Hungry Baby

Today marks my final day of having Derek at home with me to help with Maren. A week ago, I wasn't sure I was prepared to handle it on my own, but today I'm feeling much more confident. Maren has had unusual infant behavior the past few weeks. She has only been sleeping about 10 hours a day. Yesterday, between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 pm, she slept for two hours. And she has been a bit fussy throughout the day. She hasn't lasted for more than 15 minutes in her bassinet, swing or bouncy chair, which means she has been spending most of her time in my arms. Today things are different. . . thank goodness. And what we discovered is she just hasn't been getting enough to eat.

It was a struggle getting my milk to come in after all the trauma of the labor. And now that it is in, I'm just not producing enough. The lactation consultants told me to try and keep her at my breast during the day and just supplement with formula at night. So, that's what we have been doing. But it just hasn't worked. She hasn't been gaining enough wait and she's not sleeping. I've been upset about my milk situation, but I've finally come to terms with the fact she is going to primarily be a formula baby. So, the formula has been flowing today. She was able to spend about 45 minutes in her swing and she actually asleep right now. . .few.

Thankfully she has been a good night sleeper. I think that's because she's so exhausted from not sleeping during the day. So, we'll see how she does tonight.

And I seriously need to get much better about taking pictures. I think I'm going to set a goal to take a picture a day beginning next week. I need a good one for the birth announcements.

A Birth Story - Maren Lindgren

(Please note this is my documentation of the birth. Apologies if it's a little too much info for you.)

Maren Christine Lindgren entered the world on February 16th at 2:40 pm. She weighed 7lbs 15.5oz and was 21 inches long.

Her arrival began on Sunday the 15th around 7:00 pm. Derek and I had spent the day with Cindy and Rick after going to a quick hospital appointment because my blood pressure had been too high the past few days. Leaving the hospital, they said I wasn't dilated at all, so we assumed we still had a long road a head of us. I was in desperate need to be out of the house, so Cindy and I walked around the mall for a few hours and then hit a friends house aftwards, where I ate some very spicy chili. Two hours later, I was in labor.

Derek and I were planning to celebrate our Valentine's Day that evening. The night before I was too sick, I had a terrible cold. So, Derek started making dinner when we got home from SF. Around 7:00 I was sitting there and felt a sudden gush and thought oh my goodness, I think my water broke. And a few minutes later my mucus plug came out. So, I was pretty positive she was on her way. I called the hospital. They told me to eat dinner and then head to the hospital. Derek had made this fantastic meal and neither one of us were really able to eat it. We got down what we could and headed across the bridge into SF. It was pooring down rain.

We arrived at the hospital around 9:00 pm. We were put in our birthing room and ended up with the room with an amazing view of the city, which was great to look at the next morning. Contractions started coming pretty strong while we were in the car and just progressively picked up from there. Nicole arrived around 10:00 and began helping me through them. My plan going into this was to have a natural birth. I had two things working against me with this. First, I had a bad cold and hadn't slept well the past few nights. Second, I am not a night person at all, so doing things in the middle of the night is not easy for me. I spent my time with contractions in the tub, on an exercise ball and in the bed. As the night went on, my contractions increased in intensity and frequency. Frequency became the real problem. I had almost continual contractions with no more than 30 seconds rest in between. After about 6 hours of contractions, I couldn't take it any longer and thought if I could only sleep for a little while, maybe I can get through this. So, I opted for a pain drug that lasts for an hour. Well, I ended up with 4 more of these. Each one I took worked a little less and by the last one, it lasted for about 15 minutes. At around 3:30 am my mom arrived. She drove all the way from Orange County through the middle of the night. It was really great to have her there. Early in the morning, I finally gave in and decided to take the epidural. This allowed me to go to sleep for an hour or so and get ready to push. Derek, Nicole my mom and I all worked to push through each contraction. Things seemed to being going well and the nurse originally thought I should be able to push her out in about an hour and a half. However, unlike my contractions earlier in the evening, when I started to push my contractions started to spread out quite a bit to the point where they were almost 5 minutes apart. So, the progress we made with each push retracted during the time between contractions. After 3 hours of this, a team of doctors came in and told me I had 3 options. 1. Push for another hour and if she's not out, move to an assisted delivery. 2. Go straight to assisted delivery. 3. Go straight to a C-Section. And the head resident stated she thought it would take me another 3 hours to push her out on my own and she wouldn't let me go that long. The nurse who had been with me all morning, Heidi, had stepped out to grab some food right before the doctors came in. I really trusted her and wanted her opinion but she wasn't available. So, Derek and I agreed we would move forward with the assisted birth. As they were about to wheel me into the operating room, I had this overwhelming feeling I was making the wrong decision. And nurse Heidi walked in the door and I could see it in her eyes that she thought I could have done it without the assist. But, the decision had been made and off we went.

