No Crib for a Bed... But Amply Blessed All the Same

I have been done with school now for approximately two and a half weeks. When I was in school, I pictured myself laying in bed as long as I wanted to, getting up with a leisurely cup of coffee, and reading or crocheting or writing or going for walks all day every day.

I have been laying in bed as long as I want to every day. That has been wonderful. With the pregnancy sleeping discomforts creeping up, it's nice to be able to sleep in if baby kicking or muscle spasms kept me awake the night before. And, honestly, after Baby #1, I'll never get to do this again, so I'm savoring. I haven't been drinking coffee, though, and I haven't been spending my days in leisurely activities like reading, crocheting, writing, and going for walks. I haven't been drinking coffee because I've still got some lingering morning sickness -- not nearly as bad as during the first trimester, but enough that I have to force breakfast down and then force lunch down before my appetite starts to pick up. And I haven't been spending all my time in leisure activities because my mind has been consumed with the great question of What Next?

After much deliberation, we decided I should take the year off of teaching. Teach For America makes it possible for us to be in the schools teaching without a teaching license, but the Department of Education in Minnesota requires that we be working toward our license in order to be teaching. Therefore, I would have no choice but to continue teaching and taking evening graduate classes next year. That nearly put me over the edge this year. With a baby? No way.

However, that puts us in a difficult financial situation. We are so thankful that Mark has found a job he enjoys (and that his employer was willing to hire him on full-time when Mark asked -- otherwise, since we were on my health insurance, I don't know what we would have done when my contract with the school ran out). But the job just doesn't pay enough to make ends meet. So I've been spending a lot of time either working on my homework for my graduate classes or searching for part-time jobs that would work well with Mark's schedule.

And in the meantime, we decided not to renew our lease because the apartment is too small for us and baby. After much apartment searching, we realized it's not financially possible for us to pay for a two-bedroom apartment right now. It's actually cheaper (or just as cheap) to buy a house in a lower price range. So, we're considering buying a house. Or living with my parents for a few months and then buying a house. But a lot of that depends on whether I find a job, and if so, what kind.

In the meantime, baby's due date approaches and all of her stuff is still in an unflattering pile in our bedroom.

And our living room.

We have been so blessed. I honestly feel like we have everything we need for baby girl. Or at least, everything we need to get started. We just have nowhere to set it up. And I confess, when I see all the adorable nursery pictures of other expectant friends on Facebook, I feel jealous. I want to have a room for the baby. I want to have the room set up and be able to step inside and look around and realized We Are Ready. Unfortunately, that's just not going to be the case.

Being in an insecure financial and living situation for the third time in five years has gotten me down, especially with baby on the way. It makes me feel irresponsible and incompetent. However, I've been thinking, and other people have helped me think more positively about our situation. One of my aunts said to me: "Tough circumstances survived by grace are a precious gift to give to our children, a much better gift than expensive habits...I see so many kids that get so much material stuff early in life that sets them up for disappointment later. They're robbed of the pleasure of "yearning and earning," which is so much more satisfying than instant gratification."

And then yesterday, after I got flushed from a job I was halfway expecting to get, I felt really disappointed. (Or, to be more honest, I threw a temper tantrum alone in my apartment and sobbed on the phone to my mom .) But when I got to thinking about it more, I was reminded of the Bible verses that have been my theme in every other precarious situation since our marriage:

No king is saved by the size of his army;
    no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
    despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
    on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
    and keep them alive in famine. (Psalm 33:16-19)

And I realized, too, that even though this little girl might not be born into a world where her room is already set up and decorated, she has already been blessed amply compared to so many children in the world. Not only has she been getting excellent medical care since her conception, she has been fed (mostly) healthy foods from the get-go. She has not been subjected to alcohol (except for the glass or two I had before I suspected I was pregnant, and except for the dip of wine during communion) or cigarette smoke. She already has a stable family with parents who love her and extended family who eagerly anticipate her and pray for her. She will grow up in a family where she is taught about Jesus from an early age. Because of the family that anticipates her and the church of her parents, she will never be hungry or living on the streets as a child. Barring unforeseen circumstances, she will get to live until adulthood with her birth parents and will never know the trauma of being separated from the voices she grew to know in the womb.

