random updates

I don't know how else to fit these in.

--I updated our Babies R' Us registry (to the left! to the left!) so that the link I am providing takes you straight to our actual registry list, rather than a generic kind of page where you have to type in names and stuff. Apparently, Babies R' Us cannot distinguish between "Vermeulen" (correct) and "Vermuelen" (incorrect), and it also doesn't seem to want to search by Jason's name, even if you get the spelling perfect. Ah, BRU, when will you advance yourself? So, let's just skip the hassle and get to the goods...
Edited to add: since we are a ministry couple, Jason is concerned that we don't make it sound like we are expecting people to buy us stuff for the baby. I can see his point, and I suppose my tongue-in-cheekness was not coming through as well as I'd hoped - I am not expecting anyone to buy me anything, but it certainly didn't read that way. So the links have been altered and the "buy me stuff" undertone toned down, so to speak. But if you still really, really want to get me stuff and will be absolutely crushed if you don't, by all means. But I love you all just the same regardless, mmkay?

--I have learned today that no matter what food item you order at Disney, you can probably get a cheaper, tastier, and larger portion of the same food somewhere else.

--Um. Lately, the only person who wants to comment on my blog postings is my mother. I highly respect her opinion, and she is a terrific writer and blogger to boot, but come on, people - she's my mother. Call me insecure, but that's sort of like being the kid with the braces and headgear and Coke-bottle glasses and decade-old clothes and a raging case of acne... and having your mother being the only one to tell you you're absolutely beautiful. Not that it's not true when it comes from her, but wouldn't you also like to hear it from your friends? Shout it out, people. Leave me some love.

--We put in a contract on the house. We're in that ten-day period where either party can back out and the inspection takes place. I love the house, I love the street, I love the overall neighborhood, and I also love that the number of the house is 508, and we'll be moving in (probably) in 5/08. It's a huge step to take, but we are ready and excited to take it.

--We *might* have chosen a name. I'm not telling you what it is, because we might change our minds, and also it is really, really hard to return monogrammed anything. But at least we have something in mind, instead of just blank stares and drool on our chins whenever anyone asks us, "So, have you decided on a name?" We just want to make sure that this name befits the blessing about to be born in a few months.

--Speaking of the little miracle, Jason got to feel him kick for the first time tonight. It was really awesome.

--I am really, really glad The Office is back on. "That is a two HUNDRED dollar plasma TV you just broke, Jan!"

Okay - I think some of you are probably a bit miffed that I'm not going to tell you the name, even if you bribe me with cheesy foods and Starbucks caramel Frappuccinos. Will a few pictures suffice for now? These are from our ultrasound last week:


Yep. Jason wanted to be absolutely sure. The ultrasound tech's response: "You can buy this kid clothes and throw away the tags, Dad. We're sure."





Top half is a profile pic, bottom half is a thumbsucker... can you see it?





This is actually the very first glimpse we ever had of our son, exactly at 9 weeks...





...and look how far he's come in just over two and a half months!

behold, the middle-aging

I did laundry today. Normally, that's not a blog-worthy statement, except that while I was doing the laundry, I realized that the load I was folding might be one of the last I get out of our community machines. You see, this home-buying thing keeps progressing, and just yesterday, we agreed to a price both buyer and seller are happy with, plus the seller is paying our closing costs. So, unless something horrid happens during the inspection, this is all happening, and happening pretty soon.

One of the things I am most excited about in homeownership?

No more coin-operated laundry.

I get a level of excitement bordering on indecent when I think about doing laundry in my own home, where I don't need to make sure I have a large supply of quarters, or worry that some skeezy neighbor will be in the laundry room, stain sticking the skid marks on his tighty whities.

It turns out that a washer/dryer pair comes with the house, though I admit that the laundry room was the one room I didn't really look at closely, so I don't know the condition of said washer and dryer.

So, I give you evidence that I have firmly and fully entered into my thirties, because my biggest material lust right now? Not a Lexus. Not a brand-new wardrobe. Not a diamond necklace. Not even the new Mac AirBook or iPhone.

It's this:



This looks like total heaven to me. If Lowe's had a baby registry, this pair would be right at the top of the list. I mean, let's face it: it'd probably be the only thing on the list, actually. You can put a changing pad on the top of the dryer, right?

I've been away. sorry.

I want to be one of those awesome bloggers who writes a post every day, or at least every week day, or even has the courtesy to say, "hey, I might not be writing for a bit." I am not. My 9th grade English teacher labeled me "consistently inconsistent" once, and I'm afraid I've just felt compelled to live up to that sticky label.

But I'm here now, and I only have a few minutes before I have to don my scrubs and head back into the world of the (sometimes) walking wounded, so I apologize for the small size of my post...

Basically, within a space of about two weeks, Jason and I went from wishing we could buy a house but feeling like it wouldn't happen, and also wanting to sell his two-seater, un-air-conditioned truck so he could get one that accommodates a car seat and doesn't cook you in the hot Florida summers (that last, oh, 10 months of the year) to BOOM! there's a house we can afford! we love it! did I mention it's in our price range!, and some guy bought Jason's truck. A guy who also lives in Florida, no less, but who owns some sort of business up north and doesn't care that the truck isn't air-conditioned. On top of it all, I'm sorta pregnant, something else we've been hoping for for quite a long time (but hasn't been a recent development in the past two weeks... but still)... and I got a raise at work a few days ago, enough to make the whole mortgage thing seem like a little more of a possible reality.

Whew.

I've been saying that a lot lately.

We might be buying a house very, very soon. Jason is probably out buying a vehicle as I type this. The baby is kicking. A lot.

WHEW.

And it all feels like God telling me, you know that little ride called life that you're on? Well, sometimes it really is a roller coaster. And if you stop and shout, "WAIT!" just as you see that it's on the precipice of this huge drop down into who-knows-where, and try and figure out exactly where it's going and what turns it will make and where you will end up, well... you miss the point of it all and the ultimate thrill of a roller coaster, which is to hang on for the ride of your life and just go with it and scream your head off with glee. He knows how much I love roller coasters, too.

So if you see me throw my arms back with a huge, goofy grin on my face and shouting "wheee!", well, don't blame the hormones. Just pat me on the head and tell me to enjoy the ride.

More updates to come as I receive them...

getting ready to jump, I think

We've been looking at houses lately. Houses to BUY.

(I think I need to say that last sentence several more times to have it really sink in.)

We've been looking for several reasons: it's a great market for buyers, we have a new family member* on the way and no room for him, we're tired of paying rent instead of investing into a house, and my mom is starting nursing school in about a month, and we'd like to give her someplace to live while she does the starving student thing. We started looking around a few months ago, excited about such a great market, and promptly ran into several dead ends. Houses so run down that it wasn't worth the cheap price, houses so small that we might as well stay where we were, questionable neighborhoods, neighborhoods so far out that the commute time and gas expense alone made it out of the question. And when did living around here get so expensive? It was all very depressing, and we walked away for about a month, just to mull our options and recover our senses.

We started up again a few weeks ago, a little less starry-eyed but perhaps more determined than ever. One house in particular stuck out: nicely updated, in our price range, in an older-but-nice neighborhood surrounded by several very wealthy neighborhoods. It was small, but felt big, and mentally, we were calculating how to move things here and there to make the space seem bigger. We seemed positive. We looked at some other houses, including one that was at least twice as big as anything we'd seen but whose shag carpeting, cat urine smell, and 70's design left me... well... even though Jason was positively giddy about the size. Size ain't everything.

And then, our awesome realtor took us to see some houses in a neighborhood that I was sure fell out of our price range. It was lovely: all the space we needed, nice enough to live in happily now but just outdated enough cosmetically to give Jason something to sink his home-improvement claws into, great storage space. And totally within our price range. The owner is a nice little old lady anxious to move back home up north to be with her family.

It's not a done deal, but we're moving ahead with it. And it feels like such a huge leap of faith, and I'm a little afraid of getting my hopes up too high in case it doesn't work out for whatever reason (termite damage! crappy electrical! the seller changes her mind! a cult meets there every Wednesday! kids like to fling poo at the front door!). We're crunching the numbers anyway to see if we can do this, talking with our mortgage broker dude, getting ready to have an inspection done.

