Autumn in Ohio

It's been quite a while since I've posted here...life has been crazy, time has been short, and internet has been largely unavailable! However, I've found a quiet moment to go to my favorite coffee shop and spend an hour or so catching up. Here's what we did this past weekend...

We always enjoy our visits to Matt's Aunt Mary and Uncle Larry's farm, up in southeastern Ohio... It's a beautiful, quiet area...

Mary has a lovely, colorful garden this autumn...



This was the first time I had met Mary and Larry's horses - they were being abused by flies, but were very sweet and affectionate. They even loved Django, and wanted to kiss him! Django wasn't too cool with that at first, but he warmed up to the horses after a while...


[Do I have to kiss this horse? Gosh!]

Ta Ta For Now...

Today is my last day with internet! I'll have to frequent the local coffee shop and grocery market to check my mail from now on.

I will not be able to devote as much time to blogging now. In some ways this is good - while I love blogging, there are a multitude of other things that I can work on - especially with a baby coming soon.

However, I will try to still post at least once a week.

xoxo

Empty

In my life, memories have been categorized by houses. Each of the 12 houses and locations I have lived in during the past 22 years is like a chapter of my story.

Tomorrow the 13th chapter of my life begins, as we start over in a new house and area. We've planned this move for months, but it never really sinks in that a life chapter is 'over' until the house is empty.

That's when you start thinking about what you're leaving behind.

Not that you ever mean to or want to leave things behind when you move...though, when I was little and we were leaving a house to move to a new one, I used to like to hide a note or a letter somewhere sneaky, basically stating "Jacqueline lived here."

I don't do that anymore - I try to remember to bring everything with me when I leave a house. However, I do get a little sentimental, thinking about leaving memories behind.

Memories live in your heart and your head - I know they can't be left behind, technically. However, when I look through an empty house where so many memories have been lived, I can't help but worry a little that things will be forgotten when I'm not there.


Maybe it's just the kind of person I am. That fridge is naked and clean today - but a couple of weeks ago it was covered by "memories." Pictures drawn and scribbled by nieces and nephews, magnet photos of friends and family, clippings I wanted to remember from the local newspaper...I've always had this need to remember important people, places and things in my life. It's hard to let go.

I can take all my refridgerator decor with me to the new house - but what about the other memories that were not memorialized in writing, photo or drawing?

All houses hold good memories and bad memories - this house has been no different...and I want to remember it all.

I want to remember the laughter, the music, the quiet peacefulness of being in the country, the close proximity to our families, the joy of first time pregnancy...all those wonderful things.

But I also want to remember the bad - the anguish of miscarriage, the frustration of doubt, the fear and anxieties of beginning a new pregnancy, the anger through fighting sickness, and dabbles in depression when I can barely hold up under the weight of the world and forget that Christ is there to take that burden for me. Those weren't pleasant times, but those were the most important times here - those were times of deep growth.

So I get a little depressed when leaving an old house - it's saddening leaving behind the rooms where your life has played out, for good and bad...

It's also hard not knowing what to expect when you begin again in a new house... What memories will be created there? Will it feel like home?


This lamp was a wedding present, and it has hung in both the kitchens we've lived in together has husband and wife. As I was packing up the kitchen last week, I began to take down the lamp...

"What are you doing?" Matt asked.

"There's no point in hanging this up in the new house - we may not be there longer than 3 months." I said.

He took it out of my hands and put it back on its chain. "We've hung this lamp in every house we've lived in so far, and we'll hang it in the new one," he said.

I like it when my husband gets all assertive and bossy, and I was comforted by his words.

Chapters ending do not have to be sad, and new chapters beginning do not have to be scary. Wherever we go, there will be new memories, and as long as we're together we will be "home."

It's Time For Some Campaignin'!

Make sure you watch til the end - my husband Matt makes a guest appearance in the video! ;-)

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Meghan McCain's Blog

*Life update: Busy-ness! We are preparing to move (hopefully this weekend) so the house is disorganized, and I've been busy with cleaning, packing and chasing our two rascally dogs. Sorry for the lack of more personal posts - as soon as things calm down, I'm excited about organizing photos and getting back into some serious blogging.*

I was excited to find a blog written by John McCain's daughter, Meghan. I don't know much about her, other than she's the daughter of a high-profile politician, and that she loves to write. She just had a children's book published entitled "My Dad, John McCain."

Her blog has some neat tidbits about life behind the scenes of the McCain/Palin campaign. There are also a lot of neat pictures, so if you get a moment, check it out!

