A Day in the Life (or Boring Grandmother Stuff)

Maddie at 21 months old

Landon at 3 months

    

Honestly, I realize that there is nothing more boring than a grandmother gushing over her grandchildren...the cutest, most charming ones around, by the way.  I see them a couple of times a week and every time I do I'm amazed at how they've changed, grown, gotten more gorgeous, gotten smarter, and on and on.  If you have grandchildren you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you might someday and then you'll get it.  Just no describing it until it happens to you personally.

So, on to something else. Just a little bit about my day...not that you're interested.  My next to last day of 2010 has been spent thus:
 Woke up at 7 am as husband left for work.  Ahhh....peace and quiet, no need to get out of bed, lay there and snooze.  Got up and ate my one pancake with peanut butter on it and drank Ovaltine. Yes, Ovaltine. We used to make fun of Ovaltine. I rediscovered it at a baby products fair I went to several years ago with Erin. It's yummy and full of vitamins.  Anyway, off to the shower, devotional, check email and then to the chiropractor. UGH! I really don't like going but I'm in deep need right now of getting my back back into whack.  I have picked Maddie up the wrong way too many times and pushed boxes of hundreds of candles  around the wrong way at work.  That chiropractor has torture devices. Today I got stretched and snapped and punched and contorted in all sorts of ways.  I have one hip that is higher than the other and he is determined to make them equal...HA!  He's a big guy and it is no easy feelin' to have a 200 pound guy "adjusting" your back. I know it'll be worth it one day. When I'll be pain-free and in great health the chiropractic way.  (Really, I have gotten much relief in the past from back problems in this way. I'm all for it...beats existing on pain medicine).

 After that experience, I met up with my family for chicken at Otter's at the Avenue. Great stuff!  And Maddie's favorite restaurant. She can be loud if she likes and she loves their frifry (french fries). I took 3 Motrin with my chicken strips and then enjoyed our meal with my parents and kids.  Maddie looked pitifully at me several times and held her arms out. Do you know how hard that is to resist? I took her in my lap after which she proceeded to try to eat my face.  What is THAT?  She was being quite the charmer...acting like she was going to kiss me and then start to bite me all over my face. Interesting stage we're going into.
We headed out to do some shopping at Barnes and Noble and I picked up a book for myself and then went over to the children's section.  Madison saw DORA!  A beanie baby Dora the Explorer.  She had to have her. Picked her off the shelf and hugged her.  Said "BUY IT?"  Rather she demanded "Buy it!"...no question mark involved.  Buy-it, buy-it, buy-it. That's all we heard as we checked out. Yes, I bought it! :)
We strolled around, looked at the fountains still covered in ice and snow and then Maddie had a meltdown due to no nap.  Off they went home and me to my home.  My quiet, restful home. Ahhhh.  Oh, and by the way, my grandson was charmingly smiling throughout the whole afternoon. He is such a happy baby and growing too quickly.  Wonder what his personality will be like? I'm hoping for laid-back and sweet-natured. He's looking like he'll be a blue-eyed blonde boy at this point.

 So that's that. The rest of the day will be spent watching bowl games and trying to resist the chocolate stuff left over from Christmas.  Unless something comes up this'll be my last post until 2011.

 Happy New Year!

Stream of Consciousness (Season's End)

All the bright beautiful poinsettias are gone.  The 15-foot trees are down, taken apart, roped up and put in the closet.  (After we removed hundreds of ornaments, of course).  The garland and bows are boxed away, labeled north balcony, south, center, front, etc. (We are very organized in the music office).  The Worship Center looks bare now but ready for the new year as we worship this coming first Sunday in January.  It was freezing as we took everything down. It always seems to be the most windy, cold days when we put up the decorations AND take them down.  I was so sick today with a bad cold, ear feeling a little funny, really sore throat. I did everything mechanically and in a daze. Came home, ate, took three Motrin, wrote my boss a rambling email (probably made him wonder what in the world I had taken), and fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon.

I am so ready for some warmer weather for a bit. Looks like we'll get some for New Year's.  Amazing...we have a white Christmas in Georgia...unheard of, terribly cold temps and now 60s for New Year's Day.  We've got a long winter ahead.  I do look forward to going back to work....I like my comfort zone. Plus I don't really care that I'm down in a basement working when the weather's dreary and cold.

