Mr. Snail

Tuesday, a friend and I went to a nearby coffee shop. Walking back, we found this gourd that a squirrel must've snitched and pigged out on. Best guess is that it came from the vine at the coffee shop. It recently had a gourd on it that looked a lot like this one.


Pizza that we bought at Whole Foods of all places. Look at the middle: "CONTAINS 23.78% ORGANIC INGREDIENTS." Very impressive. It's almost safe! Besides, how do you say ".78%" and actually know it's accurate? Wouldn't you have to count flour molecules?


And last but not least, I found Mr. Snail inside the slot for the filter this morning. Good timing too. We bought the filters last night and I'm putting them in today. For reference, his size is somewhere between a nickel and quarter - closer to nickel. We got him about 10 months ago when he was half that.

"Major Brain Cells, Reporting for duty!"

While I'm thinking about it...

A friend said recently that there's no evidence within our God stories that I'm thinking critically about what I see, or questioning things. I totally didn't realize I worded things like that.

So, for clarification, only about 1/4 of what I see gets put here. It's the 1/4 of what I see that I feel certain really IS God. Another 1/4 is stuff I "put on the table" and interrogate for a while. And 1/2 of what I see just gets filed in the back of my head for later.

Tiny example: I'd be seeing those sparkles on other people for 3+ months before I mentioned them here. They had to show up on us for me to believe it.

Let's face it, the part of me that's scientific and calculated doesn't get displayed here. How would you know I have such a side? (Yes yes. Make your silly jokes.)

Howdy-Ho Neighbor!

• Blogger's image uploader isn't working - as of 10 seconds after I put up the fish pictures last night. So I'm afraid I'll have to bore you with words. I do apologize.
• Two nights ago, we sat on the bathroom floor, me with a calculator, looking at the tiles. D was trying to help me figure out what the sum of the interior angles of a hexagon would be. Just for fun. The man has warped me.
• Beau can stick his tongue out. I had no idea. He's taken to licking the cage bars.
• I got most of the paintball paint out of D's old jeans. He had fun on the Men's Retreat yes indeed.
• And I actually slept pretty good without him. Totally God - I know I can't do that. I can't even nap in the daylight when he's away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of God, for about 8 months now, I've been fully aware that it was Him answering prayers one particular night that currently makes me alive. It was an overnight improvement that continued, after about 3 months of going nowhere but downhill. And now I'm rather weirded out when he I see Him doing supernatural things. Seriously, you'd think I'd easily trust His power after that. I couldn't sit here typing if it weren't for Him using his strength. You'd think I'd trust it. Him. I mean - Him taking action...

All that 1 Cor.12 stuff - What it amounts to is that I love it when God does such things with me - especially when it's the stuff that doesn't require the presence of another human. But other people doing it - or doing it with other people present - that's what weirds me out. Wait. The problem isn't the power, it's the people. (Ewww people are groddy. They all have coodies!)

Rhetorical question, but what am I supposed to do to get past that?! Gaaag!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• I spent 3 hours Tuesday organizing the second bedroom. That's all it took to triple the floorspace in there, give us a room instead of a storage closet, and clear 6 more square feet of floor in the kitchen too. Ahhh, refreshing! Why didn't I do that 2 months ago?
• I've had very sober, emotionally draining conversations 3 days in a row now and I REALLY need to watch a movie. And dip warm gooey chocolate chip cookies in milk.
• Which makes me think: We grabbed a package of chocolate chip cookies at Whole Foods Monday night, and David said, "Those are the ones we took to the hotel in February. Those are really good." Thus making me clearly remember sitting in the hotel room, eating the cookies, physically and emotionally miserable, trying to name J. I took them out of his hand and put them back. We actually ended up getting the exact same cookies in a different package. It's just something about the way the package looked.
• I'm reading Isaiah at the moment. Usually, when I read the Bible, I tell myself I'll read 1 or 2 chapters and then I look for the next chapter number, hoping the ones I picked are short. Yesterday, I found myself looking for the next chapter number and being relieved to see it was over 2 pages away. And I'm having to limit how much I let myself underline. This is great! I'm on like chapter 45 and I started Saturday.
• D agreed that if I could get 100 people to join a "We Want D" Facebook group, he'd get a profile. We're up to 93. Anyone wanna join FB and help me out?
• Our Friday night group is pulling an all-nighter to pray for the election tomorrow. No way will we stay all night - I'll start shaking. But we'll be there late. And since we usually wait until 11 before we all go out to eat together anyway, this'll really throw my sleep pattern for a loop. :)
• Between this bullet and the last one, we waited in line 2 hours to vote in front of a man wearing knee-high lace-up moccasins with fringe on top, who was talking in a high voice about how very exciting it is to be seeing all these [democratic] changes in government. (And in front of us was a gorilla wearing a yellow polka dot bikini, shaving her legs, and singing "R-E-S!-P-E-C-T!")

