One Month Already!!?

-just over 1 month that we’ve been here at NTBI!

-(and consequently just over 1 month that we bid farewell to our family…sigh)

-just over 1 month until this baby girl should be born!

(or a few days fewer would be nice!! hehe)

ok… so apparently i am a major exaggerator. 2 things is not a lot of things. but since they are both life-changing, they qualify just as well as “a lot of things,” i suppose.

classes are going along just fine. i don’t recall what i posted before about our daily/weekly life… so forgive me if i’m being redundant. but here is a picture of a normal week of 7 days for us.

Monday- all 3 of us are up and at ’em (i always thought as a kid this was “Up and Adam”. could never figure out what Adam and Eve had to do with my waking up in the morning…) by 7.30-ish. (Noe a little earlier) Noe makes yerba mate to enjoy during classes, and between us we get naya out of bed and into her high chair for breakfast. noe and i enjoy smoothies in the morning, and naya is now partaking of said goodness as well… noe takes off at 8am for his first class. then i make coffee (thank you again, grandma Roe for the coffee maker!) for myself (yes, women with low-risk/normal pregnancies can have up to 2 cups a day… do your research, oh you antagonists! hehe). Naya gets dressed (actually, I dress her…), and around 8.45 we head down one floor to the child care, where she runs in the door eagerly and “gets her bubbles!” Bubbles = hand sanitizer. she stays in childcare until 11.50am. At 9am, Noe and i go to chapel. i mentioned briefly before about Chapel- it can be anything from safety/evacuation procedures to worship/praise to a missionary speaker… then 10am and 11am are the classes that both noe and i take. we then pick up naya, return home, and make lunch. naya goes for a nap (as do i when i’m blessed with that option!), which unfortunately has only been averaging 1.5 hours (!!). the afternoon is playtime, and sometimes letting her watch a movie (Elmo, or “Tomatoes” [veggie tales], or “Fishy” [Finding Nemo]…) which is fine right now since her attention span is soooo short. 🙂 if she only naps 1.5 hours, she has “quiet time” for 30 minutes at least around 5pm while i prepare dinner (or pretend to anyway…). On Monday and Thursday nights at 7pm is what is called “Food Cart.” Food Cart is a blessing(!!) for married couples- the kitchen pulls out any substantial leftovers from the past 3 or so days, and we are entitled to take as much as we want for free (well, the price is to wash those food cart dishes once a month… which is really no price at all!). so we’ve come away with things like veggies, cooked chicken breasts, pasta, pasta salads, bread/rolls, the occasional dessert, etc… sometimes we freeze it, or we consume it over the next day or two. it’s a HUGE blessing, even if it is ‘school food.’ no complaints here! Naya goes to bed around 8pm, and then it’s homework time for me. noe has usually started his homework in the afternoon, unless he worked. the Lord has been providing side jobs for noe… one just ended today, so we will pray that the Lord will lead him to another one!

Tuesday- the only differences on tuesday are Chapel- this is “Dorm Chapel” day, so single ladies meet in their dorms, and single men… married men… and married ladies. great times of encouragement- usually with snacks too! ok, i really don’t care about the snacks because i’ve just eaten breakfast at this point… but great encouragement anyway 🙂 Noe also has his Job class on Tuesday and Friday afternoons at 2.10-3pm.

Wednesday- just like monday. all the students except for mothers are required to put in 3 hours (depending on the job) of work to help maintain the school. anything from helping in the kitchen/mowing the grass/maintenance/bathrooms/etc… Noe started out on maintenance crew, but a couple weeks ago a guy broke his foot (surgery required)..this guy’s job was buffing the floor of our freshman classroom. so noe was re-assigned to this job. it is approximately a 2-hr job to buff the floor, including once a month adding 1 hour to apply some kind of wax to the floor. incredibly boring job, but gives him the chance to listen to some podcast sermons!

Thursday- same as monday, including food cart. Also, our Chapel on thursday is Married Couples chapel. usually the dean of marrieds speaks to all of us couples. but he’s also encouraging us to have small groups, so sometimes we will meet in our small groups of 3-4 couples instead. speaking of these different Chapels… this HAS been fabulous to have the different breakdowns of chapels, because if you read my entries before, i complained quite a bit about the chairs in the auditorium. now it’s once a week or so that i have to sit in them! woohoo! thank you, Lord! speaking of being uncomfortable, i’m now at the point in classes where i have a chair in front of my spot at the table to put my feet up, and i bring a small pillow to put behind my lower back. some afternoons i find the energy to take naya outside to the playground! she loooooves that, naturally! i’m looking forward to not being pregnant, and thus having more energy. too bad for the long winter… but next summer/fall will be better. some of you i’m sure are thinking “that’s what you think, but wait until you have a newborn AND 2-year old!” well, with all do respect, keep your comments to yourself…try having a pregnancy like mine that isn’t at all enjoyable, and then we’ll chat. 🙂 (wow, i’m getting fiesty, aren’t i? can you tell i’m pregnant? !!)

Friday- same as Tuesday, in that Noe has his Job class in the afternoon.

Saturday- well, come on, you have Saturdays wherever you live, too!

Sunday- we’ve found a Church with solid Biblical teaching, and we might very well continue to go there! that really and truly is the only priority, folks… what’s the worth of being in a Church that has ‘all your needs met’ and great music but horrible teaching? or no teaching? or deceptively false teaching? seek out the true Food, y’all!! because the rest will flow from that. the truth is, almost all the churches around here have adequate children’s ministries and other ministries and fine musical worship. but truly (x 1000), what a waste all of that would be without solid Biblical teaching! sooo… climbing back down off my soapbox… we may try another Church or two (we tried one 2 weeks ago that had pretty solid teaching as well… best to give a Church more than one week before making a decision, eh?). but we may have found a place to land while we’re here in michigan!

so there’s a horrifically long, detailed look at our week. and yet, i feel like i hardly touched on anything!

i had my 34-week appointment on wednesday, and baby looks just fine. i asked if they could tell if she was head-down or not, but they said it’s still a little too early. whatever… if a baby wants to flip, she’ll flip whenever she wants. i didn’t really care if she could’ve flipped again. but hopefully at the next appointment in 2 weeks they will be willing to give me an answer (or at least a guess). i think i miss my dr. from seaside… that was the best prenatal care i’ve had. the one in seattle got the job done, but i don’t think i’d recommend her to anyone. in seattle, they didn’t even check urine or measure to see how big baby was… which made it irritating to show up with a full bladder every time and then not be given a chance to share the wealth! haha… sorry…

i’m enjoying watching the Husky games, even if i’m a week behind! my parents are sending them to me each week on dvd… hard to find a time slot to watch it, besides my monday night laundry. oh yes, forgot to mention that… 8-9.30pm is my official laundry slot. (i have a 2nd one, but i rarely need it) but it’s usually 8-10.30 to get the clothes dry and folded. so this last monday i watched the first half of the game with headphones in the laundry room. fun!

this saturday NTBI is hosting a school picnic at a private lake nearby. we’re hoping to go, at least for part of it (it’s 10am-10pm).

guess that’s all for now! (yeah, too much for now, you’re thinking, right?)

the Martinez family