we made it!

by the grace of God, we made it safely to Huntsville after leaving at 3-something AM.  I left before the truck was loaded all the way because Iris had to spend the night in the car seat and had woke and was gettin' cranky. I was doing fine on adrenaline until I got to Pelahatchie...I had to pull over behind a line of 18-wheelers and wait for Roy to catch up to me. Then he was super tired, so we stopped in Morton --at a super nice gas station-- and got drinks and corndogs. Dee-licious. That was about at four. Roy also got a "five hour energy drink."

We stopped at Meridian for more coffee and Iris and Roy had some breakfast--I should have gotten some, but I just got coffee. Gross McDonalds coffee. Then, on the east side of Tuscaloosa, I realized I needed to eat, rightaway, so we exited...right before I got to the stop sign, I started throwing up while I was driving. I was able to brake and just hang out the window, but continued to throw up all the way into the Burger King parking lot. That's pretty much the grossest thing that's happened to me in my life. And then the Burger King was gross, too. but it was better than throwing up. I'm just thankful that I wasn't on the interstate when it happened.

That was our last stop--we managed to hang on until we got to Huntsville! I was fifteen minutes ahead of Roy because I found it much easier to stay awake going seventy than sixty. ALSO, apparently everyone speeds on I-65. However, when I got on 565, everyone was going less than the speed limit. It was very confusing. So we got to our NEW HOUSE!!!!!

Iris and I just hung out waiting for Roy to get there, but when he arrived we had some trouble figuring out the best way to get that huge truck into the driveway. Roy had been up foro more than 24 hours at that point. I'd gotten a tiny nap, but wasn't much better.  Anyway, he got there, and we had nap time/relax time in the sunroom--we got there maybe 2 hours before the people who helped us move came.

THOSE FOLKS came with tons of food and drinks and a lawnmower, and were so helpful and kind. As soon as they got a chair for me, I just sat in the chair and directed traffic. They even brought me a plate of food! I don't really remember what happened after they had unloaded. I think we must have fallen asleep.

Iris loves the new house and having room to run around--even though it'll be easier once we've gotten more boxes out of the way. I get really tired, so we are unpacking pretty slowly. Sunday we definitely RESTED...I put my poor body and baby through a lot during the moving time, so I'm trying to make sure we both get plenty of rest. Iris has only fallen down the stairs once--and there's a landing halfway through (then it changes direction)--so she can't fall all the way down.

I have a headache so I'm going to stop now. Keep praying. Thanks and Love.

Emily (and company)

this made me cry

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/fashion/09Love.html?pagewanted=2&sq=modern%20love&st=cse&scp=2

note to self

sometimes when Iris refuses something that I put near her mouth, it doesn't mean she doesn't want it--it means she wants to feed it to herself.

meals I want to have before we move

at least three different dishes from Saigon
pesto pasta from Broadstreet
more Indian food
a superburger from Cool Al's/Stamps
creme brulee from Fresh Market
ribs from Sweet Daddy's (aka the gas station down the street)

I wish we could have food prepared by the Dotson's, but they are already gone.

also, in Starkville,
Little Dooey's, City Bagel, Bulldog Deli, Scheherazade's/whatever its new name is, and maybe the MSU cafeteria.

a part of a poem?

something about "spontaneous [toddler] kisses, drippy/sloppy with cheetos"

yeah, iris just came up to me and stuck her face up to kiss me. it was precious and gross...cause she had been eating cheetos.

an historic moment

Tonight, I french-braided Iris's hair. I had to bribe her with milkduds to make her stay still enough to do so, but I did it!

I thought I had more to say, but I forgot it.

i feel a blog coming on...

Well, on Sunday, I'll be eleven weeks pregnant. So that's exciting. I'll take any soft tacos from Taco Bell you want to bring me.

This is my fourth pregnancy. It looks like this baby is gonna make it, but I don't like calling him/her our second baby. Just an FYI. Having healthy babies doesn't fix the grief and hurt of losing babies. That said, I don't want to be someone who is all into an identity of baby-loss. But sometimes, it does just bubble up.

