La Buena Vida

-We had our first day of child-birth class yesterday. I was majorly bummed that they are no longer allowing hospital tours, since the hospital has been majorly remodeled since I was last in--I have no idea what it's like now. I was also sad to hear that you can only designate TWO people (and your spouse is one of them) to be present in the hospital the entire time you're there, from the time you're in labor to the time you're discharged. No additional people are allowed to visit after the baby is born. Which REALLY sucks if you have a c-section. And you can't rotate who your two people are--they have to be the same two people the entire time. This is going to be hard. Justin is obviously person 1, but if we pick any other family member, it's like we're playing favorites. I know that I need to just worry on what Justin and I need and not hurting other family members' feelings, but even I don't know what I will need at this point. So, it may just be the two of us unless I am really asking for someone else at the time. I really wish we could hire the doula that's teaching our class, but I don't think we could afford her.

-Sweet Justin moved the living room around for me this weekend. I like parts of it--it's really hard to find a layout that I really like because I like things to be symmetrical, and that's almost impossible in this room. We'll try it for awhile. The major bummer is that while J was moving the couches, he popped off the transition strip between the living room and dining room, which had just FINALLY been done. Damnit.

-I've been reading the book Lord, Save Us from Your Followers. And actually, Justin has started reading it too. It's really interesting, and I'm liking it a lot so far. I don't know if y'all are familiar with it, but there's actually a movie as well, which was in limited release a few weeks ago. I had the book (which coincidentally comes with a DVD--not sure if it's the same DVD that was in theaters because I haven't seen the movie). Anyway, the big question of the book is: "Why is the gospel of love dividing America?"

In doing research, the author discovers that as he's interviewing people, both religious and not religious alike, they overwhelmingly have positive things to say about Jesus and faith in him, but also overwhelmingly have negative things to say about Christians. One quote from the book that I've liked so far is: "In First John it talks about how Jesus came in "truth and grace". Seems like we might be a little heavy on the "truth" and a little light with the "grace"."

-Very excited for dinner tonight--Justin and I are meeting Ryan, Renee, Karla, James, Kelsey, and Stump after our class. And we're going for a real sit-down dinner--not pizza or fast food. It should be a lot of fun!