Sunday, November 25, 2012

What I Wore Sunday Take 2

What I Wore Sunday linkup

I was actually excited about this week's WIWS outfit.  I wore it to work earlier in the week and liked the way it went together so well I decided to do it again today.


Boots: Favorite Lane Bryant boots from last week
Flounce scarf: handmade by my mama



 You can't see the colors of the shirt or scarf as well in the full length shot, so here is a close up of the rocking scarf.  The shirt is the same color as the deep cobalt blue in the scarf.

I was reluctant to spend the $40 on the pair of jeans, especially since they are maternity and will only be worn for limited amounts of time.  But I am seriously happy that I spent the money.  They are the most comfortable pair of jeans I've ever owned, maternity or otherwise, and they wash up well and wear very well.  Unlike some of my other maternity jeans they don't lose their shape halfway through the day and become saggy or loose.  I love that they are skinny jeans but they are cut much more flattering for someone like me with a full figure.  If I could afford to, I'd buy at least one or two more pairs.  They work great with my riding boots as well as ballet flats, so I love that versatility.

On a whole, I'm much more excited about this week's outfit than last week's.  I can't wait to see what everyone else wore this week!


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Ours is a "Star Wars" kind of marriage...

No, one of us is not part of the Empire and the other a part of the Resistance.  He's not Darth Vadar and I'm not Princess Leia.  Although I can be a little Leia-ish at times--snarky, sarcastic, sticking to my guns even on things that don't really matter.  But he's definitely a Han Solo kind of guy, which is why I do refer to him as Mr. Solo on this blog.

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.......Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen 'anything' to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything.  'Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny.  It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense."
~Han Solo in Star Wars: A New Hope

That quote really sums up Mr. Solo's outlook on life, as far as I can tell.  I say as far as I can tell because in seven years of marriage we've never been able to get more than 5 minutes into a discussion on faith and God without both of us getting frustrated.  We are on the same page on a lot of issues in our life together, but religion has never been one of them.

Mr. Solo was raised on the Catholic conveyor belt, as so many others have.  His parents made sure he was baptized, received First Communion, was confirmed, etc.  He went to Catholic grade school for 3 of his grammar school years.  The took him to Mass every Sunday from the time he was about 4 years old (he was a rambunctious child who tended to be a tad disruptive during Mass) until he was in his early twenties and still living at home.  They did everything they thought they should do to try and raise up a good Catholic boy.  But they never taught him the "why's" of it all.  They never taught him about a personal love of God and Christ.  They gave him the tools, but they never showed him how to use them.  As in so many others, this has resulted in him turning away from the Church and not really understanding why we "have" to go.

I was raised Methodist my entire life.  For the first 11 years of my life we lived literally less than a block from our church.  We walked there every single Sunday for church services and Sunday School.  My entire extended family went there and we took up 3 whole pews in the sanctuary.  My parents made sure I was baptized and confirmed, the only two steps needed in the Methodist church.  I think the main difference though is that my parents and grandparents tried to actually discuss faith with us and my grandparents especially have been lifelong examples of living their faith. 

For the first six years of our marriage this differnce in faith didn't make much of a difference.  He wasn't interested in returning to the Catholic Church, and I had no interest in ever attending, so we went to my family's Methodist Church.  This was okay for a few years while a sweet lady pastor was in the pulpit.  I felt like something was missing in our church that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but she was so sweet and our family loved her so much that we were willing to stay put just because of her.  When she retired, the missing piece felt even bigger.  I could no longer ignore the fact that I just didn't feel comfortable there anymore, and I still couldn't figure out what was missing.

I started looking for a new church for our family.  I did what any sane person would do when confronted with this problem--I started by looking in the Yellow Pages!  :)  I know, I know, sounds ridiculous, right?  We live in a town of 25,000 people.  In this tiny town, there are like 30 churches, of probably 20 different denominations.  I started by looking up the church online if they had a webpage and narrowing down from there.  If the churches didn't have a webpage I'd look up the national or state webpage for the denomination to look at doctrine, etc. and see where we could feel comfortable.  I immediately eliminated anything Mormon, extreme fundamentalist, and Baptist because Mr. Solo would never in a million years go with any of those, an of course I knew that Mormon was definitely out of the picture anyway.  I then started eliminating any that were extremely liberal in their teachings like Unitarian, United Church of Christ, etc.  Anything that taught that abortion, gay marriage, etc. was okay was NOT going to be the place for us.  I also immediately eliminated the two local Catholic parishes since Mr. Solo made it pretty clear that he didn't really want to be there.  I finally narrowed it down to staying with the Methodist church but going to a different parish or Lutheran. 

