Give us Rest

"Our Communion"

Love, flawless unrelenting love we can know
Hope, sacred reverential hope starts to glow

In the recesses of your heart where love had flown

Sweet dreams of heaven changing our waking lives
Breath, taken in and bringing what was dead to life

In the recesses of your heart where love had died
Let it rise and lead you cross a great divide

Awake, looking for another way to get back home
Life, resurrected, swallowed death made us whole

In the recesses of your heart where love will grow
Heaven give us roots and wings and lead us home

Oh

Oh great God give us rest
No more fear from all of this
Oh great God give us rest
Let your light come down on us
Oh great God give us rest

It sure is fun sharing my birthday (week) with this little birthday-king!  Happy birthday, Caleb!  What a handsome, charming little man he is!  He's going to be such a precious big brother, too.  I'm so thankful the Galbos were able to have a get-together last weekend.  We don't get to do it often enough.  We sure cherish it when we do, though!

My birthday yesterday was nice.  Charlie got me out of the house and we went out to eat at our favorite GF restaurant called Brasa.  Yummy.  I'd go just for the crispy yucca with citrus dipping sauce.  Charlie made me the most precious birthday card and it was perfect just getting to spend the day together.  Charlie worked today, so he had yesterday off, and my class got cancelled yesterday.  How can a birthday get much better than that?

Thanks to everyone who called or mailed or emailed or texted or facebooked--I felt very loved and appreciated!

yay 26

Can I throw myself a quick pity-party?  Joyce Meyer's voice, who lives in my head, is telling me that's a terrible idea.  But I just want to complain.  Just for a minute.

My heart has been giving me a LOT of trouble.  I don't mean heart-emotions, I mean heart-muscle.  Last night was the WORST.  I couldn't fall asleep. Or stay asleep. I kept jerking awake with chest pains and fluttering and palpitations.  It's just gotten worse and worse since it started a few weeks ago and it freaks me out!  Completely.  Your heart is kind of the one thing ya really need to live.

Charlie woke up and got up to check on me last night.  He convinced me to lay down again (I was just sitting at the computer crying like a big baby).  And when we got in bed, he pulled me as close as he could to him and just squeezed me until I fell asleep.  He was trying to make me feel safe.  He did.  I love that man.

I had my cardiology appointment today.  I don't know anything yet.  They just ran tests.  I cried like a big baby there, too.  They had to get two different nurses to talk to me to try to encourage me.  That was kind of embarrassing.

After that, I went to school and took a test that I am 99% sure I failed.  FAILED. (Not made a B. Probably not even a C. I couldn't think while I was taking it). and because I've been so distracted by this that I can't concentrate.  On school. On housework.  On Charlie. On anything.

But tomorrow's my birthday. And I'm going to wear something cute even though everyone will be able to see my heart monitor cords and recorder hanging out everywhere.  I'm GOING to have a good day.

Yay 26.

**EDIT: I WILL say though... that since we got rid of gluten in the house I've been getting sick much less often.  So at least that's pretty awesome.

I am powerful! Not pitiful!

Also, I'm in love with a coon.

I miss Instagram.

A face only a mommy could love

WPS

It took me a long time to figure out WPS means "woo pig sooie".  Looks like we have a mighty sad season ahead of us.  Sad.

Looks like I'll be cheering for the Tigers again.

One day.  Ooooooone day.

love

Prooooobably couldn't be more excited about celebrating this little dude's birthday next weekend.  Probably.

Also celebrating my dad's completion of his dissertation.  (WOW!!) (He may have a few minor updates to make after his advisor reads it as a cohesive document instead of individual chapters, but still.  He's finished!!)

Aaaand it may or may not be Charlie and my 26th birthday coming up soon, too.

Aaaaand the new Hunt baby, too.  We might as well celebrate everything.

The next few years are going to be exciting ones for the Galbo clan!

Food Stamped

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/08/food-stamped-documentary.aspx?np=true

This documentary is so well-done!  I highly recommend watching it if you are interested in food policy or food access. Thanks to my Aunt Carol for sharing it!!