Whew.

I'll keep you posted.

*In the meantime, here are a few more names we threw out for Jumping Bean:
WILBUR
JONAS
OBADIAH
any combination of a first name with "Bob" as the second name: Joe Bob, Billy Bob, etc.
JASON - great name, but already taken to avoid any confusion for our kid

names we threw out, vol. 1

I get the name question a lot these days, now that we know Jumping Bean is a boy. I think I've mentioned before that since both Jason and I were pretty convinced JB was a girl, hearing that JB was, in fact, a BOY left us speechless. In a good way - God has a lovely way of surprising and delighting us - but also in a "uh-what-do-we-name-him" way, too. We've not picked an name, but we have definitely decided which names we don't want to name our baby. So I thought I'd share some of the non-contenders in a little series. Here's #1:

JACOB

Initially, I loved the name Jacob. I know several very cool people, adult and child, who are named Jacob. But it's important to Jason and I to have a name that not only sounds nice but means something important to us, preferably with a great story behind it. The meaning of the name Jacob? "Supplanter". Uh. Okay. What's a supplanter?

Turns out that "supplanter" means "one who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another". Also, "one who uses deceit and treachery to supersede another". In the Bible, Jacob "supplants" his brother Esau's twice, stealing his blessing and birthright, on direction from his mother Rebekah, who advises him to deceive and steal through trickery (fooling blind Isaac by smelling and dressing as Esau).

Huh. That didn't hold too well with us, particularly as this baby is long-awaited and has not "stolen" anyone else's place (Nor did his mother tell him to lie. Nuh-UH!). Now, God did bless Jacob greatly in spite of his misdeeds, but it's a long mouthful of an explanation whenever someone asks me or my son what his name means. And so, Jacob was out of the running.

No offense to any of the cool people we know named Jacob. They do not steal, and their moms are cool.

senora crankypants offers amends for her foo

I had no idea just how hormonal pregnancy would make me. In fact, I probably give all other pregnant women a bad name because of my behavior. I do get extra weepy at things, which is just kind of cute and amusing, I suppose. I do crave food, although not necessarily weird combinations - I've stuck with the classics, like my mom's Creamed Chipped Beef over toast. No, no, those things are all fine. It's the Crankypants hormone that got jacked up to a 10 when I decided to get knocked up. Witness the carnage:

My name has been and can be a target for song references, references that the singer finds so extremely funny and I find merely... annoying. I'll admit, I'm not as unlucky as some, but I can hardly recall any time in my life when I wasn't sung to about a red-headed orphan who hits the foster parent jackpot. Just when I thought I was safe, when the lil' orphan songs were dying out, I have a couple of people who I know who found a new song for me. I hate to even bring it up the new song, because it might inspire a new round of singing and irritation, but let's just say that the pop star who first penned the song is not a rough criminal (with a sparkly glove) but a smooth one. And if you know the song, you know where my name comes in. Repeatedly. So yes, a couple of coworkers latched on to this, and they sing it to me (individually) every time I see them. Repeatedly. It was a little funny at first, but then I got visibly tired of it, and everyone else around us - who also had to hear it repeatedly - started saying that it wasn't funny anymore, including one doctor who said, "Dude - that's kind of old, okay?". I asked when they would stop doing this, because it was annoying. No luck. One of them even told other people, "Oh, she hates it when we do that" with this huge goofy grin (????). I was driving to work Tuesday night, and the thought of another night at work listening to that one line of song, over and over, while the singer snickered in delight at my uncomfortable squirming, and I started to fume. And fume. And fume some more. I probably had smoke coming out of my ears when I got to work. Sure enough, not 10 minutes into my shift, there it comes. Right as I was getting report and realizing I had another crazy night of even crazier patients ahead of me. I stopped my coworker, on the verge of tears and red-faced, and told her to please, STOP already, before I get seriously mad. Because it wasn't funny anymore, I was tired of it and so was everyone else, and would she PLEASE go sing songs to other people about their names and not mine, because I just couldn't take it any more. She looked at me in total surprise, said that she had NO idea I was that bothered by it (????), and walked away. Oh dear. Civil coolness and a complete lack of interaction for the rest of the night. I was grateful to not have to hear that stupid song any more, but I don't really like pissing off coworkers, either, particularly not ones who can bench-press me ten times over. I had good intentions to calmly ask for no more singing... and somehow, my Nice Filter went right out the door. Ugh.

