Month: September 2019

Categories Reading My Library

Reading My Library (13 Years)

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I briefly resurfaced from under the dark waves to discover that I’d missed an important anniversary – the 13th anniversary of my massive project to read every book in my local library. So, instead of giving my totals as of September 5, I’ve got totals as of September 23 – when I realized I’d forgotten to write an update.

TOTALS as of Sept 23, 2019 (13 years and 18 days or 4766 days)

Category Items this year Total Items Total Categories Closed
Juvenile Picture 323 1980 611
Juvenile, Board Books 31 543 285
Juvenile, First Readers 2 77 3
Juvenile, Chapter 0 92 7
Juvenile Fiction 4 324 25
Juvenile Nonfiction 133 413 14
Teen Fiction 3 52 5
Teen Nonfiction 6 11 0
Adult Fiction 22 490 78
Adult Nonfiction 49 1002 52
Audio CD 488 1421 116
Juvenile DVD 8 61 2
Adult Fiction DVD 5 112 9
Adult Nonfiction DVD 18 63 2
Periodicals 33 127 2
Total 1125 items 6786 items
2.94 items/day 1.21 items/day

We made two big gains in the past year, closing the board books entirely per challenge rules (543 total books by 285 different authors) and closing the picture books by author last name B (979 total books by 335 different authors).

I’ve also made significant headway with the audio CDs, trying to listen to one CD from each Library of Congress classification. I’ve “cheated” a bit with these, though, listening to albums that are available on Spotify that way and (mostly) only checking out stuff that isn’t available on Spotify. That way, I’m listening at home in addition to in the car. I have not, however, been faithful with recording what we’ve listened to on Spotify – which means I likely have an additional couple dozen albums that haven’t been logged.

I was hoping to get picture book authors “C” read in 2019, but it’s looking like that might be a bit of a challenge since the kids have decided that nonfiction is really where it’s at. We have read just about every book the library owns about new babies and about construction vehicles, as well as a fair bit about tools and floods. And then, of course, there are giraffes and states and butterflies and “black knights”. The children almost always tell me as we’re walking in to the library what topic they’re interested in researching this visit.

I’m a little surprised to find that I read a little over 80 books for myself (not counting re-reads). I really thought my personal book consumption had slowed almost to a halt over the past year, but apparently not!

Categories Pregnancy

Why We Waited

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I’ve never been one to delay telling the world I’m pregnant.

A baby’s a baby no matter how small – and I’m no good at secrets after all.

But after we miscarried in April, life has been hard. We didn’t get pregnant for several cycles (okay, just three – but we’d always gotten pregnant on first try before). We’ve had uncertainties with our foster daughter. We’ve traveled a lot, which kept me off-kilter. And I’ve been depressed – debilitatingly so.

I spent the summer worried we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again. Worried that Beth-Ellen would be our last biologically. Worried that we’d also lose our foster daughter and that it would tear me apart.

We found out we were pregnant the day Daniel left town to pick up our beef. I started bleeding the next day.

The bleeding stopped, but my worry didn’t. My basal body temperature has never been consistent (probably because I never sleep for 3-4 hours at a stretch), but it bounced up and down instead of staying high like it should for a pregnant woman. I stopped measuring it after a month. It wasn’t serving me – but the worry remained.

My depression deepened. I was grieving I wasn’t sure what. Grieving the baby, certainly. Grieving the closely-spaced family I’d dreamed of. Grieving the difficulties our foster daughter has faced and still may. Grieving saying goodbye to two foster children already. Grieving the things I used to be able to do but couldn’t now.

How could I share the joy of a new baby in the womb when joy wasn’t even half the emotion I was feeling? When I thought of saying something, I contemplated what I might say: “We’re pregnant again and I’m just hoping the baby’s alive. No, I haven’t had any morning sickness, really, I just can’t function after 11 in the morning because I’m too exhausted and everything is overwhelming and all I want to do is cry and scream and cry some more.”

When they offered me an appointment on Daniel’s birthday, I thought “Great. Daniel can get the news that this baby is dead on his birthday.” But I didn’t ask for a different day. I know that only means waiting longer, and I’d much rather know than keep worrying.

I’ve never had an early ultrasound before. I know exactly when I ovulate – no need for an ultrasound to check dates. But this time, I didn’t have any of my normal questions prepared. I had one main question: is our baby alive?

After I knew that, I had decided, I would tell the world. Then they could rejoice with me or grieve with me with some level of surety as to which I ought to be experiencing.

The baby is alive. Moving around enough my OB couldn’t really show us what was what in real time.

A weight off my heart.

But not the whole weight. No, this weight is much heavier than one baby or even two.

And that is why I, so unused to delay, waited so long (okay, nine weeks gestation) to tell you all that we were pregnant.

It was complicated. It still is.

Please pray.

