Taking "Starting Over" to a Whole New Level...

It's been a long while since I have posted anything. Anyone who read my last post might have assumed I went on vacation, and then just disappeared into thin air. Certainly, I haven't been keeping my blog updated...at all. Maybe I have been extremely busy in my world of crafting madness. Maybe working from home has become such a drag that I can't place myself in front of the computer long enough to type out an entry. Maybe my computer broke.

None of those things are exactly the truth. The truth is, I am pregnant. Talk about starting over, for real...I found out about the pregnancy right around the time of my last post on here. So now I am a little over six months along, and growing very quickly. We are having a little girl at the end of February, so I have been busy with trying to get my life together enough to be ready for this huge (and I mean HUGE) change.

Tony and I never thought we were going to have children. In fact, any time someone asked us "when" we thought we would start trying, we would sheepishly look at each other before explaining that we didn't want kids. Neither of us had any problem with children. We have a niece and 5 nephews between us, and we love them all dearly! We just didn't see ourselves as parents. We would tell our family members, "We know that we are too selfish to share our lives with a child." Most people reacted exactly how you would expect. They would laugh, uncomfortably, and say something to the effect of, "Oh, you'll change your minds." Somewhere deep inside I wondered if they might be right, but I always figured we would adopt a child if, for some reason, our minds did change. There are so many children in this world who don't have families or homes. Tony and I were also not extremely thrilled about bringing a baby into the world as it is today. It can be a dark, mean, and lonely place at times.

Then, at the end of June, I started noticing some changes in my body. Don't worry, I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that while in Birmingham the weekend after my last post, I decided I should be on the safe side and go and buy a pregnancy test. I bought a pack of two that would give you a pink horizontal line if you were not pregnant and a vertical line if you were. I took a test when we got back to the in-laws' house, and it looked like the line was vertical. It was a very faint line, so neither of us really believed that it meant I was pregnant. It must have been a false positive, and it would be better to take the test in the morning, anyway. We went out that night with some friends to a bar downtown called the Garage. I figured we'd rather be safe than sorry, so we chose the Garage because of its outdoor seating. I did drink a beer that night, but ended up nursing it because I was afraid of hurting a baby that could possibly be in my tummy. My best friend, Jenny, was about 6 months pregnant at that point, so I spent the evening drilling her about things like when and how she knew she was pregnant, etc. Somehow, she never picked up on my panic.

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I went to take the second test. It came back with the vertical line (a little darker than the one the night before). That was it. I stood in the guest bathroom staring at this stick that was telling me about the future. My future. I felt sick, I felt scared, and strangely I felt relief. The relief was a huge surprise to me that morning. I realize now that I felt relieved that I would not have to tell Tony that the test the night before was wrong. Did I know subconsciously that he would be excited? Well, when I went back to the bedroom to give him the news, I sat on the floor shaking and showed him the stick. His smile was one of the best visions I've ever seen. My husband was thrilled!

We went to the doctor when I got back from my vacation a week later. I had been 5 weeks pregnant on the day that we found out. The next couple of weeks were filled with wonder, amazement, shock, joy, terror, and uncertainty. Would I make a good mother? Would I be like my mother? Would I be able to love a baby enough? What if we didn't have enough money to do this right? Would Tony love this baby more than he loved me? Would the baby love me?

Somehow, the idea of having a child went from the most frightening thing in the world to something I am very much looking forward to. I'm not exactly sure when the change occurred, but one thing I have been sure of from the beginning is that this baby inside of me is a part of me. She is a part of Tony. She was made out of our love for each other, and there is nothing in the world that I can think of which could be more beautiful than that.

Friday Favorites

It's Friday again. Time for some of my most recent Favorite things.

Favorite new find: She & Him. A collaboration between M. Ward (an awesome singer/songwriter) and Zooey Deschanel (Yes, the actress). I am fascinated by how good the new album is. I love her voice.

Favorite way to save money: I canceled my home phone today. We never used it, and we were paying at least $45/month for nothing. So, I got rid of it. I also cancelled about half of the tv channels we were getting. Who really needs 800 channels?

Favorite News: I'm going to be out of town for the next 2 weeks straight. I will be gone for work, and I'll be gone for fun. I won't have a lot of time to be on the internet so I won't be updating a whole lot, but I'm really excited for this trip. It feels like summer!

I am so glad that today is the first day of summer. woohoo

Good stuff

I've been gone for some time. Between work, a week-long trip, and trying to clean house after returning, I haven't had time to catch up on my writing words to write words habit. While I was out of town I met some great people. It was nice to be reminded that there are plenty of people in the world to meet. Now I just need to get out in Jackson and find some of them here.

