Lifetime Movies are the Best! Nope. WORST.

First of all, let me lay out my current situation for you:

• This week is spring break. Usually for spring break I am going somewhere with my cell group on a mission trip. This year, I am 34 weeks pregnant, so I couldn't go on any of the great trips that Fellowship offers. Not only are my girls in Guatemala serving at an orphanage (which sounds incredible and I am very jealous), but Garland is in Memphis, and most of my friends are with students in either Mexico, Belize, Memphis or Guatemala. And if they're not there, they have gone some place fun for a beach vacation.
• It is raining and will possibly flash flood all week.
• We have very little activity at work because our main clientele are 15-24 and are on Spring Break.
• My internet at home decided to stop working and Cox sucks and can't get anyone to my house til midweek.
• I have watched all the good stuff on my DVR and I'm tired of reading.
• Did I mention it's my birthday week?
• Yes, I am whining and it's really not that bad.

However, all of these factors together have produced the PERFECT STORM. This means that I am getting sucked into Lifetime Movie Network just for something to do. How is it that Lifetime movies are so awesomely terrible? They are literally the worst movies ever made, but I can watch them for free and somehow the ridiculous plots (while 100% predictable) keep me from changing the channel and before I know it, I have just wasted two hours of my life.  In case you are still confused, here is the Urban Dictionary definition:

Lifetime Movie

Misandristic propaganda potboiler films aimed at teaching women that all men are abusive rapists. The protagonist usually is a female who wishes to escape from her drunken husband or a young adult who is kidnapped and raped. There are many different lifetime movies, but all have a the same plot. Person 1: Would you like to watch a lifetime movie? Person 2: No, I have much better things to do.

So in honor of this absolutely terrible tv, I would like to showcase what I believe to be some of the worst BEST made for tv movies Lifetime has to offer:

1) Imaginary Playmate: Beautiful single woman marries mysterious, hunky widower with adorable daughter. Daughter begins playing with an "imaginary friend" who turns out to be her dead mother who turns out to be capable of killing from beyond the grave. (Plausible.) Unsure what actually happens in the plot, but somehow the husband dies and the step-mother/daughter combo live out their days loving life (but still being haunted by dead bio mom? nobody knows).

2) Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear: Corporate business lady hates the idea of staying at home with her baby and hires a hot blonde to be her nanny even though her husband prefers a woman who raises the children (what will happen?!). SHOCKER: husband and nanny begin a secret relationship and THE NANNY GETS PREGNANT. Business lady wife finds out and hires hitmen to kill nanny but they enter the wrong apartment and the nanny is on the run! Sidenote: There is not really a baby monitor involved and the title is irrelevant.

3) A Face to Kill for: Horse trainer Allison has an (unexplained?) disfigured face, and as if this is not unfortunate enough, her husband frames her for murder. Horse trainer is sent to prison where she becomes empowered and learns to fight (YEA!), which leads to her face being even more disfigured, but who cares! Because when Allison gets out she gets her plastic surgery on and of course becomes BEAUTIFUL just in time to exact revenge on her ex-hubby and his new wife. Spoiler: horses are the best part of the movie.

4) A Face to Die for: Sequel to A Face to Kill for? No. Completely unrelated. Another unexplained disfigured woman is caught helping some friends rob her old guy employer and also goes to prison. When she gets out she meets her knight in shining armor, a plastic surgeon who invites her to live with him (??) while recovering from the free plastic surgery he gave her as part of his prison outreach program (again, ???). Unfortunately for the ex-con, he remakes her face to look just like his dead wife and it becomes a weird obsession. This is all seemingly not a big deal, she moves out and spends the last 15 minutes of the movie exacting revenge on bad guys.

5) My Stepson, My Lover: Absolutely nothing like the title. Exactly like the title. Nice nurse marries horribly mean, mustached man after an extremely short courtship (but who hasn't made this mistake, really). Mean husband is the worst person to ever live and his only redeeming quality is that he produced a ruggedly handsome son, who, surprisingly, falls in love with his step-mother and they begin a torrid love affair. Nurse finally works up the courage to leave the mustache man who is then killed by rugged stepson to set Nursey free. Rugged stepson is so distraught at her disgust of him that he throws himself off a cliff and the movie ends with Nursey inheriting Mustached Man's millions plus a paraplegic stepson. WHEW! I am exhausted just from recapping. 

