Advent Calendar

After perusing some friend's blogs and thinking about it, I decided to create an Advent Garland for our children. I set out to put it together the other night. I prayed that through this fun experience, my children would learn something about Jesus.



I picked up treat bags, tissue paper, a package of cardboard gift tags and some pretty ribbon.
I also picked out some chocolatey treats and a couple $1 gifts.

  

I picked out a font that I liked on my computer and typed out the numbers 1-24, so I would have something to draw from while I numbered the tags.



There were enough tags left over that I could re-make the ones I didn't like. You can see my "boo-boos" on the top right.

 

Treat bag #1 has peppermint kisses inside!



It occurred to me about half way through to put one member of our manger scene in each bag. Shirley LOVES opening up a bag to see who is inside. She knew right away that they were coming to see Jesus! Of course, baby Jesus is in the last bag. :)

The final product isn't quite as cute as I had hoped, but it isn't hanging quite right because the last ten (or so) bags don't have treats in them yet.

 

This is what it looks like this morning.


So far, the garland is a huge hit. Shirley loves it, and Richard loves anything his sister loves. As a side note, next year, I might not put so much chocolate in the bags...or set a precident of opening the bags after or before dinner, otherwise your morning starts out with kids all hopped up on chocolate. I thought about putting something else in there, but putting Cheerios in Advent bags just seems a little anti-climactic.
Also, waiting until tomorrow to open another bag is basically torture for my three-year-old. I knew it would be, so I'm glad I hung the garland WAY out of anyone's reach.
More than anything, this garland gives us a way to talk about Christmas and what it means. So far, so good!

Glory

For the past four years I have either been pregnant or nursing, so when I caught a cold, I had limited options for drugs. I'm still having a hard time getting used to the idea that I can buy cold medicine--and take it. To feel better.
Imagine.
So, tonight for the first time in over four years I bought and consumed DayQuil.
Oh my stars--it's glorious! Who knew (remembered) this stuff worked so great?!
Tonight, I opted to only take half a dose of NyQuil so that I won't be too groggy when the kids wake up in the morning. They don't care if I'm sick! They still wake up at the same time.
I just can't remember: am I allowed to take NyQuil with a glass of wine? Seems like that might be dangerou...z.zzzzzzz.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Torture

I've given myself a goal to lose ten pounds in ten weeks. So far it's going great! I'm down four pounds in three weeks. I've been very careful about what I eat and working out regularly. I decided yesterday to sign up for the Weight Loss Challenge at my gym. Every Thursday for six weeks I get to go circuit train with personal trainers and hopefully bolster my weight loss efforts at home.
I can hardly walk today I am so sore.
The prize for winning the Challenge (whoever loses the highest percentage of body fat wins!) is eight personal training sessions. After last night, that doesn't seem like a prize to me. It seems like torture.
Onward and upward.

Garden Update: For Real

I am finally able to post an update on our garden! I am so proud of it...I couldn't narrow down the photos. Please indulge me while I share.

First, for posterity, here is a picture of the front of our house. The Snap Dragons haven't really filled in like I had imagined...and they are not variegated like I thought they would be, but they look pretty cute!The garden! I just can't believe how it has taken off! I took these pictures five days ago, and even now, the cucumbers have continued to grow and the tomatoes are bigger than ever.Early Girls.
Strawberries.Bell peppers.
Heirloom: Lemon Boys.

Beautiful basil.

Beets for pickling.

Jalapeno.

Heirloom: Cherokee Purple.

"Beefy support" for my aggressive killer cucumbers.

This guy is currently being pickled.

These guys were turned into cucumber salad.

Pretty!

Richard's garden stone. Shirley made one, too, but surprisingly, it can not support the weight of a mommy stepping on it. Or maybe it's not surprising.

Romas.

Better Boys.

Will there come a time when I can't remember what we did or didn't do with a specific vegetable? I hope not! The day after I took these pictures, the tomatoes sustained a lot of wind damage. They drooped over and got completely tangled. They are looking better, but I was pretty worried for a couple of days. The truth is, this is just a TINY fraction of the tomatoes we're going to have and if some don't survive I'll still have tomatoes coming out my ears.

I just can't imagine what it must have been like to have to grow food for your family and depend on the family garden for a whole year's worth of food! I think about pioneer women, and women like my great-grandmothers who tended gardens every year in order to feed their families. I am so thankful that if this doesn't work out I can still go to the grocery store for fresh, healthy food!

Vision Board: Better late than never!

At the beginning of the year, Lauren and her co-workers had an assignment to create vision boards that show their goals and aspirations for the new year, and share them in a staff meeting.

Instead of grumbling about the assignment, Lauren threw herself in to the project and loved every minute of it. (This is one of Lauren's most admirable qualities, if you ask me.)

She was so inspired by this project that she helped me make a vision board for 2011.

I admit, I thought it was sort of silly, but once we got going, I really enjoyed myself! I am proud of my vision board and hope I reach all of my goals represented on it.

Click to enlarge.

