21 Days to Go...

Well, hello there. :)

This morning could not be more perfect. And I'm willing to bet it's one of the last mornings of it's kind for a long time. Granted our new mornings will be a brand new kind of sweet, but I'm savoring this one for exactly what it is.

It's 8AM. I've been up for an hour. Candles are flickering in the fireplace. Birds are twittering outside, just loud enough to be heard sporadically over the soundtrack of the Austin Stone worship band. My darling husband is reading something on his phone in athletic shorts and a t-shirt and boat shoes. Our sweet, rotten 2 year old furball curled up next to him on a Mexican blanket that I bought in a border town during a Spring Break mission trip my junior year of college. The room is clean and comfortable, and apart from a bag of unfinished thank you cards on the floor at my feet, not much is out of place. There isn't a baby toy, a pacifier or a wadded up diaper in sight. There's a brand new high chair tucked into the corner next to the hutch in the dining room, and two boxes containing a baby food maker and a swing stacked not far from it, waiting to be opened.

The table is set for breakfast for six with disposable plates and plasticware, laid out as fancily as possible. In 25 minutes, our friends will arrive with donuts and fruit and juice and we'll sit down to eat and talk about the giant adventure that all six of us are chasing.

And the three little ones who are growing toward a first birthday will quietly enjoy sausage casserole and John Donut and a tiny bit of caffeine as their parents-to-be talk and smile and laugh and wonder what in the world life is going to look like with them in it.

I'm 37 weeks pregnant today.

I can still hardly believe that sentence applies to me. That means we made it! God has blessed me to carry this little girl to term, and if she were to decide at any moment that she's tired of the scenery of my womb, she could come out and no one would freak out (well, except me) and no one would stop her. She could literally be born at any moment, plunging my body into the craziest, most beautiful trauma I've ever experienced. I am terrified. I am intrigued. I am-- sort of ready. :) My desire to see her and hold her is stronger than my desire to not be in pain. And while I know she'll probably hang out in there a little longer, every action I take makes me wonder if it will push her over the edge. Every position I wake up in, with her wiggling around trying to get comfortable, makes me wonder when her little baby brain will finally think "I've had enough! I want out!" Because she's so high functioning, like that. :)

I am so grateful for the incredibly uneventful and positive pregnancy I've had. I'm so grateful for all of the gifts that have been given to us by family and friends in the last few months. I'm so grateful for an amazing family, 4 grandparents and an auntie who could not be more supportive or excited to meet this little girl. And an extended family so diverse that Violet's world will be a potpourri of skin tones, dialects, personality and life experiences from the very beginning. I am so excited to see how she grows up.

But I guess I've got to deliver her before any of that happens.

Fortunately, I come from a line of brave women who endured pregnancy and labor through the hardships of war and poverty. A mother who endured surgery so that my own life could begin. And a warrior of a grandmother who once literally shook her midwife awake to cut the cord as she finished birthing her own child, in her own bed, in the middle of the night.

So I'm going to be okay. :) And when it's over, Violet will be here and I will do my best to keep you posted on the brand new sweetness that will accompany the arrival of the newest Genteman.

Thank You, Tiny Prints!

December is a busy time, y'all. And as much as I want to be the amazing woman with a clean, perfectly cozy home, that smells like gingerbread and pine trees for the duration of the last month of the year, that is generally not the case. Especially these days, as I navigate life while harboring a little orange-sized person in my belly.

Christmas cards are one of those things that I always have good intentions about, but don't always come through on. Having spent four years and an ungodly amount of money on an education partial focused on graphic design, I should be able to pump out cute designs and perfectly edited pictures in my sleep... right?

Not so much. And the past few years, even when I didn't have pregnancy as an excuse, I don't always make my deadline for Christmas cards. Designing them is just the first hurdle-- sending them out is another beast entirely.

However, when someone offers to simplify your life and give you 50 FREE CHRISTMAS CARDS, it annihilates one beast entirely, and makes the idea of sending out Christmas cards unbelievably manageable. What's even better is when those cards are not even remotely cheesy, overpriced and/or chintzy looking.

Let's talk, my friends-- about Tiny Prints.

This is a mere sampling of the beautiful holiday cards they have to offer-- oh, and these all house just a single photo! They have collage layouts and tri-fold layouts, and the site is SO easy to sort by type and style. Good luck deciding on just ONE layout to go with for Christmas. 

The cards above would all work well with the photo we're planning to use-- and we're DEFINITELY sending a card this year, simply because we want to make sure that everyone is aware of that fact that this is the Gentemans last Christmas as a family of two. (Well, two people. We do love our furry boy, he will always be our "firstborn" :) Anyway, I can't think of a lovelier way to make the announcement than with one of these gorgeously designed cards.

