the saturday before valentines, 2012

a few notable moments in the past couple of months (aka Things I See in iPhoto That I Realize I've Not Shared):

we went out for tex-mex and a concert one night... here are a few shots from The Mountain Goats show @ Fitzgerald's:

I have no idea if this video will play, but it's a fun clip from the show that captures a bit of John D doing his thang:

they didn't play some songs we really wanted to hear, but that was okay.  it was still a fun show - mostly because he has a really quirky and kinetic presence, as you can see.  for kicks, I wish he'd played this one:

the balloon will pop one day, and laws of nature will continue to become a reality as tears are shed.

cuddles on mama's growing belly.

I get sweet hugs when I get home from work.  note my hair, please... I have an appointment next week to give it some new life.

18 weeks

new year's eve at the p's house

the girl likes shoes.  these are mama's favorite vintage wedge heels.

ipad is a friend.  also note that this sundress from aunt bethy was worn in JANUARY.  hello, sortawinter.

for everyone's information, this will never happen again.  because it's dangerous and we won't allow it.  BUT, they assumed these positions before the first children's prayer lunch, and husband seized the moment before they were made to get down.

more shoe bizniz.

loves corn.  and lots of other things, too.

in general, I'm feeling really good and had two really positive doctor visits this past week.  if all continues to go well, we're done with all of the big tests and won't have to go back to see the specialist.  we're preparing to start our garage makeover, and I'm plotting a transition to try to work three days a week (MWF).  I know it would seem like no big deal, especially as I'm essentially my own schedule-maker, but it's not quite that easy when other people have deadlines for you to meet.  we'll see how it all pans out.  I've really been enjoying ladies' bible class, though it's still challenging for me to discipline myself to find time to do my homework.  I'm grateful to hear the teaching from BMoore.... it's been a while since I felt bible knowledge/application/understanding meet up in my head and actually start to stick.

more to write, of course, but it's saturday!  a special shout out to T today, who's having a baby boy this weekend....

-m.y.

non-resolutions.

I got to go to my meeting this past Saturday night for the first time in what seemed like ages, and came away aglow.  it was such a positive, uplifting hour, as we all talked about the resolutions we didn't make for 2012.  :)  I left the meeting jolted by of one of the central stimuli that makes me tick and want to take on the world.

stories.

real ones.

about real things happening to real people who are longing for/making/celebrating a change.  for me, it's like drinking an energy drink - I feel galvanized and a part of a collective kinship of people on the move.

one of my favorite things to engage in is the sharing of testimony, what's happened/happening with us, what we're moving toward, gratitude for new seasons and answered prayers, and there's no better place to learn how to do that than 12-step meetings.  I would say church, but I've simply heard more testimony at meetings and have more experience with it.

in my opinion, when it comes to personal sharing and confessing, meetings - at least the sort I attend - have an edge over church by their very DNA.  number one, practically everyone shares.  it's the form meetings take, so there's a built in assumption that most people will choose to talk (honestly, we assume) about their lives and journeys.  and two, the whole thing centers around where you were (when you were crazy) and where you are now (less crazy), which everyone identifies with and is a great leveler when it comes to perspective.  no one is shocked by anything you say, and no one gets to feel better than anyone else.  it's a safe space to be human, and to get to hear stories from other people who're also into learning A Better Way to live.  it's obviously easy to feel a part of a community when you get to be a part of that sort of thing.

in no way do I mean to slam church, as though this culture of sharing doesn't happen there.  I've read too many blogs, etc. lately that are down on church, and it's convicting.  I spent some time in 2011 being down on some aspects of church myself, and if I were making resolutions (which I'm not) one of them would necessarily have something to do with turning my church frown upside down.  on days when I'm feeling challenged, I like to blame some of my dissatisfactions on the external... 'if only that were different, or this happened, or I didn't have to work so hard'... but what I'm seeing is that if I want to experience more of what lights me up, I must actively seek that which will stir the embers and stop hiding out in busy work.  so that I have a story to tell again.  so that I'm compelled to share it, and others will be freed to share theirs, and it'll become a normal part of life to once again tell and hear stories of a living God making things happen.

