It is still the octave of Christmas! But, I have to admit, I’m having a hard time continuing the celebration. I returned to work right away and haven’t been able to get together with any friends in the evenings, so I’ve fallen into a bad habit of coming home, eating dinner in the living room while watching TV and going to bed. I haven’t even turned the Christmas lights on. So sad. I hope I manage to change this pattern this weekend.
One of the movies I watched this week was Fireproof. I like this movie, even though I am not married. There is one scene where Caleb is complaining about his wife not responding to his demonstrations of love and his father relates this to Caleb’s relationship with God. This made me wonder if the Love Dare process could be used to grow in intimacy with God. Perhaps sometime in the next few weeks, I may acquire a copy of the Love Dare book and work my way through it. Either this or some other retreat-esque program to help me grow deeper in my personal relationship with Jesus.
The people who put out Fireproof even have a page with Catholic resources! Very cool!
Today, we celebrate Childermas. I wasn’t sure what Childermas was, but there it was on my calendar this morning, so I turned to the all-knowing Google to find out more. Turns out Childermas is another name for the feast day of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, when King Herod decided to kill all male children under the age of 2 years, because of the threat that Christ posed to him. I knew about the Holy Innocents, just not this other name for them. So, maybe there are traditional ways to celebrate this day? I’ll have to look that up, since another thing I’d like to do this year (these are sounding an awful lot like “resolutions” … which I don’t make) is to incorporate more traditions into my day-to-day life. Please help a girl out and let me know of any special ways that you celebrate this day. 🙂
This Christmas Eve, I got a special treat! I was on my way to my family’s Christmas celebration, but decided to stop by a friend’s house, so that I could give Mom and Dad R their Christmas present *on* Christmas. When I arrived, they invited me in, stating that they were just talking about me. (Which makes me wonder what they were saying and how did I become a topic of conversation???) They were in the middle of dinner and invited me to join them. It was lovely. I love spending time with all of them. I ended up missing dinner and the kids opening their Christmas presents at my family’s celebration (I didn’t think that it started until after 7 pm, but that wasn’t right), but maybe this worked in my favor…
… because they seem to really like the gifts I gave them! Normally, my gifts kind of get lost in the hurricane of presents and gift wrap, but this year the kids only had my present to focus on. I bought all of their presents from a friend’s store, Bliss Baby and Kids. Kenzie got a sea creatures puzzle and a canasta. Vanessa got a kit to make bracelets out of small, colored rubber bands, which she started working on right away, stating that she loves making things (score!). And Petros got a Stomp Rocket. Which he immediately set up and started launching rockets from the kitchen into the living room, targeting his aunts and uncles. Kenzie got involved, too. She’s 16 months oldn and had a blast running after the rockets and bringing them back to Petros.
Just in case anyone was wondering what’s going on with my Project 52s… I have to hang my head in shame. I was about to say that I haven’t been able to work on this, but I suppose the more honest answer is that I have chosen to do other things. I think part of the problem is that I don’t have my list of subjects readily available, so I don’t pre-plan what I’d like to shoot for that week, and then the deadline comes and I’m at a loss of what to do. Then, I don’t want to turn in a crappy photo because I haven’t spent enough time thinking about it, so I don’t turn in anything at all. The other problem is that my laptop is currently the only computer that I have at the moment, and it’s a little hard to get to at the moment. So, anytime I think about editing some of my photos, I glance over to where the laptop is and determine that it would be too much effort to clear off the desk so that I can effectively work. I have got to come up with a better plan for next year. Any suggestions would be welcome! 🙂
Yesterday was Cardiac Monitor Liberation Day!!! I was very excited to get that thing off and ship it back! 🙂 Objectively, it wasn’t an incredible burden, but it was a little annoying to have to deal with wires and a cell phone pack all the time. And blisters started to form. I’m lucky that they only just started forming and are therefore very small. So, I just have to deal with them and patches of rashes. Hopefully, I will have new skin soon and the itchy can stop! 🙂
Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post…. I’ll try to do better next week! 🙂 (This statement is still valid from the last Quick Takes….)
God Bless!
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary!
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 