I just made eggs and sausages for breakfast (right after I wrote that previous paragraph). But they didn't really make me happy, even though Roy and Iris enjoyed it. I ate some, though, and hopefully it'll be enough to hold me over. Besides the tiredness, the not-enjoying-eating is what gets to me the most about pregnancy. However, it's a good sign of little JoLo's health, so I am trying not to complain TOO much.

We have a contract on a house in Huntsville. We are not going to be making a big deal about it until we close, though. I didn't really realize how much buying a home was a process, not an immediate thing. But hey, time to be grown ups! There will be more details when we get to close, which, Lord-willing, will be the end of the month.

I got to go to Jackson State's RUF last week because Roy preached. It was really fun--like, REALLY fun. It made me really excited about having "our own" students at A&M. I don't know if the students at A&M are like the JSU students, but hopefully, they'll be as excited about RUF.

Iris is learning and growing like CRAZY. She can say all sorts of fun things, including "no-mi" [no ma'am] (okay, so that one isn't as fun as others), and she's talking ALL the time, even though we don't usually know what she's saying. She calls most animals "dau-ee" [doggy], but sometimes she also says "bird" or "kitty." She has also started using silverware. I am absolutely thrilled about this one (or I would be if I didn't have a thousand other things to worry about), because I mostly let her eat with her fingers, and didn't even feed her with utensils, but she has decided that she wants to use utensils. Now if I can just figure out how to make her keep her spoon right-side-up, we'll be golden. She also really likes our broom. We're going to have to get her a little one so she won't knock stuff over with the handle. It's so fun to think she'll be a big sister in just what...crap, I'm so bad at math lately...eleven minus four is SEVEN. SEVEN months she'll be a big sister. well, I guess, six and a half.

I had to give my two weeks notice at work on Thursday (well, two weeks and one day). It was really bittersweet. Of course, I am so excited to go to Huntsville, have another baby, minister to students, etc. But I LOVE(d) my job. It really matched my gifts and abilities, my co-workers were great, and I got to help make and sell BOOKS. I love books, and we make really good ones at the press. I have four more days there (since I only work two days a week), and I'm hoping that I won't be too sad. It's funny, it is true that now that I know when I'm leaving, the foibles of my co-workers really have been getting to me, so on the one had, leaving will be a relief, but I'm still going to miss it. I am hoping that maybe I can do some sort of work for them in Huntsville, over the internet, but I don't know if it'll work out.

Um, oh what else. Oh, I read two books lately, well I've read more than that, but only two are worth of comment. One I forgot the title of--wait--I remember, BETWEEN THE TIDES. It was alright, except that it was set in the Carolinas and had a SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY in it. IN CAROLINA! I couldn't believe that they had somehow missed that there was already a Southern University in Louisiana...and theirs definitely didn't have the same racial makeup as the real one. So I was really bothered by that, even though the story was fine. The other book I read was THE HELP. That of course, has a lovely story, but it was written in presence tense. It was set in the sixties but the speakers/narrators were speaking in the present tense. I don't understand why people think that's cool. So annoying. However, it was funny to recognize names and places in the story. Did anyone think the present tense HELPED the story? (ha...pun not intended).

Well, I think that's about all for now. Talk to you later.

grocery list

milk
benedryl (store brand plain)
canned soup, low sodium, chicken flavors
canned diced tomatoes
bread
v8 fruit juice
fruit--bananas, grapes, etc.
peanut butter (not too much sugar)
crackers?
potatoes
cereal
sandwich meat
sausage
ziplock bags
nekots
ginger ale (brand with lowest sugar content)
chips
goldfish
yogurt (whole)
pop corn
cokes
rice
straws or straw sippy cups

thanks!

Happy Anniversary to us!

What a great day!

Three years ago today (probably at around 7 pm), I got married to the best man in the world, not counting Jesus. He cried a lot, but I didn't. The music was so good, I wanted to jump up and down on the stage (but I didn't). We had caramel cake and Breyer's icecream and dancing. The flowers were beautiful, all real spring flowers, in some cases harvested from people's yards (potentially without their consent!). And Keith Berger said, "He loves you not because you are beautiful, but because He is making you beautiful."

