And the wait continues...

Well, folks, I'm still here. And the bun is still in my oven. So far we have a week to go to delivery date... so we'll see what happens between now and the 15th when my doctor is willing to induce me if I haven't gone on my lonesome. Fingers crossed I do!

In the meantime I have been sewing and quilting and beautifying my little abode. Life is great with all this time on my hands! I can't complain.

The only drawback is that we are as of now internetless in our casa... so I probably won't be doing many updates for the next little while. I know my sister will post when little Mr. Christiansen arrives, so feel free to check over there in the next two weeks!

All my love

cj

Carly's guide to moving

1. Start early with the things you don't need to use. (For me, this included most of my wardrobe, books, and half my kitchen appliances)
2. Borrow/aquire boxes and packing materials from recent movers (or box horders, in our case). If necessary, buy good boxes. There is nothing worse than moving with bad boxes.
3. Don't be afraid to use trash bags. Really, they work well.
4. Set limits/goals (i.e. I will pack for two hours today. Or: I will finish this room today. Or: I will only eat six otter pops while packing this morning)
5. Label your boxes well. This time we decided to use coded labels to indicate which boxes go in which room. Awesome. Then we put the labels on the walls/doors of the said rooms to help our little team of movers quickly put those boxes right where we want them.
   
6. Make it a team effort. Make your husband help (being pregnant helps motivate this one along). Don't shy away from help offered on the actual move day.
7. On the actual move day, everything must be in a box. This one is essential. If you don't do this, you don't deserve to ask for help loading the truck since no one should have to help you longer than 2 hours on the move day.
8. Once that miracle of miracles happens (the boxes are suddenly relocated in the new abode), enjoy putting all your things in brand new places and in brand new ways. So much fun!
   
9. Smile when you walk in the door and see less boxes today than you saw yesterday (whew!).

PS. I LOVE our new apartment. Someday I'll take and post tons of pictures. Oh wait, let's be honest, it will never be tons... but perhaps I'll manage to take a few and showcase our beautiful new lugar.

A is for Alligator

Alright, alright I'll reduce myself to more phone pictures. This weekend I was a busy girl. While Jeremy was away in Blanding helping to re-roof his parent's house, I was home sewing and packing. In addition to packing half the kitchen and half the upstairs stuff (go me!), I finally got my embroideries put together. These little guys are planned to go in a row above the crib (which just might get set up this Saturday!). I just love them even though (or perhaps because) they are so simple. It was not complicated embroidery or anything fancy-smancy, but I think they turned out cute, if I do say so myself. All that's left is a little hand quilting (I think I am going to quilt the borders with words that start with the respective letters) and the binding.




I also got three more birds done for my bird mobil. I'm still not sure just how I'm going to do this mobil (or if I will want it to detract from my ABCs above the crib...) but for now I am content to help my little flock grow and grow. Here they are perched atop my sewing machine.

And now I am off to pack my sewing room. There's not much chance of getting anything else made before the move on Saturday, so I might as well tuck my little stashes of fabric into a box to be pulled out and loved another day.

To Mother

Against the Sky by Robert Reid

"Eve was given the identity of “the mother of all living”—years, decades, perhaps centuries before she ever bore a child. It would appear that her motherhood preceded her maternity, just as surely as the perfection of the Garden preceded the struggles of mortality. I believe mother is one of those very carefully chosen words, one of those rich words—with meaning after meaning after meaning. We must not, at all costs, let that word divide us. I believe with all my heart that it is first and foremost a statement about our nature, not a head count of our children."
--Patricia Holland One Thing Needful: Becoming Women with Greater Faith in Christ

This quote sums up for me, in so many ways, what I feel about motherhood. I first discovered it as a student at BYU. I was in my last year of school, student teaching, in fact--teaching budding young folk who were in the process of figuring themselves out. I was the Relief Society President in my singles ward--surrounded by beautiful, talented, independent women. I was working at the MTC--no longer teaching the welfare sisters, as the program had been disintegrated (to my dismay). And I was undergoing a slight identity crisis. No. Crisis is the wrong word. I was fairly sure of my identity as me. Carly Jane. But I wanted, nay, needed, to understand at a deeper doctrinal level just what it meant to be a woman. A Daughter of God. A daughter of the first mother, Eve.

And so I began searching. I scoured my Eternal Marriage manual. I read every talk I could find under every related search word I could think of on lds.org. And in my many readings and ponderings and studies, I came back again and again to this talk/article by Sister Holland. She was not the first, and definitely not the last, to proclaim that our identity as women has everything to do with our abiliy to mother. But for me, it was in reading this talk that the truth sunk in.

