Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas Card 2013


MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Looking back on 2013 we're filled with gratitude and humility for all we've experienced and all we've been given. Adam spent six months teaching and learning as Chief Resident and then began as an Attending Hospitalist at the Seattle VA hospital. He loves his work and the time it allows him to spend at home especially as we became homeowners this summer. This spring we spent many precious moments saying goodbye to Sheri's grandpa and were more grateful than ever for proximity to family in Canada and for our friends here in Seattle. Sweet and precocious three-year-old Anna brings us more love, joy and laughter than we could ever imagine. We absolutely can't get enough of her and her antics and are thrilled to be adding to our family this March!

We are full to bursting and grateful for you - your love, prayers and support. Please come visit!

Praying that peace, goodwill with all abide this Holy Christmas tide,

Adam, Sheri, Anna & Baby Johnson


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

my hiatus

It's been a while. A long, long while. I first wrote this blog post over 2 months ago and I still haven't published it. Over 5 months of silence.

I guess you could say that I took a hiatus from blogging, just like real bloggers do. But that would imply a level of intention that is simply untrue. The truth is much less noble. I wasn't taking time to focus on myself, or my family, nor was I fasting from the internet. I hardly blog in the first place. I might write a lot, but I hit publish rarely. I didn't mean to stay silent so long. It just happened.

It happened because I'm pregnant - 26 weeks now and through the worst of it, finally. But it was a rough summer. A lost summer. July was spent sick, exhausted, miserable and packing. August was spent sick, more exhausted, miserable and not unpacking. I spent most days trying to figure out how to entertain Anna from bed, and just how much TV was OK for her to watch. I didn't do anything, and anything I did do was done in a daze. I don't remember a thing.

I wasn't violently ill like so many are, but somehow I was still in abject misery. Insomnia set in the very day I got pregnant and I have yet to make it through the night more than a handful of times. I didn't feel like a person of any description, and I certainly didn't feel anything like me. But WHATEVER, pregnancy is miserable - for all of us. I'm no exception.

But here's some advice. Don't be pregnant over cold and flu season. As soon as I started to feel a little better I caught three consecutive colds with just a couple days of health in between. Then a few weeks ago, the three of us came down with the flu. Ten days of fever, aches, pains, cough, stomach issues, headaches, etc. You name it, I had it. And now, FINALLY I am feeling healthy. Tired, but healthy. But it's been a long haul. I am so ready to be healthy again. Ready to be me again.

And it turns out I can't write when I'm not well, not myself. In "The Summer of the Great-Grandmother", Madeleine L'Engle talks about how she couldn't write when she was pregnant because all her creative energy was being used to create, well, a person. I'm not sure my excuse is quite so poetic but I'll take it. I would remind myself that surely I would feel like a person again one day and have some interest in actually living my life. Only then would I have interest in writing any of it down.

So here I am. Still tired, but feeling more or less like Sheri. Small victories, people.

I'm wanting to write down all the blog posts that I have written in my head over the past 5 months. I don't know if that will happen or not, but intention is a good place to start.

It sure is light years ahead of where I have been.