These past three years have been so much better walking alongside ol' Roy. His wit and sometimes just weirdness keep me laughing, his strength and hugs and absolute faith in God's care for us have sustained me during terrible times.

It's hard to look back and think of those years as wonderful. Full of wondering, but not exactly wonderful. It has been so good good good to be with Roy, but the being a family part has been hard. We have lost two babies--but only gotten one to hold. It's taken us three years to find a job that we love and that seems like it's going to provide financial stability. And we are still learning about each other, how to fight, how to parent, how to fight about parenting, how to be grown ups...we have just begun! I don't think Keith said it at our wedding (I couldn't listen that well, to be honest), but I know he's said it at lots of others, that marriage is hard, but good, and I can't really add to that. It has been terribly hard--so many hard things that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't gotten married, but it has been beyond good...so many good things that couldn't have happened without our marriage, including but not limited to a beautiful girl named Iris.

God has been so good to us, and I am so thankful to him for putting me and Roy together.

It seems like just yesterday we drove off to the reception, went to Wendy's, and then to the Lion's park because we were waiting for my dad to take the presents to our apartment so we could spend our night there. Yes. It was delightfully awkward. And I forgot to get serving utensils for the reception food.

I'm pretty sure I had the best wedding ever.

Tonight we are planning on eating our favorite food and watching our wedding DVD. I'm looking forward to it.

tomorrow (that is wednesday)

Is our three year anniversary.

this is not a loveydovey post, even though i'm thinking about doing one, but I just wanted to make sure that we marked it.

our first anniversary (at my instigation) we went to see Obama at JSU but didn't actually make it into the place where he was. I was pregnant with Iris.
our second anniversary, i have vague memories of maybe being sick and having saigon at home. Iris was five months then i think?
I'm not quite sure what's happening on Wednesday, but I hope it involves getting out of the house and actually being able to do what we planned.

THE END

baby brag

or complaint.

It has seemed like Iris has been extra bad this week and last, like she's practicing for being two. Also, there have been extreme amounts of drool. I finally stuck my finger in the dragon's mouth today and lo and behold, besides the four extremely sharp teeth already in there, there are four HUGE bumps, one with a tiny sharp bit poking  through.  The best part about it is that she has been getting her hands on medicine bottles (we've had some antibiotics lately) and holding them up to us, like she's saying "give me some pain killer, fools!" I guess she's communicating in her own little way.

Also she likes her PB sandwiches open face, and loves to play on the computer...even though I'm trying to discourage that one. But I know she's just modeling me, so I guess I should get off and take her outside!

Much love to all.

Emily

I am so tired

but I guess that means I've been busy, and that is good.

I don't think this will be very coherent, but whatever. I feel like making a post. (ps. i just debated for a good ten seconds about whether I should say "entry" or "post" ; both of them sounded too formal to me.)

New things: I like my egg yolks runny. This is very new and different. I guess it's from my spate of poached eggs eating, but now even my fried eggs I like them not to be solid. This preference makes me wonder if I'm turning into a different person.

Of course,  I never thought I'd be living in Alabama, either, so that is also a new thing. I spent years hating Alabama for the same reason I hated Columbus....they were right beside us and better than us. Oh well.

Also, this job puts me in some pretty good company. A lot of amazing women are campus minister's wives. (should that first apostrophe be after the s?). Both of the interns who were at State while I was in college are married to campus ministers. And then there are other cool ladies, too. I'm really looking forward to being part of that group. (There's even a facebook group...maybe I should join.)

Iris is growing growing growing. This morning she found a pen, pulled my notebook-calendar off the table, and scribbled all over the front page.  Also she's definitely right handed.

I have gotten a lot accomplished today and I'm tired, so I think I'm going to go sit on the couch.

Before I go, a confession: I would rather be pregnant than skinny. [not for always, just for right now] [NO THIS IS NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT]

The end.

AND WITH THE NUMBER ONE PICK.....

Huntsville selects the young Roy Hubbard, out of Louisiana State University and Reformed Theological Seminary. Accompanying him will be Emily Hubbard, from Mississippi State University, and Iris Hubbard. Hubbard is known for his teaching gifts and great pull-up jumper.

