A Solid Decision

I love lights all year round! So you can imagine that Christmas lights are one of my favorite holiday items. This year, however, I made a decision not to put our tree up. We have an artificial tree with a mixture of ornaments the kids made when they were little and new ones purchased over the years. It's beautiful but a lot of work to set up. I put my village around the bottom of the tree, which lights up too.

Since we will be traveling during the holidays, I felt we could get by without it this year. I did this once before and regretted it. So this time I went out and bought lights to put throughout the house. The pic above is my office. I have purple lights in my bedroom, gold in the art room and icicle white lights in the living room. This way I still get the sense of Christmas without all the work of putting the tree up and taking it down. I thought it through. If I miss the tree terribly, I've decided that I can put it up for the month of January when I have more time. Why not?

Who's the Title Holder?

My brother, John, concentrating on his next move.

Sis-in-law Cynthia grinning, probably after one of those megapoint words.

Cynthia's letters in the first game in serious need of help.

What happened to me? I used to hold the title for winning in scrabble. The competition has gotten fierce! :)

Who's the title holder now?

Feasting

Final week of the Joy Diet- Feasting.

Last year this time, I was in sunny New Mexico with my daughter and her family. Chili peppers were a part of the visual feast that I enjoyed. What a colorful area of our country!

This year I was treated with an early morning phone call from Amber on Thanksgiving :) Thus the feasting began.

Next a scrabble game with my brother and his wife. She would want me to tell you how she wiped us out! I cooked the turkey the day before so I could enjoy a leisurely morning.

Dinner went without a hitch. My mother even told me that my stuffing was almost as good as hers!

We got an evening phone call from our 6 year old granddaughter. She was giggling and telling us all about her Thanksgiving when I heard her dad in the background saying, "Who are you talking to?" We had a great laugh over this. She was at her other grammy's house and decided to call us-long distance. :)

We, then, called to see how our grandson was feeling. His fever had broken at noon. (See previous post) So glad.

Our evening was topped off by a great chat with our 13 year old granddaughter in NM. After this we watched a movie and went to bed.

I had a feast of smiles throughout the day.

Bittersweet

I am excited about my brother and his wife arriving today. I have been having scrabble withdrawal pangs :)

My excitement, however, is tinged with sadness. My son called this morning and my grandson has a fever and a cough so they are not coming. :( It's nearly a five hour drive. There is so much flu going around that they dare not take a chance that it may be a cold. I am sad for us and them. But a friend shared with me early this morning in the midst of a tragedy in their family that,
"Everything happens for a reason."

I'm not sure I buy that philosophy as a blanket statement. Yet as a Christian, I do believe that whatever happens, God has a plan for me and those I love. Close but a slight difference.

I am grateful for my family today and all of our blessings.

Happy 40th!

Happy Anniversary to my hubby of 40 years!

Quote Chain

I was reading my daughter's blog this morning where she shared a quote that meant a lot to her right now (see Disrupted by Change under my favorite blogs). A quote I have in the front of my Bible jumped into my mind.

"God always answers in the deep, never in the shallows of our soul." Amy Carmichael

Do you have a favorite you'd like to share? If you blog about it, please post a link or simply share here.

Heart Connection

I admit, once again, that I skimmed some of this chapter of the Joy Diet on Connection. Too many other things are vying for my attention right now. I do, however, love the subject matter. I have worked hard maintaining connections and keeping friendship channels open over the years. I believe that friendships are vitally important in a woman's life.
"There are friendships that are for a reason, some for a season and others for a lifetime."
I have found that to be true.
The gals above are in my Bible Study. We laugh together, pray together and share our hearts at times.
I could write my own book about treasured friends that I have both near and far, and how each one differs and brings something unique into my life.
I am a blessed woman!

Prayer

Less time blogging, more time praying for my family today.

November Sunset

We have had such gorgeous weather this past week for November that I would be remiss not mentioning it. Every evening the sunsets have been amazing. I took this pic from my front yard last night.

Laughter

This week's Joy Diet theme is laughter. I admit that I skimmed some of this chapter, partly because of time and partly because I was a bit disappointed with it. I only laughed once through the entire reading of it.

It takes a lot to make me laugh. I guess I am a normally serious person, so I cherish laughter. I could ramble on about the things or people that make me laugh, but my goal was to keep this short today.

So for right now, the Gilmore Girls are my source of laughter. I am watching my first season and loving it. It's quirky and funny and moving. I hope every season is the same way.

