unique birthday card

My friend Amy, who is spending the next few months in Spain, sent me an email of fun pictures for my birthday; just things that make me happy! I wanted to share them:






This next one's funny, because right before Amy left for Spain we had a whole conversation about something that had reminded me of these lines:

"Ahem, are you wearing the Ch-"
"The Chanel boots? Yeah, I am."



When she lived in Austin, Amy and I were always doing the next new thing to our nails together.





Thanks, Amy!! :)

Languages, dreams and...another post?!

I guess when it rains, it pours, even with blog posts.

I have more energy now that all plans difficult, dreadful or busy for the summer are pretty much over. Now is the best part, because I feel good and can finally be at home and focus on our life a little bit. I have nothing to look forward to for a while except my birthday tomorrow and our trip to San Diego in a few weeks. Life is good!

I had a strange little dream. I have mentioned before that I am having the ridiculous problem of not working on any language right now because I cannot decide on one. It's between German, French and Spanish, since I have varying degrees of semi-proficiency in each of those already.

Anyway, this must be really bothering me since I dreamed about it! In my dream, I was walking down the halls of some place that seemed like a high school. I looked in the window of a classroom in what I somehow understood to be a sort of language department, and the teacher motioned me inside. She was giving a test and wondered if I would like to take it, just for fun. Would I!?

The kids were already busy working on their tests, so I quietly thanked the teacher and sat down at one of the tables to begin. I was to translate some sentences into English. When I looked at them though, all the verbs had German verb stems but were conjugated with French verb-endings! I think all the other words were just German. In the dream I was totally stumped about how to translate any of them, and I woke up before I realized that it would still all go into English just fine! I loved that dream, and woke up feeling that I had narrowed it down to German and French. I'll save Spanish until my friend gets back from nannying in Spain, later this fall.

But still, which to choose?

Blogger Question

For the past several months, my links, over there ---> cannot be edited. An error code comes up every time I try to click on the little editing icon. I can't add any links or change the ones that are there. Does anyone know what is going on??? I tried asking the discussion blog thingy about the error code, but they had never seen it...

Thanks! :)

gratefully happy.

I don't want this to turn into a venting-only blog, even though I am glad that it can serve that purpose sometimes. (and perhaps this summer has required more venting than usual.)

Anyhow, the world is so beautiful and I am sometimes in awe that I am allowed to notice it!

It rained yesterday and was CLOUDY ALL DAY the day before!

I have a healthy baby in my tummy and I feel fine!

It is almost my birthday.

My husband loves me and is very reasonable and kind.

Our dog is the best dog ever.

I went to a clothing swap and I now have CLOTHES!

I love my Kincey.

The piano is TUNED!

Because of my kind and patient husband, my Mimi's chandelier now hangs above our pale mint green dining room table. It reminds me every day of the influence of beauty and fun and creativity that the Lord let Mimi have in my life because she let the Lord have influence in hers.

I might get new crayons soon. A box of 120!

I've gone from zero knitting skills to being able to knit dishcloths and scarves in one week!

We are doing quite well on our house-organizing projects as the summer progresses.

I am so grateful for the Lord's kindness, and how He uses even the ugly things of life to create beauty in us. What a wonderful God! The true Maker of fairy tales!

Stunning

Sometimes, people just leave you with your mouth hanging open. And then you have to vent.

I was recently told that we could not use one of the names that we're thinking about for our boy, because he'd get beaten up for it. It was a name that, when I suggested it, my husband did not write off as a sissy name, like he has one or two others I've casually thought about.

Our VERY short list is William and Joshua, but the slightly longer version still includes Levi (not sure if we've really agreed or if that one's just on my list) and, the terrible name that "YOU CAN'T name a kid": Winston. The middle name, no matter which we choose, will be Jake, in honor of our sweet nephew who went to be with the Lord three years ago. Well, the way this person protested, you would think I had said we were thinking of naming our BOY Jennifer or Katy. Or Fart.