I've enjoyed the holidays but I really like my routine.  Looking forward to doing my off-day Fridays with my daughter and the babies while the guys are at work.  My birthday is coming up in a few weeks. For some reason 53 seems really getting on up there.  My hair is showing my age and I am getting those "fine lines" around my eyes.  I love that term "fine lines".  I'm having back problems partly due to heaving boxes around at work and picking up a 23-lb toddler.

I love the prospect of seeing my little grandson start to become a "real little person" as he is starting to play and sit in the exersaucer and respond with babble when you talk to him.  The baby girl is just pure JOY as she's always been...she is approaching the "terrible twos" but she's so sweet-natured that I'm praying it'll be an easier stage than we think.

 For others in our church, this new year will bring lots of questions and ordeals of treatment for cancer. Just in our orchestra family alone, we have 4 families dealing with cancer.  In the church as a whole, many long-time members are sick. None of us know one day to the next when sickness will come.  I'm more aware of that than ever since I've been working in the music office and we help in support and prayer and my boss is booked to sing for funerals and visit the hospitals and we add and add to the prayer requests.   I am not taking any day for granted an I'll try my best not to "wish my life away" by looking always ahead to the next thing. I need to live every day and see the hours for what they are and look for opportunities to show Jesus' love.  I am usually so unobservant.  One of my biggest faults.
 
Well, this has been the most boring post ever but it's as much for me as anyone else.
Enjoy the rest of the week as we approach 2011.

Love,

Christmas Eve Service ("Third Christmas" Pictures!)

Our minister of music sang "Welcome to Our World"

We had a sheep for the kids to pet.

Maddie wasn't too sure about him.  He also took part in a drama about the shepherds who were visited by the angels.

John and I are very blessed with these two sweeties!

Maddie's first time in big church as a toddler. Whew, I'm exhausted!

Landon fell asleep soon after this pic and slept the whole service.

Our service is very much a big family tradition here at Roswell Street.

The shepherd tells his children about that holy night!

The church is always decorated beautifully.

We sang "Silent Night" as we began the candle-lighting throughout the congregation.

Peaceful and beautiful.

I'm responsible for getting the big candle down front for the pastor to light as he starts the candle-lighting for the congregation.  That was my first mission when I got to church tonight.  Then we stopped and petted the sheep and then headed to the balcony.   Madison was only 9 months old this time last year and was running 102 fever.  She was quiet and sat in our laps...LAST year.  This year at 21 months old she was happily yelling "people" and "hey" up in the balcony.  She played with her flashlight and never stopped moving the entire 40 minute service.  She ate a cookie, drank her juice (I was afraid she was going to pitch the juice cup or the flashlight over the balcony rail at any minute).  She tried to put our candles in her mouth! What is that? I thought she was out of the oral stage mostly!  We sang Christmas hymns and she sang along at the top of her lungs...some gibberish but it was spirited anyway!  She was restless during the sheep skit and tried to escape.  Finally, as we lit the candles and began to sing "Silent Night" she quieted.  I picked her up and she just looked around at the beautiful sight of all the candles lit in the dark church and the Christmas trees all lit up also.  We held our candles high on the last verse..."Christ the Savior is born...".  Wonderful night. 

Merry Christmas!!

Favorite "Second Christmas" Pictures

Maddie wanted to get in on the action as we sang our favorites!

My two!

Let's pretend

Little dressed-up monkey!

She seemed to hold her on with the big boys!

Two of my favorite people...the parents of my grandchildren!

Grandpapa and Landon in conversation

Grandmama and the sweet boy.

I don't know where she learned this...too cute!

We loved the beautiful Christmas dress.

Cold Day = Warm House decorated with ribbon, wreaths, Christmas tree, piles of presents, light
Supper = Ham, Mom's potato salad, Vicki's deviled eggs, peas, green beans, rolls, corn pudding
Gifts = Unending, Striped shirts, scarfs, jewelry, devotional books, calendars for the new year, cologne, gift cards, children squealing, wrestling, loving every minute
Singing = Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - just the girls, O Holy Night - our favorite arrangement
Dessert = Grandmother's Chocolate Cake, Coconut Pie, Pecan Pie, Cookies
Family Christmas = Six hours spent together - Great memories - new grandchildren - photos - LOVE

My Favorite Christmas Pictures This Year (so far)

