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lynchar
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Name: amy
Country: United States
State: Illinois
Metro: Chicago
Birthday: 2/17/1979
Gender: Female
Interests: reading, watching movies, cheering for the pistons, listening to books while i drive distances, eating hummus, jane austen, wasting precious time, pretending panera is my office... even though i don't eat bread, drinking caffinated beverages, being random, family, god, theology, people
Expertise: random trivia about african american history or literature? does that count? not a lot of expertise... lots of things i know a little bit about
Occupation: Other
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  Amy0Lynch
MSN: lynchar
Member Since:
1/19/2006
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| So, having a kid apparently makes me want to blog again. Go figure. But I don't want to write tonight about the cute things Avery's doing. Believe me, of course he's doing adorable things... mostly smiling when we change him or laughing at his mobile or today cooing at a book I read him.
Anyway, the thing I was thinking about writing about is friendships. You know those special people who you don't have to see on a regular basis to know they still hold a piece of your heart? My former roommate and beloved friend, Melissa, came to visit us this weekend while Andy was away from Friday till Sunday. Melissa left her husband for the weekend and came all the way from New Orleans to "squeeze" Avery and spend time with me. And a sweet time we had together! Both Dave and Andy (the husbands) asked us what we were planning to do. Surely Melissa wouldn't came all the way to a great city like Chicago and do nothing... alas, that's what we did. Well, not really nothing. We talked... and talked... and talked... and looked at the baby and talked more. It was wonderful to have my friend face to face after not seeing her for more than an hour or so in a metro Detroit coffee shop or Denney's over the holidays. It only makes me wish again that all of my friends lived close to me... like in my neighborhood perhaps. Ah, and it reminds me that what I really long for is the community and permanence of eternity.
And it makes me grateful for the friends that I do have right here.
And it makes me glad that we had a baby once again... this time because it was a great excuse for Melissa to make her trek to Chicago.
Thanks for coming, Meliss!
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| We've had so many firsts already... first bath, first smiles (trust me- those were not simultaneous!), first giggles... we're still waiting on first sleep through the night. But last week we had a couple of other firsts: first time daddy left for a week and first road trip.
Grandma Cheryl came and stayed with Avery and momma... that made everything so much easier! Grandma held the baby so much (though momma would never accuse her of being a baby hog ;) ) and that meant momma could get a few things done around the house-- mostly washing diapers and dishes-- and that I could go to campus on Tuesday to meet with my girls at Dominican and Benedictine. Grandmas don't visit without the requisite level of spoiling... but this time grandma spoiled the whole family-- even daddy in his absence.
Daddy returned from a ministry trip to Washington, D.C. on Thursday evening. I have it on good authority that he was appropriately forlorn throughout the trip missing both his son and wife. I've heard that there was lamenting every time another cute baby was seen and perhaps even a little bouncing on the plane ride home in anticipation of holding little AHB again.
Grandma, momma, and Avery picked daddy up and headed straight for Michigan for Avery's introduction to the best state and to the Brandt lake house. He was impressed with both, as he should be. We had a wonderful time with everyone over the weekend... aunt, uncles, and grandparents passed baby back and forth most of the time so that his bottom rarely rested on something non-human. We even got to go to an apple orchard! (something momma's been itching to do).
Then on Sunday Andy's co-directors joined us so that the three of them could get some uninterrupted (except by the total of 6 children and two wives) think-time and planning done.
Avery was a trooper for both 4 hour car rides there and back. We stopped at Bob Evans on the way home and he was again enthralled by the ceiling fans.
Weekend pictures to come soon! | | |
| I haven't written anything in forever... but here's a story from my last week. PS... this is for you, mom!
