Random Musings

We bought a microwave today. Whohooo! Until I got it home, out of the box and on the counter. It's too big.  As in, I have NO room on my counter beside the stove. AT ALL. So tomorrow morning it will go back in the box and will be exchanged for a smaller model. I'm blessed to live in a country, where exchanges are possible. I'm blessed to live somewhere where we have multiple choices in appliances. I'm blessed to have a semi-open schedule tomorrow so it can be returned. I'm blessed to have multiple things to cook with so it's a luxury item and not a necessity. And yet I still hate returning and exchanging things. 2013...the year I WILL rejoice and be glad!

It's not a lot, but it is a start. I made out a menu for next week. Granted, it will be changed and modified as the week progresses. But nevertheless, it is a menu. And simmering in the crock pot now? Chicken chili. And since it's just two of us, that will last us through Sunday night. So on the schedule for this next week: finish a quilt top put up Christmas decorations get caught up on ironing And the other things (taking relatives to the doctor, enjoying last days of Bobby's vacation time, making out a budget for next year, etc) are just normal routine housework items that don't make it on my "special schedule". So that's a start...2013, here we come!

One of the disadvantages to family living far away is that you seldom see them. One of the advantages to family living far away is that when they do come to visit, everyone tries to spend as much time with them as they can, and it makes the holiday seem longer and bigger than it really is. So this morning, I have one bag (reading stuff) left to unpack from our weekend trip to Alabama to see my family (I'll have to post pics later), I'm already on laundry load #3, and I've got some general housework (bills, sweeping, etc) to do before we rejoin the Bryan clan for another day of puzzle-working, game playing, chatting with the TN tribe who is "home" for two more days. AND, today is my parents 50th wedding anniversary. Kudos to you Mom and Dad, for putting up with all of us, for loving each other through the hardships (cancer, auto-immune diseases, moving, ministry jobs, etc) and teaching us all that it's okay to laugh, to cry, and to admit you're wrong...

Last night we got home in time to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special, though I missed part of it because of laundry. :/  And then immediately afterwards NCIS: Los Angeles came on, which is one of the few shows I actually try to watch. One of the things I love about the internet is that if I miss a show (which is often), I can watch it online whenever I find the time. I contemplated watching the Muppets Christmas program, which was also on last night, but since it was a 2 hr show that put it a little lower on my radar. The Muppets are always good for a few laughs, but it's just tradition and heart-warming to watch poor old Charlie Brown agonize over the commercialism of Christmas. And it doesn't look like we'll see the story about Ralphie this year, either, which is another all time favorite. What I do hope to see this holiday season is the movie Elf. I've never seen it, but one of my nieces constantly tweets phrases from the movie and even follows a charact...

When I was a kid, I always wondered about that verse in Ecclesiastes that says there's really nothing new on earth. Nothing new? Preposterous! But now I'm old (according to my niece, but then she also told me in the same conversation I couldn't be married because I didn't look like a married woman should look...still puzzled on that one!) and I realize that history really and truly does have a way of repeating itself. If you need proof of that, just look at the world of fashion. (That's a semi-joke, by the way.) Several months ago, a couple in our church took a sermon on the prophecies of Jesus and their fulfillment, and started writing them into readings, and slowly selecting songs to go with them. They had NO idea what was going to take place 2 days before this service was to be performed. One of the things I've always loved about the Christian faith and its Scriptures is that it doesn't gloss over the ugly of life and the consequences of sin. One of t...

On days like today, I'm reminded of that old sermon "It May Be Friday, But Sunday is Coming." 18 years ago this week, my family had an experience that shook my very faith to its core. There's not a holiday season that goes by that I don't remember, don't hurt some inside, and re-ponder some of my old questions. This weekend brought a lot of that all back. I'll just say this: I have a lot of mixed emotions on gun ownership. I have a lot of mixed and heart-rending thoughts on mental illness. I think it's time everyone took their heads out of the sand on both, specifically Christians.

I love stockings. Growing up, it was the first thing we did on Christmas morning. Stockings held the basics: toothbrush, toothpaste, hair accessories (for us girls), one tiny gift and then...CANDY!!! Always hershey kisses, years when finances were good we got peanut M&Ms as well, and peppermints. Mind you, I don't like mint (my parents used them as cough suppressents during church) so in my way of thinking the peppermints fell in the category of "necessities" along with the toothbrush and toothpaste, but since I've become an adult I've discovered that no one else thinks like that. But I digress. After I left college and headed overseas, my teaching teammates (and roommate) were horrified to discover that I didn't bring my childhood stocking for Christmas. I didn't tell them that my parents had six stockings and five of the six were identical. Dad wrote our names on masking tape and taped them on each year. So for my birthday that year, I got a st...

If you have ultra-conservative views on the sanctity of Christmas or very stringent theology, you don't want to read this post. That's my one and only warning.     Today's decorations...the first of my nativity sets. :)   It's not actually the first nativity set I've ever owned, but it's the first one I've put out this year and it's VERY special to me. :)  (In case you've not been to my house or read Christmas posts from years gone by, I have quite a few nativity sets. They're one of my 2 favorite decorations.)   Someone very special gave this one to me a few years ago, even though he thinks such things are a bit sacrilegious.  My parents have a Native American nativity set that my brother gave them several years ago and it has a teepee for the stable. That bothered this person, and I horrified them even more by laughing and saying, "If I ever find one in bears, I'll be very tempted to buy it."  So imagine my surprise...

