sweet timing

It is amazing how the right timing makes the good things in your life even better. As I lay here on the couch feeling my baby girl kick with my puppy asleep on my arm I am amazed at how happy and relaxed I am with my life. I keep hearing about how crazy people think all our new changes are but well, we are so content. Any of these things at other times in my life would have been, and have been so negative. But for now, my life is bliss. That's all really... sigh...

Good Morning Four Day Weekend!

Okay so I realized that there is no way I can really post this until I brush my teeth. And I should take my prenatal vitamin too or else I am totally going to forget.

Alright that is done. Well here I am on a Saturday morning letting Kel sleep another hour while I fiddle around the house and tidy and pee at least every 20 minutes because that is what you do when you are pregnant. We are heading into the city today to get some baby stuff and help Kel spend his Christmas Money, as well as have brunch with some great friends. I have a four day weekend, due to MLK day and then a random Tuesday off. I will have to work next Saturday but just 6:30 - 1 PM which is all reality isn't THAT bad of a day. Nice and short at any rate. It will be a busy weekend of getting things done around the house that we have neglected. We bought some paint for the living and dining room areas last night. I would like to hang some more pictures on the wall and then just start perhaps trying to sew some window hangings and bring the room together as it were. That will be truely lovely.

So we found out that we are expecting a baby girl this week. That new has come with a roller coaster of uncertainties and emotions. I am coming to find out that when you think about being a mother of a daughter you sort of immediately think about your own relationship with your mother and what was modeled to you, as far as mothering lessons go. I haven't always had the best relationship with my own mom and so well, I think some nervousness arises. I think of all the things I want to be for her, to show her, and then I worry about failing her. I want to show her strength, beauty, how to put on her makeup the right way, how to pursue what God called you to do with your life fearlessly, how to make things out of popsicle sticks and how to let it all out with a cry but then pick yourself and move on, realizing that it's really your only option. I want to make Dad's Christmas cookies with her and tell her all about how much her Grandpa would have loved her. What if something happens and I close off like my Mom... I shudder to think and I refuse to let it happen. I want to give her everything from me, not necessarily the best clothes (although hopefully we can save her a little embarassment) but My major concern is giving her the best of myself, being Leanne Penny as a mom in the best most God honoring way that I can. I can feel God molding me along these ongs I just pray that I stay soft and bendy to his will and teaching.

That being said I am off to buy something pink and indulge myself in all the excitement that comes with expecting our daughter. In all her beauty and and potential.

Home

Home is such an elusive thing in my life. Is it where the heart is? Is it where I grew up? I am writing this from my parents house where I have lived since sixth grade, up until I moved out anyways. However this house is not what makes home for me. The home in this house died with my father sadly and so I am a nomad when it comes to home. Home will catch up with me in miscellaneous places. Sometimes just being in a restaurant with family feels like home. Often times my aunt and uncles houses feels more like home than I realize. Home certainly is most often encountered in West Michigan for me but does like to sneak up on me at the Henson's house in Oklahoma City. The one thing I know is that I need to find a way to make where I live, feel like home. I don't want to live the rest of my life restless for the home I cannot find. I don't want to always find myself discontent with the address on my mail, wishing the bills I loathe came to a West Michigan address. I am hoping that one of the ways that God grows me in 2009 is to make where I am feel like home. Teach me contentment God, and please continue to weave Kel and I into a family. Allow this family to be the priority and help our new little house to bubble over with homey-ness.

Packing

Sometimes it seems my life is this endless chain of packing. I never get to be in one place long and it is starting to wear on me. (hang on I have to rotate laundry in order to have clean stuff to pack) okay rotated. There are moments I simply can't wait to be home, most of them in fact. I prayed for this trip, thank God for answered prayers. I am however going to miss my Kel more than I can express. 13 days apart seems like a lifetime and a half. I was realizing as we were talking in the tub last night that he has become my best friend, the kind of best friend I can take birthday suit baths with. I still hold my girl bffs dearly but all this transition has certainly moved Kel into my best friend spot. Ada is so lonely without him, I still have yet to make a friend or even hang out one on one with anyone at all really, or even in a group. So without Kel this town is pretty gray. Although I am going to try to do more with my time here than I did during his last absence. I certainly need to tackle the garage. Maybe even the nursery, clean it up so we can start preparing it slowly for bebe's arrival. Ugh I need to be packing, Kel is doing the dishes and he will surely come out and expect me to be packed and yet I will blogging.

