Friday Afternoons

It's supposed to be warm all weekend long. And I mean, nice and warm. I can't wait. I'm sitting in my over air-conditioned office right now, cold and so tired (big work event last night, didn't sleep well when I finally did get home) and just longing for the clock to say 5:30 so I can head home and begin the weekend. I both love and hate Friday afternoons. Here's why. On the one hand, they draaaaaag because I am so excited about the coming weekend. But on the other hand, they are marvelous, because I am just on the cusp of freedom - lots of time with Ian, time outside, time to pursue my hobbies, time with family. What a see-saw of emotions Friday afternoons stir up in me. =) Happy Friday and happy weekend friends. Enjoy!

Making Lunches

For some reason, I've been blog "uninspired." Things are going just fine, I just feel quiet, in my soul. You know? But because I really do like blogging, I thought I would do a post anyway, uninspired as it is. So, I bring you: Making Lunches. This is what I do Sunday night. I chop Ian's veggies for the week, and usually three days worth for me too, and then I assemble Monday's lunch. Here's what it looks like when I'm doing it. Packing our lunches is not only healthy, it's cheap. Ian doesn't have a long enough lunch (or a nice enough surrounding area) to eat out, so his choices are to pack or to eat the school lunch. The school lunch is fine (surprisingly healthy) but it does mean hanging around where the kids are. So he chooses to take a packed lunch (and miraculously, doesn't care at all about what goes in it, so I pack it 100% of the time). I pack a lunch for myself because in spite of the MANY delicious options, I would gain way too much weight and spend way too much money eating out. So here we are, happy lunch packers. Isn't my lunch bag cute? (Ian takes his in a plastic bag because he can shove it more easily into the backpack he wears to work, since he walks to the metro station). There. You're all caught up on mundane activities of our life. =)

Making My Own Salsa

I have several ideas in my head about how to save money and be frugal, especially if we go down to one income some day. I already make quite of bit of bread from scratch (dinner rolls, breakfast loafs, rosemary bread, corn bread, garlic bread sticks, etc.) but this weekend, I tried my hand at homemade salsa. We had just finished a bottle of green salsa (the La Victoria brand, which is really good) and I was in the store, ready to replace it, when I thought of making my own. I had looked on the ingredient label of the salsa before and saw that it wasn't hard and then remembered that I had actually made green salsa before (one time in college, that actually resulted in me throwing away the whole batch because I was using a blender and couldn't get the food to mix so I pushed it down with a wooden spoon...and ended up with thousands of tiny splinters in my salsa). Anyway, I did much better this time. I go 6 tomatillos for about $1.30 and a jalapeno for $.14. I had some left over cilantro in my fridge already, plus a half an onion that was just waiting to be used up. Of course, I always have garlic on hand. I mixed everything up and ended up with tons of salsa! Enough to fill one full jar (I just put it right back into the newly washed salsa jar we had saved) and another half jar, which I've put in the freezer. So, for $1.44, I got 1 1/2 times the salsa that I would have gotten for $3.59 at the store! True, it won't save us millions, but over the years, think of how much money we could save if I made all our own salsa?

Up next? Making my own jam this summer!

Veranda!

It's up! We are now the proud owners of a veranda (or trellis, if you prefer that terminology)! As soon as we bought the house (almost a year now), we knew we wanted to put up a veranda. We've been saving and with our recent tax return, we were finally in a position to pay for it. We LOVE how it turned out and can't wait for many dinners, parties, life groups, and get togethers with all of you under it. I thought I would take us all on a trip down memory lane. Here is the enclosed patio when we bought the house (former owner's belongings are still in there). Here we are (and some of you too) tearing it down. What a project but so worth it! That enclosed patio was a disaster - leaks, mold, electric wiring all crazy. Definitely need to come down.

And it is, with it all torn down and our grass put in. This was probably in July of last year.

And here it is today! Doesn't the veranda look great? And haven't Ian's plants grown so much!? They are so tiny in the photo above you can hardly see them!

We hope you come over soon to enjoy our new veranda!

Weekend Baking and Christmas Gifts

That's right, a post about Christmas gifts in March. But I'll get to that in a minute. We were supposed to go camping with our friends Keith and Chanda this weekend but the rain and threats of cold weather deterred us. So we ended up with a much needed weekend in, after several out of town trips, in-laws visits and what not. On Saturday, we did chores for several hours, which was great (seriously! we love puttering around our home). Our house is so clean now! And, I did some baking. I LOVE baking. It's creative and relaxing and almost always produces a good end result. Ian has been talking about Key Lime Pie for a while, so I thought I would give it a try. I used a recipe from Fanny Farmer's Cookbook, which my sisters gave me for Christmas a few years ago (funny, I didn't mean to make that second mention of Christmas gifts, but there you go!). Ian declares it is the best pie he's ever had. I'm sure that totally unbiased report has you all convinced I should open a bakery. Needless to say, we are thoroughly enjoying it. I also made a "Mac n Cheese for Grown-Ups" from my Cooking Light magazine. Ian LOVES mac n cheese (really, he prefers the fake stuff from Kraft) but I thought I would humor him and make this dish for him, since I never make that fake stuff. It turned out okay. The Panko on top was delicious, but the spinach was a little strange and the cheese too strong. But that from the girl who doesn't like cheese, so take that with a grain of salt. This is not at all connected to the baking, but I don't think I ever showed on this blog one of the gifts that Ian gave me for Christmas that I love. It's four jars from Crate and Barrel. And being the romantic that he is, he filled one of the jars with jelly beans. (That's one of his nicknames for me - isn't it cute? I love it!). He filled the jars with a box of all their flavors and people have been eating them regularly since coming over to our house, but I'm really only a fan of a few flavors of jelly beans. With some extra time this weekend, we made a visit to a local candy store and I now have a jar of JUST cotton candy and cherry. Ahh, sugary bliss. Aren't the jars so cute!?

