It's Christmas Eve!

It's Christmas Eve and in about and hour, I have to head out the door to work.

While I am incredibly thankful that I have a job when so many have been unemployed for so long, I crave the day when I don't have to work on Christmas Eve.  I have so many plans for future Christmas Eves.  I want Christmas Eve to be the day we do family crafts.

I want Christmas Eve to be the day when the kids all gather in the kitchen and we make salt dough ornaments and fingerprint snowmen and paint and make messes.  Because isn't that what Christmas with kids is?  Tons and tons of messes that need cleaning up but that you just can't force yourself to touch until at least the day after Christmas.

I don't want Christmas Eve to be me in the bathroom, getting ready for work, Katy watching cartoons in the living room, eating her breakfast.  I don't want Christmas Eve to be fast-paced and hurried.  I want Christmas Eve to be slow and steady.

But, I will find the joy in today.  I will wish my customers a Merry Christmas, not a Happy Holiday (I don't care what you say, Mr. Bank-I-Work-For, today is not a day to be PC).  I will smile brightly.  I will be a shining example of what it is to be joyful on Christmas Eve.

I hope your Christmas Eve is joyful.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 

Picture Time!

Ever have one of those mornings when you have SO many things going through your mind that you just can't even get one down on paper the screen?  I'm experiencing one of those right now.  So in lieu of a wordy post, I'm gonna go (semi)wordless.  Catch-up photos of Katy.  What could be better?

Christmas? Really?!

It's nearing Christmas and, as much as it pains me to say it, I haven't really been in the Christmas spirit.  Maybe it's the lack of snow (don't get me wrong - I hate snow, it just doesn't feel like Christmas in Chicago without it), maybe it's the busyness of finals and selecting classes, maybe it's the tightness of our budget.  Whatever it is, it just doesn't feel like Christmas in our house.

We've had our tree up for almost 2 months now.  Mike convinced me to put it up.  And by convinced, I mean I told him he could put it up if he cleaned the living room and rearranged the furniture by himself.  And he did.  So up it went.

I baked up a storm a week and a half ago.  I still have more baking to do.

Christmas shopping is all done.

But, it still doesn't feel like Christmas is just 4 days away.

I'm not trying to be a bah-humbug Scrooge over here.  I ADORE Christmas.  I really do.  And maybe that's why it doesn't feel right, that Christmas is 4 days away and I don't feel like it's coming.

But, in the end, it isn't about the presents, it isn't about the lights, it isn't about a tree or lack thereof.  It isn't about snow, or feeling like Christmas is around the corner.  Because Christmas is coming.  And for that, I'm thankful.

I Sincerely Apologize

I have severely neglected this blog.  And for that, I apologize.  I could tell you that I have been soooo busy with school, that work has been taking all my time, that Katy has entered the terrible twos early, and while that's all true, that's not the reason I haven't blogged.

Truthfully, I never really felt like writing.  I didn't have anything to say.  I couldn't think of anything creative, unique, funny, interesting.

But I've been feeling the tug lately.  The blog has been beckoning me.

I don't want to give you one HUGE entry updating you on everything.  Who wants to read page after page of what's been going on in my life?

Instead, I plan on starting fresh, pretending (almost) as if I never left.  I may do an update here or there, but mostly so we're on the same page.  So really, only if it pertains to a specific post.  Know what I mean?

So, while we have a lot of exciting stuff going on in our lives here, I'll try to keep myself focus.  Bear with me?

How precious is this?!