The most amazing part of this whole deal? Is that F word I mentioned earlier-- Tiny Prints is offering 50 FREE cards to bloggers who promote their website! How sweet is that? On a carefully planned budget that now includes lots of saving for baby gear and maternity leave, this offer is a humongous and very timely blessing. Merry Christmas to you, Tiny Prints!!!

p.s. I would post the link to the form for more info on this promo, but the form was recently taken down :( However, you should absolutely check out the site because unless you're an amazing graphic designer with a miraculously open schedule, you won't find cuter cards for your time and money. Check it out!

O Tannenbaum of Misfit Toys

It's Christmastime, y'all!

I love Christmas traditions. Today, I decorated our tree while listening to the same vinyl that my mom and I used to listen to while decorating the tree when I was 5 years old. (Merry Christmas Johnny Mathis, if you're wondering.) It trips me out that our kids will hear and know those same songs someday. And now that I'm a grown up, I've begun a few traditions of my own, one of which, I'd like to share/confess with you today.

As my college and Nashvillian roommates can attest, I collect hideous Christmas ornaments.

It started in college with a tacky Christmas ornament exchange that spawned in me a rabid enthusiasm for sad, tired, busted looking ornaments. Now, every year after Christmas, I go hunting for new additions to my menagerie of misfit ornaments.

Allow me to introduce you to a few of my favorites:

Brego, the stick horse (He needed a kingly name. He's my favorite. But don't tell the others.)

Levar, the bedazzled butterfly.

Jojo the Circus Bear (you can't tell here, but his right leg is just a bit too short to reach that unicycle pedal.)

Scarebear (crudely crafted and permanently affixed to a single snowshoe)

Sonic, the pinecone hedgehog.

Santa Snake- one of my originals from the tacky ornament exchange listed above.  He may have once been only a shrunken head sporting a fancy holiday hat. He is now a parsel-mouthed transfiguration gone frightfully wrong.

Sexy Strawberry didn't make the tree this year. The manface is just too awkward.

Count Flatley- his feet flail about as if independent from his body! (Also, his middle opens up and you can put some kind of ghastly treasure inside...)

Roadkill- I don't know how this guy made it into the store y'all. It's supposed to be a cat chasing a mouse. I  bought it from Marshalls about 3 years ago. 

Leggy Pup- Also did not make this tree this year. You guys want to name this one? Shoot me some options.

Also-- a lost ornament that deserves a mention: 

Gilded snowman was a thin 2-D metal snowman, painted on one side to look like a traditional snowman. The paint job was evidently horrible because the artist then doused the paint with glue and dipped the snowman's facade into a vat of tiny gold beads, then crudely wrapped the snowman three times with gold wire. I don't know what happened to it, but I've never seen its equal... and I still hold out hope that it will turn up someday.

Trimming the tree with my misfit ornaments has become an annual delight, with more creatures being added to the "family" every year. I can't wait to show them to my kids. We may eventually have a separate, smaller tree exclusively for the Misfits. 

I've become more fond of the weird, shoddily crafted ornaments (Scarebear, Sonic, etc.) than the just plain weird ones (Pup and Strawberry). But all are welcome. So in your decorating, if you come across anything super weird that you're embarrassed to put on your tree, or encounter some hideous beast in your post-christmas shopping trips and you want to add to the collection, I'd be glad to give them a good home. :)

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Weekend Love

So for the past two weeks, our church has been meeting in our new space in Tower Grove East. It's been wonderful! We've also been hugely blessed by the many people who have come from far and near and offered their time and talents to make this building a more comfortable meeting place and a thriving hub for ministry. We are so grateful for the help! But there is still plenty of work to be done...

Which is why it's really awesome that 50 students from Louisiana Tech have volunteered to come and help us whip the place into shape over the weekend!

Except we were under the impression they wouldn't be here until NEXT weekend... until they called and said they were in town yesterday afternoon. Oh well. :)

So there are 50+ people up at the building right now, working away. The AG pastors are tag-teaming a wedding for a mutual friend tonight at 5:30. And our house looks like six people live in it instead of two people and dog. So I'm at home, cleaning up and making the most of a morning when I feel decidedly non-acidic.

By the way, I know I just kinda jumped back into this after a 3 month hiatus, but I figured that was the best way back. I've been still been writing, but I can't access this site from work and after work I've been exhausted and kind of busy, growing a spicy little person.

Yup, little Baby G and I have been together for 13 weeks today. Second trimester, y'all!!! :)

I'm doing a belly series, probably beginning this week, but i'm not sure when/if/how I'll post it. Stay tuned. :)

Thoracic Drama

Ugh. Can you die from heartburn?! I feel like I might. Well, die of thoracic discomfort.

I don’t think that’s the right word, but it felt right.