Categories Thankful Thursday, Thankfulness

Thankful Thursday (2019.09.12)

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Friday
… thank you, Lord, that my children love to sing and dance. Louis was singing a new song: “Everybody dance for God the King” and leading the others in a circle dance of sorts. Such a delight to a mama’s heart.
… thank you, Lord, for a husband who holds me as I cry and prays for me at 3 in the morning when I can’t get back to sleep because I’m so overwhelmed.
… thank you, Lord, for easy-to-assemble shelves and being able to see (some of) my fabric collection again
… thank you, Lord, for children’s naptimes
… thank you, Lord, for hot tea with honey to soothe a raw throat

Sunday
… thank you, Lord, for plant sales and finding everything we needed
… thank you, Lord, for Daniel’s diligence with tiller and shovel to get our new bed prepped
… thank you, Lord, for easy-to-plan Sunday school weeks
… thank you, Lord, for hugs from former students
… thank you, Lord, for honey from our neighbor
… thank you, Lord, for mail order curtains that turned out to be a lovely color

Monday
… thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to futz with prototypes
… thank you, Lord, that my sewing space is starting to take shape
… thank you, Lord, for children singing praises
… thank you, Lord, for news of a coming baby now made public. My brother and sister-in-law just announced baby #4 – who will be my parents’ 16th grandchild (plus a foster grandchild and 4 in heaven)
… thank you, Lord, for a little girl who stays in bed (even when she’s chattering her whole naptime away and is perfectly capable of opening the door)
… thank you, Lord, for not-too-messy sensory play this morning
… thank you, Lord, that your mercy is more – more than my sins, more than my failure, more than my lack of energy, more than my unmet aspirations – and that your grace is sufficient for this weakness

Tuesday
… thank you, Lord, for encouraging evenings
… thank you, Lord, for a relatively smooth morning (kids dressed and ready, bags packed, breakfast eaten, lunch packed, supper in the crockpot, books dropped off – and still made it in time to drop the kids off in three different rooms on three different levels of the church and get to my Bible study before it started at 0915).
… thank you, Lord, for several encouraging interactions with women from church
… thank you, Lord, for grocery pickup
…thank you, Lord, that I’m home at last and can emote freely while the children nap (I’m exhausted, which means I’m also kinda a wreck)

Thursday
… thank you, Lord, for crayons and big paper and how long those keep my kids occupied
… thank you, Lord, for my husband’s gracious acceptance of a doctor’s appointment on his birthday that meant no birthday cake, no birthday meal at all, and a dirty house to boot.
… thank you, Lord, for a doctor who takes me seriously when I say I’m depressed
… thank you, Lord, for a baby who is jumping around vigorously and whose heart is beating strong. It’s such a relief after the past couple of months of wondering if we got pregnant only to experience another early loss.
… thank you, Lord, for a new Bible study (Nancy Guthrie’s Better Than Eden) that reminds me of your good purposes amidst the wildernesses and teaches me to long for the consummation of all things – which will indeed be even better than Eden

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday on Friday (2019.09.06)

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Friday
… thank you, Lord, that we have lots of dishes, which means I’m not scrambling when I go a whole day without washing them
… thank you, Lord, that my children laugh with one another (even when it sometimes seems all they do is poke at each other)
… thank you, Lord, for this necklace from my sister, this skirt from my aunt, and these socks from my Beloved, reminding me of the many people who care for me

Sunday
… thank you, Lord, for processes that work. All the preschoolers in our church gather in my Sunday school classroom for 15 minutes of singing on Sunday mornings. It’s been utter chaos, with the youngest kids (just barely two) crying and classes getting mixed up and students from other classes inadvertently left in my room. And the disorder of the process has meant we haven’t always had time to get to the meat of our own Sunday school time – lessons and memory verses and small group time. We’ve been making incremental changes week by week (this is just week 4 of a new year of Sunday School) and this week I think we finally got it! Students got in and out with a minimum of crying and confusion, meaning everyone could focus on the important stuff – praising God together and learning from His word.
… thank you, Lord, for a friend who listens.
… thank you, Lord, for a 60% off coupon that saved me $30!
… thank you, Lord, for novels
… thank you, Lord, for how my husband regularly lays down his time and energy and pastimes to serve me
… thank you, Lord, that I realized I had a Christmas dress for Tirzah Mae for this year before I bought fabric for (or started making) a new one!
… thank you, Lord, for the many people who have blessed our family over the years with outgrown clothes. Despite sending complete wardrobes home with two different children over the course of the last year, Beth-Ellen and our Sweet Pea still have had plenty of clothes for this season (the size we sent home with Baby J) and the next season (the size we sent home with little C).

The rest of the week
… Thank you, Lord, for cheery sunflowers on either side of my front porch steps
… Thank you, Lord, for what must be the fourth or fifth flush of blooms on the rose bush my friend brought me in honor of our baby
… Thank you, Lord, for quick in and out appointments (less than a minute waiting from when we came in the door to when we exited!)
… Thank you, Lord, for a husband who regularly shares or bears my burdens, daily sacrificing for my good and that of our family
… Thank you, Lord, for Advent songs. I’ve been preparing an Advent playlist (I don’t want to rush into Christmas and December is not my best time for doing anything intentional like assembling a meaningful playlist, so I’m prepping in advance to avoid listening to the same old hackneyed Christmas stuff come December) and some of the Advent songs are exactly what I need in this, my season of mourning.

“Comfort, comfort ye my people
Speak ye peace, thus saith out God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness
Mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load
Speak to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover
And her warfare now is over.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
Make the rougher place plain.
Let your hearts be true and humble
As befits his holy reign
For the glory of the Lord now o’er earth is shed abroad;
And all flesh shall see the token,
That his word is never broken.”