Merry Christmas...almost

I love Chris Tomlin. He has some very powerful songs playing on our local Christian station. If my radio had a "repeat" button, I would constantly hit it when his songs came on. So one day a few weeks ago, it dawned on me to actually purchase one of his CD's. Love it! Perfect house cleaning music. Perfect clothes folding music (do you know how many clothes you can put away while singing praise songs up and down the hall!). Perfect dinner cooking music. Just perfect music. Period.

Then came Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving means that I can officially get out all of my Christmas CD's. My Amy Grant, my Michael W. Smith, my Gary Chapman, and yes, even my Statler Brothers. And we sang. And sang. And sang. All the way through New Years.

Yesterday Oldest Child and I were coming home from one of the various and sundry errands we had to run after school. And she says, "Mom, put in your Chris Tomlin CD." "OC, I don't have a Chris Tomlin CD." "Yes, you do." You bought it ...yadda yadda yadda, word word word. No, OC, I wanted to buy a Chris Tomlin CD but I bought a Christmas CD instead. No, mom, you didn't. You bought it and it's blue and black and where is it put it in the CD player I want to listen to it NOW! So luckily she got sidetracked and we made it home without any major fights.

So this afternoon when I picked her up from dance practice, again she wants to listen to THE CHRIS TOMLIN CD PLEASE! We go through the whole conversation again. She looks in the console of my truck and guess what she found? Low and behold, I did buy the Chris Tomlin CD. And I forgot about it. And she found it. So it was like finding a late Christmas present. For ME! And we got to sing praise songs all the way home.

Dear Santa

Every once in awhile you come across an article in a magazine that is worth holding onto. This is just such an article. I cut it out of a Family Circle many, many years ago. When Oldest Child was a mere babe. Every Christmas, amid the hustle and bustle that has become the holiday, I pull it out and reflect. And remember. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Dear Santa, by David Chartrand

My five-year-old boy scribbled out his Christmas list. It's there by the fireplace. The Coke and chocolates are from him. In case you're hungry. You know 5-year-olds these days. The Cheez-Its are from me.

Santa, if you don't mind, I thought I'd go ahead and leave my list, too. It's long, but do what you can. It's all I want for Christmas.

* Santa, let my little boy grow up still believing that he has the funniest dad in the neighborhood.
* Give him many close friends, both boys and girls. May they fill his days with adventure, security and dirty fingernails.
* Leave his mom and me some magic dust that will keep him just the size he is now. We'd just as soon he stayed 5 years old and 3 feet 4 inches.
* If he must grow up, Santa, make sure he still wants to sit on my lap at bedtime and read The Frog & Toad Together.
* If you can help it, Santa, never let him be sent into war. His mother and I love our country, but we love our 5-year-old boy more.
* While you're at it, give our world leaders a copy of The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara's retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg. May it remind them that too many moms and dads have wept at Christmas for soldiers who died in battles that needn't have been fought.
* Let our house always be filled with slamming doors and toilet seats, which are the official sounds of little boys.
* Break it to him gently, Santa, that his dad won't always be able to carry him to bed at night or brush his teeth for him. Teach him courage in the face of such change.
* Let him understand that no matter how nice you are to everyone, the world will sometimes break your heart. As you know, Santa, a child's feelings are as fragile as moth wings.
* Let him become a piano player, a soccer star or a clergyman. Or all three. Anything but a politician.
* Give him a hunger for books, music and geography. May he be the first kid in kindergarten to be able to find Madagascar on a map.
* The kid's a born artist, Santa, so send more crayons. May our kitchen window and refrigerator doors be every plastered with his sketches of surreal rainbows and horses with big ears.
* Steer him oh so carefully to that little girl destined to be his bride. Let his mother and me still be around when he walks her down the aisle. If there is a just God, let her daddy be obscenely rich.
* Grant him a heart that will cherish what his parents did right, and forgive us for the mistakes we surely will have made over a lifetime of raising him.
* Let him not hold it against us that he was born with my chin and his mother's ears. Time will teach him that these are God's ways of girding him for life's adversities.
* Hold him steady on the day that he learns the truth about you and the Easter Bunny. May he take the news better than I did.
* While you're flying around the heavens, Santa, make sure God has heard our prayer for this child: Lead our little boy not into temptation; deliver him from evil.