Crack-less Tank is Set Up

The 11 male feeder guppies. In about a month, 1 or 2 will be chosen and put in the tank with the 4 females. "Bru-wahaha!" (Wringing hands wildly).


Anti-Yoda over the thermometer. Her 3 daughters huddled together. Harry the neon is bottom left. Yellow is Ganbatei. Pink is Adrenaline. Mr. Snail's round profile is at the top of the thermometer.


Brink. About 2 years now.

In a word...

I am copying the next paragraph from Nicole's blog (link on the right.)

Nicole nominated me to complete this little quiz. To accept this nomination, I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and nominate 10 other blogs for the "I heart your blog" award.

And here are H's answers:

1. Where is your cell phone? POCKET
2. Where is your significant other? CRUNCHING
3. Your hair color? PRETTY
4. Your mother? TALKING
5. Your father? THINKING
6. Your favorite thing? ABBA
7. Your dream last night? LONELY
8. Your dream/goal? FULL-TERM
9. The room you're in? SQUAWKING
10. Your hobby? GUPPIES
11. Your fear? NERVES
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? MOTHERING
13. Where were you last night? LAP
14. What you're not? STAGNANT
15. One of your wish-list items? BOOKSHELVES
16. Where you grew up? RURAL
17. The last thing you did? EMAIL
18. What are you wearing? NAMES
19. Your TV? LAPTOP
20. Your pet? WHICH
21. Your computer? FURRY
22. Your mood? SAD
23. Missing someone? ALWAYS
24. Your car? PLUTO
25. Something you're not wearing? BLING
26. Favorite store? PET
27. Your summer? RE-BOOT
28. Love someone? GNOME
29. Your favorite color? PINK
30. When is the last time you laughed? YESTERDAY
31. Last time you cried? WHILST

Okay, here are my 10 nominees - Cat, Val, April, David, Karen, Jason, Andrea, Izumi, Kari, Laura.

Why I Can't Vote for Obama

I'm hoping no one read the article that I did have right here. (It had the same title as the post title.) It was up for about 5 hours today.

A major accusation against Obama in the article had to do with abortion. Ironically, in those 5 hours, I had an in-depth talk with some friends regarding politics and abortion.

And if you did read the article I had here - I freely admit I should've checked my sources before I posted it. I apologize. I simply can't tell if the accusations against Obama in the article were true or not.

It boils down to this: I can not tell what sources and even "quotes from Obama" are legitimate. And so I must simply vote on this one detail: Obama does support the murder of the children. McCain does not. And I am a mother. The end.

Jury Duty

Howdy there. Feels like 3 weeks have happened in this one. I'll get ya caught up real quick. Don't really feel like yacking. I'm tired. Just staying on my "blog every Thursday" routine.

Last Thursday was my first-ever day of jury duty. Story unto itself. But here's the big deal of the day: Ever have God just "download" something into your head? As in you weren't even thinking about the topic, when you suddenly have a massive clear insight into it, head and heart both fully engaged? If not, I hadn't either. Not before that trip to CA a couple months ago. But anyway...

