Out with the old

Today is the start of my 30th week of pregnancy. According to all the e-mails I get monitoring my progress, there's 70 days left. That's about two months to finish preparations for baby. Our little girl was on our minds a lot over Christmas, knowing that next year, there's going to be a baby crawling around getting into the presents, playing with the boxes her gifts come in instead of the toys, probably no 10:30pm Mass on Christmas Eve. Family have been very generous in already buying gifts for her, so I've been able to be pretty good about my commitment to not buying her clothes, as tempting as it is.

We're still working on cleaning out our office/spare bedroom to turn it into a nursery. This is our most recent addition.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find an indoor, adult-sized rocking chair in Texas, by the way.

As my husband and I received gifts for Christmas, we're sticking to our in and out rule. We get something new, we get rid of whatever it's replacing. As I go through closets and drawers I'm amazed at how much stuff we have, even though we've been working on this purging process ever since we married and moved in together a year ago, but we keep finding more we don't need. It feels so good to let go of possessions, reminding ourselves that we can't take it with us.

Matthew 6:19-21 "Don't store up treasures here on Earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be."

This will continue to be a challenge as babies come with literally stores of stuff you can acquire. We're hoping to set a good example for our daughter and try to keep our home as simple as possible. We've already decided that instead of making Christmas Day a day of presents, that it will be a part of the Advent and Christmas seasons, with a small gift on St. Nicholas Day and the Feast of the Epiphany, teaching her why we give gifts to one another.