Lightbulb Art

Jen,

I really love this blog called Reduce, Reuse, UPcycle! I sent Rachel pictures of the sock animals my Mom sewed for your baby shower and she posted them on her blog. There are so many creative ideas she finds and I have started to bookmark the “some day” projects I may try!

Recently Rachel e-mailed and asked if we have any more projects to share, and since Greg and I are always trying to make things out of recycled items, in particular pallet wood, I sent her a few pictures.  In celebration of the season I wanted to share our Christmas light bulb project.

We took a piece of plywood and painted it black and then glued old Christmas light bulbs onto the board using JB Weld. We started at the top and laid the bulbs flush to the end of the board. We didn’t measure but used a bulb to help with spacing the next line.  I like this piece so much we keep it up all year round. Some day I think it might be fun to create different designs like flowers or swirls using the light bulbs.  Fun stuff!

Ann

Fire Alarm

Dear Jen,

A few nights ago our fire alarm started chirping in the middle of the night. Not only is that sound super annoying but its right at the bottom of the stairs to both the girls and our bedroom. What is even more annoying than that is Greg can sleep through it! I finally nudged him and told him if I weren’t pregnant I would go downstairs and get on a chair to pull the battery out but I just couldn’t do it. In a fog he went downstairs and pulled the battery out. An hour later I hear the chirp again. What the…?

The whole day went by and it was in the middle of the next night that the fire alarm began to chirp. I hit Greg and asked him if he changed the battery. He said he hadn’t but there was no battery in the alarm. I told him he had to get out of bed and get a battery because I am not going another night where its harder to sleep than it already was. This whole time I am feeling badly about my bossiness but COME ON!

The third night it begins to chirp. SERIOUSLY! After smacking Greg and waking him up he tells me that he put a new battery in last night so he has no idea why its chirping. I let it go because I could tell he was not getting out of bed. The next morning he took the fire alarm and after investigating we figured it must be too old and we need a new one so he threw it outside in the garbage.

The fourth night I hear the chirping! Jen, seriously, I thought I was losing my mind. Come to find out we had been working with the wrong fire alarm. There is another one in the living room that we didn’t think to check and because it was so loud we just assumed it was the one closest to our room. OY!

Ann

Grandma’s Nativity Set

  

Introducing…

Dear Jen,

Lately I’ve been wondering how we’re supposed to announce our baby’s birth now that some people know that she has the potential to have Down Syndrome? Everyone will want to know now as soon as she is born. How should the text to friends read?

<Born at 8:57am, Nameless Baby, 8lbs, 5oz, Down Syndrome> or <Born at 8:57am, Nameless Baby, 8lbs, 5oz, does not have Down Syndrome>

SERIOUSLY!!! Then if she doesn’t, I am again fearing people’s reactions of wanting to “praise the Lord.”  Would you not praise the Lord if she was? Jen, seriously, struggling here!

A few days later…
I asked my doctor today when we would find out if our baby has Downs and she said the test results may not come back for 5 to 7 days. This was comforting to me because I no longer have to worry about how to announce how she is doing. People will know in time.

Ann

——————

Ann,

This is complicated! Sort of glad the question is answered, but this totally hits a nerve with me.

I don’t know if there’s a book that’s popular or something that promotes this, but I keep hearing everyone say “God is good.” (OK, I know the book that originally said it is the Bible, but for it to be on everyone’s tongue all of a sudden? I mean, it’s definitely a true and good thing, but…well, read on….) So what makes me so crazy is that it’s said as though the THING that happened MADE Him good. “My husband got a job! God is good!” “We finally got pregnant! God is good.” “I passed my exams! God is good.” These aren’t false statements, but one really has nothing to do with the other; those accomplishments have NOTHING to do with His goodness! They’re totally separate. He’s good when we’re unemployed, and infertile, and failing out of college. Period. I know it seems like I’m splitting hairs, but I think a more appropriate response is to praise God because certainly all good things do come from Him, but His character (as in God IS good) has nothing at all to do with these things.

Amen?

Jen

A New Sense of Accomplishment

Ann,

You know how great you feel after you’ve cleaned your whole house top-to-bottom, knowing every nook and cranny you’ve ignored for months is now cobweb-free?