I wish I could say that was an isolated incident, but I'm pretty sure I could easily round up several other people who got the Preggo Foo out of nowhere from me. People who have NOT tried to make me uncomfortable, but who were just minding their own business (or worse, trying to be nice to me, like my husband was last night) and I went all Foo-ish on them for no reason. Why are you telling me how to drive? (Uh, so we don't crash, Anne.) Why are you interrupting me in my important work? (You're on Facebook. Again. Here's the home-cooked dinner you wanted.) Why are you BREATHING???? (My body makes me. Plus, I don't enjoy asphyxiation much.)

As a peace offering to everyone - because you all have witnessed it, surely - I give my mom's lovely Creamed Chipped Beef recipe. It's not a family original or particularly gourmet, but it's the kind of creamy, carby, stomach-filling stuff that shuts a crazy lady like me up when the Foo starts. Other people say it tastes good, too. We used to eat this a lot for breakfast when I was younger. It's pretty basic in composition, so there's endless options for variety and tinkering for those of you gourmands who like to add spices and new ingredients and stuff, so have fun. Here you go:

Creamed Chipped Beef
Serves 4-6 (depends on how hungry you are)

1 stick butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups milk (anything but skim works great)
2 egg yolks (optional)
2 - 2 oz pkgs sliced beef, chopped into small squares (I use Buddig - deli aisle, next to the hot dogs)
salt
pepper

Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat, then add in the flour, stirring constantly to make a roux. After about 2-3 minutes of stirring and bubbling, the roux will darken a little bit and take on a nuttier aroma - all the raw flour taste is now cooked out. Stirring constantly, add in your milk. Keep on medium heat, stirring frequently (be sure to get the sides/bottom), for another 3-5 minutes. Mixture will thicken. When at desired consistency (gravy-ish), take off the heat. If you want the protein and added richness, whisk in the two egg yolks - stir quickly so the egg doesn't "cook". Add in your chopped beef. Don't worry if the beef goes in clumpy - just keep stirring and it breaks up nicely. Salt and pepper to taste. This tastes really good served over sourdough toast, but it's also quite yummy on its own. For just me and Jason to eat this, I halve the recipe - works well.

Note: Buddig makes good sliced beef. They also make turkey, ham, honey ham, chicken, and corned beef. I have never tried this recipe with anything other than the sliced beef, but I imagine that any of those would be pretty good.

what's up doc

Just a snippet of one of my favorite movies, ever. Rent it sometime, and you'll see why Barbra Streisand was a great comedienne, why I love Madeline Kahn, and why you should never get into a car chase in San Francisco, particularly while standing up in the back of a black convertible.

love/hate, vol. 4: the-Monday-after edition

love: what an amazing success Easter at Eola was yesterday morning, and how we got the top news story on Fox 35 Orlando!

hate: it's not Easter any more. Also I did not eat one iota of chocolate. Also I did not get an Easter basket, even though I know I'm probably way too old to be upset over not getting one.


love: finding out a new secret about my husband - he's NEVER had an Easter basket in his life! Quel horreur!

hate: I only discovered this little tidbit very late in the afternoon yesterday, with all the good supermarkets closed for the holidays, and places like Walgreen's sold out of pretty much everything Easter.


love: I will have two special men in my life to make Easter baskets for next Easter time, and at least one of them is getting the biggest freakin' basket EVER, just to make up for the lost, basket-less years

hate: I have to wait a year to do this, and the smaller of the two "men"? Yeah. Probably will only have interest in an Easter basket if it is filled with bottles of breast milk, Cheerios, and Thomas the Tank Engine toys. And that's just one Easter basket too strange for this girl.