The operating room was overwhelming. There were about 20 people in the room, doctors and nurses. They put me on a super narrow table, I have no clue how larger people fit on this thing. Derek came it. I had a total meltdown. There was all this commotion. Nurse Heidi came over and calmed me down. She said we were going to push on the next contraction and so I did and in a matter of 3 pushes, Maren came into the world. It took about 3 minutes. She cried immediately and I knew she was ok. They brought her over to Derek and I. I was able to give her a kiss and then they took her off to the nursery and Derek went with her. Unfortunately, my placenta didn't want to come out, so I stayed in the O.R. The doctors waited 30 minutes for it and then made the decision to manually remove it. Even with the manual removal, it didn't really want to come out. So, an hour and a half after the deliver, I was finally coming out of the operating room having lost a lot of blood and feeling really bad.

But the instant I was able to hold her, I forgot about all of that and just focused on being with her. She was beautiful and super alert.

I will end my story there. Recovery week is something I'd prefer to block out of my memory. I would not have survived it without Derek and my mom.

But now I can say being a mommy is a new, amazing, challenging and wonderful experience.

Better Late than Never

I have finally made a wedding album! We're coming upon our two year wedding anniversary in May, so I thought it was about time. We had great photographers, but the deal we cut was that we would receive digital copies of all the photos and could do what we wanted with them. It did not include them putting together the album. I was really good about framing and album creation for family, but just never really got around to it for us. I'm happy that they're finally together though. Here are two of my favorite shots. The first one, I should probably be ashamed of because no bride should be tossing back beers quite like I did that night, but I had so much doing it! I had the time of my life at our wedding and I think that photo represents it well. And the other photo is a sweet photo that I just really like.

My next task, going through all my Cooking Light Magazines, I have a lot of them, and cutting out the recipes I want to keep.

Side Note: We purchased the CRV last night. Now we own 3 cars. Hopefully the Subaru will be sold this weekend.

Am I in Labor?

This seems to be a question I'm asking myself pretty often lately. And last night, I was confident it was happening. I was having pretty strong contractions about every 3 minutes that lasted about 30 seconds. This went on for about an hour and a half. I wasn't 100% confident though because I haven't lost my mucus plug nor had any leaking or bleeding. So after the hour and a half, I decided to call the hospital to see if these things needed to have happened in order for me to truly be in labor. The nurse said no. So I hung up thinking ok. . .maybe this is the real thing. And to my dismay, I didn't have another contraction after hanging up the phone with the nurse. So, I'm back to patiently waiting for the baby to make her appearance. I keep telling her I'm ready when she's ready.

Kid Mobile

This is the car I've had since November of '02. I needed a snow car while living in New Hampshire, so this is what I bought. This car has been great; and Derek and I thought it would make a solid family car too. Much to our surprise, when we went to have the car seat installed, it turns out this isn't such a great family car. The car seat wouldn't fit in the middle of the back seat, so it has to sit behind the passenger seat, which would not be that big of an issue except, the passenger seat has to be all the way forward with the seat back straight up in order for it to fit. This basically makes the front passenger seat inoperable. So, we spent the weekend car shopping. Car shopping while 39 weeks pregnant is pretty interesting. We lugged the car seat and stroller with us everywhere we go to make sure we don't run into this issue with the new car we purchase too. Our requirements for a vehicle: all wheel or four wheel drive so we can get to Tahoe, enough room for baby stuff, leather seats so it's easy to clean up messes, space for the dog when we go on road trips and good gas mileage. And we'd prefer to not spend a ton of money because the car is likely to get thrashed by kid(s). We've discovered our requirements rule out quite a few vehicles. So, we've narrowed things down to either a Honda CRV or a Subaru Forrester. I'm sold on either one, so from here on out, it's up to Derek to work his magic and see where he can get the best deal. And I'll sadly say good-bye to my WRX.