OK, well that’s the best way for me to describe the euphoria I feel after 1 week away from some of my “escape vices.” For the season of Advent I’ve decided to stay off Facebook and some other internet sites that tend to put my brain in bad spots.

I’m sure you weren’t surprised when I told you I felt like I was supposed to do this. I comment a lot about having a bad attitude even though I love my life and wouldn’t change a thing. I mean, LOVE my life. I realized that I was sort of living a lie by escaping online, watching how others lived and then unwittingly becoming insecure or discontent about how I was living. Let me give you an example: I feel discouraged because I can’t keep up with duties around the house, and BAM! There’s a Facebook post from a lovely friend who lists her superwoman accomplishments from that morning. Or I feel frustrated because I have the best paint colors picked out for the living room, but can’t find the time to actually paint, and BAM! There’s the most  beautiful, put-together house on Apartment Therapy.

I love pretty things, and even though my life is exactly what I’ve asked for it to be, it’s not really pretty. I mean, it has moments of pretty, but then it gets puked on. And I don’t really mind, puke is surprisingly easy to clean. But there goes the pretty, and “high” I get from it. After a week of not escaping, I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying our little life here, how much more mellow and how in-tune I am to our kiddos.

Well, that’s where I’m at after 1 week. We’ll see if I’m detoxing a little harder in another 7 days.

Jen

________________________

Jen,

I am so excited to see where this leads you and to learn from you during this time. As long as you don’t “fast” from ME its all good!

Ann

Feet

June wore Croc type shoes all summer.  Can you tell?

Faith & Healing

Dear Jen,

Why is this topic of healing always an issue for me? I struggled with it when I learned of your baby Elisabeth. I believed she could be healed but at the same time she had a condition that never had been healed before so I knew that this was most likely not in God’s plan for her. I guess I feel the same way about Down Syndrome. The Lord knit these babies in their mothers’ womb and praying for “healing” is a struggle because who is to say they should be different than what they are now? Elisabeth taught me what true Hope is. She had a purpose beyond her little life. Why can’t we think the same of these babies with Down Syndrome?

Then I wonder if maybe I lack the faith I should have. Am I way off-base and I should be praying that certain conditions should be different? The Lord knows my struggle and continues to give me peace as I seek His thoughts and ways on it.

Ann

____________

Ann,

This was definitely among the hardest parts of our journey with our daughter. We’d waited so many years to finally conceive, and then we find our our baby had a lethal condition. Right away people dismissed the prognosis (God will heal!) and like you’ve experienced, ignored the medical information (Doctors are wrong all the time!). Levi and I felt a specific calling to accept the bad news and yet live gracefully with it. Of course we hoped beyond all hope that our baby would be born screaming and normal, but around that time I had read Philip Yancy’s Prayer, and my thoughts about healing were actually being lived out in front of me: God CAN heal, but He is in charge and He doesn’t always choose to do this. I believe the healthiest perspective is to acknowledge how confusing this is to us as humans. We desire healing and He created us to have these longings, but we live a broken world and this is one of the examples.

I cannot picture Elisabeth any other way–if I imagine her to be healed from her fatal dwarfism, I am picturing a different baby. At the same time, if we lived in a perfect, heavenly world, there would be no fatal illnesses or painful medical problems. Or for that matter, no cellulite or wrinkles or jealousy or judgement. Even though our babies are perfect gifts, WHATEVER their conditions, I do think there is room for healing. They aren’t flawless. We pray for their health just like we pray for the health of our seemingly “normal” babies (have we not both prayed for our quick-tempered children to get control?!).

I love how Philip Yancy says it:

When I fall sick, or learn of physical suffering in a friend or loved one, I bring that request to God, whom the Bible describes as “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” Sickness, not health, is the abnormality that Jesus came to expose. While not solving all the problems on earth, Jesus’ miracles gave a clear sign of how the world should be, and someday will be. His acts of healing restored to specific individuals what had been spoiled on the planet as a while.

Maybe I’m the one with the faith issue, because I’m perfectly fine with living with all this gray.

Jen