For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning. - T.S. Eliot

2010

Benjy's favorites:
blue and green
pizza
Veggie Tales opening
Tom and Jerry
Sponge Bob and Knuffle Bunny
"Whenever me and Camden builded a big snow pile."
the ice cream truck's Sponge Bob on a stick
Lemonade

Curt's favorites:
green
buffalo wings
Carol of the Bells
Burn Notice
Backyard Homestead
driving MY truck at Hatteras beach
vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup
Diet Coke

Camden's favorites:
blue
Big Macs and fried chicken sandwiches
Sweet Home Alabama
Man Tracker
Wimpy Kid - Ugly Truth
Rushing downstairs on Christmas morning
ice cream
Diet Coke

My favorites:
yellow
fried baloney
You and Me - DMB
Burn Notice
Gone With the Wind
taking Camden and Benjy to Hatteras
Butterfingers
chocolate milk

We'll see what 2011 has for us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan on my Kindle for Droid. It came in real handy today when I was waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting ...
to learn that I had bronchitis and a sinus infection.

So I'm reading and realizing something. All the time I spend worrying about getting enough sleep, fretting over whether Camden will have clean pants for school, agonizing that I've not made a decent dinner with no preservatives since 1997, freaking out when Curt doesn't answer his cell phone and I'm at the doctor's without my debit card and no way to pay my co-pay (grrrrrrr). Well.
All that won't matter.

See, I wasn't placed here to worry. I wasn't born into this story on earth - which isn't even MY story, my starring role - for any reason except to love God. And Jesus tells me to do it with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul. I have no room for worry if I'm doing what Jesus asked me to do.

So, a new year dawns, and naturally I start to think of ways to make it better.
This year I'm going to focus on God. Not me.
I want to love God more.
Love things less.
I want to love him so much that people will notice God shining through me.
And when I screw up, forget, worry, and fret, then I will cling to his mercy and grace, pick myself up, and start anew.
I love you, God!


Phil 1: 9-11 ~ So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Time for BUCKEYES! And by buckeyes, I don't mean those nutty OSU people that I was proud to call my neighbors a few years back. (Still, they're nuts, I tell you!)

I mean buckeyes that you can eat. The kind that taste like Reese cups but better. I discovered this recipe last year and have been listening to Eaglescout beg for them since. In my steadfast devotion to Christmas, however, I refused to make them till now. I'm that good of a wife.


Here is a bag of buckeyes. I came home from school today and whipped up three batches of these. I don't know how many bags that made because I am not in any sort of mood to count them. I can tell you, though, that I am quite pooped after this endeavor.

Actually, these are an easy fix. Here's the recipe I found that I swear by. Even if it calls for margarine instead of butter. I guess there have to be some things margarine is good enough for.

Today was my turn to share in morning devotions at school. So lately I have been checking out my favorite online devotionals and blogs in search of a something of significance to share. Of course, there are a few requirements on my part to make it Say It Out Loud Worthy.

1) It needs to be shortish.
2) It needs to be a little light, but not irreverent.
3) It needs to have a tiny tad of humor built in. Because God created laughter, after all.

And so after searching far and wide, I found this post from Tracie Miles of the Proverbs 31 Ministries - I Know Him!



Immediately, I fell in love with the Elf clip, and I knew I had stumbled onto something. But, was it God-worthy? I read her blog entry that went with it, and totally felt it at the beginning, but then I lost the momentum when I got to her dream sequence. It was a great dream, yeah, but it wasn't my dream. It's hard to translate enthusiasm for another's dream when I have to make it sound real and poignant and worthy.

So I started searching for Bible passages about enthusiasm. There are a few, to be sure, but I didn't find anything that would completely say what I was trying to capture. Picture this - every time someone says "Santa" in the clip, say "Jesus". That's what I was going for.

In the end, I prayed at bedtime, asking God to give me something. When I woke up, I found on my printer the first part of Tracie's post, the part before the dream. The part where I was right there with her, longing for the enthusiasm of Elf/Buddy. Yes, I know I printed it out before I went to bed, but I also had printed out a whole bunch of other pages from a whole bunch of other blogs. But this morning, when I was walking out the door, this was the one that was on top of the stack. It was like God said, "Hey, use this, Wendi. It's worthy. It's short. It's light but reverent. And I like reverent. And it's funny. I like funny. That's why I make your hair look like it does when you wake up."

