According to J.

The Bible says that Santa can only come at SECRET TIMES - like at 4:30 in the morning.


I have my work cut out for me.

Abundantly Thankful.

Warning: Long post. ;)

I wrote a blog, which I chose not to post, the day before Thanksgiving. It was about how sad I was to have to share my Holidays with my other family. Whom I have grown to love in a special way but still cannot replace being with your own momma on Thanksgiving. (Selfish... I know)
I am glad I didn't post it because most of what was in there was contrary to the whole point of Thanksgiving.

I have not truly been thankful for my new family, gained by love.
I have not really embraced their differences as beautiful in their own way.
I have not been confident enough to reveal to them who I am or why.
I have not pursued a relationship with those people who have shaped the life of the man I love.

This Thanksgiving was one of little to no anticipation on my part. I dragged my feet in every way possible before finally getting in the van to go.
Part of my dread could be best rationalized by the knowledge that those we were going to spend time with have been at odds with each other for a few months now. And the only catalyst that the pot-bellied stove needed to erupt was the slightest misspoken word. (Enter me. The girl with foot in mouth disease.)

I baked all day before we left. And that, all by itself, put me in the holiday spirit.
We got in the car around 10:30am Thanksgiving morning and reluctantly drove toward what I knew was going to be an awful experience. I kept telling myself, "We owe our children a reasonably good Thanksgiving memory - so if it's bad - I'm going to leave..."

About halfway there, I began to call my relatives. My Grandmother, my Mimi, my mom.
I cried like a baby after talking to my mom. I so wanted to be with her.
Then it started snowing.
And snowing.
And snowing.

By the time we got to Big Spring, it was a virtual blizzard!!
The kids were ecstatic! I was ecstatic!
I have never seen such snow!! It literally snowed until it began to grow dark.
We rolled in it. We built a colossal snowman. J. kept saying our snowman had to be 5 layers tall!!
It was.
It was truly a sight to behold!
I have never built a snowman that wasn't mostly mud and leaves.
This one was pure white, fluffy snow.

Everything was great. We all had a great time.
Food was great. Company was great. Cowboys won. Chris parents even gave up their bed for our family - of course I didn't ask them to - but it was very generous of them.
This morning when we turned on the tv - CNN had Big Spring on a special segment talking about how we got over 8 inches of snow on Thanksgiving Day!!

The kids made some great memories!
I am so Thankful for the Thanksgiving that I so dreaded.
Thank you God for helping this knucklehead see the opportunity that is before me in being Jesus to my in-laws.
Thank You for leading me down the path that brought me to my wonderful husband.
Thank you for the family that raised him. Without their love, he wouldn't be the man he is.
Thank you Father for your foresight into our lives. You truly do order our steps, though we may not always see it.
Thank You Father for all the things You provide; whether it be clothing or food, healing or friendship, laughter or family. Thank You for always creating an atmosphere of bounty for those who are looking for it- and even for those who aren't...

I so appreciate being able to see things with a Thankful heart.

I need opinions, PEOPLE!

Imagine, if you will, that there are four - not three - chairs around my dining table. Now imagine that the table has been sanded and the top surface stained a medium spicy maple with the legs and underpinnings painted black.

If you are still with me, are the chairs too big for the table?

Proportionally speaking.

Now, if I were Wendy, I'd add light to that photo. But Wendy I am not.

Why is it that clear lights look like multi-colored lights in photos? (Chris would have some light-refraction lesson for me here...)

Here's my completed Christmas tree - a day early. I needed to have this image marked in time because I am almost never early anymore!!

So for those of you who lost the Christmas tree competition that you were unaware you were participating in - nanny-nanny-boo-boo!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart.

Philippians 1:3 (The Message)

autumn scents.

I guess a lot of my posts have been about smells lately.
I don't think there is any other time of year that, in my own mind, is defined and encapsulated by smells.

• I have a perfume that is only worn during a cold spell in the fall and winter. Because any other time of year would not do it justice. So I'm cracking it open...
• I have been baking all afternoon. I am bringing dessert and pea salad to Chris's family Thanksgiving. So the smell of apple pies, pumpkin pies, punkin bread, and butter pecan spice cake have permeated my home. I love it! Makes all the effort well worth it!
• I actually burned up the small Yankee candle that I bought to match the one I got for La's house when it went up on the market. I had to go buy a bigger one today. Yankee Autumn Wreath - yummy, sweet spices.
• The smell of crisp cold air as it whips across your face.
• The faint smell of smoke whistling from crackling fireplaces lit for the cold snap.
• There is no better companion for the smells that are fall than the warmth that accompanies baking.
• The only smell that is going to be missing from our holiday home is the smell of a fresh Christmas tree - allergies are too prevalent in my family to subject our loved ones to the real thing.

Those smells have become a part of the magic of the holidays for me. Today, the holidays are alive and well in our home! I just love it!

We're home.

