Long Live Christmas!

Question.

Is it bad if I just recently finished decorating my house for Christmas?

 Honestly, I even feel a little silly writing this post because it seems as if everyone was finished with Christmas on December 26th, eagerly gained back all of their square footage from taking down holiday decor that very day, and they are now waiting to ring in the New Year and kick some butt in 2015. I am ALL for that, but at the moment, I'm happily sitting by our fireplace while the embers slowly burn out after a cozy day on which my family and I finally celebrated Christmas.

I never mind traveling for the holidays, but I also love hosting and getting my house ready for guests! This Christmas was a bit different for us. We usually celebrate with my husband's family before Christmas and tend to travel or be with mine on Christmas day and several days after that. However, due to other family situations, we weren't able to be with my side of the family until the 29th. I was bummed it wouldn't be closer to Christmas, but I was still incredibly grateful that they were coming! I'm one of those sentimental types (as if you couldn't already tell from my previous posts) and I love holiday traditions! It was hard to think of celebrating so seemingly "far away" from Christmas Day itself.

During the Christmas holiday, I tend to take off a couple of weeks from work because I never know if we'll be traveling, hosting, or who knows what. With how all of our family gatherings were arranging themselves, I began to grow excited at actually having a big chunk of time to fully decorate my house, bake yummy treats, plan dates to catch up with friends, make, wrap, and mail presents, and simply relax and get my house ready for our family! I always think I can do it all (before Christmas Eve) and still have time to fully enjoy every moment--and truth be told, every year is an epic fail.

Not that I didn't watch Elf and Prancer or spend sweet time with my husband and our loved ones, but no matter how late I stayed up, there was always one more errand to run, one more (or several things) to make, or one more thing I had to regretfully remove from the ultimate "before Christmas" to-do list because I simply didn't have the time to make it happen. I am a perfectionist with an awful sense of timing when it comes to decorating and planning for Christmas. Just awful.

Christmas truly snuck up on me this year! I love Fall so I never decorate before Thanksgiving, but I try to start soon after and I love giving each item its place and having my home feel so incredibly cozy for more than a month! I know people like to decorate early and props to those who are way more organized than myself, but I feel like there are SO many people packing up before December is out the door! For a girl who once long ago left her tree up until March (I agree, that was a bit much--but it was not me who was sad they had no Christmas tree in their living room when we had that freak blizzard in 2013!), I just can't do away with Christmas until at least sometime in January! Now that we have a "grown up" tree, we have scattered our smaller trees throughout the house, giving each guest their own unique Christmas tree. I just want everyone to feel loved and cozy. It's too fun to think of and create each and every detail as I decorate every corner of the house, but I do realize Christmas itself is not about all of that.

 Now that our week with my family is in full swing and my vacation is winding down, I feel exhausted! Who's with me? I absolutely love Christmas and I adore my family and our crazy fits of laughter, but in some ways, it hasn't felt entirely like Christmas. Perhaps it's due in part to the fact that our traditions were delayed a bit and everyone else in the world has seemingly moved on, and probably due to the fact that I'm not an elf and my busy little hands couldn't keep up with the crazy expectations I put on myself for the holiday. Silly little human.

 I guess it's ridiculous to think or be surprised that it doesn't feel like Christmas. Honestly, I think some part of Christmas will never "feel like" Christmas. For most people, the anticipation is greater than the actual holiday. I want to be grateful for the present day in which I receive the opportunity to live and serve, all while remembering that there is a far more majestic reason for celebrating each season and every day. He is the reason we can anticipate an even greater day to come. The weary (exhausted) world can rejoice because of Him.

"I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays-let them overtake me unexpectedly-waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why this is Christmas Day!'" 

--Ray Baker 

 

Merry Christmas, friends.

 And hey, good news:

 We ARE celebrating New Years Eve on time!

 Be sure to check back soon for an insanely good recipe (full of brown sugar goodness) to take with you into the new year! Even my clean eating readers can probably doctor it up to their liking!

Another Day, Another Year

Hey readers!

Can you believe how many posts I wrote in 2013?!  Mind-blowing, right?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sadly, this truly is turning into a yearly blog! I can't believe it. Well, I can--because I know me, but that's horrible! I have so many ideas of what I want to write about, but then life gets in the way and I figure it will take "too much time". And when I DO have good intentions, I end up spending my time catching up on posts from fellow bloggers that I don't even know--and you know how that goes. They seem to blog so well (and at the drop of a hat!), and for some, they throw all grammar out the window! Capital letters, schmapital letters. Amazing! I can't let myself do that. I can't. Not even in a text.