I decided to start looking a little deeper at the doctrines and guidelines of the Methodist and Lutheran churches to understand what they really taught.  The more I dug, the more I knew I couldn't attend either of those.  I was starting to lose hope.  Finally, I decided to make a last ditch effort to find the right place for our family.

I started going through a 40 day prayer devotional that I had used in the past to great success.  It's called "Give me 40 Days" by Freeda Bowers.  I started out my 40 days by making my list of prayer items and made sure to include direction for our family on what church to attend.  About 10 days in I was still not getting direction so I decided to do a modified 7 day fast.  I couldn't do a full, hardcore fast, so I prayed about it and felt led to only consume bread and water or juice during the day, and having a small amount of whatever I was feeding my family for supper.  Even this modified fast was enough to open huge doors in our life.  Only a few days in I felt so much clarity from God, and I've also never felt more emotional in my entire life.  Everyday around 2:30 pm I would feel inexplicably emotional.  I can't explain it.  I would sit at my desk at work and fight tears for an hour until I could get myself back under control. 

During that time of fasting and clarity, God opened doors for us to attend the Catholic parish of John's childhood.  It was such a great experience and at this same time God was making it very clear to me that we were meant to be at this church and that our family needed to be in unity in the Church that Christ himself founded.

I informed Mr. Solo after much thought and research and soul searching that I had decided to join the Church.  I had hoped to receive a more enthusiastic reaction from him than I got.  It wasn't exactly positive.  His reaction also wasn't positive when I informed him that I wanted to get my IUD removed after believing that I experienced an early miscarriage.  He was supportive of the IUD removal because of all the trouble I'd been having with it and from the possible miscarriage situation.  He wasn't terribly supportive of my desire to use NFP.  He was especially unsupportive when during the second month of trying to get the hang of NFP we found out I had gotten pregnant.

So currently I am in RCIA with full support of my husband for me to go, but he doesn't want to come with me.  He goes with me and the children to Mass every weekend.  We are 17 weeks pregnant with our "Oops, Mama screwed up the NFP chart" Baby.  We are at a crossroads trying to figure out what to do after this baby arrives.  He wants to get a vasectomy.  I don't want him to.  He doesn't want to use NFP because he doesn't trust it and he doesn't have enough trust in God to believe that God knows better than we do what we can handle.  I refuse to go back to the IUD now that I know how it REALLY works.  It sucks, but all I can do is pray for God's will to be done.  I don't know what else to do, really.  Sigh.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

What I Wore Sunday

What I Wore Sunday linkup

I've been enjoying WIWS for a few weeks, so I thought I'd try to tag along with the cool kids.


And since I'm dreadfully uncool, this is as good as it gets with a self-timer.....
Of course, there's not much to say about the lovely frump-maternity attire.

Dress:  Old Navy Maternity from Pregnancy #2, 3 years ago
Scarf:  Wal-Mart, about a million years ago
17 Week Baby Bump: Pregnancy #3
Hair: bad genes
Awkward Factor: 100% Me

Bringing down the cool factor of WIWS, for sure.  Better luck to me next week.  :)

A Whole New Life

So many things have changed since I started the blog a few months ago. 

In July I made the decision that I wanted to join the Church.  I made the appropriate contact with the church and got signed up for RCIA. 

The first weekend of August we went on vacation with Mr. Solo's family.  It was a very loooong weekend that left us all somewhat frustrated and tired.  It's just hard staying in very close quarters with so many adults and children underfoot.  We came home only to find out that we had a permanent reminder of this long weekend.  Baby #3 is on the way.  Much as this is a huge blessing to us now and something we didn't even really know we wanted or needed, it certainly didn't feel that way on the third week of August when I nearly passed out upon seeing that "Pregnant" on the digital pregnancy test.  Mr. Solo was not terribly happy, as he had never wanted more than 2 children.  He blamed himself for the "mistake" and I think in his own way he blamed me a little for not learning enough about NFP.  Live and learn I guess.  Anyway, we are both quite excited now that the shock has worn off and Thing 1 and Thing 2 are quite excited about the news of a new brother or sister.

