- We have moved! The Lord has provided Josh with a job! He is now working as the Pastor of Youth and Family at Grace Redeemer Church in Teaneck, New Jersey! Who knew the Desches would end up in New Jersey?? We are so very grateful for God's tender care and provision for us. The job is so well-suited for Josh and we're very excited to dig into full-time ministry.
- We moved 2 weeks ago, just in time for Hurricane Irene to blow into the area. Talk about excitement. We arrived in Teaneck on Tuesday night with Irene anticipated over the coming weekend. I went to the grocery store sometime Wednesday or Thursday to get some essentials and came home with 3 cases of water, random food that didn't need to refrigerated, toilet paper, etc. It was a sight to behold. There were predictions that power would be knocked out and could be off for a week or more. No batteries, flashlights, or generators within a zillion mile radius. We took anything that could blow around in the yard and put it into the garage and steeled for disaster. Friday and Saturday leading up to the predicted time Irene would come through were eery and weird... then finally came Saturday night. Sunday morning services had already been cancelled in anticipation of what was coming. We all slept downstairs in the basement to ensure that we wouldn't have to make the exodus down in the middle of the night in case things got bad. When we woke Sunday morning we still had power! Miracle of miracles! We were amazed! We went upstairs to assess Irene's progress... a couple big branches down in the back yard, a decent amount of rain but no means torrential (at our house anyway), but we didn't think we were out of the woods yet. Actually the rest of the morning progressed that way. Irene seemed basically gone by 12:30 or so, and we still had power!! Wow, we thought! Unscathed! No water backing up in the basement, no tree limbs on the house, no shattered windows, not even power loss! We took the boys out for a walk just to get out of the house and saw that a couple blocks over a large tree had downed a power line, but nothing like that on our block. Feeling grateful, we returned home. Then 2:30ish rolled around... the lights flickered once... came back on... and then they were gone. Oh, boy, we thought. Here we go. One week of living John Adams style loomed ahead of us. Actually I think I was irrationally optimistic that the power would go right back on within the next few hours, which of course didn't happen. Howie was so confused- he kept asking about the lights. The house we're renting has lots of windows, so the rest of daylight hours were fine, but as darkness set in we saw the gaping holes in our hurricane preparedness... the only sources of light we had were a small Maglite (bought during the supposed blizzard of the century last winter in St Louis... anyone remember that?? Supposed to dump 2 feet or something and instead we got 3 or 4 inches??), a zillion tealight candles, and a random battery-powered nightlight that our landlord had left in a box I came across. My respect for the aforementioned John Adams skyrocketed later that night after the boys were in bed with the battery-powered nightlight in their room when I tried to read by candlelight. That's hard!! I lit probably 10 tealights and I was nowhere near being able to read. Anyway, in very un-John Adams fashion, Josh and I abandoned reading and watched a movie on the battery life of the laptop. We heard dismal reports from a neighbor Monday morning that it could indeed be the following Sunday before power was restored because a substation had flooded, or something like that. So we steeled ourselves to live as those who went before us did and gave up hope of salvaging anything in the refrigerator. But lo and behold, the power came back on about 9 on Monday night! Just when I was getting down with living as Abigail Adams! It was actually a good reminder of the convenience of electricity that we take for granted and that we can survive with quite a bit less than we think. Anyway, that's our Hurricane Irene account. Now we just have a lot of bottled water in the basement.
- Justice, who turns 2 this coming Friday (crazy!!!), is obsessed with the Johnny Cash Children's Album. I could sing that whole thing frontwards and backwards. He frequently requests "Natdy Dan," or Nasty Dan, which is the opening song. As each track comes on he says "I like this one!!" He is also obsessed with Sesame Street Sings the Alphabet. I could do a complete performance of this while asleep, it is so deeply engrained in my subconscious. He and Howie have also discovered the Tom Petty Greatest Hits album, which brings me no end of joy. They love him!! How did I get so lucky?? I'm glad they still don't understand "Let's get to the point, let's roll another joint"... I've got a couple more years before that's an issue, I think. Oh Tom. I guess his old habits die hard.
- I read Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom, which was just fascinating. I highly recommend it. I thought Ms Chua presented some pointed and accurate criticism of the stereotypical Western/American parent, although I wouldn't dream of mothering how she did. She did highlight that children are much more resilient and capable than we give them credit for, which I think is true. You will never find me harnessing Howie to the piano for practice sessions 2-4 hours a day, but nonetheless I enjoyed the book and found it insightful about some pitfalls of the ways I think about children. It reads like a quick novel and you'll enjoy it!!
- I am currently 36 weeks pregnant with Baby Girl and all seems to be well! We're very much looking forward to her birth but I also know that things will be crazy when she's born, so I'm still enjoying life as it is right now. But unpacking all of the pink has been so fun! Howie is semi-obsessed with his baby sister and I think he'll be sooo happy when she's born. Not sure about Justice... he still has some serious mother attachment issues so I'm not sure how he'll take someone coming into his territory, but he does love babies. So we'll see! Just waiting now. I'm thankful that the move is behind us. Now just a few more weeks of tossing and turning in bed every night, unable to get comfortable. The blight of late pregnancy.
- I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone, but we seem to have lost our camera in the move. I have lots of good pics on my phone, but of course I can't find the card reader right now, so I guess those will have to wait until I come across it!
- I love the Container Store so much. Especially when you have a very small kitchen.
OK I guess that's about it for now. That was much longer than I thought it would be!!
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