Farewell, My Love

This week, I have made the choice to say goodbye to one of my dearest friends for many, many years. It was just a relationship that was too destructive for me - I was fiercely loyal, but all my friend could give back to me was unhealthy and painful. So, farewell, Diet Coke. We've been close for years, but now we've come to the end of the road.

How did this revolution come about?, you may ask. Well, about 2 weeks ago I started having some acid-related stomach problems. That was really about stress, but I noticed a pattern that my stomach would be upset the days I had caffeine, and it would be fine the days I didn't. It's been more than a week since I had caffeine, and my stomach is doing just fine. I even stopped taking the Zantac that the doctor prescribed "as needed." I don't need it anymore.

Well, why don't you just start drinking caffeine free Diet Coke?, you ask. Believe me, friend, this thought has crossed my mind. However, the evidence has been stacking up against diet drinks in general. Let me give you some reasons:

I was eating lunch with my friend, Kristy, last week, and she told me about her college roommate, who was a Diet Coke addict much like me. This roommate decided to do some looking into the effects of aspartame on a person's body, and she found some really bad stuff. So she decided to give up Diet Coke, and Kristy said that the most remarkable effect of her giving up aspartame was that her memory was markedly improved. If any of you have known me for any length of time, you will know that if anybody needs an improved memory, I DO! So I'm cutting back on aspartame in the hopes that it may help my declining memory.

For those of you who love your diet sodas and don't want to give them up, rest assured, it is still approved by the FDA for consumption by humans. There are just so many stories out there and testimonies of people whose lives were vastly improved by giving up aspartame. I'm trying to be more healthy and eat more natural, so I want to cut back on the consumption of this fake sweetener. (Someday, I'll be like my father-in-law and go all-natural to sweeten everything with honey or pure maple syrup. I'm not there yet...)

Also, there has been quite a bit of research that diet sodas do not in fact help anyone lose weight. This article on WebMD says that for each can of diet soda that a person drinks per day, their risk of obesity goes up by 41%. It is generally a well-known fact that diet sodas don't help you lose weight, but I hadn't realized that they actually make you fatter than if you were just drinking water. Most of you know that I've really been working hard to lose weight, and I've been quite successful even despite the diet sodas. But now I'm giving them up and hoping to boost myself even closer toward my goal.

So maybe you could drink Caffeine Free Diet Coke with Splenda?, some of you are thinking. Well, first of all, I don't think they make such a thing. Second of all, I've decided to just quit cold turkey. I'm done with diet sodas!

I am not, however, completely done with aspartame. I'll get used to life without Diet Coke, and THEN maybe someday I'll try to give up my Crystal Lite. But in the meantime, I'm taking baby steps toward a healthier me.

Congratulations, Dad!

I just wanted to use this public forum to say CONGRATULATIONS to my dad, who is the newest realtor at Star One Realtors! Yesterday he took his exam to become licensed in real estate, and he passed with flying colors - which I hear is a difficult thing to do in Ohio, especially on the first try! So I'm very proud of you, Dad, and can't wait to see you make your first sale!

This is an exciting and interesting time in the lives of my parents, they're venturing off into new territory with new careers on both sides! (If you're interested in custom embroidery, check out my mom and sister's business, Legacy Stitches.) I'm praying for you guys!

Adorable Faces

My sister just sent me some adorable pictures of my sweet nephews, the 2 most precious children on the planet. So I thought I'd post them since she doesn't have a blog of her own on which she can share them with the world. Plus, I don't have anything else to blog about! Enjoy these sweet faces!
This was Azlan's first time in the Exersaucer... I think he liked it!!!Apparently Patriot really likes helping Mommy give Azlan his bath. And Azlan likes watching them in the mirror. Adorable!And finally, Azlan was giving them some big grins when he was sitting in his Bumbo the other night. Look at that chunky monkey!!So these are my sweet sweet nephews - they're coming to visit for Justin's graduation in just a few months!!! Yippee!!!

My Hearos!

As a continuation of the previous post, I wanted to post about my Hearos, which save the day because of the ridiculous loudness emanating from the upstairs apartment. No, I'm not misspelling the word "heroes." Hearos are the brand name of earplugs that I've started using to sleep at night.

We use the blue kind, the "Extreme" Hearos, that block up to 33 decibels!