Yes, folks, that's right, we have received a call, and it's not on the telephone! Lord willing, in late May or early June, we'll be headed to Huntsville, Alabama--ROCKET CITY! Roy is going to be the founding RUF campus minister at Alabama A&M, an HBCU (historically black college/university) there, and the alma mater of our dear friend Elbert McGowan. The campus is ready for Roy to be there--we've heard of a hunger AND we already have written permission to be on campus...so we are absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity, even though I never did think I would live in Alabama.  Shows what I know.

If you're familiar with our job search history, you'll know that we interviewed in Huntsville LAST year around this time, but there were other opportunities on the table, and, to put it bluntly, we just weren't feeling it. Also it snowed, and I was really cold the whole time. But all the other chances fell through, and so we stayed in Jackson for this year, trying to get Tougaloo back on track. I remember telling people, "well, apparently God wants us in Jackson." And he did. This year has been good, but hard, and humbling, but Roy's gotten to use his teaching gifts to the glory of God; I know that he has been able to touch lives. And I've gotten the chance to make some sweet friendships and learn more about my place in the kingdom (to be pretty non-specific). When we heard that Providence Presbytery was still interested in us THIS year, we kinda sat down (actually, we drove around Jackson) and thought about our previous experience with Huntsville, and how we hadn't really been faithful to appropriately seek God's will regarding it. How comforting to know that even in our failings, God doesn't let go of his plans for us.

And so we are excited and the Huntsville people are excited that we are coming.

So though we'll be sad to leave Jackson (and I'll be sad to leave Mississippi) and our family and relationships and Redeemer Church and Saigon and my job at the University Press, and all the not-quite-babies-anymore that Iris was born with, we are, we really are, so GLAD to know where our little corner of the kingdom is supposed to be, and we are so ready to go out there and start putting down roots and taking dominion.

Huntsville is in the foothills of the Appalachians AND two hours away from Chattanooga, where my sister and a couple cousins live AND one of Roy's best friends, and closer to Atlanta, too, where more of my family is. It's definitely farther from Starkville, so that is sad, but on the other hand, Alabama A&M's mascot is the Bulldog and their colors are maroon and white, so maybe I'll just feel so at home I won't even miss Starkville. (Okay, that's not really going to happen.) But I am especially looking forward to being able to do lots of outdoorsy stuff -- and having good friends come to do it with me. Iris might be a woodswoman by the time she's old...if she doesn't turn into a space geek.

There's already an RUF at UA-Huntsville, so Roy will have a co-worker right in town. There's also a multi-racial church plant, that, though it won't be Redeemer, will be great to be involved with. [sorry that sentence ended with a preposition].

So, our story is that we have had two interviews--one with the Presbytery RUF committee and one with the state RUF committee. Now we have do have a mini-assessment, raise some money (still fuzzy on the details about that one), find a place to live, and Roy has to get ordained. His last day of school here is May 21, so you Jacksonians bear that in mind.

Please pray for all that to work out. Pray for the students at A&M, that God would be already preparing them for Roy's ministry to them. I'm sure we'll be sending a support letter out shortly, so let us know if you'd like to get one. We'll put cute pictures of Iris in it...you know you want it!

The End.

a few observations

1) it's snowed so often, it's not really exciting anymore. Maybe Iris will like it? Also, I hope Clinton public schools cancel.

2) I think I have pinkeye, along with a sinus infection, and might be battling other stuff too. I don't want to go to the doctor, but I'm really tired of being sick.

3) Iris had a little fever last night, and I think her head cold might have travelled down to her chest. Boo.

4) I just watched the movie "Penelope" and really enjoyed it.

5) Roy just got home from RUF. Hurray!

fairies

I spent most of the day on my couch or in my bathroom, thanks to a stomach bug or food poisoning, but my house is definitely cleaner than it was this morning. I guess we either have housecleaning fairies or our household contains the World's Best Husband.

Also, Iris is in this fantastic (ish?) stage where we can just give her a piece of bread if she's hungry. Not that we do it all the time, but I wish I were content with just bread when I was hungry.

