"Country Roads, Take me Home"

Hello my peeps.  Sorry for the lack of blogging lately....Ive been on the road a lot lately and just plain busy with work and life.



Two weekends ago I spent the weekend in West Virginia visiting my aunts and cousins. Its not a trip I make as frequently as I should but its always a wonderful and "soul cleansing" vist. WV is my foundation...the opening chapters of my life. I was born in a small town in between Beckley and Charleston...my parents were childhood sweethearts who grew up two doors down from each other. When I was 4 my Dad joined the Navy and we moved to San Deigo but my foundation had been laid. It was foundation of spending summer evenings chasing "lightening bugs" while the grownups drank sweet tea out of mason jars on the porch, before mason jars were dubbed "redneck wine glasses" It was a foundation of Sunday service followed by dinners at my Great Mamaw Renes where all the men sat watching football while the women sat in the kitchen cooking and gossiping......a foundation of swimming in rivers and being petrified as my uncle told tales of catfish big enough to swallow a volkswagon beetle (SERIOUSLY...I believed him)



Kanawha River



Gorgeous Fall Sunrise off Midway Trail


 

I could go on for hours, the first memories of my life in that small town are some of my most cherished. Even throughout all the moving as a Naval family I spent almost every summer of my childhood in WV literatly walking from one grandmothers house to another. As I've gotten older.....I've lost a lot of those family members that played so much into those memories...but those memories are precious and in keeping them it honors my family members that have gone home to the Lord.   Life keeps me from going up to WV as much as I did as child but I try to get up there twice a year.   Say what you wil and insert cliche WV "married to my cousin" joke here......it really is a beautiful place.  Enjoy the view...I grew up with them!










 


Last weekend we went to HowlOScream atBusch Gardens with our best friends Dan and Emily. We were beyond thrilled when the Frezzas joined us here in Virginia and love having them right up the road in Williamsburg. Jonathan, Dan and Emily have all been friends since their freshman year at Western Carolina Universtiy (before Jonathan and Em transferred to ECU) When Jonathan and I started dating I knew that Dan and Emily's approval of me was very important to Jonathan....they are like family to him and have become that way to me as well.....I passed!!!  We always have a good time together and HowloScream was no different.  The lines were awful of course but the rides and hautned houses were outstanding!



 Last week was diffcult on the "baby front"  A friend of mine had a miscarriage.  Under normal circumstances that would be sad but I find it even more difficult knowing and sharing her desire for a baby.  My heart is broken for her and I can empathasize with her pain.  When you are trying to have a baby it seems like everyone around you gets pregnant with no problem and has the easiest most complication free pregnancy ever and then something like this happens and shakes you to the core.  I have been in deep prayer and fasting for healing for her heart and body.  I  know that whatever God has in store for her, myself and any woman who's hearts desire is to become a mother is His plan.....even if we can't understand it His will above all else.

Psalm 139:13

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.



"I DIDNT READ THE BABY BOOKS"

So now that we are "working on it" (I WILL NOT be using the term "trying to conceive" or TTC ---its too clinical and it bothers me haha) I've begun to prepare both my body and my mind for pregnacy and WOW there is a lot of information out there.  My degree is in Health Education and Promotion so I have a pretty good foundation of knowledge in the pregnancy department but I still like to keep myself informed.  

I was at Barnes and Noble a few months ago and was absolutely amazed at how many "baby books" are out there.  As I was staring at the plethora of baby knowledge all I could think about was the scene from "Knocked Up" when Seth Rogen and Katharine Heigls characters were fighting about him not reading the "baby books" and he was freaking out saying

"I didn't read the baby books! What's gonna happen? How did anyone ever give birth without a baby book? That's right. The ancient Egyptians engraved What to Expect When You're Expecting on the pyramid walls!

I forgot about that!"

..and he has point. MILLIONS of women have given birth without the overload of information that American women in modern society have access to. So I've decided I want to keep my research to a minimum.  I dont want to read books that are going to be clinical and harp about all the things that are going to go wrong with my pregnancy and our baby. I want to read books that keep it real but are still witty and humorous because I have never been one to shy away from laughing at myself.  So on my way home from work tonight Im going to be picking up "Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth" by Jenny McCarthy.  YES, singled-out, playmate, Jenny McCarthy.........like I said I want honesty, humor and entertainment.....not a textbookthat can rival an nursing students OBGYN book. I read an excerpt earlier and literatly laughed out loud reading the sample chapter so needless to say Im looking forward to it. I am a voracious reader so I fully anticipate finishing this book by Sunday! Anyone out there read it?

                   

"We are working on it"

What a lame blogger I have been, life got busy and I go slack. However, there are some changes taking place in our life and I have made a promise to myself that I will document them.  My blog is about to become a bit more like every other blog that women my age have. Ff you read one of my first posts I swore I wouldnt do this to you.......but I lied, and you can stop reading...I wont be offended.  Over the next months this blog will become more for me and less for my readers (all two of you ROCK). It will become a means for me to document the journey Jonathan and I are about to take, so I can look back and laugh and cry and smile. Most importantly it will be for our future children, so they know that their mommy and daddy wanted to remember EVERY second of the journey we took to have them in our life.  Yes world, we are officialy trying to have a baby! The name of my blog has a wee bit more symbolism now than it did 5 months ago.  My promise to my followers..I'll try to keep it funny, witty and dare to say things that no one tells you about becoming a mom without giving you TMI like so many blogs do. So now this annoucment is out there and I no longer have to smile and give a lame answer when people ask me when we are going to have a baby. Now my answer is..."we are working on it"   ---

1 Samuel 1:27–28"I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD."