And then there were three...

This past week we had the pleasure of announcing (finally) our pregnancy to co-workers and friends. While our family has known for many weeks, it feels good to finally be able to talk about our news and not have to hide it anymore! Which means I can now fill the world in on how my life has drastically changed in the last 12 weeks. Let's start with the basics. I am not really having morning sickness which is a HUGE blessing, especially with diabetes. I do, however, get quite queasy around 8:30pm every night until about 10pm. I have come to expect it and just use the time to watch some TV or go to bed early. I feel like I sleep and eat constantly. Supposedly, the little baby inside me, who is still somewhere between the size of a plum and a kiwi, is not using that much of my energy yet. Ha! I will be past my first trimester on Friday and I am so ready for the second trimester which brings more chances to see ultrasounds, feel the baby move and hopefully, less queasy feelings.

Thankfully, diabetes and pregnancy are getting along moderately well. I am constantly fighting low blood sugar at all times of the day and night, which only contributes to my constant eating even more. I will say that I am very anxious all the time about what my blood sugar is doing, how it is affecting the baby and how I can keep it even more under control. That little screen on my glucometer that beams those numbers that will ultimately hurt or help my baby is like oxygen to me. As I am working on completing my last semester of graduate school, I am also constantly calculating all sorts of numbers in my head to the point where I am even dreaming about testing my blood sugar. I likely test 15 times a day now just because I feel like it is the only way I can know that the baby is doing fine. I suppose I am getting a little neurotic about checking, but I suppose reassuring myself of the safety of my baby and myself is only a good thing. I am so blessed to have a team of doctors and nurses who are keeping a close eye on the baby's development and a husband who is diligent in helping me make this the easiest pregnancy that it can be. We just found out the schedule of doctor's visits for the next 6 months and I will say it is quite overwhelming. Somehow I am going to make it to two different doctor's offices once a month and a third doctor a few times in there as well. By week 26, I will be going to one of three doctors every other week (which means some appointment every week) and by week 30, I will be balancing 2 different doctors every week. And that is all if everything goes perfectly, if not, it will be even more visits, more needles, more waiting rooms and more co-pays. Bring it on.

So far, in the last 12 weeks, pregnancy has taught me so much. I now understand why mothers worry when they don't know how their children are doing. My baby is closer to me than my own skin and yet I still worry. I have learned to let go of the idea that I can control diabetes completely, control pregnancy and control my crazy emotions and appetite. I have never had to trust the Lord so completely and so wholly as I do now. Growing a baby inside me is also growing trust in my heart. I am trusting that every high or low blood sugar number is not going to hurt my baby, trusting that birth defects aren't going to happen and trusting that God can handle this so much better than I can. I am learning to let my body literally be a house of peace through Jesus. The baby needs peace and rest and trust. When I am not checking my blood sugar, I am praying for the baby and vis versa. I am ready to trust the Lord to get me and the baby safely through the next 6 months and to get us safely through the next 6 hours.

Neburski

I clearly haven't written in awhile. So much has changed since my last post that I'm not sure where to begin....Let's begin with the obvious, we now live in Nebraska. Stanton, Nebraska to be exact. Jordan took a design engineer position in Norfolk, a city with a population around 24 thousand people. We live in a little town just outside the city that has about 1,500 people. 15 hundred people in relation to Denver is a HUGE difference. We have both wanted to get out of the city for so long and now that we have actually done it, I cannot even begin to describe the changes in day to day life that immediately exist. Jordan is from a small town, even smaller than where we currently live, so he is used to the mannerisms, culture and quirks of small town America much more than I am. I have visited his family often, but there are many new things I am learning by being an actual part of a smaller community. The best part about moving to Nebraska is by far the house that we get to live in on a near 1/2 acre of land. In comparison to our tiny apartment, it is enormous! I am still finding empty cabinets and drawers every day that I thought I had already filled up.

Because I am a lover of lists, the list below is a list of "adjustments" I have found myself going through in the first week of our new adventure. Swapping the big city for a small town and an apartment for a house for the first time is quite a change.

