I'm doing the mommy thing today...

And I'm a little short on words. Thought I'd share my new desktop background. It's worth a couple thousand, I should think.

And have a song about them too: Bubbly, by Colbie Caillat





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

This is Us

So. I had all these photos. And it was WAY too many for a post. So I made a slideshow, because I figured out how to do that now. So without further ado, I give you........ Us!



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My friend Emily at Chatting at the Sky hosts a weekly "noticing" party - giving us a chance to unwrap and share the little gifts (and the big ones!) God gives to us in the midst of our dailiness.





(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

Child of God

Couldn't resist the share in relation to this post.

Song by Kathryn Scott





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

God Unchanging

January fourth.

Four days into the new year.

I started a post this morning. Got interrupted by my two. Hated the post when I came back to read it.

It was just another post about the new year and what I want to do in it. Vastly unoriginal at this point, and not very much of me in it to make it more original.

I'm setting too many rules for myself again.

Right now, I don't need rules.

I need grace.

The kind of grace that means I don't have to measure up to the person I'm trying to be right now, the person I feel I have to be. The kind of grace that reminds me that even though it's a new year, I am still the same person, and God is still the same Person - yesterday, today, forever.

I cleaned up our bedroom this morning, with Bredon on the bed, setting up a holler. Piper, not to be outdone, came up with ten different issues that Mommy had to fix, now. With both kids screaming at me, I found myself staring at the ceiling as the "inadequate" rushed over me in waves that brought sudden tears.

Inadequate to mother two. I made repeated vows to stop having kids now. But oh, Bredon is so precious, so tiny. How can I close my heart to it again?

Inadequate to give my heart to a photography project that has come my way this year. I can never be so spiritual as I need to be to be the person God really wants for this job. What was I thinking to accept?

Inadequate to be His, to name His name, to speak of Him at all. I almost vow to give Him up; the words catch in my throat. Is He not enough for this too?

I'm out of control. Everything I know is in transition, overhauled in this new life we have now. The space I've gained for myself is no longer there to depend on. My schedule is shot. Yearly goals are impossible to make in moments driven by the immediate.

I'm still the person I was; I am not so afraid of losing that as I was - but I must be changed through this. It is the nature of growth, of God-work.

My responsibilities are simple now: eat, nourish, clean as I can, love my babies - keep my head above water. It is not much. It is not grand. I am not impassioned in doing these things.

I remember how used to spend time, and tears come again, unbidden, because I miss being 16 years old with nothing more to do than read one book after another after another. Life was so dream-full then.

And now I am living my dreams deferred, and they are not what I thought they would be; with these gifts, there is a reminder of God, a need to acknowledge Him. I am no longer able to use the gifts without gratitude, to live my own dreams without His strength.

The night before I went into labor with Bredon, He spoke reassurance; that He would be God on this side of the gift as He was before I knew who He was. I could count on that, rest in His unchanging heart, His Godness that I still don't comprehend. That I still don't need to comprehend for His grace to overshadow me, for His Son to be my righteousness, my adequate, my exceeding abundant above.

And I know where my heart will be this year, learning deep about this Son of Man, God-with-us who revealed the Father, who became sin for me, who was and is and always will be Alpha Omega, my enough.

Bits and Pieces - Some Wednesday Randomnity

Because right now, I really have no energy for profound.

*I've had this song stuck in my head since yesterday. Sometimes the melodies just won't leave, regardless of any lyric-disagreements I may have (I can give you so many examples of this, you'd laugh at my endless quibbles over semantics. But then, at least you'd know I'm consistent about it, even with myself...). Don't worry, though, you can listen to it. It's just Josh Groban being a sap about stuff. Makes a nice background noise.

*We had a double weekend here, with Pete and Piper sick. It's almost funny, the new noises in the house - "snork," "hack, haurauck," "wheeze," "bark boark," "sniffle-glug," "arroo-roo-roo." They BOTH snore at night now, too! There's entirely too much slime, and we're almost out of Kleenex. Which we bought in bulk at Sam's.


This is the awake picture of Piper. Her eyes haven't been this open since yesterday morning. She is SO looped out right now...


*Pete finally made it into work today after working at home yesterday, firing on two of six cylinders (should I give him eight?), but hey, it's progress. I am grateful that this virus isn't a stomach-hitter. I've not been able to handle THAT gross since I got pregnant. (Yeah, I know, my time is coming...)


*Me, I've only had a bit of post-nasal drip so far. No headaches, sneezing, or coughing. I guess I was taking better care of me than I thought. This, of course, means that I am available to take care of my two and focus on my own "health" issue, the upcoming expulsion of one Button Sauer from inside to out. And after this Thursday, we can plan for soon.

*I dreamed last night we had him before Thursday. (I have these weird pregnancy dreams in which I deliver early - they are always way freaked out. In the last one, I delivered an egg that hatched an alien and the midwives became federal agents wearing hazmat suits in some version of Area 51. We ruled out a name after that one.) We forgot to call our midwife until I realized the baby wasn't eating - okay, I was forgetting to nurse him - and then the dream segued into a whole new show in which my sister inherited a tropical island and we were trying to help her get the people who were on the island to pay her rent so she'd have an income. In the meantime, it kept raining buckets, and I was trying to keep the baby dry and fed. I think I really should stop sleeping.

