7 Quick Takes.... plus a few days :)

What a week... I was exhausted by the end of it with good reason yet still on the go. I will post my seven quick takes on Monday... No link up but that's okay. 1- First and foremost, I have been praying for a friend's baby, Fiona. Fiona is due in late January and was looking at some serious and life-threatening health issues. Well, Fiona is now Cieran... and some of the health issues are gender specific so there's some relief. That said, baby Cieran still needs prayers because he is faced w/some serious heart complications. I don't know much more but I am still praying. His parents specifically asked that we pray for intercession from servant of God, Dr. Jerome Lejeune. I didn't know much about Jerome Lejeune but he is fascinating and inspiring. 2- My knee. Ouch. I hurt it and that slowed me down last week. I had a complete ACL reconstruction back in high school. I was an athlete and it stopped my volleyball career. For a few weeks it has been bothering me. Then, last Tuesday, it popped and I couldn't walk at all. Thankfully the orthopedic was able to provide relief with cortisone and lidocaine. I am awaiting MRI results. 3- My sweet baby girl, Mary Jane, turned TWO!! We had a very low-key celebration but it was special nonetheless. She had a great day and finally got her CAKE. She's been asking for cake for weeks! I want to write more about my girl turning two and about her birth family... so much to say at a later date. 4- Feast of Immaculate Conception was lovely. I celebrated by attending a mass at 6:30 in the morning.... without my girls. I am actually quite conflicted about mass and mommyhood. How do you manage to be prayerful and reflective while wrangling toddlers? It's tough. That's what made an early morning mass so nice... just me... 5- I am old. And it's good to be old :) I had a nice dinner celebration with my best girl friends. We had dinner at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant. I was so out of place. We drove in my BFFs minivan... we were a sight! We had fun but I am so glad my priorities aren't being in the "in crowd". I never was... but I am glad that it's nothing I desire now. 6- I struggle with feeling anxious over the to-dos of the holidays and just being at peace with my family. I was not nice to John this weekend. I felt PMSy... and I took it out on him. We made up... but I don't like that part of me. 7- We took our Christmas pictures yesterday. More toddler wrangling but it was great! We already have proofs!

A little note about the photo shoot.... we used our wedding photographer. While you might be thinking... oh, that's sweet.. there's more of a story. Our photographer left us high and dry w/o photos for over a year. We almost had to sue her... it was a mess. Long story short, she'd had her own terrible journey of losses.. we've mended our relationship and it felt super good to not have bitterness anymore. I think that's called Grace. :)

Good Enough

Advent is here... and I am good enough. Actually I am good. I love the seasons of our year.... especially Advent and Christmas. But I find myself struggling with too many "to dos" to make the season and holiday meaningful. In my head, I picture my perfect home--- one with holiday scented candles, a homemade Advent wreath like the one here: http://memoriesoncloverlane.com Holiday music would be playing and I'd have friends and family over regularly to drink cider and enjoy the season together. I should add that pinterest is feeding these visions. Instead, I have a purple votive candle sitting on top of a green plastic plant container that is on the corner of our table, out of reach of little hands. I have a toddler that yells for "High Chair Music" (more on that later) whenever I put on season specific tunes. Our tree is up and trimmed... earlier than I'd like but I need to be sensible since we are out of town for a good chunk of the month. But now our tree looks awfully lopsided because all of the ornaments and lights have shifted to the top half of the tree to stay out of the hands of little people. Martha Stewart, I am not. But in this season of Advent, I am good. I am enough. I am present for my daughters and that is much more important than the perfect home. I say this... but it is a mantra I need to repeat. Focus on the important stuff. You are good. It is enough. Being mommy trumps royal-iced sugar cookies.

The Right Side

I was aggravated listening to a radio talk program this morning. Mind you, this station tends to be right leaning. They had a reporter at the Republican Convention. She joked that she as asked what would make more women like Romney and Ryan... this was a poke at their Right to Life issues. She said they should send a copy of 50 Shades of Grey to ever female voter w/a note from Romney. Okay, maybe I am not being eloquent here... but my point is my frustration that there's an assumption that women voters can't believe in life at conception and can't support Romney/Ryan because of Pro-life views. I have plenty of friends that are on the other side and I support them but I also want to scream that you can be well-educated and worldly yet want to protect the sanctity of life. I thank God daily that my girls lives were precious and saved......

Summer End

I wonder if one day when people ask if I have a blog, I'll surrender and give them Mr Bunny's blog site and call it a day?? I really really want to be someone that writes a few times a week. Reading other blogs brings me joy. And I'd love the written history for myself. But a few things stop me... I think I am a little reserved (or a whole lot) and I try to keep my private thoughts private. And time. There are so many things to do in this blessed life of mine... when should I blog? What should I write about? Well, as my weight loss journey starts again, I am going to try and use this space for just that. Maybe this blog will beless adoption, less Faith. But I need somewhere to help support my weightloss journey. I need support in getting my body to a healthy place and this is the best place I can find to document it. So, I missed my 40 lbs by 40 goal... I did shed 12 over the past year. But my new goal is still similar... I like catchy goals. 40 in 40 :) I turn 41 on June 12th.... which is exactly 291 days. Or 41.5 weeks... which works out quite nicely. I didn't plan it that way but clearly if I loose one pound a week, I'll be there. Here's a current picture....