Maren's Room

As you will recall, we started working on Maren's room back in December. It has been a bit of a process, but we're now at the point where we are doing all the finishing touches. Curtains and pictures need to be hung, but beyond that, we're in good shape. Because we have a two bedroom house, I still needed space for guests, so the room is a nursery and can accommodate two others. Here are a few shots of the room. I was really shooting to avoid pink and brown because it is everywhere right now. But because it is everywhere, it was pretty much impossible to avoid. So, we went with brown, green and a hint of pink.

And this is her exploding closet. Mom has had to keep a few things in there, but I think I'm going to have to find somewhere for this stuff pretty soon.

And since I had been working at home, I decided to get all of her clothes and bedding washed. I spent a lot of time doing this. And then my mom arrived and informed me you can't use regular detergent on baby clothes, so I had to start all over again. I am finally finished. I'm sure I'm going to run into a hundred other things I start to do and discover it shouldn't be done that way; and I'll have to start all over. Oh the things I have to learn. Good thing I'm headed to a surviving the first two weeks with baby course tonight.

The Man Weekend

Over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Derek held a man weekend in Tahoe. He had friends from the Bay Area, Canada and Arizona come to participate. They had a ton of fun; and he came home saying men are disgusting when women aren't around, so they next time they're going to invite at least one girl. We'll see when that next time happens. :)

A few days before he left, I had a doctor appt. I was pretty confident the baby had dropped and sure enough they confirmed she had dropped and things were starting to look like she may arrive soon. So, Derek was very nervous about leaving me, but snow was not in the forecast, so I knew if anything happened, he could make it back in time.
With that being said, I was still a little nervous about being home along. I made Jody stay with me Thursday and Friday night. But, I was going to be solo on Saturday.

Saturday afternoon, I went to get my hair done and then Jody and I grabbed lunch together. While we were eating, I saw this kid that looked really familiar walk by the window and then a man that really looked like my mom's boyfriend and the next think I knew my mom, Ron and kids were standing in front of me. Let me just say a sigh of relieve came over me because I no longer had to worry about anything because my mom would be there if anything happened. It was the firs time the kids had been to SF, so I tried my best to be a good tour guide, although I didn't move very quickly. Here they are at the Golden Gate Bridge. Jody was the photographer and I took a nap in the car. It was a beautiful day in San Francisco.

Day 1 - Maternity Leave

Here I am. . .12 more days to go. . .lets hope she arrives in less than that. :)

Today is my first official day of maternity leave. What a strange feeling. I don't have to go to work until July! I can hardly believe it. For my wedding, I took one month off of work. Beyond that, I've never had more than 2 weeks off since I graduated college, which will be 10 years ago this May. This is a much needed time away from the office.

The last two weeks I've struggled a bit with being at home. My life has been on such a routine that the lack of routine really caused me to quickly lose motivation to do anything. So, my grand thoughts of updating my blog regularly went out the window. When I wasn't working or in a meeting, I was napping or watching TV. I was the ultimate couch potato. It was truly pathetic; and I've decided completely unacceptable. So, no more couch potato ways. I've got a list projects that I've wanted to complete for a while and require limited physical activity. So, between now and when the baby is born, I will have myself on a schedule to complete these tasks and will not start my morning with the Today Show, followed by View, then some news, Martha Stewart, Dr. Phil, Oprah, etc. It is disturbing how much time can go by in front on the television.

One of today's tasks is catching up on what has happened around our house over the last two weeks. So read on. . .

(Side Note: If my belly doesn't stop itching I'm not sure what I will do. It's driving me a little insane. I'm assuming it's happening because my belly is stretched beyond belief and my skin just can't take it anymore. And it looks super disgusting. My brother touched it the other day and completely freaked out. It's so hard and slick.)

Working From Home

I've officially become a telecommuter for the remaining weeks before I go on maternity leave. This started last week. I love it and hate it all at the same time.