love: I am totally salivating over this recipe at Use Real Butter, and also smiling because the author uses the exact same "dip-ins" that I do

hate: it's only 6am. Damn.


love: I just got my first paycheck that has overtime pay on it, and I was delightfully shocked at how much money just one extra night shift can net a working girl!

hate: I still can't get the hang of balancing my schedule with Jason's. I had the entire day on Friday to spend with my man, and I ended up passing out at noon and snoozing for the majority of the daylight hours available, waking up just in time to send him off to bed, and then remaining wide-awake the rest of the night, watching bad infomercials and Rock of Love 2 marathons


love: getting my newest issue of Real Simple magazine and getting all pumped about spring cleaning and being environmentally good while doing so

hate: I got distracted by all the food recipes (gee, can you tell I'm pregnant? Any more food references, Anne?) and now just want to sit on my couch amidst the clutter and eat lots of fondue and only look at the pretty pictures of well-organized closets and energy-saving lightbulbs

more random stuff, but all glorious

This is going to be the most random, haphazard blog. If mental disorganization disturbs you, you might want to skip this post. (On second thought, you'd probably want to skip this blog full stop.) Let the chaos begin:

--Today was AWESOME. We had over 900 people pack into the seats at the downtown Lake Eola amphitheatre for Easter service. We had more than enough volunteers, a huge crew from Destiny Foundation handing all sorts of groceries, information, and helping hands. The weather was completely perfect: enough clouds to block any piercing sun rays, but no rain, hardly any wind, and mid 70's for temperature. The sound system was freaking incredible, and the worship team pulled off one of its best sets ever, though it felt so short in length! Mike delivered an incredible message of hope and redemption to a hungry, eager crowd, and so many people came to Christ that I don't think anyone on staff got an accurate count - dozens upon dozens. In short, it was an incredible morning. My darling husband was the Event Coordinator for the entire operation, from the planning stages through the final pieces of equipment loaded back into the rental truck, and I am so proud of all his hard work, I could burst. Every woman should be so lucky to be married to a guy like him. (But not ACTUALLY him, as he is already taken.)

--I won't "out" her, as I don't know if this news is widespread news among the people we know, but of all the people in the world that I would want to share the joy of pregnancy with, this person just e-mailed me and told me she is 13 weeks pregnant! Unfortunately, she lives about as far away from Florida as you can be and yet still technically in the same country, so most of our sharing has to be in letters, e-mails, and phone calls when we can coordinate between time zones and our crazy, busy schedules. But she is as much of a sister as I will ever have, and I am so, so happy for her, I could burst, too. It was such a great Easter weekend present to find out the good news.

--McDonald's makes the best french fries, period. I know there are a thousand reasons why we should never even venture to put such processed, gluttonous schlock into our bodies. I don't care. They tasted SO GOOD.

--On the left-hand side of the screen, you might notice a new section of links with my ongoing baby registry. Yes, I know I'm only 18-1/2 weeks along, and it might be too early to start thinking about these things with a late August due date. But at least one friend has already asked for my summer availability for a baby shower (her kindness brings tears to my eyes, even now) and since I've been using my registries as a way to bookmark products that have either been recommended to me or else appealed to me in some way, I figured I could go ahead and make them public. Some items can't be found in a traditional store, so they are listed separately. They range the gamut of prices and luxury - some things are total splurges, like the aden + anais muslin swaddling wraps, and I know there are several items in both of the store registries that are in the $1-$2 range. And then you've got costly necessities like car seats, and maybe one of the grandparents-to-be will go for that :-) Anyway, feel free to browse, even buy if you feel so led, and if I've left some item off that is a must-have, definitely let me know.

--I do have to say that although everything on my list is a "favorite", the one that stands out are g diapers - these are totally awesome. They're cloth, but not cloth diapers exclusively: they use these breathable liners that are flushable and completely biodegradable. I mean, your kid is still going to have butt explosions, so it's not like you never have to wash the cloth, but it's got the convenience of disposable diapers without the unnecessary landfill-filling. And as a former landfill employee (oh, my sordid past), I remember seeing miles upon miles of trash, piled high like true mountains, and the thought of contributing to that nasty landscape any more than I have to makes me completely ill. Plus, you have to admit these diapers are just completely adorable. The g diapers site even has a "shower gift": a starter pack, plus a bunch of packages of the liners. I would go so far as to say that if you bought this for me and my son, I would probably bake you sweet goodies, rub your feet, write a chart-topping song about you, and generally pay homage to you for years upon years to come.