I mentioned it briefly in a post before, but choosing to take the ladies bible class Beth Moore study is a step in that direction.  I don't know if any of you have read any of the articles/blogs lately questioning the content of ladies classes, but I'm aware that some women out there feel that the offerings are a bit dumbed down, overly emotional, and Bible-lite.  I even heard Beth Moore referred to derisively in one of the comments below the above linked post, as though her classes tend toward the shallower end of the Bible study pool and offend someone looking for a real in-depth study.  I get that there are many women incredibly gifted in Bible knowledge with a thirst for deeper study, and I wish them the meatiest classes they can find.  I know that some women are nourished bonding over knitting and conversation.  and then there are some of us who're just rusty and need a good primer in, oh, the stories of the old testament.  who goes with whom again?  and how do they fit into the overall God/Jesus story?  imagine I've been in the nursery with the babies most of the past year, had little to no sustained bible study in quite some time, and feel lost pretty quickly when things start to get too heady.  open the gospels and go!  help me remember what I believe?

to the women's ministry question, I think there's room for everyone.  and maybe even different kinds of groups without the need to call one deep and one shallow, which isn't really nice anyway.  to the question of my effort to get thee to a bible study any bible study for the love of Pete, I figure this Beth Moore study is as great a chance as any to hear the word of God (fruits of the Spirit... helllooooo built in life application!!) and petition for the beginnings of a fire.  plus, a friend straight up asked me to go and I appreciate her energy, encouragement, and obvious enthusiasm.  and the conviction that, until she asked, it hadn't occurred to me to try to attend.

so, no formal resolutions in 2012.  just fewer frowns (or, at least, frowns of shorter duration) and more living out and pursuing what I say I believe, so it spills out and splashes my daughter, my family, my community.  because I do believe God is real and has power to act, and that our real-time stories of imperfect faith are lifeblood to others on the Way.

-m.y.

ringing out 2011

ding ding ding!

I'll spare you the part where I talk about how absent I've been around these parts and jump right into the post.  to start, most of you know by now that I'm totally pregnant again.  We're thrilled and I'm already embracing maternity-wear.  I'm due July 12th, and we got to hear the baby's sweet, strong heartbeat Tuesday.  when I reminded my dr that I'm 38, he responded with, 'ah, a teenager', and Maggie gives us skeptical looks when we tell her there's a baby where obviously there's only Mama's awesome bellybutton.

it was a very, very busy last month and a half, and if our lives were always like they've been... well, they wouldn't be, because I would have long ago emotionally snapped and crawled into a corner to shake and eat pasta all day every day (I honestly do think about pasta a lot lately).

mgb has been consistently busy with his gig, with some time off to be able to stay home with Maggie.  he's been the absolute bee's knees, helping and doing the lion's share of the cooking in our crib.  lindabell has also been a VIP of late - we'd be in such a different situation without her willingness to come watch Maggie when we've both got to work.  I had a lot of loooong e-learning to slosh through - awesome courses like macro&microeconomics and pharmacology, to name a few - plus three audiobooks to try to finish before I could leave town for Christmas.  to add extra spice and excitement, one of my other clients ended up with surplus budget at the end of the year and instructed their project managers to spenditspenditspenditquick!!, so I ended up being pelted with multiple courses from multiple PMs.  which, aside from the limited-hours-in-the-day-finite-truth-thing, was a blessing for my household and all got (mostly) accomplished in the end.  by the time I wrapped up work before I left town for more work and the holiday, I honestly felt like my brain was made of soggy, shot-through paper mache and was actively rebelling against me, refusing to interpret even small words without stumbling and a dull ache.  I met Magz and mgb at the Galleria that night and felt positively giddy at being able to leave that particular form of work in the proverbial dust for at least ten days.

might I just say - one of the problems with churning out a lot of content in a short period of time is that you're not convinced anything you've done is actually any good.  which is an awful feeling.  if you work hard, you want to at least feel good about it.

After a few days recording anime in Dallas (which revealed itself to be a downright jolly la-la cakewalk compared to long-form reading), we finally headed to Hico to start celebrating the holiday.  we had such a lovely time at the ranch, and I so enjoyed getting to spend time with my family.  it was especially nice to get to see cousins and their kids - we always say we wish we saw each other more often, and always mean it.  on Saturday, we headed home to Houston to attend church Sunday morning and head to the Bells for Christmas Round Two, which was lovely lovely lovely despite Maggie starting to show signs of a cold.  we experienced such love, happiness, and generosity this Christmas with our families... how blessed we are for their presence and support!

Monday of this week I had nothing to do outside of my house, so I never left.  I did laundry and waxed domestic and wholly loved every single moment.  Except for the one where Chino pooped in the tub when I was trying to give him a bath.  Trauma for everyone.  He's never, ever, been easy to bathe, and while you'd think being old and half-blind and arthritic would help, he's still got plenty of fight left.  I had to fish out poo, let the water out, and start over because I didn't go through all of that to have him not be clean.

