59 Seconds

As some of you know, I am not a fan of New Year's Eve. I wish that we could celebrate it in decade increments--then we wouldn't have to deal with so many drunk people on the road, so many barren resolutions, and so many people at the gym for the first week of January. Oh, and I don't like staying up late, because it just reminds me that I'm too tired to party like a freshman in college anymore.

I told Andrew that. He told me I was a 90 year-old and that we had to stay up till midnight and that next year we had to actually go to a party. (LAME!)

So 59 seconds before the ball dropped I lost my mind and blurted out some resolutions that I thought I'd document for funsies. ;)

1. I resolve to really focus on my boys. One of the reasons I lose focus on them is because I keep the laptop in the kitchen. Sure, I stay up-to-date on news and emails, but I also tune out Isaac asking for milk 50 times. Not anymore!

So far, it's going well....I feel less frustrated and more content because when I'm with my kids, I'm really with my kids. Not Facebook.

2. I resolve to drink something other than coffee and wine this year. Water is just so....boring. It makes me feel nauseated if I drink too much of it, so I'm chugging Crystal Light Peach Tea these days. I am almost positive that they will discover Crystal Light causes cancer in a few years, but until then...I'm staying hydrated.

3. I resolve to follow God cheerfully this year...sometimes I forget that he is leading. It hasn't felt like he has taken us in a very specific direction in 2009, and I certainly feel forgotten in so many ways...which is ironic, because it's not that God has forgotten me, it's that I have forgotten him. What He looks like. What His promises are. How good and faithful He is. I wish I could see the tapestry from a little ways back, because I know that he is making something beautiful. It's just hard to know what.

Ah, reader. Such a serious resolution to end on...but it's all I had time for in 59 seconds.

A Year Ago....

I wrote this post on December 21, 2008. I was six months pregnant at the time, and we had just moved to Austin three weeks before. I never published it because I thought it was just too cheesy, but looking back, I will never forget this moment, so I don't care if it IS cheesy, I'm posting it.
OH, and did I mention I was pregnant? You can just hear the hormones raging through the paragraphs....

Sunday was not a good day. I woke up feeling big, and tried to pick a fight with Andrew over how ugly I looked in a black moo moo that Motherhood Maternity called a "shirt" (he thought I looked pretty, I told him he was WRONG and possibly LYING).

Went to visit a new church, where a very sweet lady told me I looked like I was "about to pop." You must be due any day! ("Uhhhh, NO, I'm not, but thanks for announcing me the winner of the fight with my husband over whether this shirt makes me look even huger than I thought!!")

Looked at more houses in our price range....tired, so tired of the fixer-uppers that we can barely afford to buy and definitely can't afford to fix up.

Family issues brewing in the back of my mind...wondering if God is on top of these situations as they are getting worse and not better.

Drove to Starbucks and lept out of the car to go to the bathroom while Andrew went through the drive-thru to get coffee (he seemed to think the ten car wait was better than parking the car and going inside). I must have had the fussiest, most petulant look on my face as I stormed back outside, walked past the ten car pile-up and plopped into the car:

It's freezing out here...grumble, grumble, grumble.

I want a house...grumble, grumble, grumble.

I'm gettin' spider veins...grumble grumble grumble.

Well, when we got to the window, the perky Starbucks employee informed us that the man in front of us had paid for our coffee and doughnut treat. "why???" I asked. She shrugged and said, "he just said, 'Merry Christmas' to you guys and that was it."

Immediately the grumbles turn to tears as I realized how hard my heart was and how someone in the drive-thru clearly saw this and still managed to show kindness to me in my sinful state. This is what Jesus did for us! Loving us in the middle of our mess...this small act of kindness caused both Andrew and I to stop our downward spiral of cranky despair and we prayed, giving thanks, asking for forgiveness and provision and wisdom in our time of need.

So there you have it...my slightly cheesy but very real moment of Christmas cheer...doesn't it make you want to covertly buy someone a cup of coffee? ;)

A glimpse!

Tonight Andrew and I left the kids with Nana and Papa and went to The Oasis, a restaurant on Lake Travis. In the evenings, you can sit on the deck with a margarita and watch the beautiful sunset.

The best part of the night is when the sun finally slips out of sight: a bell is rung and everyone applauds. What a joyful feeling it was to just praise God with a group of people in a restaurant. Do they know they were praising God? I don't know. But we are created to praise him; his creation inspires up to do so. I think heaven must be something like The Oasis, only a million times more magnificent.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

Psalm 19:1-5

Football season is here!

Rhetorical Questions and Two year-olds

This week our memory verse is Isaiah 40:28.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

But Isaac thinks that I am actually asking him these questions! So our memorizing time sounds like this:

Me: Do you not know? (usually he repeats after me at this point)

Isaac, wide-eyed: No!

Me: Have you not heard?

Isaac, wider eyed: Noooo!

Me: the LORD is the ever lasting God

Isaac: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!