Feb 21, 2011

Today Oswald Chambers taught from the story where Mary pours the expensive perfume on Jesus' feet. The point was that God doesn't really need anything from us, but He wants us to give to Him out of love. What we do doesn't need to be showy or important. We just need to act on the love that is in our hearts. 

new favorite song

Watching you: Rodney Atkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl21aC_Jyhg&feature=related

Feb 20, 2011- Capstone day 1

For my Capstone class I am going to read one My Utmost For His Highest devotion every day and write about it. I have trouble reflecting on things if I don't write about it, so this is like a journal, except anyone can read it... whatever. So here's day 1:

Today’s devotional talked about what God wants from us after telling us to do something. He doesn’t want us to daydream about it, but rather go right away to do what He has told us to.

I guess it’s been sort of hard figuring out what God wants me to do now since I don’t have parents telling me what to do all the time being the voice of God. It’s easier to ignore God when you know you won’t be immediately scolded for it.

Since I haven’t been having devotions lately, church has been my main place to hear from God. Today’s sermon was about being a deep person. Instead of staying shallow in our relationship with God we should go deeper to get to the real treasures that come from following Him. One way to get deeper in our relationship with God is to do what He tells us to…

That’s sort of redundant. God tells me to do what he tells me to do. I guess I need to have more devotions. 

feb 18, 2011

How is it so comforting to know you aren't the only one who thinks being a mom is terribly difficult? It makes life so much lighter to know you're not alone; all across the world there are exhausted, overwhelmed  moms just like you.

Feb 15, 2011

Why feel feelings if they don't matter to anyone significant but myself? 

sunk.

I hate this sick sinking feeling.
It's heavy, gross, and crushing.
I wish to have no feelings at all or to irreparably hurt somebody's heart.
Alternating between wanting to violently strangle someone or hide in a small safe place.
I feel exposed before everyone and taken advantage of.
It feels like turning pale and shaking.
I feel like I'm about to be hurt badly.
I want to vomit.

School

Today I realized why I like school (most classes... not all). Grades consistently reward me for working hard and punish me for being lazy. I know what to expect from school and what it expects from me. School is a stable thing.  I like the grading system. My grades define me. 


Though this has been a lovely thing because grades have motivated me when nothing else could, it is also bad because I am graduating soon. After school I won't have homework :/  Other things in life, such as gardens and relationships, aren't as stable. You can feel like you're giving everything you have, then your plants get infested by bugs or your kids tell you you're being a bad parent and they want to run away. 


The cheesy moral of the story would be that I should find my identity in God and wait for rewards in heaven. It's really true, but difficult... and I'd rather do homework than think deeply about it right now... ugh.

Para mi amor

Sin miedo a nada
Por: Alex Ubago

Me muero por suplicarte
Que no te vayas, mi vida,
Me muero por escucharte
Decir las cosas que nunca digas,
Mas me callo y te marchas,
Mantengo la esperanza
De ser capaz algún día
De no esconder las heridas
Que me duelen al pensar
Que te voy queriendo cada día un poco mas.
Cuanto tiempo vamos a esperar

Me muero por abrazarte
Y que me abraces tan fuerte,
Me muero por divertirte
Y que me beses cuando
Despierte acomodado en tu pecho,
Hasta que el sol aparezca.
Me voy perdiendo en tu aroma,
Me voy perdiendo en tus labios que se acercan
Susurrando palabras que llegan a este pobre corazón,
Voy sintiendo el fuego en mi interior.

CORO
Me muero por conocerte,
Saber que es lo piensas,
Abrir todas tus puertas
Y vencer esas tormentas que nos quieran abatir,
Centrar en tus ojos mi mirada,
Cantar contigo al alba
Besarnos hasta desgastarnos nuestros labios
Y ver en tu rostro cada día
Crecer esa semilla,
Crear, soñar,dejar todo surgir,
Apartando el miedo a sufrir.

Me muero por explicarte
Lo que pasa por mi mente,
Me muero por intrigarte
Y seguir siendo capaz de sorprenderte,
Sentir cada día
Ese flechazo al verte,
Que mas dará lo que digan
Que mas dará lo que piensen
Si estoy loca es cosa mía
Y ahora vuelvo a mirar el mundo a mi favor,
Vuelvo a ver brillar la luz del sol.

CORO
Me muero por conocerte,
Saber que es lo piensas,
Abrir todas tus puertas
Y vencer esas tormentas que nos quieran abatir,
Centrar en tus ojos mi mirada,
Cantar contigo al alba
Besarnos hasta desgastarnos nuestros labios
Y ver en tu rostro cada día
Crecer esa semilla,
Crear, soñar, dejar todo surgir,
Apartando el miedo a sufrir.

