saturday

of all the nights in our calendar this is the holiest for christians. the vigil of easter marks the night that God did something amazing and miraculous, the most miraculous thing in fact. sometime this night Jesus rose from the dead, or so we believe. i consider it a truth... a reality. it might be unexplainable or impossible... but the truth of it is in my very soul. plenty of people try to disprove it, many discount it, and plenty would call me a fool for it. but it is because of what happened on this night some 2,000 years ago that my life is livable and purposeful and filled with hope and love.

whatever your faith... i hope you find the holy in this night... that it sweeps you up and fills you.

God's peace y'all

ps... this night happened because of yesterday (Good Friday). if you're interested in what i preached about that... look here. and now that i am done my easter sermon you can find that here.

Holy Week

this week has gone by with tremendous speed. i've been waiting for the pobble to send me the pictures she took during my birthday weekend and i promise to post them as soon as i get them from her including the picture of the FANTASTIC shoes she bought me as a surprise while shopping at target.

already it is good friday. my next service is in 1 1/2 hours with the other local churches which means i have to shower soon and hope i can find a clean black clerical shirt to go with the white collar i wear. if not... at least i will be wearing a a robe to cover whatever i do find to wear.

last night was maundy thursday and it went fairly well. we do a foot washing to rmember when jesus washed his disciples' feet and i was surprised by the amount of people who came forward... more than i have ever had. maybe it was the sermon i preached... maybe it was the spirit. and we had 2 visitors... an odd thing for a service during holy week.

tomorrow the princess kitty, a friend, and i will make easter eggs and cupcakes with marshmellow bunnys for the 42 people who will be at easter dinner at my parents' house. right now my mother is frantically trying to finish cleaning and getting ready for said 42 people. it's supposed to be colder on easter than it was on christmas which means we will all be inside rather than out on the back deck like we usually are. ever had an intimate dinner with 41 other people?

well, now it is time to bathe and search for my pastor's costume.

God's peace y'all and blessings to you in this Holy Time!

a pobble present and other birthday goodies

for my birthday this year i am getting the pobble for a present! she arrives between 6 and 6:30 tonight (unless traffic is horrific) to spend the weekend with me. as we were im'ing about it she told me that she was going to be my present... and i am more than happy with that.












hubby's present for me arrived yesterday... a new hot pink cell phone and bluetooth earpiece with matching pink streak. his bluetooth was a christmas present and i've been jealous of him ever since.

tomorrow night my parents will take us all out for dinner at the chinese buffet. i really wanted mexican, but the kids won't eat mexican and besides... i can have mexican on saturday for my actual birthday since the pobble also said she would cook... and she can make mexican.

i will be 37 which is still young... but it's as old as i've ever been. last summer vacation my uncle made the comment that i was pushing 40. i gave him as hard a time of it as i possibly could and i am pretty certain that i embarrassed him... after all, if i am pushing 40 that makes him OLD.

this growing up thing still feels weird to me. how was it that i came to be pushing 40? i don't feel like i'm pushing 40... and is it possible to push 40 away?

in the meantime i have been growing my hair for locks of love. i've been saying that i was going to cut it by my birthday whether or not i had enough hair. after a while the ponytail gets boring and i yearn for the short cut which gives me no options on the question of how to wear my hair today. i might have 11 inches if i go very short... but hubby has been pretty adamant about wanting me to have long hair so i will probably go yet another month before doing any chopping.

now it is time to get back to work so i have lots of time to celebrate my birthday weekend!

God's peace y'all

do i offend?

i arrive at work, put down my things and my secretary says, "want a good laugh?"

well, of course i do, "i could use a laugh... tell me."

prior to my arrival she had taken a phone call from a local business owner who was calling all the churches in town. she had just recently moved her little shop to a small shopping center next to the local tatoo parlor. (and yes, i have been considering going there for the next tat... even have a business card for one of the artists.)

now this woman is what i might call a jesus freak. at christmas time she had a sign outside her other shop that said, "Merry CHRISTmas... Put the Christ back in Christmas." and now that it is fast approaching easter she has a, "Honk Twice for Jesus." sign in front of her new shop.

so, the owners of the tat parlor approached her and told her she had to take down her sign.

