Gratitudes for today ~

21: Sunny blue skies - had to wear my shades to church this morning

22: An afternoon date with my favorite 7-year-old













23: Hot cocoa with caramel and whipped cream at the Barnes and Noble cafe - with my favorite 7-year-old

24: A nice long winter's day nap this afternoon

25: Safe driving on slushy roads

26: Vintage Valentines

27: Hope for snow on Wednesday

28: Lesson plans have been done since I left school on Friday!

29: Hearing such good things about Camden who helped with the set-up at church today.

30: Your God is present among you,
a strong Warrior there to save you.
Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love
and delight you with his songs.
Zephaniah 3:17 The Message

Gratitudes for today













11: 4 inches of snow

12: 3 tubs of snow cream

13: 2 loads of laundry folded

14: the snow cream was delicious

15: I finished the banner that I started last week.













16: Curt made the best cube steak and gravy tonight.
We call it Salisbury steak; Camden accidentally called it Rawlsbury steak.
We're keeping his word.

17: The lion and the lamb lay down together.












18: Watching Nerf battle videos on YouTube with Camden

19: Kissing Benjy's cheeks

20: The boys are sound asleep

I was uploading the photo editor Picaso tonight when I discovered that it pulled all the pix from my blog - ever - and put them in one spot. Wow, what a walk down memory lane. I've pulled a few of my favorite shots from the past couple of years into one post. Just because they make me smile.

This is a collage I made for Michelle in 2008. It's her, her husband, and their animals. :) I made the mistake of making it, emailing her a picture of it, and not mailing it in time. She died before she ever held it in her hands.










And this darling is vintage 1970-something. Early '70s, to be sure. That giant mouse thing is from a parade float that my uncle toted home to Grandmomma's. Shell and I were so proud. I do not recall picking my nose, but clearly, I did.













And here I am with the love of my life on Father's Day in Pa.


















My boys are and forever will be enamored with Legos. Benjy used to have a thing for lining them up. Everywhere. Here they stand sentry over the living room.










I remember when I used to do this.
And it was so much fun.
Daggone, I miss it.











Battling with long sticks was the best.













The Emma Louise Dawn Snoop Dog Lima Bean doing what she does best.
















The Lima Bean decorated for Valentine's Day.













Here's an oldie - Ellie once tolerated Camden dressing her up and didn't even bite his arm off. This is from around 2005 or so.












My favorite flower.













My favorite boys.











My favorite now-black belt.

















My favorite black belt is such a goober.













Thing One and Thing Two













Camden once spent an entire summer wearing these yellow rubber boots with sweat pants, a turtle neck, and a sweater. And I let him because I'm cool like that.








He also spent one Memorial Day walking around a Pennsylvania cemetery putting flags on veterans' graves. He chose veterans who had no flags, the ones nobody had come to remember.














Remember how much I said I loved taekwondo? Well, I loved it so much I broke my ankle for it. Ouch.









Benjy still loves Blue Doggie.










But he's finally given up the thumb in the daylight.













He once picked all my daffodil petals and presented them to me. How could I resist that face?











Beach feet = happiness












Gratitudes for today. Because I feel a need to start ending my posts with at least 10.
1. Finding these old pictures
2. Dominoes bread sticks with marinara
3. Early dismissal from school
4. Hope for snow
5. Camden and Benjy having a Nerf battle in the backyard this afternoon
6. Finding old candles to put on my cake stand to top off the dining room sideboard
7. A new book to read - Widow for One Year by John Irving
8. Talking to Mom tonight
9. My family is home safe and sound.
10. Emma is snoozing in her own space, not mine.

I sing because I'm happy
I sing because I'm free
His eye is on the sparrow
and I know He watches me
He watches me
His eye is on the sparrow
and I know He watches
I know He watches,
I know He watches me.

Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7 NASB

Blessings, ya'll.

Benjy has issues with the tooth fairy. The child kept his first tooth for days before he was willing to put it under his pillow. Even for money. Yes, I know! Mr. Krabs himself was practically kissing his coins goodbye! Benjy tends to hoard his teeth, you see. I'm not sure why. They're cute, but come on. Money buys more here in Connecticut than teeth. (Though not much, I tell you.)


Skip a few tooth stories and we arrive at the third tooth ago, the one sweet Camden knocked out last year. By accident, of course. And it was really, really loose. He could have blown it out, truth be told. Still, it made for a good story.

And the next one - knocked out by Camden using a headlock and a threat to shoot his baby brother if he didn't give him all his money. (Again, show me the money.) I have to concede, here, that this was an accident, too. And it was during a hardy game of shoot-em-up. Initiated by Camden, my violent child.


Finally, blessed heavenly days, Benjy legitimately lost a tooth all by himself and was all set to trade it for money since he's saving for a Bey Blade. But then he dropped it in the trash. Accidentally, you know. Camden was the first to try to save the day when he leaned his head into the garbage. Never have I been so proud. Then Curt began to sift through the rubble. Once he gave up, I tried to be the hero. But that tooth was nowhere to be found. Benjy cried until he himself had a go at sorting trash. By the time he was done, he needed to change his pajamas again. But still, no tooth.


The child was inconsolable. He declined dinner, ready to head to bed when Curt turned on a long-time favorite movie, Bedtime Stories. Swayed by Adam Sandler, Benjy decided he wasn't really that tired and settled down to cuddle up with me on the couch. And that was the best part of Benjy losing his tooth. Literally.


We snuggled till the movie's end, then photoboothed ourselves before bedtime. And once my baby was parked in his room, he penned this delight:


Yes, I am aware that it's in reverse. I can't make it go right. So use a mirror, people.
Can you see why I love this kid?

