chandamulligan's Xanga

what have we been up to?

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:12:23 GMT

Here's a bit of an update:

In October, Fiona and I went to visit my grandparents in Iowa. Fiona fell asleep on my Grandpa while I was out to lunch with my Grandma! So sweet.

We also took the train to Madison to visit my brother and the wonderful woman he is going to marry. This is Brett and Erin cooking us a delicious Indian curry.

What is she thinking about?

I love this picture of Bryan.

Yeah, she's still adorable.

Chasing bubbles with Daddy on a gorgeous day in November.

Halloween 2008--At George & Sandy Lundgren's house with Grandma Susie

a long time

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:54:40 GMT

OOOh. It feels good to write again. We don't have the internet anymore, so it is difficult to keep up with this. I'm feeling like an update is in order. This past year has seen a ton of change. Fiona is enormous. She is 15 months old this month. Today, actually. I am more in love with her than ever. I guess that tends to happen to parents. The month of July was pretty much our vacation month. A trip to Alexandria with Bryan's family, a solo (just Fiona and me) trip to Wisconsin to see my parents, and then a big family vacation in Boston for the last couple weeks. Boston is glorious, as my friend Kristin would say. So is Gloucester, a small fishing village just north of Boston. I appreciate them both so much for different reasons. We went out there to say goodbye. Bryan's sister Becky, her husband Patrick, and son Marcus are moving to the Middle East next month. It was kind of a crazy time in general, but relaxing in other ways. In the midst of the craziness of being with three children under the age of 3 and adults going in a zillion different directions because they seem to have forgotten how to sit still, Gloucester got under my skin. I am in love with Gloucester. I love the rocks. I love the ocean. I love the fishy, salty smell. I love the people there and their tan, weathered skin. I love the way they congregate on the rocks by the ocean every evening when the sun is sinking. They skip around on the rocks in their swimsuits and slip into the water, telling vacationers from land-locked states that the water is "incredibly warm," when, in fact, it feels like ice. They laugh and smile, and some of them talk with a Boston or New York accent. Many of them have some type of drink in their hand. They share their corn chips with us. They understand things like where to find mussels, where the lobster traps are and which belong to whom, and that the seaweed on the rocks is edible, and actually tastes delicious. As our plane was lifting off the ground, I stared at the ocean and thought about how this wonderful place had become a part of me. At the same time, it felt so good to be home. We opened the door to our house on Montreal Avenue, and the hot air from inside the house puffed in our faces. We ran around, into the kitchen, through the dining room, up the stairs. No wasps got in this time. Everything is still here. Fiona shrieked happy shrieks, like she knew where she was and that maybe she would be staying awhile. Our garden greeted us with big yellow squash and green beans a little bit too big to eat. There were tomatoes and lettuce. We gathered them all up and put them in a big white bowl. They were fun to look at. Our first harvest in our first garden. It felt good.

fiona--9 months old

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:57:21 GMT

a fresh start

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:53:16 GMT

It is January 7th, 2008, and we still have 358 days left of 2008. That makes 2008 relatively new. I love opportunities for a new start. My favorite memories of Christmas 2007: playing the poop train game with Bryan and my brother Brett (a slightly modified version of Mexican Train), mommies and daddies dancing with their babies to Brazilian Playground, and Becky my sister-in-law and me desperately trying to learn the Napoleon Dynamite dance the night before she had to leave when she probably should have been packing. It was a great holiday, everyone caught their holiday cold, and now everyone's recovering. I have three new year's resolutions. They are: dancing, writing (NOT on my blog, but writing for real), and painting. So far I have been dancing and writing, but to be honest, I'm kind of scared to pick up a paintbrush. It's been two years. But I reeeeally want to paint. So I'm going to. I think I'm going to write a children's book about my grandpa. He's so cool. I have never once heard him say anything negative about my grandma. They really love each other. He used to take me for rides in his big red tractor with the air conditioner blasting during spring planting. We talked about farming the whole time. He taught me about tractors, soil, crops, pesticides, and how to have a great time while you're sitting in a tractor planting your fields all day. When he wasn't busy planting or walking beans or mowing or harvesting, he would play games with my brother and me. We especially loved badminton, scrabble, uno, life, rook, and sorry. My grandpa is likely going to have heart surgery this week in Rochester. We are going to have a birthday party for him. His 82nd birthday party.

a new era

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:43:17 GMT

Like my friend Amanda said, we've been trying to live these past six months as if our lives were the same as before....only with a baby. And that doesn't work. I need to smash something. Amanda smashed a clay yoni against a tree and she knew it was a symbol of her new life as a mom. We've got some pumpkins. Maybe I will smash one of those. Anyone want to watch? I love being a mom. I love being Fiona's mom. She is amazing. It is amazing to be with the one who came from you. From your womb. She is six months old on November 10th, and I can't believe it's been that long. I can't believe I thought I could have two jobs and take a class and be a mom. I'm quitting one of my jobs at the end of this month, and I am sooooo looking forward to the time I will be able to spend with my daughter and my husband, the joys of my life. Right in time for the holidays! Yay! Here are some pics for you. I know this update is loooooong overdue.

