Baby Boy

This past week Seth told me that my pet name use of the word baby was getting "excessive." I had to laugh when he called me out on this. Then today the poor boy came down with the flu, don't worry not the stomach kind and he really has been a baby all day long. I love him, but there is something so pitiful about boys when they are sick. Granted this is pretty bad, a fever of 101.5, body aches, cough and headache. I'm just glad he is finally sleeping, it was a full day.

One Year Ago Today

We did pictures before and I was so nervous and couldn't wait to see Seth. It took everything in me to stay calm before it was time to walk down the aisle. These girls did a good job keeping my mind off it, or at least trying to. I am so grateful for each one of you! (I wanted to post more pictures but our computer is out of commission and I only had these few off my other laptop).

Mom calls this my "Janie Kay" face. Apparently I made this exact face as a kid when I would get excited about something.

I still feel like we got married just yesterday, time flies so fast! It really is amazing.

It has only gotten better! What amazing memories we have. This past year has been one of the best yet. Seth has been such an incredible gift to me. Today I couldn't stop thinking about how much God made him for me. He keeps me calm when I freak out, he makes me laugh so much, and he cares for me in every way shape and form. I love him more today than the day we got married. And it is further proof that it really only gets better with each passing day. I love you my dearest one!

(PS-Thank you Lydia and Andy, we love our pictures!)

Cut Off

To celebrate our one year anniversary we are leaving for the weekend to go here. Yay!

Which means these things:

• lots of sleep
• good food (Ruth's Chris for our anniversary dinner, thank you Restaurant Week, and breakfast at the Ritz is pretty much our favorite thing)
  
• shopping (whats not to love about a hotel connected to a mall?)
  
• time with my love
• and best of all(well really second best of all) no computer! that's right, no work email, no g-chat, no facebook, no blogs, no nothing. I'm probably attached to it about 15 hours of the day and believe it or not I can't wait. Life without my laptop, ahh sweet relief.
  

Baby Charlie

Baby Charlie, its the running joke amongst friends and the future name of our little one, whatever gender they might be. Seth is convinced we are going to have all boys, me on the other hand, I don't know if I can handle dirt and mud tracked through the house, but I suppose its a little easier than emotional girls.

Breathe. I'm not pregnant. But it seems to be the eternal question that everyone has for you as soon as your feet hit the ground when you get home from your honeymoon. Anywhere you go this is the standard dialogue:

Person A: Sooooooo (emphasis there), when do you want to start "trying?"
Me: We're not really in a rush to have kids, but are open to it whenever the Lord would have it.
(What I am really thinking: we just got married! Give us at least a year!)
Person A: That's great, you have time. (insert awkward advice about when said person and her husband starting to “try” to have kids)
Me: insert awkward smile and nod

So here we are, we have been married almost a year. Still no Baby Charlie. And we are completely content with where we are. Happy to cherish the time we have before kids because we both know once they come it will never be the same. We definetly want to have kids and we can't wait to have a real Baby Charlie and not just a subject of our running jokes about kids. We trust God for his timing for kids and not our own, but if it was up to us, Baby Charlie might be making an appearance in the early to middle part of 2009. J

So the next person I see who asks me that question that I always get, I will just reply with, "Well haven't you read our blog? Did you see what I posted?" Because that's now what we all seem to say to each other anyways, isn't it? Forget using blogs to keep up with people at a distance, it's now with people who are our best friends, they get updates on our lives on a blog. I really need to pick up the phone more I guess, or something?

Update of Sorts

As if getting over the holidays wasn't enough, since Dec. 29th we have:

• Moved
• Celebrated a New Year
• Celebrated a Birthday, with me as a sick birthday girl
• Put an offer on our first house ever (deep breaths)
• Worked 55 (and counting) hours in one work week

And next week we celebrate our first anniversary and pretend that all these adult things aren't happening, just for three days and then we come back to reality.

Buying a house feels like such an adult thing to do. It probably is. Oh wait, it definetly is. I've never been committed to something for 3o years, I haven't even lived 3o years! But its about to happen and we are really excited. Finally no more living out of boxes, cars and unpacking for real. Ahhh, what a thought. The whole living out of cars thing isn't a joke. Just ask our friends. We had been successfully pawning off driving duties to other people until this past week when Seth's aunt came for a visit and we (and by we I mean Seth, I started to feel like it was normal to look like that) decided it was time to at least empty the back seat. He didn't touch the trunk, we are still sort of in denial there.

Now the questions come...when do we hear back about the house...we actually don't know. We put an offer on a "short sale" so it could be weeks. When we do, no doubt we will let everyone know. Please pray that the bank accepts our offer, we really love the house. But if they don't we know that God has something better for us and hey, it only took us 20 stops at other houses (some of which I couldn't even get out of the car, cause the neighborhoods were so scary) to find this one.

PS-Seth changed the colors of our blog. Can't you tell that I married an artist?

My Love is Twenty Five Today

Happy Birthday my love! I'm so excited to celebrate your birthday. I was thinking about what to post and I thought that twenty five reasons I love you or something like that would be cheese. The truth is that there are so many more reasons than twenty five and I would rather write them in a note or something, not "blog" them all. Besides, some of those reasons are just for loveys... like reason #23. I love you cause your eyes sparkle. Or, reason #22. I love you cause you smell good. Hot and heavy, for our eyes only.

While I'm on lists here are some quick birthday facts about lovey having to do with the number twenty five:
1. Janet is 25 times hotter than the sun.

You're my favorite and I'm so glad you were born. God has been kind to you and I'm praying that a highlight of your birthday this year is that you think about the twenty five years, or just the ones you can remember, and worship our loving God for all of His mercy and kindness to you. He's watched over you, saved you, and drawn you closer to Himself throughout your years and He has made you drop dead gorgeous. Sorry, got distracted there. He has made you more like His Son Jesus.

I love watching God work in your life. I love watching you respond to His grace and follow after Him in all you do. You are an excellent wife. I love the way you think about our home and the vision you have for the day, Lord willing, that we have a house of our own. I love the way you love our friends and carry them on your heart. You're my favorite lovey, my only lovey, and I wrote you this song on your birthday (Please sing it as you read it, and for anyone else reading this you can sing it too, it's really easy):


You are my lovey
you are my lovey lovey
I love my lovey and my lovey loves me too!
You are my lovey
Yes, you are my lovey lovey
I love my lovey and my lovey loves me tooooo-oo.

Life is so much fun with you, so sweet with you... happy birthday Jan.
Your husband,
Seth

It's Worth It

I don't usually post long things on our blog, but this is well worth a read thru. Seth and I are both political types so anytime we hear of someone representing Christ well in that arena is such a blessing. We were greatly affected by Tony Snow's example and hope you will be too. It was a wonderful thing to read especially after Matt Maka's message on Suffering just a few weeks ago.

This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow, President Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer. Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007 , Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen,- leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but has resigned since, "for economic reasons," and to pursue " other interests."

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"Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence "What It All Means," Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the "why" questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non believing hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, and exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease,- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter,- and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes ( Spain ), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

'Learning How to Live'. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand." T. Snow