Less than a week before our August 20th anniversary, we got the wonderful news that my annulment had been approved.  We went about setting up our convalidation ceremony and on October 27, 2012 we had our marriage officially validated by the local parish.  It was most definitely one of the best days of our lives.  We only had about 10 people present, only our closest family and friends and our two children.  We all got a bit of a laugh when during the ceremony the priest asked something to the effect of, "Will you accept and love the children you already have and any others that God sees fit to send you?"  With our two children sitting behind us in the first row of the tiny chapel, fighting noisily with each other, and a 13 week baby in my womb, it was certainly a moment that made us laugh.  I am so grateful for the wonderful young priests in our parish.  If it weren't for Father Jason's loving response to me when I inquired about the annulment process, I would have never sought the annulment in the first place.  Now I have a valid marriage and a new life on the way.  God works in amazing ways.

I'll take an annulment with a side of shame, please....

When Mr. Solo and I got engaged, initially everyone was happy for us.  We got engaged less than 2 months after our first date, so I was concerned that my family may think I was rushing into another marriage.  It turned out that my family was the least of our worries.

My future father-in-law was initially happy for us, but then things went to crap.  Because of my previous marriage, and his Catholic faith, there was of course an issue.  He "requested" that we take a meeting with the local priest and discuss the possibility of an annulment for my first marriage so that we could be married in the Catholic Church.  There were a few issues with this, in my opinion.  A: I wasn't Catholic and neither was my first husband, so why the heck did I need an annulment?  B: It was going to take probably over a year to complete and we were getting married in a matter of months.  C: We weren't planning on having a Catholic wedding anyway.  Since I grew up Protestant, I had very little information on what an annulment really was and why the Church thinks it is a necessary step.  The priest that met with us didn't help the pre-conceived notions I already had.  He served up the shame throughout the entire meeting; laughing, making jokes about my divorce, making me feel like less of a person.  I was so ashamed when I left that meeting.  I was so hurt and embarassed I vowed that I would NEVER seek an annulment, and I wouldn't have much if anything to do with the Catholic Church EVER.  I knew at that point that his dad thought I was less of a person anyway because of my divorce, and I didn't see how an annulment would change his opinion of me for the better. 

It was a very tense period in our relationship.  His father didn't know if he would come to the wedding since I wasn't getting an annulment and we weren't getting married in the Catholic Church.  In the end he did come to our wedding, but I think for him it felt more like a funeral.  My relationship with his father was very tense for about 5-6 years.  He didn't speak to me most of the time we were around each other, and when he did it was very awkward.  I don't think he knew what to make of me.  The only thing that made him a little nicer toward me was the announcement of our first pregnancy.  There's nothing like a baby to melt even the coldest of hearts.

I know that he loves his family deeply.  However, for a person like me who comes from a very visibly affectionate family, it's hard to see.  He doesn't hug his family.  He doesn't say "I Love You."  He doesn't play with his grandkids.  But I know now after many years of observing, that he is just not a visibly affectionate person.  He doesn't know what to do with himself to express his great love for his family.

One of the most amazing blessings out of this whole last year has been the change in my relationship with him.  Not only has he warmed up to me more since learning of my annulment process, and my current conversion to the faith, but he offered to be my sponsor for RCIA.  I can see so clearly that this is ALL the work of God's divine hand.  To go from barely speaking to each other to sitting next to each other each week as we learn more about the faith and the Church is far beyond what our stubborn human minds could have ever fathomed.  In yet another of God's wonderfully hilarious shows of humor, the first week he was able to attend with me, the topic of annulments came up.  And being the only person in the entire room who has ever had experience with the process, I got to sit there and give a recap while sitting next to my father in law, the very person whose relationship with me had been such a struggle, all over this very topic.  God is so good.