Why I love it:
- If I want to, I don't even have to get out of bed to work. (Which means I don't have to shower, get dressed, put on make-up or anything.)
- NO COMMUTE. . .NEED I SAY MORE.
- When I have 15 minutes of down time in between meetings or not enough time to actually accomplish a task for work, I can update my blog!
- I can sleep in, which ordinarily I wouldn't even be able to do, but I've been super tired lately.

Why I hate it:
- I've looked terrible for the last week. One day I completely forgot to brush my teeth. I hope Derek doesn't think this is my new mommy look. He may begin looking elsewhere if that is the case. :)
- I have been spoiled having breakfast and lunch prepared for me at work. Now I have to figure out what to eat and actually fix it for myself. And I need to try and make sure it's healthy. I don't like this. And it takes too much time.
- I need some people interaction! This could drive me nuts. I feel a little like a caged animal.
- I look around the house and think of all the things that need to be done, but I can't really do them. So, I add them to Derek's chore list. Derek is ready to throw my chore list out the window.

What I've learned:
- I can not be a permanent telecommuter. Maybe a day or two a week might work, but I could not do this every day, all the time. I feel like a recluse.

Information Overload

When you are pregnant, there are about a million different informational books you can read about conceiving, being pregnant, birthing, etc. It really can be overwhelming. I have a stack of books people have been kind enough to give me, but to be honest, it's too much. You really could spend all of your time obsessing about it; and in the end, your body is going to do what your body wants to do.

Throughout my pregnancy, I've been attending a prenatal yoga class in Oakland. And honestly, I think this is what has prepared me the most in the end. My instructor was a L&D nurse for a number of years and has now moved into practicing yoga and working with mommies and mommies to be. I really trust her. She held a 3 hr workshop on birthing yesterday that Derek and I attend. Call me crazy, but this picture reflects my take aways. And this is what will get me through this.

- We are mammals. No other mammals read books to prepare for birth. It happens naturally and the body knows what to do. Listen to your body.

- Fear is the enemy. Fear creates anxiety and when your mind feels anxious, your body responds to protect you from that which you are anxious or fearful. Do not fear birth, it will make things more difficult. Embrace what your body is doing and know that it is helping you see your baby.

- Gravity is your friend. Everything that is taking place with your body is flowing downward. Gravity will naturally help with this process. So, don't lay down out the gate. It will only slow you down.

- Remove any negative energy from the room. If someone or something doesn't feel right, change it.

People keep asking me if I'm afraid. And I'm truly not afraid. At some point in time, likely over the next 33 days, I'm going to have a baby. It will be the most intense physical and emotional experience I've had in my life. And I can't wait!

Baby Shower

On Saturday, my girlfriends threw me a baby shower. It was a great event. They of course did a fabulous job decorating and preparing food for the event. Megan was gracious enough to open up her home to us, even though she's getting married in one month; and I'm sure she has a million other things to be doing.
Cindy made beautiful flower arrangements and her famous cupcakes, which were fantastic and I of course had to indulge in two. Krista had fun games for us to play. We had to associate a child with it's celeb daddy. I was terrible at this and it re-enforced the fact that I don't watch enough trash TV or read the gossip rags. Maybe I need to be more in touch with pop-culture--kind of a wild concept considering my job at YouTube is all about pop-culture. Maybe I'm in the wrong job. :)
Thank you to everyone that put in all the hard work to pull this off. I really appreciate it and had a wonderful time. And thank you to those that ventured up to the North Bay to share the afternoon with me.

Here are a few pics from the day. (I don't know why they're so small and I don't have the patience to fix them.)

Belly Update

Ok. . .I've been a bit behind with the belly updates. So, I'm consolidating the Nov and Dec views. the first shot is on Thanksgiving. My dad and I are comparing our belly sizes. I think he has me beat. :)



And here I am on Christmas morning.

At this point in time, I'm feeling large. I'm really not too sure how it is possible to get any bigger; and clothes as becoming an issue. I'm not fitting into my maternity clothes. Derek's clothes are looking pretty appealing to me. I've taken over his fleece jackets. And shoes, forget about them. While I was still a little stylish at Thanksgiving in my boots, Crocs and Ugs are now my new found friends; and the only thing I can get my feet into.

