The Weather Outside is...

Cold. Yep, that's pretty much it.

Christmas seems to make even the bitterest cold weather a bit more bearable. I love turning on the lights we have strung across our porch and around our windows and looking outside from the safety and warmth of my home to see the light reflect off of the snow. It seems to just warm everything up. I think that's why Christmas lights are so popular. Not so much because of the season, but because in this dark and dreary time we need to create our own light to brighten the darkness.

So go ahead, I dare you to humbug the season while looking at the magic twinkling of thousands of pinpoints of lights. How can it not raise the spirits.

My spirits are high today. I just have one of those good feelings that everything is falling into place. All is exactly where it should be. Part of me thinks I should be looking around the corner trying to see where it's all going to fall apart. Thankfully the bigger part of me is more than content to bask in this wonderful feeling of peace. All may not be right in the world, but all is right in my heart.

This song came on my pandora station and I love the feel of it so I'm sharing. Enjoy!

Just run with it.

Mornings are usually filled with random thoughts going through my head starting at oh... 5 a.m. or so. Today you get a glimpse. Scary huh!

1. I once "dated" some one who wanted to start exercising. Rather than let me run with him (cause I was running already) he just asked me to follow along after him in my car. Yeah, idea lasted all of two seconds. Weird huh. Was he just afraid of being shown up by a girl? Perhaps I should have taken the opportunity and just run him over... hmm. (I would never do it, but the cartoon of it that plays through my head is pretty funny.)

2. My dad is okay. Thank you all for the support. He is currently in the hospital. They thought he had a heart attack on Monday but further tests show that the sack around his heart has an infection causing the heaviness and the heart attack symptoms. He is hooked up to an iv to clear away the infection and should be right as rain in a few days.

3. My hair looks like a big burr this morning, I don't know how to tame it. And yes this is after it has been freshly washed and dried... Definitely time to get a haircut. Why do I insist on waiting so long?!

4. One of my favorite things about my bathroom is that the heating vent blows right on my feet while I get ready for work. Aaaahhhh.

5. Live music on the radio rarely sounds good. There's some guy on the Eagle who is from England and it honestly sounds like he's trying to do a James Brown impression. It kind of makes me want to call and ask him to please please stop.

6. I hate buying close-toed shoes. I much prefer shoes that let my feet breath and show cute, painted toenails. I almost feel like it's a waste of my money to buy practical shoes when I can buy cute ones. Winter always throws my for a loop. Since I hate winter shoes, I am facing the dilemma of: should I wear warm shoes that have some sort of weird squeak when I walk, or the ones that hurt the back of my heels. Sigh... we're not even going to talk about socks.

The end. Hope you all have a marvelous, warm-footed day.

I woke up early this morning, the newly fallen snow reflecting the street lights around and lighting up the night. Walking around the house in the dark but still able to see.

I received some disturbing news about my dad yesterday. He's been having really bad headaches and a heaviness on his chest. It has been happening for awhile but he has been able to get rid of it all with medication but this last weekend he wasn't so lucky. He went to the doctor yesterday and found out that half of his heart isn't working. Of course they are running more tests to see what the cause is and therefore what the treatment will be. Treatment could be as simple as pill to as complicated as a bypass surgery.

I'm not sure how to process this information. Part of me wants to burst into tears and my heart wants to break for my dad. The other part tells me that doctors are wonderful and medicine has come a long ways and he will be just fine. Perhaps it is because the heart is such a delicate matter and in so many ways. Isn't it the heart that keeps us all alive, physically, emotionally. I'm pretty sure that my dad's body will be just fine. I am worried about him emotionally though.

Dad has always been such a hard worker. When the body starts to fail, it's hard not to tie one's worth to one's abilities. It's easy to feel worthless and like dead weight. Can't he see there's so much more to life than the ability to move pipe and drive fence posts.

Walking around in the dark but still able to see. It's bright outside right now, but it is an artificial light. Man-made to help us get through the night. When the light of the sun shines across the horizon, how much brighter it will be. Almost blindingly so with the light that only God can give.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

... thy leaves are so unchanging

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

Thy leaves are so unchanging.

