A City Life For Me

As I blogged here , I am reading Voices of the True Woman Movement to review for Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss .  Today I will discuss chapter 2, “From Him, Through Him, To Him,” by Nancy. This chapter was fantastic, and my heart is still overflowing from the truths it reveals.  Though it is nothing new to me, I needed to be reminded of many things, and God gave it to me at just the right time!  I marked so many things in my book that I cannot share all of them with you, but I will do my best to highlight the theme.  This chapter follows well on the heels of John Piper’s introductory chapter entitled The Ultimate Meaning of True Womanhood .  For in chapter two, Nancy describes the ultimate purpose of true womanhood as finding God’s purpose.  She says on page that “everything finds its true meaning and purpose in God’s meaning and purpose.”  How true that is! The Scriptural basis for this chapter is Romans 11.  The Apostle Paul fin...

Elaine has developed a fascination with the piano…following in Mommy’s footsteps!  She loves to stand on the bench and plunk around, and she even turns the pages in the hymnbook now and then! I think we will designate this hymnbook as Elaine’s.  It is getting very wrinkled!

We have shutter-style doors between our master bedroom and Elaine’s bedroom/the living room.  They haven’t quite hung properly or closed completely or locked since we moved in.  Ben said that it would involve a lot of work to fix, so we just lived with it.  However, last night Ben was motivated to work on a home improvement project.  He really wanted the doors to be able to lock for visitors and convenience.  So…the doors came off the hinges and the tool bag came out of the closet. The first door was fixed relatively easy, but in order to get the doors to close Ben had to get out the saw and shave some edge off of the second door.  It was more involved than planned, but he did a good job! Elaine was ever so curious about the whole thing, and it was my difficult job to keep her on the other end of the house and away from sharp and dangerous tools. As you can see, I was not quite successful!  I was very pre-occupied working on my Diaper Blog. At one...

I would like you all to bear witness with me to this auspicious day in history.  On this the 26th day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, Elaine’s best friend (commonly known as “Bunny”) received a bath! Elaine rarely lets Bunny out of her sight.  In fact, recently she has started crawling back into a room to retrieve him and drag him along with her.  It is very difficult to get Bunny for a cycle in the washer.  But, alas, after being dropped on the sidewalk and in train stations, and a rough week of Summer Adventure Club, it was inevitable – Bunny needed a bath! A little less significant, but worth mentioning none the less, is that today Ben and I have been married for 33 months today.  And on Saturday, we passed the 1000 days of marriage mark.  I meant to write a blog for that, but I forgot!

Ben’s birthday was on Thursday, but we were busy this week with Summer Adventure Club at our church.  I gave some of the kids party hats to wear to game time on Thursday (Ben directed the games), and we sang to him in the closing. Today I made a triple-layer chocolate cake with chocolate icing – Ben’s forever favorite in the cake category.  I tried a recipe from Mom, and it was the first cake I made without a box mix!  Not as moist as I would like, but not bad!  The frosting was to die for…     We had our neighbors up for cake and ice cream, and we are getting Brooklyn pizza for dinner.  We also took a family afternoon nap – that was a treat!  Ben isn’t much on gifts, but he likes to spend time together so I think he enjoyed his day.  He is putting all of his money toward a Rosetta Stone Spanish program. Elaine wasn’t so thrilled with the party hat – she doesn’t like things on her head!

I’m in business!  Well, I’ve been in business as an Independent Beauty Consultant for Mary Kay.  But this week Ben & I ventured out in a new direction.  We are starting an online retail store for cloth diapers! We filed for our sales tax license on Monday.  We are still waiting for it to be approved before we can purchase our inventory and start selling. On Tuesday Elaine & I went downtown to the County Clerk’s office and registered the business.  Yesterday I purchased the domain name, and I have a web designer and host already picked out too. We are Doable Diapers , and we will carry (hopefully): bumGenius! FuzziBunz Kissaluvs GroVia (from the Natural Baby Company) Rumparooz Planet Wise wet bags Prefolds Thirsties covers Flip covers We’ll start with those and see where it goes!  I do have my blog up and running, but I still have a little tweaking to do.  It is www.doablediapers.blogspot.com , and there you can read a lit...

And yes, I did catch her before she fell!

Elaine totally doesn’t understand the concept of dishes.  She is pretty smart, but not quite that smart.  I put the Cheerios in a bowl, and she dumps them out so that she can play with the bowl.  So I put the Cheerios on a plate (now that she is playing with the bowl) but she still turns the plate upside down.  Oh well…at least the floor is pretty clean.  Because she is crawling all over, I do try to keep the floors really clean.  And Elaine usually ends up eating her breakfast off the floor! I love it when Mommy takes my picture!   What happened to all of my Cheerios?   Oh, here they are!

