28 & counting...

I'm now a little over 28 weeks pregnant.  I've been fighting off being sick for a week, and I have never been so tired in my entire life!  Like, you know that moment where you're soooo exhausted, but you're also kind of hyped up & it's only 6pm so you don't want to go to sleep?  And you also feel like a Mack Truck just hit you?

Yeah... that's the feeling.

I have to say, it's better than morning sickness-- definitely better than that.  But wow...

And for the stats... about 2.25 lbs, and almost 15 inches!  She has eyelashes, and can blink her eyes-- which means she sees light that filters in through the womb!  Although, it can't possibly be much since I usually have a few layers covering my tummy, and now the added coat!

I love feeling her move-- little nudges reminding me that she's there.  Believe it or not, I forget quite often that I'm pregnant.  I remember when I try to bend in a certain way, or take a deep breath.  I find myself sighing a lot more & taking deep breaths lately.  I'm not sad-- just need some extra air in my lungs!

As far as names, we're still debating our top two & going back & forth.  My parents named me from a dream one of them had, so I was kind of hoping for the same thing.  And then... I had a dream about a little baby I had & her name way... Norah.  Specifically, Norah with an 'h.'

Really odd name choice for me to dream about.   I woke up feeling a little funny, to tell you the truth.  I really kind of thought if I had a dream, that would be the end of the name quest.  But Norah?  Norah is not something I would normally choose.  But was I supposed to now use that name? When I first mentioned it to Josh, he immediately said, "Like Norah Jones?"  I hadn't thought of it... but yes.  Spelled just like that.

Why does Norah strike me as sooo odd?  When we were little, we had a black & white short haired cat named Kitty.  My sister was up in the woods playing one day & found a long haired black & white cat. Other than the colors, these cats looked nothing alike.  I mean, one had this silky slick short coat, and the other had this wildly long, dull hair.  So my sister, thinking it was our cat, brought it home, and named it Nora.  Without an 'h.'  I remember thinking, "What kind of name is that?  And why would a kid her age choose to name a cat Nora of all things?  Why not Jingles or something?"

So that's my experience with the name Nora/h.  But strangely, when I woke up, I started to love the name.  It means "light."  That loving feeling has since worn off, and I don't think we'll be naming our little girl Norah, but it was interesting to entertain for a bit!

Fascinating Friday: Wonderland. (You are really going to want to see this!)

I stayed up way too late last night looking over all these photos... truly in awe of a most beautiful story and amazing creativity.  All I could think of was, this is absolutely fascinating... a true wonderland!  So I had to share it with you.

Passion, creativity, and excellence are three words to describe this artist.

She began this project "Wonderland" after her mother died & it's been a way of coping for her.

What a beautiful, magnificent tribute to her mother.  She describes it as 


"a very personal tribute to the memory of my mother, and the stories she read to me as a child. The plan was to create a storybook without words – an unexplained collection of strange and magical characters, set in the woodlands and landscapes that surrounded my home."

And let me tell you, Alice in Wonderland-- as great as the recent movie was-- needs to be checking out these pictures for inspiration!

You can also see the behind the scenes pictures (which were way awesome) here!

There's no way to share part of a picture and do it justice-- you're just going to have to go check them out and truly soak it in!  Let me know what you think!  Were you sucked in to the magical world like I was?

Entitlement, Hard Work, and AFAB

Admittedly, I haven't kept up with the whole Wall Street protest thing.  As I researched to find out what it was all about, it seems to me that the actual movement may have something to it, but 99% of the people involved probably aren't smart enough to understand the intricacies of it.  I know I'm not.

So this post isn't really about the whole Occupy Wall Street thing because I can't really make an informed statement about it.

This post is more about entitlement.  My generation is often called 'the generation of entitlement' and that is not in a good context.  I admit, I have a sense of entitlement that I have to keep in check.  I feel that I've worked hard, made good grades, done the right things, made wise choices, and therefore I should be able to afford to buy a house instead of live in this tiny apartment.  I mean, I have a lot of friends that didn't work as hard or make as good of grades.  They partied through college & they already have houses...

But the thing is, we can't afford a house right now.  We're saving up, and although we feel like we should be at a point where we can buy a house, we just aren't yet.  The end.

Whose fault is it?  Well, it's not anyone's fault... it's just a fact.  It's not the government's fault, and it's not the bank's fault.  It's just not in the cards yet.  Big whoop.  I still have a roof over my head & money to pay the rent every month, so life really isn't all that bad!  Yes, I want better than what I have right now, but I'm very grateful for what I have.

I've seen this flying around Facebook & it really struck me:

I could have written this myself.  Other than a few minor details, this is my story.  I still can't figure it out, but somehow I knew from kindergarten that I needed to make good grades to get a scholarship to go to college.  There were 5 kids in my family & I was expected to go to college ('cause Lord knows I wasn't going to cut it in the family construction business!).  In order to go to college, I had to get scholarships.  I was terrible at sports, so everything was riding on my good grades.  Luckily, I was good in school, formed good study habits, and graduated in the top 5% of my senior class.