When I uploaded my photo I realized I got a thumbnail, but decided to keep it. It marks my need to let laughter grow in my life on a daily basis.

Today's Smile

This is me smiling today at you today!

Yesterday was a day that made me smile. My flour came in to cook with, gluten-free and with the help of a friend's recipe, I made a walnut bread and it came out great! I wrapped a few Christmas gifts, did laundry and a bunch of stuff and still managed to watch 2 episodes of Gilmore Girls before I went to bed. :) And I had a prayer answered for someone special to me.

A special thank you to a sister blogger who emailed me and after I replied to her, I took my own advice.

On top of all that the weather has been gorgeous this week!

What is making you smile today?

Love Perfect Gifts

Note to daughter: no enlarging this photo. :)

Don't you love finding the perfect gift? I ordered from this website for the first time(can't tell you which one, because she'll peek). I always get a bit nervous giving my credit card info to someone I've never heard of. Then I forgot to ask how long it would take to arrive, so I found a phone number and called. I actually got to talk to a real person, which was reassuring. My order had already shipped! I got it a few days later.

I waited until the perfect moment to open it and I was not disappointed! Ooooh, I love it! And I think she will too. Nothing huge, just handpicked with love.

I wish all my Christmas shopping were so easy.

Play

The theme of this week's Joy Diet was Play. As usual, it wasn't what I thought it would be, but it was the first time throughout my journey in this book that I actually underlined something. For me that is unusual- if I love something or it hits me I underline. That's for another post.

Let's get out of the way what I didn't like. I couldn't get into her constant referral to our life stuff as a game. That said...

I liked the idea of our focus coming from two points of view, seeing the big picture and then our small steps and really thinking about the steps we are taking- are they leading us into our big picture? I've been paying more attention to my thoughts lately and this worked into that somehow.
Watching every little step I take could get rigid and constricting, if she hadn't taken us from there into flow. My favorite statements were in this section and they reminded me of a treasured scripture taken from Matthew in the Message paraphrase.

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."

So when I did my vision card this week, I let it flow.

I did it, I did it!

Did you read my post yesterday? I actually did it. I wanted to experiment in making my own rocks- See
http://everydaypossibilities.blogspot.com/2009/10/glimpse-of-love-rock-fairy-style.html

I eventually want to buy some.

Anyway, I have a long to do list so I decided to cut something out. I stayed away from facebook and I shopped for a few groceries in our local market instead of my usual trip to town. I figured that I saved at least an hour so I could play. It turned into two hours by the time I found everything I needed to work with, but I had fun. I'm hoping this time of play will open up my creativity for the Christmas project I will soon be tackling

Take a Peek

What's behind the door? I love the door itself, enough to stand still and take a picture of it, enough to stare at it with awe. The doors and entryways in New Mexico are gorgeous. That was one of the things I loved about the state. But the truth is that doors are entrances to a world beyond.
I am pondering this morning. There is a scripture in Psalm 30 or 31 that says God has good things stored up for me. I bet His doorway is something to behold :) How many times do I look at that verse and enjoy the beauty and even take a mental picture but never enter to see what's inside. I have enough on my plate, not enough time to enjoy all that I have.
What doorways beckon to you? What if you and I did something differently today? What if we choose to cut something out of our scheduled tasks, place our hands on the latch, and pull gently.
Even a peek inside is a start.

Moonlit Magic

When my children were little, my husband and I would accompany them to each house as they "Trick or Treated" in our small community. They grew up and times changed. The school took over the halloween party and the kids all attended. We've had one small visitor in years declaring trick or treat.
Because halloween fell on a saturday this year, we decided to skip our annual soccer weekend trip for the grandkids in favor of going door to door with them on halloween.
What a delight it was! Even though they live in a big city area, their neighborhood is like a small community in itself. Nearly every neighbor went all out, some more than others. In my pics you can see that one neighbor created a haunted house right in their driveway. The kids were so excited.
There is also a lighted wagon for those who choose to go that way.
We walked along with other moms and dads under the moonlit sky. Memories flooded me of when I was a kid, the feeling of walking in the dark night, bravely knocking on the door with expectation of a tootsie roll or some small sugary token.
Times have certainly changed. my grandkids got large candy bars and baggies filled with candy. There was one tootsie roll in the whole bunch and it was certainly not the size I used to get.
I'm not a fan of the actual holiday and know that some frown on participating in any form, but this moonlight magic was priceless.