I started taking antenatal tests, fetal stress tests on Xmas Eve. And they discovered I'm having a few too many contractions. So, I'm in taking it very easy mode, which believe it or not is difficult to accomplish. It's funny, I use to watch my mom and she could never sit still and just relax. She was always up doing something. It really annoyed me. But I watch myself now and I am totally in that mode. Every time I sit down, I think of the 100 things I should be doing instead of sitting. So, it's been a tough transition. Not to mention, TV is terrible and I think I become less intelligent every time I turn on the TV. I find myself watching episode after episode of Law and Order (although, that's not really a new thing for me) or Locked Up. Derek isn't thrilled with my interest in Locked Up. I blame it on growing up in Corcoran.

Happy Holidays From the Lindgrens

I can't believe it has almost been a month since my last entry. I'm not doing a very good job of achieving my once a week goal at this point. I'm hoping this will improve in '09. My excuse for this is my energy level is really low and I'm back to needing to sleep a lot. So, the time I have available is being sucked up by work and then preparing things for the baby's arrival.

On that note, I did not send out Holiday cards this year, which is highly unusual for me, but I just couldn't get around to it; and then time had ran out. So, this will serve as the Lindgren Holiday greeting. We wish you a wonderful holiday season with your friends and family; and hope that '09 will bring you great joy and happiness.

So. . .what have we been up to since my last post?

- Maren and I have been growing, growing, growing. I pass people on the street and they tell me I must be due any day now; and I have to let them know we're hanging in there until February. I usually receive a shocked look at this and very frequently, especially Asian women, will tell me there is no way. The baby will come before February. So, we will see. Also, they very frequently say I'm having a boy, which at this point has caused me to start questioning the ultrasound given it has come up so often. But I feel like it's Maren that's in there and if it's not, then we'll make some last minute adjustments. :)
- Our landscaping is finished and looks great; however, we've had freakishly cold weather in the Bay Area lately, so now I'm a little paranoid the plants may die from the freezing temperatures that were not set to arrive until January. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that will not be the case.
- Maren's room is under way. I'm spent a ton of time getting all of my stuff out of the room and trying to find places to put it in our tiny little house. By some miracle, I think it's now all under control. Most of the furniture is here and all of the bedding is ready. This weekend is the weekend things really get started. Nicole has graciously volunteered to paint the room. So, I purchased everything last week and painting will begin shortly. I can't wait to see how it turns out. The colors are brown, white, lime green and pink.
- And rates are low folks, so get out there and refinance. This is always a lovely experience of digging up a ton of paperwork and preparing things, but the reward or a lower mortgage payment is what is pushing me forward on this one.
- Derek has been in nesting mode for quite a while now. He has a new project to work on every weekend. And when there isn't a project, he goes into a little bit of a panic mode thinking he must be forgetting something. This month he has finished our window seals in the kitchen, hung wood blinds, hauled all of my Christmas decor in and out of the garage for me so I could decorate, purchased and put together new dressers and shelves for our bedroom and this weekend he is patching and priming the room to be painted and re-grouting the tile on our bathroom counter top. He is quite the handy man around the house and I am thankful for that.
- Griffin has recovered fully from his Thanksgiving craziness and is back to his old self. He was able to hit the trails with his dog group again this week and I can tell he's a much happier guy because of it. He loves to get out there and just run.
- And some exciting news. . .we had dinner with Jason (the best man at our wedding) and Joe on Thursday night and they surprised us with their Christmas card announcing they were married on September 22nd. So, they made it in before prop 8 was passed. We're very happy for them and can't wait for them to have a big celebration bash. Congratulations Jason and Joe. And we have two other friends that have gotten engaged Susie (one of my bridesmaids) and Nikki. So, we're going to be spending lots of time at weddings in '09.

Happy Holidays to everyone!
Shana, Derek and Griffin

What A Wild Week

Over the last seven days, I have had so much happening, it's nuts. Here are just a few things I've done.