*Yawn*

I cannot wake up today!!  Maybe it was that melatonin I took last night..?

I also had weird dreams.  Also thanks to the melatonin, I believe.  I wonder if people who dream more have more natural melatonin?  I have stages where I dream a lot and stages where I don't remember dreaming at all.

I can tell it's football season.  It's -amazing- weather outside today.  Long-sleeved shirt.  Inside, I want to curl up in a blanket.  Charlie is in cooking mode. He loves to cook in between football games.  (I'm hoping something grilled is in the near future).  I'm beginning to dream about going apple picking and the weather staying cool... taking the puppies to the park... the weather getting even crisper and chopping down a christmas tree... and taking night-time walks in the snow.

I took the public (not school) bus for the first time yesterday.  I was so scared.  But I did it!  It wasn't too scary!  I think it will save me a lot of stress this winter when the snow begins.  You know I don't know how to drive in snow!!  My only other issue is Rufus.  I want to keep him here with me (if Charlie goes home to crawfish every once in a while).  My ISSUE with the big goof-ball is that he is the WORST walker EVER.  I think if it were slippery outside he would cause me to hurt myself by pulling me and making me land face-first on the sidewalk.  Or back first.  Any way I landed it would hurt.  So I need to figure out how to make him nice before the snow starts. Tips, anyone?  Besides a choke-collar?

My first week of school went pretty good.  My classes this year are awesome.  I'm really excited about how much I'm going to learn.  It still blows my mind how good God has been to me through all of this... that He put me in the right program with these experiences and classes and that He's given me such favor with my professors and preceptors.  I'm so thankful.  He's so good.

Flashback Wednesday

Remind me to blog about my dear friend who just got married.  It was a -beautiful- wedding.  She was an amazingly stunning bride.  And I -almost- couldn't handle how in love they are.  *sigh*  More on that later.

Charlie and I decided to put all of the letters and packages we saved from each other into chronological order.  It started in 2004 when I was a senior in high school... and the letters quit around 2008 when I moved to Louisiana.  I will have to wait to count them, but I think there are hundreds of them.  It's... pretty incredible. (And this doesn't count the millions of emails/instant message hours that began in 1998....)

In 2006 we kind of lost touch.  We were both busy.  We both dated other people that year.  But I remember the first letter Charlie sent me after a long hiatus on March 8, 2007.  He and his girlfriend were in the process of breaking up and he thought I had maybe gone through something similar so he wanted to know what I thought.  Can I read you my response?  It is SO TOTALLY ironic.  So very very ironic and... yeah.

March 12, 2007

".... It's funny to me how you said she reminds you of me (or me of her, I guess) because when I would read her xanga {blog} I deeply identified with her.  And then you brought up {my past relationship}.  From what I understand, you broke up because she wants something different in life.  She wants change and adventure and a change of scenery.  Location is key.  She's scared of being stuck in Glynn, Louisiana.  This is similar to why I broke up with {my boyfriend} (but maybe with an important distinction).  For me, it wasn't about the location he desired... it was about mindset.  I was scared that he just wanted a "normal" American life with a normal job and family and a white picket fenced house.  Which, OKAY, whatever, there's nothing innately wrong with that--except it's not me.  I could live in Russellville... I could live in Siloam Springs... I could even live in a place like Glynn as long as I wasn't settling.  It's not location.  It's mentality.  It's effectiveness.  Could I live there and still accomplish the purposes God has for me?  God has called me to big things.  Can I do that in a small southern town?  Maybe.  Maybe I won't even live overseas.  Maybe I will do fundraising for a Nutritionist organization I develop.  I'll live where he tells me to, but I cannot and will not be hindered by small thinking.  Like C.S. Lewis says, 'We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.'"

And as you all know, 1.5 years later, I moved to Louisiana.  2.5 years after this letter we got married and I moved to Oscar (which is 5 minutes from Glynn.)  Oh, God, how you prepare our hearts.