I'd been sitting in the courtroom since 9. Mid-afternoon, sitting there being bored, a clear emotion suddenly hit me - If you were the person being accused, and the first thing they do in the morning is make sure no one is there who might support you, how disheartening would that be?! What a horrible sinking feeling right then when you need a friend.

When that hit me in the stomach, I mumbled, "Jesus." (Silently of course.) And it immediately hit me; JESUS! It would've been worth being put on the jury just to get that. Which, by the way, didn't happen.

ETA: Answering the first comment here. I'm referring to Jesus being our friend while we are "on trial" before God. An attorney who was willing to take our punishment for us so we wouldn't have to take it. A judge who he has heavy influence with. In fact, a judge who actually raised him from the dead so he could have that influence. It's not even something we can understand.

Tons more understanding has come since that moment. Once I got that "Courtroom Grid" in my head, God started building off it. It's been great.

Feeder Guppies...

We went to the pet store Saturday to get the new tank supplies. While we were at it, we bought feeder guppies. They're smaller and look closer to wild guppies. And they're cheap. We asked for and paid for 12. We got 27. Atleast 10 are the pretty males. I'm giving away the females. (Also Saturday, David ordered 12 doughnut holes and got 16. Either really odd or really God - but if it's God - I don't get it. Maybe he's just being nice?)

We finally got the new tank. I got it set up. I should be able to put the fish in Saturday night. The old tank is half-full on the kitchen table with the feeder guppies in it. Fishes fishes everywhere and not a bite to ... nevermind - that's gross.

The old tank had to be vinegared due to that dish soap problem - gravel and all. Rinsed 10 times. Smelled up whole apt. Wore. Me. Out.

We got plane tickets for Christmas in CO - flying Wed and Sun.

I got to watch a 2-year-old buddy on Monday. However, I never even saw her as she was asleep. Oh, but I took them 5 of my feeder guppy girls. That was fun.

Did I tell you we found a house group? I don't remember. We did.

I'm tired. Bye.

He's Worth It

My appointment with my counselor Monday night turned out to be my last one.

It'd gotten to the point that the only thing I ever had to tell her were stories of God interacting with me. I'm sure none of you are surprised. Though my counselor is an awesome chick, God's totally taken over her job.

I talked some about my single biggest emotional problem, and ended up concluding that God's doing what she would've tried to do to help - but more efficiently. God's been giving me the comfort and instruction I need there. I could stomp away if I really wanted, but the love he dumps on me along with the help is compelling.

I also talked about the baby issue, but ended up saying, "It was worth it."

Seriously, THAT'S God. Losing the 2 of them, I've been ripped to shreds twice over. But ya know how I rarely have anything to talk about besides God? There's a reason for that. He has consumed me. He was literally my only means of surviving around February. Now, the life I have is adamantly lived through him - and for him. The goodness of God far outweighs the badness of losing children - or of being in so much physical pain, or of having to try and prepare my husband for my death, or of any of the thousands of other terrible things humans go through.

It was worth it. Knowing God has made it worth it. I'm officially addicted. I am in love. I am quickly becoming radical. I pray that process speeds up. I am committed. He's not giving up, and neither am I. I'm in.

He's worth everything.

"Your attention is MINE."