CORO
Me muero por conocerte,
Saber que es lo piensas,
Abrir todas tus puertas
Y vencer esas tormentas que nos quieran abatir,
Centrar en tus ojos mi mirada,
Cantar contigo al alba
Besarnos hasta desgastarnos nuestros labios
Y ver en tu rostro cada día
Crecer esa semilla,
Crear, soñar,dejar todo surgir,
Apartando el miedo a sufrir.

orbit

the world orbits around me. 
people. 
with all their happinesses and little social events. 
I sit in the middle. 
and watch. 
and nobody watches me. 

Happiness blog- October 9, 2010

Baby blues comics
Chicken fried
God of justice
Hide your kids song
Somebody's hero
Stronger
This is our God

Awful

Just started my 3 hour shift of tutoring. The first 10 minutes have been eternal. My whole body is made of cement and my head is full of compressed snot. I wish I was in bed. Sunny better not get any ideas about coming out today. I have no energy whatsoever. I'd settle for a c-section at this point.

Goals

Two new daily goals:

1.) Journal

2.) Draw

Today I started on a new journal (#4) since my watermelon striped one is full. Mark gave this black moleskine one to me a year ago when I turned 20 and we were just friends. We didn't even like each other... Then he cut his hair... Now we're married : ) I drew a portrait of him with a towel on his head. I love him oh so much!

Faithfulness

"God does not regard His servants according to the dignity of the office they exercise, but according to the faithfulness with which they exercise it." -Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage              
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
                                                                                                

Dishes, cleaning, cooking, and watering plants have comprised the majority of my time lately. They have dominated my life. Mundane chores suction my time in the spaces between the naps Sunny demands of me.

I have felt especially cynical this week. I wonder what the point is of sweeping the kitchen floor when it will just need sweeping again once I cook the next meal. Why wash lunch's dishes when dinner preparations will make the same dishes dirty all over again? What is the point of anything I do?!

This afternoon, as I read the last chapters of Sacred Marriage, the above quote jumped out at me. It means a lot mostly because other people don't see the value of ordinary things I (along with billions of other people... especially wives and moms) do every day. No one frequently (or ever) walks into my house and says "Ana! You've done the dishes! How good of you!"

But, God sees what we do. He sees every little thing we do. Even the dishes. Even wiping the bagel crumbs off the table and refilling the soap dispensers. He sees our faithfulness and it makes Him happy regardless of how insignificant the job.

Pregnancy update

Sunny Laila Kim  is due in 58 days! According to the pregnancy calendar (yes, you can click on it) I've been pregnant for 222 days! Oh, how they've sped by. At the same time it feels like I've always been this spherical. I don't feel like I was every skinny, especially when I look at pictures of when I was. That couldn't have been me!

So far I've gotten quite a collection of pregnancy symptoms:
- weight gain (29 pounds!)
- back spasms
- breast leakage (ewww!) (my husband says I'm milking)
- swollen hands and feet
- gums that bleed when I brush my teeth
- heart burn (Tums are my drug)
- itchy skin
- leg cramps
- pins and needles feeling in feet (started today)
- skin rashes
- stretch marks :(
- tiredness (on crack)
- urinary frequency (run! --> trickle --> flush.)

Usually they don't all happen at the same time though, so it hasn't been too awful. Most of the symptoms just started after month 5... when I started actually showing, so I've been fortunate. Plus I have a noble husband <3 who pampers me.

Today we pretty much decided to have Sunny at the hospital instead of at home since it's free. Free is great! I feel peace about it. Plenty of people have babies in hospitals and survive. I'll still try to go without all the drugs they'll try to stick in me though.

Somehow I feel better having a man deliver my baby than a woman. Maybe I think men know more what they're doing... no. Probably men are just better at making people think they know what they're doing.

So, 54 days (more or less) and I'll be rushing off to the hospital. I'm pretty excited now, not about the pain, just about getting this little creature out of me and getting to hold her. I think what has made me get most excited has been getting the nursery ready. Before that I was sort of apathetic towards the whole having a new baby concept.

Anti whining blog

Today I have been complaining inside all day long. This is bad. My solution was to write down in my journal all the things that have made me miserable today. It sort of helped, but writing what I'm happy about helps more so... yes.

