VACATION!

After coming back from Miami and working one week, I'm off the beach for TWO WEEKS! Wahoo! Aren't you jealous? :)

Brain Dead

So I thought I would come back from Miami with all these funny stories and witty comments, but I think I've gone brain dead in the creative department. I only have four things to say:
1) It was hot. I think I lost 10 pounds in sweat.
2) I hate Florida. And it should never under any circumstance be called southern.
3) I love Haitians - they are so friendly and hospitable.
4) Do tha stanky leg!

How I've missed this....

Yesterday I arrived in Chattanooga to spend a couple days with Carolann before picking up some youth girls to drive them to Miami for the mission trip. I only get to see CA about every 5 or 6 months and I know that once we have kids and life gets busier, that will probably decrease a lot. So sad, but that's life. Anyway, last night the two of us and Nicole ate dinner at Tony's where we stuffed ourselves till we all felt pregnant with food babies, then walked accross the Market Street Bridge where we were almost run over by a crazy person, and lastly stopped and ate some icecream that we really didn't need but really enjoyed. It was SO much fun and we just talked and laughed the whole night. This is one thing I have really missed living in Aiken. While I love it and love my life there, I still haven't made deep friendships like the ones I had in college. When I'm sad or extremely happy or just need someone to talk to, I still call Carolann or a friend from Asheville instead of being able to sit down with someone in Aiken. Friendships just take more time now than they did in highschool and college and I miss those connections.
So, I am going to enjoy every minute of my time with CA! I wonder what whacky plans we have for today...

See ya!

I'm off to Miami for our High School summer mission trip! Pray that I won't get overheated or gag on my food too much while there :) Of course, I can always play the pregnant woman card and opt out of anything too strenuous. Haha!

Yay morning sickness!

Since Danielle suggested that I keep people up to date on my little bun in the oven, I thought I'd would inform you all of the recent nausea I've experienced thanks to this little one. First of all, whoever named it morning sickness must have had a very rare and easy pregnancy or have been a man. It doesn't just take over your morning, oh no, it comes back again right after lunch and again as you try to wind down for the night. Basically I don't know how women gain weight in the first trimester because the nausea always seems to come about 20-30 minutes after I've eaten. This means rather than just throwing up a polite little amount, I throw up my entire breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My poor husband tries to offer comfort but I just shoo him out because it's rather embarrissing. I mean, I haven't been this sick since I was a little kid with a stomach virus! Anyway, enough of that. I feel sorry for any men reading this :)

Foods that make my gag reflex kick in:
Any cooked vegitable
Most veggies in general (I'm gagging down cucumber slices as I type)
Mushy fruits like bannanas or cantalope
The smell of cooking meat! Ugh!!
Coffee - surprise surprise, who'd have ever thought!
Cookie dough :( so sad
The smell, but not taste, of Chickfila
Lots of other things depending on the day

So here's to you who can eat a well-balanced diet without gagging. Meanwhile I'll enjoy my pasta, pizza, icecream, and crackers!

Lonely, I am so lonely, I have nobody...

This week Cole is in Atlanta with the kids for Gold Rush, a youth conference, and so I'm home all along, sad and bored. I really hate it when he leaves. It's fun for about the first hour, then I realize that I could never make it living alone.
The first night as I got home from work I had all these good intentions of cleaning and organizing things, but rather than being productive I decided to turn on the tv for "just a minute" as I ate my ordered out pizza (yeah, I'm lame) and ended up getting sucked in for the next three hours! Which just made me mad at myself and even more lonely once I turned the tv off and was by myself with the silence. I tried to call Cole around 10:30 but he didn't answer. So I tried again at 11 and then gave up, figuring he was still out with the students.
As I tried to fall asleep while feeling sorry for myself, I kept hearing these thumping sounds like sounded like someone was knocking on the door! I tried to ignore it, but right as I would start to doze, I would hear it again. Now, I confess, I am a scaredy-cat and I can no longer watch even slightly scary movies because of how much they affect me. (I've been known to get mad and hide behind the couch if Cole doesn't turn off horror movie previws fast enough and I jump if he comes up behind me without saying anything.) So as I lay there, I thought to myself, "No worry. Cole just bought that new gun and it's loaded in the safe. I'll be fine." And then, "Maybe I'll just check the safe and make sure." So I rolled over and reached out to hit the combination on the safe. And guess what... it didn't open. I tried again, making sure I entered the right combination. Nope, still didn't open. So I'm laying there thinking, "Great, someone's knocking on the door at 11 at night, I'm home alone, and the gun my husband bought for moments like this is stuck in our new safe! Wonderful."

