Birthday Girl

Today is our sweet baby girl's first birthday! Where did the time go? Really... Where did it go? A year ago, I was holding her fresh out of the oven. Today she is a fast, talkative, smiley bundle of fiery haired passion.

The past twelve months have been the most challenging and rewarding of my life. Today was wonderful day of redemption. A year ago today, we were blessed with the most precious gift the Lord can bestow, but it was also fraught with turmoil. I won't go into details, but relationships amongst various family members were strained for a very long time.

Instead of joy on that day, there was alot of tears of anger and sadness. Oh, we were joyful for our wonderful daughter, but we were angry at those that would steal that joy.

Today however, the Lord redeemed the day. He always wins. We had the joy we should have had back then. We got to celebrate in a whole new way. I am so thankful! And I rejoice in the Lord's goodness! He also revealed many things to us today about the direction we need to take with Zoe and any future children. All in all it was a marvelous day.

Here are some highlights.

Zoe at 7 Acre Wood at the petting zoo. She LOVES animals!

My first cake! She fell in love. She has had very limited sugar until today.

Getting ready for bed and a story in my Narnian bedroom.

Happy birthday Zoe! Mommy & Daddy love you!

Open the eyes of my heart

I run slides at church on Thursday nights. I enjoy it typically, but tonight was hard. I struggled the entire night. It was so overwhelming that I wanted to run right out of the prayer room. A cacophonous assault of anger, frustration, rejection, and offense berated me. I couldn't hear anything else.

I wanted to enter into worship. I prayed and prayed that I could let all of it go, but it did not. I feel like the Lord was opening up my ears to the things that plague me all the time. The questions of "why am I left out of everything to do with these people that I want to grow to know", " why can't they just like me", "what's wrong with me", "why can't I move past this", and so on and on and on.

I felt a great measure of freedom back in August and felt I was completely free. Of course I felt tested in that freedom. Then I was ill for all of October and most of November. I was homebound for 6 weeks with little to no contact with them. I felt like an island. It was extremely lonely.

When I came back I expected a level of awkwardness, but I wasn't expecting the barrage of attack I would feel. I desperately wanted to run away, just like tonight. In my sense of freedom, I became complacent. I let my guard down to the enemy and I was infiltrated. The loneliness I felt was amplified. I felt like I had left my island, entered the heart of New York and was completely lost with little to no help.

Pretty pathetic huh? I feel lame just writing about this. I know in my head that I have help, but my heart was being squished and wouldn't accept the help. I hate when my heart is wrong and it wins over head knowledge. It never allows that knowledge to sink into my heart which trumps it for good.

So that's where I'm at as we end this year of ups and downs. I want the Lord to open the eyes of my heart. So that I can fully know His goodness and trust in Him. I no longer want to struggle with what I have been for a long time. I want to walk in full freedom and my heart be so full of love for the Lord that nothing else matters.

I want to worship more fully. Live for Him. Tear down the idols in my life. Lord, help me to get to this place where I come up from the wilderness leaning on my Beloved.

Thanksgiving Fun

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you all had a great time and lots of turkey! I know I did . We decided to host Thanksgiving at our house this year and it was really fun. I loved it and was so happy to have friends and family join us for such a special occasion.

Here are some highlights...

Zoe and Grandad

Turkey Napkins

Zoe and Aunt Sandi

Declutter

So my stress level for the year has gotten to me. I have had shingles for almost a month now. Too evaluate what has been going on, I have to back up a couple of months.

September was probably one of the hardest months in our marriage. We went through some really rough stuff and the Lord helped us through. We had another miscarriage and we both were at opposite ends of the spectrum of how we felt about it.

When we suspected we may have been pregnant, I was scared. I cried ugly tears. How could I be ready for this when our daughter is still so young? I was emotionally not ready for this at all. I was still trying to adjust to our girl because we have had a roller coaster of a time with her. I felt like I was spinning out of control.

Please don't get me wrong. I had settled in my heart that if we had another baby so soon, we would love and accept it. But my initial reaction was panic rather than joy. I hate even admitting that, but I am human and I am not perfect. In a perfect world, I would have been overjoyed at the surprise. And please know that I have settled all of this with God as well.

So I took three tests, the second one having a faint blue line. The other two nothing. I don't think my hormone levels elevated enough to register for a solid yes. So two weeks after my missed period, I miscarried at church. That was a surreal experience. I had no idea what to feel at that point.

I got home to my hubby and baby and told him what happened and cried on his shoulder. I was not relieved, I was sad. I felt guilty for having fear over having another baby so soon. I felt crushed. I did not know what to do. But this miscarriage was different in the fact that the time I had to grieve was in short increments. My daughter needed her mom so I had to proceed with business as usual and when I got the time, I could cry and process.

My husband on the other hand, was less affected. Which upset me. I know it shouldn't as men tend to process and accept things differently. I know all these facts about "a man doesn't feel like a father till the baby is in his arms", "men don't process a miscarriage the way we do because they don't feel the same bonds we do", etc... I had a hard time telling him how I felt when I wanted someone to say I know how you feel (which is highly unrealistic since he could never really know how I felt), I know your hurting, I feel the same way you do (again, not realistic), etc. I also felt like he blamed me for the miscarriage since I did not react so favorably to the idea of being pregnant again. Guilt has a way of making you feel that everyone around you is mad at you.