19 Things I've Learned in a Year of Trying to Get Pregnant

Lately, I've been thinking about what I've learned in a year of trying to get pregnant. Just this morning, I was musing (like the use of the blog title there?) about how when you're praying for something, the NO answer and the WAIT answer don't really feel that different in the moment. And that's scary. Because I feel like the answer is WAIT. But what if the answer is NO?

Anyway, here are a few things I've learned in a year of trying to get pregnant.

1. I am not in control.
2. Each month seems like it takes forever, but somehow, it's already been a year. Just one of the many contradictions that are part of this process.
3. Another contradiction - I am the happiest each month when it's the time in the cycle that I know I'm not pregnant. Isn't that strange? After the initial disappointment, it's my favorite two weeks of every month. No pressure, no worries, no dietary changes (more on that later), no wondering, no waiting. Just livin' my regular life.
4. Talking about it helps.
5. Talking about it doesn't help.
6. Husbands do not and probably can not respond in the same way. I have a few dear friends who are in a similar process as me and we frequently comment that it just isn't the same for our husbands. It's not their body, so they don't feel every little thing and wonder if it meant something. And they don't physically experience the NO answer each month.
7. Speaking of physically experiencing the no answer each month, can I just say I am so sick of periods? Periods suck.
8. Pregnant ladies are everywhere. How is that as soon as you're trying you notice about 10 a day? And make that 30 when at church!
9. People who don't know your process at all often ask you when you're going to have a baby. It's hard to know how to respond to that. I feel like yelling at them, "We're trying! We're not in control!" but then I remember that I used to ask that question too, before experiencing my own sadness.
10. People who do know your process don't really know what to say. (Which I totally get. I'm just making a list here.)
11. Another contradiction - I have a love/hate relationship with the my pre-natal vitamins. I often resent taking them, since they taste gross and are expensive and I'm not even pregnant. Taking them makes me feel foolish. So I stop. But then I wonder if taking them might help me get pregnant. So I take them. Then I remember Item #1 and wonder at the point of it all.
12. Each month, I think I'm not as hopeful as in previous months, that I'm playing it cool, that I'm getting used to the disappointment, that it won't hurt that bad when the no answer comes. And then it comes and I realize I was just as hopeful as always.
13. Sometimes while we're in the "waiting zone," I refrain from certain foods (like sushi, or alcohol, or pain medications) so that I don't jiggle our potential baby's brain. But some months I go through the same process with this as with Item #11, so I decide to eat like normal. And then I feel lame for not being able to give up a few things I like for two weeks, in the off chance that I'm pregnant. And then I remember Item #1 and wonder the point of it all anyway.
14. As you can tell from this post, I've learned that the process of trying for a baby is very cyclical, confusing process.
15. Well-meaning comments can really hurt my feelings.
16. Pregnancy symptoms are apparently very common, even when you're not pregnant. I wish I didn't know any of them, because I have all of them. Every month. And it's really annoying.
17. I've found that other women who have gone through a similar process (with a similar length of time) can probably relate with 98% of the things on the list. That feels comforting - I'm not being crazy, I'm just hoping to have something that is very deep to being a woman.
18. Adoption doesn't seem like that strange of a thing after all.
19. People sometimes say (not necessarily to me, but about wanting something), "You just need to let go, then God will give it to you." Really? Is that how God works? First of all, that's a lot easier said than done to let go. And I think God can tell when we've only let go in theory, thinking we can trick him into giving us the thing we want. Plus, I don't think he works that way anyway.

I'm sure there are other things I've learned, but this is long enough as it is. If you're reading this, I'm assuming it's because you love me. So, please pray for me. Ask the Lord for this good gift for us. And ask Him to help me be brave as we continue to wait.

Death is Not Our Friend

On Wednesday, there was an airplane crash at the Long Beach airport. It was a private plane, carrying only 5 passengers and a pilot. The plane crashed during take off and burst into flames, killing 5 of the 6 people aboard. One of the five people killed was a friend. Not a close one, but someone I've worked with professionally in the last two years. He was a great leader in our city and very involved in my organization. I worked closely with him on one of our largest events. I even have emails in my inbox from him from as recent as last month. It's strange and shocking to know that the person who sent that email is no longer here.

Death is not our friend. Moments like this one, learning the news at my desk and being instantly overcome with emotion, with loss, with sadness for his wife and three children, remind me that death was not something we were originally meant to experience. In fact, in the Garden, nothing was farther from being perfectly and fully human than death. When I think about what our community lost, what our organization lost, what our city lost and most importantly and way more profoundly, what his family has lost, I feeling like screaming, "Come Jesus! Come put an end to this brokenness. Come rescue us from this world where earthquakes cause tsunamis and planes catch on fire for no apparent reason."

But, we wait. We wait for Jesus to return and claim us and this world as his own. And it's hard to wait. It's hard to be reminded that for now, we live in a world where death is still claiming lives. But soon, someday, Jesus will show death that he is the victor, once and for all. Then we won't experience days like Wednesday, or last Friday, ever again.

Come, Lord Jesus.