I should stop blogging when I am crabby. Its just that lately I feel as though I will never live up to my own expectations. They are so high. And when I don't jump through my incredibly high hoops I can't accept myself. This is terrifying. Just walking around your house feeling completely inadequate in every way. I blame myself for everyones problems, obviously mine but certainly Kels too.

I should just stop, Lord please in some new years miracle help me to find the ever elusive Grace for myself that you seem to have in spades. I hope. Help me to find some smile for Kel for tomorrow for the next week and two weeks and life. Help the child inside me to somehow feel love and peace despite the turmoil I feel in every organ and cell. Forgive me, love me, lead me through the fog that always seems to settle down on me.

Lifting up my heart

Clearly I am bad at being alone. Kel is gone until Thursday in Houston being refreshed I hope. And I am here, in Ada. Work keeps me busy but I long for community and a sense of belonging. These things take time but my heart keeps wandering back to Holidays past, and they all seem warmer and more exciting. I think I am just emotionally and spiritually worn out. I love our tree, I love my husband, we are hostessing Christmas this year, something I have always dreamed of! My heart is just not in it. I am reading through the Christmas story in my bible and I look over my pond in the mornings. I am trying to feel, more. I am sure It's all jus a result of being overwhelmed and that the numbness will go away. Tonight is just a Monday night, on the couch, with a microwave pizza. Not one exciting thing about it.

God, please awaken my heart, help it to overflow this season with gratitude. Give me eyes to see the moments that are small beautiful gifts of time and laughter with loved ones. My heart hurts with how much I miss my loved ones. Please fill it with love, new love, new traditions, a solidarity of this new family, and us-ness instead of what we are missing.

I lift it all up to you, and more that I can't communicate.

And now its dead.

So for the last week or so I have noticed our Christmas tree wilting and I have noticed that I couldn't smell it's evergreeny freshness. I have been checking the water line in the stand of course. Well yesterday I went to touch a branch and it snapped off in my hand. The whole thing had gone dry and crunchy! Two weeks until Christmas and our tree was completely dead! Geez... What a hassle! Kel researched it online and decided that perhaps if we cut some of the base it will start to suck up water, so we unscrewed it and tried to lift it from the stand, it was not al the way unscrewed so it got dusty sappy water all over teh velvet tree skirt and brand new carpet... yay! We finally got it unscrewed and I steadied it on a plastic bow while balancing myself up on the tv stand. He tried takin his leatherman (which has a small saw blade) to it for like ten minutes. He decided that is going to take forever so he unboxed his new curcular saw and put it together. I really didn't feel comfortable having him using the saw like that. And that wasn't working anyway so after 5 more minutes of using the leatherman saw on it he tried a hammer and chisel ( I have a ver inventive husband!) This caused a shower of dead needled and ornaments to cascade from the tree, creating a nice cover of needles all over our new living room floor. Finally we gave up, undecorated it, and threw it out on the back patio. Then we cleaned up the SIGNIFICANT aftermath and I finally sat down on the couch at 11:00 PM. I called Home Depot this morning and they are going to give us a brand new tree to replace it and we get to decorate for Christmas all over again! Yay!!! (not)

Just plain update

Well here I am on the couch Sunday night. With the smell of Christmas all around and the glow of the Christmas tree. We're watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition I am crying already.

Life has been beautiful lately, painful at moments, and then some epiphanies. Being pregnant is great, but also a struggle at moments. I am trying to redo how I define myself as successful. I can't weight my worth by being thin and sexy in that way. I have to re-figure worth to me in that way. I'm getting bigger and having a baby. My body is now beautiful in other ways. And I am working on being okay with that, but it's hard for me and I know that's hard for some people to understand.

I get to go home for Christmas, over the new year. I can't wait to step off the plane and see the faces of the people that I love. To just hug and laugh with those that I love.

I'm distracted but here are some updates. Love. Leanne