6) Maternal Insticts: Tracey is dying and her final wish is to have a baby? It is perfectly selfless to wish to have a baby grow in your cancer infected body only to leave it alone in the world once you die. While trying to remove the cancer her husband and and the doctor realize that she will be cancer free if they just give her a hysterectomy (scientifically valid), which unfortunately leads to Tracey's mental unhinge as she plots to murder her husband and exact revenge on her pregnant doctor. Hey Tracey, ever heard of Africa? It's called adoption, get on board. 

7) Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer? The Bambi Bembenek Story: I did not make up that name. Laurie, aka, "Bambi," worked on the force until she was fired for being a hottie in a calendar. In the midst of suing said force for wrongful termination, Bambi meets and marries another police officer who's ex-wife then ends up dead. YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE WHO GETS BLAMED!! Bambi is convicted of murder and heads to prison (post-divorce), where she (of course) falls in love with/becomes engaged to a man who comes to visit another prisoner. Movie ends with the tagline "Run, Bambi, Run!" as she escapes prison and flees to Canada...

So if you have free time this week and want to check out a fantastic movie, flip to your local Lifetime channel (or if you're really special, Lifetime Movie Network), and try to catch one of these bad boys. BONUS: You can watch Lifetime movies on their website! (we all cheer together)

Nursery Alphabet Project

I've been getting a lot of questions about the alphabet letters I did for Titus' nursery. So here's the overview, it was sincerely a very easy project! Here was my original inspiration: 

I liked the general idea, but I definitely didn't want to use primary colors. I went to Etsy to locate some alphabet letters and found a set for cheaper than I could have bought them individually at Hobby Lobby. However, if the wood work at Hobby Lobby went on sale and you don't mind their limited style options, it could be cheaper then buying a set like this, which I got for $75:

These are not small letters, they range from 5 inches to 12 inches in height (much bigger than Hobby Lobby) and take up an area of 4 ft x 7 ft of space on the nursery wall.

 Here are the spray paints I either had or bought for this project (I ended up not using the cream or light brown):

 First I laid out all the letters on cardboard in my yard. If you lay them flat on the grass you will end up with grass streaks in the paint. Avoid!

 I primed the letters first, which probably helped the second layer of paint stand out brighter, but in retrospect it was probably not necessary.

 Then I laid out the primed letters in a general formation of how I thought I might put them up on the wall so I could decide which letters to paint each color.

 I am pretty OCD so I actually created a note on my phone to separate the letters into colors. Ha! This way I could make sure I had spread them out.

Spray all the letters and let dry for at least one hour but no more than 48 hours.

 Okay, here's the important part: Make sure that whatever brand of crackle paint you use (I used Valspar via Hobby Lobby) that you use the same brand of primary paint. For the orange and blue I used Valspar but I used Krylon for the brown, so when I applied the crackle paint it barely did anything to the brown letters (as seen below). I ended up having to repaint all the brown ones in Valspar paint and then re-crackle paint them.

 The more layers of crackle paint you apply the more it cracks. It seems weird at first, because the cream paint filled in the lines and I thought I screwed up, but sure enough, they cracked even deeper and wider than before.
Here is what a good crackle looks like (the colors shine through brighter in person, all these pics are via my iphone)

 I don't have a picture for this step, but once the letters were all dry and crackled I used sand paper to rough up the edges and create some streaks on the letters to give them a worn look.

Then I bought craft sticky tape (two sided, thick tape meant for hanging light items) and made sure to be generous in sticking plenty to the back of each letter (don't want any letters falling onto his head in the middle of the night!).

Finished product! 

Final Thoughts:

1) It took me about 3 hours to do all of the painting, but it probably would have been much closer to 2 if I hadn't primed and didn't have to redo the brown letters.

2) I really liked the touch that sandpapering the letters added.

3) I put the sticky tape on and then let them sit over night before putting them up just to make sure they were firmly adhered to the letters (I didn't want the tape to just stick to the wall and the letters fall off).

4) Have a friend help you put them up, I had to rearrange a couple of my letters because I kept getting off my chair and seeing if they looked right from a distance.

A Respectful Wife

Lately I have been listening to Pastor Mark Driscoll's Real Marriage series and finding it very convicting. Driscoll is notorious for being extremely straight forward and not tiptoeing around topics that deal with hard biblical truths (I happen to really like this about him). There is one podcast in particular, The Respectful Wife, that was delivered by Driscoll but mostly written by his wife Grace, and it has left me really convicted lately.