Do you do the one-word thing? Where you choose one word as your guide word to steer you through the next 525,600 minutes? I do. I don't remember where it started, but it became a big deal a few years ago in the scrapbooking blogs I used to read. Though I've lost my desire for creating big honkin' albums packed with memories that weigh more than my dog, I still like to choose a word to steer me through a new year. And this year's word came to me right around Christmas.

Gratitude.

It came to me as I was catching up on some blogs I had been following over the summer months. Blogs I'd lost as school closed in and my time slipped away. I rediscovered one I had particularly loved by a lady named Edie. She's a physician who gave it up to be a full-time homeschooling mom who happens to have an eye for making her house a beautiful home filled with love and joy and a deep reverence for God. She's parked here at Life In Grace.


On the Tuesday before Christmas, Edie's home burned to the ground. A complete loss. This home that I feel like I've visited because I've seen the pictures of where the girlies learn, her amazing kitchen and its chalkboard GIVE THANKS wall, the yummy chocolate orange cake, shots of the books she reads. Edie, her husband, children, and two dogs made it out safely. And while Edie has written a bit about the dichotomy of feeling both gratefulness and despair, she continually turns to God's love and mercy - his GRACE that saved her family.

"I cannot plumb the depths
of his love and mercy."

That kind of gratitude is so pure, and the way she writes about it - threaded through all her posts, whether in times of disaster or pure joy - is inspiring. So while I don't know Edie in person, I feel a depth of gratitude to God for using her in the blogging world to touch me and teach me a thing or two about what really matters in this life. Edie has allowed God to use her for a mighty purpose. "Little did I know then that God is in the business of shattering vessels, so that His treasure—-Christ—-can be poured out on others." She wrote that about how God led her to quit her job and be at home with her young girls.

Right now Edie's blogging friends are lifting her up in prayer all over the country. I want to join them. Incidentally, today is Edie's birthday. Happy birthday, Edie. I thank God for YOU. I pray peace to your family. I know you know that God is with you, holding you all in his hands right NOW.

Today I'm feeling a whole lot of gratitude. My sinus infection headache is G.O.N.E. GONE!
For those of you as curious as I am about medical issues, here is a picture of me when the headache was at its worst. I was a fright, I tell ya. I'd do this for Halloween, except it hurt too much.

Now that my antibiotics have had 96 hours to fight that infected pus-filled maxillary sinus cavity, however, I look more like this:

Here I am programming a pack of C4 to explode the waste basket where all my leftover tissues infect the rest of my trash.

I like the new me way better than the old me.
And that's something to feel grateful for.



You're not believing your eyes, are you?



There's a reason for that.



I don't have a bluetooth earpiece.



Or a pack of C4.







And, well, I don't have long hair either.

And I don't have enough time to put that many bangles on my wrists.





I'm guilty. I just lied to you, my faithful readers. That's Fiona from Burn Notice. But let me tell you, I felt so fine today that I COULD have looked like that if I had tried. (and if I had some extensive plastic surgery, a hair weave, some lessons in how to sit up straight, and some palm trees for the backdrop)

I just love my new blog template. It makes me think of the beach.

OK, the thought is over.
This is wintertime.

I had a dream about Daddy last night. It was such a warm, soft blanket kind of dream. Daddy was at his best, his strongest. No cancer, no rheumatoid arthritis, no weight loss or fatigue. It was the middle of the night, and he was slipping into his tan winter jacket before going to help out the men in Coeburn.

In true life, Dad HATED snow with every fiber of his being. And whenever the first flakes started to coat our mountain roads, he would launch into Town Manager Mode, hop in his town car (that's town with a lowercase t, mind you), and drive the 15 minutes down the road to be with the men. He'd stay at the public works department till the roads were plowed. He wasn't overseeing the men, though. He was helping, encouraging. Sometimes he'd take a turn at the snow plow. But always he just wanted to be there because it was the right thing to do.

Whenever I asked him why he was such a wet blanket about snow, he'd offer his soft-spoken, oft-said monologue about the men and how they would have to leave their families to go take care of the town, and that he thought that was just a terrible thing. So Daddy sacrificed his own family time to stand with his men in solidarity. Then he'd come home, usually exhausted and hungry, and he'd be back with us.

This was my real-life dad. I always accepted his work ethic and loved him. But I never realized how special his brand of caring was until one of Coeburn's men talked to me at the side of Dad's casket a year ago. He reminded me of those snow plow days, how Daddy always showed up no matter the time. He even told me that Dad sometimes brought along our Elkhound/Shepherd Candie for company. I hadn't remembered that. Candie the Snow Plow Dog, the man called her. I swear, there were tears glistening in the corners of this man's eyes when he told me that story. Never had I been more proud of the man I called Dad.

This is Dad with Benjy at my cousin's wedding in 2007.

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.

It seems that I have nothing to say.
And yet, I want to say so much!

Things I love about weekends:

Sleeping in.
This morning, the electric went off at 8:01. I know that because the whir of the fan suddenly stopped. The room was silent, but for the birds, which aren't electric.

I rolled over and rested in the knowledge that morning was whenever I wanted it to be.

I got up three minutes later.

No Snack Time.
On school days, 9:00 a.m. is snack time. And let me tell you, the tummies of my 2nd graders tell them that snack time is guaranteed to happen at 9 a.m. SHARP.

Since I tend to wake up at snack time on the weekend, I don't even need a snack.
Just coffee.
Black, please.

No Lesson Plans.
I didn't refer to any state standards for learning today. Just God's.

Exercise.
I walked from Red Robin to Michael's.

I'm still awake at 11:40 p.m.
That never happens on a school night.