The Love of God

Could we with ink the ocean fill

And were the skies of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.

From the hymn "The Love of God," words and music by Frederick Lehman. This stanza of the hymn is based on part of a Jewish poem written around 1050. I had never heard this song before, but we sang it in church today. I scribbled down a few of the words so I could look it up as soon as I got home.

Your Daddy

Sweet Baby James,

This is just a little post about your daddy. He's really been impressing me with how interested and involved he has been in my pregnancy and in learning about the process of birth. After our second childbirth class last night we talked for a long time about some of the things we've learned and want to strive for (or, on the contrary, some things we want to avoid) when the time comes for your delivery. He has really been paying attention! It makes me feel comforted, to know that he'll be there to protect and encourage me through labor.

You probably won't really care about all that, so long as you get here in one healthy, chubby piece. So here's some things you will care to know about your daddy when you join our family and as you grow:

He loves to play. I'll be great for snuggling and reading and quiet time. But your daddy is the one who will take you to romp around outdoors, crawl with you through the playground, and get down on the floor to wrestle and play. When you're bigger I know he'll want to take you camping too.

He's an adventurous eater. They say what I'm eating can influence your future tastes, but I'm really hoping and praying you take after your dad when it comes to trying and liking different things. He'll try almost anything, and he likes a lot of things I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot-pole. When you're ready for people food, I'm going to rely on him to keep you from turning into a picky eater like me!

He likes to make noise. I don't think your dad will ever try to stop you from banging pots and pans. He'll more than likely just get out his banjo and join you. You probably won't be very big before he's trying to teach your little hands to strum a guitar. And I'm fully expecting an iPod full of playlists for your every waking and slumbering hour.

He's a great comforter. I can always count on him to dry my tears and help me calm down after a rough day. I think this will translate to you too, my little one. I know you will find great comfort in your dad's arms.

Practicing with your carrier.

Hopefully you will look less like this stuffed gorilla and more like a human baby,

although we'll love you either way.

Jumping! He can teach you this.

With his beloved banjo.

Despite my pleadings, he'll want to teach you this too.

I'm pretty much in love with him. I can't wait for you to meet him and love him too! It makes my heart swell to think of you two together: my best boys.

Love,

Momma

In Lenten Lands

Here the whole world (stars, water, air,

And field, and forest, as they were

Reflected in a single mind)

Like cast off clothes was left behind

In ashes, yet with hopes that she,

Re-born from holy poverty,

In lenten lands, hereafter may

Resume them on her Easter Day.

This was the epitaph written by C.S. Lewis for his wife Joy, for her cremation memorial after her death from cancer at age 45. Isn't it heartbreaking? Isn't it hopeful? In Christ we will be reborn, even from the ashes of this world, in the ultimate Easter celebration, when He comes again to make all things new.

Brownie Batter and Fake Bling

My cravings of late seem to have taken a turn from cheese and pasta to the sweet stuff. Specifically, I've been wanting chocolate icecream or brownie batter. Not brownies. Brownie BATTER. I get the fancy pasteurized eggs so I can make the batter and eat it safely. I try to eat only a little, though, and then bake the rest. But honestly, once it is baked, I don't have much interest!

In other news, my rings were getting a little tight, so rather than get to a point where they might have to be forcibly removed from my fingers, I went ahead and took them off. Now I'm wearing a "placeholder" set I got from Dillards for $25. I got them a little big so there's room for the dreaded third trimester swelling. I also got them a little... bling-ier than my actual wedding set. What's the point of fake diamond jewelry if you're not going to have a little fun? Still, I miss not wearing my real rings and am hoping to find a pretty long chain to wear them around my neck.

Two more weeks and I'll be in my third and final trimester... where has the time gone?!!

Childbirth Class, Yikes! (But in a Good Way)

Sweet Baby James,

Hello my little lovey! This week we went to our first childbirth class. We are doing classes at our church because there are a bunch of other pregnant women there too. You're going to have so many playmates! It is us and three other couples. These classes were recommended by my midwife, and they were developed by a nurse/doula and another doula, both of whom are Christians. We are learning all the important, practical childbirth information, but also about how me and Dad can trust God and rely on him for strength and protection while we're bringing you into the world. I think it is going to be pretty good stuff, if the first class is any indication!

One thing I learned is that on average, without induction, first babies are born at 41 weeks and 2 days. So to avoid anxiety and frustration, I'm going to start telling people you are due in late May/early June, rather than expecting you to pop out exactly on May 28! Anything from 38-42 weeks is okay. I can imagine that if your due date rolls around I will probably be plenty ready to meet you and might be a little disappointed, but I'm going to work to keep that to a minimum.

I also learned some stretches which I am hoping will help because just in the past few days my hip/pelvic pain has amped up. I'm glad you are growing big and strong but we have a ways to go so I want to stay comfortable as I can before you get even bigger. And bigger. And bigger!

For part of our homework for next week, we were assigned to watch a documentary called "The Business of Being Born." It was very emotional to watch, seeing all these women doing the work of labor and being rewarded with their babies in their arms! It was also a little intimidating and gave me a lot to think about. When your Dad gets home from his business trip he gets to watch it too... I think it will be an eye-opener to say the least!

Love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck! That's something my Grandpa Jim used to say to me when I was little. It just means "a crazy lot."

