This year, Chris and I took the kids with us to vote. We wore our patriotic red, white, and blue, because we’re cheesy like that.

Here are the kids outside of the house when we were fixing to leave to go vote.

Here we are outside of the voting location.

Owen sat like a good boy in the folding chairs they had set up, while Kyra and Elijah went in the voting booth with me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of that.

So, we did our part, and that’s all we can do. We cast our vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, and our little ones learned a little bit about the electoral process. Owen learned to say “John McCain”, and Kyra understands a basic idea of what a Vice President does.

Now…we wait.

Every now and then, it just kind of hits me. I’m a grown up.

It seems like not very long ago at all I was wiling away the angst-filled hours in my bedroom, pouring out dramatic, bad poetry and short story after tragic short story with a big fat happily ever after at the end. All to the tune of Tim McGraw and a forbidden Chumbawamba song.

Now, here I am.

It’s hard to believe that I’m all grown up and married. I’ve been married for seven and a half years. I’m expecting a baby…and it’s the fourth one. The fourth one. That’s a lot of babies. I have a credit card. And a minivan. I spank people and send them to their rooms. I keep doctor’s appointments and home-school a kid.

I’m pretty sure I’m, like, bona fide.

And yet it all sometimes seems so unreal. I have to confess, though, I prefer now to then. It’s easier.

“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Bob Dylan

If any of you guys would still like to sponsor me for the Walk for Life that I posted about here, you can either email me, call me, or go to www.crcwalkforlife.org and choose my name from the drop down menu. Online, you can pay by credit card or choose to be billed later. If you want to give me your donation by cash or check in person, that’s cool, too. Or, if you would rather just be sent a reminder in October after the walk is over, you can tell me how much you would like to give, and they will bill you then.

Choices Resource Center is an excellent ministry that could really benefit from your financial support. God is really working though the center, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. If you can’t donate, please remember to pray for us. I am now counseling with clients on my own, and I really covet your prayers. I’m learning that it’s really a matter of going in with your heart right with God and being able to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Please keep me in your prayers. My shifts are on Wednesdays, so, if you think of me on those days, please pray for me.

Thanks, everyone!

Heather tagged me for this little meme, so here goes. I’m supposed to share six random things about me.

1. I love literature, and I enjoy reading almost anything. However, I really hate Shakespeare.

2. I refuse to let my kids watch Yo Gabba Gabba. Even though I’m sure it’s no worse than a lot of other asinine children’s programming, the skinny man in the weird, spandex jumpsuit freaks the crazy out of me.

3. I cannot roll my tongue or my r’s.

4. I love Contemporary Christian Music (think Leeland, Third Day, Bethany Dillon, etc. NOT old school CCM like Michael W. Smith, DC Talk, or Carmen) and I always kind of feel like I lost if someone tells me about a really awesome new song/album/artist that I haven’t yet heard.

5. I love to travel and go to new places. Even if I don’t particularly enjoy that place, I really like adding it to my list of places I’ve been to.

6. I don’t like petting animals. I hate the way it makes my hands feel dirty. Even if it’s your dearly loved, meticulously groomed chiuaua named Mr. Peanut with a darling little black leather Harley Davidson vest who kisses you all over your face because you are his ever loving Mommy….even then….I don’t want to pet him.

Now, I’m supposed to tag six other people. So, Joy, Alyssa, Faith, Lori, Jenn, and Laura…tag, you’re it.

Life has been full and very busy lately, and I guess it’s time for an update. 

Since the last time I blogged about what was going on with us, I went to the doctor, and she wrote me a prescription for a nausea medicine that has made my morning sickness go away. I take one pill when I first wake up, and I don’t have to deal with being sick at all. This has made everything in my life considerably easier…from going to school and doing homework to taking care of the kids. I’m so very thankful for that.

Chris is back to work, and back to his normal routine. Work and school. We have added teaching an Awana class to the lineup, though. We started two weeks ago with the highschool Awana class at church, and we are loving it. I really love working with teenagers, and am so excited to finally get to do what we’ve wanted to do for years.

Homeschooling Kyra is going pretty well. It sometimes takes up a large part of her day because she likes to procrastinate, but I think she’s  learning that if she just sits down and works hard she has more time to do what she wants. She has taken her first test in all four of her subjects and made 100% across the board, so I guess we’re doing okay. 

My classes are going well so far. Statistics was kind of hard Wednesday night, but I’m hoping as I work through the homework today I’ll have a better grasp of the material. Our first exam is next week over the first three chapter, and I’m seriously nervous about it. American Lit is going well. The professor is still very dull and boring, but the readings themselves are okay.

