Its been a while

I know it has been SO long since I've updated this thing.  Way to go me...always starting projects, not always finishing them.  Life has carried me away into an abyss of decisions, work, busyness, changes, and just trying to survive until it all blows over.  In the last 8 months this is what has happened:

We found out we were pregnant!
We decided to buy a home
We moved in with my parents in order to save money to buy the home
Adah started kindergarten
I finished another semester at FSU (still have a 4.0!)
We searched and searched and searched for a house
I started and stopped a fun job at RedEye Coffee (it ended up being too much for a pregnant mom-student)
We found a house (a fixer in the midtown area we love)
We planned renovations for the house
We began renovations

WHEW!  At this point, I am 8 months pregnant, still living at mom and dad's and trying to cheer my husband on while he manages the renovations on our home.  We had hoped all along to move in before Christmas, and that is not happening.  Now our prayer is to move in before Joshua Hays is born.

OVERLOAD plus a dance recital

Geez, so many things are changing for us now I am dizzy, literally.  I am having a hard time keeping a grasp things day to day and I keep forgetting lots of details (as though I ever remembered them before)!  For instance, my mother-in-law's dog last weekend.

I was supposed to let molly out to use the bathroom while my in-laws were out for the day.  I got busy with friends and crafts and poor molly had to cross her legs!  Those legs were crossed for quite a while because my memory lapse lasted until the moment I listened to a voicemail from my mother-in-law telling me they were home!

In the midst of huge life changing decisions, was Sunday, and Adah's dance recital.  It was beautiful.  I was overwhelmed with nostalgia for my days as a dancer, and I now know what it might have been like to be my mom during those times.  It all feels very full circle.  Plus the fact that Adah was an adorable "spring daisy" on that stage!

I must highlight Jonah in this post as well because he gets the best big brother award!  He wore a blazer to the recital by choice (because he knows Adah likes "fancy clothes"), and he was a perfect gentleman (well gentlemen can be silly sometimes) while Adah was in ballet-princess mode.  I am so proud of him, and I love to see him growing up to be the brother we have prayed he would be.

Here are some pics of Sunday, it was a much needed bright spot in the chaos that is our life lately.  I love how God gives us breaks when we need them.  Still haven't figured out our living situation, but we have a couple of months to work it out..... if it doesn't put me in the grave by then!  Moving around with kids really stinks, especially when they are in school. 

That said, God is absolutely walking with us and I know that He will provide and inspire us to prosper.  I just have to stay in prayer and ask others for prayer so that I can remember and be in touch with that fact.

I Woke Up This Morning

I woke up this morning with an ache in my neck, a crick in my shoulder, and a sweet little girl's head on my chest.  We were lying on the couch, Adah and I, since about 4 am.  And we didn't let go of each other for 4 whole hours....heaven.

My baby has athsma and has since she was about 6 weeks old.  Since Saterday she has been in the midst of a major flair up, and we've gotten little sleep because she coughs all night during flair ups.  She hasn't been to preschool in over a week because last week she had pinkeye too.  Sometimes being a mom is a really hard thing to do.

But, I will see it like this:  the last few days I have had the honor of being a nurse to one of God's princesses.  I have been chosen for the position of night watchman over his little darling.  How did I ever earn such an honor? 

When  I woke up this morning, I had pains in my body, fatigue all over, a kitchen full of dirty dishes.  The grooming police should have arrested me for my unshaven legs and the condition of my eyebrows (so glad my husband loves me).  My house is a disaster from over a week of having a sick child and all the harriedness that entails.  As much as I detest all these things, I can only now feel thankful and abundantly blessed.

Thank you God for all of the irritating things surrounding me right now because they are evidence that all of the time that I would normally have spent keeping them in order has been poured into being there for my Adah.  She and I have a very strong bond, and you have given us an opportunity this past week to make it even stronger.

Adah and I got to spend a few minutes
 at Lake Ella yesterday together,
our first time outside all week. 
Here she is on the rocks.

Sister I Miss You.

I have been thinking about my sister the last couple of days.  It is always hard around holidays (Mother's Day was yesterday).  I try to comfort myself by listening to her band www.myspace.com/paschalcoeur but it seems I am only torturing myself!  So, here is my note to my sister, Danielle, Dan, Dani, DeeDee, whichever you choose to call her.  It is my way of releasing these feelings.

Sweet sister, I miss you.  I listen to your songs to have you in my house with me.  I sing with you for as long as I can without getting tearful.  Little sister, my heart has an empty space (next to the ones already filled by Hays, the kids, and Jesus) that is half open.  You are only partly inside because you are so far away, and the little part still open aches sometimes.

Mom gets to see you in a week, and my mind keeps trying to construct schemes of how I can stow away in her suitcase.  Even if I could find a way to fit inside her luggage since I can't afford a ticket,  it would be rotten of me to go.. my Adah's first recital you know.  And then there's Jonah's kiddie-tri the next week, which would be a tragedy for me to miss.  Can you understand that Sis?  What I wish most of all is that their Aunt DeeDee was here to see and sit next to me.

Some day soon, we will see each other, I can feel it.  And that feeling makes it even harder to wait!  But I trust that the prayers I have laid down will be picked up.  Until then, I will try not to continue driving myself crazy with the physics of fitting myself into a suitcase.

Crafty Day Revelation

Today is crafty day!  I have been waiting for this day for a long time, whether I was conscious of it or not.  It does my soul good to just spend a day engrossed in creative endeavors.  Thank you so much Ashley for suggesting our craft today and supplying it!  I wish I could take a picture of the adorable fabric flowers we made.