1. YARD WORK. Something I have hardly done in my life up to this point and will likely spend the rest of my existence doing on our property.
2. ENORMOUS BIRDS. Birds in NE are kind of terrifying.
3. GRASS/WEED DUMPS. This means something entirely different in Denver....ha. here in small town America, it is a place to dump your grass clippings, branches, etc where they later burn them in mass piles.
4. GAS STOVES. Gas stoves are exhilarating and scary at the same time.
5. WORK WHISTLES. Small towns have "work whistles" that sound everyday at noon and 5pm, they also double as tornado sirens....don't confuse the two.
6. INDIVIDUAL MAILBOXES. Mail carriers don't take your outgoing mail unless you know that you're supposed to put the little flag up.
7. 1400 FT ABOVE SEA-LEVEL. Baking and running are magnificent at 1400 ft.
8. SILENCE AND DARKNESS. Out here it is like silence and darkness have a presence and when they combine, it makes me feel like a little kid sprinting across the backyard, jumping into the house and slamming the door on the monsters that are surely lurking nearby.
9. BULLETIN BOARDS. Small town bulletin boards are hilarious, especially the one at Emmit's Foodtown, yes that is what our grocery store is called.
10. BLACK HOLES. Yards and garages are like black holes that suck people in and spit them out hours, even days later, only for husbands though.
11. TOWN HALL/THE COURTHOUSE. These are the places where you can get things done in minutes that would have taken hours, if not days in Denver.
12. GOING TO TOWN. Some days you don't work or need to go to the store, so you don't "go to town" (Norfolk) which means you can go an entire 24 hours without being a part of corporate America, Starbucks included. It's weird.
13. BE A WAVER. Everyone waves to each other, whether they know you or not. Avoid the confused stares and be a waver.

Those are only some of the many adjustments I have noticed here in the first week of our new home. I am learning to be a waver who does yard work, out-runs monsters, bakes perfect cookies in a gas oven, uses a mailbox correctly and dismisses work whistles like a pro. I am fitting in already. Who am I kidding? I am POSITIVE that everyone in the entire town knows I came from the city just by watching my reactions to absolutely normal life for them. Whether I fit in or not, I am loving every minute of our new home, besides being far away from family and friends. That is the biggest adjustment of all.

Year ONE.

On the eve of 2014, I can hardly believe that the weekend after next will mark our first year of marriage. So much has happened in the last year and so much is still happening! I have learned so many important lessons and grown so much and I have God and Jordan to thank for that. Here are some things I myself have learned about being a wife in 2013....

1. Trust is an amazing thing. Learning to trust the Lord to provide for us, trust my husband to do what's best for us and trust that I can let go of the little things has been quite a blessing in the past year.

2. Hobbies are important. I have re-cultivated my love for running, baking and reading and am training for a half-marathon! It is tricky to balance it all with work and grad school, but having time for just me has been really important. My health is better than ever and this half-marathon is my way of preparing myself and my diabetes to be healthy enough to have children safely at some point. Jordan has his personal hobbies too, like working out and doing projects with power tools...in our living room....

3. Honesty and tactfulness should be best friends. Nothing is better than being completely honest withy your spouse. However, an extra helping of kindness and a few hugs and kisses go a long way when it comes time to be brutally honest about something.

4. Listening is truly an art. I have learned what it means to listen to someone and to not be distracted by my phone, the mile-high pile of dirty laundry creeping into my thoughts, the list of rapid-fire questions threatening to burst forth from my very soul, etc. Of course, it is an art I am still practicing everyday (and Jordan will always be so much better at it than I am), but we are learning to use purposeful listening more often than not.

5. Couples that play together, stay together. Ha! So cliché...I had to throw at least one in there. In all seriousness though, playing board games, looking at Christmas lights, dancing in the kitchen, going to the dollar movies, playing football together, etc. have made the past year so incredibly fun. It does take work to still "date your spouse" especially with busy schedules and a grad-school budget, but that un-interrupted fun time is so refreshing.