Love,

Momma

Downton Abbey

I just finished the first (and currently only, but a second is in the works) season of the BBC/Masterpiece miniseries "Downton Abbey." It was deliciously good! It tells the story of an entitled (literally, he's an earl) family with an expansive estate in 19-teens England. It's a really interesting look at the old world intersecting with the new, where electricity and telephones are the new-fangled rage, but the daughters of the family still must marry in order to receive their inheritance and preserve the estate.

It also examines the "upstairs/downstairs" spheres of proper society, following storylines amongst the servants as well as the family.

The service staff. Some are nice and some are naughty!

There are great performances, particularly from the utterly awesome Maggie Smith, who steals every scene she's in as the crabby old-school grandmother, the Dowager Countess.

The icing on the cake is the gorgeous period costuming, which is so wonderfully detailed. Sumptuous!

Eldest sister Mary, who cannot inherit and thus needs to marry well in order to preserve the estate. She's kind of cold and pragmatic.

With her sisters Sybil (left), the forward-thinking youngest, and Edith (right), the jealous and overlooked middle.

Edith with their mother, Cora. She's American and was initially married by their father for her money, although after all these years they are quite in love.

Here's Sybil shocking everyone with her new dress - with pants legs! Pants!

It has just been added to Netflix streaming, in the seven 1-hr episodes, or you can watch it until the end of February on PBS.org in four parts. Here's a trailer to entice. Enjoy!

Watch the full episode. See more Masterpiece.

Bye Bye Bookstores: A Prediction

Where do you go to buy music?

If you're under, I don't know, 35, your first instinct is probably to iTunes or Amazon. On the off occasion that you want an actual CD, you might still buy it off Amazon, or you might check Target or Wal-Mart. If it's a little more obscure and you're feeling hip, you might go to Grimey's, or your local equivalent of the indie hole-in-the-wall.

Know where you don't go? Tower Records. Or Virgin Records. Know why? They don't exist. Not anymore. Not in this country, anyway. The last Tower Records store closed in 2006, including the infamous one in West Hollywood. Virgin Records shut down their last remaining stores - including the huge flagship location in Times Square - in 2009. (Both chains still operate international franchises and as online retailers.)

Now, on to my next question.

Where do you go to buy books?

The answer to this question five years from now might be eerily similar to what you'd say about buying music today. I currently work in a chain book store, and everywhere I look, I see the sad parallels to what happened to music retail.

Here's why I think book stores are headed down that same road. I broke down my thoughts by equating the major players in music retail with their counterparts in book retail.

Kindle (and all its competitors, including the iPad) = iPod (and all its competitors)

The book industry pretended for too long, as did the record industry before it, that the digital revolution would never be enough to affect physical product sales. The record industry was wrong. So was the publishing industry. Amazon now sells more ebooks for its Kindle than it does paperbacks. "I still prefer holding a real book; I could never read off of a computer screen all day." Tell that to your CD collection, wherever it sits collecting dust. I can remember saying essentially the same thing when iPods were first introduced, scoffing at the idea that someone would want to buy something without having a physical item to show for it.

Amazon = iTunes

Low prices and no real competition worked for iTunes with mp3s, and it works for Amazon with eBooks. Funnily enough, now it is Apple who wants a share of what Amazon has cooking, hoping the iPad and iBooks can take a bite out of Amazon's monster ebook market share.

Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, Sams = Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, Sams

Amazon has the additional advantage of also selling physical product, for cheaper than you can find it in a store. If you do want it from a store, you're going to go to a big box retailer. You can pick your favorite, but from the perspective of the dying bookstore, they're all villains. Did you know big box retailers sell music and books for a loss? 50% off that just-released best-seller is merely a way to get you in the door. They'll gladly take the hit there, while you fill your cart with other stuff. $14 instead of $19, plus you can pick up toothpaste and new shoes? Who wouldn't take that deal?

Indie Bookstores = Indie Record Stores

Maybe you're a buy-local advocate. Maybe the thought of shopping at the Evil Empire turns your socially-conscious stomach. That's okay. There will still be indie bookstores. There just won't be as many of them. And they will struggle to stay in business. And they'll most-likely cater to a particular niche of reader. And they won't always have what you're looking for. But the ones that breed loyalty and maintain a cult-following will still be around, as a haven for old souls. Which leads me to...

Real Books = Vinyl (and, for now, still CDs)

Music freaks still love their vinyl. They like the way it sounds. They like the way it feels. They like that it is cool to have a record player. And real books? They'll become the LPs of book lovers. Or, for now, at least the CDs of book lovers and people who roll old-school. Plenty of people with iPods still buy the occasional CD, and plenty of vinyl-enthusiasts also have iPods. There's room for overlap. Books aren't going to disappear or stop being printed. But the ebook revolution has officially arrived. And it's not going to disappear, either.

Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million = Virgin Records, Tower Records

So we come to this. Will bookstores, like the one you might go to if you needed a book today, go the way of the record store? Every argument to the contrary is an echo of the now-defunct reasons people gave 10 years ago for why record store chains wouldn't go under. It's starting already. Both Borders and Barnes & Noble closed stores in the past year, no doubt with more to come, and rumors of bankruptcy swirl around one or the other ever week.

Bigger and brighter and more economic and industry-savvy minds than mind have been looking at this issue for a while. What do you think? Where do you buy your books and your music? Have you joined the ebook revolution?