"i'm not taking down my sign." she tells them.

"it is offending our clients," they tell her, "who are satanists."

"i'm not taking down my sign." she tells them again.

"there will be repercussions."

so she called all the local churches and asked them to have their members drive by her store and honk twice.

i laughed out loud, with my jaw gaping... and then i went on a tirade.

we live in a pluralistic society. not everyone has to be christian. and yet... instead of us being more tolerant of others we've become more intolerant! i really don't care if some (you-know-what) satanists are offended by jesus!!!

*sigh*

God's peace y'all and don't forget to honk twice for jesus.

being sick stinks

well, i am still on the antibiotics for the strep. feeling better but still not totally myself. the thing that really sucks about being out for so long is the back log. 10 mintes before church started and i realized about 50 things that i needed to have done before today arrived that never got done. phone calls that got started, but never completed... phone calls that never got made at all.

and there were a host of things out of place. a whole piece of music was missing from the altar that i use every sunday. (5 times now i've done this particular one and i still go flat in the one part.) i had to run out of the church and down to my office to find another copy of it and wound up grabbing the whole book for one page of chanting.

the silent prince came with me this morning. he usually goes with hubby, but i took him today. that threw me off a little. i didn't make it into my office before church and so i didn't see all the things that would have reminded me of things i needed to have...

and then he peed on the woman who was watching him. she had to get up in the middle of my sermon to change him. i almost ran home to get her dry pants... but since i had already left the santuary once for something i had forgotten i let her suffer through wet pants for the rest of the service. bless her heart.

and i've been neglecting posting my sermons on-line. something i was doing religiously (pun intended) for quite some time. so i'm going to do it now.

here's the link and the last several weeks of sermons.

God's peace y'all

oh bugger

so the silent prince has a gate on his bedroom door. we have it there so that we know when he is upstairs he's safe and not getting into things.

today i put him in his room, shut the gate, and went to take a shower so i could go to work. i bathed, got dressed, put on some make-up, and walked down the hall to my closet in order to find my shoes. my closet is in between the kids' rooms and i happened to turn and look into the princess kitty's room and guess who was standing there...

... that's right! the silent prince! little bugger.

so i picked him up and put him back in his room then proceeded to watch as he threw his little leg over the gate and pulled himself over.

life as i know it is over.

and then there is my grandmother, who turned 100 at christmas. you may remember that i wrote about her and my uncle having cancer. my uncle is doing very well, but my grandmother's tumor is growing despite the radiation treatments. the tumor is next to her eye and if left unchecked will rot her face... an unpleasant and awful way to die. so she will be having surgery to remove part of the tumor.

i think it is best, if the tumor were anywhere else in her body, doing anything else... i might feel differently, but it is not somewhere else or doing something else. it is rotting away her face... that beautiful face that smiles and laughes.

her name is pansy so if you would... please keep her in your prayers, good thoughts, and or whatever it is that you do to connect with God or some higher power.

and God's peace y'all

3 out of 4

3 out of 4 members of the cats household now have strep throat. 4 out of 4 members of the cats household do not recommend having strep... especially hubby, the one out of 4 who does not yet have it.

i say "yet" because strep is contagious and i expect him to show symptoms any day now. if i am lucky i will be well enough to take care of everyone once he gets it.

i say this because hubby is super-dad and super-hubby capable of doing 10 loads of laundry, cleaning the entire house, and mopping all the floors in a single day. not to mention the fact that he gets the kids up in the morning, gets them dressed, and puts them on the bus before i have my morning cup of tea.

needless to say... i am not looking forward to him imminent sickness, of which i am sure he will get eventually.

so now i am going to get into bed, watch bad daytime television, and hope the kids take naps.