(this is a pic of our finalization day for Betsy! July 3rd w/our lawyer) A motivation to lose weight is this: http://www.flagstaffextreme.com Flagstaff Extreme. We went this er while in vacation and we'll go back next year. I completed two of the four courses. While I don't think I'll even complete the Black course (it really is made for the gait of a man), I want to feel more confident on the course. It was fun but I could tell I was fat. Ugh. I'll leave you with a link to Betsy's first year video. What a sweet girl... she makes me smile all day long. http://animoto.com/play/MJwQ34TgXCcJA6aXRONKWg PS- the formatting is awful... sorry!

Summertime

I could rant for a paragraph about how I've abandoned blogging.... but truth is that's just silly IMO. Life is busy... I didn't get signed up for Lenten Prayer Buddies... somehow I missed it... and I fell off out of the Blogosphere. (I think I just wrote a paragraph about not blogging, huh?) Welcome, Summertime!! Warm, inviting, long nights... it's all good, right? Yes, it is... but summertime is an adjustment with little ones. First off, sleep is tough for us. Mary Jane knows it's still light out at 6:30 but her little body is tired. She needs to sleep but fights us like crazy. John and I struggled with decided to either letter her CIO (cry it out... for those non-mommies that are {not} reading my blog) or snuggle and rock. The latter has won... life is too short to let tears happen before bed when they can be snuggled out! It's also tough on this Bunny.... The mister stays at home all summer. He is a teacher, after all. While it's great, it also means changes to my order. I am use to having things just so... and well that doesn't happen with him. Life is literally messier with a SAH-Daddy.... it's great for the girls but it takes mental adjusting for me. Above all, I am so happy that the girls have summers with Daddy.... I really am. Aside from summers with daddy and not sleeping well, summer means swimming and swim lessons, music class, vacation in Northern Arizona, seeing birth grandparents.... and lots of outdoor play. For John and I, it means a Dodger game or two, Hollywood Bowl once or twice (before baby bunnies, we were sort of Hollywood Bowl junkies... in the cheap seats), and lots of swimming and playing with our babies. Summer is here..... yea!

Seven Quick Takes Friday

It's been forever and a day since I blogged... let alone a quick takes... I won't elaborate but rather jump right to it since there's silence in my house for the moment.

1. Is there such thing as mommy wrist? If so, I have it. I keep spraining (or at least that's what I call it) my wrist. Perhaps that's the downside to having two sweetpeas crawling and hanging on me for most of my day? Fair trade-off... well, maybe. I'd just as soon not have pain in my wrist.

2. Forgiveness? I need to move on from a painful period from work last year. Since I am the "boss", I can't say the things I want... such as, "I thought you were my friend", "why did you say such mean things about me... even me as a potential mom", "are you really this unhappy with your life that you need to try to tear at mine?". But the truth is, even if I was not the boss, God wouldn't want me to say what I've been feeling. I really have held onto these feelings for to long. I need to go to confession and talk about these deep harbored nasty feelings that are keeping me from being a forgiving person.

3. I am sort of nervous to put this out there... although few people read my blog and even fewer people "I know" read my blog... but we are very close to making a decision to move towards a third adoption!! I am beside myself with excitement and joy! I am being pulled towards an International adoption. We don't have money in place or any of that but we are 40....almost and my feeling is that if God wants it for us, he also help us figure out how to make it happen.

4. I love my girls. That's all. Well, that's not all... I am overwhelmed by the depth of my love for their sweet bodies and I thank God for letting me be their mother.

5. I really need to lose weight. I do. I need to motivation and not gimmicks. I need to do it once and for all. I hate that I have let my weight go... I suppose I don't pray on this much and maybe that's what's keeping me from really engaging and getting it off. I guess I need to work on it.

6. I am reading two books that I love right now. and Both are making me look at life differently and I love it!

7. We gave up television for Lent. It's not that hard. I was really struggling with the idea (which is why it was so important to do). But a great off shoot is that we are listening to more music and dancing with our girls. And this I love :)

May you dance your way throug the next week.

Slacker!

That's me.

I've been a bit of a funk. A bit overwhelmed. A bit distracted. All of this equals slacker-hood.

As much as I love the new year and starting out fresh, I put a lot of pressure on making it right. What should I do to make this the perfect year? What should I concentrate on? What bloggers have inspired me? Yadayadayada...

The result is that I get overwhelmed and paralyzed.

I don't like this feeling. I know that my little ol'blog world isn't the most read or public side but the writing definitely helps me get stuff out of my head... so I am dedicating more time to blogging.