spirit

I love Christmas. Always have.

I love Christmas carols and twinkly lights and roaring fires and snuggling under blankets and snowflakes and church on Christmas Eve... I love the joy and wonder and togetherness that threads its way into our lives for a few weeks every winter.

This year, I've had a hard time feeling like it's Christmastime - which was pestering me for awhile... until I realized what a silly and frivolous concern that was. I didn't feel Christmasy because my "previous life" always involved some sort of buildup and hiatus around Christmastime - finals, the end of school, time off work, vacations, etc.

This year - the day-to-day reality of my life doesn't change as Christmas draws closer - and I've been letting that make me feel un-Christmasy.

Shameful.

I have lots of thoughts and musings and ruminations and such floating and bouncing around my brain right now, but I'm going to give myself over, for the next few days, to focusing on what feeling Christmasy really means. On why I truly love this season, and what the arrival of our Savior in the form of a tiny baby means to me.

Merry Christmas!

popsicle toes

Last winter, I was roughly 7 months pregnant right now... carrying, um, a FEW extra pounds, and living inside a body that had twice its normal amount of blood pumping, what with keeping an extra human alive inside me and all. Suffice it to say that last winter - I was WARM. Always. I'd come home and bump the thermostat UP to a whopping 61 degrees... until right before hubby came home and then I'd graciously give him 64 (maybe 65) degrees. He was pretty chilly. I was sweating.

This year... I have popsicle toes. And fingers. And ears, nose, arms, legs... you name it. I'm CHILLY!!! And no - the thermostat is no longer set at 61 or 64 or even 65.

However - I still WANT to crank it up to 75 or so. Except for the fact that my gas bill would give me a heart attack... then I want to be good and green and energy-conserving and just bundle me and the BabyNut up nice and warm... but it's HARD to nurse a hungry baby when you're wearing umpteen bulky layers of clothing.

Yes, today - this is the drama of my life. I'm whiny about being cold. *sigh*

I'm going to go make some hot cocoa and find contentment in our warm house and all the abundant provisions God has seen fit to heap upon us this season. Perhaps a little gladsome thankfulness will warm up my frigid fingers.

a prayer request

On the second Monday of every month, a group of mommies get together to have lunch and talk about their pregnancies and/or child(ren) and just enjoy each other as women. Sometimes our kids come along, and sometimes the mommies are just on a nice lunch break from work. We've been meeting once a month since November 2007 when we realized there was a whole PACKLOAD of us at our university who were all pregnant and due within a matter of months of each other. It's been an absolute blast to hang out with those fabulous women every month - I've made new friends and kept in touch with old ones. And it's just a great sense of support - everyone is in the same Mama-Boat.

Well... I opened up my email this morning to find a note from one of my mama-friends regarding another one of our mama-friends and her 3-year-old boy.

Monica's son Luke was diagnosed with cancer on Friday - rhabdomyosarcoma - there is a tumor, and the cancer has also spread to his lungs and lymph nodes. Now I don't know much, but I do know that finding cancer in more than one spot is NOT a good thing. I haven't heard anything else yet about his prognosis or other tests - but I can hardly think about Monica and Luke (and her husband Sean and baby boy Connor) without crying. Cancer stories are supposed to be things I read about - distantly reminded that life is precious, while my own little world goes relatively un-rocked - cancer stories are NOT supposed to be happening to the 3-year-old son of one of my friends. In the blink of an eye she went from being an ordinary mama with two beautiful boys - to being mama with two beautiful boys, one of whom has cancer. I. cannot. imagine.

So, if you could - ask God to cover them with peace and healing... and (if you're like me) remind yourself that we take MUCH for granted. Nothing is guaranteed, nothing is certain - and so, so many things are good and precious. Children, health, family, friendship, generosity.

just a little proud of myself

I like to make presents. A lot. Especially when I can come up with things that are fun/easy to make and that really fit the person on the receiving end.

This Christmas, my nephews James (5 1/2), Johnathan (3 1/2) and Brody (1 1/2) get to be superheros. I just finished their capes this morning - and this may be one of the projects I'm most proud of. I think they turned out great - and I really hope they love "flying" around the house with their very own capes.

Plus - it's really nice to check a few things off "the list."

when it snows...

It's been a bit of a hectic week - hours and days seem to be jumping right by us, as is always the case this time of year.
Between birthdays and Christmas shopping and baking and present-making and picture taking and wakeful nights and fun fun road trips... I haven't had a lot of blogging time. However - we are all alive and kicking and doing just dandy (although one of us really wishes another one of us would sleep for longer than 3 hours at a stretch...)
Hopefully this week will give me a teeny bit more time to sort out some of my jumbly thoughts and put something enjoyable together for y'all to read here.
In the meantime, I'll go to my standard fall-back - pictures of the BabyNut. These are some of the outtakes from Christmas-picture-taking adventures last week...

effective v. efficient

Dear Amazon.com:

A package from you arrived on my doorstep last night - the kind of package only a strange, organization-obsessed gal like me would be eagerly anticipating. I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of a laundry sorter (to be placed in the hallway just outside the laundry room so as to bring an end to the piling-up of random dirty textiles on the FLOOR. For some reason, I'm OK doing laundry for the house when I'm pulling it out of nicely sorted hampers... I have a strong negative reaction to picking dirty laundry up off the floor.)

Our friendly neighborhood UPS man set down the package, knocked loudly and simultaneously rang the doorbell (as only delivery men can do) before bolting back down our front steps. When I opened the front door to retrieve my package, I was stunned. Sitting upon my front stoop was a box the likes of which could have comfortably shipped ME around the world. What sort of laundry organizer was this??

Well, it turns out that I had in fact ordered a very normal sized item... but someone at Amazon.com got a wee bit overexcited at the packaging stage...

Behold:









Amazon - I value our relationship. I enjoy your low prices and speedy, often-free shipping. I am sure I will continue to order from you far into the future.

But SERIOUSLY - there is no need to send my laundry sorter (which is itself VERY efficiently and effectively packed in a nice, slim box) in a container the size of Texas, chock-full of brown packing paper. It seems like a bit of overkill.

Thank You.
~Katie