Not only when something or other

but also in na na na na

Who knew that so few people know the words to "O Christmas Tree"?!

Last night was my big family Christmas party. The one that I was putting the music together for. As crunch time came, my visions of a re-usable song book bound together for everyone's singing pleasure, came crashing to a halt. Due to lack of time, my vision took a drastic change to "just get the stupid words on the paper so that they have something to look at". Since I had approximate 1 hour to finish the job and get it printed, I opted not to write down the words to all the songs. Seriously, who doesn't know the words to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "O Christmas Tree"?! That would be my family.

The party went well though. And people got a kick out of my typos... or maybe I just got a kick out of my typos. Best one: In "Sleigh Ride" I typed "Let's take that road before us and sign a chorus or two". Best part is that without fail everyone sang sign! Oh the power of the written lyrics!

Enough of that. This week's highlights:

1. Most funnest book club ever! (it's my blog I can write it how I want to) We read "The Bright Side of Disaster". I quite enjoyed the book even with the bit of language that seemed to be stuck in their now and then. It was odd to think that some of the things that she was dealing with, I may never go through myself. (It was about a woman having her first child. It's more complicated than that but it does give you an idea.) Mostly I loved getting to know more about the delightful women who are in the book club with me. It was soooo good to laugh uncontrollably with everyone! Looking ever forward to next month.

2. I attended Activity Days for the first time of my entire life seeing as Activity Days came after my time (which kind of makes me feel old.... oh well). It was such a boost to have the girls happy and even excited to see me! Seriously, there really is nothing like Primary kids to give you a huge self-esteem lift.

3. The afore mentioned family Christmas party has come to a close. Sigh.

4. I didn't eat sugar for 5 whole days!!! Wow huh! For those of you who know me, that's like a Christmas miracle itself. I usually form a severe addiction to all things sugar/chocolate on Halloween and it lasts until roughly Easter. This new achievement actually started thanks to my husband. For the drive home from Hurricane after Thanksgiving, our "meal" consisted of Mountain Dew (my caffeinated beverage of choice), Nibs, Cheese Nips, and an embarrassingly large bag of Reese's Pieces. The Reese's Pieces and Nibs I blame entirely on Cecil by the way. We were both really quite ill by the time we got home and new we would be but didn't care. And the saddest part is that neither one of us would have changed a thing in retrospect. That's when we knew something had to be done. Sugar free week-days and sugar weekends. We have to do it together or we'll both fail. Seems to be working well so far.

Music/video to start the week with:

Giving Thanks

It's been a while since I have written and I truly have so many good things to be thankful for. But first, a book quote. I just finished reading "One True Thing" by Anna Quindlen. The main character, Ellen, has moved home from a very successful job in NY to take care of her dying mother whom she never really knew. One passage reads:

"If I knew you would be happy I could close my eyes now and rest." Her voice was beginning to sink and die, as though it was going down the drain, rush of words to trickle of whisper. "It's so much easier."

"I know it is. I wish you could."

"No, not that. The being happy. It's so much easier, to learn to love what you have instead of yearning always for what you're missing, or what you imagine you're missing. It's so much more peaceful."

I love that passage. It's the essence of what so many of us are trying to be.. happy, but failing at because we are searching for it in the next phase of life that is always so unreachable. I'll be happy when... You fill in the blank. Don't we have a right to happiness now? Haven't we all worked too hard to not enjoy what we have? I give you my incomplete list of thankfulness.

1. I have the best husband ever! Caring, kind compassionate, and he makes me laugh.
2. I love my in-laws complete with quirky behavior! yep, all of them!
3. I love my new snowflake Christmas lights. They cheer my spirit.
4. I love my calling. There's nothing like children to lift the spirits, even if they try them at the same time.
5. I am thankful that I get to read so much.
6. I am thankful that Heavenly Father is very much aware of me and my needs.
7. I love my family! I love get togethers, chaos, and the peace of knowing you belong.
8. I love that my parents stay at my house sometimes, even if we aren't there. I'm getting to know a different side of both of them.
9. I love that God gives us so many chances to try again, to learn, to grow, to little by little become like him.