God's peace y'all... and a little echinacea, hot tea and vitamin c too

i love the 80's

so last night i downloaded a mess of alternative 80's hits and have been playing them over and over again allowing the memories to wash over me. the 80's were not my favorite time... i was a depressed teenager filled with angst that would have made ally sheedy's character from the breakfast club seem happy-go-lucky. and yes, i now have a copy of don't you forget about me by the simple minds.

while i didn't enjoy the 80's i certainly have some amazing memories of friends and the music we listened to.

walking home from the bus stop with ed, who was dating one of my best friends while i was dating one of his, singing the violent femmes, blister in the sun while wearing our combat boots. i was so proud of mine which resembled cowboy boots. i still have them because i used to say that i wanted to be buried in them. of course my feet have grown after all this time that it would be a real trick to get them on my feet even if they were dead feet.

then there was malcolm, who all us girls in highschool would describe as dark chocolate. he was a swimmer and tall and as smart as he was beautiful. there really isn't one particular song that made me think of him, but once you start reminiscing other memories appear and so did one's of malcolm. years after graduating i was flipping through my yearbook and realized that i hadn't noticed that he had signed it saying that he had as big a crush on me as i had had on him. while i am grateful for the life that my mistakes lead me to... if i had known then...

on my 19th birthday the pobble and i took a weekend trip to va beach. it still ranks as perhaps the best vacation of my life. it was a four hour drive from her home to the hotel with the view of the beach. at the time i had a cassette of roxette's she's got the look. it was one of those singles... the kind with one song on each side. we might have listened to side b a total of 3 times the whole trip fast forwarding it every time it came to the end so we could listen to side a one more time. we were in va beach before we decided that perhaps we should listen to something else for awhile.

but 80's music reminds me most of college even though i didn't finish college until the mid 90's. i had a few friends who were dj's on the college radio station. one had an all 80's show, another had an all female show, and the third, my big sister from the sorority i was in would make me keep her company while she did her late night show.

when i was having boy trouble jacklynhyde played i need a lover who won't drive me crazy by pat benatar and once while she was covering for ted's saturday night 80's show she dedicated a song for me called jesus was way cool... or something like that... while i was working on a sermon i was going to preach in the chapel the next day. i can't for the life of me remember who sang it or any of the lyrics... but it was hysterical. it didn't help with the sermon prep... but it did give me a good laugh (and a few worries about who might show up in chapel the next day to hear me.)

and then there were the pet shop boys and erasure... i can't go into the stories that erasure brings up from my college days... needless to say we played them loud and got really goofy in the college owned house we lived in senior year.

ahhh... the 80's where we could dance if want to... climb up solsbury hill... and shout, shout... let it all out.

God's peace y'all

ave maria

this morning, after doing what i had to do i took my cup of tea and sat out on my back porch and listened to bobby mcferrin (of don't worry be happy fame) and yoyo ma performing ave maria.

this is it on youtube (without yoyo).

God's peace y'all

birthday weekend

hubby's birthday is monday. since we have no money for any gifts i hatched a plan to invite two of his favorite friends up to visit for the weekend. on sunday i was whispering to my mom that they were coming up when hubby appeared, on the phone with his mom, and said, "my mom's coming up for my birthday. is that ok?"

well, of course it was ok, but it threw me big time and i think his mom (hi mom) and he were a bit concerned that maybe i didn't want her around.

so i gave in and told hubby that they were coming. mom's waiting until tomorrow to come up so we would have tonight just with them and we would have the chance to clean the house.

in the meantime, the princess kitty has decided that we MUST have a birthday party at a restaurant for daddy. since our lives are really about her... we will be going to the chinese buffet (hubby's favorite) for dinner sunday night. when my mom called and asked if they could just meet us at our house afterwards, i said, "no, this is about the kitty, not hubby and she wants a party for daddy."

so i did home repairs today... including fixing the toilet that wouldn't stop running. in the process there is now another leak. it's a small one and manageable until the big weekend is over and i now have the parts to fix it. i'm a bit tired of plumbing at the moment anyway.

my hands are also blue. yes, blue. no, they aren't sad... they are actually blue. hubby put one of those bowl cleaners in the tank which makes the water blue every time you flush it. of course this meant that my hands were in it as i worked on the tank. surprisingly very little else is blue... and honestly, i only have a few blue spots left on my hands.

so that was the day... think i will go get a hard mike's and wait for b&c to show up for the festivities to begin.