- Hosted a sales conference for work all week last week. I was at work until at least 7:00 every night.
- My brother and his girlfriend Sherri moved from Austin, TX, they arrived last Thursday and are staying with us until their appt is ready on the 1st.
- On Friday I was lucky to have a friend in town and her husband, Katie and Ryan, that I don't see very often because they live in Utah. We had a great dinner with them; and I really enjoyed seeing them.
- I attended a major community event for YouTube on Saturday afternoon. Go to YouTube and search for YouTube Live if you want to see the footage.
- Jody's birthday was on Saturday, we had a little celebration that evening at Little Star Pizza.
- I attended my friend Megan's bridal shower on Saturday
- I registered for my baby shower on Sunday. My great friend Ann, drove from Stockton to help me figure out everything Maren and I will need. Thank you!
- We hired a landscaper to finish our front yard project and solidified all the details on Sunday.
- My dad and Jody finished all the hardscape of the front yard on Monday before the landscaper arrived on Tuesday to begin the project.
- Griffin, my dog, started acting a little funny on Monday. He wasn't eating his food.
- On Tuesday, he started throwing up and I decided to take him to the ER that night. We were there from 8:30-12:30 pm.
- Griffin still didn't look well this morning, so my dad took him to the vet. And he is now in surgery because he ate something that is blocking his intestines. Crazy Dog!
- Oh. . .I forogt that I started going to the chiropractor 3x per week last week, so have had to do that too.
- And my mom and her boyfriend arrive tonight for Thanksgiving.

So. . .that was a snapshot of the last seven days. Isn't life suppose to slow down when you're pregnant?

And now it's Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for and I'm hoping for a relaxing weekend; and I'm looking forward to eating a lot of pie. I think I've earned it. :)

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

7 Months Update

I am now 27 weeks pregnant and in my seventh month. This is a shot of my growing belly and my new hairstyle. I thought I looked more stylish with it, but both Derek and Nicole's first comments were, "you got a mom cut." So while I love the change, we'll see if I continue to get more of those comments; and if I do, I may need to rethink things.

What am I feeling at 27 weeks? My back is killing me! I've started going to the chiropractor. I will be on a 3x a week treatment plan for one month and then we'll see how things are going from there. I have a belly brace and a crazy pillow that wraps all around me to help with things. Hopefully the chiropractor will do the trick though; otherwise, I may not be walking by the end of this adventure. Other than that, things are going well. She is a very active little one that loves to do aerobics between 7:00 and 9:00 each night.

Griffin: "I love poop!"

This is Griffin and unfortunately our bath tub, after one of his fun filled adventures with his dog walker and the dog pack. On Tuesday, he had a little too much fun. This is one thing I will never understand about this dog. He loves poop!! And most importantly, he loves to roll in poop whenever he can find it, especially if it is a large pile of poop. So, he found a nice pile of cow poop while out with his friends and went to town rolling in it. The dog walker did his best to try and wipe he off, but he was still a total mess when I got home. His collar was covered in poo; and he smelled really bad. I think he thought he smelt like roses though. :) Needless to say, we (meaning Derek) spent the next hour scrubbing him in the tub. Our tub was a total mess; and then Derek had to proceed to thoroughly scrub the tub. This was one of his first tub scrubbing adventures; and he very quickly reminded me that I need to hurry up and hire a housekeeper because he's not doing that again. :) Griffy is nice and clean now though, thanks to his papa.

Proud to Be An American?

This one may be a little controversial, but I felt I needed to say it.

Election Day 2008. . . what a historic event. We live in a country where we have proven all men are created equal. It was a beautiful thing to watch. And I am excited about the potential for the country. I believe things will change; and I believe we are going to be in a much healthier spot in the next 10 years.

In California there was a bit of a dark shadow cast over this great event. While on a national stage we stated as a nation all men are created equal, we did not make that statement here.

I have considered myself a patriortic person my entire life. I have also been someone that has believed in God. As a partriot and as a religious person I know I have chose to live in a country where we believe all men are created equal and we believe in the separation of church and state. I think many of us forget these two things when it comes to our voting cycle. There are things we must accept as Americans. There are many people all around us with different religous and moral standards; however, we are all created equal according to our legal law.

Those in support of this proposition were concerned about the impact it could have on their children in school. Another wonderful thing about our country is we have a choice in where we send our children to school. We can choose to send our children to school where we can guarantee what is being taught is directly in line with our own personal beliefs. We should embrace this option if we are not tolerant to other ideas.

As I look at marriage in America, I see many many flaws. Our divorce rate is out of control. Hetrosexuals are not getting it right either. I don't see any laws trying to pass against those that have been married multiple times because they can't figure out what marriage really means. I don't see people concerned with what their children learn when Tommy has 5 brothers and sisters all from different fathers or mothers from various marriages or un-wed pregnancies. There are so many ways in which "marriage" is flawed in society today, especially if you hold it against a religous standard.

