I Love Easter for Sentimental Reasons

Easter is my favorite holiday, and I'm pretty sure it always has been.  As a kid I felt like everyone had Christmas, but Easter was just for me.  My parents used to make baskets for each of us kids and hide them around the house.  When we woke up in the morning there would be a trail of chocolate eggs, a different color for each kid, starting at our pillows and ending at our baskets.  This is one of my most exciting memories as a kid and a tradition I can't wait to continue with Little.





I'm sure a big part of why I love Easter so much is because I love spring.  I love how it feels to walk out into the warm spring air after the snow melts, and feel like it's the first time I've ever had sun on my face.  I love taking off my shoes for the first time and feeling the mud squish between my toes.  I love the tiny green buds of leaves and the smell of wet grass, the tulips and daffodils showing off the first colors of the year.





Easter is a day filled with love, for me.  I get to be with my family, without obligations or distractions, knowing that at that moment there is nothing more important to do than to simply be at peace with them.  I don't have to do anything but let the joy of my family fill my heart.  At church, everyone is rejoicing and thanking God for his love and his salvation.  Easter is the one day out of the year that I never question God's love or faithfulness. 

 



This year, Easter was a day for a quiet drive through sleepy suburban streets, teaching Little to smell the flowers, picnicking by the river, and playing with blocks with the spring air blowing through the house.

Easter was a day for peace.






 

Spewing fire and generally complaining!

I bought my first car in August 2009, a manual Saturn SL 2001.  I was so proud of myself for finding a good car and negotiating a good price for it by myself.  I drove it everywhere, 20 minutes to work every day, 30 minutes to church three times a week and an hour to see David when we were dating.  In September 2009, I found out that one of the gaskets were cracked and that oil was leaking into my coolant.  Everyone told me this was harmless, so I bit my tongue kept on driving. 
When I got my job as a manager, I was driving in between three coffee shops, putting on about 200 miles a week.  My car never complained or protested.
In April 2010, David and I moved into downtown Minneapolis.  I had a part- time job at Dunn Bros Coffee shop about a mile away, so my car was enjoying a brief period of retirement.  But eventually, the car was victimized by the evils of big city living.  I found my car in the alley one morning with one of my windows broken and my doors open.  Since I was broke and pregnant at the time, I bandaged it up with packing tape and left the doors unlocked from then on.  Later I found my car had been rifled through again, and my gas-milage notebook and CD's had been taken.  Seriously, who still steals CD's?
In September 2010 we moved to Virginia, and so my first year with my car had come to an end.  In that whole time I had been pulled over twice, received three parking tickets, spun out in the snow once, bought two pairs of tires and had been broken into twice.  Not a big deal for a year in the life of a car.
The first few months that we lived in Virginia, we left the car in Minnesota to the care of my brother, who lovingly nursed it back to health.  He changed the tires, the wipers, fixed the radiator, and who-knows-what else.  While visiting our family over Christmas, we were reunited with our dear car, and decided it was time to take her home with us.  She carried us on the long journey home to Virginia where a knew life awaited her.
Her first couple weeks home were pretty quiet.  We visited friends, went grocery shopping, went sight-seeing.  The third week we had the car, she was towed from a friend's apartment building.  The fourth week we got a parking ticket during a snow storm.  The fifth week we got lost looking for our church, ran a stop sign and got a traffic ticket.  The sixth week the car wouldn't start and we found that the starter needed to be replaced.  The seventh week (this morning) David went outside to replace the starter and found that the car had been towed from our own parking lot (where we pay to park) for being parked over the line in an abandoned corner at three in the morning.
Considering that more bad has happened in the past four weeks than has happened in the last year, I think either my car hates Virginia and wants to go back to Minnesota, or God hates my car.  Either way, I think it's time to reconsider the future of our personal transportation, because, at this rate, our car is going to end up costing more than David's education.  There goes my ticket to personal sanity and freedom. 
One more ironic fact: today happened to be the day that David was going to take me out for dinner for the first time in two years.  Interesting.

A Chronic Case of Preggo Brain

The first time anyone ever suspected I was pregnant, I was at work.  I commented that I was feeling generally weird and loopy.  While this may not have made anyone who knows me think twice, my co-worker immediately joked that I was probably pregnant.  We both chuckled a little and went back to our headsets and air-pots, but in my head, sirens, lights and alarm bells were going off.

As my pregnancy moved along, my brain started to feel more and more like it was filled with air, or water, or some other non-intelligent substance.  I lost orders, barely avoided crashing my car, left produce in my car to freeze, and usually couldn't remember what day it was.

Once I left my management position, my head seemed to go somewhat back to normal.  I thought reduced stress had cured me, although being in a car still caused general pandemonium.  I'm not sure if I really did get some of my conscience back or if I just got used to being a numb-scull.

I realize now that during social situations, I'm really not all there any more.  When I'm having conversations with my friends or family, sometimes I drift off into space while they're talking.  When my boss is telling me important stuff, sometimes I realize later that I was paying no attention whatsoever, and I have to use a mixture of sub-conscience investigation and common sense to figure out what she said. 

When I was visiting with one of my best friends over Christmas, I asked her the same question at least twice.  I could tell she was a little irritated.  Later I had to ask David to recap the conversation with me.  Seriously, my husband knows more about my best friend than I do. 

Certain things you can get rid of after a birth of a child, like daily emotional breakdowns, buffalo wing cravings, balloon feet and strangers telling you that you're HUGE.  Other things stick around just to remind you of that wonderful time you brought a beautiful human into the world, like stretch marks, cellulite and the uncontrollable urge to say "Aaaaaaaaaaaw..."  when you see a kid do something cute or a husband do something sweet.  Aparently I need to add pregnant brain to that list, too because here I am, approximately fourteen months after contracting pregnant brain, I'm still looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.  I think I may be doomed to a life of loopy-old-ladyness forever more.

Someone please tell me there's hope, or at least let me know I'm not alone.

A Year of Blessings

On this day a year ago, David and I announced to our families that we would be having a little baby.  We were both nervous and somewhat frightened at the prospect of raising a baby when neither of us had a steady job.  We had no idea what path The Lord would take us on, where we would be or what we would be doing.  For all we knew, David would be working in a factory and me in a coffee shop and praying that we would have a can of beans to split between the two of us. 
Now I'm sitting in my home in Virginia, enjoying the few days of break that David has off from school, feeling very full from our first Thanksgiving meal together.  David is cleaning the kitchen while we sing "Alice's Restaurant" together and Little is sitting in her chair squealing, giggling, and whipping her rattle around. 
Today, I am thankful for a home, a family, a future, a husband who cleans the kitchen for me, a pumpkin pie I've yet to eat, and a healthy and giggly baby girl.  But more than anything, I'm thankful for a God who is faithful and loving, beyond any reasonable cause.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!