Christmas 2010

It was good to be home with my family for the holidays. Christmas had become such a hectic stressful time for me the past few years but this year I just let it flow. My house may not have been spotless but I didn’t care. I didn’t cook as much food as I normally do but I didn’t care. I didn’t worry about whether or not everyone would like their gifts. I just enjoyed the holiday.


We had my husband’s children and families over on Christmas Eve Eve (yes, two eves). On Christmas Eve my entire family was there. With four siblings and all of their family it is a pretty good crowd. Since I live in our old family home I like to host our Christmas gathering. It seems like the night went by in a flurry though. With everyone’s own family growing we all have other gatherings to attend and have to leave.

I think Christmas day was the longest day of my life. The granddaughters woke up around 8:00 and checked out the Santa stuff. They were so excited this year. We had brunch instead of our normal Christmas lunch. We kept it simple with omelets, hash browns, fried ham, biscuits and monkey bread. The girls left right after lunch to go have Christmas with their other grandparents. My daughter and son-in-law went to his parents house. My husband and I just sat at home. And sat. And watched tv. Boring tv. And we napped. And then sat some more. Man, it was a long day. And the dreary weather just made it ten times worse.

I didn’t leave the house from the time I got home from work on Wednesday the 22nd until Tuesday the 28th. And that was only for a funeral. One of my “second” mothers went on to be with Jesus on Christmas Eve. Her daughter and I are good friends. I spent many, many nights at her house. We got married at her house.

Everyone around the house was sick. My husband and I took big sis to the doc since my daughter was sick also. Strep. All of us adults came down with the crud. So between the sickness and lack of money we really couldn’t have gone anywhere anyway.

So Christmas 2010 has come and gone. It was fun and I’m glad it came. And I’m really glad it’s gone.

Advice

The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is…Follow the Spirit.  Sounds so simple, right?  Simple and true. 

I recently read a friends blog about her and her family’s struggle to find a church.  I wanted to share that advice with her and others. 

My testimony is nothing special.  Raised in church.  Saved young.  Was a fairly decent person.  Of course, I am not without sin by no means. 

My paternal grandmother was pianist for years.  Played by ear.  Later on my mother was pianist for years (until her stroke).   Played by ear.  NONE of us kids inherited that gift unfortunately!  I took piano lessons but I had to memorize everything cause my fingers and brain won’t work that fast together. 

I still go to the same church I was raised in.  We’ve had good times and bad times.  Good preachers and “bad” preachers.  Which my husband says one should never speak bad of a preacher.  Easier said than done at times.  And yes, I’ve read James concerning the tongue.  Anyway, even with the bad preachers I weathered it out.  After all, it was MY church.  I’m the one who had been there all my life, not this preacher. 

Just before Katrina, a new pastor started at church.  After just a few short months, he almost destroyed our church.  I won’t even begin to tell you all the things he did that turned people away from the church.  I’d be typing forever.  I’ve never met anyone like him.  Our church dwindled down to almost nothing.  I’d go to church and cry all the way home.  I’d sit at my desk at work and cry about it.  It was one of the most gut wrenching things I’d been through.  I missed my church family that had left.  I missed the way things used to be. 

And it finally hit me.  The Spirit of the Lord was no longer there.  Even with the bad preachers from the past the Lord had never left us.  But this time I just didn’t feel His presence anymore.  At all.  Some may say that was my fault because he was still there.  Maybe so.  But I knew it was time to go.  I never thought I’d be leaving.  Never.  But I did. 

Searching for a new church was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.  What an awkward feeling when you walk into a new, strange place.  I tried to “make” myself feel comfortable at the first church we went to.  We went for several months but it just wasn’t right.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a loving congregation and pastor that always welcomed us.  I just never could get comfortable. 

We tried a second church.  It was much smaller, more intimate, but it was a totally different denomination from what I had been raised in.  They had a wonderful pastor.  Wonderful spirit filled worship services.  An awesome song leader.  It was almost perfect.  I just struggled with some differences in beliefs.  I emailed a very dear friend for advice.  He told me, Follow the Spirit.  I did.  I stayed at the little church and enjoyed it until I felt that tug to go home.  Back to my home church.  The last pastor had been gone for some time.  The new pastor was young, refreshing, understanding and preached the bible.  The Spirit of the Lord was back.  We went back too.

So follow the Spirit.  He will place you where you need to be.  To glorify Him.  And I’ve got a feeling you’ll be happy where He leads you.

Boo!

This was a very good article. My thoughts exactly.


Every year EVERY holiday seems to get blown up bigger and bigger and earlier and earlier. People are even going all out decorating for Valentine’s Day and Easter. Wonder how many know the true meaning of Easter rather than associating it with bunnies and eggs? But I digressed so back to my point.

Halloween has grown to be almost as big a deal as Christmas as far as decorating. And I must admit, I do love fall and that includes Halloween. Now some Christians balk at this “holiday” but we went trick-or-treating and wore costumes every year and I didn’t grow up to be a devil worshipper or a witch. I didn’t instill those scary aspects of the day into my child nor will we do it with our grandchildren. We look at it like a fun day.