When I got to that point, I no longer felt sorry for myself or irresponsible. God is good. God planned for the time when this little one would be conceived and already knows the date of her birth. He loves her more than I do, and He is preparing rich spiritual blessings for her, even if she doesn't have a darling nursery. She is already richly and amply blessed.

Stomach Flu and Answered Prayers

Last night I went down with a nasty bout of stomach flu. Oh, how I hate to throw up.

Anyway, after a night of flu beating up on my body (and mostly winning) I felt pretty exhausted this morning. And, given the temperatures in the -20s, schools had all been closed for today due to the extreme cold, so he really only needed to get one out of the two cars started. Unfortunately, even that proved too much for our little old vehicles. Mark was unable to get either of our cars started to go to work this morning. . By 9:30, he had still not gotten either car started, and as I lay down to try to take a nap, I was feeling pretty low. I was worrying about 3 things in particular:

1) Would I have sufficiently recovered from my flu to return to school tomorrow, especially with it being the first day back after a long break?
2) Would we be able to get either car started tomorrow when we needed them both to be working?
3) How would we be able to purchase a new car if we needed one soon (given that we are still trying to recover financially from 4 months of unemployment for me and 3 months of unemployment for Mark)?

By this afternoon, God had neatly answered each of these prayers:

1) Schools are closed again tomorrow because of cold. I will be able to recover at home.
2) My dad drove down to our house with a portable battery that worked to start one of our cars (and which we will hopefully use to start the other car once the battery has recharged).
3) Mark was able to do some crazy maneuvering with our finances and squeak just over $2,000 out of our working budget for next month to throw into savings in case of a car emergency.

So, neat as that, God provided for each of my concerns. Case closed.

Things I Would Write About

Hello out there! It's me, the host of this blog! I know you haven't heard from me in a while and have probably stopped believing that I exist.

I probably am still going to be mostly silent for a while, but my two grad school classes are ending within the next two weeks and then I will be down to just-school crazy busy instead of school-plus-grad-school crazy busy until the beginning of February.

There are lots of things I would write about now if I had time:

1. Why I love my students (because it's super important for me to try to find positive right now)

2. Anxiety and how I almost quit teaching (which is what leads up to number 1 being number 1 in this list)

3. How being a teacher made me question my desire to be a parent (which is also what leads up to number 1 being so important)

4. Why rolling yourself up like a burrito in the class rug doesn't help solve your problems

5. How a bruised thumb reminds me I am not a patient person

6. How to get kids to interact in a positive way with the kid who eats his boogers (honestly, I'm looking for ideas here)

7. Finding teacher mentors and why that's been great for me

8. Hey! I love to read, cook, and even do dishes on occasion! I had forgotten.

9. My astonishing list of crochet and sewing projects for Christmas and New Year break

10. Why I'm thankful I'm experiencing my first year of teaching surrounded by friends and family (even if I never see them)

I wish I had time to write all these blogs now. Maybe over Christmas break. Or maybe when my grad school classes are done for the semester. I don't know. I know they would all be good for me to write. Therapeutic or something. Anyway, I am still here, still teaching.

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone!

A Beautiful Ambiguity

I don't really think ambiguity is beautiful. But I'm trying really hard. After much soul searching, I realized that most of the anxiety and nervousness I feel when faced with new situations or challenges has at the root a fear of uncertainty. I want assurance that everything will work out fine. When I do not have that assurance, I feel threatened by the possibility of loss or difficulty or suffering. A sense of anxiety follows. Maybe this seems really obvious and you're thinking to yourselves, Oh, Hillary. Obviously! But this was actually a revelation for me. I realized that when I choose to embrace uncertainty, then I'm not as anxious. It's like really cheap, really simple therapy. Mark and I have a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty right now, so I have lots of opportunity to practice embracing instead of resisting.

I had an interview at a school yesterday. Because I'm applying and interviewing for teaching jobs through Teach For America, I'm almost guaranteed a teaching position this fall. But not quite. I still have to interview and interview well. The school still needs to like me and want me. TFA can't force me on them. Unfortunately, I never feel like I interview well. I liked this school a lot. I could see myself teaching there. But I didn't leave the interview with a sense that my interviewers really wanted me teaching there.

