Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

I had the best kindergarten teacher. Her name was Mrs. Arnold. She taught me how to read and drilled phonics with our class. Because I went to a small Christian school, she was able to do a few special things with everyone (individually) in the class. I remember getting to go get ice cream at McDonald's with her and my best friend, Mary Katherine. We also did something called an M&M walk where we went to the local botanical garden, walked around, and periodically ate M&Ms. (I'm not sure what the purpose of this was, other than walking and eating M&Ms. But hey - isn't that enough?) In addition to doing all these fun things in the classroom, she also made for all of her students, every single year, a pillow and pillowcase with each student's name on it in felt. We kept these pillows at school until the end of the year when we could take them home. I still have my pillow. Probably if you took a poll of everyone who she made one for, you'd find nearly ev...

A few interesting things I've run into traipsing through the world wide web.... 1. Really cool/creepy insect portraits. 2. Another excellent and encouraging post about motherhood at Desiring God. 3. An awesome wet bag tutorial . I'm not sure why it took me so long to make one of these. Great for cloth diapers, buy also great for swimming, potty training or any other time when kids get wet or dirty. I made two last night in less than an hour. You could also easily adapt this to make smaller lined snack bags, which are next on my list.

1. The fact that I can spend all afternoon cleaning the house and kitchen, cook one meal, and realize I can't even tell I cleaned so much. Sigh. This makes me think I should stop either cleaning or cooking. 2. No matter how simple or straightforward a sewing project is, I am never able to finish it without using my seam ripper at least once. Or twice. Sent from my iPhone

I was trying to delete a bunch of draft posts I have currently saved on my blogger dashboard, when I found this post. Just a couple of pictures of some flower/weed. I cannot say when or where I took them, but I still appreciated their beauty. Since I enjoyed seeing them, I thought you might, too! i

A few recent favorites. 1. S'mores pie . I made this pie once for a church social, and then made two more of them to take to our family reunion. I cannot stress enough how delicious they are: super dense and chocolately with a toasted marshmallow topping. I even used a store bought graham cracker crust, so they probably would be even tastier with homemade. 2. Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream . My cousin Aaron made this at the same family reunion. This was the perfect chocolate peanut butter ice cream: sweet and chocolate-y with just a hint of saltiness. I always like when I find ice cream recipes that don't involve cooking a custard because that means they are quicker to put together. This will definitely be made again.

The denomination we are currently a part of, the PCA, uses the Westminster Catechism as their preferred catechism. As someone who didn't grow up in a denomination that stressed a catechism I have enjoyed having a list of questions and answers I can see and read to find out what exactly my denomination believes. Now, I like that catechism, at least the parts of it I've read. The first question is a fairly famous one, and honestly the only one I have memorized. But over the years I have found that it does help me in thinking about the purpose of my life as a whole and giving me a good perspective on things. So here it is: Q: What is the chief end of man? A: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. It is short and sweet and yet a good reminder of what I should be about. Our Sunday school curriculum at church is produced by the ARP , a different presbyterian denomination, that uses the Heidelberg catechism instead. As much as I like the Westminster catec...

My son taught me a lesson today. We've recently been trying to keep Judah with us during the first part of the worship service so he can start learning how to sit and listen. I do not think that a 16 month old can reasonably be expected to sit quietly for an entire 30 minute sermon, but I do want him to be able to listen to the singing and enjoy being part of a believing community. We also have decided to give Judah a dollar to put in the offering plate. (The only reason it's a dollar and not a quarter is because we can't quite trust Judah not to put it in his mouth. And while both a dollar and a quarter in the mouth is gross, I decided that a quarter was grosser.) Today was the first time we remembered to bring a dollar to give him. He took it and was admiring it and then seemed to gladly drop it into the offering plate. As soon as we passed the offering plate back to our elder, Perry, Judah quickly realized that his dollar was gone for good. He immediately started p...

1. We eat a lot of dessert. Last night at dinner, we cut into a cake that was a perfectly-iced, five-layered thing of beauty. Within 5 minutes, it was nearly demolished, along with cookies, brownies, and cupcakes. Tonight there will be several pies, brownies, and cakes AND no less than 6 flavors of homemade ice cream. 2. The ease with which I cry? Yeah, that's totally genetic. We had sharing time this morning where people were talking about important life events and no kidding, every single person who shared started to cry. (except me!) I had forgotten what an emotional bunch we are. I wonder if anyone has ever researched into what I'll call the "crybaby" gene. They would need to look no further than my family and they'd find it. 3. I read something recently about how Prince William and Princess Kate were at sort of a disadvantage in their  marriage since they don't have very many examples in their families of what a long, healthy marriage looks like. I do...

As much as I love peanut butter, if I get a choice between that and nutella, I'll pick nutella every day. I mean, nutty goodness PLUS chocolate?? Yes, please. Anyway... I recently realized that if a dessert calls for peanut butter, substituting nutella pretty much always equals extra deliciousness. For instance: Especially in the summer, I love to make chocolate no bake oatmeal cookies . When I have nutella around these days, I now use that instead of the peanut butter for a delicious hazelnut flavor. And what is better than peanut butter pie? Nutella pie, of course. This is a super easy (and not even that bad for you) recipe and again, just use nutella instead of peanut butter.  And if that's not enough nutella ideas for you, don't forget Nutella Ice Cream !