I did have to record another couple of things over the past few days, but I have to tell you this last podcast was pretty interesting to me.  it was about lean six sigma, and I could fill another blog post with correlations I was making with the information to my own work and groups I'm part of, my church, etc.  As an extravagant bonus and a first, while I was finishing reading today a service was cleaning my house, because my husband is magical and thoughtful that way.  *I did have to re-clean and disinfect the tub tonight - maggiebell has been a little under the weather, and today's good meals and extra electrolytes have made her a pooping machine who, yes, also pooped in the tub.  and out of the tub on her towel.  I think she just wanted two baths since it's one of her favorite things to do, especially now that she has some new bath toys thanks to Uncle Kevin and Aunt Linda.    

So I am now off work until next Tuesday afternoon, my house is clean (until the dog hobbles inside and sheds hair everywhere again), and I could not be more kiss-the-ground-grateful for the respite.  I mean, here I am, blogging.  I even perused Pinterest earlier today for the first time, though I'm still not sure I have the time or mental space for it.  I've mostly felt pretty good, physically, through everything - I've had some dizziness here and there, have had the usual tiredness and such, and have had to control my eating a little more than before (I start to feel pretty bad if a few hours go by without eating something).  here's the thing - I don't know how moms who work 9-5 all the time do it.  I don't know how they get their laundry done, how they get to the grocery store.  when you're trying to spend as much time as possible with your child & husband around work there's very little left for these activities, much less exotic-sounding things like 'going to the Y'.  I found myself feeling so covetous of my  mornings with Maggie, of my weekends, balancing family and church and holiday with deadlines and expectations.  don't get me wrong, it's a different kind of hard for moms who stay home.  I guess I just see very clearly that no one has it easy.

I don't plan on maintaining this level of work activity, btw.  I'm not built for it anymore.  my hope is that I'll eventually be able to let go of the work I do out of town and just manage the things I do in Houston around what works for us.  I have a long-run show to record on in the metroplex right now, but I haven't been submitting for any new shows.  I don't know how baby number two will impact our lives, and I'm trying to stack the work deck more favorably in the event we choose to make some changes.  the audiobooks are still new to me, but are a good flexible, part-time option that I can have a lot of control over (I can decline auditions, work when I choose, etc.).  right now I'm still trying to establish myself with the company (and perhaps another one), but it seems to be going really well so far.  I had some concerns about a few character choices in my current YA book, as there are multiple tween/teen girls from varying countries and I simply couldn't prepare for all of the different accents in the time crunch.  I opted to do the ones I thought I could manage and just try to differentiate the others as best I could, but it was eating at me a little and I was dreading the feedback from my proofer (who could totally request I redo anything necessary, but since we're paid per finished minute lots of corrections doesn't help your bottom line).  this morning, however, I woke up to an email from her that began, 'This is so skillfully narrated!'  thank you, Lord, for that gift.

So.  tomorrow, we have a vietnamese lunch date with the Moh family.  then we're dropping the bitty off at Grammy and Opa's and heading out for reverse date night (afternoon movie followed by early dinner).  I plan to enjoy every moment of this four-day weekend, and usher in 2012 surrounded by lovely people.  it's been a very big, long, challenging, blessed year, and I'm grateful for it's being and it's passing.

and now, picture palooza.  starting from before Thanksgiving:

 

 

 

enjoying the concert while mr. bell & mr. fuller were at the men's prayer luncheon

 

with Opa at Thanksgiving

 

 

see my big-girl Thanksgiving silverware?

 

our new friends

 

 

 

testing her early christmas present for maximum slideability.

magz went on her first plane ride with Daddy, Hobby to Love Field

Dada and magz in the cockpit after her first flight, on which she was a champ.

 

 

cousin love.

 

 

ranch christmas

three little elves

 

 

 

 

 

 

catalog model, secret agent baby

 

 

 

 

this ladybug kickball was a total christmas score.

taking in the nice scenery.

on the horizon:

I'm seriously considering taking part in the Beth Moore study being undertaken by the ladies bible class  january-march.  at first I dismissed it, because I was pretty sure childcare wasn't provided and, frankly, the idea of having to orchestrate childcare myself and hold my Thursday mornings open to make it happen - or take Maggie with me and wrestle her the whole time - made me feel too tired to bother.  BUT, there's a possibility that childcare WILL be provided, and even if it's not... I could really use something meaningful and Christ-oriented right now, and if I have to work a little to make it happen so be it.  I make space for other things.

I'm ready to get back to Saturday night meetings!

a garage makeover is coming.  our children are going to share a room, so we'll need to clear some things out of the closets, etc. and create better storage and multipurpose use in the garage.  I'm excited about bringing budget-friendly order and a cool vibe to that space out there.

and now I'm off to the fluffy bed that I didn't have to make up today.

-m.y.