During interviews, I always get this feeling that I should have taken speech in high school or forced myself to do something that required public speaking when I was in college. I just don't feel like I express my passion and excitement well. My nervousness makes me quieter and more reserved. I just want to stop partway through the interview and say, Can I be perfectly honest? I'm not expressing myself well. But I would be a really good teacher. I promise. Just hire me and you'll see! But interviews just don't work that way. So now I'm waiting (not very hopefully) to hear back from this school and waiting for more interview opportunities. I think I better force someone who loves me to ask me a bunch of interview questions before the next interview so I can practice conveying what I mean to convey.

Mark is also waiting. He's waiting to hear back on a job he's interviewed twice for already. We're hoping he makes to to the next round of interviews. He's continuing to search for other jobs to apply for, but this one looked good. (Yay! More opportunity for me to practice embracing uncertainty!)

When we arrived in the Twin Cities almost a month ago, I had hoped that before I started training with TFA on June 1 Mark would have a job and we would have begun to look at apartments. At this point, that doesn't seem likely. God is asking us to wait more and trust more. I'm practicing embracing this period of uncertainty.

I'm excited to start training for TFA. I know I'm going to learn a lot and be pushed hard. I'm excited to be in a classroom this summer and learning right alongside other new teachers. I don't mind that I have to spend five weeks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for that training. What I do mind, what I am nervous about, is leaving Mark for that period of time. I haven't been away from Mark for more than three nights, I think, since we got married four years ago. Six weeks apart is going to feel like an eternity. Plus, Mark is used to my habits - embarrassing, irritating, and otherwise - and I'm just not excited about suddenly gifting those co-habitation habits to a stranger.

But in all of this, I'm trying really really hard to enjoy the moment. I'm enjoying holding and petting and feeding treats to my parents' cat. (I love cats. I really love cats. Mark really doesn't. But that's a post for another time.) And I'm enjoying sitting at the table by the sliding glass doors and listening to birds in the trees in the back yard. I'm enjoying spending time with my parents and siblings and family-in-law and niece and nephews. I have lots to enjoy now.

So, I'm trying to embrace this beautiful ambiguity. We don't know where we'll be living in two months. We don't know what our bank account will look like in two months. We don't know where either of us will be working, or whether we'll be able to get a dog. We don't really know anything. But we know that God is good. I know I can trust Him. I know He is leading us step by faltering step. God has arranged for us, right now, this beautiful ambiguity.

The Lord is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made.
The Lord upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your had
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
            -Psalm 145:13b-16

Lovin' the Fam

This weekend I got to see my little sister in the leading role in a musical at her school. I love hearing her sing. She has all the vocal abilities I wish I had and all the confidence on stage I never thought to wish for because that wish seemed too far-fetched. I wanted to post a video of one of her songs from the musical. I think I might be infringing on copyright laws to do that, but my sisterly pride is just too great.



One of the most entertaining parts of Abby being Cinderella for a weekend was all the adoring little girls who toddled over to her in awestruck wonder after the performances.

Little girl in awe at meeting Cinderella

Even in church the next morning, the family sitting in front of us had brought their little four-year-old girl to the performances. When she first realized that Cinderella was sitting directly behind her in church, the little girl's eyes widened and she burst into hysterical giggles. Then throughout every song we sang the girl was turned around in her pew, gazing at Abby. 

Mark and I also got to celebrate this weekend with our sister-in-law and niece, who both have had birthdays in May.

Amy and Shirley, the birthday girls

And, of course, at any family function I take every opportunity to spend time with and endear myself to my little niece and nephews.

Creedence, learning from a young age that I am a very fun aunt

Million, also learning that I am a very fun aunt

Because I can't speak about infertility better myself on Mother's Day...

...here are two posts that have really spoken to my heart on this day that has come to be wrought with so much complex emotion:

Everyday Doxologies: 'About That Holiday Coming Up'

The Messy Middle: 'An Open Letter to Pastors {a non-mom speaks about Mother's Day}'

And now that I've completely (ha!) dealt with the emotional mess of mixing infertility with Mother's Day, I do want to take a few minutes to say how very thankful I am for the two mothers I have in my life because I, unlike so many people, have not only one wonderful mother but two.

