Proof...

That it's not just blogging I've been neglecting. This was the pathetic state of our refrigerator this afternoon.

I'm pretty sure a diet of bacon, eggs, cheeses, oj, coffee creamer, salsa, carrots, and assorted condiments isn't ideal. It did give me a chance to give the 'fridge a good cleaning while it was ridiculously empty. And since we're on the subject, would anyone mind telling me exactly how refrigerators get so dirty? Gross.

Anyway, today I managed to actually purchase food that doesn't look like only a bachelor, (a super unhealthy one at that!), lives in this house. I also got Christmas pictures edited, which means that tomorrow I should be back to posting as normal beginning with pictures of all our Christmas celebrations!

Jennifer

Our House in 2010

Well, I've certainly taken an unintentional break from blogging! This time of year is always so busy for us with Jonathan's birthday, our anniversary, and Christmas all within two weeks! Things are finally calming down, and I'm working on unpacking our suitcases from our Christmas trip, playing with all our new Christmas presents, and procrastinating taking down the Christmas decorations and putting them away.

Because I'm also procrastinating on editing all the photos from this weekend, I was planning on writing a post tonight about our year in review, but got sidetracked, (imagine that), trying to pick pictures to put in the post and ended up focusing more on the pictures of our living/dining area instead.

You see, right now I'm plotting what to do with the living/dining room when all the Christmas decorations come down. I always think the rooms look so sad and empty when everything comes down, and I think it's a perfect time to shake some things up a little bit and make a few changes. While trying to decide exactly what changes I'm going to make I think it's kind of fun to see what changes the rooms underwent this year.

From the front door looking in:

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

Fireplace:



Looking back at the living room from the hall:

Looking back into the living room from the dining area:


The bookcases:

The dining area:

After looking through all the pictures I've come to the conclusion that I don't actually change everything as often as everyone harasses me that I do. ;) I think the major things have stayed the same, I've just added to everything throughout the year. I didn't realize how long that unframed picture has been above the fireplace, it's pretty embarrassing. Also, I didn't realize how many books we buy/accumulate in a year, with the ones we got for Christmas this year our bookcases are officially completely full. Lastly, it's amazing how fast I can kill houseplants, you can practically watch them die throughout the year. ;)

I'm looking forward to more changes in the coming year! I have a lot of ideas in mind, but as always they'll be implemented as time and money permit. What about you, any big redecorating plans once the Christmas decor comes down?

Jennifer

A Little Christmas Party

We had a little Christmas party at our house on December 4th, for the members of our Sunday School class. We've had so much fun getting to know all these precious "newlyweds-no kids" couples this year! It was fun to get together and celebrate Christmas with a little party complete with yummy appetizers, an ornament exchange, and fun with friends.

I was a bad hostess and didn't take anywhere near enough pictures, but here are most of the ones I did get:

Jim and Jordan. I love the overalls with the bowtie! ;)

Me and the husband. The flash is a little too bright on this picture and making me look super ghostly/ghastly!

Wendy pointing to where her husband Art should be, he was out of town and couldn't make it.

All the girls: Sara, Wendy, Jacquelyn, me, Jordan, and Julie. I didn't manage to get pictures of all the boys together. Or Sara and Rustin. Or Carl and Julie. Told you bad, bad picture taker. :-/

A couple pictures of Andrew and Jacquelyn.

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Jennifer

Nehemiah

For a while now I've been trying to read straight through the entire Bible. It's taken me entirely too long and I'm only on Nehemiah, but I'm still plodding along at my own snail's pace.

My "favorite" Bible, the one I read out of most of the time, is the Extreme Word New King James version that I got my senior year of high school. It's probably aimed at a little bit younger audience than I am now, but it's so wonderfully worn and highlighted now that I don't want to trade it in. As it is a student Bible, it often has little boxes at the bottom of pages that highlight a specific verse and tell a little about it, or relate it to some other verse or passage in the Bible.

While I was reading Nehemiah today I came across the following box, and I just absolutely loved what it said, so here it is word-for-word:

________________________________________

PROMISE - He Promises You Can Always Return to Him

"Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chose as a dwelling for My name.' - Nehemiah 1:8-9"

"So you haven't spoken to God in a long time. Okay, a really long time. You made this big commitment, told all your family and friends, started going to church, went on a few retreats, sang around a campfire, bought a Bible with your name on it-the whole deal. Then you never followed through. You put the Bible in a drawer, slept in on Sundays, stopped talking to God, and eventually you just turned your back and walked away."

"It's been a long time-years. The yearning that drew you to God is back, but even bigger, and now there's guilt-the guilt that comes from meeting the Maker of the universe and then trying to live like He doesn't exist. Is God disappointed? Probably. Has He given up on you? No. What's next? Return to God. He is kind and compassionate. He will welcome you home. Don't delay--every day lived apart from God is a totally wasted day."

