Month: December 2008

holiday

Mary Had a Little Lamb (The Christmas Version)

Mary had a little Lamb, who lived before His birth;
Self-existent Son of God, from Heaven he came to Earth. (Micah 5:2)

Mary had the little Lamb, see Him in yonder stall –
Virgin-born Son of God, to save man from the Fall. (Isaiah 7:14)

Mary had the little Lamb, obedient Son of God;
Everywhere the Father led, His feet were sure to trod. (John 6:38)

Mary had the little Lamb, crucified on the tree
The rejected Son of God, He died to set men free. (1 Peter 1:18)

Mary had the little Lamb, men placed Him in the grave,
Thinking they were done with Him, to death He was no slave! (Matthew 28:6)

Mary had the little Lamb, ascended now is He;
All work on Earth is ended, our Advocate to be. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Mary had the little Lamb, mystery to behond!
From the lamb of Calvary, a Lion will unfold. (Revelation 5:5,6)

When the Day Star comes again, of this be very sure;
It won’t be Lamb-like silence, but with the Lion’s roar.

(written by Marv & Marbeth Rosenthal)

Hope your Christmas is beautiful and joyous. I am leaving for the family farm today (without hubs- he’s coming after he gets off of work today) and we will return in a couple of days. Our family tradition has always been that we spend Christmas on my husband’s family farm.

We’ll eat Christmas eve dinner, read the Christmas story from the Bible and then let the kids open one present each. (yes, I finally went Christmas shopping for a couple of things – God is good). Then we’ll stay up all night watching old movies and talking and just spending time together until we can’t hold our eyes open anymore.

The kids will have fallen asleep hours ago (except for Katie, who, at eleven, is quickly growing up and able to stay awake longer than the others) and once they are all asleep, we’ll drag out the Christmas stockings that I made for the years ago (they are HUGE — big enough for most of their presents to fit it) and fill them with the presents from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc so they have something for Christmas morning.

And nothing is wrapped, by the way, because that’s just how we roll. Everything goes into the stocking unwrapped and the kids wouldn’t have it any other way. I understand the excitement of “unwrapping” and prolonging the opening of the gifts…but I honestly see it as a waste of time and money to wrap a 97 cent Wal-mart toy just to throw away the paper and bows. It kills me.

So this morning I’m getting our clothes and the goodies we baked yesterday together to take out to the farm. Floy’s mom (affectionately known as “Lulu” by our kids) is picking us up to take us out there to spend the day with her before he joins us. We’ll cook and get the queso going, unpack all the sweets I made yesterday and just ENJOY each other.

I can’t wait.

Hope your Christmas is Merry and Bright…

Karen

Look on the bright side! Subscribe via my RSS feed.

by | 2 Comments
faith, holiday, me

A Holiday Impasse

I have started this blog post no less than 5 times. I have 3 drafts sitting in my drafts folder that I started and have absolutely no idea how to finish.

Other moms compose witty, humorous posts about their crafty and adventurous days with their kids while I find myself wanting to escape to some place where I can have a day to myself to just be. Other moms seemingly have it all together, while I am falling apart at the seams on a daily basis.

Christmas is three days away. I have not decorated my house (save the tree, which the kids did), I have not baked one Christmas item, addressed one card, created one newsletter, or purchased/made one gift for anyone.

I am at an impasse. I want to find the words to explain what I’m going through, but they escape me. I want to cry, but I can’t.

God has just been too good to me this year. He has seen us through some of the worst times in not only our financial lives, but our marriage as well. I should be expressing my thanks and giving Him the glory He so deserves.

The most a reader can ever really witness in a blog post is 10-15 minutes of a writer’s day. And while I try to blog about the good things that God has done for me, I realize that I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling so sorry for myself and the situation I find myself in, that more often than not, I miss the mark. I want to be so much better than I am. But there are sadly, some things I forgot to tell you.

I forgot to tell you that God has miraculously kept our 13 year old van running in spite of the fact that it has over 200K miles on it.

I forgot to tell you that even though the deal fell through on my husband’s truck and it didn’t sell, we were able to get his licensing fees paid.

I forgot to let you know that someone who doesn’t know me outside of reading my blog sent me $200 when I talked about my husband’s licensing problems to help us pay for said licenses.

I forgot to tell you that a precious, dear client sent me embroidered gifts for my children when I wrote that Christmas would be sparser than ever this year.

I forgot to share with you that our church picked us as the family that would receive the food basket one month when our cupboards were so bare, I was literally in tears about having to cook another pot of beans.

I forgot to tell you that our prayers were answered when my husband found a temporary job through the Christmas holidays that would enable us to keep our lights on and food on the table.