A few things that make me happy:
- affectionate + thoughtful + (extremely) handsome husband
- blue berry pancakes candle
- air conditioning
- big comfy bed
- my own kitchen
- someone appreciative+ hungry to cook for
- wifi
- gardening relaxation self-therapy
- green kitchen spray
- cold water to drink and shower in
- toilet that flushes like all toilets ought
- onions, garlic, and other yummy smells
- baby that kicks me inside
- Yellow Submarine, Beatles
- feeling of accomplishment that comes with a clean kitchen
- journal to dump my feelings into
- calendar to make me feel like I know what's going on
- rugged-looking dining room table that forgives spills
- healthy + growing plants inside and outside
- new neighbors we will hopefully get to be friends with

Midwife, etc.

Our lovely house so far.

Today has been exciting already and it's not even 6 pm.

Yesterday my husband informed me that today he's going on a camping trip so this morning I made the guys a bunch of (fabulous) oatmeal raisin cookies. Recipes on oatmeal... tubes? cylinders? pipes? containers? actually do taste good. I really wanted to go camping, but the food situation discouraged me. I'm sure I'd eat all the food the first day and everyone else would get mad.

After Mark and the guys left Becca came over to work on our research projects but first we went to a garage sale... which was inside a house... where we bought some cute baby clothes for Sunny :) They were just 25 cents each! Then we worked intensely on our research.

When Becca left I called the midwife everyone has been telling me I should talk to. I've put it off for several months. I think I'm scared I won't qualify and I will seem too bold for wanting a home birth. The midwife answered the phone (yeah, cuz I called it, duh) and said people have been asking her if I'd talked to her yet. That felt funny. In the last few months she's become a sort of celebrity or idol in my head. Right after letting me know that she'd heard of me she said "um, can I call you back? I need to put a shirt on." lol. We should get along well. We're going to meet on Tuesday. Hopefully I qualify for a home birth.

Oh! Also, before Mark left we took some cookies to our new neighbors who just moved in on the other side of the wall. They are nice people... which is nice, though if we didn't like each other it would be easy to do lots of fun mean things to each other... but having nice neighbors you like is better. We are even friends on facebook so we really are friends now. Plus the wife said her mom had 4 kids born at home, so hopefully she won't mind my screaming too much. I'm excited to be friends with them.

Accomplishments of today August 4, 2010

To do today: 
Go to baby doctor   :)
Write thank you note
Start Senior Seminar paper  !!!
Have devotions

Yes. Starting my Senior Seminar paper was a major accomplishment. This is a research project on the identity development of adoptees in domestic adoption adopted as babies or young kids. I was extremely intimidated by this paper, but started typing, one sentence at a time. It turned out not to be as hard as I'd imagined. The final result is supposed to be 60 pages or more. I wrote 1 page today. This was an accomplishment.

The most fun accomplishment of today was going to the baby doctor. The doctor had been worried (do doctors ever worry about their patients?) because my tummy is smaller than average for 31 weeks. Today he measured Sunny (my growing infant inside the tummy) and she is a little over average in size so all is well. It was fun to see her again. We hadn't seen her for a couple months because of not having insurance and being broke for a while. I think she has Mark's nose and cheeks and my forehead and mouth. She looks chubby. I like that :) Babies should be chubby :)

Writing the thank you note made me feel good. I like writing long newsy thank you notes. People like it and it's nearly free except for postage. The lady I wrote to used to be my babysitter pretty much since I was born whenever I lived in Chicago.

Devotions. I've had devotions every day for probably 2 weeks. That feels GREAT! Life feels so much more peaceful after devotions. I like it! :)

2am frozen

2am is frozen

paralyzed drowsy

thoughts flooding

pensive. fearful.

blanket binds floating soul

horizontal. cemented.

rotating fan monitors

high buzz designed

for optimal annoyance

hushed strains of irritation

ignite something.

too sleepy to whine.

ceiling cratered

wall ironed

bear asleep.

ugh.

sleep, sleep, sleep!

time to sleep!

goodnight germinating plants,

growing in your sleep.

goodnight fortunate bear,

oblivious to stresses of being alive

goodnight carpet,

I will vacuum you one day.

freeze, time

til energy arrives

despite prospects

of tomorrow.

Omelet

I tried to write a poem,

but it was really cheesy 

my man is just too awesome

and writing isn't easy.

Can I just tell you that I miss you,

and that I want you near?

I wish that I could kiss you

and would if you were here.

Tonight somebody asked

why it is that I love you

my smile would have answered

but she lives in Indiana and couldn't see me... this is true.

I wish I could just hug you now

so I wouldn't have to write this 

then I could just show you how

... I can make an omelet?

... mmm yeah. I miss you.

Ana

Distant

distant subjectivity

unplugged soul

polarized bond

frozen warmth

unrecognizable love

foreign familiarity

scary alienation

confused normalcy

dizzy perception