7 Quick Takes (32)

1

First and most importantly: my husband and I have made our official prediction for the song of the summer. It's "Rain is a good thing" by Luke Bryan. You heard it here first, folks.

Also, I'm thinking the runner-up might be "Water" by Brad Paisley. Apparently this summer's country music theme is getting wet!

Do you have any predictions?

2

On Wednesday morning I got to hear the baby's heartbeat! What a beautiful sound!

And now I can come clean and say that this made the baby seem much more real to me than our first ultrasound. I mean, all I saw on the ultrasound was a blob. I knew the blob was a human, but it didn't have any arms or legs or anything yet, and I was a bit disappointed at how unexciting it was. Not so with the heartbeat! That was very exciting!

3

My poor husband had to miss hearing the heartbeat, as he's been sick all week. He didn't go in to work on Wednesday (that's when you know it's bad), and it doesn't look like he'll make it in today either. Poor guy! He doesn't really like to be babied when he's sick, just left alone, so I stocked up on chicken noodle soup and OJ and am trying to let him sleep it off without too many interruptions from me.

4

I guess that means he won't be taking in these cupcakes I made for him to announce our pregnancy to everyone at his work.

(There's another row at the top with our last name, but I can't show you that 
in case you're going to come stalk us.)

Any idea if I can freeze them, so he can take them in next week? I know you can freeze unfrosted cupcakes, but I don't know about after they've been frosted.

5

I think I've mentioned before that I'm in a Bible study with a variety of women. One newish Christian, one semi Catholic, one Jewish woman, an Evangelical who leads us, and me. Quite the mixture! We're starting to study Genesis, but the leader has to be gone for a while thanks to knee surgery... which leaves me to lead the group. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to lead a study of women who are fairly ignorant of the Bible?

At least we were able to stay away from the whole creation/evolution issue. It might've been easier to start with the Gospel (for me anyway), but we wanted to do Genesis since that's something we all share. But introducing creation and the fall was not easy!

I do think it's good for me to gain some perspective from this, as I've only been around people who were already familiar with all the stories of the Bible, but man is it tough to lead. Do we just focus on the stories? Do we attempt to apply them to our lives? How deep can we go if they've never actually read the text before? How relative do I have to keep things, due to our different backgrounds, and how I can do that without compromising the truth? Agh! I'll be really glad when the leader comes back and I can just pipe in with my two cents instead of trying to figure out these questions.

6

On the way home from our study, I was praying again for a girlfriend who was more in my situation. These ladies are nice and all, but they're all so much older than me, and not necessarily the people I would choose to hang out with in my free time. I was specifically hoping for someone who's a bit more mature in her faith, but God had other plans. Which of course I won't argue with, as it was very good of Him to answer my prayer so quickly!

As soon as I went out to walk the dog, I bumped into one of my new neighbors... who announced that she's also pregnant! It was so nice to be able to chat about all the baby stuff that's been swirling around in both of our heads, and I'm so excited to have another girl so physically close by to go through this together! So here's a big shout out to God, for immediately answering my prayer!

7

Oh, and it's time for a Dress Dare update! Well, the first day was tough. I woke up to a rainy dreary day, my everyday skirt was in the laundry basket, and I had absolutely no desire to pull on a dress. I managed to find a sporty skirt and made it through. It's been pretty much smooth sailing since! (Sorry I don't have any pictures - my photographer has been sick, c.f. #3).

My only issue is figuring out exactly how long I can wear my workout clothes? It's okay to go with shorts for the actual workout, but I generally just wear my running clothes until I get up the motivation to go actually run - which means for several hours, during which time I may or may not go out in public. One day I did walk the dog while still in my workout clothes - is that cheating? I'm going to the grocery store today after I run, and I did decide to bring a skirt to pull on afterwards, just to be on the safe side. For you ladies who are taking part, what do you think?

Hope you all have a good long weekend!
Try to make it to a cemetery,  or at least a parade!