--And finally... Happy Easter everyone! I wish you all the wondrous good news of Christ's love and sacrifice so that the world could be free.

as I wait for you

Last night, our worship team was rehearsing late into the night to prepare for our huge Easter service, Easter at Eola. It's a pretty big event, and we're all really pumped about it. For the first time in my life, I'm participating in Easter service, where our church will take over the downtown amphitheater and turn it into an outreach event like I've never seen before. We're partnering up with local service organizations to make Easter a true service for everyone, whether you have a million dollars in the bank or barely a penny to your name.

For the worship team, it's a huge opportunity. We have actual roadies and professional sound/lighting people coming in to work this event, and we have a stage like none we've ever played on. The sound, just from where we'll be standing, will likely knock our socks off, and that's not even the full scope and range of the sound the congregation will hear. It's going to be incredible. I think I'm going to feel like I was kidnapped by, like, U2, or something.

But if I can be a little transparent and vulnerable here... it's easy to get selfish. Rather, it's easy for me to get selfish. I think it would be almost a cop-out for me to say that Satan was attacking me last night because he knows that this weekend is going to be like nothing Orlando has ever seen - my behavior was really my own last night, I'm afraid. By all accounts, rehearsal went very well last night, the music sounded amazing, and everything came together the way it should. Except I just wasn't feeling it at all. That bothered me, being part of Holy Week, and being unable to focus on anything but myself. I was irritated. Bothered by little things. Hearing only mistakes, wrong notes, bad choices, instead of all the good things happening. Wanting to go home and sit on the couch because I was just that tired and over it all. Even during opening and closing prayer, I felt a million miles away from the excitement and anticipation of this weekend, and even farther away from the One I knew was right there with me.

Being part of such a highly-visible ministry, it's hard to know what to do with myself when I don't feel particularly worshipful, and yet I still am up on stage, being called to lead. My friend Kelly, also sharing the stage with me, has told me before that when it's not happening for her, she throws herself into it anyway, which, in the end, has the same effect of a depressed person forcing themselves to smile: before you know it, you're genuinely happy, you're worshiping, you're right there with Him. That didn't work last night, and it usually does work.

One of my favorite artists, Brooke Fraser, put it best in a song she wrote entitled "Faithful":

There's distance in the air and I cannot make it leave
I wave my arms' round about me and blow with all my might
I cannot sense you close, though I know you're always here
But the comfort of you near is what I long for

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear every word I pray
And I want you more than I want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

All the folly of the past, though I know it is undone
I still feel the guilty one, still trying to make it right
So I whisper soft your name, let it roll around my tongue,
Knowing you're the only one who knows me
You know me

Show me how I should live this
Show me where I should walk
I count this world as loss to me
You are all I want
You are all I want

Last night's experience made me realize how desperate I still am for Him, even after years of this journey together. I think the times I need Him most are exactly times like last night, when I'm so not feeling it and can't get into the worship mode no matter what I do, or even days like today, this rather atypical version of Good Friday, with the sun is shining, the breezes are soft, the temperature is perfect, I'm well-rested (score!), I'm feeling pretty great, and it would be so easy to forget the constancy of God, no matter what my mood is at that moment. This weekend is all about the elimination of distance, for me and for the entire world. Jesus died and rose from the cross so that the sins that kept us at a distance are forgiven, wiped clean, taken on by stronger shoulders and cast away. And remembering that, particularly in the moments where I put so much emphasis on "feeling" it and making that feeling the basis of my worship, makes me praise Him for being so much bigger than emotion, fickle as emotion is, and being so constant and so ever-present that even my worst moments of selfish pride, navel-gazing, and self-absorption cannot pull me away from Him. I may feel a million miles away from God, and yet He is right there with me. His promise holds true.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.