My Mother

Today is my mom's birthday!  Woot woot!
My mom is amazing....seriously.
I want to be just like her when I grow up.
She will be celebrating her birthday this weekend with Neil Diamond in Las Vegas.
I love you Mom!
Happy Birthday!!

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my entirely too long explanation

I'm sure you have just been dying to know why I chose this verse for my new outdoor chalkboard, right?  Well, here is my extremely concise and to the point answer....

Lately, I've been realizing how little space I have given God to walk with me through the painful time we are going through.  I have been so disappointed with him that I have chosen to mostly avoid him, apart from my monthly begging and pleading for a baby.

I have struggled with how a loving and all-powerful God could allow us to suffer like we have and to allow it to go on for so long.  God is our heavenly father.  Because this is the language we use for God, so much of our view of God is shaped by our earthly father.  To me, that meant that God was loving and intimately involved in my life.  He was a protector who sheltered me from the difficulties of life.  So, when all this started three years ago, my view of God was turned upside down.  I just kept thinking to myself that if God is supposed to love me more than my own dad, how could he let this happen.  My dad would never let me go through this if it was within his control.

I remember thinking that things were so bad that God would have to show up in big ways, and I expected to see a miracle.  I expected the situation to be redeemed.  I expected a lot from God, and the fact that he hasn't shown up in the ways that I wanted him to (because He has shown up in other, smaller ways), just furthered my disappointment with him and made me distrust him more.

I have definitely had moments of intense anger towards God.  I have said things to him that I would never admit out loud.  But, more than I have been angry with God, I have been confused by Him.  I think we feel a bit like the Israelites, who were led by God out of Egypt, but then wandered in the desert for 40 years before entering the Promised Land.  We felt led by God to have biological children (along with the adopted children that we have always wanted.)  It was one of the clearest and most obvious ways that God showed up for us in these last three years.  But now we are left wandering and confused because of the infertility we are facing.  It feels like God led us and left us.

Because of my confusion and anger and distrust, I have left God out of the pain.  I have tried to forge my own way through it from my own strength.  But, it isn't working.  I am realizing that keeping God at a distance isn't helping me through anything, and it is only furthering the isolation I feel.  So, I'm attempting to let him back in and to let him carry me through this.  I am trying to trust Him again.  And He is there.  I can feel Him.

I'm not trying to say that in coming to this realization some switch was flipped and everything is fine now.  It's not.  It still sucks.  But, in coming to the painful reality that my desire to have a baby has far outweighed my desire for God, I am learning the hard way that only He can satisfy. 

I need Him more than I need a baby.

Verses like this help remind me of that.

***Maybe you are reading this and thinking that I am just one big cry baby and that a lot of people are way worse off than us. I know.  I am blessed in many, many ways, and I often have to remind myself of this fact.  Bottom line, I love my husband more than I could ever put into words here, and he is my greatest blessing, whether we ever have kids or not.  And, my family is the most amazing family that I wouldn't trade for all the kids in this world.   They (and I am referring to both my family and Nick's family) have been there with us, and they hurt for us in ways no one else can.  So, yes, my suffering is hard, but it's not unbearable (even though it feels that way at times).

Okay, this is a really long post, which is clearly not concise or even close to the point, and I am sure that I have bored you to tears.

And, as you have probably noticed, I added a playlist to this blog...because I always wanted my life to have a soundtrack to it.

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Here's What I've Been Working on All Week

About a year ago, I saw a lonely little dresser sitting out in front of a neighbor's house with a free sign on it.  I have a soft spot in my heart for unwanted household items (as you can see here), and when I saw that little dresser, I wanted it badly.  Nick took some convincing, but lucky for me, I'm good at convincing, and before long, he was hauling that dresser into his car for me.  Upon closer inspection, once we got it home, we realized that this dresser was a piece of crap.  We wanted to put it right back out on the street in front of our house, but thought it would be kind of embarrassing if the neighbor we took it from saw it.  So, we sat it on the side of the house, and there it has been for the last year.

But that all changed the other day when I saw a picture in a magazine that inspired me.  I pulled that dresser out from the side of the house and went to work.

The dresser did have drawers.  I just didn't think to take a before picture until after I had already painted them.  I decided to only paint the drawers and the sides of the dresser, and I was not too concerned about what it looked like.  I didn't even take the handles off the drawers when I painted.

Then it was time to add plants and put the whole thing together.

I wanted to put a chalkboard out there, and decided to write a Bible verse on it that was fitting for the garden but that would also be encouraging to me.  More on that later.

And that's that.

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What We've Been Up To

It's been a while. So, to catch you up on what we've been up to lately, here's a little highlight reel.

We have been thoroughly enjoying the Olympics, and it is our nightly ritual to curl up with the dogs and fall asleep to it.  Because, really?  It goes until Midnight?  I can't do it.

Speaking of dogs, one of ours currently looks like he just got out of a doggy concentration camp.
And you would have thought I was dragging him into one, the way he fought me all the way to the door of the groomers.  He even dragged me off the sidewalk.  The receptionist had to come out and help me get him inside.
That dog is so stinking skinny underneath all that fur.

And while we are on the topic of dogs, I really like mine, and have been enjoying some beach trips with them.  We took them to Dog Patch the other day to watch the sunset.

 I wanted to relax and read a magazine while we were there, but the whole sitting on the beach thing lasted about 5 minutes.  Nick was in the water, and Brontie couldn't sit still for more than 10 seconds at a time.

 So, we decided to enjoy the beach from the back of Nick's Jeep instead.

 And I got to read my magazine.

Summer nights in the backyard have been so nice.

Our dogs really like these nights too, the little beggars.  But, really, who wouldn't beg for that?  And I can't help myself...look at those eyes.  She gets whatever she wants.  And as for Brontie, he actually looks like he is a starving beggar, so he gets whatever he wants to.

And, lest you think we are completely obsessed with our dogs, we did go to breakfast at Ramos House Cafe this morning without them.

I also worked all week on a new backyard project that I will share soon.

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july in review

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