Goodby November and...

Hello christmas shopping!

Scott & I are planning a trip to, hopefully, finish up whatever shopping still needs to be done (quite a bit!)  I haven't done much yet this year & have not been motivated to do much either :(

I've been motivated to celebrate the whole Advent/Christmas season and have been doing a good job on that end, but with the whole capitalistic/materialistic end of things...sorry, not so much.  Sorry poor economy, but I'm sure that we will do our part to "help" in just a few days.

Anyway, bring it on December & you all can keep your fingers crossed that no one will have to wait until January for their gift from us! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you all have a very happy, "thankful" filled holiday!

My loving husband, my beautiful son, our many family members, fulfilling jobs that we enjoy, wonderful teachers for Luke, some of the best friends in the whole world, good health, a warm home, clothes on our backs and food on our table...these are just a few of the many things that I am grateful for!  Some of these things seem so basic, yet, some people have to struggle each day just to have these very things that so many of us take for granted!

Happy Thanksgiving and may God bless each of you!

Bad Joke

I have been helping the 2nd grade classroom that I work in with their Thanksgiving play and poems for the past week (& today.)  On Friday, they had a substitute teacher so I was the "director."

Being it is a Thanksgiving play, there are two groups of characters...the pilgrims and the Native Americans.  The teacher and I had been working with them on staying seated and quiet anytime they were not "on stage."  Needless to say, a few of them were having some problems remaining quiet, especially on the side of the room where the NA's were sitting.  I looked at the sub and said...

"The Natives are getting restless!"

Hardy, har, har, har!  Hope you all don't have too much picking yourselves back up off the ground from laughter after reading that one! ;)

Deer Me

Cool:

Seeing a mother deer and several babies crossing the road about a 1/4 mile ahead of me while I was out running tonight!

Not So Cool:

Having the thought cross my mind that I was glad to be wearing a bright orange top...just in case there were any hunters with their bows in the trees nearby...lucky for me, they shouldn't be posted quite that close to the main road and it's not shotgun season yet! :)

That starts tomorrow...I think I'll skip running tomorrow ;)

I Hear Those...

Holidays Coming! (And I can hardly wait :)

Last night on my way to church for a meeting, I happened upon a radio station playing Christmas songs and I enjoyed every bit of it.

The urge to start watching holiday shows/Christmas movies is creeping in too.

Visions of Christmas card ideas and things to write in the letter this year are invading my brain.

Christmas shopping...eh...not really all that excited about this one...pretty much because I have zero ideas/inspiration of gifts for anybody, except Luke (lucky guy!)  Kind of wishing that just the joy of each other's company (for the adults anyway...kids still need presents ;) would be enough at all of the gatherings this year.

But, most of all, Thanksgiving will soon be here!  And, oh, how I loooove Thanksgiving.  It's not just the food...it's a feeling.  A feeling of gratefulness for all of the blessings that life has given.  A feeling of love and being surrounded by those you love (and it helps that the food is so good too...it makes it easier to pull everyone in ;)  It's just a nice feeling to have and it makes for a nice start to the Christmas season where this feeling becomes even more prevalent (as long as it's not taken over by the stress of the "giving and receiving" part of the holidays.)

So, this holiday season, instead of stressing about all of those things that I would normally stress about...I'm just going to enjoy the feeling of it all and do my best to not let all of the "other stuff" get in the way!

Here come the holidays! :)

Happy Birthday to You!

To my husband and Luke's dad, Scott!

We hope that you have one very special day!

We love you!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday To You!

Birthday wishes going out today to my father-in-law, Carl!

We hope your day is very special and that it is everything you want it to be.

Happy Birthday!
We love you!

Catching up!

*Our little trick-or-treater had a very successful Halloween and I plan to post a picture sometime in the near future.

*Halloween weekend also brought my 1/2 marathon race.  My time was slower than my race in the spring...2 hours 48 minutes and 15 seconds, but only by about 8 minutes.  I was disappointed because I had been hoping to have a faster time (and most of my training runs were faster), but it was not meant to be this time.  Looking back, I know that I started out at too fast of a pace and the leg cramps around mile 10 forced me to have to walk most of the last 3 miles (up until this point I had been running a faster paced race...I am a slooowww walker when I have to walk :)  Around mile 11, I really wasn't sure if I'd finish or not, but I just kept thinking "it's just 2 more miles!"  Needless to say, I was happy to finally make it to the finish line and to do so running (which I did again for the last 1/4-1/2 mile)  :) 

*Thanks to my aunt for letting Scott & I stay with her that weekend.  And super thanks to my parents for taking care of the little man while we were away! :)

*I can't believe that Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away!

*Life around here just seems to get slightly more stressful with each passing week...when is my next vacation? ;)

*Glad to only have 3 more school days this week!

Those are some of the basics of the past 2 weeks.  There are so many other things that I could (& may eventually need to) type about, but for now they will remain with me as I try to get myself organized! 
Have a happy week! :)