March for Life

I'm not usually very outspoken on politics or controversial legal issues, at least on the net, but this is an issue that is personal for me. *thanks to Floyd at Threedonia.com for the link from his site*


Because of this country's view on life, when my daughter died at 16 weeks gestation in 2000, my husband and I were not only denied the option to see her after birth, but had to fight the hospital to get access to her body later. She was called products of conception, medical waste and we were told she had been disposed of. Thank God she was not and we did eventually get to see her and were given permission to have her cremated with dignity. " You want a funeral home to pick up the medical waste removed from your body?" was the question. Yes, we want a funeral home to pick up our daughter. Even though we did get to see her, she was in a small jar with formaldehyde, so I never did get to kiss her good-bye. But she was fully formed, perfect in every way. She was even smiling.

I understand that there are extenuating circumstances that make abortion palatable, or even necessary (in ectopic pregnancies for instance). I counsel parents who have chosen to interrupt a pregnancy when faced with the choice of one hour of life with their child or wait for stillbirth. I have grieved with parents who believe with all their hearts that the choice they made was for the comfort of their child and would give anything to have them here. But the vast majority of abortions are not performed in these cases, they are performed because a woman believes that death for the child would be better than parenting for her. And because of these women, my child was disrespected. After all, we cannot believe it is a child when it dies naturally and not believe it when someone doesn't want it. We want to. We want to believe we are big enough to have both in our minds, but we aren't. Not most of us. Not me, and apparently not the hospital I had Rose at. I believe my much wanted baby was just as much a baby as a child who was not wanted. They believed she was medical waste, just like the abortion they performed earlier that day.

I don't have any pictures of my sweet girl, but I do have pictures of her brother, who also died at almost the same gestation 2 years later. These are fairly graphic, but I believe they say more about the humanity of these children than words ever could.




Please pray for those marching today. Please pray for President Obama as he considers what to do with the FOCA . Please pray his heart will be changed toward the unborn and that life can be respected in this country.

wisdom from my ranting

so yesterday I'm trying to teach math to my 12 year old. I know, that's really funny, but my math has improved greatly through teaching! I swear! ANYWAYS....

I give him a problem, he comes up with an answer that is no where NEAR the answer, so I ask him how he got there. He shows me a really convoluted process that is nothing like what I taught him, but it's at least consistent, as he uses the same process every time (and consequently gets the wrong answer almost every time). So I sweetly rant at him: Son, I don't know why you insist on doing it differently than I taught you and I don't know how to teach you to get the right answer that way. There's only a couple of ways to do this, and your way is neither of them. So when you are ready to get the right answer, I'll teach you how to get there the right way. Hrmph......

And then there it is. This is how God feels with me, almost daily. He's taught me how to do this life: put Him first, love others, be kind, be honest, be a servant, check my motives, take care of myself, do what you are made to do, etc. Then I sit and play Baby Blimp for 2 hours instead of doing something that would feed my soul or take care of my family and wonder why it's not working for me. Or I am dishonest with my husband about my feelings and wonder why I suddenly resent him. Or I lose my vision for motherhood by comparing myself to others and I wonder why I'm resistant to serving my family. Or I do a good thing, but only so others will think I'm good, and wonder why they see me as proud.

I do it my way, over and over again, wonder why I keep getting the wrong answer and then get mad at God cause it's SO HARD. I want to do it my way and get the right answer. I'm 12. Hey, I aged 10 years! At this rate I'll die at 18.

Dogs have it good

Because we've all wanted to at times, especially lately:

Barney Bite Back

Go Barney! Serves em right for getting in his face....

This is.....

Something I was surprised I liked

My husband. I was going to marry a tall cowboy who loved to dance, could ride, lived on a ranch, and wanted to have a million kids. It'd be nice if he loved God, but that was just icing on the cake. To my surprise, I married a tall computer programming jazz musician who hates to dance, has never been on a horse and only wanted 4 kids. So how'd we end up with 8? Well, he decided that 3 and 4 were so much fun, lets go for 5! Then number 5 got here and it still just didn't seem like all that many, so we ended up with 6 and 7, which suddenly made it seem like a million. I talked him into #8 though. Turns out it was the best thing we ever did.

