A happier note

it's been an expensive weekend, but an optimistic one.
i love my husband more than ever. i hate the fact that i am leaving for a week.
shopping therapy, flaming dr. pepper shots on 6th street, "volunteering" at the wine tasting, hiking on the greenbelt and watching once and again all made me feel a little stronger this weekend. i definitely have a ways to go, but i am very blessed.

off to hawaii tomorrow morning. i am bringing 5 books.

ac: healing

Another tragedy. .. sigh

I think it's silly to believe in some sort of cosmic fable of "tragedies happen in 3s" or the like. If it were true, and I was a "let's make a deal with God" type of person, I'd believe that I have just experienced my 3rd tragedy of the past 5 years and be done with it. But, I don't want to go there. I had a miscarriage yesterday, a rotten, heartbreaking, frightening 24 hours in my life. An experience that I hope I never have to deal with again... an experience that neither Mike or I contributed to, but that apparently happens in 30% of all pregnancies. It is not genetic. It is just God's way of stopping the pregnancy when there is something wrong.

What do you do when these heartbreaks happen? For one, I plan to have a good month's worth of heavy drinking. Thankfully, the Alamo Drafthouse had a noon showing of the somewhat mind-numbing Blades of Glory yesterday and Mike and I had an ice cold bucket of beer and let our brains be distracted.

As people of faith, we have to trust that God's ways are not our ways and that he has a plan for us, a plan to give us a future full of hope so says Jer: 29:11 (one of the best verses ever).

So I won't lie. I am a bit upset with God that these sad things keep happening to me, but I can look with hope on the fact that we can conceive at all and that i know i can carry a baby full term. Many other people struggle with fertility, so i am blessed and hopeful there. It sucks, but God's plan has led me along the way to some perfect timing and life lessons. This is probably one of them in some way.

In this tragedy, I can see my blessings more clearly. Thankfully we were only 7 weeks in. I don't think I could have handled this happening any later. I have an amazing husband who makes me laugh, who stands by my side, who makes me a strong margarita, who prays for me and with me and is perfect for me. I have an amazing family and support system. My life is fully blessed. I will get through this. It is painful and horrible for us, but it will get better.

My wonderful doctor suggested that the best Rx for this heartbreak would be to indulge in some drinks of the fruity umbrella kind in Hawaii next week. Mai tais here i come.

AC: Creativity

another tip: Taco Cabana Kids Meals

my friend C3 once gave me a wonderful tip. At Taco Cabana, adults can eat inexpensively on the kids menu. Kids meals are enough for an adult and the choices range from fajita taco's - hard or soft - to regular tacos and enchiladas. In addition to the kids meal choices, each meal comes with either chips and queso or beans and rice and a real adult sized small drink. All that for $4.99. Mmm, I love Taco C!

PSA: Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerrys!

It's free cone day today at Ben and Jerry's. If you go in to a store, they will give you a cone, a free cone. Check it out!

I just got a delicious phish food one and it dripped all over my car, but it was worth it!

Tuesday thoughts

i feel really distracted. finally was able to get through the piles of work on my desk to a rational level, but now there is a void, an anxiety for the next thing. i am excited about hawaii, despite the sad fact that don ho died yesterday. tiny bubbles won't be the same. we went to hawaii when I was in 7th grade. my sister was three years old and did the hukilau with a "don ho" type guy, robert tanaka, I believe and she was so cute on our home video. i unfortunately, had big bangs, a gummy smile with braces and rubber bands and wore an awful strapless bikini and a neon tank-one peice shortall outfit i got in waikiki. i thought it was gorgeous. i even had my first real kiss on that trip, braces and all

with a guy named Andrew from CA. We even ran into them again at the airport and he kissed me goodbye. I think I sent him one letter with a picture of me in the neon outfit and he never wrote back. Teen angst, indeed.

Can you believe it about the shooting at virginia tech? scary because you think about the possibility that something like that could happen anywhere. what drives someone to do such a thing? are we surrounded by people who could go off at any time, like that guy in billy madison? is there anything we can do to stop it? Love them more? Crazy.

tomorrow night is night 2 of the Bible study at our house. last week got me energized and excited. there is a part of me that wants to calm people's apprehension and make it "cool" but I really think it is going to truly be "cool" by not worrying about who comes, or what our house looks like or what anyone thinks. we are giving people a relaxed place to simply be and take time for God. i need that in my own life.

we are studying purpose-driven life, which i tried to read about 4 years ago and like with many things, i read about 4 chapters and lost interest. i am really trying to get into it this time and push on through past my initial eagerness. the ideas of the book seem pretty basic, but it is crazy and deep to think about the fact that God created me uniquely to look like i do and to live here in this country of freedom and wealth and to be raised by my particular parents and have my life experiences. for what? what can i share with the world?

ac: abundance

Yard werk

Over the weekend, I discovered a new love... trimming the bushes in our front yard. There is something very satisfying about doing this. It hurts my hands a bit, though.

We had a balance of relaxing and getting stuff done this weekend.

Accomplished:
-taxes (thanks to my cpa husband)
-purpose driven life ch. 1-3
-trimming and swept front porch
-ran 3 miles with bella
-went to yummy yuppie cafeteria and amy's after
-saw steel magnolias. i love the thea-tah....
-watched sopranos
-slept in
-took nap
-went to church
-cooked honey jalapeno ribs on grill... mmm

Married life seems more "planned" than did single life. The list of "to-dos" is never ending. Maybe it's the combination of two busy lives?... or the homeowner thing? Anyway, I don't mind, if all weekends can be like this one. I feel happy with the balance.

AC: freedom

P.S. One week til I leave for single girl Hawaii work trip!

here's to you, Regis' Zach Johnson

I am not a golfer, but I found myself glued to the TV yesterday during Easter dinner, as Zach Johnson, my former classmate at Regis High School (a year older than me) beat out Tiger Woods and won the freakin Masters yesterday! (I also learned that high scores in golf are a bad thing.) Go Zach! His acceptance speech for the green jacket was pretty surreal. He was very humble and made me proud of my midwestern upbringing giving rightful shout outs to his family, our Lord and to Iowa. I like how he represented CR with the Aegon hat and McGladrey shirt, too. In high school, he was not a standout golfer or anything (or at least on the level of a Tiger Woods or Adam Spanich (if you went to my high school, that is), so this is especially impressive. I think we were on the newspaper staff together, but I always thought he was a bit of a know it all.

You can read about how great he is in the article from the CR Gazette here (Cedar Rapids paper is crap, btw)

Weird Easter

it was an unusual Easter at the lake house for us for many reasons

the weirdest of which was the fact that it SNOWED 3 inches!!! In April!! In TEXAS!