The source telling us that name should not be used (who, to be quite fair, didn't know it was on our short list) comes from such a different world than I do; a world where guilt is a tool (which is okay with me because I don't really do guilt-I made that decision in my late teens and have never regretted it), and where waiters will spit in your food if you even nicely complain about it and kids, apparently, don't like the name Winston. I know it is not entirely people's faults when their minds work that way. It is the kindness and grace of God that continues to teach me (and I know will some day teach them) not to be that way!

It's not that nobody's ever been ugly to me. It's not that I've never seen someone be teased because of their name; I've even been teased for my weird spelling more than you would think. It's not that I can be sure that no waiter has ever spit in my food. I try to treat most people in a way that would prevent them from feeling a need to spit in my food though, and maybe this person has not tried that. I don't know... There is just so much beauty in the world, and it strikes me so often that I just feel a lot of joy, and then I don't think about all the ways that someone could hurt me. I don't think about anyone beating up my kid, and if someone does, I'll cross that bridge with the Lord's help when I come to it.

Anyway, about names, I've heard that one has to develop a thick skin about these sorts of things because many people have strong personal opinions about all things relating to child-having and parenting. My feelings aren't hurt, as much as I am just sad to remember that there are really people who come from mindsets like that. My husband doesn't mind it at all. He has a knack for doing what he knows is right without being rankled by people who disagree with him.

Anyway, since I just made our list of names a bit more public, I should say that I'll be happy if they're names you like, and if you don't, then you can have a better day by feeling grateful that I am not naming your child. See? Everybody's happy!

this says it all

To be honest...

1. Right now my Love is playing the guitar again for the first time in ages! It makes me so happy! He's practicing Yellow.

2. I just did all the dishes. ALL. DONE.

3. I've been wanting a very good chocolate for a while now. Just one. To have with a tiny glass of sparkling water.

4. I feel really behind on German, French and Spanish right now, but I just can't choose which one to work on. Not being able to choose is making me way too stressed!

5. I'm thinking of switching to raw milk. And definitely never buying any more 2% milk. The nastiness of low-fat milk is more unfathomable than I even knew. (or imagined, and that's saying something!) I'm trying not to believe everything I read, but still.

6. Now that we're actually having a child, I'm more excited than I ever knew I would be about teaching it!

7. Tonight my dad called me and we talked for half an hour about England, and how much we appreciate it's having spent 1,000 years hashing out self-government and freedom of religion for us, about New York City, and about the setting moons we used to see over Copano Bay when we did the paper route at 4:30 in the morning.

8. I feel really claustrophobic about social media for some reason right now! Just knowing it's there makes me feel acutely overwhelmed.

9. The baby moves a lot now! Being pregnant is way funner than it used to be.

10. My 16-year-old sister Abby made a pretty much perfect-looking (I didn't get to taste it, being 200 miles away) coconut cream pie for my dad. She's really interesting and can do anything.

11. We've decided to continue to throw around names but not choose one until the baby's here.

12. We're going to San Diego before the baby comes!

13. I am so, very, really tired of caring what anyone thinks of me. How could I have cared enough to get this tired of caring when I already thought I didn't care?

14. I'm excited about my 2 baby showers I'm going to have!

15. I took my sewing machine to be fixed today and I cannot wait to get it back!!!

16. My Love's sister and her husband are coming to visit next weekend, and I'm thinking about what I hope to get done before then. We always have a really great time with them, even though I always feel a little apprehensive the whole time, that I might say or do something she'll misunderstand. (Amendment: I don't worry about it anymore because I don't think I ever do or say anything my husband's family does understand. And that's okay!)

17. Almost finished with The Return of the King. It will be the first time I've actually finished the series.

18. First knitting class tomorrow.

19. My mind has been really cluttered lately and it's starting to wear on me.

20. I'm going to make ice cream cone cupcakes for my birthday. They're going to have cherries on top and candy on top and decorations on top and I'm really excited!


21. I'm going to go make some tea.