A bloodless but not painless experience!

I can't think of anything too entirely original to post about tonight, so I will complain about my medical experiences the past week! :) First the fun stuff. Dan and I had our first prenatal appointment on Monday, which went great. I love my doctor, and decided right away I was good with her delivering our baby! I guess that's a good sign. We got to hear the little one's heartbeat - wow to say the least. It was so quiet and fast, but it definitely confirmed that there is something going on in there!

Unfortunately though, I had to have my blood drawn, yuck. I know, it's a normal part of life, but my veins just don't seem to cooperate. The nurse at the doctor's office tried valiantly two days last week to get something out of me, but it was just not happening. So they sent me off to the lab, where, as the nurse put it, "They'll get you in one try." Oh my, I wish that had been true. They led me to the room where they draw blood, and it was freezing cold. The first phlebotomist tried three times and each time he made a sound like, "Oooh." Not good! So they had me come back the next day to try with a different phlebotomist. Two ladies tried on me, and thankfully, one got a little bit out - only enough to run one of the tests, though. I guess I have small veins to start with, and in a room that's kept pretty cool, they had no plans of showing themselves. (Hearing one of the phlebotomists say, "Oh, the needle is the same size as your vein" is not a good sign.) I guess I will just have to bring a heated blanket next time, or run a marathon before hand, one or the other! I joked that I was so full of holes that if I drank water, I'd spring a leak.

Well, I keep telling myself I wanted to start documenting what my baby belly looks like, and at the beginning of month 4, I just got around to having Dan take a picture. My stomach is funny - some days it's flat, some days not so much. Good bye flat stomach, I'll see you at the end of this year, I hope!

Stephanie

Stranger than fiction

I was just thinking the other day how sometimes it's so easy to get the "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome and start thinking that everyone's life looks so much easier than my own. I've often thought lately that my own life seems "stranger than fiction." At times it feels like so many things in my life have just been so odd—like my older sister's handicap, my dad's unemployment, my mom's chronic illness, my medical trip to New Mexico, an unplanned pregnancy. I look around at the people around me and think, "Why does no one else seem to be struggling with such strange things in life?"

What a limited perspective! I forget that no one's life is exactly smooth sailing. Suffering and hard times touch everyone, from the richest celebrities to the poorest people on the streets. It's a plain old fact of our humanness. When I look at the people around me, it's easy to miss the pain, the struggles, the hurts that they carry everyday from both the past and the present. No one's immune to difficulties.

Last night I was reading one of my devotional books from Joni Eareckson Tada, who quite frankly, is one of my heroes as well as one of my favorite authors. This particular devotional book is called 31 Days toward Overcoming Adversity. As I read this passage, God's simple truth hit me over the head:

The sufferings we encounter in life—even the garden-variety sort of daily trails—are meant to help us partake of Christ. For when we enter the fellowship of His sufferings, God strips us of our "self-help" mindset. We are forced to our knees and driven to lean on His grace. Then—and, it seems, only then—can God impart His Son's character to us. In so doing, we are "made like Him."

Rather than complaining about the struggles and hard things that God brings into my life, I should be seeing them as gifts from God, opportunities to become more like Him and share in fellowship with Him. After all, Scripture tells me to "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds."

Lord knows that I need a fresh perspective every day, every minute, every second. But rather than acting the part of the martyr, I hope to remember that "in every situation, God is doing a thousand things that you cannot see and you cannot know."

Stephanie

(Just for fun, here's Dan and me at White Sands, New Mexico. It was so beautiful! And no, it's not a beach, just miles of perfectly white sand dunes.)

Footnotes from a crazy trip

Where to even begin? Dan and I are here in sunny New Mexico! We flew in yesterday with the purpose of seeing the doctor who my mom saw a couple months ago. We wanted to be tested to make sure we weren't carrying any Lyme Disease bacteria, since both my parents tested positive. I know it sounds crazy, but this doctor has seen whole families carrying Lyme Disease. Apparently, the mainstream medical community's view and understanding of the disease is fairly limited.