Working at Choices is going fantastic. I’m so loving the work that I’m doing there. I got to counsel for the first time Wednesday with a young girl there for a pregnancy test. I had sat in on counseling sessions before, but this was the first time that I got to do the counseling. I wasn’t very nervous, and it went well. It makes me think that I have chosen a good fit for a career in counseling. It seems forever and ever away before I will finish school and be ready for that phase of life, but it’s exciting to get to experience a small taste of it at Choices in the interim. 

My pregnancy is going well. Without the sickness to deal with, I hardly feel pregnant. A little more tired than normal, but that’s all. I’m  used to being sick constantly, and, then, by the time the sickness goes away, be far enough along that I can feel the baby kicking. So, this time, I’m not far enough to feel the baby move, and I sometimes forget for a while that I’m pregnant at all. It’s kind of nice. I’m more excited about the baby now, without the damper of constant sickness. My belly is growing already (I’ll try to post a photo soon), however I’m still down about five pounds from what I weighed when I got pregnant. Throwing up really took a toll on me. My baby has all his/her parts now, and is the size of a fig. That’s cool, no?

Life is definitely full right now, but it is good. Wednesday and Thursday are by far the busiest days of my week. So, today…Friday…is a big sigh of relief. I slept late, got up and fixed eggs, potatoes, and a piece of toast for myself, and then made pancakes for the kiddos. Since I ate, I’ve been catching up with some stuff online, and just generally chilling out. I’m fixing to start homeschool with Kyra, and go get some groceries. We have a homeschool covered dish dinner this evening at church for class registration for Friday school through our church’s homeschool co-op. We’ll get to fellowship with friends, and meet some other homeschooling families. Should be a full and fun day.

I am abundantly blessed.

September 11, 2001. I was an eighteen year old newlywed. Chris worked nights, and I worked very late. We were still in bed asleep in our first little apartment when someone banged on our door and woke us up. I got up and answered the door in my nightshirt to see Chris’ mom standing there looking alarmed. The first words out of her mouth…”We’re at war.”

I still remember how my heart stopped. I began to cry as Chris turned on our tiny television. He was in the Army Reserves. Combined with the overwhelming grief for my countrymen as we watched that plane fly into the tower over and over again, was the fear that my new husband would leave me to go to war. I went to work that night with an incredibly heavy heart. My coworkers and I talked of nothing else. No one knew who was responsible. Our familiar world had been challenged. I remember sitting alone in the computer room of that grocery store, going through the motions of that job, and praying that Chris wouldn’t have to leave me. It may seem silly to some, but I was scared to death that he would leave me and I would lose him…and I wouldn’t have a child to remember him by. We had been trying for a couple of months to get pregnant, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him going to war.

I got pregnant the next month. Chris didn’t get called up to go to war. Kyra was born in June, Chris got out of the Reserves a month or two after that, and his unit got deployed to Kuwait for a year that summer. 

Fast forward to today, seven years later…September 11, 2008. I watched a video of the attack on a blog. Kyra saw me crying. My little baby is six years old now. I had never told her about the events of this day seven years ago. Today I told her about the day our country was attacked. I told her about our fellow Americans who died that day, in hijacked planes and burning buildings. I told her about the firemen who continued to run into a burning, crumbling building to save all they could. I told her about the men on the plane who stood up to Evil and gave their lives in a field in Pennsylvania to save the lives of so many others. I told her that this is the kind of country we live in. Where terror is confronted by heroism. Where ordinary people do extraordinary things. I told her that this is a country worth defending.

I told her that the events of that day were why Uncle Aaron joined the Air Force. That our freedom was worth protecting. I told her that was why Uncle Jason went to Iraq…why Uncle Joel went to Afghanistan. It’s worth defending. It’s worth standing up and saying that we will not be crushed.

I stood in the kitchen and cried, and Kyra watched me thoughtfully. She asked, “Were those people who died saved?” Through my tears, I told her that some of them were, but not all of them. She told me that was sad. I told her that’s why we tell them about Jesus. We don’t know tomorrow. We have to tell them before it’s too late.

“That’s why Daddy’s going to be a Chaplain?”

Yes. That’s why Daddy is going to be a Chaplain. I told her that our soldiers risk their lives to defend our freedom, and sometimes they die. Daddy’s going to tell them about Jesus so that they will be ready to go to Heaven. They’re willing to die for us…we’re willing to send our Daddy to help them know Jesus.

