Update: Summer 2012

Hello!

We've been getting settled in our house, and as a stay at home mom and wife I have never been busier! Phew!

Carson is growing up way too fast. He's on the speedway to mobility! I'm so glad we have a house that has more room for him to move around!

David and I have had a good summer as he doesn't work at Sacred Heart. We spend a lot of afternoons hanging out, doing yard work or chores, and playing with Carson. We get to see our awesome neighbors the Prestons too, and also the Wilsons!

It's great living in a town instead of a city. Louisville drivers are sooo impatient! I feel much less pressure as I drive around.

I will say that I do sense more racial tension here. :( The Af. Am and white communities are very distinct from each other and this place is a little more rural than Louisville. That's one of the things I don't like about living in a suburb.

On the plus side, we've been seeing way more of our church family throughout the week and not just on Sundays. It's refreshing to me. I actually feel like we are a part of each other's lives more!

Carson 4 months old

I LOVE these smiles. It's amazing how goofy I am willing to act to get one of these!

This is Carson at his 4 month check up, just loving the sanitary paper they lay on the exam bench!

On Being Relevant

My generation is sort of interesting. Well, I bet all generations were interesting when they were in their 20's.

The 90's yielded a lot of Christian cliches which are now mocked by us who are or used to call themselves Christians. We've grappled with postmodernism, homosexuality and the emerging church. We were in our teens when the year 2000 came and when 9/11 happened. There's also been a huge upsurge in evangelicalism and it's grappling with culture, between separating from and engaging in it. My generation is a few years out of college and ready to save the world.

All that to say... what's the same about my generation as with those previous is this: we all think we have something new and fresh to offer. We purposely want to reject what the previous generation did because it is old, harmful, restrictive, and irrelevant.

It's a lie that my generation has something new and fresh to offer. What's trendy or in style always changes, and those who are trendy like to mock those who aren't. What's theologically "traditional" and "new" has never changed in substance. If you study church history the same debates we have as Christians now they had then. There is always someone ready to deny what "has been" taught in church and there is always someone to fight against it. And then there's everyone else talking about it. It dies down, and several hundred years later it crops up in a different form with a different name.

It's a lie that my generation has something new and fresh to offer because,

"What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,

and there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc. 1:9).

Now that I have a son to raise, my perspective on my generation has changed. All day I care for, nourish and clean my son (babies have a lot of bodily fluids, I find). He is totally dependent on me. I don't have much time to sit around and navel gaze about what's the right way to "engage" in culture as a Christian. The time and money to buy the latest fashions is not available in large amounts...

When I read the Bible I find constant reminders of God's immutability. God never changes, and man does. While culture vacillates between new and old, right and left, stupid and stupider, God is still God.

As a mother I have to cling to God, not a culture or way of life. If my focus is on denying what my parents taught me, what good does that teach my son? If my focus is "not this, not that", what will the vacuum be filled with? I will teach my son my "Yes".

It truly is a waste of time to focus on denying and rejecting things. Cynicism is not the answer to the mistakes of the previous generation. I think maturity as a Christian is being able to move on from that and cling to God. That's what I'll strive for as a mother.

exciting/sad

Since Carson is napping and I have chicken on the stove, I thought it would be a good moment to think of the pros and cons of our moving across the River in May. But instead of it being a pro/con list it's an exciting/sad list.

Exciting:

-much more space

-our own yard/garden

-living by church friends

-living very close to Aldi

-owning a home

-room for more kids

-settling down for at least 9 yrs

-my work as homemaker expanding!

Sad:

-moving further away from my friends in Louisville

-leaving behind our first apartment

-being totally unfamiliar with our surroundings

-settling far away from our families for a while

-having to go up/down stairs hundreds of times a day (this should be on the exciting list, shouldn't it?)

-not living next door to other moms with infants

-making new friends will happen less

-we will be stuck there rain or shine

packing

change

I don't like change anymore. In college and high school I loved going new places and being busy all the time. But since marriage I love being settled down, doing a routine and having a place for everything and everything in its place. I even watch the same movies and TV shows over and over rather than watch new ones.

Don't get me wrong, new things are great and fun. But I need to truly learn how to cope with change. I am still in shock that we are not only moving to Jeff, but settling there for several years. I am also in shock that we're leaving this apartment complex where I have some good friends. We're leaving the apartment we have always known since becoming husband and wife. It's just a little weird.

I thank God for this new blessing, but I have found that when God blesses it's more than just ease and comfort. It's usually responsibility and a little hardship mixed in. So in order to handle my fears of things going wrong through this big change, I tend to plan waaay ahead by already starting packing, planning how I will do yard work and what we need for it, being super duper diligent with all of our documentation for the loan...

Ok, so I just wrote that for the purpose of records. We'll see how things go in hindsight, and then we will all see that change isn't all that bad.

pictures of the new home

We have a pretty big yard to mow! And a large basement which we have dubbed the awesome possum fun room. (That's how we talk in our family, yes it's weird!)

The upstairs living room and the large kitchen are below! It's triple the size of the kitchen I've been cooking in for four years. I'm hoping some good cookin' is gonna come from it!