We really should get big points for trying so hard to go places and do things.
That being said, here are our trip highlights:

I packed and loaded up the van with unusual ease. I even remembered extra batteries for the camera! I packed the necessary chargers. Q-tips. Even adequate theme park supplies.
I was at the top of my game.

We rolled into San Antonio without incident around 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon. We found our hotel with exceeding finesse.
We watched the Cowboys barely win.

It was around this point that I began to have the types of thoughts I should have had the NIGHT BEFORE...
I said, "Babe, did you get the tickets?"

That comment preceded the end of fun.

Him: "What do you mean?"
Me: "I mean our rain checks to Sea World."
They had been in his wallet since we went and got rained out in July. I bought him a new wallet for our anniversary in November. Naturally, to avoid hearing me gripe, he straight-away changed his wallet and its contents over to the new one. Well, most of the contents anyway.
Him: "This is not a funny joke."
Me: " I wish I were joking."
Him: "Come on.... You're being serious... oh man..."
Me: "It's ok, surely they'll have a record of our purchase..."

The Next Morning at Sea World Guest Services Desk

"We have no way to trace our rain checks, you are responsible for them once they are issued."
Me: (facing the very real possibility that we will have to tell our kids who are currently chanting 'Shamu! Shamu! Shamu!' that they may not be seeing Shamu today) "Is there nothing else we can do here?"
Employee left and returned a few minutes later with the option of repurchasing Half-price tickets. Stab me through the heart.
I turned to Chris and told him to call the shots. I am way too cheap to swallow THAT pill.
He agreed to pay 1/2 price for the tickets - it was, after all, completely our fault and very nice of them to accommodate us that way.
We then entered the park and had a miraculously great time. We made lots of wonderful memories! One of which was getting to ride a roller coaster for the first time with my hubby!
If you have never had the opportunity to ride a roller coaster with your spouse, I highly suggest it! It was very eye-opening. That's all I can say about that!!

A very O. vacation.

Smells like...

We were on our way to San Antonio.
I had made up a basket of the kids' less annoying/favorite small toys to take on the road with us.
One of those toys happened to be a Buzz Lightyear and Woody car that I bought at the JBF sale about a month ago.

Sidenote: At the JBF sale, local people consign their items and share a cut with the organization. I had an armful of goodies and noticed that all the items I was going to buy had Consigner #86 marked on them. By the time I got to checkout, I realized that #86 belonged to none other than La!! I guess we could have skipped the middle man and just traded junk... ;)

Anyway, J. was playing with his Toy Story racecar and stopped and said,"Hey, this toy smells like John David's house."
I said, "Nuh-uh, Lemme smell it."
Then little A. requested a sniff.
She exclaimed, "It's Julia!!!"
It really DID smell like John David's house, and Julia's house, and Lori's house.
The Oh-so-familiar smell was wonderful. It made me happy at first, then sad.
That plastic toy caused a rush of unexpected emotions to enter our van.
I so miss that smell. I am sure Lori misses it too.
I have cried what feels like silly tears over that racecar. I have even snorted the car a few more times since then. My hearts so aches to see her.
Many have tried to duplicate the heavenly smell of 'home' but it belongs to La.

For Christmas, La, would you sign me up for one of those monthly deliveries?
Not a wreath, or the cookies of the month.
Would you send me 'the smell' - I miss the beautiful smell of YOU!
Have a Happy time with your family!
I love you!

Public restrooms.

Worse than the filth,
Far worse than other people's germs,
Worse than your children touching every square inch of the dernd pot before you can get away from them...
I have, in my late 20's, discovered the absolute worst reality of public restrooms.
I was washing my hands in a public restroom and I turned to the infamous blowy thing to dry them - this is where my disgust with public restrooms turned to horror.
The skin on my not-so-taught hands rippled like an ocean of skin when I slid them underneath the blowy thing!!
How horrifying!

From this point on, if you smell a slightly odd scent on me, you can bet it will be the generous slathering of wrinkle cream I applied just before leaving my house.
This marks a new day for me.
Goodbye youth, goodbye...

Sea World.

I was hoping to get the opportunity to post today, if for no other reason than to spare you all the annoyance of seeing a mythical creature each time my page popped up...
I guess there is so much going on that I have nothing to say. Nothing of life-changing value anyway.
Thanks to those of you who helped with crystal's baby shower. And thanks to those who got to come, it was good to see you. And if you couldn't come but really wanted to - thanks to you as well. :)
It was a darling shower. All the girls on the decor team did a fabulous job. (I can say that because I had nothing to do with THAT part of the shower.)
___________________________________________
We're going to take the kids to Sea World San Antonio this weekend. I am glad to get to use the tickets we already bought. The first time we went - about 30 minutes after we bought our tickets, the park was shut down due to bad weather.
So here's round 2.
I am excited!

Moments of note:

Vacation begins tomorrow at 2pm.
That is synonymous with
HAL-LE-LU-JAH!



Addendum:

Frolicking Unicorn.