The Netherlands?!?

My friend, howiesgal, in her most recent post alluded to the need to be very careful about posting any personal information on blogs. She included a link to another blog where the topic was covered more thoroughly.

I sort of figured that no one except friends and family read my blog anyway but just for curiosity's sake, I added the site meter (check out the little blue number at the bottom of this page) to find out for sure. Boy was I surprised. . .in just a few hours, I had at least 10 hits from people I didn't know, one as far away as the Netherlands!

I got to thinking about all those random people who accidently end up on my blog (and yours, too). At first, it kind of freaked me out to think of people I don't know reading about my life, but then I realized that this is a wonderful opportunity. Perhaps these visitors don't know any Christians. Perhaps this is the only time they will get a peek into the life of someone who is earnestly trying to live for Christ. What a blessing! So, the blogging will definitely continue, just sans identifying information.

Body Parts

Anyone have any tips on how to figure out which limb it is that is pushing and poking out? Specifically, is it a heel or an elbow that has lodged itself under my right rib cage for the last few days? a knee, maybe?

Whichever baby-body-part it is, I wouldn't mind if my little one decided to choose a new location for it! At this point, even my left rib cage is sounding like an improvement.

32 Weeks

My grandpa used to have a bigger belly than me. But not any more!

My New Bike

See my Tabblo>

New Bike!

My sweet husband surprised me with a big treat on Friday night. We went out for dinner and afterward, walked over to the bike shop across the parking lot to look for a new bike seat (I have been riding Josh's mountain bike which has a very, very hard and narrow seat. Between the uncomfortable seat, the guy's bike frame and my growing tummy, I've been having a harder and harder time enjoying our rides around the neighborhood).

When we got inside the store, Josh told me he wanted me to pick out a new bike. . .a girl's bike with a comfy seat. I picked out a sparkly blue beach cruiser complete with white-walled wheels, a padded seat and a kick stand!

If you see a pregnant lady riding a really cool bike around town, feel free to honk and wave. . . it's probably me!

I absolutely love my new bike. . . and my husband ;-)

Breech

At the moment Baby R has decided that he/she prefers sitting right-side-up. . . which in the world of pregnancy translates to wrong-side-down. The doctor said there is still room and time (a little of both) for the baby to turn but that he/she needs to do a somersault soon or we will have to begin exploring the options for delivering a breech baby, which is usually a c-section =(

Please be praying with us that God will put our little one into position soon!

Good Food/Bad Breath

Back in my college days, I lived for 3 years with a girl who posesses a set of the world's most finely tuned tastebuds. Anyone that knows her, knows that she absolutely loves good food! Even in the cafeteria, where food quality is often less than stellar, she had a knack for tweaking things. Throughout every meal, she would constantly adjust/add spices and salsas and sauces so that by the last bite one was guaranteed that whatever food it was she happened to be eating had realized its maximum taste potential. So. . .

When the Bourgeois Wife recommends a recipe, I tend to believe that it has passed rigorous testing. Check out this Creamy Garden Garlic Dip Recipe on her blog. It looks delicious, albeit dangerously potent!

Lunch with the H Family

For a mere $1.50 each, Yvette and I were able to spend an entire hour with the wonderful Howiesgal family. We met at Costco to enjoy the delicious (albeit, not so nutritious) polish sausage/soda combo in honor of our old tradition of sharing a cheap meal together before Bible Study. It was good to see the girls again, both of whom are growing up so quickly, and, reconnect with Howiesgal, the infamous redhead, self-titled "The Queen." As an added bonus, Mr. Howiesgal surprised us and joined us for lunch, too.

Hopefully, we won't wait so long to schedule our next get-together.

Luau

On Saturday we inaugurated our backyard with a big birthday/retirement luau for my parents. Since we don't have beachfront property, we set the scene with surfboards, pineapples, Hawaiian shirts, grass skirts and tiki torches. Here are a few photos from the evening.

Josh manned the BBQ for 2 1/2 hours straight without one complaint.

What a sport!

My grandma was a huge help. She came 3 hours early to help me skewer all the meat.
Thanks, Grandma!

The birthday boy and girl. You'd never guess 60 and 50!

Jordan and Luke (our neighbors and friends for a l-o-n-g time), Elizabeth (my little sister who recently discovered hair dye), and Jordan (Josh's brother)

Happy Birthday, Mom & Pop!

What is man. . .

I was sent the following pictures in a forward this morning. It immediately brought to mind the passage from Psalms 8 that reads, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visiteth him?"

(Antares is only the 15th largest star in the sky.)

Modesty

No, this isn't a post about how short one's shorts should be or if bathing suits are appropriate. You can figure that out for yourself. This post is about another nuance of modesty: humility, the quality of having or showing a moderate estimation of one's own talents, abilities, and value.

G.K. Chesterton has an amazing quote regarding this issue. It's hard to believe that he wrote this nearly 100 years ago, so apropos is its message to today's culture. Sadly, we are no longer on the road to producing the race of men to which he refers; we have already succeeded in producing it.
But what we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. . . .We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern skeptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. --Orthodoxy

May God have mercy on us and restore us to true and proper modesty!

Creative Gift Giving

Tomorrow is my brother's birthday. Given that he is 27-year-old, single guy, I thought the best gift I could give would be some home-cooked food. I'm convinced this is the perfect gift because it is based on a biblical principle: single guys with growling stomachs would give just about anything for a homemade meal. Esau sold his birthright for a pot of Jacob's stew; I'm pretty sure my brother would be willing to sell his birthright, supposing he actually had a one, for one of my chicken pot pies.

Freezing is a snap, cooking is as easy as turning on the oven and clean-up only involves tossing the disposable tart pan into the trash. It's the perfect single-serving meal for a cooking-challenged guy. And, with boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for only $1.49, it's the perfect gift for our budget, too!

Envelopes #2

At the end of June, I wrote a post about Josh's and my decision to switch over to a cash-only, envelope system. Now it is August 1st and I am happy to say that yesterday was the last day of our first month on the new system. Over all, it worked great! We made some minor adjustments to our budget mid-stream, but even that was proof that the system was working. Josh's sister from China was here for a 10-day visit, and it became apparent that with all the extra get-togethers and outings, our budget was in need of a little readjustment. Unlike our previous system, the envelope system allowed us to be purposeful about our decision to spend more on fun, and yet still keep to the budget. In the past, we would have just spent the money without thinking about where it was coming from and most likely would have blown the budget. But this month we deliberately moved a bit of money out of several different envelopes so that we could add funds to our "Recreation" and "Dining Out" envelopes. We didn't spend more than we originally planned to spend for the month because for every extra dollar we spent on fun, we spent one less dollar on something else. And the best part. . . we didn't feel deprived about it because it was a decision.

Today marked the beginning of month two and I'm excited. I may be weird, but this system makes budgeting fun. . . If it were a game, I'd call it "Beat the Budget." Every time I go to spend a dollar, I'm thinking about the best strategy and whether or not this is going to help me "win" against the envelope at the end of the month. Who'd have thought this whole budgeting thing would be so much fun!