Now, before I married Justin, I had never used earplugs, never really seen them, and definitely never heard of someone who sleeps with them every night. But Justin is an INCREDIBLY light sleeper, and he wouldn't sleep at all if he didn't use them every night. If we go on a trip somewhere, the 2 things we HAVE to take with us are clean underwear and earplugs - everything else is optional. :) I, on the other hand, have always been a notoriously good sleeper. I can sleep anywhere and not much will wake me. One time I was sleeping at my sister's house, and the dang security alarm went off, and I still didn't wake up! (Admittedly, I was suffering from jet lag at the time, but still!) I sleep in the car, on airplanes, through movies. I love me some sleep. This is why the upstairs neighbors' loudness was so incredibly upsetting to me - they were actually keeping me from falling asleep and then waking me up early! So Justin finally convinced me to try earplugs, and they are like heaven. I just fall asleep and wake up when I need to! (Except this morning, I didn't hear my alarm, that was definitely not a good thing. I still made it to work on time, though.) I laugh in the face of my neighbors' heavy footsteps and early-morning hip-hop music! HA HA HA!

My only fear with getting used to using earplugs, though, is that I may get to the point of not being able to sleep without them! I've always been such a good sleeper that I'd hate to alter that now! The great sleep I'm getting these days is worth it, though, so I'm just going to have to run the risk. In the meantime, I'm very grateful for my Hearos and for my hero, Justin, who gave them to me.

What the Heck Are They DOING Up There?!

A little over a month ago, we had some new neighbors move into the apartment above ours. The first sign of trouble was the fact that the apartment is the same size as ours, but SIX people moved into it: 3 adults and 3 children. The next bad sign was that the two women in the family are on the heavy side, which means they can't help but make some noise when they walk. Now I am by no means trying to criticize them for their weight (I'm the last person that could do that!), but it sure makes it unpleasant to live directly underneath the floor they're walking on. And really the noise they make while walking isn't the worst of it. They're just dang loud people. I've lived in apartments for several years, and I've NEVER experienced anything like this. So you have the heavy walking, plus the shouting, children crying, nailing things into the wall at 11 p.m., loud TV on til after midnight, and hip-hop music blasting at 8 a.m. on Saturday for crying out loud.

But even all this is not what motivated me to write a post about it. The straw that broke the camel's back for me is that every evening after dinner, I have no idea what they're doing up there, but it really sounds like they're rearranging furniture - scrapes, bangs, booms, thumps, and crashes. So the other evening while Justin and I were attempting to watch Wheel of Fortune (We could see it, but we sure couldn't hear it very well!), I was hypothesizing about what they might be doing up there. Here are some of my ideas:

1. They've put in a bowling lane, and they're trying to get the coveted turkey.
2. They got a pet pony, and they're riding him in laps around the living room.
3. Jello wrestling.
4. They want to join the Russian Circus, so they're training a dancing bear.
5. Choreographing a treadmill routine like the OK Go video I posted on here several months ago.
6. Breeding miniature buffalo that have a nightly stampede across the dining room.
7. Experimenting with the explosive properties of household chemicals.
8. Water balloon fights. (That might explain the loud dripping noise whenever they take a shower!)
9. They're training for the Olympic Trampoline event, but the ceiling is too low and they keep crashing to the floor.
10. Half pipe.

Justin says that I'm silly and it's just the sound of the kids playing. But come on! Are kids really that loud?! It's certainly made me aware of how wrong it is to try to live in an apartment with children! I won't be making that mistake, Lord willing. Coming up with silly ideas about what they might be doing, though, makes me laugh and keeps me from being too angry about the noise.

So does anybody else have any ideas about what they might be doing up there?

February Already?

I don't really have anything to say, but it's been a week since I posted and that's my limit. So I'll just put a few bullet points to waste some of your time:

• I had this whole blog all written out, then I hit "Publish," and it came up with "Server error, please try again in 30 seconds." But when I hit Back, lo and behold my whole post was gone, so now I'm retyping this! I'm not so sure I like this new Google blogger. This post may have a slightly more bitter tone than the original did. :)
  
  In case any of you haven't checked Justin's blog in the past couple of days, Justin has mono! Yikes! My poor baby! He's totally exhausted, but there are no days off in grad school. Please pray for his quick recovery, my ability to care for him and help lighten his load, and pray that I don't get it! (Well, I probably already have it. Pray that he's feeling better by the time I develop symptoms, which WebMD says should be in 4-6 weeks.)
  