I think that sometimes I have been mistaking respecting Garland as a person with respecting him as my husband. I really, truly look up to my husband as a man; I think he strives to be more like Christ in everything he does, is always willing to pour into other believers and students, he is constantly studying and growing in the word and his personal walk, and he's one of the most steadfast, faithful Christians I've ever met. But I'm coming to the realization that I can 100% respect him as a man without always respecting him as my spouse, which is not an easy truth to swallow.


So what's the difference? Here are some questions from Grace to give us a better idea of how you can tell if you are being a respectful wife:

• Do I "notice, regard, honor, prefer, defer to, encourage, love, and admire" my husband?
• Do I have a heart of respect for my husband?
• Do I think he's competent?
• Do I think positive thoughts about him instead of focusing on his flaws?
• What do I say about my husband?
• Do I tear him down in front of other people?
• Do I wait to disagree with him until a time when I can do so respectfully and privately?

Some of these things I do pretty well on. Rarely do I dwell on Garland's mistakes in my heart; within my mind he is really is the best guy that has ever existed. I definitely defer to him for judgement on family matters and respect his final opinion. I know that he loves and respects me enough that no decision will ever be made that I'm uncomfortable with or without speaking to me about it first. I love, admire, and encourage Garland, sometimes to the point of embarrassing him because he hates receiving compliments (ha!).

But there are some things that I know I am definitely not so great at. I know that because we flirt by teasing each other it sometimes seems like I think everything he does is silly. Don't get me wrong, he does do a lot of ridiculous things, but if I'm not balancing out our joking with public encouragement then it just comes across as mockery. I never want anyone to think I find my husband incompetent because I truly do think he is one of the wisest men I know.

I am also not great at holding my tongue in front of other people. If a topic comes up that is a "button pusher" and brings up anger or resentment or frustration in me, I really struggle to table my thoughts and comments until I can talk to him in private. Especially since I love a good debate, this is very difficult for me. What starts as an innocent discussion can quickly morph into a heated argument without me even stopping to think if this presents Garland and I as a team or not. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that wives should never disagree or lovingly joke with their husbands. I'm just saying I know that the way I communicate that sometimes can be hateful instead of playful.

I confessed all of this to Garland after listening to the podcast and asked him to help me be accountable for being a respectful wife, even in front of others. Unfortunately, he's had to lovingly remind me a couple of times (always in public, of course, that is my respect weakness), and I had to bite my tongue. And even as I sat there feeling convicted/embarrassed of my poor behavior, I could still hear my flesh telling me, "Be upset! You have the right to say whatever you want, whenever you want! Don't let him stop you from "being yourself." ' Ugh, that is some sick-nasty selfishness, pure and simple.

So if you are like me and struggle with being a respectful wife, here are some great tips from Grace Driscoll on how to grow in this area:

1. Talk to your husband about what it looks like to be respectful and ask him to honestly assess your ability to respect him. Ask him to lovingly hold you accountable.
2. Pray for your husband constantly. If there is disrespect in your head there will be disrespect in your heart which will come out in your speech. If your thoughts are constantly prayerful toward him then they won't be able to reach the ugly place.
3. Keep a journal of all the things you notice and love about your husband. As you write them down, pray and thank the Lord for giving you your husband. 
4. Share some of these things you love about your husband with him as an easy way to encourage him. --Garland and I do this by writing notes on each other's bathroom mirrors with a dry erase marker (sticky notes work well too!)
5. Build him up in front of others. No matter what, people should always recognize you as your husband's #1 fan and see you as a joint team, as one.
6. Instead of continuously nagging him about fixing a bad habit or something he needs to work on, pray that God will change his heart. Your complaining can't even begin to compete with the wrath of the Holy Spirit on a believer's conscience. 

Ephesians 5:33- "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband."

31 Weeks!

Is this really happening?! I cannot believe I am already 31 weeks! I have all three of my showers in the next two weeks and I am so excited to see what Titus is going to get from our friends and family. And on top of all the shower goodies we will be getting in the bedding, curtains, pillows, changing table pad, and wall decor (more on this to come) in the next week or so. I can't wait to get this nursery put all the way together! It's crazy to think that by the time Spring Break comes I will be 6 weeks away from delivery and everything will be (hopefully) completely ready for little man's arrival...

