A Year in the Making

So, while Baby Mims happened to be an "unplanned surprise," as I said in the last post, I can see evidence all over the last year that the Lord was leading us towards parenthood!

First off, at this time a year ago, I was knee deep in preparing for a doctoral program that I'd applied to. I was almost desperate for a change in my life and thought going back to school was the answer. The program was 3 years long, cost a ton of money and would eventually award me both a Masters of Science in Nursing and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice/Family nurse practitioner. Given the time commitment and the huge financial toll it would take on our family, I prayed fervently that if the timing wasn't right, that the doors would close. In May, I got a letter saying I'd made the alternate list for the program. This confounded me, as it was really neither a "Yes" or a "No." This is turning into a really long story, so fast forward to never getting a call for an open spot and being at peace because my prayer had been answered. The door was closed.

Waiting to hear from MUSC about the program took me through the month of July. My next story started shortly after, in early fall when I'd started to feel like I was done with the whole taking birth control thing. I didn't like the way it made me feel and frankly didn't really find it to be all that imperative anymore that I be on medication. Jordan wasn't an easy sell on this idea. He was not interested in having kids, and at the time I wasn't either. After several long conversations, we decided that going off birth control was an acceptable idea. Mind you, at the time I still couldn't even fathom the idea of having children. I was never one of those people who wrote in "Mom" as an answer to the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question. There's nothing wrong with that - but it was never me.

Funny story comes up in October or early November when I'm frustrated and griping at Jordan about my holiday schedule. Bad thing about floor nursing? A hospital never closes. So working holidays when you're a flight/16hr drive away from family is really depressing. We haven't been home (to Augusta) for Christmas in 5 years. In my anger, I made the comment, "Jordan! We just need to get pregnant in January, have a baby in October and I'll be out through the entire holiday season on maternity leave! Then I won't have to work a single holiday next year!!! UGH!"

If that wasn't timing enough for you, this past December, in getting spiritually prepared for a mission trip to Kenya, I felt like it was necessary to weed out any wrongly placed desires. I didn't want to go to Kenya because "it's Africa and that's so neat." I really wanted to be in the Lord's will and timing, so I began to pray for myself and my choices for this trip. (I'm of the firm belief that the Lord has already told his children to GO. Thus, when an opportunity to serve arrives, I don't usually look to the Lord to say "yes," because His Word already gives us that answer.) I prayed and earnestly sought after the Lord and submitted to His will. I knew that I would follow Him to Kenya and prayed for preparation, and was so excited about going, that I literally prayed that the Lord would send a huge roadblock into my life if the timing wasn't right. The only huge trip-changing thing that I could think of...... was pregnancy. So that became my prayer: Lord, I will follow you. If this isn't right, bring about the one thing that would shut the doors on this trip, which in my mind is a baby.

January rolls around and I jumped into getting healthy, changing my eating habits, running and losing weight. We all know that in February, I started the Advocare 24DC and really cleaned out my body. Here's a confession: I never actually finished the 24 days, because I found out that we were indeed pregnant!

So!

I'm thankful that I did not get into graduate school, nor felt the desire to reapply.

I'm thankful that the Lord was gently changing my heart.

I think it's hilarious that we will indeed have a fall baby.

I'm thankful for answered prayers.

I'm thankful for a healthy body.

I'll be super thankful when this first trimester yuckiness will be a distant memory! But that's for another post!

Amazed.

Just when I thought I'd begun to really see and know God as being wonderfully good and infinitely wise, He brings me to a newer and deeper level of understanding. His purposes are divine and His plans are so intricately woven together. Hindsight, of course, is always 20/20 and looking back over the past year, I can clearly see the Lord's leading and perfect timing in our lives. I see how my heart has changed and was prepared. I see the Lord's provision in our lives. I am so grateful, my cup overflows.

Jordan and I are having a baby. 

Even now, at 13 weeks, it all just seems so bizarre and unreal. Bizarre in that my sweet baby's body is formed all the way to the fingerprints and is already so specialized at only 13 weeks of life. Unreal in that I can barely wrap my mind around the reality that I have new life within my body.

And at the same time, I've never felt so full of joy and so fiercely attached to this little life. 

Meet my sweet child.

I just want to praise the Lord for every heart beat, every movement, every moment. Scripture assures us that the Lord is the One who knits life together in the womb, who has our days numbered even before they begin. Psalm 139 has become so beautifully new and real. 

I am overwhelmed by my Creator and my small role in His creation. 

I am elated. 

Baby M is set to arrive November 1, 2012. 