  Justin told me that I make my paragraphs too long when I'm blogging and it's hard to read. I apologize to any of you that may have a hard time reading my blog. He suggested that I use different colors and more spaces to help the eye focus on where it's reading. So if you don't like my use of colors and spaces, blame Justin. :)
  
  My boss is at a conference all week this week, so I am unsupervised and BOOOOOORED to death!!! Sometimes I feel like stabbing myself in the eye with a pencil just to end the misery. OK, it's not that bad. But still! The really bad thing is that there are things I COULD be doing, but nothing I HAVE to be doing, and it's hard to motivate myself to do it when there's no deadline. Isn't that just like human nature? At least it's my nature. So I sit here blogging instead of working.
  
  There is a new kind of M&M's on the market: DARK CHOCOLATE!I LOOOOOVE dark chocolate! I tried these yesterday, and they are awesome! Dark chocolate is the only commercial candy I can eat on my diet, besides the "sugar free" stuff which usually isn't very appetizing. But these are GOOD, and I couldn't even tell the difference between them and regular M&M's. Of course, I can't remember the last time I had a regular M&M, so it could just be that I don't remember what they taste like. Regardless, these are good and you should try them.
  
  Geez, that's a pretty long post considering I didn't have anything to say. I hope it was even slightly enjoyable for you!

My First Book Review

I've just finished reading a WONDERFUL book series that I want the world to know about, and so I thought I'd take the idea from my friend Corrie and write a book review on my blog. Mine won't be nearly as intelligent as hers are, but here goes.

The first book in the series is called The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and that is what the series is also known as. Delightful might sound a little cheesy, but it's really the best word I can think of to describe these books! They're written by Alexander McCall Smith, a white man who grew up in Zimbabwe, but the books are set in Botswana. The main character is Precious Ramotswe, a heavyset Batswana lady who is a refreshing combination of wisdom, honesty, and hilarity. Her father passed away, leaving her a large inheritance, so she decided to open up her own business - a detective agency. This is where the first book opens, and we get to follow her misadventures as she gets the agency off the ground. Will anyone actually hire a woman to solve their mysteries? What does she do with the difficult cases that come along? Any respectable business needs a secretary, but can she afford to keep one? How will she stop the chickens from roosting in her office? She also has plenty of adventures in her personal life, and some of her friends are pretty unique characters! For example, look at Mma Potokwane, the pushy matron of the town's orphanage, who can talk pretty much anyone into anything. She'll captivate you with a large slice of her fruitcake, and then while you're in its raptures, you'll say yes to whatever she asks! Then, of course, there's her oldest and most faithful friend: her tiny white van that notoriously leans toward the driver's side - a testament to Mma Ramotswe's "traditional build."

So far there are 7 books in the series: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe, Morality for Beautiful Girls, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, The Full Cupboard of Life, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, and Blue Shoes and Happiness. I can't wait for him to write more!

You can ask Justin, who was beside me while I read most of these books - I laughed out loud on numerous occasions! These books probably connected with me so deeply because I spent 2 years living in Africa, and they hit the nail on the head when it comes to African culture. But I'm sure that anyone would enjoy the delightful and funny prose that entertains you, while still dealing with some pretty deep and thought-provoking questions of life. If you want to be entertained with light and funny reading, then check out these books!

In the Hand of God

I've never read anything by Mother Teresa, but the little I know about her I certainly think is admirable. I heard this quote of hers the other day that really touched me:

"I am a pencil in the hand of God,

writing a love letter to the world."

This goes along with a theme of things I've been hearing the past couple of weeks, basically all with the same idea, that we are meant to be instruments that God can use to express His message to the world. When we are yielded to Him and in proper relationship with Him, His love and His glory can shine through us, making an impact on the world around us, just like it did with Mother Teresa. That is certainly a challenge to me - I want to be used in this way, I want to reflect God's light like a mirror. But it's so easy to just get caught up in myself and forget to keep my mirror polished so it can brightly shine. Or I don't even point my mirror in the right direction so it can catch the light it was created to reflect. I was especially challenged with a thought yesterday. I am on the Praise Team at church, and all the time people are coming to me and telling me how much they like to watch me sing because they can see that I'm really worshipping and they can see the light of God in me. I really appreciate those comments and am encouraged by them, but at the same time, I don't want that to be only when I sing. I want to be sitting at my computer at work and still look just the same. I want people to be able to look at my face at any time and see the light of God shining in me, not just when I'm singing praise songs at church. I want the clerk at the post office to see the Holy Spirit in my countenance, I want the girl who works at Subway to feel God's love coming through me as she's making my tuna salad. That is going to be a slow process, I think. I think it won't happen overnight, but my mirror will be slowly polished and shine more and more as I focus more on God's Word and on becoming more yielded to Him. But it's quotes like that from Mother Teresa that will help keep me focused and pointed in the right direction. Because reflecting the glory of the Creator is why He made me in the first place.