Our small little rural church has made this a special event for the past few years with trunk-or-treat, hayrides, games and plenty of free food. Yeah, you know Baptists can’t do anything without food. Last year there were over 300 people there. We are expecting even more this year.

I was a bit disturbed going into the SpiritHalloween store to get costumes for the redheads. First of all they tell you either don’t bring in your purse (just a pocketbook) or else they will inspect your purse when you exit. I’ve never had that request before. But the first display you come upon is monster babies. Lots of green, bloody, sharp toothed babies. I just don’t go for that kind of scariness. I hurried the girls on past that part.

Even though they had been talking fairy costumes they settled on ladybugs.

And if you are an adult looking for a costume be prepared to go as “hoochie _______”. Fill in the blank. Every costume they had was R rated. Even some of the tween/teen costumes had the same look. Sorry, I don’t go for that.

So enjoy your Halloween and keep it safe. I know I’m gonna have some of the cutest ladybugs ever!

The Chill Factor

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”…as the song says.

Two weeks ago Sunday our refrigerator went out. Our Maytag, freezer on the bottom, as seen on “I Want That”, all too expensive refrigerator went haywire. All of the control panel lights were blinking and the water dispenser flapper was steady opening and closing. Just what we need. Something else messed up.

I complained at work that morning and my friend Paul suggested we call Maytag and see if they would do anything. “Why?” I said, it’s four years old, out of warranty. So we called a local repair guy to come take a look. He came right on Monday afternoon. Took about five minutes trying to reset the panel without any luck, told us we needed a part that would probably cost around $700 and charged us $40. OH. MY. We are just getting our heads above water after the wedding. We certainly didn’t have $700 to spare.

Thankfully we have the twenty year old spare frig in the utility. What a lifesaver our ever faithful GE was. We even discussed just bringing it into the kitchen since we didn’t have money to get the other one fixed right away.

We waited for the guy to call and verify the cost of the part. Never heard from him. My husband finally called him and he said “oh, I need to listen to my voice mails and I’ll call you back”. Never heard from him.

So, I figured if this man could find a Maytag part so could I. I got online and started looking. I found that several others had the exact same problem as we did. All the solution guys said “Call Maytag, they have a repair kit”. Okay. I call Maytag. The very nice service rep says yes, they’ve been having this problem and would send a part and set up a service guy to come out. Whoa, I said, how much will this cost? The guy says “not anything. It’s on us”. WHAT? You mean I’m actually getting a break on something?

It took a few days to get the part because it was on backorder since so many people needed it. But it finally came and the official Maytag service guy came and put it on in about five minutes. No charge. Whew.

I guess this story has about three morals:
1. The Lord gives us blessings in ways we least expect it.
2. Sometimes it’s a good thing when a service man is lousy about returning calls.
3. Paul is smarter than I thought he was.

Withdrawals

I thought I’d be all happy and relieved when the wedding was over. I’m actually kinda missing all the planning and shopping and net surfing and such. It’s like there’s a void I need to fill. Maybe I should become a wedding planner. On second thought, NO WAY. As much as I enjoyed it, it was one (if not “the”) most stressful things I’ve ever been through. But I must say, it turned out really well and was beautiful. And the bride was exceptionally beautiful.

I have deleted all the hundreds of bookmarks I had saved on centerpieces, reception food, pew markers, ideas, suggestions, talk forums, etc. There are a couple of websites I still like to look at though. Theknot.com and Brenda’s Wedding Blog. Doesn’t hurt to look.

Well, we do have Halloween coming up. We’ve already been looking at costumes. Right now the redheads want to be pirates. Then there’s Christmas, then birthdays, Easter. Actually now that I think about it I’m sure my void will be filled.

Cheesy Tot Replacement

It took quite some time but I finally found a replacement for my cheesy tots for breakfast.

Plus a 16 ounce Mt. Dew.

I had stopped drinking regular soft drinks completely but for some reason these garlic chips just need a “real” Mt. Dew with them.
So far, I have only found them in one store. But it’s a fairly new store, nice and clean, and it's right on my way to work. So I’m not having to drive all the way across town for them.
And apparently I’m not the only person that likes them. When I first started buying them, every Monday morning they would be out. I’d panic but make do. It would usually be Wednesday or Thursday before they restocked them. The store manager finally figured out that they need to stock more. They now fill FOUR of the hanging racks up. I don’t think they will run out now.
They are a bit pricey, $2.19 a bag but I munch on the bag off and on all day. And if you don’t mind garlic breath they taste absolutely super fantastic.

Not quite as good as those warm, cheesy, creamy tots, but they’ll do.

Spam

Yes, it's been forever since I've written.  I've been bogged down in a wedding.  That's over.  I'll tell you more about that later.

So HOW do you all stop the crazy spam comments?  I think I have the captcha thingy set up (don't I?) but that hasn't stopped them.  Look at my last post.  Tons of weird comments.  I started deleting them at first then I just gave up.

Any suggestions?