Family in North Carolina

I have to confess, I was nervous about meeting Ed’s family in North Carolina this past weekend. It was one of those moments when you insert the only thing you know into the circumstances to come. And every time I think about introducing Ed to a mob of my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, well…that might be a situation best avoided.

Thankfully Ed’s Aunt Sandy, Aunt Carol and Aunt Carol’s three children, their spouses and five grandchildren were wonderful to meet. Aunt Sandy, who never married, and Aunt Carol, who is a widow, live together in a older ranch home in a very pleasant neighborhood outside of Charlotte. (The pleasant neighborhood alone was an extremely nice change from Pittsburgh.) They’re in their early 60s. Aunt Sandy is a former hair dresser who struggles to get around after operations that attempted to correct decades of working on her feet. Aunt Carol still works, a couple of days a week at home. Both were welcoming, happy to meet me and delighted to see their “Eddie” again.

We spent Thursday resting after a very nice trip down (the trees changing color in the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia were GORGEOUS!). On Friday, out came the old pictures. Ed has very few pictures of himself growing up and most of those are from his teenage years. His parents don’t have any either. (So bizarre to a firstborn who has twice as many photos than any of her siblings!) But Aunt Sandy had a couple of boxes full of old pictures. Not just of Ed, but of the whole family – black and whites of her and her sisters and parents, grandparents and other relatives; pictures of Ed and his cousins growing up as color came into existence; and more modern pictures of weddings and the next generation. Ed and I sorted through them, putting them in piles I neatly stacked. (The aunts figured out I’m very organized pretty quickly.) And the next afternoon we spent a couple of hours scanning at least half of them into the computer so now Ed has some pictures of himself.

So, when I met the cousins Amy, Dan and Dana the next day along with Amy’s husband Chris and Dan’s wife Erica (Dana’s husband was working) and their kids Seth, Sophia, Logan, Molly and Chase I already knew more than they would have probably liked. And had very nice blackmail pictures within reach. But, truly, it was a never-a-dull-moment time as I got to know the family. Jokes about Dana’s new hair color. (Ronald McDonald red anyone?) Impressing Seth because I hit the target with his Nerf gun on my first try. Holding baby Logan (getting practice!). Lots of laughs and jibes between the siblings. The kids sat down only long enough to eat. And the highlight had to be the never-met-a-stranger-four-year-old Sophia who loved her “new cousins”, dressed up in her Elsa costume and gave everyone a concert of Let it Go complete with a very dramatic bow.

I think I passed the initiation. I did survive through a couple of old family videos. And I proved that I can cook. I might be a little quieter than the rest of the clan, but maybe they need someone like that. Because Aunt Sandy wants us to move to North Carolina. At least then I could guarantee my kids have a nice Southern accent and completely avoid the awful Pittsburgh one!

Headed South

Bright and early (or just early since the sun won’t be up yet), Ed and I will be leaving for Charlotte, North Carolina for a long weekend. It’s the postponed half of our honeymoon. We compromised when we got married: he wouldn’t invite his entire family of aunts, uncles and cousins who now live North Carolina and we would drive down to visit.  It’s just taken us til October…

But the drive should be gorgeous. South through Pennsylvania, into West Virginia, then through the Shenandoah of Virginia (where I could live – imagine living in a state with such beauty AND mounds of history) and on into North Carolina. The perfect time to go down if you want cooler weather and beautiful trees.

We’ll be there until Sunday, staying with his two aunts and we’ll see all the cousins and their families on Saturday. I confess I’m a little nervous. I’m never overly exited about being in a new place and having to meet dozens of people at once. And when I think of what it would be like if the situation were switched and Ed was meeting my extended family…well, I can’t say that would make for a 100% enjoyable experience.

But I have to confess I am looking forward to looking at all sorts of old pictures of “Little Eddie” that his Aunt Sandy has and listening to old stories. Sadly, they aren’t native to North Carolina (they all moved down there from up here when Ed was a teenager), so I won’t hear any grand Confederate-the-South-will-rise-again history. But I guess even 100% Yankee families can have interesting family histories.

...I am a Witness

Our new little one is due to arrive somewhere around April 21. As we were announcing the news, I have had four friends also announce the coming of babies in April. One friend is due in early April, two in mid-April and the other about the same time as myself.

All of us are in different circumstances. This is my first. Jaci is having her fourth and everything seems to be going very well (although she is VERY tired from moving on top of being pregnant). Erin is due with her third, and when her sister Allyson told me, she asked for prayer. Erin has two little girls, but she has miscarried her last several pregnancies. We are now rejoicing that she is further along in her pregnancy than she has been during the last few.

Charity is having number three also, and this in itself is a miracle. She had concerns that she would never be pregnant. And Tirzah is having number two. They are just now spreading the news because she was at a high risk, the baby’s heart beat being very low. She was taking it easy (as easy as chasing a one-year-old can be) and we were praying the Lord would take care of this little one. Just this week, she had an appointment on Monday to hear the baby’s heartbeat. Still low, the doctor was very concerned and they did an ultrasound on Wednesday. I got a text that afternoon that the baby’s heartbeat was at 153 and the baby seemed to be doing so well, they moved her due date up! I sat at my desk and cried in joy.

Today, Ed and I went to the doctor for my second check-up. I was a little concerned, wanting to talk to the doctor about something that had happened the day before that scared me. She told me it was nothing to worry about and then we got to listen to the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. You could hear it pounding in there as if the baby were running a race, right at 160. You should have seen the look on Ed’s face!

As my friend Haley signs off on her e-mails:

God is good…

…I am a witness.

God is Good...

I’m a thinker. Not a deep, deep thinker like some people I know who can wax eloquently quite philosophically. But I am always thinking about something, just not usually talking about it. My thoughts go all over the place. Spreadsheets for work, what to make for dinner that won’t make me sick, books I am plotting, books I want to plot, books I’m reading, places I want to go, chores I need to do…and more serious things like what in the world life is going to look like with a baby.

The latter has consumed my most serious thoughts as late, and I can’t deny that some of my thoughts cause me worry. Can we make ends meet if I don’t work? Should we stay in the duplex where we presently live? What sorts of things does the baby need versus what sort of things does his/her new mother just want? Is the baby healthy? What happens if something happens to the baby? Am I eating too much? Not enough? Exercising and sleeping enough? Or too much?

Not to mention that life goes on with or without a baby. Ed’s truck has inspection this winter and it needs work if it expects to pass. Or do we try to squeeze some pennies and purchase something else? Ed’s had to work a couple of Sundays lately, which bothers me and causes questions to arise about his job and what is right or wrong.

Thankfully, I have a God I can take all these troubles to.

In the long wrong, my troubles and worries are quite small. I read the Voice of the Martyrs newsletter and slap myself for worrying about affording baby furniture. But, to me, my concerns can often seem so overwhelming I just sit down and cry. Again, thankfully, my God knows this.

Perhaps that is why, as of late, every time I open my Bible “randomly”, I am brought to a passage where God provides. Whether it is Christ telling His disciples that God feeds the birds of the air and clothes the flowers, or Habakkuk rejoicing though he has nothing but God, or the Lord providing a means for the kings of Judah to defeat enemies four or five times their size. The needs are all different. But God can meet them all.

Because God is good.

Almost There...

I’ve got the Social Security card.

I’ve got the voter registration card.

I’ve got the passport.

Now all I need is to fill out forms to get the driver’s license fixed.

Finally – I’m nearly 100% Melissa Sturm Camus!