Happy Rainy Day

I remember the feeling as a little girl in Wisconsin, of waking up on a crisp fall morning and wondering if the crisp air would  blow in snow and if this would be the first day of winter. Because winter wasn't winter without any snow. It was happy anticipation. Upon opening the front door the smell of wood smoke would waft in. This was the end of fall, the beginning of winter.

It rained last night. This morning the sky is still overcast and the wind is whipping around outside. The fans are off and it's cool. I have to wonder if this is the first official day of rainy season. Official in that we get a day of rain all day long. Steady, and long, rain upon rain. The neighbors started a fire in their outdoor kitchen, and I got a whiff of wood smoke. I know this feeling. This anticipation. I love rainy season.

However, it does have its downside. I have laundry to do today and I'd better do a load, want to or not. A load a day. It's going to take 12- 24 hours to dry from here on out--if this is indeed rainy season officially starting. I don't have a dryer. I use good laundry softener, and vinegar in my laundry. Liquid laundry soap is always best this time of year. With a fan on it, I hope  the laundry will smell good by the time its dry. Chances are though that it won't always. Then I'm faced with the delema as to weather I can stand to wear it or have to wash it again.

Yesterday I took my fern out of the pot and sliced it into fourths and put one fourth back into the pot. I have three more pieces to give away. I gave Mae Wahn the other one I had potted. There was fern growing out of the pot and making runners in the grass. I pulled all that up. Well, most of it. Who's to say if I got it all. And then I got started on the other plant that needs dividing and such but alas, I found myself tuckered and we all came in for lunch. So that project sits out in the rain today and will be all the better for it.

Jube and Havilah are playing with Lego toys right now. Jube is still a bit cranky. Something's not quite right with his insides and I wonder if he doesn't have gas in his belly. I'm going to tackle that and get some vitamins into him. He's just been kind of draggy and whiny lately. Partially because he's not feeling real well for some reason and partially because he needs more one on one. After I got pregnant I needed nap time, which had been Jube and my time while Havilah slept. Well, now with me napping more, I'm working on making sure Jube and I have together time anyway somehow. He's kind of a high maintenance little boy right now, but we love him loads anyway.

Okay, gotta get my day on the road.

Being Pregnant and Life in General

To start out with, I'd like to say, I wasn't pregnant when I wrote my last post. Not that I knew of anyway. But I must have been mighty close. I actually thought that the messy house post was a bit older than it was. Funny. Sorry, Naomi. I guess I lied to you. :(

The truth is that when my house looks like that when I'm pregnant, I generally go into panic mode. Depression hits, etc. Because there is no end in sight. Life is extremely hard to catch up on again, between bouts of morning sickness. 

Having said that, I am so thankful for a much healthier pregnancy this time around. I learned something after being pregnant with Havilah. I made the decision to prepare for baby #3. So I did. I got on a good vitamin and started taking yellow dock religiously. Yellow dock I take for iron. I was healthy and had the energy I needed to live normal life well. Then I got pregnant and worried for a while that something was wrong. I worried because I didn't feel sick enough to be pregnant. Since then, I've been having more nausea, and the fears have been put to rest. But still, it's manageable. I am so thankful. So incredibly thankful. 

It's important to me to stay healthy, and I feel like I learned this the hard way when I was pregnant with Havilah. I realized that when I wasn't taking care of myself, then Dru became my help meet, not the other way around. I decided that that really wasn't what I wanted. Sure, there are sacrifices on both Dru and my part that come with having children. But if I am hindering Dru's ministry, and what the Lord has called him to do here in Thailand--then that is shame. 

Instead of being depressed and sad all the time, I find I'm happy. I'm proud of my children. Both of them are well on their way to being potty trained. The long nightmare of potty training Jube seems to finally be coming to an end. Havilah is quickly getting the hang of it and will soon be over the hump. So so thankful for that.

Jube was playing on the floor yesterday and talking to himself. I overheard him say something we don't say at our house. I asked him what he'd said and he immediately dissolved into tears. I hadn't scolded or anything. We'd talked about taking the Lord's name in vain before and it just slipped out. Honestly, I can't pin point where he heard it but think it must have come off of something we'd watched lately. He was heartbroken that it had happened. We prayed about it, and he felt better. After that was all over I realized that I'd rather have a child with a tender conscience about God's name, yet can't seem to figure out how to use the toilet very fast, then the other way around.

I've been enjoying watching his awareness of God grow. Today he was eating lunch and he asked, "We 'orship Jesus and not idols, right?" When I was young I had no clue what idol or spirit worship looked like. Idol worship was a very foreign concept to me. Jube knows though, he's seen it. 

Havilah threw a royal fit the other night when we stopped at DQ. Prices there have gone up a bit so Dru got ice cream to share that evening. Havilah had a conniption when she realized she would not be getting her very own cone. And now we are watching her very close in an effort to nip her little temper in the bud. 

She's talking more and more. Only words mostly, but she'll say, "There you go!" when she's solved something in her play. She likes to go "bye bye." Her word for Jube and shoe are very similar. The other day I peaked in at her napping. Her eyes were closed, but she was very insistently calling Jube. Occasionally she'll say, "I love you." I've told her not to tell me "no" a couple of times now. 

Last weekend, right when it seemed our family vacation was going to fall smack on its face, Dru found a resort with in our budget. We got out of the city for 2 nights and just did lots of playing and relaxing. We swam, used the complimentary paddle boat--only it was a swan shaped boat so it was special--and drove about the mountains and found a lovely little restaurant that served yummy food at exorbitant prices. It was all very lovely and relaxing. So glad we did it. But we didn't take one single picture--now how's that for lame?

Today Dru's back in school. He was happy to be back. I'm happy for him. 

The only fly in the ointment is the cantankerous fridge. But I told Dru I'd rather make due with ice and a cooler until we could get it fixed--even if it took till this weekend--then stress out about it and wreck his first week of school.

We're still not sure if he'll be able to finish in just this and one more semester. First he thought he could if he could test out of a couple courses--but he couldn't get the permission for those particular courses, so we thought it had fallen through. But upon looking over it again, it seems like it might be possible after all. So we don't know. As much as we'd love to finish in a years time, we just don't know if it's feasible or not. 

Dru just walked in the door, done with classes for today. He's a bit unimpressed because his teacher didn't show up for his last class. In fact, the teacher he thought was going to teach the class, isn't teaching it after all. At the very last minute they changed the teacher for that course from Adjarn Ozzie, to someone else...and she didn't show up. So A.Ozzie finally came in and said, "I'm sorry, I'm not teaching this class, can't remember who is, but since she's not here yet, wait for five more minutes and if she doesn't show up, you're free to leave." It's going to be an interesting semester by the sounds of it.  Dru's concerned that if they changed the instructor for the course at the last minute, the course may not be as good as it should be because of a lack of preparation time for instructor. 

We're doing lots of thinking right now about what lays around the bend. With Dru out of school, possibly in a year--if not, then a year and a half or so, we're thinking about the next steps. Will it be time to leave Chiang Mai for another location? We're asking questions about what my personal ministry should look like as I serve beside Dru. So many things to think and pray about right now.

That's our life. We're busy and happy. God is good.....And I need to go eat before I'm sick again... :)