in case you were wondering

marriage is totally worth it.

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more babyness

alright, so she’s probably not singing, but there are sure times when it sounds like she’s trying. like yesterday, when she sang herself to sleep.

good? no good? so-so?

i’m working on ideas for a 3-photograph work entitled “give me Jesus.”

• in the morning when i rise
• and when i am alone
• and when i come to die

i’m hoping to avoid cliché here, because it would be really easy to make this theme look like a cheap bible verse calendar. i should have something to show for my thinking in a month or so.

and now, for my next trick

i will find a job.

last time most of you heard (unless amy or i spoke with you recently), i was grateful to my employer for having fired me, and had a job lined up to begin on the 13th. well, when i got there on the 13th, that “promised land” job was questionable and the department head (a friend of mine and fellow believer; i trust his assessment) told me he’d get back to me by the end of the week.

yesterday was the end of the week and i found out for sure that i wasn’t the right man for the job, and that they would have to create a position for me if they were to hire me anyways.

here we go off into the great unknown, and i’m sure that God will strengthen our faith as a result of this uncertainty. we have a new child, new house (mortgage), and we would much prefer to stay here in chattanooga. pray that the Giver will show us what good things He has in store for us soon.

peace.

aralynn

this made me laugh and feel warm

from my niece (amy’s niece, but she shares) laura, who’s about 3. she dictated it.

“Dear Mark, Your a very special. I love you. I made a letter for you. I can. I do. I love cause joy ferb Mark jerb lull lollipop deeee end. Love Laura. gerg, gerg, gerg.”

[she's the one on the far right]

fotografía

remember this picture? well, it’s the one i just got a letter from AVA about. they told me it was chosen to be part of their exhibit starting june 17th or so! that makes me an artiste.

i’m sitting out on the balcony right now, looking at the sunset to the west, the hills to the north, and my beautiful wife to the southwest. such beauty is not to be taken for granted but i see it every day. that makes me blessed.

something funny i heard today: “look at all the wobbly people.”

listening to: a bird that has built a nest just below our balcony, to the accompaniment of the traffic on 27.

feeling like: drinking a good chai latte or a macchiato.

opinions?

a few posts back, i mentioned that we’re kicking the midwife idea to the curb. the main reason is one that we discussed after i posted. we were feeling like something “wasn’t right” and i think that i put my finger on it when i thought about the religious beliefs of the midwives. one’s non-religious, one’s baha’i, and one’s messing around with wicca.

here’s the question. would you knowingly allow someone who may be involved in demonic activity to be present at the birth of your child? or even better – would you allow that person to assist in the birthing process?

we’ve made our decision, based on the sacredness of the event and our own consciences, but i’m really curious to see how y’all would approach the debate. please do comment.

spring 2

etc.

both amy and i have been thinking about the same thing recently, and last night we found out when i broached the subject. we’re done with the midwife experiment, for the simple reason that she’s not giving amy the kind of attention that we feel is warranted by the amount of money she’s charging. there are peripheral reasons, of course.

1. amy’s maternity coverage is going to kick in after june 1st and we shouldn’t have to see a doctor for anything beyond an office visit between now and then. and if something does come up, what would a midwife be able to do anyways? emergencies need emergency rooms.
2. we’re finding that it’s more of a burden financially to scrape together the sum due the midwife each month than it would be to pay the hospital for whatever the coverage doesn’t pay for after the birth. we’ll continue saving as much money as possible (i’m on a ration of beans and water, and amy keeps a candle nearby to light when that diet comes back to bite me), and use that stockpile to pay as many of the medical bills off as we can as soon as we get them. anything beyond our stockpile will be alright, as long as we demonstrate to the hospital that we intend to finish paying them by making that first payment a large one.
3. the midwife is 2 hours away from us.

so we talked about that last night, and both of us feel better about our financial state now. especially in light of what happened to our car on friday night.

to make a long story short, we broke a bolt holding the right front brake caliper to the spindle (by stopping really fast and hard because of a cell-phone-holding blonde highlight-wearing other-way-looking powder-blue-vw bug-driving DOLT WHO TURNED RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!) and the spindle had to be replaced because it was rusted to the broken bolt. but we just heard from the mechanic, and we’re picking it up today.

honestly, i harbor no bitterness toward the woman who made the ignorant traffic maneuver that put that car in that position, because the Lord is good and has provided us with a car to borrow and people who care about helping more than any other church i’ve been part of. and because harboring bitterness toward her would be a sin. but you know what i mean. i think.

does it sound like i’m complaining? i’m not, really i’m not. i’m just recounting events and changes in direction so you have a clue. to recap: we are not going to have a home birth anymore, and our car broke and is being fixed.

oh, and i used the b/w mt. rainier picture and the grass picture together as my entry into a juried photo exhibition at AVA (association for visual artists). i’ll know by the 12th if i’m selected as one of the exhibitors.