I also came across this clip of a story that was on CNN recently about a little girl who has been marvelously gifted, and she's already using her talents to shine for her Creator. I may not be as talented, but I sure want to shine!

A Closet Fan?

Does anybody remember the band Hanson? Three brothers who skyrocketed to international fame when they came out with the song "Mmmbop" in 1997... I have always REALLY liked that song, although I've never admitted that to anyone else, and I certainly can't claim to know anything else they've ever sung. So, I'm an Mmmbop fan, but not a Hanson fan. I, and I assume most other people in the world, thought these kids were just a one-hit wonder.

However, last night I was watching Deal or No Deal (I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a fan of that show!), and the girl who was playing said that her favorite band was Hanson, and she was so obsessed with them that she carried with her at all times a guitar pick she had caught at one of their concerts. As a special treat to her, they actually came to the show and cheered her on as she won $82,000. When they came out, though, it was these guys:

I said, Oh, that must be a different band named Hanson. The ones that sang Mmmbop were not-so-cute little kids, but these are nice-looking young men. But then later the contestant asked them to sing Mmmbop to bring luck to one of her case choices. They did so and it sounded great. What?! Are you kidding me? Yes, little Hanson is all grown up (now ages 21, 23, & 26 - I know because she picked those cases because of their ages) and apparently singing things other than Mmmbop. So I'm a little sad that it really has been 10 years since Mmmbop came out, makes me feel kinda old that the first picture has turned into the second one. But good for the Hansons, they still have fans after all this time. Sorry, guys, but I don't plan on becoming one of them.

P.S. Google finally made me switch my blog over. Curse you, Google monopoly! We'll see if I like it better... :)

Let the Sun Shine!

For those of you who don't live in Central Texas, you may not know about the disastrous weather we've been having around here the past week. I mean, it's almost like it's WINTER, for goodness' sake! We've been having ice storms and high temperatures below freezing. This makes from some interesting commutes to work! Every day this week we've had a delayed start, which has proven to be very nice for my sleep schedule, and then yesterday we finally had our first "snow day" of the year. The weather was so bad that even Baylor cancelled classes, so I got to have my sweetie home yesterday too! (See his blog for his trauma regarding the weather and Baylor cancellation.) So yesterday, I wore pajamas all day long, and the only productive thing I did was clean out the refrigerator, which desperately needed to be done. Justin and I did, however, celebrate our day off with an awesome pancake & omelet breakfast. YUM! It was so good I didn't even need lunch! We also watched Wheel of Fortune, which has become a daily occurence for us, and when, to our chagrin, we discovered that Friday Night Lights was a repeat, we took the opportunity to play some games. He beat me at both Life and Trivial Pursuit. So all in all, I'd call it a good day!
But I think enough is enough. I mean, this is Texas, after all! In case any of you have never wintered in Texas, there are 2 seasons here - hot/sunny and freezing/icy. The hot season lasts approximately 11 months - just 2 weeks ago we had temperatures in the 70s. Now suddenly we've reached "winter." That means cold temperatures and ice. No such thing as snow around here, just ice. But I say that one week of ice is plenty! I'm ready for some sunshine again! We were blessed with about 5 hours of sunshine this morning, which I desperately needed, but now it's overcast again. They're actually forecasting another round of ice storms next week - maybe I won't have to work a full 8 hour day for 2 weeks straight! I guess if I have to put up with all the ice, I might as well get the perk of time off work for it. So now that I've put you through this entirely meaningless post rambling about the weather and pajamas, I guess I'll leave you to do something more interesting. Thanks for your time!

I Don't Want to Change And You Can't Make Me!

