Gardening

It's a known fact that my parents and siblings are fantastic gardeners, anyone who has been to my house has seen the botanical gardens they call our back yard.  Or you could just look it up on Wikipedia, because if it's on Wikipedia it has to be real, right?

Unfortunately, I think it's a dominant gene, and along with blonde hair I got the recessive black thumb gene.  I'm terrible at keeping things alive!  It's kind of ridiculous.  I've been able to keep a few house plants alive, but they were all under the category you could die and have no one find you for months and these plants would still be alive.

My father-in-law also has a super green thumb, and has an absolutely beautiful yard.  Last time he came to visit we spent a few hours outside pulling weeds and planting some flowers, which my dogs have managed to destroy and they tear around outside chasing each other at a ridiculously fast pace for 2 tiny dogs that have a combined weight of 23 lbs.

And to add to my inability to garden, the trees sent down like 100 million kajillion of those helicopter things that have managed to make little baby trees all over our yard...
They also invaded our gutters and I thought they were so cute, but Greg said we had to get rid of them... weak sauce.

Heaven Stands

Our pastor gave a sermon a few weeks ago about Rejoicing, we were in Philippians, and we go to the oh-so-famous verse, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice (4:4).
It became a running joke in our house every time one of us complained about something, we would remind the other that they should rejoice in the Lord, it was normally followed by a smirk and rolling of the eyes =)

But seriously, it's changed my life in the last month.  I think I know one person who reads my blog, but we found out on May 4th that we had lost our baby at 12 weeks.  It's been harder than I could ever have imagined.  Just figuring out how I feel is exhausting, let alone dealing with my totally screwed up hormones, and how other people feel.  I think that I didn't really even allow myself to grieve until the last week.  Some might think of miscarrying as the end of a pregnancy, but it's so much more than that.  It was our baby!  We lost our child, and maybe we hadn't held that baby yet or named him or her, but he was our first child, and we'll never forget that.

But overall, I've been able to dig deep inside and still rejoice in Lord.  Even when it's hard, I have been able to grasp at the reality that God lost his only child too.  We always say that God always knows how we feel because Jesus was human and experienced the fallen world, just like we do.  But it really is true, God has experienced it all, he loves us so much that he put himself through everything that we are going to experience in our lives, it might not be exactly as we picture the situation-but if you look hard enough it's obvious.

So in this truth, I can rejoice.  And it's still hard to see pregnant mom's doing all of the things I should be doing.  But I rejoice in the life that God has given that child, and the gift he's given the parents.  And I pray for every pregnant woman I know that she would never have to experience the pain that comes with losing a child.  And I pray for those who have lost a child previously, that there joy would not be robbed from them with the memories of the past, but that they would rejoice in the Lord, always!

Basement Surprise

The weekend after Greg and I found out we had lost our baby, we decided that destroying our basement could possibly fill the void we were experiencing...

Seriously, who has ideas like this?

I've never wielded a power tool before, and I definitely felt awesome as we removed a terribly out of date black box that housed some lights from the ceiling, and tin from the walls.  Under which we discovered wood paneling (what were people thinking in the 80's!?!?!)  Greg was pulling all sorts of things off of the wall and then BAM... we found mold on the north facing wall.

I mean, are you kidding me?
We were barely holding it together after our experience at the doctor's office, and then we find out that our house has turned against us and has been harboring a fugitive!  It didn't look particularly fresh, but I called the mold specialists right away and they came out on Monday and gave us an estimate.

Once I woke up from the price induced stupor, we invited the fine folks from Mold Blasters to de-mold our basement.  And I must say, they did an awesome job, so next step.. finish pulling down the drywall and put up new insulation/drywall/paint and trim.

can we say... GROSS?

the after photo:

Oh home improvement...