Matthew 5:4

It's hard for me to know what to write here.  So many things happen when you are expecting a child.  You begin to make room for them.  In your life, in your home, and in your heart.  Life is so different now and I am having to learn to adjust. 

I wrote the following in an email to friends just after Michael had passed, but I wanted to share it here too: 

"I know some would find what I'm about to say strange, or maybe not even believe that such a thing is possible, but I have never felt abandoned by God throughout this journey so far.  And I have felt at times great comfort and peace knowing that there are others out there supporting us through prayer.  I want to thank you all for this.  Even in this time of great pain and sorrow Glen and I have felt blessed; particularly we have been so grateful for God's mercy towards us."

It is still quite true.  I have not felt abandonment.  I have known His mercy. 

Today at mass we read the beatitudes.  I didn't know that this would be the gospel reading this week.  It was coincidence then, or perhaps not, that this one beatitude in particular has been on my mind all week:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has reached out to me and my family during this difficult time.  I have been so touched by the many messages I have received over the last couple of weeks.  I have been uplifted by your prayers and by your kindness.  I have been so thankful for them.  I have indeed been comforted.  So thank you.

God bless.

Michael Anthony, Pray for us

Fear not, for I am with you,

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

On Wednesday, January 12th at 5:02 a.m. Michael Anthony was stillborn.

Michael was laid to rest this past Monday.  Our priest was there and we had a private memorial service to honor his much too short life.

Please pray for me and my husband as we mourn and grieve the loss of our sweet baby boy.

Michael, we miss you.  We will love you and remember you all the days of our lives.

About those goals...

If you've been paying attention to the goal list on the left-hand side of my blog (and I don't really expect that you have) well then you'd notice that I haven't crossed off too many of the items over there.  I originally talked about the inspiration for this list back in April of last year.  I didn't mention it at the time, and in truth I'm not sure that I realized it at that time, but part of the inspiration for wanting to write-out some very specific goals for 2010 stemmed from some feelings that I'd had the year after Nathan was born.  I think I felt as if for too long I was in survival mode.  I needed something external, something more tangible, to get me back to feeling more like myself again.  As I mentioned in a follow-up post, a lot of my goals were cooking related.  I love cooking.  I love preparing healthy and homecooked meals for my family.  I think after making the same things over and over again for more than a year I really wanted to get back to the joy of cooking again.  And I wanted to learn some recipes and acquire some new skills in the kitchen.  Getting back  in the kitchen and feeling that joy again was a big step towards me feeling more like me.  (Now, I will say that this is not the only way that I identify myself, but it is a big part of how I care for my family). 

While I didn't get to cross-off many of the items on my list, just making the list and starting down that path actually did make a big difference to me last year.  For that I am happy.  In the end, there were three big things that got in the way of me being able to focus on getting more of those goals accomplished (and I do want to be clear that I am not disappointed about this in any way).  They were:  deciding to purchase a house, deciding to homeschool Gabe, and becoming pregnant with our third child.  All of these things took-up a lot of time and energy.  They required a lot of my attention and focus.  And in the case of becoming pregnant, well, the first three months of pregnancy for me, as for many women, are/were very tiring. 

I'm happy for what I did accomplish last year and instead of starting all over again with a whole new set of goals this year I'm simply going to keep working on the ones already on my list.  I've removed a few of them simply because they may be put off indefinitely or at least for longer than one year, for example #29 - start running again.  I don't foresee being ready to run again next year.  Even if my body is ready, I will have to sort out all of the logistics of when, where and how do I run with three little ones.  I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying I have no desire to make things more difficult for myself than they need to be.  Adjusting to life as a family of five will be challenging enough.  In a good way. =)  I've also removed, reading one book per month and making one layout per week.  I'm not going to go into the details of why as I think the reasons are pretty boring.  I'll just say that my mind and creativity don't work that way.  I can't force those two things and generally I am happy with how much I read and create.

One last thing I want to touch on before I leave off, last year I purchased a new cookbook to help me achieve my goal of learning more about Japanese cooking:

I feel like I did learn more and I had a lot of fun in the process.  I also learned that I have a lot more to learn!  But that's okay.  I'm still enjoying the process and I hope to continue learning, with help from my newest cookbook:

thank you sweets!  Tomorrow we're headed to the Japanese market to pick-up a few pantry staples along with some other things so that I can cross more items off my list.  And, I think I'm going to bring my camera along, but I don't know if I'll be brave enough to take any photos.  Although, given how unashamed the Japanese are of using their cameras pretty much anywhere I really shouldn't be embarrassed or timid about it... we'll see.

Welcome, 2011!

We're home!  The reason I've been away from my blog for so long is that we were in New Jersey to spend Christmas with my husband's family.  We had a wonderful time, but it's always good to be back home (goodness, there is nothing like sleeping in your own bed!)  I'll try to post a few photos and some details of our trip next week.

While I was away I wanted to take the opportunity to step away from my blog and the internet in general and hence, while I could have posted from my in-laws house in the end I decided against it.  I did check my email and visit Studio Calico every now and then.  It was my birthday last month and I decided to treat myself to an add-on, a rarity for me. =)

So, we're home and I'm sure it will take a few days to get back into our routines.  I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I kind of strive on routine.  Not a strict one, but I like when our lives follow a rhythm. 

There is so much to share, I have some posts in my head that need to get written and posted.  For now, I'll leave you with this, my contribution to the WCS January Gallery:

I wrote a few weeks ago that I thought our baby would be a girl.  Obviously, I was wrong. =) 

This month's gallery features the black and white photo.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to scrapbook the first image of our new baby.  This layout was made almost entirely from Studio Calico's December kit, Metropolitan.  Now, SC doesn't need my help selling kits, they do well enough I am certain.  I will say that this is one of my favorite kits, not just of 2010, but since I started subscribing.  I just checked and as of this writing this kit is still available, which is surprising.  There are four exclusive SC papers in this kit and they are all so colorful and happy I couldn't resist using all of them on this page.  I thought they were a great contrast to the black and white images.

Until next time, wishing you and your family a blessed and happy new year!!