6. Arguing is okay, but closure is crucial. After an argument, I have learned that nothing brings us back together like praying about the issue and talking about what the major "take aways" for next time are. This is Jordan's area of expertise and I have to say that stating a few concise positive "next time, I can do ____ better by..." statements and praying for guidance together really brings peace, grace and healing for everyone involved.

7. The biggest lesson I have learned, that was a piece of advice from our pastor, is to ask each other everyday "How can I serve you today?" and then make that one thing a priority. We have been consistently doing this for 6 months or so almost everyday, and I cannot even begin to express how much of a blessing it is. This simple concept helps avoid fights, hurt feelings and miscommunications. It turns "Why don't you ever help me with the dishes?" into "Today you can serve me by helping me finish all the dishes in the sink." Or "You never have time for me." Into "Today, I really just need to do something fun together after dinner." I love knowing that I am serving Jordan in the little things each day in a way that is meaningful to him and knowing he is already working on serving me takes away that nagging feeling that causes tension.

So that is the extent of my wisdom from the past year and my first year of marriage. I hope 2014 is a blessed year for everyone and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for us in year two!

Joe Diffy, Cookies n' Cream, Raccoons and the man that makes them all a story worth telling

So we have officially moved into our new apartment that is closer to work, less expensive and much bigger! We both really like being closer to work and church and not having to battle traffic nearly as much. All in all, if we have to live in Denver, this is a good place to be for now. We have many neighbors that attend our church and get to hang out with them throughout the week which is a welcome change to living too far away from anything of interest that is happening. On the marriage front, we have now been married over 8 months and are quickly approaching our first anniversary! There is too much to say in regards to our apartment and the crazy cowboy who inhabits it with me to write it all like usual, so I have compiled two concise lists of likes and dislikes for your viewing pleasure!

Likes:
1. The friends we have made since moving here!
2.The crickets we can hear as we fall asleep
3. More space to country swing dance in the living room while listening to good old country, which we just did and Jordan is still doing back and forth from the living room to the patio while raccoon hunting...more on that later
4. A patio that faces the sunrise and the moon, perfect for eating cookies n' cream ice cream and listening to Joe Diffy (which we also just did)
5. Neighbors downstairs who don't play videogames loudly, but do pray together loudly for our city and our world on Saturday nights. We can hear them while on the patio, I really should go meet them...
6. The fireplace! Which it is very nearly fall-ish enough outside to use!
7. The amount of free time I have for cooking, grad school, running, etc. now that I can drive home after work every day!

Dislikes:
1. The massive amount of raccoons we can hear in the dumpster AFTER we fall asleep....Jordan is literally chucking pebbles at them from the deck as I am typing....."I need more ammo" is what I just heard, we are likely going to get written up or arrested....but at least not bitten by rabid raccoons! Except that he just asked me if he could go chase them down the creek bed with a paintball gun....
2. The dumpster divers that take the early morning shift after the raccoons are done and bring very not quiet diesel pick-up trucks.
3. The fact that 4 miles from work still equals 20 minutes of traffic, but it's better than 30-45 minutes.

So overall, the likes outweigh the dislikes and I would honestly say that Jordan and I are much happier than we were one apartment ago. It's strange to think that this is the 7th place I have lived that is not my parent's house...hopefully someday sooner than later, we will plant some roots of our own and stop the apartment saga. For now though, I am appreciating the little things, like fireplaces and crickets and it wouldn't be nearly as exciting without the somewhat ridiculous, yet hilarious roommate that I share all these things with....