Blah, Blah. I don't have a bunch of time and I think I have too many words to put together to make any sense of what's going on in my head. So...later!

A Better Day

Tonight we checked out the Pepsi Pops Rockin' at the Reservoir. It was a fun-filled affordable event filled with symphony music, fireworks, and tons of children running around with glow necklaces and whistles. I have to say that I had a really great time! The music was fun (pop culture hits played by the orchestra), and the company was even better. We brought a picnic and drank a bottle of wine. It was definitely a great start to a much needed weekend!

Friday Favorites:
Place: NUTS - The Good Samaritan Thrift Store in town. I went to check it out this morning and found a bunch of awesome sewing patterns and fabric for cheap. I also found out that next Saturday they will be having a "Scooper Bowl" sale in the parking lot. It's going to be like a flea market/yard sale. I'm very excited about this, and I will definitely be checking that out!

Song: "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" by The Zombies. I go through periods of time when all I want to listen to is The Zombies. Their songs always give me the feeling of butterflies in my stomach. Who doesn't love that feeling?

Person: Rachel. I talked to Rachel for a bit today, and it was so nice. I heart her a big bunch!

Surprise: Work (amazingly). I found out today that I am going to be going on a business trip to New Orleans to do some fun camera and editing work. This is so up my alley I can't explain how psyched I am to do it.

So much for being depressed the other day. Things seem to be going my way...now.

Lonesome

I don't think I have felt this depressed since I was about 13.

Ugh.

Friday Favorites

I am going to try to list some of my favorite things each Friday. They may not always be my favorite things, but on the particular Friday that I am writing maybe they are...

Favorite thing happening to me: We got very lucky, again. The news keeps reporting that it could be up to three months before all of the tornado debris is taken away. Well, they started working on it yesterday...on our street. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks we will no longer be looking at 7 foot tall piles of cut up trees and trash. I'm super happy about this because the view out of my front windows has been less than inspiring.

Favorite Project: The table that my hubby is building is getting there. He is about half way done with it. I can't tell you how impressed I have been with his "handyman" skills since we bought a house. While I sometimes get very annoyed that he won't just sit down, I'm grateful to him for all of the work that he does around here.

Favorite Song Right Now: Jolene by Dolly Parton.

Favorite Surprise/People: In my last post I wrote about my dreams filled with old friends. That's funny because I keep hearing from people I haven't spoken to in years and years. In fact, on facebook, I was contacted by a girl I haven't seen or heard from since the summer before 6th grade. Seriously. Out of nowhere (and we have no "friends in common"), I get a friend request from someone I haven't seen in (I will not say how many, but I'm sure you can guess) years. That's cool. Then, last night, I talked to an old church camp friend. She is truly one of the best friends I have ever had. She was inspiring, courageous, lovely, and supportive in a very important time in my life. Somewhere around me moving to New York around the turn of the century and her leaving the town she had grown up in, we completely lost touch. We had no idea how to get in touch with each other until the internet caught up with us both. It turns out that we lived about one hour away from each other during the time that I was in Georgia. How upsetting. I could have been spending time with one of my favorite people. I really could have used her support during that year. It sounds like she could have used mine, as well.

Did I dream about old friends because my subconscious was telling me to get in touch with them? Did I somehow expect to hear from someone out of the blue? Life is so full of surprises, and that is one of my favorite things.

A whole bunch of random nothingness

I've been having strange dreams filled with people that I haven't been in touch with for years. In these dreams, even though we've lost touch, conversations continue as if we've been together every day in the past decade. I imagine that real life conversations with these folks would be filled more with uncomfortable silences than casual conversation.

My ten year high school reunion is happening this October. I won't be there. My husband and I will be celebrating our anniversary. Honestly, I wouldn't go if I could. My class had 650 students. I didn't know half of them. The few people I would want to see probably wouldn't show...I was much closer to people from other high schools anyway.

A couple old friends came to visit this past weekend. It was great to have a relaxing couple of days with them. Of course, after they left, I was hit with the reality of living in this city where I don't know anyone. That is a depressing fact. I hate that it becomes so much harder to meet people when you get older. (I also hate to admit that being married makes a big difference in how easy it is to meet others.) Plus we live in a place where most of the people have had the same group of friends since childhood. It's not exactly easy to break in on that.

We are working on building a desk/craft table for me. This is something I am very excited about. Hopefully it will help to push me to do more creating.