Seven years later, and I have not forgotten. I still remember how I felt that day. I’ll never forget. With the new knowledge that their world can be scary, my little children won’t either. This new information didn’t leave them scared and afraid, though. It validated their belief that their Daddy is doing an important thing. They were proud of him…proud of our friends and family who serve. Proud to be Americans. Thankful for our freedom.

I’m no longer afraid that my husband will be sent to war. I know now that he will be. Now, I am ready.

If you’ve read my recent posts, you know that I am nine weeks pregnant, horribly sick, and generally miserable. Because this was a planned pregnancy and I knew I would likely be pregnant this fall, I made sure that it was jam packed with obligations and responsibilities.

My fall looks something like this:

• I am homeschooling Kyra, which takes at least two hours of sitting right with her, but usually more.
• I volunteer at choices for four hours every Wednesday afternoon.
• I have a Statistics class for three hours on Wednesday nights, one hour after my shift at Choices ends. My volunteer work and my class is in Oak Ridge, which requires a 45 min drive there and a 45 min drive home.
• I have a Literature class for three hours on Thursday nights, which also requires an hour and a half of driving.
• Chris and I are going to be leading the high school Awana class at our church on Sunday nights.
• Starting next Wednesday, I will have monthly doctor’s appointments in Knoxville.
• Every other Tuesday night, I have Ladies Bible Study at church.

Yesterday was our first day of homeschooling. Yes, it’s true. I am now a homeschool mom. Don’t expect to see me around town in a denim jumper, though. I refuse. I just won’t do it.

Our first day went pretty well, even though we got a really late start. I’m not a set the alarm and get started real early homeschool mom. I am a nine weeks pregnant, puking first thing in the morning homeschool mom. Kyra was excited about her first day of homeschool, but don’t let that fool you into thinking she is a model student. No. She was mostly excited that she didn’t have to get up early to go to school. She is a smart kid, but has a very defeatist attitude. She tells herself something is too hard, and then proceeds to lay down her head and cry. When I do get her to focus and try…usually reading an unfamiliar word…she can usually do it easily. It can be kind of frustrating. We were done by three, though, even with the exceedingly late start. 

Today, we got a late start again. Yesterday, it was because I was not quite organized for the first day. Today, it was because I was, oh, so sick. When I finally drug myself out of bed, I threw up once, came in the kitchen, ascertained that the kids had already ate a breakfast of cookies, and sat down with Kyra to get started. She finished her math for the day in about ten minutes. Unfortunately, science and social studies slowed her down with all the reading (she doesn’t like to read), and we are taking a lunch break right now before finishing up with her English. 

So, yeah. I’m like the antithesis of the ideal homeschool mom. I don’t get up early. I don’t cook a hot, hearty breakfast. I don’t bake my own bread, and I don’t wear denim jumpers.

I do, however, suddenly speak in a sickeningly sweet, high-pitched, “you can do it” voice, praising every minor accomplishment as if a cure for cancer has just been found. I’m pretty sure it’s a downhill slide from here.

I don’t like asking for money. It kind of makes my skin crawl. I always hated fundraisers in school.

With that said, I’m going to ask you guys for money.

I have written about volunteering at Choices Resource Center in Oak Ridge. It’s a crisis pregnancy center with a far-reaching ministry. They help young women to see that they have choices other than abortion, help those women through their pregnancies by providing counseling and parenting classes, as well as providing free std testing, abstinence education, and post-abortion ministry. Above all, they want to show their clients that God loves them and present the Gospel to them. I’ve seen first hand the good that they are doing, and I really believe in that ministry.

Choices is a ministry, and, as a religious organization, they don’t get any funds from the government. They depend on donations and support from churches and individuals to keep their doors open. They are gearing up for one of the biggest fundraisers of the year, the Walk for Life.

I am participating for the first time this year. I don’t like fundraising, but I know it’s necessary for Choices to operate. So, if any of you are able and would like to donate to a good cause, I’d really appreciate the sponsorship. It’s not a per mile kind of thing, but a one time donation of whatever amount you want to give. You can donate by credit card online here , or you can choose to be billed in October after the walk is finished.

During this time of the year, when everyone is concerned with politics, abortion has been on a lot of people’s minds. Working at Choices has really cemented my already hard and fast pro-life position. We can’t just vote for pro-life candidates and leave it at that. In a lot of cases, it is desperate young women who turn to abortion. We have to give them hope, and we have to give them the help they need. Choices is doing just that.

If you can, please consider a one time donation to help us help women in need. If you aren’t able to donate monetarily, please pray for us. Pray that the needed funds will come in, and pray for the clients that we strive to help.

If you would like to sponsor me, you can do so here.