It was a really fun project, and very fun to see my goals on paper. If you have specific goals for the new year, maybe you could make one! If you do, be sure to post a comment and share it with me.

The Day My Brain Stopped Working

I needed to return some things to a popular children's store. I should have done it much sooner, but the truth is, I forgot. So, today, Mom and I headed to the mall to make my returns. I was anticipating a fairly large amount of cash for the clothing in my bag, but I wasn't too excited about it--I just had a plan. A plan to return the clothes, get the cash, deposit the cash. Bing, bang, boom. No worries. Easy peasy.
So...I'm chatting with the sales girl, she's scanning things, you know. And she says, "You know this is going to be in merchandise credit, right?"
I said, "Uh, no. That's not right. Cash was paid for these items. I'd like the cash back, please."
She said, "Well, since they were purchased more than 60 days ago, you can only get a merchandise credit."
I said, "Shoot. That's not what I thought would happen."

And then time stood still.

I literally did not know what to do. Return the clothes? Keep the clothes? Take the gift card? Throw a temper tantrum?
So, I said, "Isn't there anything you can do about this? Who is the manager?"
She said, "I'm the manager."
I said, "So, isn't there anything you can do about this?"
She said, "You can have the phone number for customer service...?"
I said, "Will customer service tell you to give me my money back?"
She said, "No."
I said, "Then, no thank you."

And then time stood still.

I still did not know what to do. My brain just could. not. figure. this. one. out.
While she stared at me, I literally closed my eyes and tried to SEE the right answer. It did not appear.
Finally my mom came over, "Is everything ok?"
I explained the situation to her and told her to just tell me what to do.
We ended up keeping the outfit that will still fit Shirley and took a merchandise credit for the rest of the clothing.
Later I said to my mom, "I'm really sorry, Mom. I thought it was safe to go in public again. Clearly I was wrong."
Let the record show: I made the wrong choice. I am returning the rest of the clothes tomorrow. Hopefully the cashier will be fluent in Post-Partum-PMS-Exhausted-Mommy-Speak. (Yes, that's a real condition.)

Technology Test: FAIL

OK, remember how I JUST posted about how hard this mommy job is?
Literally, hours later our computer completely died. Oh, and then my phone died. DIED! I was using my iPhone (that, truly, I didn't think I loved as much as I do (OH, HOW I DO!), until it died) to check my email and facebook and the blogs so at least I didn't have to be completely disconnected over here...on this side of the river, but when it died and I had to go back to the dark ages on my blackberry (gasp!), I truly thought I might die. To say the very least, I felt pretty lonely, frustrated and isolated. And it was only a week. A very dark, rainy week.
I'm not sure what God was up to there, but I did not handle the "test" very well.
I haven't been very pleasant to live with over the last week.
BUT. Things are looking up. The computer is back in working order. Its *new* battery holds a charge longer than ten minutes at a time and it doesn't overheat to the point of buring the tops of my legs anymore!
Hallelujah--I'm back online.


There is no moral to this story.


One more thought: Do you think maybe our phones are getting too smart?

Icky Christmas

Today I stopped at The Home Depot to pick up some air flow directors for the air vents in our FREEZING house. Basically, they're a little bandshell for your heat vent, that, incidentally have already made a big difference.
Anyway, on my way in the door, I stopped to smell some candles. As I was sniffing, a very normal-looking man cornered me against the display with his cart. He picked up a candle, sniffed it, and said, "You smell good."
My first inclination was to think that I must have misunderstood him, but when he kept staring at me with a dumb grin on his face not unlike THIS:













I knew I had not, afterall, misunderstood.
Without another word, I squeeeeeezed out of the tight spot he had me in (literally and figuratively), and made my purchases.
Icky. Icky Christmas. Not Merry.




For what it's worth, I'm still seeing spots from taking this picture.

Spam

I just got an email whose subject line read: Do You Love Low-Priced Company?
What, interweb, could that mean???
Maybe I should have opened it.
Typically, if it's in my spam account and says something like, "Cheep Car for U," or "Erin D., US Cittzan," and it's from someone like Lunda Juhnson, I just delete. You know?

Good to Know

I learned a lot again last night in my ASL class. The most important of which was the difference between "I understand," and "horny."

First Day of School

I started American Sign Language 1 last night at a local community college.

It was fantastic.

FANTASTIC.

My professor is deaf, and didn't speak a word for the first hour and a half of class. Can you imagine! I got a good taste of what total immersion would be like, because by the end of the three hour class period, I was able to communicate basic introductions and family information with my classmates.

The most interesting thing I learned is that ASL is a completely different language. It is not English. I never understood that before. That will be the hardest part about the class for me, because the sentence structures are completely different than anything I'm familiar with.

It was hard to be away from the baby. I've never been away from her that long before, but I think it's good for both of us. I guess. This is something I've always wanted to do since I took a sign language class during summer school at EP Rock. I've been reading books about signing with children, and have been signing with SJ for a couple of months. I think she is starting to recognize the sign for "all done," but is not yet able to put it all together.

I was so wound up when I got home last night that at 1am, Richard put his hand over my mouth.

Point taken.