Pregnancy Update

How far along? 31 Weeks

Total weight gain: 20 lbs gained (on par to gain 28-30, depending on amount of Nutty Bars consumed in the next 9 weeks)
Maternity clothes? definitely maternity jeans and leggings (love me some leggings), and about 50/50 on tops. The major bonus to maternity tops are that they are long enough to cover my belly; if I'm wearing regular shirts they have to be reallllly long.
Sleep: I slept great up until about 28 weeks, now I just have trouble getting comfortable, especially when I get back in bed after peeing. My back hurts and it feels like my stomach alone weighs about 35 lbs... Unisom is great though! When I take it I sleep really great, but I don't take it very often because it can make me groggy the next day.
Best moment this week: Having a shower with my cell group girls! They are so sweet and got me some really great stuff!
Miss Anything? Coke and sweets... I've had to cut back since my glucose tests said my body doesn't process sugar well while I'm pregnant (and of course it is all I crave!). Also not having to wash my hands a million times a day! Since I've quadrupled my bathroom trips I also have quadrupled my hand washing, so annoying!
Movement: lots of movement! It has definitely transitioned from little jabs to rolling movements of elbows and knees and whatnot. And I'm definitely able to see him moving; if I set my phone or remote on my tummy it bounces with his movements.
Food cravings: Coke, asian food, strawberries, bananas, cupcakes (or really any cake, lets be honest), cheese bread and marinara
Anything making you queasy or sick: I'm really sensitive to smells in general, so anything stinky. Greasy Mexican food. Also green veggies? Normally I love cucumber, broccoli, asparagus, etc... but right now those all sound really awful to me! I do still like salad though.
Gender: Better still be a boy! 
Labor Signs: HA, no thankfully!
Symptoms: A little heartburn, backache, waddling, LOTS of peeing
Belly Button in or out? still in! The lip of the actual button sometimes makes it look like something is sticking out, but this button is holding on for dear life.
Wedding rings on or off? on-my hands swell occasionally, but only when I am walking and then they go back to normal.
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy-80%, Irrationally Sad/Crying- 5%, Irrationally angry- 5%, Just Plain Tired-10%
Looking forward to: getting the nursery completed. I will be so happy when I see a complete setup to welcome Titus home! I know I still have plenty of time, but the nesting has really kicked in and I'm definitely ready to get everything in its place...

Weeks 10-30

The Best There (almost) Never Was

I was reading an article today and this really stuck out to me:
"Consider the following:

• A preacher and his wife are very poor and almost destitute. They already have 14 children when she finds out she is pregnant with the 15th. Considering their impoverished status and the excessive global population, should an abortion be recommended?
• A father is sick. The mother has tuberculosis. They have four children. The oldest is blind, the second has already died, the third is deaf, and the fourth also has TB. The mother is pregnant again. Should an abortion be recommended?
• A white man viciously rapes an innocent 13-year-old black girl and she becomes pregnant. Should an abortion be recommended?
• A young, unmarried teenager becomes pregnant, greatly shaming her family. Although she recently got engaged, her fiance is not the father of the baby and he's beside himself with grief and anger. Should an abortion be recommended?

In the first case, John Wesley, one of the greatest evangelists of the 19th century would have been aborted. In the second case, Beethoven. In the third, Ethel Waters, the great African-American gospel singer. If the answer was "yes" to the fourth case, it just sanctioned the abortion of Jesus Christ."


This article only gave a few examples of women who were faced with a very real circumstance that might elicit having an abortion, but there are many more such as Steve Jobs, Faith Hill, Edgar Allen Poe, Tim Tebow, Jesse Jackson, John Lennon, Bill Clinton, Sarah McGlachlan... And this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the wonderful people who aren't "famous" but have touched the lives of thousands of people.


-I didn't write this to slam Pro-Choice groups or even to try and convince anyone of anything. 
-I didn't write this because I am a Christian and the bible tells me that every life is valuable and worth saving.
-I didn't write this because I know what it feels like to grow a life inside of you and can't imagine stopping the breath of this little person.
-And I didn't write this because in my line of work I have done a lot of research about when life begins and scientifically I believe it points to conception.
-What I DID write this post for are the clients I have seen walk through the door at my job. Every day I meet women who are faced with terrible situations in which abortion feels like the best option and I would be lying to say their lives aren't extremely difficult. It is not my job to tell them what option to choose, my only goal is to make sure they leave our center fully educated on their options so no woman ever has to look back and say she made a choice out of ignorance. 