Mother 1 - my birth mom

I am so very thankful for my mom. She is a thoughtful, kind, and generous person. She delights in giving gifts to her kids. Her seemingly endless supply of optimism have buoyed my melancholic spirit on so many occasions. My mom has the rare (at least it seems rare having lived in my own head) gift of being able to think the best of everyone, including her children, of whom she has seen the worst. I have always felt loved and appreciated for who I am with her, truly loved and appreciated for who I am. She's not faking it. And if her house is a little bit messy on occasion and the clutter piles up a little too much for my liking, I know its because she's busy with people. She has such a heart for people. My mom, along with my dad, taught me about Jesus gave me every opportunity to get to know Him as my personal savior, and I'm so thankful.

Mother 2 - my mother-in-law

Before I got married, I naively bought into the cultural stigma of mothers-in-law, and I expected that I might not get along with my own mother-in-law if I ever married. That has, by far, not been the case for me. My mother-in-law is kind and loving. She's super organized, which I love. She genuinely wants to help her kids if she can and does an excellent job of walking the tightrope between not really helping and helping too much. She has a genuine heart for service and blesses so many people through her acts of service. My mother-in-law prays for her kids. I've been blessed over and over again by her reminders that she is praying for me. I admire so very much her desire for God and I want to want God like she does.

There are so many more things I could say about my two moms. They are both wonderful ladies. And I have the privilege of being able to look up to and emulate both of them. In this way, God has been so very good to me!

So... Many... Changes...

I've been wanting to write a blog post for a couple days now, just to update on what's been happening in the Lives of Mark and Hillary since we moved up to the Twin Cities, but every time I thought I would actually sit down and do it, trying to decide what to write about was simply too overwhelming. So many things have happened, so many things have changed.

So, instead of trying to choose what to write about, I'm just going to make a list of all the changes. Maybe this will be therapeutic for me. I always say I love changes, and I'm always terribly excited for changes up until the day of. Then, the day of the Change that I've been anticipating for months, I feel kind of numb. I don't feel happy or sad that the Change is happening; it just is, and I'm just doing what I have to in order to get through it. Then the day after the Change, when unexpected challenges start to crop up, I turn into an emotionally volatile sniveling lunatic who is absolutely sure that life as she knows it is at an end. Ergo, it may be both informative for you and therapeutic for me to write down all the recent changes that have taken place in our lives.

In the list below, changes are numbered. Sub-changes are listed below each numbered change.