*We don't have any full-length mirrors in the house, because the cats were playing in our room one day and knocked the tall one over but GOOD. Lucky them - 14 years of bad luck between them (this is assuming we let them live that long.). I never saw something so funny as the two of them streaking out of the bedroom and taking immediate refuge in the large kennel they normally hate. Anyway, it's hilarious to me to realize how pregnant I am. I look in the mirror that reveals me from about chest up, and I look just like I did before I got pregnant (with longer hair, yay!). I may feel ready to pop sometimes, but I don't know that I look it until I go out in public and people are stopping in their tracks to ask me when the baby is coming. In the dressing room the other day, I cracked myself up looking at the full mirror - WHEN did THAT happen? I'm wearing an extra-large basketball on my front. Kinda wish it was that air-filled weight...


*I set up the baby's bed (soft bedding and blankets and a borrowed-from-his-big-sister Pooh Bear), and we're garnering the rest of our labor supplies (we're doing a home birth again, for those who are curious) at the same time we're trying to figure out and finalize Christmas. Really, we need to get out TODAY if we're going to finish our gifts this weekend, as we've planned. I forgot about Black Friday.


*On Sunday, we also set up our Christmas tree - artificial and pre-lit. Neither the cats nor the kid have knocked it down yet. This is an improvement over previous years.

*Finally, since I'm rather uninteresting today, you should really check out some other peoples who have more wonderful things to say:

- Jesus, on the Work of God

- It Was Bound To Happen from Ghana Girl, a friend who is watching God's work firsthand.

- It started with an idea, an attempt at being less careless with our much. We knew that if we started giving some things up, just small things, over some months we’d have hundreds of dollars. So we quit coffee and we stopped staring at clearance tags at Target. We kept a tally through our weeks of what we refrained from spending. Then we’d meet and we’d ask what did you give up and then we’d share and talk about how we weren’t missing anything. Then we’d say God you have to tell us who to give this money to and we were so excited.

Christmas Change - there is SO much good stuff here. Before you head out into the Black Friday mania, consider where else you might give instead.

- Check out a Wordless Wednesday post (with an opportunity to share!) from a gal who knows how to make the COOLEST stuff out of what I do. It's the coolest "next step" I've ever seen! I'm so totally going to recommend her work to future photography clients.

- A delightful (and frugal) recipe for orange curd - with a giveaway! I'm totally digging oranges right now. I really want to try it!

- Five Pies and a Lulav - Sharing Thanksgiving traditions (that we, of course won't be incorporating this year, because at this stage, we'll be thankful to breathe and TASTE whatever food we come up with. Current thought: Lasagna...)

- This post has had me thinking since I ran across it the other day - who do you say He is?

P.S. If you want to pray for my sanity to resurface, that'd be okay. Right now, I think it is in hiding. Of course, if you enjoy my insane, you could just ignore the request. ;-)





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

One Unbroken Gaze - A Prayer

what a week I have lived, trying
since Sunday-success to make up lost time
like running the wrong direction
on an automated, forward-moving walkway, missing

love waiting for me, begging for my heart.

"there is too much to do," I say, "just
give me a minute more" and the minutes fly as
I get no further from where I began

And the trying is more than I can do so
I go away from grace and find me

empty,
swollen
with baby and with tears and with
disappointed expectations.

So I confess, and Love holds me free as
I ache down from my own pedestal,

still again in uncertainty
certain He is more than my need, more than my
limited gaze may see, that
trailing bit of God-Glory

Then I see Him, laughing, joyful
dust-and-God
tried in every way as I have been, in all ways
common to me, even bearing my heart-wounds
as God's heart broke.

"It is too much," I offer, unsure
of tomorrow-work, too afraid I am not doing
my part
to hold up His end of the bargain

Then, "I will finish the work I began,"
His joy grabs breath, for
He is alive

in my waiting.

I ask for so little, I think, but
He has more for me than
adequate situations that suit my
earth-fancy

and I am mere living sacrifice,
my life a prayer,
His song

about what my Author is doing today as He
moves my terminal-walkway toward
His heart

so I can fly.

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NOTE: I don't often watch or use artwork that portrays someone's impression of Jesus, but I decided to make a rare exception for this video today. Sometimes, it is only the Incarnation that reminds me that the God of the universe loves me, that He knows what it is to be bound by time after living eternal outside time, that ache of His created-image in me.

There were elements of this video that really touched me in conjunction with the song, Vicky Beeching's Captivated, that really spoke to me of Jesus' humanity, that gave me a small picture of the sort of Man He was, that painted a picture of how He must have affected His friends. I stare with them, half-wishing I had been there with Him then, grasping driving-down-the-road faith that brought me to quiet-praise yesterday as I got out of the house for a bit.

Weddings I Wish I'd Shot

I SO enjoyed watching this original wedding processional that Pete's sister sent over to him last night - I just had to share!


(Also, I think this wedding was not in a Baptist church...)