God's peace y'all

i lost it

so i bit the bullet and changed to the new blogger dashboard. i wasn't too worried, because it told me that i would be able to access my old template and therefore (so i thought) have access to all the cool sidebar things i had... and still be able to put the picture i had in my header back into my header.

as it turns out, either they lied or i am not as smart as i had once assumed.

of course i am connected to a few web-rings... but since i joined them so long ago i don't remeber what they all were or if i remembered what they were then i can't remember how to log on in order to get my link back.

this is an "ARRGGHH" moment.

so instead of working i am trying to figure out what i had there and how to get it back. in the meantime i added a new clock to the sidebar and changed all the colors on the blog.

there is nothing like starting from scratch

God's peace y'all

apraxia

apraxia is (if i have this right) the brains inability to organize information so that a person can do certain things. this includes speech.

the silent prince is called so because at almost 5 years old he still doesn't talk. he makes lots of noise and babbles. sometimes the babble even sounds like he is trying to say something...

last friday hubby and i took him to see a developmental pediatrician. we've been waiting for this appointment for over a year now. when he was diagnosed with severe autism and mental retardation last summer we were told by that doctor to keep the appointment as a follow-up. we are really glad we did.

while he is autistic, the doctor used some other words to describe him too. apraxia is one of those words and it means that we have a new focus on helping him to speak. it also means that his babbling might also be his trying to actually say something. as hubby has said for awhile, "he knows what he's saying... we just don't understand him."

she also mentioned the possibility of some type of attention deficit disorder. we often described this part of his personality as short attention span. what the doctor told us is that he doesn't even get to this point. his attention is so short-lived that he doesn't process information for memory unless he is put in a position to be more organized.

the lead is also a factor... how much of one, we might never be certain, but she talked to us about the possibility of using medications to help him focus his attention once all the lead is out of his system and thus help him to learn better. (this might take a long time because his levels are being stubborn and refuse to move to treatable levels.)

when we asked her about IQ testing (in regards to mental retardation) she talked us out of it, at least for right now. without verbal skills it is difficult to test IQ though possible. the problem is that she believes his IQ would still test much lower than it actually is... "no need to break your hearts" was her comment.

while all this sounds overwhelming it is really good news. the more issues there are the easier it is to chip away at each thing a little at a time... and as we go along the severity of his autism diagnosis might lessen in level.

in the meantime his new favorite food is a clementine... i've had to hide them so that he doesn't eat the whole case grandmom got him at once. he's learning how to dribble a ball (and if he grows as tall as daddy i won't rule out the NBA). he's incredibly proud of himself every time he pee-pees on the potty and the movie dumbo absolutely hypnotizes him. and he is still the happiest little boy i know.

God's peace y'all.

gimme a hug

ask the silent prince for a kiss and chances are you will get one. sometimes he will simply offer his cheek for you to peck, but often he will pucker up and plant one on you.

i remember his first kiss the way i remember the princess kitty giving me her first hug. i had just finished changing her and stood her up on the changing table when her arms flew around my neck and she sqeezed me tight. i couldn't tell you when exactly it happened; but that moment in time sticks in my heart. the princess kitty loves to give hugs; there are times she won't let go as she demands more and more.

but the prince is not a hugger. his first kiss happened in the kitchen. he was in my arms and suddenly his lips were on mine. again, i couldn't tell you how old he was exactly or what season of the year, but that moment sticks in my heart. he loves to give and get kisses. at times he laughs like crazy as though the kisses are some sort of funny game.

he's even a cuddler (especially when grandmom is around) but an honest to God hug... those are rare. i think it has to do with the autism. he craves physical contact; it's a sensory thing. he will climb all over you, rub up against strangers, and pull pillows and blankets over his head for sensory input. but he doesn't give hugs and isn't crazy about getting them.

and then tonight, as they were finished dinner, the silent prince grabbed the princess kitty and threw his arms around her over and over again. all i could do was sit and watch as he held her tight and laughed then let go of her so that he could hug her all over again.

honest to God hugs... it was beautiful and it sticks in my heart.