6 Months and the Sofa Stand Off

This coming weekend, Jordan and I will have been married for 6 months! It feels so much longer than that and so much shorter than that at the exact same time. We are looking forward to moving into our new apartment, much closer to work, in precisely a month. I have enjoyed the past 6 months more than any other time in my entire life and I have to say, the first year of marriage is NOT like I expected it to be. Everyone kept telling me that it was the most difficult time and the toughest year and honestly, I was nervous and prepared for conflict and frustration. However, now that the echoes of the "uphill both ways, barefoot in the snow" stories have died down, I have to say that I honestly just don't believe that it is true. Unless in the next 6 months, a cataclysmic ice age or meteor shower is going to hit, this year is not going to be the "hardest" or the "roughest." Don't get me wrong, Jordan and I do struggle with the growth and change that comes from marriage (If you don't believe me, wait until I get to the sofa....), but overall we both are loving every minute of being married. We are learning so much about each other and so much about ourselves and I can see my own selfish tendencies and God's grace more clearly than ever in our day to day routine. So enough mushy love stuff.....just know that we are happy, I am relatively healthy as usual and this whole marriage business is not only challenging, but mostly amusing, exciting and growth producing.

Now onto the topic of the sofa.....

So, Jordan and I have been discussing buying a new sofa with some of our wedding money for quite some time now. Mostly we had decided that it made sense because our new apartment is bigger, a love seat is too small for company, the gold and burgundy on the love seat were a quite frightening color scheme, etc. Okay, so that last part was my concern, not Jordan's...anyway, this past weekend we picked out the most perfect sofa in the world. I have to thank my mother-in-law for giving a little "mama wisdom" to her son and actually getting us to the furniture store because we likely would have never gotten there if she hadn't suggested we "just go look." So once we finally got to the store, it took all of about 15 minutes for us to both fall in love with the perfect soft, cushy, mocha colored sofa. So we bought it and I got a stuffed animal puppy that I named Wallace to go with it! Now that it is at home, I absolutely adore it and sit on it all the time, our apartment is starting to look like actual adults live there. My husband on the other hand, has only as of this very morning, sat on it TWICE! He said it is too pretty to sit on, so the problem of not having a couch that we can both sit on is still a problem....I am working on coaxing him over to the couch by refusing to move to the chair or the floor or anywhere else when he wants to sit by me, but let's just say it is a slow-moving process. He is convinced that he is a "messy boy" and will somehow spill on the couch, rip it or ruin it. So the moral of the story is, before you buy your first new couch as a newlywed, make sure that your husband will actually sit on it, or you will be in the exact same situation as when you didn't have a couch to begin with! I have to say that things like the sofa situation are the little quirks that I love about him though, it keeps life entertaining and I KNOW that I am probably just as strange about other things....

Tony Stark and Mac n' Cheese

We have now been married for half of a half of a year and thus far, being married only gets more fun and more entertaining as time goes on. As the weeks fly by, I am eagerly anticipating the start of my summer preschool job and the start of graduate school. I have "first day jitters" already because I just know that grad school is going to add a whole lot more to our weekly routine. Thankfully, my dear husband is extremely supportive and helpful in both calming my nerves and helping me prepare myself to begin school again. He has helped me set up my computer to be efficient for online classes, promised to help make dinners on the nights I have homework and let me vent my every apprehension over and over again. 

On the topic of computers...we recently watched "Iron Man,"one of my super-hero obsessions, and Jordan quite enjoyed it. For those who have not seen it, the main character Tony Stark (Iron Man), is a billionaire genius with the ability to invent futuristic gadgets, robots, super hero suits, etc. Since watching the technological prowess of Mr. Stark on our fancy flat screen TV last Saturday evening, Jordan has taken it upon himself to "Tony Stark-ify" our little apartment. Although he likely won't outright admit it, I know for a fact that the reason we now have a "sky drive" and a computer and xbox console that respond to nearly any plausible voice command, has more than just a little to do with watching the Iron Man movie. Don't get me wrong, checking your email by simply talking to the computer from several feet away is highly entertaining; I am just not sure how I feel about the whole technology ordeal. Those of you who know me best, know that although I am writing a blog and finally caved to getting a smartphone, these are the  very most of my technological endeavors. I will also admit that I was forcibly coerced into getting a Twitter account by my younger sisters, and to secretly wanting the ipad I get to use with my preschoolers every day. Other than all of that, I will have no part in the technology craze. I vow to stick to my paper books, my snail mail affinity and my hatred of glowing screens that interrupt family life, until the end of time. So I have decided that talking to the computer will be something I watch Jordan do in awe and not really participate in because it feels a little bit weird. 