In spite of all of this, we have chose to say gays do not have the same rights as others; and that two people that love one another can not legally marry.

This makes me very sad. Over the past 10 years, I have been fortunate to bring into my life many gays. Two of Derek's best men in our wedding are gay. They are wonderful people who deserve to have every right I have as an American.

For everyone that voted Yes on Prop 8, if your child comes to you and tells you he or she is gay, are you going to want them to have the same rights you have in this country? I hope so.

Happy Birthday Grandma Roark

This is grandmother's weekend for me in the blog world. Today is my Grandma Roark's 76th birthday. Unfortunately we were not able to make it down to Corcoran to celebrate the day with her, but I wanted to acknowledge it nonetheless.

Over the past ten years, I think I've grown closer to my grandma than I was as a child. On my dad's side of the family, I was the only girl. So, the majority of things we did with that family was centered around the boys. I was able to get in and hang with the best of them, but I leaned towards wanting to hang out with my girl cousins on the other side of the family a bit more.

I've really enjoyed getting to know my grandma more as an adult and better understanding her personality and the person that she is overall. She is the matriarch of our family. She is the pillar that has held everyone up during hard times. She is very caring and would do anything for her family. Derek always comments that he finds it odd my dad still calls her mama, but it is her love for him that keeps him calling her that.

Since I'm not there to take photos of this years party, I thought I'd throw up a few from her 75th last year. Happy Birthday Grandma!

My dad, Grandma, Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jimmy

Grandma and her long time friend Clemme

Arkansas (Continued)

Ok. . .I'm still trying to get the hang of blogging and formatting. So, I'm having to break this into two posts to get the pictures right. I'm sure I'll get the hang of this soon. :)

Here is a picture of the house in Arkansas I own. It is 2x the size of my house in Oakland and was 1/6th the price. Maybe I should move to Arkansas! I returned from my trip to find out my renters are moving out. That was super exciting news. :) So, if you know anyone interested in this lovely home and would like to live in the beautiful Ozarks, let me know. (I should do a blog entry on rental properties. I have too many stories to tell. . .unfortunately.)

Outside of spending time with my grandma. I also, hung out a lot with my aunt Tammy and her family: Eddie, Kyle, Lacey and Trey. They are great people and I love them to death. And my uncle Rick decided to stop by and say hello a few times while I was there too.

Arkansas

Last week, I spent 5 days in Arkansas visiting my family. (This trip reminded me how bad I am about taking pictures and I really need to step it up a notch.) I grew up very close to my mother's side of the family. They lived in a "suburb" of our small town. It was about 15 minutes away and we were always together. I spent so much time at my grandparents house. It was like a sanctuary. I remember very often escaping to their house when times seemed tough and it always made me feel better to be there. My grandparents played a very important role in my childhood and I can only hope my daughter, and any other future children, will have as wonderful of a relationship with their grandparents as I had with mine. I really had a special relationship with my grandmother. I was very close to her. She was a rock that I needed at various points in my life. And I'm so grateful for her in so many ways. Over the years she has started to develop Alzheimer's. This is a disease that runs in our family, so we're all looking to that day when it lands within us. The disease has been impacting my grandmother for a few years now, but it has really impacted her life over the last year and a half. It is hard to say this, but she's just not the same person anymore. I found myself getting very frustrated with her while I was there--which saddens me. But I had to keep reminding myself that the person I know is hidden somewhere within the strange new body and mind; and I needed to have patience because I knew she was in there, but it was very difficult. My aunt Tammy is the person that cares for her on a regular basis and I now understand the unbelievable challenge she faces on a daily basis; and I have to thank her from the bottom of heart for taking on this task and trying her best to remain sane while doing it. I am thankful for the time I was able to spend with them; and the next time I see them it will be with my own family in tow. I hope this will be at a point when my grandmother will still remember and understand that this is my child because she always told me I'd be a good mother and she couldn't wait for me to have babies. I love you grandma.

On my trip last week


On my trip last week.

At my wedding.

My mom, grandma and Tammy at Christmas the year before my grandfather passed away.

Me, Jody and Grandma Thanksgiving the year after my grandfather passed away.