Leaf by Elizabeth

I thought I'd give you a little tour of my desk area, where I keep a few fun things that help put a little glimmer into the occasional gloomy work day. I just recently discovered some of them in the basement (ah, the eternal Christmas that comes from still-unpacked boxes). Funnily enough, most of them are from my mom, who loves these sorts of things too. :) So starting at the bottom left corner, there's a paperweight from my alma mater; a Tanzanian carved letter opener; an intricately carved bookmark from our honeymoon; a very funky elephant tape dispenser (I forgot to put his trunk down- it's the green part); a pencil jar from North Africa; a "Love" stone from my mom; a rock with two intersecting white lines that I picked up on a hike once- it reminds me of the cross and of being connected to family even when we're geographically far apart; a card house from the "House of Cards" deck (more on that below); a white statue from Greece, a miniature set

So the subtitle for my blog was inspired by a comment a good friend of mine made when I was pregnant with our first. I was complaining about how I was so tired/sick all the time and didn't feel like I "had a life" and she replied, "well, right now you're nurturing the life within". That was so beautiful and encouraging for me to hear. I then adapted her comment to the purpose of this blog, with the idea that these posts on beauty/life/truth can nurture my inner (emotional, spiritual, intellectual, etc) life. And it has very much been doing so. However...the sudden drop in posting has been due to some literal inner-life nurturing that's been going on. Namely, I'm pregnant again! We're expecting our second (a girl) in January. The morning sickness for the first few months felt worse this time than before. Thankfully that's all faded away, and now I'm just plain tired. It's been a struggle for me to accept my limitations- that I need to