Tonight is the 3rd, (or is it the 2nd?) night of the RNC. I got to watch a couple of minutes of last night's events - mainly Laura Bush and President Bush's addresses. Tonight, however, I am committed to sticking around to see Palin's primetime speech. After all the malicious smearing attempts from the media this week, I'm very excited to hear what she has to say tonight, and to learn what kind of reaction she'll get from viewers across the nation.

Maybe I'll Vote After All...

"Who is she?" ... "Why was she chosen?"

I don't think any of us know the answers to those questions 100% yet...however, when I learned a few facts about Palin, McCain's choice for VP, I felt the first stirring of hope and excitement that I had experienced since the beginning of this presidential race.


Most important to me is the fact that Palin is staunchly pro-life...not just in words, but in practice. She's the 44 year old mother of 5 children. Her youngest was born just this past April, and has Down's Syndrome.

If any other conservative Christians out there felt like I did about McCain's moderate stand on the pro-life/pro-choice issue, (discouraged? Apathetic about whether he wins in November or not?) then you are probably just as excited as I am that a truly pro-life candidate is on the presidential ticket.

Besides being impressed with Palin, my opinion of John McCain has risen a little bit, just for taking the risk to choose her. I mean, it was a terribly risky move, but it may just be the move that wins the election for him this fall...

Palin has little experience in the public eye, compared to most seasoned Washington politicians. She was the mayor of a tiny Alaskan town before being elected governor - an office she has held for less than 2 years! However, Obama has very little experience in politics as well, (and he's running for Presdient,) so any hits against her for not having enough experience shouldn't be taken very seriously by anyone in my opinion. She also brings the "freshness" of having little experience, youth (she's the youngest person on the presidential ticket,) and new ideas - the very things Democrats have argued work for Obama in his inexperienced political career.

As a woman, Palin also may work to draw Hillary supporters away from the Obama campaign. Palin is the 2nd woman in U.S. history to be on a presidential ticket - and the very first Republican woman to do so.

Coming from Alaska, Palin knows a lot about the oil industry. I think her experience may interest those who are concerned about the fuel "crisis" that our country is going through. Though she has little to no experience in foreign policy, she is definitely a strong domestic policy candidate.

From the beginning of the primary races earlier this year, I felt very disheartened by the whole campaign. Obama, Clinton, McCain - not one stood out to me as someone I could get excited about, or feel good about voting for. I had almost made up my mind not to vote this year, I felt that apathetic about the choices.

Palin is just a VP nominee, but she is someone I can get excited about. A pro-life mom, who hasn't had the chance to be corrupted by D.C. politics yet, and who takes strong stands on the issues that are important to my family and I. Suddenly I feel ready to go out and vote for McCain!

We're excited to get to know more about Palin next week, as the RNC takes place in Minnesota.

Oh the Joy of New (Maternity) Jeans!

I'm laughing as I type, because it suddenly hit me that I'm becoming what I told myself I wouldn't become...the pregnancy-obsessed woman, who has the need to let everyone know (interested or not...mostly uninterested I'm sure!) about every detail of the whole process!

So anyway...

Can you believe at 10 weeks I can't fit into any of my old jeans? (What's scarier is the fact that I haven't been able to button them since week 7.) I have played with the idea of maternity jeans since week 8, but all those pregnancy sites scoff at that idea, telling me I can wait another month or two.

Well, I'm sorry dear pregnancy sites, but I miss my jeans. And my belly is looking really fat right now. And I know that makes me a pregnancy freak or something, but it's true.

It was probably due to the guilt trip that was laid on by those sites, but I felt very conspicuous...almost GUILTY, looking at maternity jeans yesterday. Luckily the maternity section at Bon-Ton was pretty quiet...and to my surprise everything was on sale!

I was pleased that I fit loosely in a size M pair of petite maternity jeans (it made up for the humiliation of standing before that merciless 4 way mirror...just a little bit.) The waist was a little baggy...but oooooh man, were they comfortable! It was like putting on a pair of sweat pants...except they were jeans. (What an awesome invention!) It didn't take much thought before I was off with my maternity jeans to the check-out-line.

It feels so indescribably good to be wearing jeans again...and it feels even better to not have my stomach popping up over a buttoned waistline. With a belt they work just fine, and me and baby are very comfortable. And now I can finally go wash that old skirt I've been wearing the past two months and put her away in a drawer for a little while! :)