Also, props to Smoothie King's Angelfood smoothie for making me feel better and not worse. Purcell, if you read this, I always associate you with the Angelfood flavor.

Watch this space for other interesting information.

a rare book-review

I don't usually do book reviews. I don't like to read them or write them. I might enjoy hearing a friend's opinion of a book, but I'd rather read a book myself and form my own opinion rather than going in with preconceived notions. So it won't hurt my feelings if you don't read the following. But I think...or, rather, I hope that this book can be an important book.

A friend gave me the book Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World.  It's by Paula Harris and Doug Schaupp, and published by Intervarsity Press.  (Of course.  ...from what I've heard IV is the only campus ministry that has already been really striving to deal with race stuff in a constructive and effective way [no offense to RUF].

Of course I was immediately interested in the title. While I don't "struggle" with being white, necessarily, it's not really my favorite thing about me. My life pre-integration  (personal integration, not Brown-v.-Board) really has very little to recommend itself, my greatest hurts have been at the hands of white people, the white church provided very little soul balm while I was going through the hardest time of my life. I still love British literature, my white friends, and country music. ...I mean, I'm a white girl. I'm not even like a white-hip-hop girl. I'm just white. But as long as I can keep British literature and my white friends...and maybe country music, I don't mind leaving most of the rest of white culture.

But the people I love the most are "of color." What's most important to them is now most important to me. What happens to them happens to me. Even though I have greater freedom and privilege when I'm by myself, when I am with my family, I bear their burdens with them, and of course, chief of the burdens are racism and oppression.  I am there with my family.

But I also HATE HATE HATE telling black women that my baby is mixed, or that my husband is black.  I know that there are not enough black men to go around and honestly, I got probably the best one.  But I also hate it when I know that people who meet me assume my husband is white. So I'm trying to use color as a descriptor more myself, "oh, is he a white man?" This is in part to fight my own tendency to assume someone is white unless there's hints otherwise. However, even though in my house, (especially when my brother-in-law is over), there are color words like "red, yellow, dark, (and my own personal favorite:) lightskinneded, I don't use those words. I just stick with white and black --even though if I were going to be REALLY good about this, I should also ask if people were Asian or Latino/a.

Sorry I haven't gotten to the book review part. The whole concept of "being white but not with white people" is something I've been half-thinking about for a while now, and this is giving me a good chance to think it out more fully, and hopefully will help me be a better reviewer of the book. Gives me some actual credibility.  Sorry my path to getting there is so torturous.

Another aspect of this that I've been having to think about is when I leave my family and go back just around white people again. ...Frequently, this means I have to be an educator. I dislike this intensely, mostly because my stomach still gets nervous when I have to speak up, but also because people should by now really know better. ...right? This summer I had a conversation/argument/discussion with a sweet, sweet girl who said that the punishment for slavery on America was that all white people were immediately thought of as racist. I didn't even have words to respond.

[Sidenote: it is tremendously fun to write "family" and mean me, my husband, and my baby (and sometimes my brother-in-law).]

So, you see, my life can be really tricky. People I dearly love can say the most terrible things about people whose interests I consider my own, and not even know what they've done, and people who I would rather befriend may consider me worse than a thief, and sometimes when my husband is talking to his brother I can't understand either of them (this partly because they are from New Orleans, but not wholly).  And let's not even get into the complicatedness of beautiful and "good grade" of hair. It's weird to be white in a family of color. I wouldn't want to be in any other family, except maybe Billy and Marian Joseph's...and then only if Roy and Iris could come too, but it can be mentally and emotionally taxing (duh) in ways that people in uni-racial families don't have to worry about.

So. I was really looking forward to seeing what this book had to say about being white in a multiracial world.

Well, this wasn't the book to help me with that. I'll just have to talk to Roy more often for my current white problems. But this is a good book for getting to be where I am, if that doesn't sound too full of hubris. The back of the book says "[the authors] present a Christian model of what it means to be white." In secular terms, though, what the book is really about is learning to be socially conscious, or, as one of my black friends say, being "down." It's an easy and gentle read. I usually read fiction books, so I feel like I should say "spoiler alert!!" before I go on to talk about the content of the book more, but ...I'll try not to be that dorky.  The authors are both white: one is married to a Korean American, one was married to an African and so has mixed kids--now she's married to a Hungarian. But both of them have had significant experience in relationships with other races.

