Christmas Quote

Best quote after getting a Christmas gift:

"I can use this on my head."--from my brother-in-law Mike after taking a bottle of MK for Men shaving gel from my men's grab bag of MK for Men product.

Thankful Christmas Eve

Yes, I realize Thankful Christmas Eve isn't alliterated, but it doesn't seem right to post tonight and not say something about Christmas Eve.

1. So thankful my Dad's surgery went well. Even though there have been a few blips in his recovery so far the surgery itself seems to have done well.
2. (Make sure you read through this entire point or it will sound not nice) So thankful my Mom hurts as my father is hurting. It shows me how much she loves and cares for him.
3. Thankful my mother takes such good care of my father.
4. Thankful Ann will be in charge of the kitchen over Christmas in AL because I'm pretty sure that means both cooking and cleaning up!!!
5. Thankful my brother and his wife include me as part of their family on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. (Molly, you're the best sister-in-law in the world!!!)
6. So thankful Mary lives close to Mom and Dad to help them out through Dad's surgery and recuperation. She and Joey have done more than we will ever know.
7. Most thankful we can celebrate the gift of Jesus Christ--not as a baby but as our Saviour who died for us.

Merry Christmas to all!

You Can Tell It's the Week of Christmas. . .

. . .because the parking lot at work today is over half empty.

A Winter Weekend

Woke up to a couple of inches of snow today.

Yesterday I bought more presents and began sending out Christmas letters.

Finished the Christmas letters today and put them all in the mail.

Looked for a couple more gifts today, and I think I'm down to getting a jar of nuts as my last gift.

Bought a rotary cutter today for a project. (Think Tim Taylor grunting.)

Want to bake some Christmas cookies tonight, but not enough in me to do so.

Love to say "Merry Christmas" to store clerks, etc. I wish the season were longer so I could do so more.

Went in for a $14.95 oil change and came out with new oil, new air filter, new transmission fluid, new in cabin filter, and a bill that was much more than $14.95!

Bought a Wii game for Renae's boys. I'm thinking I need to try it out tonight to "make sure it works ok"--I'd hate for them to open it, and it wouldn't work ok for them!

This worked so well . . .

How much is a testimonial really worth? Today for work I looked on-line at an executive leadership organization. I was curious as to the testimonials from various industries from around the country. I noticed one that included “promoting accountability in our organization. I shared this concept with my management team, and it’s changing their dynamics.” The only problem is that I know this CEO’s business went under almost two years ago.

That made me think about another business’ website that offers testimonials of the success of a program. All of the comments are made about results that both the business owner and her husband have had as a result of the process. I’ve heard good things about this program apart from this business and would consider it, and if I didn’t know about these comments apparently being made by the owner and spouse, I would assume they were independent comments.

Are you swayed by on-line testimonials, or have you seen others that make you think they may not reflect well on what is being promoted?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANN!!! BEST OLDEST SISTER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!

Wear the Pants

I like this ad from Dockers:

And yes, apparently there is a backlash about this "sexist" ad.

Dollar Pleaz

Another thing I've done with nieces and nephews through the years is to offer a dollar at the dinner table to answer a question or give the meaning of a vocabulary word. I like to think I'm encouraging thinking and learning, but I learned what this has actually taught them.

When I texted everyone "Guess what's in the mail?" on Saturday, Whitney answered back within a few minutes "Our ornaments!!!!!!!" I replied that she was the first to get it right, and her reply was "Dollar pleaz."

I've taught them I'm made of dollars.

Dollar Tree-the Good and the Bad

This weekend I made a stop at the local Dollar Tree. In the toy aisle I heard two kids about 6 years old say, "I wish we could two things instead of just one."

That reminded me of my nieces and nephews. When they visited Grandma and Papa/K-Daddy in AL, we would make a trip to the Dollar Tree. They each got $1 to buy one thing. Some knew exactly what they wanted and found it right away, but I will always remember spending long amounts of time for Lindsey to find the perfect thing. Everything was cheap and typically broken by the next day, but every one had a good time with their special item for 24 hours or so.

There was a couple with the two kids at Dollar Tree who I assumed with their parents. I began talking with them about taking our kids to Dollar Tree. They said their two would beg to go to Dollar Tree and they also got only $1.

This part made me sad : The little boy said to the man, "Hey, Derrick." That made me think the man was Mom's boyfriend and apparently a split family. I realize there are several possible explanations of why the boy would call the man by his first name, but I'm guessing I'm correct. Then the boy continued. "This says it bounces high. When you go out to smoke cigarettes, we could take this outside. . ." and by then I was far enough away I couldn't hear. How sad, that this little boy thinks nothing at all about this man who he apparently wants to be around has to go out to smoke.