I am a mother. I have been and always will be, by virtue of being a woman. It is at the heart of everything that is womanly. As she said, it not a head count of children. It is not so much the ability (or even inability for some) to have children. But mothering, being the Mother of All Living, is something that is deep in the nature of womanhood. It must not be escaped, overlooked, or ignored. We, as women, are to nuture and cherish and foster the inate ability to mother. Which, for me, includes verbs such as: to love, create, care for, console, teach, respect, plant and harvest, guide, discern, and honor--to name a few.

Motherhood is part of who we are, well before we hold a child of our own in our arms. And I am so grateful. The world today would tell women that our identity has to do with anything and everything but mothering. They are wrong. Motherhood is at the very heart of what unifies as women. And I believe, as Sister Holland said, it is a word rich with meaning after meaning after meaning. The greatest insights of our lives will come, I think, as we unlock those meanings one by one.

The insignificant

You know, so much of life is filled with what appears to be trivial or insignificant. We get out of bed in the morning and do the dishes and carry on multitudes of "how are you?" conversations, and it all blurs together into seeming insignificance.

But it's not.

If we choose for it to, itmatters. If we only pay a bit closer attention to the light coming in the window as we get out of bed, or appreciate the texture of that banana, or choose to smile back and sincerely care how so-and-so's day has been.

In an effort to rededicate my pen to the paper, I have been rereading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg the last few weeks. And what I have gleaned most is the reminder to remember and care about the details. It's easy to let life slip by, waiting for whatever comes next. Tomorrow is the weekend. Next week things will be better. After school's over life will start. But the thing is, today the lilacs are blooming. And today there is a cool breeze. No matter how much I love snow, I would much rather enjoy what today has brought instead of pine after what is six months away.

The rest of what is to come will come. No need to wish it here any sooner than it comes all on it's own. And so despite it all, I am glad that I have today to do the laundry and eat lunch with Jeremy and embroider a wall hanging and listen to Jeremy's Paul Cardall station on Pandora. And anything else that may seem insignificant.

Five things I am grateful for (take 2)

This morning I woke up and lay in bed thinking well before the sun was even starting to poke its head out. They were sort of stressful thoughts about unpacked boxes and unfinished projects. Later (after uping and dressing) I was doing my scripture study in Preach My Gospel about diligent, but wasn't feeling so very diligent. When I went upstairs to awaken Mr. C and do some scripture study with him before heading off to work, he could immediately tell I was not having the greatest of mornings. He asked me to give him five things I was thankful for before going to work. I was silent.

I'm not going to lie, work wasn't great this morning either, but I think I can come up with five things now.

1. Jeremy unexpectedly picked me up from work. I was already halfway down the hill from the Adult Ed building when he sent me a little text turning me around. I do love walks and sunshine and 80 degree weather... but I so much rathered driving home with him.
2. As I look out my window right now there are bright neon spring leaves on all the trees. The very trees I have looked at all winter with long spindly bare branches. I love the florescent green of spring. It is so alive.
3. Jeremy worked all morning packing boxes. Most of our downstairs storage is packed away! I didn't even have to ask. I must have looked very stressed this morning, however.
4. I have a whole box of otter pops awaiting me. I don't know what the third trimester has done to me, but all I want is something cold in my mouth all day long. Otter pops are managing to hit the spot oh so nicely.
5. I have a whole two hours at home before I even have to think about going back to work. And then, when I do go back, it will be Thursday night. And that's the end of my work week folks. Hallelujah.

I hope that even if your day did not start out as nicely as you would like, it is starting to shape up as mine is :).

Love,

cj

35 weeks and counting...

Ok, so it is a picture from Jeremy's phone... and thus not the best quality, but seriously I'm getting bigger and bigger and I had to share the excitement. I'm still measuring about a week big, but the doctor says not to worry, it's all baby.

I have been incredibly paranoid the for past two weeks (since my last appointment) after I felt the baby doing summer saults one night in bed. I've been convinced that little bump banging into my ribs all the time was his head. But happily, the doctor put my fears at ease and did a mini ultra sound showing him to be head down as he should be. Whew!

And thus the "wild wee one" should be here in five more weeks, school ends in three, and we move in two! I think I have enough going on to keep me busy until the big day :).

Happy May day! Go for a walk and enjoy the May flowers and sunshine and general goodness of spring.