So who can tell me what is the deal with Google now owning blogger? And they're making everybody switch from blogger to Google blogger? I kind of resent that. Who are they to tell me I HAVE to change the format of my blog? I don't know anything about the new Google blogger except when Justin transferred his blog, he had a hard time in getting things to switch, and I couldn't post comments on his blog anymore! So why should I switch if it's just going to make things harder? I know this is entirely not a big deal, and if they tell me that I have to switch the way they did to Justin, then I will rather than giving up blogging. But I've decided that I won't do it voluntarily. They'll have to force me to do it. Just to prove that I am in control of my own blogging destiny! Power to the people!

On a slightly related blogging note, I'd like to share with you all the great tool that my brother-in-law showed me to make blog-reading a lot easier. It's called Google Reader. You enter in all the blogs you read, and then you just check in there and it tells you if there are any new posts on any of them. So instead of going to a bajillion different blogs, none of whom have posted anything new since yesterday, you can just sign in to Google Reader and it'll tell you if there are any new posts. Very convenient and efficient. So I may be a holdout when it comes to converting my blog to Google, but I'll jump right on using their Reader. Does that sound backward to you?!

Pictures!

Ok, now that it's been 3 weeks since I promised the picture of Justin with his pencils, here it is! I've been really surprised at the response to that pencil post - it even made Ryan's top 2 favorite Tapp stories! Wow! I'm sure Justin would be happy to do a demonstration of this ability for any of you who may be interested.

While I'm at it, I thought I'd post some pics of our holiday travels. Justin did a pretty thorough job chronicling our adventures on his blog, so check out his tales here. I'll just add some tidbits and cute photos. Just let me say that my nephews are PRECIOUS!!!! Azlan LOVED his aunt Joni, and she loved him right back. I got some good exercise bouncing him to sleep too! :)For Christmas, Patriot got the hot toy of the season, TMX Elmo. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a new version of the Tickle Me Elmo, but this thing is ridiculously scary in what it can do. Click here to watch a short video of TMX Elmo's antics. Patriot, of course, loves it.For Christmas, Mom got a game called Dance Mania, where you plug it into your TV and you have to dance along with the instructions on the screen. Her version was actually for 2 players, so you could have competitions to see who was better. Here are Justin and Matt (my bro-in-law) getting their groove on. Christmas day we had a huge family-wide tournament - made it to about the 3rd round, but couldn't compete with Mom. She ended up winning the whole thing.Then in Knoxville we had a great time getting to know baby Joshua as well. He was tiny compared to Azlan! In this picture, we're covered in the afghan I crocheted for him. And the last picture is Justin's sister, Nicole, with her husband David and baby Joshua. It was such a cute picture I couldn't resist putting it on my blog. So I hope it inpires warm, happy feelings for all!

Happy Birthday to My Sweetheart!

A very happy 27th birthday to my dear husband! His birthday was Sunday, and we spent all weekend celebrating! We enjoyed a fun and wonderful date night on Friday with birthday dinner provided by his mom (Thanks, JoBeth!) and movie provided by my sis and her husband (Thanks, Matt & Jess!). We ate at a Waco institution called El Siete Mares, a Mexican seafood restaurant. Justin seriously had 8 different kinds of seafood on his plate, including oyster, shrimp, crawfish, squid, mussels, scallops, and octopus. GAG! He enjoyed it, though. I had the much tamer Pecan-Crusted Rainbow Trout. YUM!! I've never had fish like this before - it was delicious. Then we saw The Pursuit of Happyness, the new Will Smith movie. SOOOO GOOOD!!!! It comes highly recommended by me - bring your tissues. The chemistry that Will Smith has with his son onscreen is really moving.

Then Saturday we had an at-home celebration. UK men's basketball was playing at Louisville, Justin's most hated rival, and thankfully the game was on one of the 5 channels we get at home! So I made some homemade whole wheat pizzas, and we totally chowed down as we enjoyed watching the Wildcats crush the Cardinals. Then for dinner, I made him a pumpkin cheesecake, and that's all we had - we were still full from the pizza!

Sunday evening was our church LifeGroup's Christmas party, and we had a Mexican Stack-Up and a white elephant gift exchange. Fun times were had by all. I also gave Justin his birthday present, which is a pretty funny story. Since I don't have much to do at work today, I'll tell the story. I've got a picture I'm going to post with it, but I forgot to upload it, so check back tomorrow to see the picture of Justin with his birthday present.