Cake Batter Blondies

Ok new blogger. My type "A"ness isn't jiving with your recent changes.

Regardless.

So I baked on Monday!

I whipped up a batch of these little treatees for my lovely coworkers. Here's a confession: I'm that irritating girl who adds extra syllables and sounds to the end of words. Treats become treatees, tennis shoes become tennees. Feel free to be irritated. So, back to the goodies. I found this recipe @ The Six Sisters Stuff, which is this fun blog that's written by (gasp!) six sisters. There are a ton of easy and tasty recipes and I'm hoping this will be the first of many that I try.

Cake Batter Blondies with Icing
Cake:
1 Box Funfetti Cake mix
1 Egg
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
1/3 cup Milk
1/2 cup White Chocolate Chips

Frosting
1/4 cup Butter
2 cups Powdered Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
Splash of milk (or more depending on the desired consistency)
Food coloring of your choice (I happened to have neon colored food colors on hand, so we went with hot pink and blue.)

350 degrees. Grease a 9x9 pan. Combine cake mix, egg and oil, then slowly mix in milk. Finally, fold in the chips. Spread in to pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely. Blend all frosting ingredients together until you find the desired consistency... dense or whipped, thick or thin. Go with what feels right. Frost and eat. I put some sprinklees on top.

I was looking for something relatively specific to make for my coworkers this week and remembered my dearest friend Kelli always making funfetti cookies while we were neighbors in seminary. I usually ate at least 7 cookies, but they were super quick and easy and almost as good as her lemon bars. I had a box of funfetti mix on hand and came thisclose to making cookies, but thought at the last minute that I'd try something new and found this recipe. So of course, with a cake mix/semi-homemade type recipe, it's super fast and super easy. The batter went together in minutes, baked up without a problem, were iced and went out the door. Final verdict? They were very well received at work - folks were still talking about them today. Personally, I think they are SOOOOOOOOOOPER sweet and necessitate a cup of strong black coffee to offset the cavity inducing sweet fest. The frosting can easily be omitted. Need a quick, crowd pleasing, technicolor cookie bar type treat? This will probably fit the bill perfectly. Will I make them again?

Eh.

Did I eat 3 of the not cute, ugly cut, poorly iced leftovers when I got home from work?

(plead the fifth.)

Not again!

So my lovely husband is alllllllllmost finished with his own Advocare 24 Day Challenge! I have remained quiet on this for the last 3 weeks, considering I think everyone was a little tired of my endless raving after I finished. I couldn't be more proud of the progress my lovely husband has made and am so excited to see him all gung-ho about his health. Today, he wrote a blog (which is much more eloquent and less self-centered than my final challenge post was!!!) about how he has changed since starting the 24DC. It has really encouraged me to read and learn about his experience, so I think you should check it out as well!

Whether You Eat or Drink, Do All to the Glory of God.

Happenings

I'm quickly on my way to becoming one of those bloggers who post so infrequently it's more of a hassle to keep up with than a thing to enjoy. Be patient grasshoppers, I will find my groove again soon. In the meantime, I shall bore thee to death again with a retelling of the last week's happenings. Please, try to restrain your excitement.

Last week, I purposefully only worked 2 shifts. As a side note for those of you non-nursey folks, we shift-working nurses usually do three 12 hour long shifts and that equals a full week's worth of work. Something else that's of note, I'm no longer considered a full time employee, but am now working as a Superpool employee. The Superpool is where the best and greatest of nurses go to work, hence the "Super" name.

You didn't buy that right?

Superpool is a variation of a PRN (per diem) status. In a nutshell, it means I can work as little as 2 shifts per month or as much as a full time person. My time isn't guaranteed and I don't accrue vacation time, but I can essentially pick my own schedule, making life extremely flexible. I also no longer pay for benefits, which means I got a significant bump up in my hourly wages. I officially switched in January and it's worked out incredibly well so far. I mean, I can just work 2 days if I choose. So that's what I did last week.

What did I fill open days with you ask? Uh, lots and lots and lots of yard work. Our flowerbeds were so overgrown and ugly, it would've been embarrassing to take a "before" picture. So I didn't. But 3 days of weeding, trimming, raking and mulching and the front and back beds are looking presentable. I'm pretty certain we'd become that "eyesore" house that every street has. I promise, however, we don't display lawn gnomes or leave unsightly trash, such as stained mattresses or busted vacuum cleaners on the corner.

I'd post "after" pictures, but last night/all day today, we've had thunderstorms, high winds, hail and some flood-causing rainfall. Enough rain to wash out a considerable portion of my fresh mulch. Gah! And I thought the dog would be my mulch-nemesis. So it saddened me to see my lovely flowerbed contents floating out into the street this morning. Maybe later this week we'll replenish the many barren spots. Or maybe we'll just reclaim our "Ugliest yard on the street" title.