We finally worked it all out, but it took a few weeks to get there. We were able to express how we felt and what we needed from each other in times of crisis. Which is a great thing and it has helped us communicate better on other levels.

In the midst of all of this I was working on my second craft fair inventory and rushing to meet deadlines. I got sick in the middle of it with a sinus/upper respiratory infection. The stress of the miscarriage/marriage trial, craft fair, crazy deadlines, and illness exploded the day before the craft fair. My right shoulder and right side of my neck were ON FIRE! It felt like pins and needles shooting flames under my skin. I went to the doctor that Monday afterwards and turns out I have shingles. YAY! Not so much.

Shingles takes a long time to heal and you can't be around people who haven't had chicken pox or the vaccine. So I have not been out of the house (except walking with the hubby and daughter) in almost 4 weeks. I'm heavily involved with the kids at church and can't risk giving it to them...unless their parents want them to get chicken pox. Then they can come to me, lol.

So what have I used the past four weeks to do: Get my life right with the Lord. And deep clean/purge my house. All this busyness, stress, and distraction had left a huge whole in my life. I had not spent time with the Lord. I had let so many other "obligations" take over my time, that I had forgotten what was important. This was manifested in my home life. I was not communicating with my husband, our house was literally a wreck, I was spending less time with Zoe so I could do other things, but mostly I wasn't praying. We weren't praying as a family.

The Lord in His exceeding graciousness, found a way to get my attention and bring me back to my first love... Him! So that's where I have been and now where I am going. Back to the beginning.

Adventures in Eating: Wow!

So it's been since August since I posted last. That's pretty sad. I have been so busy focusing on my two other blogs, my business, and my daughter, plus a myriad of other things. I'm hoping to heavily focus on this blog for the next few weeks.

I should have the time since I had to cancel everything and am on house arrest. You see, I have shingles. Which are very painful. It feels like someone poured acid in my veins/muscles.

Shingles can give kids chickenpox that have not been vaccinated or had the chickenpox before. I teach the kiddos at church and I don't want to spread it. Since I will be at home for awhile, I can take more pictures, clean and cook more, focus on what really matters. I can be the help meet I'm created to be and the mommy I have wanted to be.

We have had some major disruptions in the past month and a half. Lots of things have been coming at us on top of busyness. I was getting ready for a craft fair last Friday and I was feeling sick (shingles were starting) and the Lord stopped me and said, "What do I have to do to get your attention?" I honestly and shamefully replied "I don't know". Well within 24 hours I had a small rash on the back of my neck and my arm would not work properly. I thought I had been bitten by a spider cause the bumps were so small.

So yeah, the Lord has my attention. I can't go on the way I have. I have lost a lot of things in the month of September because I was too focused on so many other things. I feel so worn down. I can only blame myself. I had too many things in my hands that I couldn't hold any of the blessings God had for me.

I will continue writing on my blogs, but my focus will be different. I won't sacrifice family time for the internet, my business, or obligations that I have made that are not healthy. My daughter is now 9.5 months old and before I know it she will be 1 and I would have missed it. I don't want to miss anything!

Suburban Homestead: Fall Garden

Hello everyone. I wanted to update you on what our little homestead is doing. We finished putting in our fall garden a few weeks ago. We have had a few sprouts but a few things didn't make it (carrots and broccoli).

So far our leafy green bed sprouted and our sugar snap peas sprouted. The celery looks pretty pitiful at the moment. It doesn't help that we are going into fall with very hot and dry temperatures. But hallelujah, we are getting rain today! Watering on our own every other day only does so much when the land is this parched.

Check back soon for an update on what's growing, some recipes, and other sustainable living tips and tricks.

I Blinked

And September was gone! I can't believe that it has gone by so quickly. We are now in the 10th month of the year. That is hard to believe as well. My daughter is almost a year old. Which is happy and heartbreaking at the same time.

I have been super busy and am looking forward to October being over as well. Two craft fairs in one month will be challenging for sure. Plus our Nativity play at church (we are doing it as close to Jesus' real birthday as possible), church fellowship dinner at the end of the month, and various errands and work to be done.

I'm just asking the Lord to give me strength and stability in the next few months. The holidays are always difficult. Let's just say when people think of the holidays, they think of happy times with family. Not so much for us. But we are hoping to change that. We don't want a negative spirit this time of year.

Other than working till I pass out every night, I am trying to enjoy our little girl as much as possible. We watch this alot...
It is Zoe's favorite! Her favorite parts in order of importance: When Dory speaks whale and when Bruce the Great White shows up. She gets ridiculously happy at both these parts. She seems to get concerned (as in she will make a weird whiney noise at the TV) when Dory and Marlin are in the jellyfish forest. It's totally odd, but so cute.

Well that's what we have been up to. I will post an update on our fall kitchen garden soon.

Abundant blessings to all!