OK, so here's the story. I got Justin a pack of 50 pencils for his birthday. What's the big deal about that? you may ask. Well, since childhood, Justin has had this mannerism where he flips something with his fingers. It's actually a pretty neat skill, and I've never seen anyone else that can do it the way he can. It must be innate. He'll flip pencils, pens, markers, whatever is nearby. However, he found one certain type of Eagle brand pencils that was the perfect weight for flipping. But then his life was changed forever when Eagle stopped making the pencils the same way. They changed from wood to some plastic substance, and it changed the weight of the pencils - no longer ideally flippable. So he went online and bought every pencil that he could find that was the old style. (Side note: In college, he was helping me move one time, and he found a box of Eagle pencils as we were packing up my office stuff. He freaked out and got so excited that I was a little creeped out. It turned out that they were the right ones, and so he asked if he could have them. He's never forgotten my generosity in giving him that box of pencils, and it may have added to why he wanted to marry me years later.) So he had a pretty large stash of flippable pencils, but as you know, when things fly through the air at a high rate of speed, they're apt to break. So over the years, Justin's stash has been dwindling as the pencils break, and he didn't know what he would do when they were all gone. Fast forward to last month. Here at the church where I work, they had a Women's Conference, and afterward they had a bunch of supplies left over. So they gave each of us secretaries a bag with a t-shirt, some pens, some candy, and some pencils. When I saw the pencils, the thought crossed my mind You know, these are pretty heavy pencils, maybe they'll work for Justin. I left them out for him when I went to work the next morning. When I got home from work that day, there he was on the couch flipping the pencil from the Women's Conference! He said "Where did you get these pencils?!" I told him, and he said "Can you get me some more? These are perfect!!!" He was incredibly happy. So for his birthday, I got him a pack of 50 from the Oriental Trading Company. They come with a free engraving, so on the side of his pencils it says "Justin's - DO NOT SHARPEN!" He was thrilled with that gift. My sweetheart. :)

It's ANOTHER Boy!!!!

Alright, this should be my last baby news for a while! For those of you that haven't seen the news on Justin's blog, his sister gave birth to her first child this morning.

Joshua Daniel

(named after Justin - Daniel is his middle name)

Born December 7th around 4 a.m.

6 lbs., 14 oz., 21" long

Welcome to the world, Joshua! On Justin's blog, the title of his post is "Weird Uncle Justin." Strangely enough, Justin actually WANTS to be known as this. He expects to be the weird uncle that the kid will probably only see once a year, coming back from a foreign country bringing weird gifts and speaking strange languages. Sadly enough, I have to be married to the weird uncle. Does that by default make me a weird aunt? I hope not! I'd rather be the favorite aunt or something along those lines. :)

I had a weird uncle when I was a kid. (Actually, I don't think I had any normal ones...) But this particular uncle was so scary to me that I would hide under the bed when he came over. I think it was because this was the early '80s and he had the long hair and beard - made me think he was a wolfman or something. Now he's my favorite uncle, though, so I guess there's still hope even for Justin.

Candy Cane Lane

I've found something else that just makes the holidays even more wonderful for me. Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane Holiday Decaf Green Tea. That's quite a mouthful to say, but when you drink it, it's happiness in a mug. Seriously. It's tastes just like a candy cane. But without the sugar. (I added Splenda.) Yum! I'm just sitting here smelling the box right now, and it's making me happy. Celestial Seasonings makes several different holiday teas, and they're all on sale at HEB right now, for those of you in the TX area. There was a gingerbread kind, a sugar cookie kind, and several others. Check out the website here. Super yum! This will definitely take a bad morning (For example, one where yesterday it was 75 degrees and this morning it's 33 and sleeting... Yes, that IS what happened in Waco today!) and turn it right around!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I LOVE the holiday season! Thanksgiving and Christmas combine to make a wonderful season of fun, family, joy, thankfulness, and lots of good food! Justin and I spent Thanksgiving weekend house/dogsitting for my boss, so we enjoyed having lots of space and cable TV. (Friday afternoon while Justin was working on school stuff, I watched 5 hours of a "What Not to Wear" marathon on TLC. Pure bliss.) Thanksgiving morning we gave back to the community by delivering Meals on Wheels to a few senior adults, and then for lunch I cooked a magnificent feast for just me and Justin. It was delicious and healthy too! :) Then Friday morning we got up early (but not at 4:00 as we have in years past!) and both started and finished our Christmas shopping! Fun times! So it was a highly successful weekend. Finally Sunday afternoon we put up our Christmas tree and now we're ready for Christmas! Just 2 more weeks of school for my sweetheart, then he gets to breathe a big sigh of relief for a little while. We'll be taking our annual trip to the homeland for Christmas, so we'll be hitting Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee on that trip. Can't WAIT for that! I'll have 2 new nephews by then, and I can't wait to squeeze them both! So here's a fun quiz for you to do in honor of the beginning of the Christmas season:

