Through the Seasons

I haven’t completely stopped blogging.  I’ve just hit a slump.  I’m going to start blogging at the time of day I feel the best – just before bed.  Who would have ever thought I’d be a night owl!  But mornings are extremely hard for me.  It takes a while to get going and especially to gain an appetite that allows me to get enough food in my body to ward off queasiness.

One unexpected benefit of pregnancy so far is my absolute aversion to – ugh, I can hardly type it – coffee.  Eeks.  So gross.  To get a little caffeine each day I’ve had a little bit of Coca-cola with breakfast.  But today that didn’t at all sound appealing so I skipped that too.  Here I am at 5:00 with no headache.  That’s amazing.  If I could kick the caffeine habit all together I would be extremely happy!! 

So that’s a quick update and I’ll get back on the blogging ball and blog as much as possible from now on.  Of course, baby comes and then, from what I’ve heard, everything gets harder.  Gulp.

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Last Tuesday I spent all day extremely sick.  The rest of the week I recovered and tried to get used to a constant queasy feeling. 

My usual routine is to get up in the morning, fix coffee, read the blogs I subscribe to, check my email, then have a quiet time.  But then I got sick and I literally laid on the couch all day alternating between sleep and getting sick (no need for details right?) so I didn’t have a quiet time Tuesday or Wednesday due to all that.  (The coffee making and blog reading went away too.)  So I decided on Thursday to change my quiet times to the afternoons.  But change is hard.  So Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I didn’t have a quiet time either. 

When Jonathan and I go to bed each night he reads a psalm out loud.  Right now we’re making our way through Psalm 119 (probably my favorite psalm).  Saturday night he finished with “I will not neglect your word.”  Eeks.  I definitely have been neglecting His Word.

But no more!

This morning I got up and even though I didn’t feel all that great I had my quiet time.  It wasn’t as long as it usually is but it was substantial and great. 

I think I’m getting a little used to this crazy feeling and ready to create a manageable routine.  I hope so anyway.

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Well, if you haven’t heard yet, Jonathan and I found out Sunday that I’m pregnant.  As of today I’m 6 weeks and for the past few days I’ve been plain old SICK.  That’s why I haven’t blogged.  And with all this packing to do…  I’m getting just well enough to feel crazy.  I went straight from shock to sick so I haven’t even had time to get excited about the new arrival.  But hopefully soon I’ll be back to blogging and making more sense.

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I haven’t even told Jonathan this… and maybe he won’t read this.    The other day I was examining how I ask him to do things.  Well.  I don’t really even ask.  I sort of – gulp – tell.  Eeks.  When I realized the motives behind the statement “we need to do this” I was shocked.  It really is demanding.  Ugh. 

Someone can tell me “we need to get this done” all day long and I’ll do everything they mention.  He, on the other hand, does not respond to that statement (or responds with resistance).  I never could understand why that is until I noticed that when I say it I expect response in the form of action.  But actually he doesn’t have to do anything.  It’s not part of his role as a husband to do whatever I feel needs to be done (even if it really does need to be done – and can’t get done without his involvement).  He’s under no obligation. 

So instead of getting frustrated when he is resistant to my demands I should be grateful for anything he agrees to do whether I’ve mentioned it or not.  So I’m way out of line here suggesting what he needs to do with his time.  I can lay out reasoning why it would be best to get things done on the timeline I’ve come up with (since that’s my strength) but he has the option to throw it right out the window.  It’s my choice in how to respond.  And my goal with all this isn’t to change his response but to keep myself from going crazy.  So he has his choices and I have mine.  If I have to let things go, I have to let things go.  What are my other options? 

Sometimes the timeline takes presedence because I don’t feel I can have peace until things are done.  (My personality type is one where I don’t like processes but only the completion.  I like to be at the end of things, not in the middle.)  But that doesn’t mean he has to cater to the way I think.  And I really can have peace when in limbo.  I don’t usually choose to have that peace but it’s still there for my taking – I just have to grab it.

Good grief.  You wouldn’t think this would be such a revelation.  At what point did I begin feeling so “in charge”?  I’m letting go of my demanding ways.  (But don’t tell Jonathan.  This may take me some time.) 

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I am keeper of the calendar.  The maker and overseer of the lists.  The organizer of tasks.  Every day I get up, look at my calendar, and say to Jonathan, “We need to do ‘a’.  We need to do ‘b’.”  Or I say, “On the calendar today are the following.” 

The other day as I was telling him what we currently need to do (and dealing with his response of ‘it’ll get done’) a question came to mind.

What’s the purpose of marriage?  Is it to get things done?  Is it to accomplish goals and work through tasks?

It hit me right then and there that I don’t want to come to the end of my life having squandered away the gift of marriage and a wonderful husband.  I want to enjoy him.  I don’t want to end up missing him completely and wishing I had time back.

So I vow to just kind of stop and soak him up a little more.  If that makes sense.  We’ve also decided to have some “fun time” together each week where the entire goal of our time is to have no goals and just to enjoy each other and whatever we’re doing together.  It was NOT hard to convince him of this… and I’m really looking forward to it.

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The Langs, who are currently at language school in Tanzania, responded to my recent email I sent asking tons of questions. 

At language school there are three different housing options. 

The first is a wooden banda.  It has a kitchen, mini-fridge, bathroom and shower, hot water heater, electricity, and can be completely shut up (good to keep mosquitos and critters out).  It also has a loft for storage.  I’m not sure who gets to stay in this thing though as our friends have 2 small children and they didn’t get it.  So I don’t understand how those things get worked out.

The second option is a stone banda with a newly installed bathroom although the shower doesn’t yet work.  It doesn’t have a kitchen and there is a problem with rats.  This is where my friends are now after spending a week in a tent… which brings me to the third option.

It’s a big, army-style tent with one plug for electricity and not much storage.  No kitchen.  No bathroom.  No shower.  Not much lighting.

There is a shower banda that “usually” has warm water.  For those without bathrooms they use the outhouses.  Not sure of the condition on those. 

So I guess that’s some good, bad, and ugly.  Not to sound negative there are nice parts.

The food is wonderful they say and from the sounds of it I just may gain weight.  Yikes.  The staff there is extremely helpful and nice.  That’s a great thing.  You catch a ride into town once a week for internet and other shopping.

Now back to a little negative.  The internet is extremely slow so what most people do is respond to email offline at the campsite then go into town to download new email and send the email in their outbox.  For their blog (which they rarely update) they prewrite then copy and paste the article in.  It takes them about 45 minutes to send/receive email.  Yikes again.  This may be the biggest challenge at first.

Well, that and the rats.

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Jonathan and I decided to store our “real” wedding rings away and buy less fancy/flashy ones to wear in Africa. 

First of all, I don’t want my real ring to get stolen.  Second of all, I just wouldn’t want it to gain me extra attention.  (We already have an abundance of electronic devices that will do that.) 

So the other day we went to Wal-Mart to look at wedding bands.  It was kind of sweet, taking me back to the first time we were “looking at rings”.  Awww…  Except this time there were no halogen lights, no thick steel door locked behind us, and no one to help us.  We looked around for a bell or something but finally a sweet girl in a royal blue smock came and opened the case for us.  We started trying rings on and it dawned on me that we wouldn’t be getting it sized but had to find our size right there in stock.  Oh. 

We both found rings that fit and as she was bagging them up she said, “Do you want me to take the stickers off them?”  The whole situation was a little crazy and comical to me.  But now we have our $10 silver wedding bands.  And if those get stolen, so be it.  As my friend told me, ten dollar rings don’t make you any less married.  And I’m very glad of that!

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