Lately I've been having lots of questioning thoughts about fertility. I've written before how my struggle with infertility continues even though I now have a baby. In many, many ways things are much easier now. The Lord has already blessed us with our beautiful boy. But Jeff and I both are the second borns in our families, and we both have older brothers who are less than 2 years older than we are. We both grew up one school year behind our brothers, and while being a part of a sibling group so close in age can sometimes lead to bickering, we both love how close we are to them. I used to imagine having a couple of kids who were close in age like that. Now I know, of course, that unless God unexpectedly gives us a child through adoption, Judah will never have that. It grieves me. The grief is not like the grief I felt at not having a baby, but it is still something I feel. I see sweet pictures of toddlers kissing and holding their newborn siblings and want for Judah to have t...

Well, we get our babies started on the theological reading early around here. And reformed theology, no less. Next up? Calvin's Institutes, perhaps?

I had a really slow call day on Sunday. In fact, I spent most of the afternoon hanging out in the resident lounge, afraid to go home, because sometimes it feels like as soon as I get home, that's when the pager goes off. Anyway... one of the interns was also having a slow call day, and we had a nice time chatting. I feel like I still do not know the interns well at all, and this intern is also my neighbor, so it was a good chance to find out more about him and his wife. Our conversation was fairly wide-ranging and at one point he asked me if Jeff and I had made any big purchases after graduating, like a "now that I'm making the big bucks" kind of purchase of something we had really been wanting for a while. I thought for a minute. "No, we didn't make any big purchases." I continued to think to myself, though, even after he moved on to talking about other things. What I wanted to say and almost said was that what I spent most of residency wanting was...

A few weeks ago, Gretchen mentioned in a post that NPR was collecting pictures of babies in the classic blue and pink striped blankets that most hospitals use. Since I love NPR , I immediately cruised over to the website and uploaded a couple pics of sweet baby Judah wrapped in his. Apparently, they received over 2,000 photos, but Judah and I made the website !! Check us out - we're the second from the right on the top row. Edited to add: The photos do not appear in the same arrangement each time. I guess each time you load the page they are in different places, and some different ones appear. But if you don't see me (I'm kissing Judah's head and wearing glasses), reload the page a time or two and hopefully you can find me!

1. Yesterday, I set a new personal record for most discharges in one day with 12. I feel like most of my readers are non-medical, but trust me when I say that 12 is a lot. I got another 6 today. Woohoo. 2. Speaking of discharges, I am much less likely to believe your sob story about how bad you are hurting if I already spotted you laughing and happy and buying your own breakfast in the hospital cafeteria before I made rounds. Even though you might try to lie in bed, looking pitiful, I will discharge you anyway because I know your secret. 3. Judah has suddenly become a sort of bad napper. I am not sure what is going on, but the last couple of weeks we are having a hard time getting him to sleep well. Any advice would be appreciated. 4. It is really, really, really hot and humid in SC right now. Some days I feel like any recollection of why I live here has been permanently burned out of my brain. I am definitely ready for fall... 5. If anyone needs a great and very affordable pho...

Even though I am a slack mom who hasn't yet scheduled Judah's 15-month well child check (and he's now 16 months old), I thought I'd give a little update about what our little man has been up to. Just under a month ago (I think - weeks run together) Judah was completely weaned. I was a little sad, but honestly, at that point mostly I just felt ready. He had started drinking milk a little more reliably, and we were down to nursing only once a day. It wasn't even difficult. I just started giving him milk in the morning instead of nursing. He didn't even seem to miss it - only once did it seem like he wanted to nurse after that, and when I told him we were going to drink milk from a cup instead, he seemed completely satisfied. Now maybe Jeff and I can plan a little weekend trip away somewhere without him.... His favorite things right now are cars, trucks, tractors, planes, and anything else with an engine. He loves picking up his toy cars and pushing them around...

Although I managed to do very little during my week of vacation, I did several things that I thoroughly enjoyed and thought I should share with you. 1. Even though I spent a year studying at seminary, I only took one elective on church history, and all we studied was the reformation in France and the French Huguenots . While this was a very interesting topic, the last several months I have been thinking about how little I know about church history. I decided I wanted to find something to read to learn more about it. Lucky for me, I am married to a pastor with an extensive library, and found that he actually had a book on his shelf called Church History in Plain Language . It sounded perfect, and certainly seemed preferable to the 8 or 9 volume series that was another option on his shelf. I found the book to be exactly what its title described - a great overview of church history, written in an extremely down-to-earth, and non-technical way.  If you find yourself wanting to know m...

The last time I was at the beach with my whole family was right after my medical school graduation. I dug around and found a few fun comparison photos. Andrew, with his firstborn in 2007. The two of them last week: And Abram, playing with his only nephew in 2007:  Last week:  Nana, loving on her only grandbaby in 2007: Reading to the whole crew: I wonder what it will look like in another 5 years??