Catching up

Let's rewind for a few minutes and catch up on some of the bigger moments of my life in the last few years... okay, the last seven years. :)

June 2000—Graduate from Otterbein College with a B.A. in Journalism. Two months later, I start a job with the Religion Newswriters Association & Foundation. RNA is a journalism organization that trains reporters to write about religion. I liken it to any other "beat" organization (beat = topic, ie: sports), except our focus is religion. Our members include reporters from The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Columbus Dispatch, etc.

My role in the company is Associate Director. In that capacity I oversee an administrative assistant and an intern, I write grant reports, I create marketing publications, I help maintain our Web site, I raise money in advertising/sponsorships for our conference, etc., etc.

Fall 2003—I meet David McCallen, who convenienty moves in to the apartment directly across from mine in Westerville... right about the same time I became single. He was just back from the Iraq war, where he was injured by a suicide bomber (check out those teeth in the picture!). David earned a purple heart from the U.S. Marine Corps. for the ordeal. Talk about big first impressions!

June 18, 2005—Our wedding day at Kinsman United Methodist Church. Gotta love that uniform!






Summer 2006—Renovating our first house. That was an insane summer/fall. Living in a construction zone was awful. I've never seen so much dust, and it just kept coming. We spent dozens of hours working on our house, and it's still not even close to being finished. Remind me the next time we buy a house that a fixer-upper only sounds like fun.



Fall 2006—Baby on board! We were sure it was going to take months to get pregnant, but Noah had other ideas. So, we plunged into baby preparations about a half-year ahead of schedule. Still, we were both so excited (and a little scared and a little nervous).

June 2, 2007—Noah arrives at 4:48 PM! I was so happy when he finally arrived. My last month of pregnancy was borderline ridiculous. I was waddling by month 7, so I was downright dragging my month 9. The night I finally went into labor, I woke up at 2 AM and thought, "hey, that hurt!"

At 6 AM, we had made it to the hospital checked in (which, by the way... I can't understand why they make huff & puff their way through paperwork, OUCH!) and I had my first epidural. What an amazing invention! Seriously, kudos to all you ladies who endure natural childbirth. I couldn't do it.

I think my first guests arrived around 8 AM... Mom & Dad, then Jess Wilson. We all sat around that day & chatted while I watched my contractions on the monitor. That was so odd...I didn't feel a thing when the epidural was working, but I could see that things were moving right along on that monitor.

And then around 2 or 3 PM, I discovered that the epidural wasn't working—at all—on my left side. I was 7 cm dilated, and the pain was not okay. So they did another one. Hooray! All was well again.

The rest is a bit of a blur. All of the sudden I went from watching Mike Rowe on the Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" to "It's time to push!" Half an hour of pushing, and Noah was here. He was 8 lbs, 2 oz, 20 inches long. He had a head full of dark brown hair and a complexion to die for. Lucky little guy.



July 2007—My second month on maternity leave! I remember feeling like I was just starting to get into a routine by this point. Noah was an insane eater—nursing every 45 minutes. He woke up every 1–3 hours at night too. Holy cow was I tired. We had a couple of big occasions that month too. The first week in July we went on vacation to Kalahari waterpark with my family. Noah came too... just five weeks old! My friends, Kristen (Porter) & Tomasz Jarzecki, and David's friends Lindsay & Rob Adams got married later that month...on the same day.



August 2007—Back to work! One of the best things about my job is that I get to take Noah with me to work. We go into the office three days a week and work from home two days a week. While it makes for an insane, never-ending day, I wouldn't trade it for the world. The longer I can have him with me, the better.



September 2007—The month of fair food & travel. This was family fun month. In one weekend, David and I went to The Old Time Farming Festival in Centerburg, and then to the Delaware County Fair. The Farming festival was a hoot... have you ever seen tractor square dancing?? Me neither. :)

Our friend, Clay Mantovani, was in the demolition derby at the Delaware Fair. We went to cheer him on and eat our favorite deep-fried treats. Noah liked everything at the fair but the loudspeaker... that took some getting used to. And he saved a big surprise for us at the end of the evening... he projectile vomitted all over me in the car. Ugh. Remember the little girl from The Exorcist? This situation was similar, without the split-pea soup. Yucky.

Later that month, Noah took his first plane ride...five of them, actually. I took the little guy and my mom with me to San Antonio for a week during my company's annual conference. It was so nice to have them both there. I can't imagine what I would have done if I would have had to leave Noah for an entire week when he was only three months old. Thanks, mom!

October 2007—Otterbein Homecoming. This day is always madness. My sorority sisters always gather at one of my girlfriend's houses near campus—with all our kids—and try to keep some semblance of order. I don't know what the official count is, but I think this year there were at least 15 small fries under the age of 5. Yikes!

And that brings us to Halloween. We went a little non-traditional with the costume. I let David pick it out at the costume store, and he came back with a goat outfit. We'll see how that turns out.

There you have it... seven years in brief. Until next time...