Capturing Indiana's autumn, attempt #1

We had a lovely drive in the countryside today and I shot these pix. Admit it, even Indiana is pretty in the fall! (And we're still 2 weeks out from our color peak, so more to come!)

take a deep breath

Ahh...Autumn.

The weather in Indiana has certainly made its official turn toward cooler. We have been sleeping with the windows wide open at night and I always sleep very deeply and peaceful when breathing in cool fresh air. The best part? The horrid humidity has taken its annual hike outta dodge and I couldn't be happier about that!

I pasted this print image here not just cuz it's purdy, but to be an inspiration to me and Adam...we are going to buy a couple of canvases and PAINT together, either this weekend or next. I'm beyond frustration with trying to find lovely and inexpensive wall art for our house, so we're resorting to making our own. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Baby Watch '06 UPDATE: Sarah has been given an official date for delivery! She is scheduled for Tuesday morning at 11 to get hooked up to a big bag of Pitocin and get this little man Eli here! That is, if it doesn't happen spontaneously this weekend (which I'm still thinking is more likely)!!! I'm so excited...Tuesday is my normal day off and then I'll take Wednesday off to hang out with the recovering mama and hog...er, hold my nephew! I'm sure Sar feels like a prisoner about to be freed (NOT that being pregnant is some form of punishment; not saying that AT ALL). It's just that this is her last baby, and she'll have 4 kids aged 4 and under after Tuesday, so you can easily do the math and figure out she's been pregnant for almost 5 years straight. I can't wait for her to feel the relief that I know she'll feel! And me too!

Anyway, just really looking forward to all the wonderful things that this month has in store: a new baby in our family, cool weather, leaves turning, fun stuff!

late August blahs

Anybody else feel this way? This is probably my second-least favorite time of the year (nothing is worse than late February/beginning of March when winter has deteriorated into being a cruel joke), when I'm just OVER summer and ready for some cooler weather and just a change in seasons. Just yesterday I was longing for a fire in my fireplace. Late September can't come quick enough now. I want to smell cinnamon-cidery-pumpkin smells, I want to put on a long-sleeve shirt with a vest-jacket, I want to see the leaves turning colors and that special way the sunshine angles in the fall through the treetops (you know what I'm talking about?). I can't wait til my little nephew is here and we can bundle him up and take the kids to an autumn festival (Rockford, Michigan has the best fall-fest in the world...sadly, I can't drag my sister and her wee ones that far, but Sar and I used to go when we both lived in Michigan, pre-babies! Remember those days, Sar???). Last year, Suzy and Mariah and I had a great time taking some of the junior-high girls to the orchard and then through a corn maze. We made homemade apple pies and then had a weenie roast that night. Ahhh.......autumn. Please come soon!

drum roll...and my favorite reason for being in love with Spring...


I simply adore Easter, the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So much to say about this...

First I should probably say that Easter has only become my favorite holiday during the last few years. Growing up, I adored "the holidays" (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's) but I've had a growing dislike for these holidays with each passing year. Not that I don't enjoy or appreciate them still, but I certainly seem to observe and experience the "flaws" (for lack of a better word) of these holidays in how we celebrate them. I see so much stress surrounding Christmas, and really, I shouldn't even get started on Thanksgiving (can't resist...look, the Pilgrims did a great thing by coming to this country for freedom of worship, but folks, they were NOT perfect and I doubt they wanted to be commemorated by eating a piece of cooked fowl and throwing around a piece of pigskin!).

The process of Easter becoming my favorite holiday was already well underway by the time I went to England in 2002, but it was there that I truly experienced a new and fresh way of looking at this holiday and where it became sealed as my favorite. Kate (best friend) and I had traveled to England to fulfill a lifelong dream for both of us (to visit the "mother country" as we lovingly call it), and during our travels there, we stayed for several days with Kate's cousin Nigel, who is the vicar of the Knutsford Parish Church. Easter Sunday morning, we piled into Caroline's (Nigel's wife) old Volvo with their kids and drove to the church. Inside, the people celebrated as we do in this country with the singing of hymns and the taking of communion (although in the Anglican church, they've never heard of oyster crackers and grape juice...no, no, it's the real stuff there...Nigel placed a wafer on my tongue as I bowed in prayer at the altar, and then I sipped from the communal goblet of wine when it was passed to me). Nigel shared a simple message, and then after coffee and cookies in a reception room, we all piled back into the Volvo and went back to the vicarage. It was at this point that I realized the astounding differences between their celebration of Easter and our's (meaning, the American way). The congregation had not been awash in a sea of pastel clothing. When we got home, the kids did not cut loose in the yard, looking for hidden pastel eggs. Caroline's house did not sport a million ceramic bunnies and chickies and all that. I do want to say that I see absolutely NOTHING WRONG with these things. Not at all. But for me, I have discovered that these things had only ever served as a distraction. I found that without this type of pomp and circumstance, there was time in my day and room in my mind for real reflection on the meaning of the day. In fact, over Easter dinner (which was almost hilarious to me, for we dined on things like Greek salad and a spicy quiche...not your typical American Easter fare!), the whole family got involved in such a stimulating theological discussion that I had tears in my eyes. I found myself so grateful for being surrounded by such people, with such respect for the day. I will never forget that experience and how it changed my viewpoint.

However, I have to say that I think Easter is my favorite holiday simply because the spiritual implications are THE most important that a Christian can pause and meditate on and deeply celebrate within the soul. Even typing about it now, I get that feeling of awe in what the resurrection MEANS for us...without Christ's victory over sin and death, we would have NOTHING. No hope, no forgiveness, no redemption. No purpose in life, no meaning in death.

Praise to you Jesus for the marvelous gift that You bought and paid for with Your life, and the awesome hope that You achieved for us all when You walked out of that tomb, alive and glorious in Your majesty!!!

Spring come soon!

Practically everyone I know prefers autumn above all the other seasons, but not me! I am 100% a spring girl. It's probably because winter is inevitably a time of struggle for me...I have seasonal affective disorder (a quirky condition where a person's mood is drastically affected by the amount of sunlight he/she receives) and I dread the onset of winter, so more than likely I have some odd feelings of resentment toward fall as the harbinger of winter!

Anyway, spring is my favorite season. I've compiled a short list of the reasons why (and there seem to be jillions):
*the unfolding of new life. Flowers, trees, green, green, GREEN! My absolute favorite time in spring is the middle of May when the lilies-of-the-valley have bloomed. Every May I look forward to the random morning when my mom brings me a vase of these precious blooms (they only bloom in May!) as a surprise! They have the most fragrant sweet scent and look like little wedding bells.

*the vernal equinox. This might seem odd, but not really...the vernal equinox signals the change in light to dark ratio of the northern hemisphere. It is at this point that the northern hemisphere logs MORE light hours than dark hours during a 24-hour period, and it will continue this way until the autumnal equinox. Essentially, I get MORE SUNLIGHT!!! Just FYI, this year, the vernal equinox is occurring on March 20th at 6:26 pm, your local time. That's less than a month away!

*birds singing. Again, might seem a bit trivial, but as my family knows, I have this connection with morning doves. Can't explain it, but there's something so deeply comforting about the coo-coo of the doves in the mornings. They seem to be such serene creatures and their sweet sound lends such a soft atmosphere to the day. At our last house, I "had" a dove who I'd coo back and forth with, but alas, she didn't relocate when we did. I actually pray that we have a dove come to nest somewhere near our new place!

*oh, there's so many more reasons (and my favorite reason is yet to appear in my list!)...I don't have time to finish this post right now, so...to be continued!