Bryan and Fiona at the Apple Orchard

Our little pumpkin

She loves apples....pretty much her first food

What a babe

With Daddy

Farmer Fiona on her first Halloween

With Grandma Susie

Going to meet some of my friends for the first time......in a Bryan original outfit

Today

swimming in people's quarries

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:07:41 GMT

have you ever swum in someone's quarry? or perhaps you own one yourself? yesterday was an experience i will not soon forget. bry and fiona and i are staying at his sister's ocean house in gloucester, mass. with his mom, dad, sister molly and her husband josh, and of course, becky and patrick and marcus. yesterday was beach day. the dunes were just like i pictured them. kind of like the intro to the movie anne of green gables, part 2. lots of dunes in that intro. after the beach, patrick's friend nathan invited us to swim in a friend's quarry, which he told us was the best quarry in the universe. now, being someone who has never swum in a quarry, i was quite excited to go from never having been in a quarry to swimming in the best quarry in the universe. i would guess one would normally have to swim in a lot of quarries before finding the best one in the universe. kind of like how finding the best pizza in the unvierse is definitely a life-long process, which i am joyfully in the middle of. if you know anyone who has a quarry in their yard, i highly recommend you swim in it. it kind of feels like you're swimming in the boundary waters. on another note, i have to read you part of this book i am reading. i mentioned it in my last blog, plan b by anne lamott. she says that her friend father tom told her, "the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. certainty is missing the point entirely. faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk." makes a lot of sense. you should read something by anne lamott.

worrying is stupid

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:50:32 GMT

why is it so easy to worry? frankly, i'm sick of it. all of these questions always running through my head are not helpful. i should just chuck them. does anyone know how to do that? will we be able to save any money at all? will we make our next house payment? what do we do about immunizations for fiona? what will happen with the jeep we crashed this past sunday? how will my parents react to the news? when will i be able to clean the house? will we ever have time to decorate it? will bryan and i ever have a night alone again? what is normal? does normal exist? will i ever be happy in a church again? i just finished watching a prairie home companion. weird movie....and yet, i liked it. toward the end a beautiful black woman sings this song that i have not been able to get out of my head. why do we work so hard to get what we don't even want? that was the chorus. while we were travelling, what we wanted seemed so clear. it is so easy to start accumulating things without even realizing it. is that what i'm working for? things? is that what i'm becoming more attached to? things? apparently, i'm dangerously more attached to things than i want to be. i hope God helps me out with that. i've been reading anne lamott lately. my friend lisa reminded me that she had loaned me a book months ago that i still hadn't read. that was a good reminder because that book is exactly the one i need to be reading right now. it's called plan b. i wish anne lamott was here right now to give me some advice. one thing her buddhist friend is always telling her when she's freaking out is to "be kind." that is some great advice. i need to be kind. to bryan. to fiona. to myself. to strangers. being kind makes room for peace and joy. who doesn't need more of that?

new house new baby

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:05:02 GMT

So here I am. It is now July 2, 2007. Bryan and I have been talking a lot about our trip lately. We are always thinking about what we were doing a year ago today, and remembering odd things we haven't thought about for a year or so. It's pretty crazy to think that a year ago today we were in Thailand, getting ready to go to Laos, thinking about things like slow boats down the Mekong and anti-malaria mediation. Now here we are in good ol' St. Paul with a new house ( and a new mortgage) and a new beautiful baby girl. You might say that life has taken us down a different curve in our path. I love not knowing where it will take us next. Really, all we are doing is putting one foot in front of the other. Just moving forward, day by day. Here are some pictures of some of our most recent days.

may 1st,2007 the day we moved in

we had lots of great help....it only took a couple of hours!

may 11, 2007 the day we came home from the hospital with fiona grace mulligan....a day after she was born

and now we are three

anne & jake were among our first visitors

fiona grace

my dad & fiona

pretty much the cutest baby EVER

this is a little confusing, but here goes......

Tue, 22 May 2007 01:48:34 GMT

So the first thing you should know is that we have a perfect, beautiful baby girl. She was born on May 10th, Bono's birthday, and weighs 6lbs 2oz. She's 18 1/2 inches long. She's gorgeous and we love her. Her name is Fiona Grace Mulligan. We are feeling so blessed to be in a new home with our new baby girl. We will post pictures soon. Life begins.

We've been entertaining lots of visitors who want to meet Fiona and see our new house. These visitors are friends and family, and they all mean so much to us. They are helping us to know ourselves better. They help us understand love better.

Two of those visitors were Jon and Juli Dimos, our beloved friends who moved away to Denver last year. We miss them terribly, and it was SOOO wonderful to catch a glimpse of them even for a moment or two. Just today, Bryan came home after checking his email and read in an email from Jon that Juli's brother Jer died on May 14th in a motorcycle accident. This is the same Juli Dimos whose sister Jo died in a ski accident about one year ago. This news has shocked us speechless, and all we can do is tell them how much we love them and how sorry we are and lift them up to Jesus. We are also thinking of Juli's family, the Perzee family. We can't even imagine what it feels like to lose one child, let alone two. I have just been staring into Fiona's eyes today, trying to memorize every detail. I can't possibly imagine how I would deal with losing her. Please keep Jon and Juli, their daughters Lucy and Mercy, and the Perzee family in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

we moved!

Sat, 05 May 2007 16:38:00 GMT

I can't believe it. We have been living in our new house now for 4 days. It is starting to feel more real. I really love it. It is a wonderful house.....and it is ours. And somehow we managed to move in before the birth of our baby.....which we are still waiting on, by the way! My due date is May 8, but I am somewhat surprised our little baby hasn't arrived yet. I'm 90% effaced and 3 cm dilated, for those of you interested in those numbers. Anyway, I am really excited to meet this little person inside me. And I'm excited for people to come and see us at our new house. I'll put up some pictures later. We don't have internet right now, so I'm depending on the library and Bruce & Susie. Thank you so much to all of you wonderful people who helped us move, and to those of you who came and partied with us the day we moved in. That made our house feel like a home more than anything else! More parties to come......