Merry Christmas!

AH!! I'm decorating today for my favorite holiday - Christmas - having just packed away all the pumpkins, the orange candles, the house flag with the pilgrim's hat, the beautiful Turkey basket that we all just seemed to rediscover this year - the decorations from my second favorite holiday, Thanksgiving!!

Oh! Oh! And I also love Halloween!!!  Did I tell you that I love Halloween??!!

... and Hanukkah too!

I guess I just love this time of year!  While winter is cold and dreary for many, all the warm holidays fall during the fall and winter months!!  I guess that's why fall colors are considered "warm" colors. And they are warm! Oranges, reds, browns, yellows - the colors of leaves, of pumpkins, of campfires, fireplace fires!

Feel the warmth?

Yea, I know Christmas is colored with bright colors: reds and greens and golds and silver!  But nothing is warmer than the glow of the Christmas lights and all the lit candles, and just the feeling itself!  It seems that no matter how cold it gets outside, everything just seems to grow warmer the closer we get to Christmas.

I love decorating for the holidays - all of them!  But Christmas?  Decorating for Christmas is like spreading a large warm blanket over every room!  

Laughter

Awh, laughter!  How nice it is to laugh!  It not only feels good, it's healthy too!  The best medicine, they say!  The louder and harder you laugh, the better the benefits!

Anyway! I'm not writing an essay or anything.  Just got an email from a friend that made me laugh - several times actually, and not just a chuckle.

So I thought I'd save it in a blog post. That way, I can read back every once in a while and laugh again.

___________________________________

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

17. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger..

18. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

19. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

20. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

21. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

22. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

23. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

Finding God

I found myself being beckoned outdoors this early morning as I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee.  The call was so real that I actually got up and looked out the door.  The loveliness of the day almost took my breath.  The dew was still on the grass and the early morning sun was filtering through the trees.  I knew immediately who was calling out to me.

It was God...inviting me to come find Him in the beauty of this day. So, of course, I changed quickly into shorts and walking shoes, grabbed my camera, and headed out the door. My plan was to take pictures of all the places I found Him. 

Did I say I went out to find Him?  I didn't have to find Him.  He was waiting right outside the door...

 

 

  

 

 

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."                                ~ George Washington Carver

 

 



Heart Things - Treasures

Well, you would be surprised the number of times I log on here, feeling like I have something to say, then maybe writing a paragraph or two before giving up and closing out.

I'm a terrible blogger...

I want to blog.  In fact, I can't tell you the joy I find in reading some of my past posts - not because it's great writing, but because the posts are all about the people and things I love, or fun experiences, or just things that made me laugh or cry.

Heart things - that's how I'd describe them...treasures, and they're all written down in one place allowing me to revisit them as often as I desire. To me, this is the benefit of blogging.

So why can't I blog?  My life continues to be filled with treasures...

Gracie, my cat of five months is laying across my feet as I write this - a long-awaited act of trust on her part...

My family increased in size over the past 15 months - two new daughters-in-law and six new grandchildren, one of which is a brand new little girl, currently just over 3 months old...

I retired in March, something I consider quite a feat for me, as I feared it for a long time, wondering what in the world I would do with all the extra time and reduced income...

I started taking guitar lessons when I retired and have loved every minute although I still struggle playing clear chords.  I'm considering giving piano lessons another shot...

I joined a fly fishing group of ladies back in July and will start fly fishing classes next week - watching someone fly fish in a mountain stream always made me think of God...

I've reconnected with several old friends since retirement - a retirement resolution. We laugh together over how much we've changed and yet stayed the same...

My Friday Night Group and the Dinner Divas remain as vital to my life as family...

My husband...well, life with him grows sweeter every day...

And my walk with God is finally finding it's rightful place in my life...

...plenty of treasures...plenty of memories-in-the-making...plenty of reasons to blog.

My Annual Post-Christmas Delemma

Well, Christmas is over and like every year before, I face my usual January dilemma -- when MUST I take down my Christmas decorations?

Most of my neighbors had every sign of Christmas removed by the evening of the 26th!  If it weren't  for the trees lying out by the curb, one might never know that just the day before planes were having trouble finding Charlotte airport because of all the lights shining up from my neighborhood here in Salisbury!

WHAT IS THE RUSH???? 

I've been told that the holidays are so hectic, people are just ready to get things back to normal.

What??  The shopping is over, the gift-giving, the parties, the dinners...the hectic part of Christmas is over!  Now is the time we can truly enjoy the peace and the quiet and the serenity of sitting in the soft glow of Christmas lights and candles and shiny Christmas balls!

My house never feels so warm and peaceful and inviting as it does when it is aglow with the lights of Christmas. Gives me a feeling of good will toward all men. 

I'm just never excited to pack that away.

Hope in the New Year!

I actually wrote this last January, but never posted it.  I don't know why. I had forgotten it was here, until I found it today, still waiting.  It makes me a little sad to read it, but then I was sad last January.  We had lost an important member of our family and so it was difficult to imagine how we could march full of hope into a new year.

Nevertheless, the words are just as true for me this January, as last. I always face a new year with a little apprehension.  The up-side to that is it's never without hope.

So, here's last years words for this year...

Well here we are, the first day of a new year!  As usual, I enter the new year with mixed feelings - excitement, hope, apprehension, and yes, fear. I guess this is probably true for many of us, but especially for those of us having a little age on us.  Unlike the young, we older folks no longer feel invincible and we've learned from experience that things don't always work out.

So I enter the new year, excited for the opportunity of a new beginning, hopeful that this year will be better than the last, apprehensive because I know the possibilities include both good and bad, and fearful of the bad.

I guess of all these feelings though, I'm the most hopeful!  I am hopeful that this new year will bring jobs to those in need of work, food for those who go to bed hungry every night, love for those who yearn for it but don't have it, healing to those who face devastating illness, peace to those whose minds harbor demons they have to fight every day of their lives, and hope to those who feel they are without hope.

Yes, mostly I'm hopeful.