Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

It's fun now that we are in Judah's second year to look back and see how much he's grown in a year. Here he is on Halloween last year: He was such a baby then! So little. And now he's a little boy. My baby is totally gone. Sniff. We went to maybe three houses and Judah ate one sucker. Just about perfect for a 19-month-old.

So I realize that I'm a bit biased, but I have a pretty awesome family. And I don't just mean my parents and siblings, who are all pretty awesome. I am even blessed to have aunts, uncles, and cousins both first, second, and third who are all pretty great. God is good to me. My cousin Marion is doing a series about being real, and lately she's been writing about real marriage. Such wonderful and encouraging reading. You should check her out .

After a long week, I loved getting to play outside on this beautiful fall day with my boy. I love watching him stand up, pushing his cute little bum in the air to provide some kind of counter weight to his noggin. He and Lucy played tug of war with a stick, which mostly consisted of Lucy pulling it out of his hand and him grunting at me to get it back for him. He apparently thought it was funny to see Lucy carry a stick around in her mouth and wanted to try it out for himself.

Yesterday and today were much better days than friday, for several reasons: 1. I delivered TWO babies on Saturday - and these were the kind of easy, no worry deliveries I especially enjoy. 2. I put on my big girl panties and actually told Mr. Big Shot surgeon that I didn't appreciate being yelled at and that he doesn't need to be rude. I'm much more of a stew-about-it, grudge-holder, so this was big for me. I almost felt like crying when I did it, and then when he apologized, I nearly hugged him. But that would have been weird. 3. We had one of the shortest lists ever today, my day call wasn't bad, AND it was my last day on the service for a while. I've got clinic in the morning and then I'm off the rest of the week. Well, as off as you can be when you have an 18 month old. 4. I realized yesterday that Jeff's mom will be here in a week! It is always a treat when she visits and we all are looking forward to it.

My day started with having to have a very frank discussion with a 35 (!!) year old mom who has bad, bad cancer. Cancer that is growing and not responding to treatment. She has known about this cancer for some time, and even though it's slowly eating away at her, she stays active and happy. Happy . I left her room and wanted to cry for her. All this week I have been dealing with a very sick patient in the ICU who I do not believe is going to get better. In fact, at this point, I feel like all the care we are providing is futile and that we are merely prolonging her death. Her family continues to hold out hope that she is going to get better and to demand that we do everything possible. They seemed to get upset with me when I told them (again) today that the patient was actually worse today than she was yesterday. I feel like I have set up an adversarial relationship with this family because of the way I tried to convey this information the first time I saw them, and now I have a h...

Here are two posts which sort of resonate with me about the whole "Occupy Wall Street" movement. First up, this Canadian's take on this claim about who the "99%" actually are. Of course, Dave Ramsey also weighs in with some other good points. It's hard for me to really understand the motivation of all these protestors. Or figure out what it is they want. Anyone out there with good insight into this?

I'm not anywhere near becoming a vegetarian, but I have been thinking for a while that we need to eat less meat. I definitely have grown up in the camp of thinking that dinner = meat + some sort of side. While I like meat as much as the next person, I also recognize that eating more veggies and beans is a much healthier diet (not to mention much cheaper!). I have found some fantastic meatless recipes recently, so I thought I'd post them here. First up, what I had for dinner tonight: Spaghetti squash and black bean sauce . About once a year I'll make spaghetti squash, and although I've had  it several ways that I like, none of the recipes have been good enough to make me want to come back to them. This, though, is the recipe that makes me want to come back. That black bean sauce was fantastic. I am already looking forward to eating the leftovers. Black bean pumpkin soup - slightly heartier that your average pumpkin soup, this one has pureed black beans in it. I didn...

