The Sun Hung From a String

I know I've said this here before, but all of my titles are Owl City lyrics. Heck, the name of this blog is an Owl City line. I just absolutely love Owl City's music. Primarily his first three albums. The last one (All Things Bright and Beautiful) kind of got a little rockish. Still good stuff, but not the wonderful noises of the first 3 albums. And yeah, I just wrote wonderful noises because I can't seem to nail down his sound... 


Lately I've been reading a ton of blogs on quiverfull families, homeschooling, the courtship process, etc. Mostly women's journeys in retrospect now that they're older. (For those who don't know, quiverfull families are those that believe in absolutely no birth control methods, and trusting in God for their family size. Aka, the Duggar family.) The quiverfull/homeschooling movement was something I was really into when I was like, 15-17. And I say movement because they are movements. But they don't have to be. You can homeschool your kids without there being so much hubub about it, and just educate your children and not have 425,598 different (passionate) reasons why you've decided to do that.


I am not quiverfull minded (I was recently asked this) and I do plan on homeschooling my kids. Although I like the idea better of just hiring tutors all day, or just putting them in a homeschool school, haha. (They really have those, you know.) I don't want them in public school, but I don't want the emphasis being homeschool. Does that make sense? I want them to get their education from all sorts of different venues. And I think that's great! I want my kids to explore the world, not be indoctrinated (whether that's by public school, or by a very strict homeschool agenda). I don't want to create ideological clones.


As for the quiverfull movement (which the general public has seen now thanks to the Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar family), I used to be 100% of the same mindset. Being on birth control was simply not trusting in God. Children were blessings, and rejecting His blessings was an act of taking control away from Him. I simply do not believe this anymore. We know that God can work through birth control, obviously. I am also of the belief, however (and therefore am aware) that He respects our freewill. If we are purposely trying to prevent something like children, He will respect that desire. Sometimes! 


Now I am personally against birth control pills, for medical and some moral reasons. I am against any birth control that as abortifacient elements in it. But I have no problem with other kinds. My thing is being OPEN to children. That's a huge thing for me. Out of 6 kids, I was the only one not planned. And it's a weird feeling. Especially when you have 3 older siblings and 2 younger siblings and YOU were the only one not planned... I don't ever want any of my children to be "accidents." They can be surprises (even couples trying to conceive get surprises) but not accidents. Children will always be welcomed into my uterus home. That doesn't mean my husband and I will be trying to get pregnant 24/7 until I'm 47 years old. Just that it will never be an "oh, crap" moment. 'Cause that's your baby, yknow! So that's my big thing. Openness. Because you never know what may happen, or what God wants to do, and having a sucky attitude towards your child is sucky.

The Horizon and The Rooftop Meet

I haven't posted in this blog in nearly 2 years, and a LOT has changed. In the last blog I made, I was a single 19-year old. Now I am a 21-year old married woman. It's pretty crazy thinking back on how quickly things fell into place with my husband Jesse. We began dating and got married within a year and a half. While we were dating, I thought things were going slow, but looking back, it all happened so fast!

I guess I wanted to blog, simply about things in life now. Currently it is 10pm on a Friday night and Jesse has been sleeping for almost 2 hours! That's OK. I've been cleaning and disinfecting the kitchen and taking the trash out in my PJs. He is seriously the sweetest things when he sleeps...

I'm just going to be real with this blog, I don't even care who reads it. I may talk about girly things like having babies or housewife-y stuff. Like, ladies, ladies! I just found the NIFTIEST thing to use to effectively clean the inside panel of a wall vent!!! Yeah... But, none of that stuff.

So I live in Champaign, Illinois now. I'm glad. Ever since I was about 17 years old I've been driving 45 minutes from my parents home to do various things, or see various people in this town. And now I actually live here! In a house! With my awesome husband! It's pretty neat. Our neighborhood is very "down home." Normal folk. It's nice. Apparently tomorrow is the big Illini Marathon and these do-gooders are going to be traipsing all around my house. Figuring out how to get anywhere tomorrow may be a task.

What kind of motivated me to write a blog, was a blog I happened upon via a practical joke I wanted to pull on Facebook. A few months back, one of my sisters posted a picture on her Facebook of a pregnancy test. And obviously since most people don't post pictures of negative pregnancy tests, I about had a heart attack. But upon further investigation (erm, clicking on the picture), I was greeted by that little window on the test simply saying "just kidding." I remembered that and thought it'd be funny to post the same picture on my Facebook. Mostly because the thought of having a baby totally freaks Jesse out. I thought especially his parents would get a kick out of it. ;)

So anyway, I'm Google image searching this picture. I found it, clicked the image, and it led me to this 29-year old married woman's blog. I think her name is Jenn. She has been married to her husband for 3 years and has been trying to have a baby (with no luck) for almost 1.5 years. It was interesting reading her blog, because as someone who has never been pregnant and has never tried to get pregnant, I cannot relate. But at the same time I had the capabilities of relating. Let me explain...

Fertility to a woman (OK, most women) is a huge deal. Obviously it's not what makes us a woman, but it's a huge part of it. A huge part of what makes us different from men. And pregnancy and having babies is a huge, huge blessing. I know that now. The thought of not being able to get pregnant is a daunting one. And seriously, after reading this woman's blog and kind of putting myself in her shoes, if you're a woman who has had children, you are very, very blessed! There are a lot of couples out there who cannot have biological children! Or those who are really struggling to do so.

Whoa... Jesse moved and about whacked me upside the head...

God has really given Jesse and myself a desire to adopt. My heart melts for babies who just aren't getting the kind of lovin' they deserve. (Unfortunately, these babies aren't all orphans.) I would find it a gargantuan blessing to be able to care for, and adopt one of these children. I've said babies, but it's not like we only want to adopt babies. At my current age, the younger the child, the better. It might just be a little crazy if we adopted a 10-year old or something. But in most countries, I think there has to be a pretty significant age gap between child and parent anyway.

Well, those are only a few thoughts I have for tonight. It's almost 11pm and I'm getting kind of tired... AND OLD! See ya.