When the hubby came home and saw our flowers...as I knew he would...HE wanted to make some!  So we set off on a family trip to Michael's and tonight he and I will craft away once the kids go to bed.  We have special flowers in mind for our moms for Mother's Day tomorrow.  For right now I am hiding in the office blogging while the kids and Hays make MY Mother's Day surprise (yay)!

I am so blessed. Can you believe my husband does crafts with me??  Who is that lucky, really?  He is so creative too, I just love him so much.  In fact, he is so very artful that I can feel intimidated by his talent.  In fact, it took us a couple of years together before I was comfortable doing artsy things with him. It was sort of like stage fright or something.  He knew I was of a crafty persuasion due to the things he saw in my apartment when we first met and some classes I had taken,etc.. however I made no new art for the first couple years we were together.

What does this say about me?  Well, I think it is interesting how much fear affected me in that area, (ok..many areas).  I knew that Hays is a self-professed perfectionist, and I knew that I am far from perfect...you can see how that equation went.  But, I don't blame it on him.  I blame it on me.  I should never have let those two years go by without a part of myself present, however imperfect that part may be in comparisson to him.  One of my focuses right now is to just be OK being me no matter what.  I see so many things clearly in the hindsight that I am afforded, and most of those things which I regret narrow down to fear of rejection for who I really was/am.

Crafty day was a good renewal, awakening, reminder, revelation. 

A New May

This month, May, was meant to be a month of changes for us. 

My spring semester at FSU finished the last week in April.  There's the first change, I have 3 months off of FSU (the unforgiving beast that it is).  I do not, however, have 3 months free of classes.  My night classes at TCC started yesterday.  This first change brings comfort and irritation at the same time.  I am comforted by the thought of returning to my TCC home, they have babied me so well there.  It's like coming home to momma in many ways.  BUT I am utterly irritated by the fact that I have to take classes two nights a week, 3 hours a night, all summer and that those classes are:  Interpersonal Communication & Computer Literacy.  Is it prideful to say that I think I have these two areas licked?  Yes, it is.  But, that's the way I feel.  Yet, I will have to sit for those hours, read those words of text, and write papers, take tests, give presentations to prove it.

Next change this month:  money.  Hays and I have come to terms with our lack of financial dilligence over the last 9 months or so (dun dun DUH).  So, here we go again with the agonizing cash/envelope process with serious spending limits.  This is SO hard for me.  My personality is very impulsive in some areas, particularly (but cetainly not limited to) the area of food.  I love to cook, and I don't love to plan meals.  I am an off-the-cuff culinary queen who must move with the winds of inspiration in order to produce my masterpeices.  Now how does that fit into an envelope containing a specific number for the week?

Last change:  housing.  Our lovely, charming, cavernous home in Lafayette Park, with all its quirks (ie. plumming so old I can't take a hot bath deeper than 2.5 inches), perks (location!!), and pretention (yes I love the romanticism of downtown living) may have to become a memory.  We are weighing our options, along with our patience for another move... and who knows, we may not be midtowners much longer...


Changes, come like a band-aid pulled by mommy!  quickly, smoothly, painlessly.  Please don't linger and cause a scene inside me....  I don't need a reason for anxiety.

Meant to be Margot?

First things first, I think it is OBVIOUS how cool my name looks with a "t" on the end.  Right?  Growing up I always wondered WHY my parents left out the part of my name that could truly secure me with cool-name status.  However, all coolness aside, there is an actual story behind me naming this blog "Meant to be Margot."

YEARS ago... in 2002, I began regularly attending church.  I had not previously attended anything similar to church, nor had I ever believed that I would.  And what did I find in church? In short, my hiding place, my security, my purpose, and my future.  I know!  Its a lot to find in one little place....

My future began in that fine year when I met a certain Mr. Michael Hays Layerd.  He was a strapping young man fresh out of college wielding a shiny architecture degree.  "Hays" would ultimately sweep me off my feet, and all the way down the aisle, but not before he confessed to me that he had met the girl of his dreams.  And what's more, she had his all-time-favorite female name:  MARGOT!  I mean this guy had hit the jackpot.

Well friends, I came quickly clean on the true spelling of my name, knowing full well I could spoil the whole deal, and it turns out, that "t" didn't matter to him.  But, as he and I do believe that we were meant for each other, and I do believe that requires me being his dream girl, I can only conclude that for my whole life I was always meant to be Margot.

This is not easy

I am totally swallowing my pride here.  Can you see the big lump in my throat as it slides down?  Starting a blog is something I swore I wouldn't do....but here I am.  A few lovely ladies revealed to me the sense as well as the fun in it, so I'll give it a try.  Thus far, I've been frustrated more than once trying to just get it up and running.  I have a hard time using templates and other such things, which all make me feel extremely boxed in.  How can I convey who I am inside someone else's stencil?  Is that even what I'm supposed to do?  Its definitely what I want to do anytime I'm faced with the task of choosing colors or pictures or fonts....  maddening details!!  They obviously didn't plan for me to use this thing because there were no choices of various brocade and/or paisley/floral designs in the background options.  Why can't this blog site just download an image directly from my brain?  One day...

Now, I am content to see this as a work in progress (all projects need not be completed in one sitting Margo), and I am excited to find out where this little blog will take me.
Well, Ashley & Tracy, this is for you!  Love you girls..