The brighter side

I'm sick of being sick. Today is like the perfect storm of every pregnancy symptom herefore experienced, but all at once. I would classify it as a very bad day.

Water makes me puke, but somehow pancakes do not. Strange? Everything is strange right now.

My house is nowhere where I want it to be and still needs a lot of work and organization. It doesn't help that I am a walking (more like sitting or laying) pregnant zombie half my days.

I am starting to really miss our families....and the mountains....and the snow.

Mark is leaving me in Kansas... Alone in kansas.... for a week long training.

I still hate the smell of our kitchen.

The brighter side? The lovely brighter side? The continual tender mercies of the Lord side?

- The gospel is true and we can feel the Lords constant guidance.

- We heard our beautiful baby's heart beat yesterday. What a miracle life is. It's unbelievable.

- Mark has a wonderful job making enough that I don't have to jump right into work to further sustain us. I can endure 1st trimester from the comfort of my home.

- We have a couch downstairs... And it will soon be a comfy hangout pad without pink walls.

- The ward here is amazing and are super nice and super welcoming.

- Mark gets to play with tractors and people really like him there.

- I at least have some good days and can eat most food most days.

- There may be no mountains but this place has beautiful sunsets and sunrises everyday.

- There are 50 different churches in Newton. Everyone is so openly religious and loving and don't care if you go to a different church. It is so fun.

- We found an amazing midwife who will see us until we get insurance and will be our support through the whole thing! She also works with an incredible doctor who we will also be seeing.

- Mark met an elementary principle who says she will be looking for my name and can't wait to get me in to substitute.

- BBQ is better, and cheaper, in Kansas.....yummy!

I want to look more toward the brighter side, the happier side. Happier even when it seems like days are being masked by the seemingly bad.

I love that all good comes from our Heavenly Father. Start counting all the good and then you realize how loved you really are. It throws me into a more eternal perspective. I wish I could just constantly have that perspective. Wouldn't life just make so much more sense? Wouldn't our trials seem so manageable and seemingly easy?

Have you ever met someone like that? I have. Am I one of those people? Absolutely not.

Still....I am going to more often strive for that happy, eternal state of mind. I'm going to start by stepping into the brighter side.

A couch tale

11:30 AM January 14, 2012
Mark and Cassie enter a sketchy furniture store on Broadway street in Wichita. (Why is it that Broadway is always the sketchy part of any city?) The store is dim lit, all windows covered, but actually looks pretty nice inside. Mark and Cassie walk around their LARGE assortment of cheap furniture (much of it marked down further because of little scratches or tears.)

12:00 - Cassie falls in love with one of the most expensive pieces there. A nice brown sectional with a reverse-able chaise!

12:15 - Mark is finally convinced. The furniture looks nice and comfortable and was the exact colors they wanted. It will last a long time and will look great in a front room when a larger set is needed for the family.

12:30 - The couch is loaded into the truck by two jolly drunk men who proceed to tell us what a ?@#&*# deal we got and how their boss must be @#%$@!*$# crazy to put the price low and how they were @#$*@$%#^@ going to come to our house to hang out with our bad %#$^@$ sofa. (I don't think I used the symbols right, you get the jist.) They then proceeded to walk to the back for their weed (actual word used) break. Mark and Cassie "Let's just get out of this place, then we will feel better about life."

12:45 - Mark and Cassie leave with their nice new sectional.

1:30 - The beautiful chaise is downstairs and looks amazing! Main sofa is in the door and plans are being made to fit it downstairs.

1:35 - First attempt to fit the couch downstairs...fail. Wall and pleather is slightly scratched, slight frustration is being shown.

1:45 - Second attempt to fit couch turned a different way. More scratches, more dents, more frustration and realization that furniture has never existed downstairs because there is no way to get it in. Hormonal pregnant women runs upstairs in tears. She really wanted the couch downstairs. Logical Mark weighs the options....wants to make wife happy.

2:30 - Decision is made to take only option of getting it downstairs, take the $600 piece of junk apart.

3:00 - Thousands of staples are all pulled and the couch inside is exposed....deliria begins to set in. Everything is funny now, even as they realize how cheap the furniture really is.... Hammer is now taken to the inside supports. Mark and Cassie are amazed at how many large staples were used in the process.
3:15 - The main bottom beam is taken out and the possibility of wiggling the couch around the door frame and down the stairs seems possible and exciting.

3:30 - The couch is completely stuck in the door frame and Mark and Cassie are separated, possibly forever, by a couch.



3:35 - Mark crawls under the couch onto the landing and he and Cassie proceed to push the couch out with all their might. The couch makes one huge budge but now both Mark and Cassie are stuck behind the couch. Mark finds a very small opening below the couch and proceeds to wiggle out while Cassie laughs at the predicament.

3:45 - Couch is finally back upstairs, wall looks unrecognizable, door frame is completely marred, but Mark and Cassie are reunited. Much rejoicing, hugging, and kissing takes place.

4:00 - Pregnant woman will not give up, Mark too has become completely dedicated and couch is taken apart even further.





5:00 - Couch finally, with a few more wall dents, makes its turn and is carried down the stairs. Yeehaw!!! Mark proceeds to put the couch back together and Cassie uses a dremel to cut off every freakin staple on the pieces of wood.

8:00 - Couch is finally reassembled, with less parts and less staples. It is flipped over, cursed at, and left for the night.

January 16, 2012
Mark and Cassie now feel very thankful to have a couch downstairs and are less mad at it. It looks quite nice actually, just ignore the pink walls. It may never make its way out of the house, but at least they can enjoy DOWNSTAIRS for at least the next 11 months.


With dented walls and doors frames and scratched furniture, we are still trying to pinpoint the lesson that we were supposed to learn. Maybe its to always ask the landlord if furniture fits downstairs, or that couches don't come apart very easy, or realizing that you will be stuck in the basement forever can be really frightening, or always measure the door frame BEFORE you go shopping for furniture, or don't buy from shady places with dim lighting..... well, we learned it all and have the scars to prove it.