I forgot to let you know that just about the time I am ready to throw in the towel and cry, God does something else to renew my faith and keep me going. He is my sustainer and without His mercy and grace and the sacrifice that his precious Son Jesus made, I would be inconsolable this Christmas season.

I forgot to tell you that I am so incredibly thankful for Christ Jesus who took on the form of a man to redeem the world, who will forever BE a man, who now sits at the right hand of my Heavenly Father, and is making intercession for me when I can’t find the words to express my feelings.

I forgot to share with you that Jesus is the sweetest name I know.

Do you know him?

Look on the bright side! Subscribe via my RSS feed.

by | 26 Comments
me, works for me wed

Long overdue: A New ‘Do

Let’s just say that I am nothing if not a peacemaker. I don’t like conflict. I like for everyone to be happy and I always feel the need to be the one to make it so. Especially when it comes to my husband.

Until now. As Popeye™ once said, “I’ve had all I can stand, and I can’t stands no more!”

You see, conflict has reared its ugly head, and for once, I am determined to get MY way. Hear me out, folks.

I’m talking about my hair.

What works for my husband is long and grey. What works for me is some semblance of style and not looking like my 78-yr old mother.

Exhibit A: Photo of subject taken on December 5th. Note the 3 inches of *lovely* new GREY! growth and the dull, stringy, lifeless (not to mention “NO STYLE OF ANY KIND”) hair. Please disregard the horrible, washed out look of the defendant due to the unfortunate pairing of camera flash, no makeup, and yellow sweater that is TOTALLY the wrong season for her:

Note the “Deer-In-The-Headlights” look. She’s obviously GUILTY of neglect, and looks pretty upset that she’s been caught with her hair down.

Luckily, she has a wonderful friend who bailed her out of her hair prison by paying for a new cut and color for her for Christmas! {cue Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus}

Exhibit B: Photo of subject taken 3 hours after haircut and lowlights to help blend in the grey as it’s growing in, because, 3 inches of white on top of 9 inches of dark brown really should be a crime. {my before was just a little more “hillbilly” than what I was going for, y’all}

Note the relaxed and happy look on her face, even sans makeup. (Yes, I am a sahm mom who NEVER wears makeup unless I go to church, or on a date with my husband – it’s too much trouble!)

The conflict was within me, to be honest. My husband just wants me to be happy. But I wanted to please my husband and have beautiful long, silvery-white hair {think “Storm” from Fantastic Four}, but the reality is that I’m almost 40, overweight,and I look nothing like Halle Berry. It’s a good look on her, not on me. I knew it, but was really clueless what to do about it. I had taken to wearing my hair up in a clip every day of the week until I could grow it out long enough to get all the color cut off.

So what works for me? Having a good friend who listened to me whine and complain to her about my hair and the way it was making me feel and who was willing to take action on my behalf and rescue me from my pit of “desp-hair”. She is wonderful, not because she paid for my hair makeover, but because she is one of the most encouraging and uplifting people I have ever met, and she would never tell me I was having a bad hair day! 🙂

I rest my case.

Look on the bright side! Subscribe via my RSS feed.

by | 21 Comments
children, photos

You just can’t keep a good girl down

Our youngest fell out of our treehouse Wednesday afternoon and fractured her wrist – she was in a lot of pain the first day, but seems to be doing so much better today.

We have an appointment with an ortho specialist to follow up in the morning (hm, it’s 2:20 am – does that mean it’s really today?) and see if she’s going to need a cast. I sincerely hope not, for her sake. She’s already complaining that this splint itches. I can’t imagine going four weeks in a cast with a 4-year old.

Here she is the evening it happened, tears are all gone and replaced with her thousand watt smile. Please disregard the ice-cream mustache…she has dad wrapped around her little pinky. Add an injury + baby of the family and that = ice cream.

Look on the bright side! Subscribe via my RSS feed.

by | 10 Comments
design

The Broke Socialite Before and After

Here’s a before and after of a complete redesign that I did for Shameeka, of The Broke Socialite.

She wanted to use a chandelier as her focal point and really loves sophisticated but unpretentious design. We moved her blog from WordPress.com to Blogger to achieve some of the styling and widget effects that weren’t possible with the free version of WordPress. I custom coded her twitter box into her template so she’d have her very own unique Twitter box…I even colored the twitter bird to match her template.

If you love entertaining and decorating on a budget…she’s the gal for you. Seriously, that girl can find the best deals on things – it’s a gift. And one I don’t have. 🙂

Her before:

And the after:

Look on the bright side! Subscribe via my RSS feed.

by | 8 Comments

1 2