SEE FOR YOURSELF

" 'Now therefore,' says the Lord, 'Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.' So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm." Joel 2:12, 13;

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Romans 3:23-24

________________________________________

I don't profess to be perfect, at all, and I think that's why this little Promises box resonated with me so much. I'm pretty sure that the first little box about going to church camp, having your name printed on a Bible, etc. could have been written just for me. I just always find it refreshing that the Lord will never leave or forsake me, (Deuteronomy 31:8), no matter how many times I screw up or fall away from Him.

I'm not entirely sure why it's on my heart to share this with you, and I am certainly not aiming this towards one person or people in particular, but I do think the little box applies to so many of us in our 20's. Many of us who were raised in church, were taught "right and wrong", maybe took a step back from all that in college, and now are so busy trying to build relationships and careers that we've kind of placed God on the back burner for a while. Afterall, "All we like sheep have gone astray, We have turned, everyone, to his own way," Isaiah 53:6a

If you feel as though you're in this same boat too, I invite you to, "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you;" Psalm 55:22, (ESV), for "Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool," Isaiah 1:18. And then find a good church home, because I certainly am not the one to be giving more advice on the matter. ;)

No more soapbox for today.

Jennifer

Deck the Halls - Part 2

I finally finished, (or just gave up), putting up all our Christmas decorations. We decided to use colored lights on our living room tree for the first time, and it just wasn't looking how I'd envisioned, so I just gave up my vision of a "perfect tree" and started putting all kinds of old ornaments on it. I actually really like how it turned out, regardless of it not being perfect. I definitely think that cramming as many ornaments on the tree is the way to go when using colored lights. ;)

Continuing on with a post full of entirely too many pictures...

View from the front door - two trees! LOVE.

Yup, still haven't framed the picture above the fireplace.

Looking towards the dining area. You can see more of it's Christmas decor here.

I love this throw from Target. So festive!

Stockings were hung on the bookcase with care.

Fireplace at night.

Close-up of mantle decorations.

Tree at night.

And continuing on into the guest bathroom, there's more Christmas decor!

Snowmen towels

Have a holly jolly Christmas!

A vase full of Christmas ornaments from our rehearsal dinner.

That's pretty much it! We have little bits of Christmas decor all over the house, but these are the areas when it's most concentrated. I LOVE Christmas, and I love how happy our house looks all decorated for it!

If you missed our silver and white dining area in Deck the Halls - Part 1 you can click here to see it. ;)

Jennifer


Linked to Kelly's Korner Christmas Tour of Homes, The Nester Christmas Tour 2010 and The Glamorous Life of a Housewife.

151

That's how many blog posts were in my google reader this evening after we picked up our computer from the fine Geek Squad folks who've spent the last 5 days devirusing, (pretty sure I may have just made that word up), the computer and making it run good as new.

I'll be back soon with a few real posts of the happenings while we were computer-less for five whole days. Including even more Christmas decorations and some pictures of our Sunday School class Christmas party at our house this past weekend.

Can you believe Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow??

Jennifer

Post-Op Follow Up

I had my post-op appointment with my RE, (Reproductive Endocrinologist), this Monday, and it was pretty uneventful. So much so that I didn't really plan to write anything up about it, but apparently there are a few people who actually are reading all this rambling I do, so I will. ;)

RE said my incisions look "perfect". Good news. He asked me how I was feeling and I said, "great, I've had very little pain," which he replied was good since I'd just had a relatively major surgery. This from the same man who spent the entire 3 weeks leading up to my surgery telling me how minor it was all going to be.

Anyone else see anything wrong with this picture? I'm thinking he was either trying to psych me out before hand, or try and make me feel like I'm just awesome afterwards. Hmmm....

Either that, or it just turned out to be a little more major than he thought it was going to be initially, (which I know it was a little because of the extra incision on my left side, aka the only one that ever hurts). He did say that I had an awful lot of scar tissue going on. There's no telling what caused it all, probably some infection I never even knew I had, but my body's defense was apparently to create scar tissue to connect all my insides.

The scar tissue is all out now, but RE did mention there could be some lasting damage to the follicles in my fallopian tubes making it a little more difficult to pick up eggs or something like that. But, he's confident that at least for now, it won't be too much of a problem so we're still going to try things the old fashioned way for a while. Old fashioned meaning pumping me full of pills, shots, and schedules. ;)

RE also said that I should be free to resume physical activity now. So I asked him if I could go to the gym. Turns out that physical activity doesn't include any ab workouts, running, or lifting weights. ;) Pretty much I'm just free to walk around, grocery shop, and actually clean my house after taking a couple of weeks break! haha

The plan from now goes that we actually take December off from taking pills, etc. Which I'm way too excited about. I started thinking about it last night and realized that December will be the first month since MARCH that I will not be taking any kind of hormones at any point in the month. I'm sure my husband is also very appreciative of this. Sometimes I think he has to put up with more through all this than I do. This week I've felt remarkably better than I have in about 3 months though, and it's been so great! Our house is almost clean for the first time since mid October!!! haha

That's about it for my post-op update. I won't go back to the RE until sometime next year, (seems crazy to say that!), so this will be the last infertility post for a while most likely. Back to rambling about food and our house!

Jennifer