reflections

i feel so boring these days. i was wondering as i sat here what i was doing last year on the 4th of july, so i did some back reading of the blog. i was actually quite interesting back then... not so much now. i just don't usually feel like i have a lot to talk about (on the blog, or in conversations with people day to day even). all i do all day on most days is hang out with a little guy who doesn't quite know how to talk yet. we do have funny conversations, but i don't think he understands what i'm saying...and frankly, he just talks gibberish most of the time! seems pretty normal for a convo with a man, though. ;) anyway, i get frustrated sometimes because i'm around people i like a lot, but i have nothing to talk about. i end up leaving the talk sure that whoever thinks i'm the most boring person in the world...and sure they won't be coming around any more. but some people feel bad for me (or they are stuck with me because they're related), which works out nicely for me! :)

i kept trying to spend a little time today thinking about our freedom. of course, i am mindful of the many men and women who have fought (and are fighting) for the freedom we have in america. i am so thankful to live in the land of the free...and i'm so thankful for those who have maintained that freedom for us today. i wonder what it will be like when noah grows up. will he enjoy the same liberties we do? i hope so, but i fear he will live in a very different america than we do. i'm also mindful of the One who has ultimately given us freedom. freedom from the law...freedom from our sins...freedom from ourselves really. freedom to live...not as one bound up in chains...nor as one with a huge debt to repay. i heard once, "liberty is not the freedom to do as one wishes, rather to do as one ought." i really love any quote that has a word like "ought" in it. you just don't hear that enough these days.. this sentence really struck me and has stayed with me for years, really. and i hope to somehow instill this idea in my children some day. i think the ought-to-ness comes from a heart of love maybe, something i'm a little lacking in these days....which means the ought-to's have suffered and have some how slipped in to "shoulds" instead. shoulds are bad... but oughts are not. there's a fine line between that i'm not sure i have quite figured out. so, why don't you just ponder that for a bit and get back to me when you have it figured out...

and, well, because i am a boring mommy afterall: noah is turning in to one fun kid to be around. he is starting, day by day, to be more interactive and to be a little happier baby...though, he certainly still has his moments. he spent the day yesterday with pop and bb, and they wore him out! they said he slept most of the time, but he came home sleepy and has been sleepy all day!! we all (ryan, noah and i) got up early this morning and went for a nice little jog together. we checked out the local farmer's market (a little over a mile from our house), and then headed back home, hopped in our car and headed to the REAL farmer's market downtown. i have been wanting to check out both of them for over a year, so i was super excited that we finally got to go. i love the idea of homegrown veggies and fruits and handmade items. i would have fit right in to the early 1900s! we got a great deal on some freshly picked tomatoes and peas! i can't wait to cook them. we also got some homemade pepper relish that i'm pretty jazzed up about... and, last but not least, we got some great ideas of more things to make on my handy-dandy embroidery machine. i've had fun working on it lately! and, ryan's mom is letting me borrow a book she has that tells you how to do pretty much everything with the machine...which is nice, because i have been kind of making it up as i go. as it turns out, i wasn't doing it quite right. but now, i'm a little more in the know about what needs to be going on. hopefully i can do a little more work this week....if a certain little man in my life wouldn't have some kind of 6th sense way of knowing that my full attention is directed elsewhere. i'm not sure how he knows...but he knows.

ryan and i have been having little conversations about how far we want to space our children (if it were up to us...). i read an article in "parenting" magazine that was giving suggestions, which made me think about it a little more than i had been. i noticed lots of pregnant women out today with their little kiddos...most of them seemed to have 3 or 4 year olds, which is a lot of space. so many factors to consider. what do you out there in the blog world think? what's the best space? we want them to be close...but then do we really want 2 in diapers? i can't really imagine being pregnant again in the next year or so...but then, that's how babies come..hmmm