So then I'm left sitting here the following January of each new year, typing guiltily, mind you. At least I'm drinking delicious coffee in my new IKEA mug and sitting next to my kitchen Christmas tree (fondly called my "sweets tree" because it's decorated in everything having to do with sugar). It's not that bad I guess. ;)

And yes, it's after Christmas and I still have TWO Christmas trees up. And all of my decorations. It's too fun and Christmas is my favorite. Random story, we got an insanely late start on decorating for Christmas in 2012 that we decided to leave our trees up until March last year! Haters will hate, but seriously, I wasn't the one looking out my window during the February blizzard with no Christmas tree to stand next to.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about. I hopped on here without a plan of what to write. If you can believe it, I do have drafts typed out, but they're not quite done and ready to be out on the blog. See, that's me--"taking a lot of time" to write something. I just need to get over the fact that not every post has to be perfect or perfectly thought out. Like this one. I feel incredibly haphazard at the moment, but that's good, right? If it were all in lower case letters, I would feel entirely out of my comfort zone. HA!

I just wanted to check in. I have plans. I do.

It's quite alright if you've given up hope, haha. I'll just have to surprise you (and myself) this year! :)

Hey, I've already unblocked my library card (after years) and am reading my 5th book since December, so trust me, there IS hope for this blog!

My coffee is almost gone. I guess that's my cue.

Thanks for reading :)

Let's Try This Again...

Oh my word.

See, I told you guys. Consistently updating a blog at this point in my life is apparently one of my downfalls! I have great intentions, I promise, but I just wanted to clarify in case you missed my subtle hint (warning?) in my last post (don't worry, it's not that far down the page--you will find it just fine)...

 

So, as time would have it, I have but one post to show for 2012. Sigh. Perhaps this could be a yearly blog instead! One post once a year. I could handle that well--as you can obviously see. :)

Here's to what's left of 2013...we'll start small. Maybe I'll throw in a few remnants from 2012.

Do you ever like to think that a million people read your blog? Yeah, well, I know I don't have that many followers/creepers, but it's still fun to think that I'm writing to a grand amount of people and that they all want to read about what I deem interesting, haha! So thank you to any of you who do read this! That being said, I will tell ALL of you (imaginary bloggers included) about my life between this post and my last post. Grab your snacks!

Eh, let's just start in May 2012. My sweet best friend and I celebrated our one year anniversary on May 6th! So weird. It's true what they say--why must everything in life just fly by? Some days are meant to be bottled up and locked away forever, I just know it! We didn't do too much: stayed in the city for a night, visited the plaza, and checked out the antique shops downtown. And you know you have to have cake on your anniversary! However, my husband and I chose to have cupcakes at our wedding and didn't want to freeze any just to eat them a year later. So we decided we will go to Cupcake A La Mode and buy them fresh every year! So that was and always will be our sweetly frosted plan!

The summer held some fun getaways my husband had planned for my birthday. He's pretty stinkin' sweet. He had planned a trip to a quiet bed and breakfast (way out in the boonies I might add), horseback riding with a picnic included, a short trip back through St. Louis (with a hotel room view of the arch to boot!), and exploration of that fun town before we headed back home. And by exploring, you must know I usually mean visiting interesting food joints and eating the special treats the locals love.

Outside of fun summer getaways and good food, our individual lives held certain challenges that the Lord brought into our lives for His will and His purposes. Craig is such a hard worker, he loves what he does, he's great at what he does (thus people love him), but his work hours were getting a little crazy! When he didn't come home some nights, worked through the night, and continued to work through the next day...it just kinda made me go a little crazy missing him and also stirred up desires for a huge guard dog and a gun. Not that anything happened, but you know...safety first. :)

We were grateful for the extra income from his overtime--only to be more thankful for it when we found out our foundation had cracked! Oh, what a pretty penny to spend. Although some pennies are prettier than what we had to give up, so I'm not complaining. Honestly, we're glad we caught those darn cracks when we did! We had a great company to do the work, and it could've been a lot worse structurally and financially. We were blessed throughout and in the end of it all. It's definitely easy to say "money is just money", but that's what I continued to tell my husband. Haha, I also remember telling him that life is like Monopoly--you pass GO, sometimes you hit free parking, and sometimes you have to maintain those houses and hotels along with all of those other dumb fees! I'm thinking I was into that comparison because we had gotten a little addicted to playing Monopoly on our phones. ;) It's easy to think of "all of the ways" we could have spent that money, but truthfully, it's not even ours in the first place and we'll drive ourselves crazy thinking otherwise! The Lord was gracious enough to provide for us and He will always continue to provide no matter the circumstance.

