Saturday, March 13, 2010

Life Is Good

...Well, except the Lenten weather which has finally made its appearance halfway through this penitential season. But even the days on end (5 now, I believe, after 2 solid weeks of sunshine!) of overcast skies, fog and melting snow can't dampen my spirits because I'm hopeful that this means an early (for MN) Spring. Having said that, I give the weather until the first week of April before I will get up my hopes for green grass, flowers and leaves on trees - until then I have no real assurances that Ms. Winter won't "bless" us with an extended stay.

This morning was a bit of a victory for my brain. When Lydia was about 4 months old I was diagnosed with classic post-partum depression (PPD) and a blood-test also showed that I was low on many important vitamins/minerals/chemicals. Since then, I've been dutifully taking quite a few pills to get myself healthy and balanced. Let me tell you, I feel better than I've felt in years! To the point, I woke up early this morning to nurse Lydia and was actually excited about the day...excited! I remember feeling like that when I was under 10 - every day was a brand new adventure, even if there was nothing in particular planned. Under 10 to 28 - that's roughly 18 years and suddenly I had a little taste of that again. Crazy. Wonderful. It's amazing what being in optimal health will do for a person.

Besides feeling great mentally and physically (did I mention, I'm also now below my pre-Lydia weight!) We've had an exciting week, but it's March and that appears to be our pattern:
March 2005 - got engaged
March 2006 - moved to Minnesota
March 2009 - closed on our house
March 2010 - bought a minivan! Hurray!

We may own the most beautiful minivan I've ever seen - well, the exterior anyway. The interior is, uh, used. But to be honest, I'd rather have a not-so-nice interior than exterior. When we're driving down the street, no one will know that there are weird stains, worn seats and patches on the ceiling. All they see is a gorgeous silver Dodge Grand Caravan Sport (2000). Yes, it's pretty. Thank you, Jesus. It was also a steal at $1600. Crazy. God is good. Hopefully it won't die tomorrow (we did have a mechanic friend look it over before we bought it).

Mark and I are on a roll, enjoying the many home projects we can accomplish as a team. I am so grateful for how well we work together. Doing projects with Mark is a great joy and and it's so fun to stand back and marvel at them together when they're done. I may have mentioned that we finished the drop ceiling - all except the small landing at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend. The downstairs office, hall and bathroom look SO much better! Now we're on to an office-to-bedroom conversion. Well, actually it will be more of an office/bedroom combination. Since we've had an average of a house-guest a month since we've moved in, we decided (ok, I decided and got Mark excited) to make our office space downstairs a guest room. We have my sister followed by Mark's parents coming for a stay in the next month and we're looking forward to them giving the new setup a spin.

I apologize for the absence of any pictures in these past months of posts. I really should get some up soon. The kiddos are so big now - Iain looks like a little boy instead of a big baby, and Lydia looks like a big baby because, well, she is. The house is beautiful as always, and getting better project by project. Like I said, life is good. God is good. It doesn't feel much like Lent around here - thankfully (?) we have the weather to remind us of the season. :) God bless you all!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

What's New

Iain is standing on a chair at the kitchen counter, taking cinnamon rolls out of the pan and "cutting" them with a butter knife. I can't say I mind all that much since I'm planning to make them into bread pudding; they turned out rather dry, but hey it was a yeast victory and they are 100% wheat flour. :)

At long last Iain has given Lydia a name. For the first 6 months of her life she was just "baby" but he has recently started calling her "Dia" (pronounced dee-ah). It's a name I hadn't thought of in all the months of wondering what he would call her. I always assumed she'd end up being "Wih-dee" or something similar. I think Dia is just lovely!

I think I have perfected my hummus recipe. Here are my last few tips... Garlic: a couple ROASTED cloves. Yum. Garbanzo beans: peel them. It's easily done by pinching/rolling a bean between your thumbs and index fingers of both hands. The bean pops right out of the skin. This makes for a smoother humus. For an extra yummy flavor, roasted red pepper is delish! Wait to add any water until after the red pepper addition - I learned this the hard way.

Glancing over at Iain, I'm realizing that my hopes for bread pudding may be evaporating as the cinnamon rolls are being turned into stuffing crumbs. Perhaps it's time to intervene. Happy Wednesday!