time I got in my car during my pregnancy. I knew I needed to continue to build my faith in this area, and faith comes by hearing.

Let me also add that I am not against epidurals or pain meds. I think that if you are in pain you should take the meds. I wasn't out to prove anything to anyone, I would have taken the meds if I had been in pain. But God is so good, and I had a mostly pain free natural childbirth. I say mostly, because it did hurt some when I tore a little at the very end, but I had no pain with any of my contractions of during the pushing.

Now that I have written a books worth of background info, I will move on to the actual birth story. My little man is now 4 years old so some of the times and details are somewhat fuzzy, but I'll tell you what I remember.


Friday, November 25, 2005 - the day after Thanksgiving
37.5 weeks pregnant

My husband and I got up super early so that we could shop some of the black friday sales before I had to be at work at 7:30 am. I did a good bit of walking before I ever got to work.

I was a bank teller and Fridays were always really busy days that required me to be on my feet more than most weekdays. For about 2 months I had lots of BH contractions all through the day on Friday. Usually once I got home by 6:30 and put my feet up they would stop. The contractions on this day were no different than any other Friday.

Around 4 pm my supervisor told me that she thought I should go ahead and go home early today. I didn't complain. Leaving at 4pm instead of 6pm on Friday sounded great.

My husband and father-in-law were going out to eat oysters to celebrate my husbands birthday. (my FIL had been out of the country the previous week, so they celebrated when he got back) I knew I was on my own for dinner so I ordered a plate from a local restaurant and picked it up on my way home. I went home, got my feet up, and enjoyed my dinner in front of the TV. The contractions were sporadic, but still there. My husband called around 6 or so and I told him that I didn't really think anything of it, but I was still having contractions.

The husband gets home. He found out earlier in the week that I had been climbing in a chair and then standing on top of the washing machine to get something off of the top shelf in our laundry room. He didn't like that at all, so we headed to Home Depot to get a proper step stool. Still having some contractions.

We came home to watch TV and unwind for the night. I laid on couch still having contractions. We decided to time them, they were consistently about 5 mins apart. I decide that I would just go get a shower to freshen up. From here I don't really remember the exact time line, but by 11pm we decided to call the Dr. since my contractions were consistently 3 mins. apart. We made the call, he said get to the hospital.

Keep in mind that I am having contractions this entire time, but without pain. It still had not sunk in that I was indeed in labor.


Saturday, November 26, 2005 (just around mid-night)

We arrive at the hospital and get all set up in our room. The Dr. gets there tho check me and I had started to dilate (I don't remember how much), still having consistent contractions. I just sat in the bed and talked to my husband. We talked about how weird it was that I was for real in labor and were going to get to meet our son soon. It was a great experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the laboring part. It was fun to watch the contractions on the monitor and see how big they were. I could feel everything, my body was working hard, but I didn't have any pain. I don't remember all of the timing details at this point but once I was at 8cm my body was trying really hard to push even though it wasn't time yet. I couldn't control it so they gave me a half dose of something (I don't remember what it was) to help my body just relax a little bit so that I could finish dilating. Once it was time to push, I didn't push long. Somewhere from 15-30 mins. and our little guy arrived at 5:08 am

I did tear a little bit and happily took the 2 advil they offered me at this point. It was so nice to have such a wonderful, fairly short, labor and delivery. I'm looking forward to the next one.

The Verdict

I was hoping that more of you would have given me 2 truths and a lie about yourself, but that's okay.

1. I am allergic to cats. TRUTH

There isn't much explaining to to with this one. If I'm around a cat my eyes will swell shut. Very pretty, huh?

2. In the 8th grade a wore a neck brace and was on crutches. TRUTH

I was little on the clumsy side considering this was 2 different incidents just months from each other. There is no great story other that I fell walking. One of the times I was going down a wet slope but still. Just call me Grace.

3. I once had the opportunity to play the trumpet in a Jazz Band on Beale Street. -TRUTH

In college I played the trumpet in the Jazz Band. It was a lot of fun and paid for my schooling. We played in a club on Beale Street and it was definitely the coolest place I've ever played.

4. I drink my coffee black. - TRUTH

I didn't start drinking it this way, but gradually started cutting back on all of the white stuff I was putting in my coffee. Now I can't even think of drinking my coffee with anything in it.

5. I have been to Europe. - TRUTH

My in-laws lived in the Czech Republic for 5 years and we went to visit them one spring. It is beautiful and I would really like to go back.

6. I have been skydiving. - FALSE

This the lie. I have never been skydiving, nor do I plan on skydiving in the future.

7. I was 18 when I got married. -TRUTH

18 seems so young, but when you know, you just know. I wouldn't go back and change it for anything. I will say that my husband is 5.5 years older than me and already had a very stable career. I'm not sure that I would have married another 18 year old that was still in college.

8. I am the oldest of 3 children. - TRUTH

I have a younger brother and sister. We were all very close growing up. I wish my brother lived closer, we only see each other 1 or twice a year. My sister still lives close and is my best friend. We used to aggravate the mess out of each other as kids, but as we have gotten older I have appreciated her more.

9. I broke my pinky playing kick ball. - TRUTH

I was in the 5th grade. It was my first day back at school after being out for a week with the chicken pox. I was busy talking during P.E. and didn't have enough time to properly catch the ball that had been kicked right towards me. I tried, but I broke my pinky.

10. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mother.- TRUTH

I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother. In college I could never land on a major because there wasn't anything I wanted to do. I ended up not finishing school because my heart wasn't in it. We waited 8 years to have a first child, but I love being home with him. I am right where I belong.

5 people voted in my poll and 4 of you were correct.