Fixer Upper

           I've been on a homemaking kick lately. Or a nesting kick..there are many terms people use for it. This came as a result of watching many many episodes of the show 'Fixer Upper' on HGTV. I've been just mesmerized by how Joanna and Chip Gaines take homes that are seriously falling apart and make them into the most gorgeous, personalized homes for families. It inspired me, what can I say?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

      'The beauty is in the details' is a true saying. When Solomon built the Temple he didn't just erect a building filled with only the bare minimum practical necessities. He poured his time, his best resources and artistic creativity into designing and building a house for the Lord. How much attention we give to our creations reflects how much we truly care about them or who we're creating them for. It's a way to reflect Christ who has 'gone to prepare a place' for us, and who created a beautiful world out of chaos.

Walking into a home that has clearly had a lot of love and thought put into it is so comforting. I've been reminded lately that homemaking is a skill. It requires study, organization, coordination and creativity...it's a big responsibility! But an exciting one. What kind of job is there that can have such a loving, personal influence on someone? Whatever stage of life you're in, you can create a space where people can be welcomed, and fed both physically and spiritually. It can be tempting to think there's no point in decorating but there is! We've been created by a very creative God - as Christians we can point others to Him through our creativity. We can love others through our thought to detail. 

images courtesy of http://magnoliahomes.net

Birthday

My birthday recently passed as did one of my best friend's. She has a cool tradition of looking back over the last year and listing off all the things she's learned. So this year I want to do the same!

Since I spent most of my 27th year pregnant or with a newborn a lot of my learning experiences are related to that. So here's some things I learned and am thankful for:

1. Being handed your new baby is the most intense, wonderful, and heavy experience ever.

2. Certain experiences will awaken emotions inside you you never knew you were capable of.

3. God gives the grace you need.

4. Hold onto things with an open hand and be ready to roll with whatever big life changes God blesses you with. 

5. Momma's need encouragement!

6. Exercise and eating healthy are disciplines you'll thank yourself for later 

7. Canada's raw landscape is beautiful

8. I love living by the water

9. I'm such a sucker for surfing...love watching it..following the WSL... everything about it

10. I love being married and who I'm married to! Our differences are crucial.

11. Labour is as bad as people say. (I feel like they need to debrief you more after labour...that's a crazy experience! Some women must get PTSD from labour!)

12. But nevermind labour...the 1st month after your baby's born is hard! They should make epidurals for the whole first month post partum haha but seriously...

13. Don't be defeated by your short comings and failures. Learn from them, trust God, be thankful and continue to go for it. 

Now on to learning some more, can't wait to see what my 28th year will bring!

Baby Girl

June felt like the longest month I've had in a long time. It felt extremely full and busy, but in reality it probably wasn't. Steve and I welcomed our first child, Corrie Faith, into the world June 2nd. She entered the world quite dramatically, after 12 hours of labour via emergency c-section. Since my epidural stopped working I went under general anesthesia for the c-section so my first meeting with Corrie is very dream-like. I remember it though...and the intense and immediate love I had for her.

Since that day little Corrie has occupied all my time and thoughts. It's been an exhausting intro to parenthood but so good! When I feel like I'm so tired I can't move I just see her little face and suddenly I can do whatever she needs. I definitely appreciate my parents in a new way. It's hard caring for a little human! Speaking of my family...they were such an amazing support this month, God's gift of grace to us. They loved on us and especially Corrie like crazy and now that they've gone home we miss them so much.

A new chapter of life, and I can already tell its going to be the best.

It never stops

When we initially told my Dad and Step-mom that we were expecting they congratulated us, then my Dad said something along the lines of: "and now let the worrying begin".

I didn't understand exactly what he meant but gradually I started to get it. At first I was worried about miscarrying, then if baby was still alive in there and then after she started kicking I'd worry if I hadn't felt her in like 1/2 an hour. Did you know babies sleep in the womb too? 

Lately, I've started thinking about how much I just like her being in there. I just carry her around and she's safe, sheltered, and fed. I can't wait to finally be able to see her and hold her, but I can't help but be more aware than ever just how unsafe and impure the world is that she's entering. It's a beautiful world created by God, one that I'm excited to show her...but one I'm also afraid of her experiencing due to its imperfections. 

I want her to have a perfect world. Wouldn't that be nice? These thoughts have been stirring in me a more intense desire to be closer to God. Sooner or later my baby is going to discover her Momma is as flawed as this world is. I just also want her to discover Christ and the hope of He gives to her and all of us. I want her to see purity in me because of Him. 