God's peace y'all

(click on peace for a free hug)

WHOOPIE

so back in the spring i finally got up the courage to send copies of a worship service that i wrote to my denomination's publishing house. it wasn't the best timing since they were putting the final touches on a new hymnal which included a new worship setting for palm sunday (which is what mine is, though VERY different.)

i received a response from them in june saying that they had received it, but that it might take 3+ months for them to make a decision. i decided today that i would write to them and ask what the status was on my submission and got a response back within a few hours.

it's been sitting on the desk of the person who received it since june. she's looked at it 3 times knowing that they can't publish it right now because of the new hymnal, BUT... they are about to start the process of putting together a new on-line resource. each time she has thought about what i wrote she sees it as being a good fit and wants to hold onto it...

AND wants to put my name on a list of people who might advise or contribute to the new resource!!!

so i think i will continue to wait, keep my fingers crossed, and be excited about this new-even better possibility!

God's peace y'all

baby dolls and race

several years ago while living in the atlantic city area i took the princess kitty to one of the local discount department stores to do some shopping and told her she could get a toy.

eagerly, she made her way to the toy aisle and picked out a baby doll. i suppose the people who order the toys for the store had a specific clientele in mind because just about all the dolls were black. (this in and of itself should say something... do only black people shop in discount department stores?)

the princess kitty held the doll in her arms and called it "her baby." it didn't look like her and i even asked if she was sure "that" was the one she wanted. "yes, mommy. this is my baby."

i didn't press it; she was still at that wonderful age when children are color-blind and i didn't want her to think that just because the doll didn't look like her that it wasn't the right one for her.

i had forgotten all about that moment until i saw this.

God's peace y'all and some color-blindness too.

an update

mom sent me an email tonight with this news about my uncle:

George came through the surgery with flying colors. According to Donna the
surgeon said the tumor had shrunk (one can not explain this), that they
removed 8 inches of his esphagus (never could spell this right even when I
had to at the hospital) and 1/3 or his stomach. Went into the OR at 9 am and
Donna saw him alert at 2:45. She said he seemed very happy with the way it
all went and grateful for everyone's support and prayers. I would assume he
won't be so happy tomorrow when some of the discomfort starts to set in, but
those are just the minor set backs along the way. At least what has happened
so far is good news especially for Donna and George. Just wanted to give you
all an update.

my grandmother will begin treatments soon to fight the cancer in her face. i feel hopeful and very very grateful for all the prayers.

God's peace y'all

prayers for pansy

if you read my post about the holidays then you might remember me mentioning that we visited my grandmother after her 100th birthday right after christmas.

at the time she had a really nasty sore on the outside of her one eye; my mother told me today that they have found a tumor underneath and it will need attention. attention means that her doctors will have to decide if surgery or radiation is doable. without treatment she will most likely wind up with cellulitis in her face. her name is pansy.

my mom sounded concerned and unconcerned at the same time. she has a way of doing that.

the conversation began with her giving me an update on my uncle. hubby refers to him as "the uncle so nice i'm related to him twice." he is my dad's cousin and married to my mom's sister. we found out a few weeks ago that he has cancer; the doctors he has seen sound positive, but he could use prayers too. he is my aunt's 3rd husband. the first marriage ended in divorce, the second when he died suddenly in a car accident a week before another aunt died of cancer.

so prayers, happy thoughts, candles, chants, spells... whatever it is you do to connect to God would be appreciated.