Today my hubby is turning 25!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (That’s 25 exclamation marks in case you were wondering). A little about Ben…he is patient, loving, and easy going.  He loves adventure and bumps along the way don’t upset him.  He was born on July 22, 1985, and born again at the age of four.  He became a husband on October 26, 2007, and a daddy on November 5, 2009.  Ben is the best husband – he de-stresses me and teases me to death.  He is a great daddy and prides himself on being able to get Elaine to do things that I can’t.   Elaine is happy every time Daddy comes home – even if she has had a fussy day. Ben is a student of God’s Word, and I think I love that about him the best.  He has followed God’s call to the pastoral ministry, and we have started the last phase of our training.  It’s getting exciting!  I would describe Ben as the New Testament Bereans – he doesn’t just take someone’s word for it, but he searches the Sc...

You’ve heard of peeping toms?  How about this:   I caught Elaine trying to spy on Daddy in the shower!

I have had a couple of sewing projects on my list for a while, and today I finally decided to scratch them off.  First, I wanted to make a skirt for the crib.  Because of the way Ben constructed it, I wasn’t able to use my store-bought skirt.  I really liked the way the crib looked without the skirt.  However, with our lack of closet space in Brooklyn we are storing the baby clothes underneath the crib, and I wanted to cover them up.  I used an old twin sheet from Ben’s college days.  I just ran a gathering stitch and then used velcro to fasten it to the bottom side of the board that supports the mattress.  I was pleased with the results!    Elaine was helping me to model the finished projects.  I know I’m her mommy and all, but I can’t help myself – isn’t she just the cutest? She is really happy here because while we were taking pictures the kitty from downstairs came up for a visit.  Elaine loves Rocky, but Rocky doesn’t reall...

Here is a conglomeration of randomness that has happened in our lives recently.  On Tuesday night we went to Central Park for a free concert put on by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra as guests.  We heard Tchaikovsky, Ravel, “Bolero”, “West Side Story”, and “Rhapsody in Blue” to name a few!  The park was very crowded (I am still getting used to the masses of people everywhere I go) despite the ominous clouds that threatened rain.  There was a very long intermission while the orchestra’s switched, but we stayed for the whole concert.  We ended up on the dirt part of the baseball diamond.  Good thing we brought our blanket!  Elaine was very good.  Towards the end she was wanting to sleep, but fighting it hard.  I stood to rock her, and then I leaned on the stroller because my back was hurting.  Before I knew what was happening, I had sunk down into the stroller.  We looked very funny appar...

Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you , Happy birthday dear Dad-Grampa-Jim, Happy birthday to you! And many more… Dad, Ben, & Elaine   Sissy & Jim on the Sea of Galilee in Israel I wish I could tell you how hold he is…but I don’t know! We love you, Ben, Andrea, & Elaine

Last night we decided to explore another area of our neighborhood – the park.  Owl’s Head Park is about 10 blocks away, so we did decide to drive since it was later in the evening.  We discovered a lovely hilly area, covered in trees and benches and perfect for a picnic!  (The grass is a little brown & patchy from the heat we’ve been having).  The park was complete with basketball courts and playground.  Elaine enjoyed the swings again…until Daddy pushed her too high!  We tried the slide, but it was wet, and Elaine was super-distracted by all of the other kids running around. Not so thrilled with the slide   The nice thing about this park is the water park.  They have a little track that has different obstacles on it, all spewing water to cool the little kiddies in the summer.  There was a bridge, a curly-swirly thing with water coming from all directions, horses spitting water, and an arch that sent out a lovely shower.  Ben took...

I know.  It’s weird.  But I am.  Obsessed I mean.  With cloth diapers.  Want me to prove it?  Today Elaine & I arrived at the subway station at 5:05 a.m. (yes…that is 5 in the morning ) headed for Manhattan.  We were joining Jenn from Cotton Babies and a group of cloth diapering mommies convening on Rockefeller Plaza during NBC’s The Today Show .  Jenn is the creator of the bumGenius! cloth diaper line, so all of our babies were wearing bumGenius! diapers.  To say thanks for showing up and supporting cloth diapers, Jenn gave each one of us a  t-shirt and the all new 4.0 bumGenius! diaper with snaps.  This was very exciting to me for several reasons.  First, I love free stuff, especially cloth diapers!  This diaper is not yet available for purchase, so I get to try it first.  I have not been a huge bumGenius! fan in the past because they have only had velcro closures on their diapers.  I prefer snaps, ...