Which I again found to be true as I left a place of work I had been at for 6.5 years! That was probably the crAziest thing that had happened all year! It was definitely strange to leave my comfort zone and people that were like close family. I never thought I would leave my little tiny bubble of "normal". It's strange, somewhat uncomfortable, and yet there is a peace when the Lord stirs your heart about a matter. That inner peace is intriguing because you know it's Him and He has your best at heart, but on the outside, your world is completely off it's rocker! He may be calling you to do something that you don't even want to do or be a part of at all! That was one thing I felt certain about! Awkwardness and lessons learned about myself were an inevitable part of the process, yet I still felt His presence and learned to cherish that time with Him. I felt frustrated and torn, but I knew He was calling me out of my comfort zone and I wanted to obey. I did to the best of my ability, and as respectfully and quietly as I could, but it's interesting when we as humans think we have the Lord's plans and outcomes figured out. We, or at least I, think that the outcome will be just "fine", right? Everyone understands, no one is upset, etc. In a perfect world that would be so...However, here in this broken world, I've discovered that that is never really the case! And I hate when people are upset with me or misunderstand my intentions and everything gets skewed from there on out! I think the Lord knows well that small detail about me. Thinking back, I guess you could rephrase Isaiah 55:8-9 to be "My version of fine is not your version of fine. Just trust Me if/when it gets weird. The End.". Haha!

I am thankful for the Lord's heart in the midst of it all and thankful for His timing and His provision once again. It truly was perfect. I'm also thankful for the examples of others scattered throughout the Bible that endured worse and far more awkward situations than I had to go through! Their responses challenge me to remember that the Lord has a purpose in all of this, though I may never know what it is--although I can say that a lot of the time He really just wants to perfect our character and mold us to be more like Him (James 1:2-4). Growing pains (and maybe growing up--maturing) is what I like to call that...

The best encouragement for me during this season was Isaiah 43:18-19:

18 "Forget the former things; 

      do not dwell on the past. 

¹⁹   See, I am doing a new thing! 

     Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

     I am making a way in the wilderness

     and streams in the wasteland."

These are still perfect verses for me to remember on those bummer days when the past still reaches for me. Mind you, I never want to "forget" the past (how can you?) because I still treasure those people, the lessons learned, and the character building, but I've come to terms with the fact that life will always be different--it's probably the sentimental little girl inside of me thinking that growing up is for grown ups and that even the littlest of things, like Christmas, should always stay the same! ;) However, nothing can ever truly remain the same--no matter how tight your grip may be. And that's probably a good thing...

Just the other day, I was reading over John 14:27. It's a pretty common verse:

"I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid."

It's funny how the simplest truth that I've always heard can become such a fresh word of
encouragement when this sentimental, doubtful girl needs it the most! I posted this on Instagram the other day so I apologize for repeating myself! I'm totally guilty of "seeking peace" from these thoughts by what else--thinking about them! Wondering if I could do more, thinking I can gain that peace through others, etc. I know the truth, but do I KNOW it and receive it? Jesus has left us with a gift--His peace--but it's not a gift that the world give or that I can give to myself. We are truly incapable. It's a different form of peace, a greater gift, that surpasses all understanding. Am I truly allowing myself to receive this perfect gift from Him alone? The text above is from The New Living Translation, but I love how the Amplified version breaks everything down perfectly:

[Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]

We were made for more. Period. Rest in His peace--stop trying to create your own.

Hard changes willed by the Lord come with questions and doubts, a certainty--but an uncertainty, expectation, and a knowledge that He's got your back even when others may or may not. The Lord works best with open, willing, and vulnerable hearts. Hearts that want to be more like Him. Hearts that want to trust Him. The best thing I love about Him? HE never changes--He is consistent in every way and every good and perfect gift (like...peace) is from Him alone. James 1:16-18 (can you tell I love James?)

At the end of each season, no matter how sweet, bittersweet, or just plain hard, the Lord is my heartbeat through it all.

Ok, I'm not sure my speedy little typing fingers can take much more. Let's just say that now that it's 2013, it has been one heck of a year! It has been filled with new and thriving spaces, lonely places too--in which to learn to cherish the Lord's truth and presence even more, MacGyver marathons, a new found love for avocado, wisdom, truth, and encouragement, River Market flowers, a procrastination from writing blog posts, crazy and loveable youth, movie nights under the stars, and a yearning for more.

Are you still here? You're amazing. Thank you for reading about my life!

Stay tuned--at least for one more year. ;)