They really do rule their humans, don't they?
~~~~~~~~~~~
These first 2 sections I copied from an email I sent my parents on Sunday:

So coming home from the conference late last night, D
was unlocking the back door when I heard a scurrying
in the bushes 3 feet behind us.  Always eager to see a
critter,I spun around, and ended up saying, "Look!  A
possum butt!"

Just 5 feet from us, wedged into a depression under
the neighbor's wood fence, was said possum butt.  A
tuft of beige fur, a foot of furless pink tail sticking
straight up in the air, and one up-turned back foot
revealing cute little pink paw pads.  He thought he
was hiding in the hole.  Perfectly still - pink tail
and pink paw pads glowing.

After a few seconds, it occurred to us to whip out
the camera.  But we didn't make it.  He must've
thought we hadn't noticed and he silently slipped
through to the neighbor's yard.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, we found a house group.  And no joke that sparkles
showed up.  We'd spent the evening eagerly talking
about pursuing signs and wonders - a fairly new idea
at our church.  And lo and behold, sparkles.  Shooowee.
I tell you peeps, we done found somethin' up here.
Lo'dy.

Get it?  Found the Lo'dy?  Haha.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Last Thursday, we went to the Lyme doc.  The previous
day, I went over the lists of symptoms I keep - all
the ones since April.  Looks like I AM having relapses.
I'd thought I wasn't just because they've been so mild.
But the extra-bad days are pretty consistently one month
apart.  That means the Lyme must still be alive and
kickin' in me.  That's the biggest news.

I'm still on the antibiotic.  Been about 14 months
now.  My main symptom, the muscle quivering, may well
be my very low magnesium level.  I got an IV bag of
it while there, and my daily dose got doubled.

The trip into Grand Rapids is gorgeous though.  The
2 hours just west of town are lined with colorful fall
trees.  Many shades of green, and bright red, orange,
and yellow.  Though it looked similar that whole 2-hour
stretch, it was still easy to keep staring.  Really nice.

P.S.  If this is formatted funny, blogger seems to be
having a prob with it at the moment.

They're glofish.

I figured it out. The pink and yellow Adrenaline Rushes are these - glofish. Zebra fish with bioengineering or genetic somethin-er-other.

Big Round Bright Yummy Huggable Dinner

Dis my Beau Feathers. And taked-2-hours punkin din din.

It was on my hands because it was stringy and bright yellow and slimy. And the lid slides really awesome across the table and leaves a snail trail!

ETA: The title did not refer to Beau. Kthxbai.

More photos on Flickr.

Babies Again

Saturday, we bumped into a friend at Target and ended up at their house 2 hours later with another couple - 6 adults and as many kids.

Realizing that one of them reads this, I'm still gonna say; I can not STAND being the only mom without kids! Gag!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I keep coming back to this topic with different wording. But I'm really getting tired of it! For about 14 months, I've dealt with this. The way my brain handles it has gotten much easier. But as it turns out, getting my brain organized has been irrelevant to my emotions.

It's constantly in my face. Talking about someone else's baby shower. Seeing my friends with their kids in their laps. Having a little girl leap into my arms, and before I think "how sweet," I think, "but she's not mine." Toys scattered on someone else's floor, and I'm thinking about how lame it is to have a tidy house.

I could stay home all the time and I still wouldn't escape. It does seem worse when I'm being social though. It's quite the dilemma. I need friends - especially mom-friends. But what happens around mom-friends? Mom-stuff: baby showers, kids in laps, toys on floors.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday, we went to a friend's house. Her husband is currently out of town, so we spent the rest of the day with her. Going on a walk with her is how I found that nifty leaf up there. All the fall colors except orange. Not bad, eh?

When we were still there at dinner time, she suggested we either make pizza or pancakes. So naturally, the pizza went in the oven and we got working on the pancake batter! :) Yummeh.

We watched "Sarah Plain and Tall" before going home. Two kids crying because they don't have their mom, the little girl having a nightmare and screaming "mama," and a very fake scene where a woman has a baby who has trouble breathing. All off the top of my head. My eyes are clean. Hmph.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning though, I got to wondering. When the day comes that I do have a living baby in my arms, after the tears of joy and relief, will there be a flood of grieving tears? Will the reality of grief be driven in deeper by suddenly comprehending how much we've really lost? Will having a living baby, in those first moments, even be a good memory?