I definitely can't protect her from everything, but when the worrying starts I can pray to the one who can. Who already knows all the hairs on her head..and who loves her more than me.

I never anticipated how motherhood would ignite a new passion and appreciation for my Saviour. I'll have to thank Baby later.

Psalm 103

Lotsa love

Valentines Day just passed. I was working for the majority of the day, and it was a cold, looooong day. Steve and I hadn't made any plans for V-day other than we'd celebrate the next week when I was off. So when I arrived home after work and felt heat streaming out of our living room I wondered if  there was a fire. Technically, just many little fires. Candles! Everywhere!

Steve really out did himself this year! Such a sweet guy. :)

In other news, I'm now 26 weeks preggers! Things have gone relatively smoothly thus far. Baby is extremely active and shares her Momma's love for chocolate judging by the excited kicks I get.

Lotsa love :)

Guess what Alicia

You'd think by now I wouldn't be surprised by anything. When you work in an Emergency department you see a lot of strange and shocking things, yet even after working in this dept. 5 years I still get grossed out and surprised to see things like a nurse strolling through the ER holding a bag of ice covering someone's amputated fingers..
Nasty..
One of the biggest challenges I face on a regular basis is just trying to keep confused patients in bed. I don't blame them, those stretchers were not made for long stays.

So one shift, not too long ago, I had a very pleasantly confused gentlemen as a patient. This man had been brought in during the night by EMS after being found in a bad state in a subway station. He had got into some kind of altercation which left him with facial fractures and a subarachnoid hemorrhage ..he was bleeding inside his brain.
This guy couldn't tell me where he was or what day it was, although he knew he had been in a fight and lost. He was determined to get out of that stretcher!
So to keep him safe, the doctor ordered a sitter to stay with him. Eventually a short, energetic man arrived and promptly got to his job of keeping Patient X in his stretcher. This sitter took his job way too seriously though and every time Patient X so much as scratched his nose, he would jump up and say 'No Mr.X! You must stay in your bed!' To which Mr.X would respond by swinging his fist at him.
It was getting to the point that the sitter was actually making Mr.X pretty aggravated. They would just sit there glaring at each other.

Eventually the sitter requested to go on his lunch break. And both me and Mr.X was like, 'yes! Please go!' The bad part was that just as the sitter went for lunch more patients started pouring in and I had
to attend to them.
I had been gone less than ten minutes when I noticed trail of blood leading from Mr. X's room all the
way down the hall. Mr. X was gone! And his IV was dangling from his IV poll..saline solution
pouring all over the floor.

All I had to do was follow the trail of blood and I found Mr.X. He was all the way across the ER scaring some visitors when both I and security arrived to escort him back to his room. I was so frazzled at this point! I started scolding him: ' Mr. X I told you not to get out of bed! You could've fallen! Man you're fast! I was gone like two seconds!'
And he was just laughing and responded, ' not fast enough or else I wouldn't of got in that fight!'

True..

In any case, I finally got him back to bed and his IV put back in. The sitter came back from break shortly after and asked, 'did he behave for you?' And I was like: 'no! He was very bad!'
Mr. X just lied there, eyes closed..smirking

Anniversary

Steve and I celebrated our 1st anniversary on Easter Sunday. Yes, Jesus did eclipse our celebration. I hope that is the theme of the rest of our married life together too - Jesus eclipsing all the good and bad.
It was a lovely year. We heard horror stories of first years of marriage but to our relief ours was great. We had so much fun getting to know each others' quirks, being able to snuggle together for warmth during an epic winter, being work out buddies, devotion buddies...everything buddies!


Some highlights and things I am thankful for:

- our Costa Rican honeymoon
- Steve's cleanliness
- watching seasons of  24 together...until someone got impatient and then watched waaaayyyy ahead of me.
- winter fireplace snuggle times
- lazy morning breakfast and coffee together
- when Steve talks in a Korean accent...kills me every time!
- shopping for our new home and decorating
- excited greetings when either of us return home from work
- working out together
- Steve saying, 'please don't steal the blankets tonight'. He's so polite
- Steve making Korean barbecue for dinner
- snowboarding trip for Valentines day
- serving together at church
- praying for our friends and family every meal
- love our apartment
- Penny - the dog we pretend is ours but actually lives upstairs with our landlords
- debriefing about our day before we fall asleep


Of course, things weren't all rainbows and butterflies but we definitely learned from the hard times. We went out for dinner and reminisced about the past year at the Keg Sunday night over nice juicy steaks. Then, to start off year two, we're heading to California next week for some good times with Dad and MariAnne and some surfing and fishing :)