And I’m being dramatic, but it is really bad today. I think it might still be that blasted (but delicious) jambalaya from last night.

Word to the wise? If you can avoid it, do not EVER eat jambalaya and then cough and burp at the same time.

The sensation feels probably about like being stabbed in the sternum with a basilisk fang. It took me out for a good couple of minutes.

(And I started book 3 of Harry Potter today. :)

Anyway, babysitting was good last night. They’re great kids, but man having 2 mobile ones under 4 is no small task. (They’re 3 and 9 months) I had the kids for an hour and a half by myself while Todd was at worship band practice, and it was ROUGH trying to keep everyone from tackling or being tackled, and getting everyone fed the things they wanted at the right temperature before somebody started hollerin or wanting something else. Forget about ME trying to eat. Yeah, that didn’t happen until 7:30 after they’d collectively chowed through some cheerios, some saltines, some pasta, some grapes, three crescent rolls, some pureed orange baby food, a sippy cup of Gatorade, 8oz of formula and 4 episodes of Angelina Ballerina.

I hope I’m cut out for this parenting thing. ;)

I’m exhausted today. I need a nap and a cure for this acid in my chest. I went to the store during lunch to buy a thanksgiving card and ended up buying a kid’s cup of chocolate chip gelato. Which was delicious and soothing at first, but the moment it ended, the beast of thoracic sorrow returned. Blech.

Anyway… I’ll get to chill out tomorrow. Wedding rehearsal tonight… but free dinner at Rosalita's Cantina! Wedding tomorrow, but not till the evening, and it’s only 20 minutes from the house. And Sunday we’ll have the whole afternoon after church.

So very happy it's the weekend...

Adventures In Babysitting

Feeling pretty good today… still fighting this disgusting taste in my mouth whenever I’m not eating food. It’s so weird. I’ve been craving eckerich sausage and feel like I could eat about four hot dogs with ketchup and mustard and sprinkle cheese on them for lunch. But Qdoba leftovers will have to do. :)

Until tonight that is… :) We’re babysitting the cutest kids ever at six. I told Leigh that we’d be there as close to 6 as possible, but that I’d be coming from work and then we’d have to grab dinner, etc, so that we’d do our best. She was like “I can cook for you, any requests?” So I was like, “Sure! That’d be great! Whatever’s easy, we’re not picky… or maybe jambalaya. :)” (Because she’s from Louisiana and hers is SO DELICIOUS.)

So she was like, “I’ll see what I can do.”

And then last night, her husband texted Todd a picture of a big ol pot of jambalaya and said “Get ready!”

I’m pretty excited about a free home cooked meal and awesome kids who happen to go to bed around 8. :)

The Absquatulation

This morning, I was trying to compare two spreadsheets for duplicate names. It got complicated. I had to ask my co-worker Eric if there was any easier way to comb 600+ names looking for 100 specific ones. After some googling, he happened upon this extremely complicated formula, which he explained to me (and it worked perfectly).

One of the terms within the formula was the word CONCATENATE. I had never heard it before. It’s apparently a programming term that means basically “to link two fields together”. I was fascinated by this strange and mysterious new word. I immediately googled it when I got back to my desk.

On the dictionary.com website, there was an ad that said “CONCATENATE is one of our favorite verbs. So is (insert crazy sounding verb). What does that mean?” And then it gave you two multiple choice answers. I chose one, got it wrong, and it gave me another word. One I immediately fell in love with.

Absquatulate.

Is there anything more fun to say?!

Maybe Fran-CI-sco. But it’s worth arguing.

Ab-squat-u-late: verb (used without object), -lated-ed, -lat-ing. Slang. To flee; abscond: The old prospector absquatulated with our picks and shovel.

How cool. :)

I immediately told Eric about this word via instant messenger.

Genteman, Juliette (DG-STL)

Eric, i looked up concatenate on dictionary.com because i like how it sounds. and then it had this other word on the page...

absquatulate

it means to flee or to take off with something

don't you want to work that into your vocab? you're welcome!

I liked this word so much, that I decided to pay it the ultimate tribute and post it as my facebook status.

I had just posted my status update containing the definition of my new vocabulary word, when I noticed another status update from my dear friend Annie Parsons, posted just moments earlier:

“Well, for the third time in my life, my car has been stolen. I hope the Hooker Street thief likes dog hair.”

First of all, this is terrible news! I should post a sympathetic comment immediately!

So I did.

“Are you serious. OMG, Annie, that’s horrible! I can’t believe someone absquatulated with your car!!! (I also can’t believe that I JUST learned that word and got to use it in context.)”

I love when life is like a tv show. :) And that Annie was exactly the type of person who could appreciate the beauty of a new word in the midst a wretched situation.