All my life

"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. "~Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal

I have been feeling so comfortable in my skin lately that I feel surprised during the day when I realize it. I have noticed this especially while walking around campus. I think there a few things that play into it.

1. I feel as though my prayer life has been steadily improving. Before I was sick for eternity I was making it a point to journal every night - no matter what. This friends, is no easy task. Especially if you spend Friday nights with the Boudreaus eating chinese food and joking until 1am. 1am! That was the hardest night to stay faithful to my conviction. The entry starts, "I am so tired I could weep." Since the sickness I haven't been journaling as much, instead I'm trying to read my bible before falling asleep although this quest has not been as successful in terms of faithfulness. Either way - for a week I kept the radio in my car off. I don't really drive very often - but when I realized the silence I would try to pray instead of listenning to music/talk radio. Granted lots of time my thoughts were wandering, but I would say, 75% of the time there was genuine effort at prayer. I have a lot more time to pray for Matt, my friends, HSL and other people while not listenning to music.

2. I am pregnant. I am, without a doubt, pregnant. My stomach is growing expontentially now - I feel huge today! I'm wearing one of Matt's shirts because my small t-shirts aren't comfortable to wear anymore. (Besides, its like a Matt hug!) Anyways, I think this contributes to the feeling more like myself than ever before because I finally stopped letting the American Dream run my life. I don't have a degree... I don't have a career... but I am having a baby. I'm ridiculously happy. I evaluated the situation, heard from God, decided to not worry about what people thought - and we went for it. It makes me feel like school, work, life in general in this time is easy. Part of this is probably the fact that almost daily I think, "God-willing, I will have a college degree by December!" And on top of that, I'm taking my last nursing prereq. It is like the attaining of a goal - it feels amazing. I'm not sure what long-term goals I have accomplished in my life thus far, but the applying to nursing school knowing that Matt and I aren't randomly moving to California for a year and that I have financial aid to help... its amazing. It makes me feel happy and content.

3. I work 8 hours a week. Once a month I work 20. I think this contributes a ton. Last semester was ABSURD. I never saw my husband and I had no time during the week to clean/organize the house. I despise coming home to a place that I feel lacks peace because mess abounds. In fact, cultivating a peaceful atmosphere in my home is one of the most important things to me. It is why the shades are usually open when I am here and on nice days the sliding glass door open to let in the breeze. The tree shuffles next to our patio when the wind blows and along with the sunshine I believe peace is created. Niko likes it. He likes to sniff outside and take naps in the sun. I want my dog to be happy, and thus, at least for Niko it creates peace. But I believe it does more than that. In a previous note I mentioned how I deeply love outsideness and that applies directly.

So, I want to show you pictures of our clothes rack! Ever since Egypt Matt and I have been trying to dry our clothes w/o the dryer. Not only does it help the environment but it saves us $o.50 a load. On top of that, once the baby comes I can not pay to dry the diapers by machine. I'm going to have to do laundry every day and over time that extra $0.50 will add up! So, I got a drying rack and it is so beautiful to see our clothes drying in the sunlight instead of our closet. I hid all of our underwear on the inner rungs... our shirts/pants cover them. I may be environmentally conscious but I am, after all, a lady.

Those are my plants! The impatience is growing into a bush. Remarkable, considering that I completely killed it during winter break. It was brown, hanging off the sides of the pot, and sullen. But it has since been revived! Mrs. Stokes bought me a garden decoration that reads, "give thanks!" - I put it in the resurrected plant because I thought it was most fitting. The succulents are keeping on. I was going to move them to Natalie's office but then the sun decided to revisit my patio, thus saving my tiny little garden. I love my patio... I changed my Christmas list last December and took the hanging patio decoration off - but perhaps I will use my gift card and invest in them.

And for your final viewing pleasure - here is a fun Friday night earlier this month. Actually, it was the day Therese went into labor! So here are a bunch of people I love in my kitchen followed by some more people I love, loving each other.

"Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home." - Mother Teresa