All but my room & board were covered in scholarships at the modest state school I went to.  It was a university & provided a fine (although quite liberal) education.  My parents were able to (& gladly) covered my room & board.  I maintained a 3.8 throughout college & graduated a semester early.  I also got married after my sophomore year, so my parents no longer paid room & board because Josh & I were paying rent instead.

By the time I graduated I was making much better than minimum wage.  I started at a counseling center filing paperwork & worked my way up until they trained me to actually work with clients to reach their therapy goals.  We did have debt, so Josh & I both took to working nights at Domino's delivering pizzas.

Then?  Then God called us to move to Atlanta & we both pretty much started over job-wise.  And did you know that between delivering pizza's & working as a nanny for 20 hours a week, you can live in Alpharetta, GA?  You can.  We barely made ends meet, but we made it happen.

My point is, there's no replacement for hard work.  You can be given all the money in the world, but unless you're responsible, it won't last for long.

Did we 'make it' on our own?  Absolutely not.  As my dad always says, "No one makes it in this world on their own."  Remember how my parents covered my room & board those first two years?  And that job at the counseling center?  My boss hired me & put a lot of faith into me.  And when we moved to Atlanta, the church we were leaving totally rallied around us & many members gave us money & gift cards out of the goodness of their hearts.

And that's not even giving any credit to God, which really... He gets all the credit for anything we're able to accomplish.

So yes, no one makes it on their own, but at the same time, you can't expect things to be handed to you.  Nothing replaces hard work.

Crazy, insane dreams.

Last night I had a dream.  Not quite like Martin Luther King Jr's dream.

Not at all.

Mine involved my parent's house, my nieces, a lion, all the dogs and cats in my family, my Kodak point and shoot camera (that I could fit my niece into for easy carrying-- how convenient!), two suicides, a shed collapsing and killing several people (the authorities gave up because it could be days before they got everyone out- so the local teens were mainly doing the clean up work and taking care of the bodies of their fellow teens), a flood, the local middle and high schools (where I had to go counsel the students) and some other kind of death (I can't remember the cause of it).

Oh, and a helicopter shaped like a green and white UPS truck (somewhat like the one above).  It landed in my parents driveway (it was the authorities who were around town investigating all these deaths, none of which were related), talked to us casually for a bit, and before I could get my camera (and put my baby niece in there, cause I loved carrying her around- so cute!), they had already driven away down the road.  Except there were two vehicles at that point.

The morning after all the deaths (suicide of two middle school students, and a small shed collapsing on high school students and killing them all and a dog), I went to the middle school to help out with counseling.  No one seemed really upset, just in shock.  Then they let school out because there was a flood by the train tracks, and "it was convenient timing for a flood anyway."  It wasn't raining, though.

Then I went to the high school after seeing the collapsed shed and teens trying to clean up the bodies.  Poor things, they were so strong.  After going around to a couple of classes, they let school out, and then I was upset because I had missed math class and didn't know if I had any homework, and I couldn't remember which locker was mine, much less the combination.

My niece in the camera?  It was Sunaura.  She was lighter than she was last time I saw her, but her mom was driving a green car and asked Josh and I a weird question when we drove up.  I wish I could remember the question!  Anywho, Sunaura could do baby sign language and it was awesome, but she would do a lot of it fast and I kind of wondered if she was baby-sign-language-cussing me out.  She did the sign for hungry (think 'Meet the Fockers') and then did something around her ear.  And laughed.  She was a hoot to play with, but I think she didn't like being stuck inside that camera.

The lion was scary at first.  He was just hanging out on the deck of my parents house.  In my mind, he could smell fear, so I tried to be very calm as I walk past him.  Finally, toward the end of the dream I couldn't stand it anymore and I took a picture of him.  I mean, really, if there's a lion at your parents house, no one would believe it without a picture.  I think the flash got him a little upset so I tried to get the dogs and cats inside to keep them safe.  I couldn't let Jigsaw inside, though, because Hammer was in there and they wouldn't get along.  So I left him out there in hopes that he would outrun the lion.  Poor choices, I suppose.  Then the cat wouldn't come in and the lion was getting ready to attack so I had to close the door.  I tried to let her in through a tear in the screen, but instead of the cat, my neighbor's rottweiler (that is, my neighbor in SC) tried to come in, so I had to push him back out.  I didn't want a rottweiler in my house!  The lion can have him!

The end.

So... are you a dream reader?  Wanna decipher this one?  This is kind of a typical dream for me.  The randomness is in every single one of my dreams.  Complete fantasy world, which is funny because I'm not a fantasy type person.  I wasn't much for fairy tales as a kid, and don't really like the fantasy genre.  I'm also not this creative in real life.