Aquarium

Friday I whacked the aquarium edge with a plastic hanger. Good thing too. It got me looking at the glass.

For months, there'd been a chip out of the edge of one sheet of glass. (The aquarium walls are 4 sheets of glass held together with a silicone seal.) That tiny chip had spread into 2 tiny cracks - a small piece of glass had become seperate from the large sheet and was held in place only by the connecting sheet and the silicone. Good enough. But air was getting through those cracks and forming a bubble under the silicone. Lovely. A leak in the making. And you know from past posts, the fish haven't exactly been low-stress lately.

So, I pulled the water level down a couple inches below the crack. We still have about 6 gallons in there. That completely wiped out their filter, air, and heater. We need a new tank. Completely starting over, and right after the dumb dish soap incident. Aaaagh!

I'd like a non-breakable acrylic tank. But that's shelling out $200 instead of $15. So I'll get over it.

Meanwhile, the fish went back to hover-crafting. Since pulling down the water a few days ago, the tank got a nice stench. I figured there was a connection between the hovering and stench, so I pulled them all out yesterday into a bucket of treated tap water. Hovering turned into complete lack of motion. Gaaah! Back into the smelly tank. Atleast I know they're breathing.

But get this: An hour after I put them into that bucket, it smelled too. They were in it for several hours, during which time the lid was off the tank and the tank stopped smelling. What in the WORLD?! I figure it has something to do with bacteria. But I'm at a loss as to how to prevent it or fix it.

When we get the new tank, I'm dumping the gravel. I already dumped everything else. The filter system will be vinegared to get any possible dish soap off. And we're filling it with special water from the pet store instead of treating the tap. But I have no clue if that's gonna fix it. Or prevent it. Or save the fish. Or keep me sane.

I keep going back to "BUT I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"

Yeah.

Clearly.

Not Just an Audience Anymore

Last Thursday night was the worship-till-ya-drop night at church. Turned out to be even more fun than usual!

It's not unusual anymore for the sparkles to show up. Once the music stopped, D was looking around the area where he'd been standing. There were red sparkles scattered around. But he found a chair that was caked. They're blue cloth chairs. The seat and back were heavily sprinkled with them - all red. The area around had a thinner scattering. No one was sitting in that chair or any of the surrounding ones.

It was taken to the front, and people were milling around talking about it. Then came another chair from the back. This one was just as well coated, but in silver. Once again, no one was sitting in that chair.

There was a lot of discussion as to how the "glitter" got there. Plenty of talk about the recent wedding, the possibility of Kids' Church, and the fact that all the chairs had just been scrubbed down. But D and I have seen this before. So have many others. And I am STOKED that God's sending it down at our home church now!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday, I had the 3-5 year olds during second service. Meanwhile, the mother of one of them was upstairs worshipping. Afterward, D and I were in the sanctuary milling around. We were talking to the leaders of our Friday night group when the mom came running up with her hands in front of her. She could hardly speak for laughing. Her hands were covered in sparkles. First time getting them. Ahhhh... church is a hoot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been craving 2 things lately. I need to worship, and I need a baby. Worship I can have. And boy am I.

Sunday morning, I realized I can no longer sing "holy holy holy" and stay standing up. Perhaps this is temporary, but it just ain't happenin'. Several times lately, all in different settings, we've sung those words and I soon ended up on the floor. I thought it had more to do with my choice than anything. But I generally am very concerned about not standing out at church. Best I could tell Sunday, very few people even had their hands in the air, and no one at all was on the floor. Yet, down I went. Grant you, I could choose to stay up. But it'd feel horrible to do it! I'd rather have the flu.

I don't know what's going on around here. But somethin' sure is. I know it's God and I know it's good. Can't figure out a bit else.
~~~~~~~~~~~

