1. You know that song, Dominick the Italian Donkey? The one that plays on the radio at Christmas time because Dominick is supposedly a Christmas donkey? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are blessed. I intensely dislike that song. And now, thanks to my brother, my almost 3 year old daughter knows it and sings it. At least she sounds cute singing it. But he’d better just wait until he has children. I will retaliate.
2. Speaking of Christmas music, I was shocked to discover that our local radio stations started playing Christmas music last Thursday. Please don’t think I’m a grinch, because I really do love Christmas. But can’t we enjoy Thanksgiving first? Time is going too fast as it is! I will, however, have Christmas music playing the day after Thanksgiving, as always. That is also when I allow myself to make fudge. Which, in turn, is probably when I should increase my exercise routine. Which would require me to have one in the first place. Note to self…
3. Speaking of the day after Thanksgiving, how many of you are joining the crowds for Black Friday shopping? Just wondering. I will not be among you–I will hopefully be sleeping. Assuming my children decide to give me an early Christmas present and sleep past 6:30am. I can never decide if those who venture out are brave or a little unbalanced- guess it depends on whether or not you are one of those people that stampede the doors and endanger others. I’m going with unbalanced in that situation.
4. My husband and I are pretty much done with our Christmas shopping for Eila and Asher (and for Asher’s birthday which is in a couple of weeks- which will be accompanied by a long picture loaded post!) Will and I agreed that giving them each three gifts, a joint gift, and stockings is a great way to limit gift craziness and also a wonderful way to share about the wise men giving three gifts to Jesus. We did the majority of our shopping via Craigslist and Amazon.com. I was able to save $20 with our amazon purchases thanks to Swag Bucks and a gift card I earned by participating in SheSpeaks. I love shopping for gifts for others, especially when I get to use promotional codes.
5. Thanks to those of you that gave me coupon pointers! I’ll report back at the end of this month to let you know how it goes!
6. On a serious note, I want to share how my morning started and what God did. I woke up feeling grumpy and not wanting to go to church. I really wanted to take a Sunday off to get some things done around the house and run some errands. I knew that those were not good reasons to miss going to church, so I got my bottom in gear, with a grumbling heart along for the ride. Part of my dread-laced outlook on church this morning had to do with my frustration that Asher, for the past few months, refuses to stay in the nursery for longer than 20 minutes before having a meltdown at the realization that his mommy and daddy are not present. This means that I go and retrieve crying baby and proceed to expend all my energy for the remainder of the service attempting to keep him busy and quiet with pens, water, crackers, and whatever else I have handy. (A make-up brush tube holder was a great hit a few weeks back.) After I gave this week’s (wonderful) nursery volunteers the run-down on both kids, along with a speech on Asher’s separation anxiety, I sat down beside my husband and turned to look every time I heard one of the doors to the sanctuary open. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, I was summoned. But it wasn’t due to Asher needing me! Eila just wanted me to take her to the potty (she didn’t know this week’s workers very well). So, leave it to the Lord to know when I am utterly exhausted and in response, to forgive my bad attitude about going to worship Him and exchange it for a service in which Asher stays in the nursery the entire time! It was amazing. I was able to sit and pay attention to the sermon and slip out of mommy-mode for awhile. I am so grateful to God that He cares about even the smallest things that affect us, and is gracious to not only meet our needs, but to repeatedly meet us where we are.
Dancing in the Mundane 