27 Things About Me In No Particular Order

Note: This idea was stolen from the blog of a friend. Betsy did this first and I'm copying it now - hope that's ok Betsy! :)

1. I play the trumpet, and I started in the 5th grade.
2. I have been to India 3 times and Mexico once.
3. I love to paint my nails but have never had a professional mani/pedi. And I don't want one - I'd rather do it myself.
4. I cried the day the last original Friends was aired. And I'll probably cry during the last ER.
5. I love my family more than I can articulate, though I don't tell them nearly enough.
6. Though sometimes we want to beat each other over the head, I love my husband more than I ever could have hoped for and I can't imagine navigating life with any other person. I am so blessed to be married to my best friend.
7. I love volleyball. I would play it all the time if I could. But I'm truly not that good at it. I am a better coach than I am a player.
8. I don't pray nearly enough.
9. I would rather have a few close friends than a million blah acquaintances. I am so thankful for the people I can truly call friends (you know who you are).
10. I like to scrapbook but am waaaaay behind.
11. I am a perfectionist - 100%. Sometimes it's annoying.
12. I have a hard time admitting fault, and an even harder time apologizing.
13. I have somewhat of a weakness for designer handbags.
14. I am a Christian. Every thing I learn about Jesus makes me realize how little I actually know.
15. I did not grow up with inside pets, but now have 3 inside doggies, and can't imagine my life without them.
16. I cannot have a baby. I have known this for over 2 years now and sometimes it still devastates me more than I can describe.
17. I love children. No matter to age, gender, personality - every single child is a special little person in their own way. They make me smile.
18. It is my plan to get a Master's in Nouthetic (Christian) Counseling someday. I have only taken one class, but truly feel it's my calling in life.
19. I enjoy formulating intelligent answers and arguments.
20. I like the taste of nearly every food on the planet except sauerkraut. If I don't like a food, it's generally because I don't like its texture. And I might even like sauerkraut - I haven't had it since I was like 6.
21. I like to read just about anything, and I'm a fairly fast reader.
22. I have names for my future children picked out. And I have bought a ton of baby/toddler clothes.
23. I wish I had a clean house. I could organize anything (including a pile of garbage), but if you saw my house, you'd never know it.
24. I like to write. And I like to blog. Maybe I'll write a book someday.
25. I believe God has the adoption of children in our family plan. We hope to adopt a child from an orphanage in India sometime next year.
26. I've always had a tough persona, and I think it surprises people who have known me for a long time to find out how sensitive and spiritual I really am. I could cry at the drop of a hat these days, but still have a hard time letting myself cry in front of others (even my husband).
27. Today is my birthday :)

Note #2: This is my 100th blog post :)

Happy Birthday Narasimha!

Today was Narasimha's birthday. We didn't do a whole lot but I just wanted to acknowledge and say Happy Birthday - I'm not too good at planning stuff I guess. We are thinking about having some people over in a few weeks to celebrate. He probably wouldn't want me to divulge his secret, so if you want to know how old he is, you'll have to get it out of him :)

Another "Special" Day

My birthday was this week - another year older. I am getting to the age where that's no longer always a great thing :) Narasimha gets off work early every Wednesday, so we celebrated then. He came home and asked me to sit in our room while he set up my surprise. A few minutes later, he called me out. There was an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen (his specialty :) with all this fire on top. So I blew out the candles and we had a piece of (yummy) cake - he knows that I love it. Then, he gave me my gift. I got a nice brown purse which I have had my eye on.

I really do like it - he did a great job of buying the one I showed him on the internet :) Then, I got to pick where we went for supper. I don't think we have had a good Indian meal since we moved in June, and I was really craving it. So I asked him if we could go all the way to Des Moines and have some Indian food. Of course he didn't say no :) So we went to a restaurant I have never eaten at before - the ambiance was better than most of the Indian restaurants that we have been to (seems like many Indian restaurants, especially the ones where the food is good, have that hole-in-the-wall sort of feel).

The food was good - one of the dishes that we got - mutton (lamb) biriyani - was delicious! I am so happy there are leftovers. Then, on the way home, we stopped at my parents' house and I got to hear happy birthday from most of my family in person. That was the fun part of my birthday.

The other part was the night before. We were watching TV, and my anatomy book was sitting on the couch (I just finished a course where I used it), so I started flipping through it. I went to the chapter on embryology, and then to the chapter on the reproductive system, and it got me thinking about pregnancy. First - how amazing the process is, and how little babies wouldn't be born, with the intricacies of the process, by chance and science alone (God's work is amazing!). Second - how this has not yet happened to me. Then I started counting, and realized it has been 18 months of unsuccessful trying for us. Which I know, some people have tried lots longer than that, but it made me sad for us thinking about it.

We have come to the point in our journey where nearly every happy occasion is met with the happiness that is supposed to be felt, and also by an underlying sense of sadness, missing the little person who you want to be there celebrating with you, but isn't. I came to another birthday without a bassinette at the foot of our bed, and without ever experiencing a midnight feeding. Now, I know this is God's plan for us, and I am ok with that, or at least I try to be. But sometimes in my selfishness of wanting my plan to happen, I just want a baby. So I went to bed feeling pretty sad. God has been good when it comes to my attention. For how much I want this to happen, I really don't think about it all that much. And when I do, it is generally positive and passing. But that night, as I was laying there feeling more and more sad, I felt the tears well up. Narasimha had already fallen asleep, so I was trying to be quiet. I started crying, and this wasn't a watching-a-sad-movie, single-tear sort of cry. This was one of those cries where your whole body literally aches, and you feel your sadness deeper in your soul than you knew it could be - a visceral sort of grief that seems to make you hurt from the inside out. Most of the time I stop myself from crying about my missing baby, but this time I let it take me, and I took a moment and really grieved my coming to another year without my baby by my side. And when it was all over, I felt a little better. Obviously nothing has changed, but like, ok, so I can still take this because God wants me to and because I really don't have a choice.

There are things about this journey that I am so thankful for, and I don't even know that I would necessarily "undo" our infertility if given the chance - although one day I do hope it resolves. I will talk about the things I am thankful for another day - I think today's post is long enough.