I’m so excited about Christmas! I love shopping for friends, family and random strangers, and doing random things to bring a little joy into the lives of others. I know that I’m horrible about posting; I always seem to run out of time, or I get home at the end of the day and am too exhausted to sit down at the computer. Perhaps one day, I’ll get all caught up.
Speaking of buying things for others… My dentist (He and his wife are also friends) is running a couple of charity programs. One is called Pajamarama and asks people to donate pajamas, underwear and socks of all sizes for children in need in the greater Detroit area. It was so fun to go out on Black Friday and shop for them! It was the only thing that got me out of the house that day; I didn’t need anything for myself and thought that the day could use a little more charity and a little less selfishness. 🙂
Can you help me out? I’m trying to find new ways to “gift” prayer. My priest always says that prayer is the best gift you could give another person, and he always asks for this for his Christmas gift. Of course, I pray for him all.the.time anyway, so I try to look at it like alms, and pray for him *extra*. But, I also like to give him something tangible as well, even if it is just an expression of the time in prayer that I have done. After X number of years, I am beginning to run out of ideas. So I will bounce it off of you guys and see what we can come up with! Thanks in advance!
The first day of Advent! It was almost a week ago now, which is hard to believe. And before you ask, no, I have not spent the time in prayer that I have been hoping to, but I still have hope to make this Advent a little bit more prayerful than last year.
I started by doing a little bit of decorating. I put up a wreath that I had gotten on sale after Christmas last year:
And lit the first Advent candle:
And spent some time contemplating the Crucifix:
We had our last day of catechism this week for the year. It was on saints, relics and martyrs. It was probably the most attentive the class has been all year, and this was even with Christmas presents being on the table, ready to be opened! I was quite impressed! I tried to find creative ways to wrap the presents, and ended up with Stuffed Animal Ravioli!
I became an “official” cardiac patient recently. And last night, I received a Holter monitor in the mail for my 24 hour test. I was excited, because it arrived on my doorstep via Fed Ex Just. Like. A. Present! 🙂
I am pretty good about following directions, so when I saw this:
I did, in fact, open it immediately and got it all set up, even though it was like 10:30 pm. Good thing the monitoring company is open 24 hours, since it took 2 phone calls to get everything operating properly.
Upon reading the inside instructions, I saw that it had a warning for patients who were allergic to nickel metal or adhesive. Well, actually I am allergic to both of these, and depending on the adhesive, I can get huge blisters. Last time I had an allergy to adhesive, I ended up being treated by the Trauma/Burn team — it was that bad! But, I figured, it’s only 24 hours. Can’t be that bad, right?
Well… Turns out my 24 hour monitoring is actually… 21 DAYS! Yikes! At least this will give the doctors a good idea of what is going on.
And, looking at the box, apparently I will be taking up yoga, too:
I’ll end with a question… What are you most looking forward to during these Advent days?
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary!
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 