The Ornaments

Today continued a tradition that began in 1988. I mailed the ornaments. Every niece and nephew gets an ornament of the same type each year with their name and year on it. At one point I made a list just in case I couldn't keep track.

Andrew--rocking horse (except this year)
Mary Lee--angel
Lauren--teddy bear (harder to find each year than you would think)
Lindsey--snowman
John Michael--gingerbread man
Jeffrey--stocking
Lindsay--greenery (tree, wreath, etc.)
Whitney--star
Jaimie--bell
Haley--candy cane

Each year I like to find the ornaments in the same style. One of my favorite years was when I found them all as cookie cutters and put ribbon on them for hanging. Another favorite year was finding them as plaster ornaments. Ann and Mary Lee bought some other ornaments, and we painted and painted for 2-3 days.

Today I texted all the kids that something was in the mail.

Molly told me that Jeffrey was decorating their tree today. He put all the ornaments for each person out. He got all excited and told Molly, "Look at this!!! This one is from 1993!!!" He picked up another one and exclaimed, "And this one is from 1992!!!"

Of course when all you know is 2000s for a year, I guess 1992 is old. Molly said he acted as if they may as well as have been from the Civil War!

Life

The last two weeks have been interesting. Last week was finishing one class on Monday night and starting another on Tuesday night. I was very physically, mentally and emotionally drained at the end of the the week. This week my father had hip replacement surgery. My heart and mind were often with him and my mother but I was eleven hours away.

Both weeks I truly had a sense of people praying for me; I know had the strength to not just exist but have good weeks. It has been encouraging how many people here have asked about my father. Knowing they care and are praying means a lot to me.

Facebook Don't

If you think you want to download and Indianpolis Colts "tatoo" on your Facebook page, DON'T!

Not a Snow Day for Me

Although there will be no learning going on in West Michigan schools today, don't worry if you need office furniture because we are still making it today!

Seriously, it's good so many things are closed because there was very little traffic on the roads so I felt pretty good coming into work.

I'm making a deal with my co-workers and hopefully one will take me up on it. I'll clean off their car after work if they will let me use their brush to clean off mine as well. Like a Michigan transplant, I don't have my snow brush in the car even though I remember holding it a couple of weeks ago and thinking I need to have it in the car with winter coming.

Nothing More to Say

Happy Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIKE, best brother-in-law in SC. (Just in case that Joey guy reads this.)

My sister described this as his "Heinz" birthday.

Organ Woes or is it Woah's???

I got the music list on Wednesday.
Wednesday evening before bells I got the music and ran through a few of the songs.
Saturday I went to church to go over the music.
This morning I was at church at 7:30 to practice.
At 8:00 I went through the music with everyone.
Each of these practice times had their glitches but I felt pretty good about it all.
9:00 I went over each piece of music and made sure everything was in order.
I was good to go.
Bible study went long so I missed the prelude. Oops.
The settings I had for a communion song in which only instruments played was about 8.5 times louder during church than in practice, but once the song starts and the pedal is on its softest setting I had no idea what to do without potentially making it worse.
During the instrumental offertory I panicked again and forgot to turn a page.

I offered to be fired from the organ after the service, and I'm pretty sure I won't be getting paid for today's near fiasco.

Snow Day

I'm sure when I was in education I wouldn't have thought twice about this, but I'm still trying to figure out why all the schools around had a snow day today. I mean these 2-3" of snow in Michigan are really treacherous.

Apparently it's Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Snowflakes were falling when I went out at lunch!

Giving it my all

Today I signed up on the bone marrow donor registry. The donor group came to work today asking people to sign up which means give 3 vials of blood for typing and matching and “donate” $25. As I walked to the room I thought of all the people I know who have had bone marrow transplants so I could think of doing this to honor them, and I could come up with only one name: Roy Lowrie. I’m sure I must know more.

Not to overspiritualize, but I think there’s something noble about giving blood and donating bone marrow since the life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11) and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). Every time I donate blood I’m reminded of Jesus shedding his blood for me.

So I now have 1 chance in 125 to match with someone until I’m age 61. That seemed higher than I would’ve thought, but not too high to keep me from signing up.

Last night in a group presentation on divorce, the presenter described (it would’ve been better if he’d demonstrated) marriage and divorce. Marriage is glueing two sheets of paper together to form one page. Divorce is trying to tear those pages apart to from two separate sheets. It simply cannot be done to have two perfect sheets again.