So here is why this article about women choosing life and those babies growing up to touch our world really hit home for me: I have counseled women who are victims of rape or abuse. Others have been left by their man or family to raise a child on their own. Some clients would have to give up something important (reputation, education, friendships, money) in order to chose life. I speak with women who are drug addicts, have felony records, and most often, women who are just plain-old heart broken. Some of these women choose abortion, a few of which feel confident in their decision and others who feel deep regret and sorrow over their choice. I don't judge them, I know their hearts were heavy and their situations difficult. Instead, I pray for God to heal any hurt they may gain in this process and call them to make sure they know they are loved anyway. But after two years of counseling women who are in crisis pregnancy situations, I have never, ever, had a woman who chose life over abortion and told me she regretted it. I'm not saying there has never been a woman who has, I'm just saying in my large pool of data I've never met one. I've had tons of emails and phone calls with updates on these sweet babies and how they are the most joyful part of their mommy's lives, but I have yet to have a woman say she wishes she would have chosen herself over her baby.


(sigh) I know how some of you are going to take this post, and I thought about that before I published it. Please know that I respect your right to your own opinion and I fully believe you are entitled to think whatever you want (as am I). If you say you support abortion, my response is going to be, we live in a country where you have a right to think your own thoughts and I am so grateful for that! So let's skip the argument and agree that freedom is wonderful :) 

Guest Bedroom Wall Art

In the process of preparing for Titus, we have been cleaning, painting, reorganizing, and changing around spare bedrooms. Our guest room became the nursery and our office became a guest room, which of course I had to redecorate! Thank goodness for Urban Outfitters who makes incredibly cheap duvet covers which made for a quick flip!
     I didn't have much wall space in the guest bedroom to decorate (it is also my workout room and the dog kennel room), but I did want to do one large piece of art on the very big blank wall by the window. My friend Courtney gave me the idea to do 4 large canvas' in colors that matched my new duvet, so I decided to take that idea and run with it. 


Step 1: Decide what I wanted to write on the canvas' and put down stickers to paint over and peel off later. I went with It Is Well because 1) This might be my favorite hymn of all time, and 2) the lyrics matched my new woodland duvet cover! (deer, racoons, trees, etc. I promise it is cuter than it sounds-no camo included)

Step 2: Find out how many stickers/letters I would need and how I would want them organized on the page. I knew I wanted all the words to be toward the center of the the canvas' as a whole, so I just needed to make sure I spaced them in a way I liked.

Step 3: Place stickers on canvas

Step 4: Paint canvas'

 Step 5: Let dry overnight, then peel off stickers. Okay, TRY to peel off stickers. But guess what? I put my sticky stickers on too well and they wouldn't come off... So what I ended up doing was painting over the letters instead, which worked out really well because it gave them a slightly 3D effect to the words off the canvas. 
Here is what I think would fix it: Next time I would paint over the canvas in white paint THEN put the stickers down. The stickers directly on the canvas made it impossible for them to peel off all the way.

This is what it looked like when I tried to peel the stickers off

Impromptu fix! Just paint over the stickers :)

All four completed with paint!

Step 6: Hang on wall!

3D Ultrasound... Cool or Not Cool?

When we decided we wanted to do a 3D ultrasound of Titus I immediately knew one of two things would happen: 
1) I would look at it and go, "eh, it looks pretty much like every other baby ultrasound."
2) I would look at it and because I knew it belonged to me I would see Garland and I in that tiny face even though it didn't really look much like us at all.


I thought I would be more like 95% option 1 and 5% option 2, but surprisingly, I was probably more like 70%/30%. While I definitely thought he looked like a generic baby for the most part, I also noticed right away that he had some pretty full lips. This was so fun because Garland and I both have healthy sized lips and I knew this was definitely something unique to Titus because most babies don't have much fat to go around at 29 weeks, so lips aren't usually super defined by this point. He also looked like he could maybe, just maybe have Garland's nose. It's really too early to tell, but it was fun to guess!


Overall, here is my synopsis: It was difficult to get a good picture. It has to be the perfect storm of the baby turned the right way, the placenta and umbilical cord out of the way, and nothing floating in front of him. We had to go back two times (the first time he wouldn't even budge and face the camera) and we still didn't get a lot of great pics. My ultrasound tech is sweet and has offered to try a third time next week, which is so nice, but I hate that it so difficult to get a good picture that this is necessary. Overall, I say this was a cool experience but for the price (3D is not covered by your insurance), I don't know if I would do it again.


But here is the fruit of this hard work, anyway! I will boldly say I have the most handsome looking sepia colored blob in all the world.

Face (umbilical cord is the string covering up his left eye)

leg and foot (seeing toes was actually really cool)

 Full lips!

 

 Ten tiny toes! I love this picture

 Garland's nose? I think so.