An incomplete list. Feel free to start your own. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass... and great happiness achieved.

(By the way. We are approved for adoption! Someone thinks we are fit to be parents! Now we just get to wait to be chosen. If any of you know of someone whom we could help out of a tough situation, please pass our info on to them.)

Little of this, little of that

So I have been meaning to blog all stinkin' week, but alas... I had excellent topics of conversation for it as well. For example, at work we got a flier in the mail from the "be well, sustainability, can't we all just get along" group here on campus. It said:

Slow Food Movement at USU

followed by:

Gentle Yoga

Then we got a package delivered from Ultimate Support

The rest of the day went downhill from there. I couldn't control my sarcasm to save my life and had to run around pointing out how funny it was much like a 13-year old boy who's main sense of humor hovers in the bathroom. Perhaps it's a blessing that I didn't blog about it sooner.

Well, enough of that. Life has been, in a word, busy. Extremely busy. I would love to cut things out but I simply don't know which activity I would give the axe to. I enjoy the newly started book club and am half-way through the book already (thanks to the elliptical at the gymn, one of the many skills I picked up in college was reading while exercising. It may be my most profitable skill yet!) I enjoy knitting and hope to someday finish the hat I started. (Who knew that a hat would be so difficult!) I love my Primary calling. That is never made more manifest than when a child you thought could care less about you gives you a hug at the most unexpected moments. I thoroughly enjoy the "scheduled creativity" of my the stamp club that I'm part of. I even enjoy my job despite some, shall we say temperamental co-workers. I don't even mind cooking. It's good on our budget and I think that David likes me more when two Banquet beef pot pies and a baggie of veggies don't have to be his lunch of choice. I have even taken on a few other projects to round things out... you know, to fill up my spare time.

My family is having a big Christmas party with my mom's side of the family. It's become a much loved tradition and despite all efforts, it can't be put to a stop. It's really like a big family reunion at Christmas time. The problem is finding space that is "homey" for 65 people and counting. We usually have it at my parents house but not this year. Instead we are doing it at Jarom and Melissa's. They have an attached garage that is going to be the staging area for the food. The big basement will house the hordes of children and the adults can talk anywhere, appropriate or not. Should be fun. My job in all of this is to put together a Christmas Song book that can be copied and distributed to all for our singing session. It is the thing that we love the most. There is just something magical about gathering around as a family and singing Christmas carols. Makes everything worth it.

So, onward and upward. This season of magic is almost upon us. For some it's already here. I kind of like to warm up to it a bit though. Getting hit in the face with Christmas, especially in the form of mobile displays on the lawn and blow-up figures of Santa getting chased up a Christmas tree by a dog (and thus revealing is blue boxers with snowflakes on them) is just a little much for me. I prefer something a bit more simple. Less Santa, more feeling. The peace of the birth of our Savior that comes with the season is often forgotten in the shuffle of holiday shopping and gaudy lawn displays. I feel like it should come gently... like falling snow. Providing a hush in the world and a little bit of magic.

October 28th. Happy Birthday Babe!

Better late than never right!

This is David who wakes in the morning..This is the house where David lives...

This is the the wife that David loves...

This is the car that David drives...

This is David after school...

This is David after food...

This is David...How I love him.

At Peace

I have had odd feelings of peace lately. I almost don't understand. When I think of everything that has been laid on my plate lately I feel that I should be having knots in my stomach and stress over how I'm possibly going to get all of this done. Normal Lora mode would be waking up at 3 am, not be able to go back to sleep because I'm worrying about everything and anything that can't be taken care of in the wee small hours of the morning. But I don't feel that way. I feel pretty darn good! All I can think is that the Lord must be sending blessings because I certainly can't be doing all of this on my own.

It feels good. I feel good. I'm excited about the coming week and all that is brings. It's extremely full but I'm actually looking forward to getting things done.