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Very Brady Christmas

For you, it's all about sharing times with family. Even if you all get a bit cheesy at times.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

The Rear End of Luxury

Well, it's finally getting to be that time of the year in Texas when we're pulling our sweaters out of storage. In fact, I even glimpsed a patch of frost on my rear windshield this morning! Oh no! I DO NOT LIKE COLD WEATHER! I prefer t-shirts and flip-flops! But alas, my poor feet are doomed to a couple of months of being trapped inside socks and shoes. However, I've just recently discovered one perk of the cold season. My precious, wonderful husband, being the strong and mighty protector that he is, has recently let me start driving his 2004 Camry to work instead of the less-reliable 96 Grand Am I'd been driving. One chilly evening last week when we were out and about, I noticed some buttons on the dashboard of the Camry that I'd never seen before. There was a right one and a left one, and they showed a picture of a seat with wavy lines coming up from it. So I pushed the one for my side to see what would happen, and lo and behold, 2 minutes later this wonderful toasty feeling starts to emanate from my seat! (At first, I thought I'd wet my pants!) I realized it was a seat warmer! I'd heard of these, but always thought they were for luxury cars and that I'd never own a car that had them! (I realize you're probably rolling your eyes and attributing my naivete to the fact that I lived in Africa for 2 years. I still think a refrigerator is a marvelous thing!) I mean, who came up with that idea? It had to be a woman. So anyways, thanks to my precious husband's generosity and concern for me, I get to drive to work every morning with a roasty toasty rear end. So maybe there is ONE good thing about cold season in Texas. Now I just need a warmer for the steering wheel!

Cutie-Patootie!

There's not much going on in my world right now. I'm ready for Thanksgiving so I can get 2 days off work! I'm pretty sad to not be going home, though. I want to squeeze my new precious nephew! But in the meantime, with my absence of anything interesting to post, I'll just post a couple more pictures that I got from my mom of the two most precious children on the face of the earth.

What an adorable little chunky monkey!

I love this picture because it seems to me that what's happening is Azlan is in his carseat wailing, and Patriot is pointing and laughing. Oh, the pitfalls of being the younger sibling! I know how you feel, Azlan. :)

He's Finally Here!

My second sweet nephew has made his entrance into the world!

Azlan David
Born November 6 at 7:30 p.m. EST
9 lbs., 5 oz., 21" long

He's pictured here with Mommy, Daddy, and big brother Patriot. I LOVE the look on Patriot's face - What is THAT thing Mommy is holding?! :)

I've Always Wondered...

I heard a song on the radio this week that REALLY touched me. I've always wondered about things like this, but I've never heard anyone else talk about it. But in this song, Todd Agnew expresses perfectly the things I've always wondered about Jesus' life on earth:

Todd Agnew - Did You Know?
From the album Do You See What I See?

Were Mary’s the first eyes you saw
Or did You remember choosing that shade of brown?
Were You surprised at the shepherd’s crazy story
Or did You know You wrote the song the angels sang?

What was this life like for You?

Did You know?
Did the cross cast its shadow o’er your cradle?
Did You know?
Did You shudder each time Your hammer struck a nail?
Did you know?
How much heaven and how much earth
Were in this baby at His birth?
Did you know? Or did you wonder?

Did you remember the brightness of Your glory
Or did You just notice it was cold and dark here?
Did You know Your name or did you have to be told?

Were You just a baby or were You as old as time?

What was Your life like?

Did You know?
Did the cross cast its shadow o’er your cradle?
Did You know?
Did You shudder each time Your hammer struck a nail?
Did you know?
How much heaven and how much earth
Were in this baby at His birth?
Did you know? Or did you wonder?

What a moving thought, and how appropriate to think about as the Christmas season approaches. May we all meditate on the life of Christ and all He gave up to come to earth as a man to die for the sins of you and me.