Every day when my computer brings up this page as my home page, I am filled with guilt that I have gone so long without blogging or updating. But then I get over it. I have enough things in my life to worry about! Besides, my reasons are really good ones. It has been an exceptionally busy, exciting time for us these last five or six months. Once we left for Serbia we did do lots of blogging, but we did it on the Taste of Serbia website. Then, after returning from that amazing experience, I attended lots of staff development for the upcoming school year, we celebrated our five year wedding anniversary, and... we found out I was pregnant! (To answer the ever-popular question, no, we did not get pregnant overseas.) I proceeded to make my way through the first trimester, waiting with anticipation to share our great news, struggling with many complex emotions and adjusting to changes in my body (which included nausea and vomiting, of course). Immediately after the first trimester ended, I suffered from pleurisy, an inflammation of the lining between my rib and lung. It was an incredibly painful, frightening two weeks, but God was gracious and ever-present, granting me more peace than I could have imagined. When that was finally over I was well into my fourth month and I finally started feeling like myself again.
I am now done with the fifth month and I can finally say I feel great! I'm ecstatic about meeting my baby, we're enjoying working on the nursery, and we're amused by my big belly (although some days are more amusing than others). I am really looking forward to the Christmas holiday when my mom, sister, and Jim's parents will all be here to celebrate with us.
I don't know that life will get any less hectic or that I will have any more time or motivation to update this site (particularly once the baby is born), but at least now that the word is out there, it won't seem as daunting! Hopefully there won't need to be another six-month hiatus.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