A wise, older female physician once gave me what I consider to be fantastic advice: "As a female doctor, you might be able to do everything, but you can't do everything at once ." She was talking mostly (I think) about how you can be both a doctor and a mom, but the career you have while doing both is probably not going to look the same as a man's or someone who is single, i.e. - the job you can do while you have young children will probably not be the most ideal job you can imagine. Maybe it's part time. Maybe it doesn't involve call, teaching, hospital work, OB call, or whatever it is that you want to be doing. I actually think the advice works in most situations - not just for us female doctors. Many of the women I know have desires to be doing lots of great things - working, mothering, crafting, mercy ministry, writing bible studies, you name it - but right now they have young children/ busy jobs/ homeschool/ other commitments that prevent it. It is ea...

I had totally planned on this being a part of the last blog post, but then somehow that post kind of went off on its own tangent and I decided that I should do a separate post for this. So here goes: I have mentioned before how I struggle to answer when people make comments or ask me about having another child. I was thinking about it again today when a friend (who didn't really know about our past struggles) made a comment about having another child. I realized that it didn't bother me, but I still didn't know what a good response was. He made a light-hearted comment about it being "time for another one." I hesitated, but then responded with something along the lines of how "we had a hard time getting pregnant and would love another one." As I said, the comment didn't bother me, and I feel like my response was equally light-hearted and matter-of-fact. I still worried afterward that perhaps I made him feel bad. Should I have just nodded? Said yes...

Wow. Sometimes this ole' blog just gets away from me. I write a post and then wham! it's been five days and I didn't even notice. Jeff and I had a glorious child-free evening on friday, thanks to my parents who watched Judah overnight. We went out to dinner, slept in, and even got donuts and coffee in the morning. We vacillated between missing our boy and being very, very glad to enjoy time without him. The rest of the weekend we spent in Asheville, where Jeff had a preaching gig (click here and scroll down to listen!). On the way home, we made our yearly trip to the apple orchard . That stop was an epic fail, since nearly all the apples were picked over AND our camera battery was dead. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go was to get a great picture of Judah picking an apple and maybe standing by the pumpkins like last year. But instead, all I could use was my iPhone. So here is the best it got: Cute? Of course. Judah always is cute. :) It just wasn...

Yes, I know I already posted a few photos of the cuteness that was Judah in his overalls. But here is one before the blueberries, when he's blowing a kiss to some church friends.

So a few weeks ago, my friend Sally (pictured here on the far left) asked me if I would like to do a mud run. "Sure," I said, without really thinking about. "Sounds like fun." I didn't really know what I got myself into. This mud run was a 3.5 mile run through the woods which also included 35 or so obstacles you had to go over, under, or through. Numerous 6 foot walls that you had to get over. A run through up a nice section of creek. You get the idea. Did I mention that I have almost no upper body strength? Thankfully, the race is run in a team and I had all these nice people to help me make it. A few pictorial highlights: First obstacle. Yes, this mud pit was deep enough to swim in. yummy. climbing up the hill. The big wall. The last mud crawl The finish line. Surprisingly, I am actually wearing that same shirt right now, thanks to the modern marvel that is our washing machine. We did have a great time, all the bruises I'm STILL finding n...

I have a confession to make. I kind of like Eminem. Here's another confession: So does my husband. I actually have him to blame. See, our very first date was when he called on a thursday afternoon to ask me out to dinner on friday night, then out to a lecture being given at a local book store by a seminary friend. We had a nice time at dinner; he ordered a salad (!!) and I ate some salmon. We talked about our families. He told me he basically had this church job all lined up in Colorado, at which point I thought to myself, "Well, I guess this probably won't go anywhere...." The lecture we went to was actually a lecture about the world view of Eminem and what a Christian approach to Eminem should be. Clearly, most of his music is filled with a very, very sinful outlook on life, numerous curse words, and occasional violence. But, if you can find the songs that aren't quite so laden with epithets, he is a really talented writer and they all have a fun beat. For i...

Take one plaid shirt, one pair overalls, delicious frozen blueberries, and combine with one 18 month old. Other optional ingredients include sidewalk chalk, a stroller, and a dog. What you get: Fun play time and absolute cuteness. Enjoy!