He not only loves God, but is passionate about Jesus. And that's really what is core in our marriage. Weird, the one thing I could care less about about and it's what is now the sexiest thing about him.

He learned to dance and I learned to love jazz, except for modern, :0P. We're looking for an acre or so, but no bigger, and NO horses, which is fine with me, turns out they are a lot of work. I've learned to decorate around all the computers and not make too much fun of him for being a nerd(I actually greatly appreciate his nerdness, it keeps our family very well), he's learned that not all country music is awful.

I really like him. I look at him some days and am still surprised and a little overwhelmed how much I like him.

This post is part of a game called This Is which I found at Three Buttons, through my friend at Sum of Mum. This weeks This Is topic brought to you by Earl and Cookie .

I've been tagged!

My friend Kerrie, over at Life At Number 14, tagged me on my kids blog! How fun! Since I try to keep that one strictly for them (and my in laws read it LOL), I decided to do it over here.

1. I live in Texas and hate cold weather, but I LOVE jackets and boots.
2. I really admire people who are really good at what they do, even if I don't like them. For instance, I had a grudging admiration for Bill Clinton for being an amazing politician, even though he was pretty much a dog as a person.
3. I love to roller blade. I don't get to do it but I love it and I can even do a couple of tricks.
   
4. I've never been stung by a bee. I used to sit in flower patches and let them crawl all over me, but never was stung.
5. I want to adopt. Preferably from Africa.
   
6. I worked at 6 Flags Over Texas and can probably still say the train speech.
7. My kids are 4th generation Texans. I married a non-Texan but it's ok, his mom was born in Dallas.

Hmmmmm, now must tag 7 people. The only problem with that is I don't really have 7 people to tag LOL. I don't know that many people with blogs that haven't already done this.

Oh well. If you have a blog and read mine and wouldn't mind being tagged, please let me know and I'll link to you. If you don't have a blog, you can leave your seven random facts in the comments.

Thanks Kerrie! That was fun!

I made this!

I got the shirts done. A while ago. But then I started school with the kids again and it got crazy around here and there ya go. The tea dying was definitely the way to go. I really really like the way they turned out.

I have also crocheted a couple of blankets for my comfort boxes, a burial wrap for a full term baby who won't get to go home, a couple of bonnets for my friend Vi's baby who did get to come home (I'm also working on a car seat blanket for her) and am still working on my footprint blanket.

So here's the part where I show off my work:
one of the box blankets the burial wrap
and the bonnets and blanket for baby Evelynn!

I love crafting. Wish I had more time for it.

Have I lost my mind?

Ah, well, having it was over rated.

I have been learning to dirt dye t-shirts. Yes, I am dying t-shirts with the dirt from our yard. I figure if they're all gonna be that color anyways.....

Actually we are doing them for our Uncle Mike, who is stationed in Iraq, and for some good friends who are moving (no no no no, can't think about that). Kind of a "someone in Texas loves you" type thing, but with dirt. Dirt is a boys love language.

Turns out though, that despite the ease with which church clothes are stained between the house and the car, it's not so easy to do this on purpose. But you can find anything on the internet (that's my official motto). Turns out boiling them in a mud/tea combo is the way to go. We'll soon find out. My house smells of Almond Vanilla Tea, which I craved for about 3 seconds in my last pregnancy and was just sitting in my cupboard, and mud. The tannin in tea allows the mud to penetrate the fabric.

Uncle Mike's is gonna say "Uncle Mikes TEXAS dirt dyed shirt". I'm trying to think of something clever to put on our friends, they say they are only going for 2 years and will be back. I want to remind them of that. Strongly. That people in Texas are waiting for them. Impatiently waiting.

I'm also currently working on a crochet pattern of footprints, organizing the house, learning to make tortillas and other flat breads, getting all the high fructose corn syrup out of our diets, getting all the scrapbooks caught up, and all the other stuff I do. I need a wife.