I practically skipped to devotions, laptop in hand, ready to share. I'm so glad I had the sense to pray about this last night. It's so hard to tell what I'd have shared had I left it up to me.

So I leave you with the thought for the day: Every time you hear the name SANTA on the Elf clip, think JESUS. If someone told you he was going to show up at 10 a.m. for pictures with children, would you just totally scream,

"JEEEEEESUUUUUUUUUUUUS, JEEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I KNOOOOW HIM!!!!!!!
I KNOOOOOOOOW HIM!!!!!!!!!
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We started December in 2nd grade without a tree. It's not that I had no trees at home, but that I'm a selfish woman and wanted to keep my trees to myself. Some things you just don't share. I mentioned to one mom that if she happened to have a spare tree, we sure could use one. Then I mentally smacked myself for expecting somebody else to spare their conifers when I wouldn't dream of parting with mine. But God is good, and he brings goodness even when we're naughty. The next day, this parent brought in a brand new four-footer for KEEPS! Imagine that! We wrapped it in lights and basked in its glow.

Then it sat, lit but unadorned. I couldn't imagine buying ornaments for our perfect tree when we were the craftiest class in Connecticut. So I turned to my best teacher friend - Miss Internet and found enough ideas to last a score of Christmases.

Here's what we've done so far:

Baby Jesus in a manger.

We simply hot-glued two popsicle sticks together, hot-glued raffia to that, then glued Baby Jesus (a wooden ice cream spoon) to the "hay". We topped him off with a piece of felt and drew on his face. Don't you love how Benjy gave him freckles? Well, he could have had freckles. Some children gave him a tooth. :)


This bulletin board was a blast to make! I found applications online to apply for Santa's head reindeer position should Rudolph retire. One girl wrote on hers that she has fast and had GPS. I think she may land this gig. Personally, I'd hire this cutie.


I just printed up pictures I had of the kids, cut them out, glued them to green paper, and then let them cut and glue their antlers on. Monday I'll bring in pom poms and they'll glue those on their noses. Some will be red, I'm sure. But Benjy says his will be blue.

Christmas crafting rocks. :) :) :)

I have always had a thing for mail – a fetish, if you will. I love mail. I love to smell it, rummage through the envelopes and slice them open with a paring knife, stack it up in neat little piles and sit back and ogle it. When I was a kid, I’d wait by the front steps for Mail Man Fred just praying I’d get a package of Dr. Seuss books. To this day, my heart beats a little faster whenever I check the mailbox. I’m not choosy; all kinds of mail does this to me – junk mail, magazines, letters and cards, and catalogs. Oh, yes, I do love those catalogs.

These days, especially around Christmas, catalogs come pouring into my mailbox. Beautiful ones like Anthropologie and Pottery Barn. Boring ones like Cabelas and Camping World. Fun ones from Lego and cheap ones from Oriental Trading. In spite of all this glossy, smelly print, though, there’s been a huge hole in the catalog section of my heart ever since Sears stopped sending their Wishbook to customers years and years ago.

As kids, my sister and I just knew Santa Claus got all of our toys from Sears. From the day the Wishbook was delivered till Christmas, we’d race home from school eager to circle and dog ear the pages and examine the toys we wanted – oh, needed! That catalog was our link to the greater beyond, as we had no toy stores in our tiny mountain town. In our minds, the Sears Wishbook WAS a toy store, and it was located directly at the North Pole.

My own children have no idea what it’s like to not see a toy till the Christmas catalog was delivered. They don’t know how to wait and wait, circle and bend pages, and wait some more. They see everything they want on TV, the commercials ingrained in their little heads so that they wake up singing their jingles. My boys recognize the toys as soon as they hit the shelves at Target. They even know Toys R Us and mall stores charge more for the same toy than Wal Mart does. They’re a lot savvier than I was when it comes to toy shopping.

It’s sad, though, that the toy magic that surrounded me as a child has vanished with the Wishbook. Do kids have any reason to wait by the mailbox these days? Do they know how to circle and dog-ear and surreptitiously leave an opened catalog on the kitchen counter? Is there still a division of Sears at the North Pole?

Regardless, the Christmas Wishbook is no more. That special magic of a long time ago will never arrive in a heavy catalog again. I’ll have to find another way to capture some magic and weave it into my postal dreams. Perhaps I’ll go home today and find an elf sitting in my mailbox.