I am secretly thrilled however, to have a husband who is so incredibly intelligent that he can write back-up code, set up voice commands and complete any sort of math, technology or problem-solving challenge thrown at him. I just don't think that way at all. In my world of finger paints, language development and preschool social-emotional needs, I can't even begin to make my brain work the way his does. Jordan's innate problem-solving skills have worked wonders on my diabetes as well. To him, diabetes is one giant math problem waiting for a perfect equation. He has made the way we manage it so scientific that I almost always know exactly what to do in any given situation. We have spreadsheets of supply orders, emergency supply stashes and a highly organized way of dealing with my blood sugar numbers. I have to say that I am an organized person, but it took someone like Jordan to organize diabetes because I think I just didn't want to. A part of me wanted to just let it exist in chaos because it can be so emotional to try and accept the reality of it, the reality that it can often not be predicted or controlled. Getting married has literally done wonders for my health on a daily basis. Despite a few new diabetes struggles, I feel more in control of what is going on inside my body than ever before and I have Mr. Hagemeyer rather than Mr. Stark to thank for that.

So here we are, a half of a half of a year into this forever business and I couldn't be more happy. I am so excited about what the future holds for me and for us as a couple. I can't wait for a career in teaching preschool, children of our own, a house and a puppy (in no particuar order). For now, even as I dream about wrap-around porches, little league baseball and having my own classroom, I am content to just sit on the living room floor eating a bowl of Kraft mac n' cheese, talking and laughing with my best friend about nothing and everything at the same time. I am thrilled to see where the future is going to take us, anxious to know how we will get there and ready to let it be all of God's business and none of mine.

Like Jesus Does...

So as of late I have been listening to a song by Eric Church on the radio called "Like Jesus Does." It has been repeatedly stuck in my head and has become one of my favorites, of course, because it combines my two favorite things: Jesus's love and country music. I just love the beautiful picture of marriage that comes through in the song (whether the author is actually married, I do not know...) that I truly appreciate and can relate to. So, in the spirit of the song that has been stuck in my head all day, I decided to write my own version. I have left the original words in red and for those of you who have never heard the song, I pasted a link below. I would like to dedicate this song to my incredibly patient, forgiving, entertaining husband and to thank him for all the ways he has supported me and has committed to support me in the future. From grad school to car shopping to diabetes, he leads me and loves me like Jesus does...

Original song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGF6c0tjAgI

Like Jesus Does
by Eric Church AND Taylor Hagemeyer

I'm a romantic heart that by determined plans is spurred,
I'm a stubborn one that might listen less than I'm heard,
But he believes in me like he believes  God's word
And loves me like Jesus does.
I'm a bright n' early bird who always wakes up talking,
I dream of peaceful summer nights, my not-yet-born babies rocking,
But he stands by me when my sins come a knocking
And loves me like Jesus does.


My every shade of stress,
my broken pancreas,
Every single sugar check at 3 A.M.,
Yeah, he knows just what I'm not,
he forgives me when we've fought,
The devil, man, no, he don't stand a chance,
'Cause he loves me like Jesus does.

I always thought one day he'd have enough,
realize being part of my life was just gonna be too rough,
But I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday,
That he loves me like Jesus does.

My every shade of stress,
my broken pancreas,
Every single sugar check at 3 A.M.,
yeah, he knows just what I'm not,
He forgives me when we've fought,
And the devil, man, no, he don't have a prayer,
'Cause he loves me like Jesus does.

yeah, he knows just what I'm not,
He forgives me when we've fought,
That devil, man, he just has no power,
'Cause he loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a child's heart that by determined plans is spurred.