But the last few days have been insane! Let me tell you about thecraziness... These last couple of weeks arethe first weeks of schools. Andy was at Benedictine yesterday and I needed to be at Dominican for student organization fairs. So yesterday it wasraining all day. I was on time to meet one of our studentsbut I couldn't find parking, so I finally got in the building and hadmade the poor girl late for class. So I was at the fair for three hours and was feeling so, so tired. I had a couple of hours in between meetings anddecided to run out for some coffee and then grab some cookies to takeback to a meeting that I was supposed to have that night. On my way back to campusfrom the grocery store I noticed that my tire was really low. I figuredI would try to make it to a gas station but it was too flat so I pulledin to a Walgreens and called Andy. He was pretty far away and I had to beback on campus for a meeting in 25 minutes. So, it's pouring down rainand I have four packages of cookies that I need to take to the meeting.I decide to walk as fast as I can the mile + that it takes to get backto campus. About a block into my journey the plastic bag breaks and out comes one package of cookies. Picture pitiful looking Amy with a bag of cookies in hand and a bag with three packages balanced on my hand trying not to let them fall out of the bag and a janky umbrella that lets quite a bit of precipitaion through. I made it about 5 minutes late to my meeting with only acouple of blisters but with very wet pantlegs and a wet bottom from all of the splashing of my flip flops. After the meeting Andy came to pick me up and to goback to Walgreens to take care of the car. It's still pouring. He spent45 minutes trying to get the tire off but the bolts were rusted on. SoI went in to Walgreens to ask the manager if we could leave the caruntil today so Andy could get a rubber mallet to bang on my tire. Managersaid sure, that no one would tow it unless they called to ask someoneto. HA! Today we get there and the car isn't there! Are youkidding me? The manager was apparently wrong. We had to go to the towlot and pay $170 to get it out. Oh, and Andy wasn't allowed to change thetire in the lot, so we had to pay an extra $35 to get it out of the lotand change the tire outside of the tow lot. GRRRR... Finally we got tothe tire shop and will have to pay another $200 for new tires and anoil change. Wow. Could it get any crazier? | | |
| So, I love Chicago... I've loved living there and getting to know the city and the neighborhood (I love where we live). And I enjoy that I get to spend so much time in Oak Park. But until this week I didn't know how much I love Michigan. I've gotten to travel to some pretty great places over the years... Rome, Korea, California, DC, Atlanta, NYC... great places. I love to travel. But until about 7 months ago, I've lived in Michigan my whole life. And I knew it was a great state, but I never knew how much I'd miss it. Two weekends ago we had our Fall Retreat in Wisconsin and based on my upbringing in state full of trees, I had some pretty high expectations for what Wisconsin would be like in the fall. Hmm... not so much. I was bitterly disappointed. It would have been nice enough if I'd never seen a real fall (and I'm guessing it was just an off year with the lack of rain and the funny warm weather all the way through October). But then this weekend....ahhh.... we had a few days off to just "be"... they were called "Being Days." After the first 6-8 weeks of the school year of going full steam ahead, it was so nice to just be. And we got to be in Michigan. Andy's parents have a vacation home on the westside of the state and we got to spend 5 glorious days (including the weekend) there. We read and prayed and played cards and walked and enjoyed time with each other... and we saw a bunch of deer! It was so peaceful. So refreshing. We're headed back to Chicago tonight, after Andy speaks at Central's weekly meeting. As a bonus, we got to stay with Rhonda and Jason (psuedo-sister of mine) in Lansing last night. I'm looking forward to being back at home... but it was so nice to be in my homestate again.   
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| It's been way too long, I know. We've started school (s)!! Things are going well, but they are busy. I'm still adjusting to a life where your weekly schedule isn't actually established until weeks into the new semester. It's been fun though to get into things. So, I know that I owe Susan a blog about my blog... kind of meta-blogging... I'll get there... promise. But quickly, I wanted to tell a funny story (some of you have heard this already)... So, the funny thing…. On Wednesday night Andy asked me when my last period was. I was trying to figure it out and not really thinking about the implications of me not having had one for a while when Andy got this really funny look on his face and if finally dawned on me what he was thinking. So I spent the next hour or so thinking/worrying about what it might mean if I was pregnant… and started self diagnosing early signs of pregnancy on the internet. Tenderness, check- headache, check- sore back, check- fatigue, check. I was telling myself if I did have a baby right now it would be alright, just not exactly what we were thinking. So I went to bed and tried not to be too worried. I woke up the next morning around 8 and went to the bathroom only to discover that I was not pregnant. I went back to lay down and tell Andy the news and we both sighed our relief. At 8:15 my sister calls to tell me she had a dream about me and she was just calling to be sure it wasn’t prophetic. Guess what she dreamed??? Of course, she dreamed that I told her I was pregnant! Andy and I both let out the loudest “NO WAY!!!”” Do you believe that? If she’d called 15 minutes earlier he would have been out the door on his way to Rite Aid to get a test before I could get off the phone. Crazy! Some kind of weird sister connection, I guess. | | |
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