My daughter and grandson played Mary and Baby Jesus

Lives changed = at least 6 people asked Jesus to be their Savior
Hearts changed = one man returning to church for the first time in years = a grateful wife
Beautiful scenes = Mary and Baby Jesus with a dancer behind them...she takes the candle...the light that Jesus offers the world
Astounding voice = Our minister of music sings Michael W. Smith's "Christmas Angels" with 60 children = Wonderful worship time
Choir in Blue and Black = 112 voices singing a cappella  "Come, Messiah King" and "Go, Tell It on the Mountain" to "A Baby Changes Everything" with a gorgeous solo to "Hallelujah Chorus" and cute children playing angels and shepherds.
Snowy, cold night = nearly 2000 people in a warm church, worshiping, happy = Roswell Street Baptist Church

And so went my first Christmas celebration of the season. MORE to come. :)

Be Yourself! (or Why am I Still Struggling with This at My Age?!)

Thelma Wells writes:

 "If you are trying to be something you know you aren't, if you are trying to do things you know you have little ability, patience, passion, commitment and tolerance for, cut it out!  Be yourself!  

 The great thing about real authority is that God gives me one thing to do, somebody else another.  The reason Lucifer was kicked out of heaven was that he tried to usurp God's authority and be something he wasn't.  How very stupid when he had the fourth best position in heaven!  His jealousy and rebellion cost him his position, his beauty, his ability to make angelic music, and his intimacy with God.  When we operate outside of our authority, we experience similar breakdowns.

 But that doesn't have to happen to you or to me.  Just be who you are, what you are, how you are, the way God made you.  It is His grace that creates in you the talents, inclinations, knowledge and pleasure to be yourself.  Grace empowers you to perform the tasks God has given you on earth and to enjoy what He has called you to do."

1 Corinthians 12:18 says "But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be."  This refers to our physical body and He applies that to the Church also.  Then verse 26 says, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."

So yes, I'm preaching to myself. I have struggled with this quite a bit lately.  If I would just follow this advice I would enjoy my work and daily life so much more.  So....early New Year's Resolution time. I know the Lord loves me, loves us just as He made us and has a purpose and plan for each of us....we're all different yet equal to Him in value. Thank You, Lord!

Hope you're enjoying this wonderful Christmas Season!!

31 Years! A Short History of Our Marriage (so far)

December 1979 (married 2 weeks)

   

  

December 8 is our wedding anniversary.   31 years now!  John and I met on September 5, 1976, in a vespers service in my freshman year at Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, Georgia.  I was trying to get over my "first love"...we had broken up during the summer and he went to college there also.  It was a mutual "breaking up" after almost a year and a half of dating.  It was rough because we were very close and had grown spiritually together also.

 I met John that September day and we became good friends.  Not until the next fall, a year later, did we began to date.  We had a somewhat stormy relationship....dated 9 months, broke up for 9 months, got back together and got engaged and then we were married 4 months later two weeks before Christmas in an evening candlelight wedding on a very cold night!

 Our first years of marriage were spent with one or the other of us in school.  I finished first while John worked full-time. Then I worked full-time while he finished.  Four years into our marriage found us in New Orleans at seminary.  We lived there 3 years and had our two babies there.  It was a growing time in our marriage as we were separated from family and home as I had always known it.  But we made it with the Lord's help and patience with us!  Within 6 months of seminary graduation we were living in Costa Rica with our 2 year old son and 5 month old daughter. We attended Spanish language school there as we prepared to serve as International Mission Board missionaries to Guatemala.  One year later, we were living near the rain forest in north central Guatemala, planting churches and raising our family. We served the Lord there for 9 years in both Coban and Antigua, Guatemala.  I would not trade that time for anything.  That was another very "growing" time in our marriage....good times and bad.  Any missionaries will tell you that issues in marriage can become even more pronounced when living in another culture and in a foreign country.  But we made it and have precious memories of our time there together.  Thank You, Lord.

Back to the good ol' USA in 1995 and no jobs, no house, all household belongings stored in a crate sitting in a Guatemalan port.  A year of furlough and then we found a house here in our hometown area with the help of my parents.  No bank would give us a loan considering we hadn't lived here in 14 years and most of that overseas.  The Lord provided jobs for us and somewhat easy adjustments for our children and a wonderful, supportive church home.

2010:   Now we have an empty nest!  We have 2 beautiful grandchildren.  The Lord has blessed our lives through family, friends, church, our jobs and especially our marriage.  We look forward, Lord willing, to many more years together.  I love you, John.