The Special Night

My Valentine's Special Night Out (not on Valentine's) was awesome!

It started with both Glenn and I being ready at 6:00pm. At 6:15, the rental car showed up, complete with bubbly and champagne flutes. (Don't worry, it was non-alcoholic) As my husband opened the car door for me, there on my seat was a beautiful longstem red rose dressed in pretty ribbon.

We headed to the Staunton Grocery, a very nice upscale restaurant, where my husband had a 5 course tasting arranged for us. The food itself was delicious - but the presentation was stunning in and of itself. The neat thing was even though we both were having the tasting menu, both of our tastings were entirely different. (So we also tasted each others!) Of course, my favorite was the desert! Mine was an orange carrot cake on a caramel sauce with a side of gelato (yummie!) Glenn had a baked whole pear with a caramelized sauce and rich milk chocolate - it made for a stunning combination of texture and flavor as it mixed on your palette! We also had handmade sodas that were out of this world! The main course of beef (for me with a reduction sauce and fancy mushrooms) and pork (for Glenn with a wonderful herb crusting and reduction sauce) were both amazing! Dinner was slow paced and relaxing. Glenn and I were able to have wonderful conversation - we didn't feel rushed or hurried - in fact when we went to leave, we realized we had been at dinner for over 3 hours!

I wish I was a better writer so that I could put words to my thoughts and feelings of that night. For today, I will have to be satisfied with the single words that come to mind:

CHERISHED

LOVED

BELOVED

BEAUTIFUL

And for those who have asked - here are some pics of me at 17 and 1/2 weeks. Note: the part that is "popping" isn't necessarily my belly (although it is catching up!)

Like I told Glenn the other day, "I know I'm pregnant, but right now I just feel fat." I can't wait to actually have the 'baby bump' so that people will know that I'm pregnant. But, truly, I am just trying to relish each stage of this whole life creating thing because already it seems to be going by so very fast! Soon I'll be having my first ultrasound at 20+ weeks!

And, no, that is not a tattoo on my arm - I had a rather large vase that jumped off the shelf at Valentine's Day and decided to use my head and arm to break it's fall before it crashed into a million pieces on the floor.

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT!

Of my special dinner out/date night with my hubbie! He's been out of town all day, so I can't wait to see him and spend a relaxing dinner with him.

Recovered

Valentine's Day is officaly almost a week past *yippiee*

I am thankful to say that we all survived and it was a good holiday. My dear Husband did a great job of encouraging me to rest and sleep (and those that know me well - EAT!) as much as possible considering that I was on my feet 9-12 hours a day.

Not only that, but on The Day, after it was all over and I was all comfey, clean and in a fluffy robe - he gave me a V day gift. Now note that we don't typically celebrate until the following week because it is just toooo crazy. But there, sitting on my pillow was a beautiful cloth covered gift box with the cutest bear with ribbon embroidery on it's tummy. Inside was bath salts, bubble bath, bath gel, chocolates and a really neat book. I was surprised and felt so loved and taken care of - but it didn't stop there. He said there was more. More??!! This is enough, why more?? He then told me that he had a very special date night planned for this Saturday the 21st.

Wow. It was so unexpected. I was overwhelmed. I was close to tears. I can't explain how his demonstration of love affected my heart. Even as I type this, I am still overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness. You see, not only did he help me after he got off work and on Saturday - but he was having a very busy week of his own at his job. So to know that he had thought of me in the midst of all the craziness both of our jobs entailed, when I personally was just trying to have the energy to make it through - I was blessed beyond words. Beyond words.

Needless to say, I am soooooo looking forward to tomorrow night!

I have the BEST husband in the world!

So it Begins...

In case you haven't looked at your calender recently - this Saturday is Valentine's Day. For a florist - this is a very big deal. It means long hours, endless numbers of dozen rose and other arrangements and, well to put it mildly, lots of of flowers.

So today, on my day off, I stopped in to do a couple of quick things....several hours later - I finally get to continue with my day off. *grin* But I can't complain. In fact my heart is that I don't want to complain. In fact, I have been asking the Lord for a BUSY V-Day. That he would inspire men that the beauty of flowers speak volumes and can do something in a woman's heart that she can't even describe. (If you've read the book Captivating - I think it has a lot to do with Stacey's explanation of the need for beauty)

So in a 'down' economy, I'm believing God for a great holiday that will provide not only for me but for my regular employees, and those that I have hired that might need the extra boost during these winter months. I'm believing for a blessing that flies in the face of everything that the news has been telling us. I'm believing for the favor of God for this week. Not just for me but for all those working for me as well. That this will be a holiday for us as well - that my store will be filled with a party-like atmosphere and that all of us would be a blessing to those we are serving this week.

My prayer is that you would experience Valentine's Day in a new way. That God would amaze you this week with some beauty of his creation - just for you, because you are worth the extravagance of heaven.

Factor this...

At a recent Dr's appointment with my midwife, I got the results of recent bloodwork. I was looking forward to finding out my blood type - Now I don't know why I never knew my blood type, I guess I didn't think to ask.

Imagine my surprise when chatting with the midwife, she casually mentions that I'm RH- . HUH? Did I know that? Ummm, nope. But ok, so I'm A-.