 Several years ago my parents gave me a table set of blue candle holders with a matching fruit bowl. I used them for a little while, then they went in the China cabinet. While at JoAnns, I found these silver candles on clearance, and decided it would match the set perfectly. I already had the silver leaves from last year, but after fitting them in the bowl realized there wasn't enough. So I headed to Michael's, only to discover silver is not the "in" color this year and I was stuck with what I had. So I added toile and hershey's kisses to cover up the empty spots. I told Bobby I  knew a silver table runner would match this and make it look more magazine-y, but my grandmother made this, and it seemed stupid to buy something I don't really need when I have something I already like. It's not often I take the tablecloth and pads off the dining room table anyway, so there's really no point in buying something extra. I think my grandmother would be pro...

I've been taking my time putting things up this year, instead of trying to get everything done in 2-3 days. Here's our first tree to go up:   the topper :)   the bottom; what the state knows/does best What? You didn't know the red & white of Christmas represented the Crimson Tide?   Different team, I know. But the fierce competition wouldn't be there without the rival!     Yeah. Even if it's the "other" team, it's still from my home state! I've seen a few ornaments that have the state bird, motto, etc, but they were super expensive. Spending a large amount of money on a glass ornament is crazy, especially when you consider the floors are hardwood and my hands are clumsy. Those aren't good combinations. But since it's a small tree, I don't need to add much more. :) And this is tree #1.

The first year we were married my husband pleasantly surprised me. I know how much he hates to shop, and I know it's impossible forhim to wrap presents. I full expected a box to arrive from one of 2 places, and that would be Christmas. So imagine my surprise that first year when I got a phone call from my mother-in-law, asking if I had ordered anything from two places. It had Bobby's name on it, but her address. :) I told her I hadn't, but I'd check with him and see. Not sure if he forgot to tell her they were coming or in the busyness of life she forgot, but she wrapped my presents for him. Now THAT is a super nice Mom-in-law. And form my birthday, his best friend helped him out. In less than 2 weeks, I will enter a new decade. There's a good possibility we will be out of town on that monumentous occasion, so yesterday I was very surprised when my mother-in-law showed up. Well, not so surprised that she came bringing some gifts, but with this:  a birthday cak...

Yesterday as we were attempting to create 2 sets on stage, our pastor walked in and said "You've got a lot done." I don't remember what my comment was, but I was feeling like the set was thrown together and a bit on the tacky side. He laughed a little and said, "Well, you know, it's Bethlehem. It's just a dirty little town." I was shocked speechless. When I think of Bethlehem I think of white buildings stacked on a hillside. Maybe it's from seeing too many sanitized Christmas cards. Yet if you look online, the images aren't too far from what we see there. I'm sure back in the day there were very few pristine cities. But then it got me to thinking about home and how people viewed the county where I grew up. There are some very nice homes, but often you can't see them for all the trees (though the tornadoes 2 years ago took care of a large chunk of that problem). But for the most part, the town is made up of very small and simple mi...

Last night was one of those crazy nights where we needed to head home as reasonably as possible, and it just didn't seem to be happening. The music men were going to clean off the stage for the play set-up, and I didn't stick around to see that it happened. And so I dreamed about it last night. Celia and I arrived on SATURDAY (which is the dress rehearsal, NOT our stage prop time), and found not only were the musical instruments off the stage, but the stage itself, the curtain, the overhead...all of it was GONE! Not moved, but gone. As in, there was a cement floor and unpainted grey cement walls. (Which everyone from our church knows the wall behind that curtain is painted and there's carpet under the staging that matches all the brown everywhere else!) All that was there was a metal pipe that had previously held the black curtains (as opposed to our nice little curtain rods). They had THOROUGHLY done their job. They even moved out the choir risers, so the kids were volun...

They always tell you to exercise with a friend. That has never appealed to me. Until now. This afternoon we were told that Bobby needed to do arm exercises (since he can't walk and we need to help the blood flow to the pressure sores he's been fighting since the beginning of Oct). Bear in mind he's had no exercises since I don't know when. So tonight he said we needed to exercise. I pulled out my old arm weights, put them on him, and grabbed my dumbbells. We laughed. We exercised. He quit and informed me I had to keep going. I have to admit to laughing at him, especially when he told me I may have to drive him to work tomorrow. I think this is delightful payback for those days when I started at the gym and could hardly move to do his exercises in the morning, much less get him dressed and transferred. And since I have been woefully inconsistent (ahem, okay. Basically not going) at the gym since October, this is good motivation for me to get back in the routine...

The Alabama tree is up. :) It's not even 3' tall, goes up quickly and is VERY easy to decorate. So easy, in fact, I wish (as I do almost every time this year) we did not have the 7' green monster we have. Whoever came up with the idea of creating Christmas trees taller than the average person needed their head examined. I can assure you, if I were into the real tree thing, I would NOT be buying a tree bigger than me. So today is the day I'm putting our tree up. I'm 3/4 of the way through the lights and I'm already starting to get aggravated with the whole tree thing and how pointless it is when I decided it's time to take a break and do something relaxing for a few minutes. I am taking a different approach this year. I'm actually leaving the dining room table OUT (as opposed to pushed against the wall to make room for the tree and still let Bobby have a path through the room) and it's already decorated. We may actually eat supper in there this mo...