Baby OH Baby!

Guess who's pregnant?!?! ME!!!!!!!!!!

I wasn't exactly expecting it, so I bungled my way to finding out and went two weeks thinking I was definitely NOT pregnant, but surprise, surprise - I am :) What happened was I went off birth control knowing that we wanted to get pregnant in a few months and thinking that it might take awhile for that to happen (so I heard...). When I started noticing that I wasn't "regular" (you know what I mean) I thought, hmmm, I must be one of those people that needs a few months to get their cycle back on track again. Then I also noticed that I was dizzy sometimes in the early morning, my chest was tender constantly, and I got out of breath easily. So I bought a First Response pregnancy test. It said that one pink line meant no, two pink lines meant yes. So I took and it came back with one bold pink line and one teeny tiny almost-impossible-to-see line. So I thought, "not pregnant." When I still wasn't back to normal a week later, I took another one. Same thing. One bold line.

Then that week my brother and sister-in-law came to visit with their baby and I shared with Rochelle that we wanted to get pregnant but "couldn't" because my cycle was messed up. She gave me a hard time about already being pregnant, but I said no way, I had checked. It got me thinking though that maybe the test I took was defective, so I went back to Walmart and bought the Clear Blue digital kind (it was more expensive which is why I didn't get it in the first place.) That night (Thursday May 29th) I took the test and it said PREGNANT! Cole and I both started yelling with excitement! But wait - what if this one was defective and the other ones weren't??? So, I took the second Clear Blue test and we held our breath as we waited for the outcome. PREGNANT!!!

So gosh, there we were with two that said not pregnant and two that said pregnant. One more test to try. I had one of the First Reponse ones left over, so I said "Alright Cole, this one determines the truth." I took this last test, praying for it to say pregnant, but once again it came back with one bold pink line and one teeny tiny almost-impossible-to-see line. I showed it to Cole, all disappointed, and he started laughing at me! He was like "Julia, it doesn't matter how big or small the lines are! You've been pregnant the whole time! You're five for five!" So yep, turns out that the test tries to trick you.

The next day my doctor reassured me that I was indeed expecting and that I was actually six and a half weeks along! Woo hoo! Since then, I've seen several advertisements for the Clear Blue pregnancy test which start out with, "Did you know that 1 in 4 women misread their first pregnancy test?" Why yes, I do in fact. Be clear. Choose Clear Blue. :)

Being grateful

I guess I've got a confession to make - I'm a really discontent person. I struggle with being grateful for the good things in life and I tend to dwell on the bad. Like right now I'm struggling to be content in my job. It's not a bad job and the people I work with are wonderful... it's just that it's totally out of my area of interest, talent, or gifts. I was an English major in college because I loved to read and write. My job now is with an asset managing and financial planning company - totally not my cup of tea. Going in to it I thought that I would learn quickly and adjust well, but that has not happened and everyday I feel lost and insignificant in what I do. I'm jealous of my husband because he LOVES his job and gets satisfaction out of it almost every day. I on the other hand come home every day tired and frustrated because I'm in a world in which I don't fit. So what do I do? I complain. I whine. I think about quitting because I'm sure that the grass is greener somewhere else. Yeah right. I know that I need to be content where I am RIGHT NOW or I will always find something I don't like. So I guess this is a sermon to myself to be grateful for a) having a job in this economy, b) earning a good amount of money that will help us later on, and c) having the opportunity to expand my horizons by learning something new.

Mother's Day

I love mother's day and hopefully one day I can celebrate it personally! In the meantime, I enjoy celebrating the great moms around me!

One of my friends just found out she's pregnant and it was so much fun to wish her a happy mother's day, even though I still can't even tell she's expecting. I imagine the world wouldn't call her a mother yet, but because I believe that life begins at conception, I wanted to make sure I congratulated her on being a mom to that tiny life inside of her.

I didn't think I would be able to see my own mom on Sunday, but when I found out that she, my dad, and my little brothers were going to visit my grandparents at the lake an hour away, I decided to surprise her. So after making lunch and celebrating with my mother-in-law and their family, I jumped in the car with my sister-in-law while my sweet husband stayed behind and cleaned up for me :) When we got there I snuck around back where everyone was sitting in the gazebo and yelled "SURPRISE!" It was a lot of fun to see their faces and I think it meant a lot to my mom. We spent the rest of the day swimming, jet-skiing, and catching up... it was wonderful.

I am so thankful for the three mothers in my life: my mom, grandmother, and mother-in-law. They are all special women who support me, love me, and show me what a joy life is.

(The pics are of my and mom andthen my mother-in-law, sis-in-law and me.)