As she launches into the explanation of how a negative Rh factor is handled, in the back of my mind I find myself saying "ok Lord, that's something that you'll just have to take of for me" and immediately, any uneasiness and worry went right out of me. Thanks Lord.

So yes, there are things I need to be aware of and watchful for - and other than additional shots later in the pregnancy and after delivery - no big deal. And after the past year and a half of lots of shots for allergy therapy (which is 4 shots at a time that are painful!) This will be nothing.

I joked with my husband that at least if someone were going to be Rh-, at least it was me since I don't mind shots anymore.

Land HO! Part II

As mentioned in the previous post - things were moving quickly! After securing a loan, what with all the weirdness with the banks ( they practically asked for my first born - you know then one that wasn't concieved yet?!) but no problems, just a lot of excess paperwork.



Anyway, we were (notice the word WERE) scheduled for an end of October closing. The seller had pushed to get the access road (right of way) in to the property so that we could close and we were under way - last thing to do before we could go to closing was that the seller needed to get the deed approved by the powers that be.



Enter an appearent set back.



Without going into lots of detail lets just say that governmental agencies took their time to approve the division. When faced with a screeching halt to fast moving plans - yikes!
"ummm Lord, what's going on here? I thought this was your blessing, your favor... this situation doesn't look like favor." My husband and I chose to believe that God was still in this. That in the midst of this God would show more favor and we kept confessing that in the end we would see where this turned out for good for us. Because, really, we weren't planning to build right away, so what's the rush. The biggest inconvience was that we were left with loose ends - we were 1/2way land owners. We couldn't call it ours - because it wasn't but in a way it was ours because of the contract and out intent to buy - life, where the land was concerened, was in limbo.



I don't know about you, but I HATE, yep, you read that right - I HATE limbo. And guess what, we were living in limbo. Not that it has been the first time we've been in a peroid of exteneded limbo and I'm sure won't be the last. But maybe we learned something from the last time, because this time around, limbo wasn't so bad. Maybe it was because we chose to REST in God and believe the He was ACTIVELY working on our behalf. We started to choose to look at anything positive concerning the limbo peroid. Things like, we wouldn't have payments until later, we really were not in a hurry, we wanted to extend grace to the seller who was in an even more difficult place. And wouldn't that be nice for the seller not to have paranoid buyers breathing down his neck over a situation that was beyond his control??!! Hmmm... maybe there was opportunity to call down God's favor not on just ourselves, but on the seller as well.



Needless to say, God showed favor. God worked everything out. God brought us to closing. As we left the closing, our realator tells us that this was one of the most complicated and oddest land closings he had seen. And not because of us, not because of the seller - we were all good - just other factors beyond any of our control - but as it turns out NOT beyond the long arm of the Lord.



This whole situation reminds me of something I heard Grahm Cooke say in a message regarding our inheritance. He said " Sometimes you have to fight for it!" I believe that was something great God was teaching us - how to fight for our inheritance. We believed we had heard from God concerning this piece of land - and so we fought for our inhertiance - one way was not by throwing a temper tantrum when things were weird, but by showing grace (a fruit of the Spirit which are mighty weapons of spiritual warfare), resting (rest is a weapon) and believing that we were in the middle of God's favor and confessing that God would cause things to turn out better than before.



So how did God make things turn out better????


We don't start payments until March, we were able to save up extra durring the months we were waiting to close and we ended up with a better interest rate in January than we would have had in October.

So this is part one of a dream - a dream bigger then us. But then God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond what I can ask for or even dream. Lord, I want to dream big -

Land HO!

Once upon a time, last July......

Randomly, Hubby and I have been on the lookout for land. Not hunting like Captin Ahab. Just casualy looking ~ dreaming really.

Sometimes God has a way of making reality better than dreams.

Exhibit A:

While keeping up with listings on the MLS, I came across a property that was a little bit bigger than what we were looking for BUT still in out general price range and the general area we would want to be. We drove out one evening, and while hubby liked the general area, he wasn't overly impressed by the lot. But we did have a random question about it. So wifie called the listing realtor to ask questions.

Enter Exhibit B:

Realtor answered said questions but then chose to mention that there happened to be another parcel not yet listed because they just divided it off a larger tract. Interestingly, it was more secluded ( a fact that Hubbie liked, which means we drove back out to take a look)

As we pulled onto to lot, we liked the fact that it had 2 groves of walnut trees and was gently rolling which would bode well for a walk-out basement (something we would love to have in a house) After hiking up to the top of the hill, I turned around to see what kind of views the parcel offered ....

Stunned. Amazed. I uttered one word - wow!

Now, I do realize that when purchasing real estate, it is always good to go back for a second or even 3rd visit. So we did. We got others people's opinions, their thoughts on the good, the bad and the ugly concerning the lot.

Interestingly, the more we visited, the more we fell in love with the place. We weren't all 'head in the clouds' , we were looking at all the potential downfalls of the property too...and wondering about potential neighbors....

Enter Exhibit C:

Driving back to measure how long the driveway might need to be, we passed the person who would be our next door neighbor.... this person looked familiar to me.... this person WAS familiar to me.... this potiental future neighbor is in fact our accountant.

Hmmmm....makes you think doesn't it?

Things have been moving fast, or at least it feels fast.

This has been a whirl-wind, but then God is in the whirl-wind.

To be continued......

Hubby walking on the land - this would roughly be the view from the back of the house.