God's peace y'all

justice

getting back into the habit of blogging also means posting my sermons as well. (it also helps when you are able to write them on the computer instead of by hand like i was when the 'puter died.)

so i will share this one here based upon luke 4:14-30.

In the name of Jesus; amen.

This past Monday I sat in the Parish House of Bethesda Lutheran Church in New Haven, CT with about 15 people, mostly clergy for an informal conversation with Bishop Younan of the ELCJHL (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land.) Bishop Younan was speaking at Yale later on that night about the situation in Palestine Israel and had agreed to meet with some area clergy for an informal discussion.

After giving us a brief introduction of his work people were invited to ask questions; I had one:

“If we could only take one thing you said back to our congregations this coming Sunday what would you want us to tell them?”

He shared a statistic with us and asked us to bring it to you. 10 years ago the population of the Holy Land comprised of 15% Christians, the number today has dropped to 2%.

The statistic was startling. The reason for the drop is mostly due to immigration of Palestinian Christians to the United States, Canada, and Australia. They leave to provide better lives for their families, many of whom are separated because of the ongoing conflict and strict restrictions placed upon Palestinians in general.

Our brothers and sisters in Christ are fleeing their hometowns.

I want to share something else Bishop Younan said: If asked, he told us, which was needed first in the Middle East democracy or justice he would say justice because extremists are too smart; they know how to get the votes. And he wasn’t just speaking of Muslim extremists, but Jewish extremists, and Christian extremists as well.

In today’s Gospel Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, returns to Nazareth, his hometown and goes to the Synagogue as was his custom. There he reads the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

He sits down, all the attention of the room on him and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Moments later the people try to kill him because they become enraged by his message.

I am always a bit scared to preach on this text. Most preachers want to challenge their listeners with their sermons, but I’ve yet to meet one who wants to enrage them to the point of violence. And so this text challenges me, especially this week as I continue to contemplate Bishop Younan’s words.

It might be easy to say that in light of the statistic he shared and the gospel today that Jesus is no longer welcome in his hometown. But I don’t think that’s it at all. And at the risk of sounding political I might say something else entirely.

As Americans we tend to think that Jesus is our hometown hero. With the presidential race for 2008 already begun we are going to hear the words, “God bless America” an awful lot. We pray fervently (as well we should) for our troops fighting in Iraq. And the Left Behind series of books which lifts up our country as a new Jerusalem, is now so well franchised that they have made a video game about it.

Jesus belongs to us. Afterall, we are American and American are entitled to so many things so why not Jesus and all of his promises?

I shared with you the statistic Bishop Younan gave us because he asked us to, but I shared his statement about democracy and justice with you because it disturbed me when he said it. Aren’t justice and democracy interchangeable I thought? It was a knee jerk reaction to what he said about an American notion and I am American.

How can we have justice without democracy first?

What Jesus teaches that day in the synagogue is justice, God’s justice. And God’s justice is maddening because it is never just about me or about us.

God’s justice is universal and communal and so far away from our notions of individuality or personal ownership. Nazareth could stake no claim on Jesus and neither can we.

Instead God’s justice is about our belonging to God. Even in our personal relationships to Jesus it’s that we are his, not that he is ours.

And at the risk of sounding universalistic the fact of the matter is that we all belong to God: Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, Atheists, and Christians; Palestinians, Iraqi, Israeli, African, Swedish, and American. We are God’s.

And God’s justice is meant for all of us.

And I hope that infuriates you; not because it offended anyone, but because God’s justice is kept from too many, left unrealized, and not enacted in the lives of others.

I hope it infuriates you; not so you’ll drive me off some cliff, but so that you might be driven to love and actions of love.

It was love that claimed us, gathered us in, and gave us value. And it is love that calls us out into a world of “me, me, me!” to proclaim a message of God’s justice first for all people.

Jesus is indeed a fulfillment of scripture; God’s greatest loving act, we should live it in such a way that the world changes because of it.