[Confession: I skimmed parts of it that were not new to me.]

They have five "stages" of being white. Really, though, they mean "godly white" or something. Let's calling "down white."  The first is ENCOUNTER, then FRIENDSHIP, then DISPLACEMENT, then WHITE IDENTITY, then the JUST COMMUNITY.  Since I work at a publishers, I can't in good conscience give the meat of the book away, but there were two parts of it that really struck me. One was the displacement stage. By that, they mean consciously becoming part of a group where you-the-white-person are a minority. I've done that, and it is pretty important...it's so weird to be the only white person in the room. (I should put that sentence in past tense, because now it's normal...it's weird to only be with white people now. ) I also got the same feeling from a professor of mine in grad school who studied evangelicals. It definitely made me rethink how often I talked to Roy about studies of black people. It is VERY weird (at least for me as a privileged white person) to think of yourself as something so strange it needs to be studied... welcome to life as an other!   So yes, I think "displacement" or immersion is really important. Even though if all the white people tried to do that, we might run out of places to be the minority.

I think it's in the last section (let me look) ....Just kidding -- it's in the fourth stage, one of the authors lists different types of racism. I'm going to repeat her list--one of them was really good for me to read.  Aware/Overt racism [you're a racist and you know it], More Subtle Racism [the system is racist and you don't know it, Aware/Covert racism [you know it and you try to hid it], Unaware/Covert racism [you are racist but you don't know it], and finally, mine: Unaware/Selfrighteous racism: being a "good white person" who shames people of color and white people both for not being aware enough or culturally observant enough.  This one is so easy for me to get into.

The authors also address white guilt, systemic discrimination, and even get into the definition of racism-- a discussion I had with Roy and some [black] friends just on Sunday. Racism = prejudice + power. They also talk about personal racism and instituational racism.

See, this is why I don't like book reviews...I get lost and don't know what to say.  But, basically, I found it to be helpful. If you are a white person who wants to have more friends of color, you should read it. If you are a person of color who has well-meaning but annoying/offensive white friends, you should give them a copy ...maybe anonymously, so as not to be too pointed? If you're a white person who's ever wondered if you bother your black friends, or if you don't have any, or if you're scared of talking to people from different races about things that matter, you should probably read this book. It will take you-white-person from  the moment of seeing someone who looks different than you to the moment when your life has been changed and you are ready/eager to lose your white privilege or use it to fight for justice for people of color.  (gross. now I'm sounding like an amazon.com review). It doesn't promote white guilt, either. And it's gentle; it has lots of accounts of the authors' own experiences of being racist, so it's not judgy. But it's really truthful. It could easily be a companion volume to Divided by Faith. (it's DEFINITELY much better than United by Faith).

Two other things. It'll annoy reformed people that the husband and wife teams are sometimes co-pastors; it annoyed me exceedingly that they have applying questions in the text, not at the end of the chapters.

I'm going to quit now. Thanks!  Also please note that I wrote this without Roy's input.

grocery list

there is a humongous cat in our yard

all purpose flour
cream cheese (one package)
a lemon
lots of canned beans (kidney, black, + whatever looks good to you)
celery
green peppers (just one or two, really)
fruit
prune juice (or should we just get some prunes)
milk
yogurt - whole milk all natural kind
cereal - including plain shredded wheat
eggs
cheese
brown rice
cookies (?)
canned tomatos (lots)
pasta, angel hair, penne, bowties?
potatoes
chicken broth (low sodiom, no MSG)
frozen vegetables (Especially the fun mixes (more than just peas,
corn, carrots))
confectioners sugar/powdered sugar
any colored sugar you'd like to see on a king cake

I think that's all.

maybe i hallucinated...

but as i was cooking my sausage, i swear i heard spring peepers in the
fizzing of the frying sound.

TV and race

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948662,00.html

good advice

from my sister: "she's on endorphins. don't judge."