So today, we were able to see him, and he did some testing. I could only hope and pray that he would find nothing... and thankfully, most of that prayer was answered. He did discover that I have something called mycoplasm (a bacterial parasite), some yeast overgrowth, bacteria, and unfortunately, a touch of the spirochetes that cause Lyme Disease, apparently a recent acquirement. Dan, on the other hand, had no spriochetes (yay) but a pretty overwhelming amount of mycoplasm. It was so yucky to see on the microscope! The good news is, the doctor has had success treating of all of this. I am hopeful that clearing this yuckiness out of my body and detoxing will relieve some of my excema syptoms that have been so NOT fun.

Anyway, that is a short update on what is up with us. Life has been so overwhelming at times. On the bright side, we get an entire day tomorrow to go site seeing and enjoy some vacation-ish stuff. Since it's hard to take vacations these days, we want to make the most of this time.

We would appreciate your prayers!

Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." ...LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure... Psalm 16

Stephanie

Invitation production line

Yesterday Dan and I got to hang out with our good friends Jon and Rachel (who are getting married May 30!), her sister Darcey, and my roommate from college, Bekah. We had a good reason to hang out: we had wedding invitations to crank out, 150 of them to be exact.


I think they turned out really pretty! Rachel's color choices are really unique: red, orangey-gold, gray, and black, and she found some beautiful patterned papers that pulled them all together nicely. She picked out several of them, so all of the invitations have varied papers on them wrapped around the middle.


I didn't know if could get them all done, but we did it, production-line style! Here we are with the finished product.

Stephanie

Misfit

Anyone remember the island of misfit toys from the classic Rudolph the Red nose Rain deer movie? (Which, by the way, I did not get to see this Christmas. It was not Christmas when I was a kid until I had watched this movie as well as Frosty the Snowman.)

I'm naming my post in honor of those toys. Last night Dan and I went clothes shopping because I had a Christmas present to return and therefore credit to use up at a store. It honestly was kind of funny because Dan walked away with two pairs of pants from the experience and I could find... nothing.

Here's my problem. I'm a misfit. I wander over to the Juniors department and see screen shirts, funny colored jeans, and oddly ruffled miniskirts. Don't get me wrong. There's some cute clothes in the Juniors department, but I've decided that since I'm 22, it's time to step it up.

So I head over to the misses' department. It doesn't go much better there. The clothes just don't seem to fit my body, and many of them are edging dangerously close to the middle-aged look.

What's a girl to do?

Head to Ross Dress for Less. That's my solution. Tucked in the endless racks of clothes, I can usually end up finding a cute shirt or two that doesn't scream "I'm 14."

Anyone else experienced this?

Hope you all had a blessed Christmas!

Stephanie

P.S. Cindy your family picture is adorable! I love it! Thanks for sending me one. :)

Snow Day

Hasn't this weather been kinda crazy? I've gone between loving the snow and hating the cold temperatures and the ice. Brrr!

Stephanie

Crafty

The name of my post reflects some stuff I've been doing lately, not a personality trait! I'm amazed almost 3 weeks have gone by since my post on me and Dan - anybody else feel like we're hurdling toward Christmas? I found a quote recently (for something at work actually), and I thought it was a great reminder I really needed:

Although our society has muddied the message of Christmas through consumerism, myths and empty traditions, we should not let these distract us from appreciating the real meaning of Christmas. Let us take advantage of this opportunity to remember Him, worship Him and faithfully witness of Him. - John MacArthur

On a completely different note, and on to why I named my post, Dan and I are excited to be in the wedding of our friends Jon and Rachel who are getting married next Memorial Day weekend (copy cats!) Rachel graciously allowed me the honor of helping with her wedding invitations, and since I really do love making cards, I had a good time with this.

Here's the winner (never mind the messed-up wording, it's a work in progress):

Her choice of colors and patterns was super fun, so I'm excited to help her put them together in January!

My other project recently was making a pair of Christmas stockings for me and Dan. Everywhere we went in the stores, all we could find were shiny, gaudy, flashy stockings, and we really do like country looking decorations - so we decided to make some (famous last words). Last Saturday at my parents house I spent a tedious four hours putting them together (sewing and me aren't close friends). But they turned out so cute! (I did find a hole in one today, oops, gotta fix that.)



Remembering Him this season,
Stephanie