After church, a group of us from the Friday night group went out for lunch. Looks like we're planning a solid 3-4 hours of worship some Friday night soon. I've been assigned to help find CD's to use. Like I said earlier, worship and a baby. I'm SO anxious for that night to come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

My identity is wrapped up in being God's, my husband's and my babies'. But I've got God and D. E and J consume me.

We heard recently that God is always in worship offered through pain. I really see it. Worship, particularly in private, has become a gut-wrenching joy. The floor ends up wet with tears. I end up screaming in silence. But this kind of worship is life-giving. There are no words to describe it - maybe thick. Thick's good. God really is present in this kind of worship. He's not just an audience anymore.

Big Goings-On

E's booties from an AIM friend. Rag cow from a friend at the 3-week counseling program I was in in March. J's socks from D's parents. J's shirt from house group friends. J's blanket from my parents. (We have very little of E's.)
Angel with girl and boy from a childhood friend. Lavendar from the flowers D's office sent after losing J. (And that's a photo involving our faces.)
Albino (yellow?) mudsucker.
Adrenaline Rush #'s 1 and 2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For months, I'd been having this train of thought as I walked through the house, "We don't have any pictures of E and J up. Oh. We don't have any. (depressed look)."

So it finally occurred to me to put up something else. I pulled out a few baby items that we favored and put them together in the living room. (above pictures) We have the announcement for each child set aside to frame together. And we chose 5 of the sympathy cards to put together somehow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night, me being hyper, we went to the pet store. Fishieees!

D's favorite fish are neons (blue top, red tail). They have been since he was little and he still goes straight to them in the pet store. Our first neon, Harry, is in with the 4 guppies. We got 2 more.

My favorite fish are mudsuckers / algae eaters / plecostamus. They are brown and ugly but cool. The pet store had albino ones! I nearly passed out from the level of coolness involved here. We got a little one.

And we needed more color. We got 2 fish of the same species (what the phlem phlam we don't know.) One is solid yellow. One is solid pink. While in the bag, the pink one leaped every 15 seconds into the top of the bag. This morning, when it was dark and all good fish are sitting still at the gravel, they were both zipping blindly around the bowl. They should've come with a big red warning:

BUY AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Unknown species of fish.
Requires extensive sedation.
May cause irritation to humans.

(Can you guess why the picture of them is blurry?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last Thursday we had dinner with our neighbors. They have an 8 month old boy. She is one awesome cook. And as it turns out, they stopped going to our church at the same time we started. And we met in a tornado. Does it get weirder? We're figuring God is involved here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last Saturday, one of our friends from college stopped by on his way through the state. We ate with Mike in the caf, sat with him in chapel, and I think he and D have the same major. There're a few pictures on Flickr.

I made burritos while he was here. There were 2 large chunks of unseen potato under the burner. The result was brightly glowing, heavily smoking coals.

And though I was beating both of them at Carcassone the whole way through, I came in last. Hmph.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That afternoon, we went to the home of our Friday night leaders. Yappity yappity yappity. Eat a cookie. Watch a documentary about a church leader named Dowie. (He was weird.) Yappity. Order Chinese. (It was good.) Yappity. Eat a cookie. Watch the comedy "Saved." (It was disturbing.) Yappity. Eat a cookie. Go home. These are our kinda people.

The next morning, we visited their church.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight is the once-a-month worship-till-ya-drop time at church. Love. It.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can you believe I got a summons for jury duty? I was just thinking before I found it that I need to make sure I'm registered to vote - given that I have a mighty strong opinion regarding the candidates.

You can ditch privileges if you want to (voting), but you can't ditch responsibilities (jury duty). Figures.

Little Goings - On

Little Bro needed recipes. I just gathered my easiest meat Do-Agains for him. So if anyone wants the list, say so.

My next Lyme doc appt is on Thursday the 9th. I'd rather be blogging on a Thursday. That's where I am if it ends up being Friday.

We're getting David a new jacket Saturday. His current one I won't even let him wear anymore. Oh, and he got new tennis shoes.

Our favorite 214 pictures from our first 2 years are now printed and in a big album. I just have to go back through to label them.

I have the 3-5 year old class at church all October - and every-other month through next August.

This weekend, we plan to buy plane tickets to go see my 'rents at Thanksgiving. We're still working on dates for seeing D's family in December.

I actually put "wash hair" on the calendar - 4 days a week. I have always been well, nasty, about not washing my hair. Result being that I usually look like I mistook the baby oil for the shampoo. So Mom, feel great relief.