Be careful out there, Santa. And close the flue on your way up.

Tis the Season

Ever hear a song that you know was speaking directly to you? They sang this song in church this morning. Talk about powerful; talk about moving. Talk about speaking directly to me.

Oh, Blogland How I've Missed You

Missed me? Yeah, I thought so! I can't even get into why I've been away so long right now. Let's just say we have been have ISP issues and many, many, oh too many dealings with customer-no-service. You have to realize I live in a house with five people who need the computer. And when we're down to one computer connected to a wall...well, blogging doesn't take a backseat. It gets tied to the roof like a luggage carrier.

I can't wait to sit down tonight and watch an on-demand movie and blog, blog, blog. I may surface again in two or three weeks. I can't wait to catch up on all the blogs I've missed. I bet I've even missed some great, super-fantastic giveaways that I know I would have won.

Well...the wireless has been hooked up for a whole ten minutes and it still works. Here's hoping we made a good choice with our new ISP. The mood I'm in, for their sake...I sure hope so!

Sad but True

This Ain't New York: Dear Uncle Sam,

Melanie is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite bloggers. I can't post new material because I'm too busy repeating hers...too good not to read!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This weekend has been an extremely busy one for me. It is only Saturday night and I am so tired I can hardly hold my head up. Last night we went to our high school's playoff game. I am so totally addicted to high school football. When I taught in the other county, and the new high school opened, I had every intention of going to their football games. You know what they say about good intentions. When we moved to the country, and they opened the new state-of-the-art-stadium for the old high school, we wanted to become season ticket holders. See sentence above about good intentions.

But now that Oldest Child is in high school, oh, my word, she has to be at the football games. And I can't let her go alone, so we turned it into family night. So every home football game this year, we have cheered out team to victory. At the beginning of the season, we were predicted to be 5-5 at best. When we ended the season 9-1, everyone was shocked. So we had home-field advantage for the first round. Our high school hasn't been to the playoffs since 1991 and now we have home-field advantage! (I wasn't even married in 1991!)

All week long, they've been predicting rain for Friday night. All week long, I've been gathering up all of our camping rain gear. Coats. Check. Blankets. Check. Towels. Check. Gloves. Check. By watching us walk into the stadium, you'd of thought we were spending the weekend there. But we are serious about our football. And it only drizzled and misted (and fog-ed...if that's a word).

And our team looked really good. And they played good ball. And we cheered very loudly. For the first three and a half quarters. At the end of the third quarter, we had a 21-12 lead. Then DH had to leave to go to work. Then the other team started coming back. And they scored. And they intercepted. And they scored. And they scored again. And no one will ever convince me that it's not his fault we won't be playing football next Friday night. He's in the stands, we are winning. He leaves to go make money, we start losing. I see a connection. But the final, heartbreaking score: 27-21.

And then this morning, Oldest Child had her first high school swim meet. She thought she stunk; I thought she rocked. She wants to be the best and gets frustrated when she's not. Even when I explained to her she was swimming against seniors and has only been back in the pool just over 2 weeks and her times were strong enough to put her in the top third of the heats...that wasn't good enough. She swam her heart out.

I'm ready for a nice, quiet, sit-at-home-in-your-pj's kind of weekend!

Thank You

Red, White and You

Have you hugged a veteran today?

If you don't know one to hug, take a minute to pray for them, thank God for their courage. They are honored once, maybe twice a year for their sacrifice. The rest of the year, we tend to forget them while we enjoy the freedoms they've so unselfishly provided.

And while you're at it, take a moment to watch a flag wave. Watch as it freely unfolds in the air we breath. Those colors represent so much of our great nation's history.

Give pause. Give thanks.

I was trying to link directly to this post, but I'm also trying to figure out my new computer and this whole new Vista thing and I'm tired and it's not working like I think it should. But you really do need to go over to thisaintnewyork.blogspot.com for some other fabulous reading. She has some good, thought provoking food for thought.

So thank you, Dude, for giving unselfishly. Thank you, Dude, for doing what you do so well. Thank you, Dude, for being you. You rock!