As a result of this torrential rainfall, I had my first near-deathish experience today. Maybe that's a little melodramatic, so I'll paint a picture for you and you can decide how close to actual death I might have been. Living in the coastal bend, we're barely above sea level, making flash floods or just regular flooding a very real issue. So I'm on my way to work this morning in this ugly storm that's been hovering over most of the night and morning. I get about halfway through my 45 mile drive to the hospital when literally the bottom falls out of this black cloud looming overhead. Visibility is down to mere feet and the water is rising rapidly all around me. I knock on my emergency lights and stop on a bridge just to buy a little time for the rain to slack off a tad. Hail and high winds and major lightning start in on me and the car is literally rocking back & forth in the wind. Between the super heavy rain, high winds, lightning, and hail, I was near panicky and felt like a sitting duck on that bridge. I could see over the bridge that the roads beneath were under at least 3 feet of water. Finally, the rain lets up enough to move forward, but I soon find myself trapped about half a mile further down the highway where the water had gotten so high, I was sure my little low-riding Jetta would NOT make it through. So I parked it once again on the side of the road and waited for almost an hour while it continued to pour. I was determined not to become one of those idiots you see on TV floating along in their car, but the thought flashed through my mind multiple times. Finally, a nice man in a large truck and a cop helped me to back up/turn around, led me through a less flooded parking lot and got me safely turned around. It was dang scary! For those of you espanol-inclined, I will probably be on Univision at some point today - the weather watching SUV pulled up next to me to film the massive flooding and the dozens of cars that were stopped along the sides of the highway.

So that was my excitement for the day. Needless to say, I didn't make it to work, but I did eventually (slowly) make it home safely, where I quelled my anxiety with pizza and brownies. We'll try it again tomorrow.

Masters 2012

If you'd told me 7 years ago that I'd go completely gaga over the Masters, I'd think you were crazy. Just like since living in Rockport, I've learned "tourist" is a bad word, living in Augusta during Master's week is barely a blessing and mostly a curse. The city swells by tens of thousands and it's almost impossible to do anything or go anywhere with the traffic and crowds.

But something about growing up with it practically in my backyard, and now being 1000 miles away just makes me so sentimental over this incredible golf tournament. We all know how deeply ingrained golf is in my life, I mean, it's in my blood practically.

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My dad is such a huge golf fan and was an avid golfer for many many years (I can remember he and my mom talking about doing the golf thing as more than a hobby). I spent many evenings at driving ranges. Our front yard had a tee and green (we had a couple of acres of land to work with)

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This hole is my namesake! Its a big deal.

So this year's winner is Bubba Watson. You didn't read that wrong, the winner of the world's most prestigious and difficult golf tournament is named Bubba. The more I learn about this guy, the more I really like him. First off, the guy is a Christian. On his own website, at the top of his list of accomplishments is "Christian: loves Jesus and loves sharing his faith." Next, he's a good southern boy, who played golf at UGA. Third, he plays with a hot pink driver. Fourth, he literally wept when he made that winning putt to take this year's Green Jacket. It was incredibly sweet and a testament to his humble nature.

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But it looks like Bubba Watson can also have a good time. Check out this video that he & his Golf Boys posted to YouTube. It might just have you laughing out loud. FYI: Bubba is the guy in the overalls. Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

It's Easter Sunday! Resurrection day!

It's a cause for great celebration (and not because white shoes are now "ok")!

The Easter weekend is the cornerstone to our Christian faith- without it, we are still lost. Sure, Christmas is a wonderful holiday and I wholeheartedly enjoy celebrating the birth of Christ. However, God's redemptive plan has been in place since the beginning, so when He looked down on the manger, He not only saw the coming of the Son of Man, but also saw blood shed and the cross. Then, the empty grave! It really is the pinnacle! My God is not defeated or dead, but alive and risen and reigning on high!

The Jews believed Jesus would redeem Israel and free them from the Romans. But in his great power and with unending, unquenchable, unconditional, unwavering LOVE He freed ALL of mankind from the sin that separated us!

Jesus told the Jews that He would rebuild the destroyed temple in three days. They were confused, as it had taken 46 years to build it. But Jesus was speaking of His own body! He rose to life in three days and completely changed the world - the veil was torn! That which separated God and mankind was gone! Praise the Lord!!!

Thank you thank you thank you Jesus for resurrection Sunday.

Luke 24:46-49 Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.