1. Mark and I moved into my parents' basement.
1. We now have to compromise with two middle-aged adults (one of whom is a fairly picky eater) and one teenager (who is definitely a picky eater) on what we eat for dinner. I want vegetarian, more vegetables, and all bread products to be whole wheat. My dad wants ground beef, fewer vegetables, and is actually now okay with most bread products being whole wheat. We haven't talked about other grains yet, like quinoa. My sister wants Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Doritos, and Cheez-Its. Thankfully, it seems so far like we can all be adults about this, except perhaps my sister who insists on being a strong-willed teenager, and heaven help us with that. 
2. We now have Internet all the time. This sounds like a good thing, and in lots of ways it is, but I have to re-learn how to have Internet in my life and not feel the constant need to check my e-mail. I kind of seem to myself like a dog that's been starved regularly. When the dog finally does have food, it gorges itself. It has to re-learn to eat in moderation, trusting that the next meal really will appear. I just realized how very odd and somewhat disturbing those previous two sentences sound. However, since I can't think of another more appropriate simile off the top of my head, I'm not going to delete it. I'm just going to strike it out in deference to how strange it sounds.
3. All of our stuff is in boxes. Except the books that are now airing out after their near miss with gasoline. Even in my parents' basement, the belongings we brought with us that we 'needed' for our time with them are still mostly in bins and boxes, as there's not really place to put them. (Did I really need to bring all those pairs shoes? I'm still not sure.)
2. I went to a Teach For America hiring fair last Friday and Saturday.
1. I got to meet many of the fellow corps members I will be working with over the next two years. That was a lot of fun except that due to a recent ovulation combined with stress, I have had a killer outbreak of acne. So I spent all of Thursday wishing it were socially acceptable to wear a paper bag over my head to meet fellow corps members and the school officials who would be interviewing me.
2. I learned more about the achievement gap, particularly in Minnesota. Did you know that Minnesota ranks dead last in graduation rates for African-American, Native American and Hispanic students? We are failing our kids, and that's really depressing. What's even more depressing is that Minnesota kind of has this reputation of having really great schools. Apparently this is only true if you are wealthy and white. However, on the plus side, I left Friday's discussions feeling completely energized about education and oh-so glad that I'm committing my next two years to combating this totally unfair gap in achievement.
3. I switched from planning on teaching English as a Second Language this fall to teaching general Elementary Education. Yep. I know what you're wondering: So, all those hours studying for the ESL Content MTLE test... do they mean nothing now? Yep, pretty much. Now I have to take a new MTLE test, the Elementary Education Content test. Surprisingly, I didn't start crying when I went online to register. In all honesty, though, the reason that I'm switching is the cost of obtaining the licensure. Over the next two years all the TFA corps members will be taking education classes through a university up here to get our teaching licenses. Because ESL teachers need to take not only general education classes but also linguistics and language acquisition classes, their degree costs more. Twice as much, in fact. After thinking very hard and praying about whether we thought we could/should scrimp and save over the next two years to pay for a $19,000 degree, we decided that it just wasn't worth it. Given our desire to adopt (and soon) combined with other financial obligations, the $19,000 is just plain too much. So, elementary education it is. But I'm not disappointed. I'm still very excited to teach!
3. I gained new compassion for people with medical problems and little to no health insurance. I don't really even want to go into detail on this subject. We're still working things out, so the mere mention makes my blood pressure rise. But combining expensive COBRA insurance with an HSA that is entirely out-of-pocket until the deductible is reached with some PCOS-related medical issues that need attention is definitely teaching me to trust God with each dollar and making me more sympathetic to the plight of people with big medical needs.
4. Mark and I pretty much took over errand-running and grocery shopping for my mom. That has been fun, but the way we use gasoline up here is a rude awakening after being in a small town. However, being near Goodwill, Savers, Plato's Closet, and Half-Price Books definitely will have its perks when we have an income again...
5. We switched phone plans.
1. Now we each have our own cell phone, which is nice. (Those phones were donated to us by Mark's sister and her husband. So we didn't even need to purchase new phones to start our new plan. Thankful, thankful, thankful!)
2. We have some texting now, which is also nice.
3. My phone is turquoise, which I love. 
6. My parents have Netflix and my mom likes the same kind of movies I do. (We're both BBC junkies.) I don't know yet whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

I just reviewed this blog and realized it seems a bit long. But I was able to process some of the recent changes, so that's good! And you are now all caught up on our New Life in Minnesota. That's also good! If you leave a comment, I'll consider sending you payment for the therapy.

Being Thankful

I have a lot to be thankful for.

I am especially thankful for this surprise on our doorstep a few days ago:

A family friend put this basket together out of branches and pinecones that she found at the gigantic branch pile outside of town. I am impressed at her resourcefulness, as well as delighted to be the recipient of such a beautiful gift.

I have many things that I am seriously thankful for, but I also have a lot of things that I am laughingly thankful for as well.

In the context of many serious things happening in my life right now, I have been especially savoring laughter. As you know by now, my husband has wit and exercises it frequently. I appreciate that.

I am also very thankful that at both of the jobs I hold I can laugh regularly with my coworkers. An incident that pops to mind immediately happened just Tuesday.

My fellow children’s librarian, whom I will call Ms. J, often mixes up words. She has often called me Valerie instead of Hillary, and many of the children who come to our programs are repeatedly called by names other than their own. Her natural warmth and friendliness make up for this, thankfully, and hardly anyone seems bothered by these frequent lapses. Working with her sometimes reminds me of a book I read as a child, The Vicar of Nibblewick, by Roald Dahl. It’s a short book, and if you can get your hands on it, I urge you to read it.

On Tuesday, my cohort and I were leading a story hour for kids ages 4-5. Ms. J was reading a story to the kids about a Christmas elf. I had never realized how close the names ‘Santa’ and ‘Satan’ are until this particular story was read, but when Ms. J read aloud that the elf was going to go and report on the children to the latter… well. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only adult in the room laughing.