Amen.

the funnest state of the union ever!

that's what hubby called it last night when i recommended we make watching it a drinking game.

we picked 4 words and agreed that every time he mentioned one of them or a derivative of that word we would have to drink. the words were:

terror, immigration, borders, and success.

hubby went bounding down the stairs to bring up the rest of the wine for me and a beer for him exclaiming that this would be the funnest state of the union ever! why hadn't we been doing this all along!

we didn't have much success with the word success; we only counted it once. but, i did finish off the bottle of wine which only filled about 3/4 of my glass anyway. i did take small sips especially every time he said terror or any other form of the word and i think i only missed drinking 2 times once my glass was empty.

i didn't watch the democratic response, choosing instead to play chuzzle on the computer (i think i dreamed of it last night...chuzzle, not the state of the union or any response to it.)

the highlight of the night for me was hearing the words, "Madame Speaker." whatever you might feel about her or the dems it was an historic moment and i got to see it.

speaking of the dems... this link was on the page next to my email this morning. i got a kick out of it though i probably won't invest the $10 to purchase one.

God's peace y'all

hiatus

i didn't mean to, but it seems i took a long hiatus from blogging. this included writing blogs and reading them. perhaps it was the holidays, maybe it had something to do with work, or it could have been that the 'puter died and is now in 'puter heaven.

so there is a new 'puter in my life... this one a desk top to replace the laptop that wouldn't consistently work. hubby got it for a real bargain from a contact at church. of course we've had it for awhile and though i have often had the thought: "i should blog about that" sitting down and actually writing out events or ideas hasn't been easy. must have something to do with getting back into the rythmn.

so where do i go next with these musings? i could just move on from this point, but then i will have missed the opportunity to tell those stories i've neglected. so perhaps a bit of both and perhaps i will begin now.

the holidays were wonderful...

it was the first christmas in two years we put up a tree as a family. after getting the kids to bed i walked into the living/dinning room where hubby was gazing at the lights. he put his arm out for me to cuddle up next to him. every year his father would look at their tree and exclaim, "it's the nicest tree we've ever had." hubby has taken on this tradition and as i snuggled up under his arm he said it. i burst into tears and responded, "i'm so happy!"

we had a fantastic christmas with family and friends. the week before xmas we celebrated with hubby's family at aunt tweety and uncle jefro's (the harley riding hero). the silent prince sat between uncle jefro and me at dinner and gave his uncle an extra present when we went to say grace before the meal. he heard the words we use and immediatly reached for his uncle's hand and mine because we hold hands to pray.

awe! i don't know what was more precious; the fact that the prince did this or the look on uncle jefro's face when it happened.

the pobble arrived a few days before xmas and stayed until after new year's. we called her the house guest that wouldn't leave. much to our delight, she just wouldn't leave... until she finally did.

we hosted xmas dinner. gmom supplied the fillet we were going to grill. when the grill wouldn't light i decided we could eat cheerios for dinner, nothing was going to spoil my day. eventually we got it lit and despite the fact that we ate later than i intended the food was fantastic. afterwards we watched the eagles beat the cowboys to our delight and the pobble's chagrin. poor thing, poor mislead dallas fan.

during the week we travelled to PA to visit my grandmother who had turned 100 on the 22nd of december. the pobble volunteered to watch the dog and keep the house from burning down while we were gone. she had trouble remembering who we all were (my grandmom, not the pobble) but we had a wonderful visit, swam in the heated pool at the hotel, and attended an impromptu family reunion where i met relatives i didn't even know i had.

my granparents were married 71 years before my grandfather died. they had 6 daughters (the first pregnancy was a still born son), 16 grandchildren (my brother being the youngest), 31 greatgrandchildren (the silent prince being the youngest), and now my grandmother has 5 great-greatgrandchildren. i have no issue with her not being able to remember us all.

new year's eve was celebrated with a bottle of champagne we've had in our fridge for the last two years, watching the ball drop on tv, and playing a game called blokus with hubby and the pobble. might not sound all that thrilling, but it was just right.

now it's time to catch up on some blog reading and to work ont he mental list of what to write next time.

God's peace y'all