Christmas

It sure didn't feel much like Christmas outside (78 degrees!) but it felt like it in our hearts.  Larry and I exchanged our gifts yesterday and had Santa for Tabbie Hoffman and Banjo this morning before we went and had Christmas with my family in Oglethorpe.  Lots of love and laughter and babies and presents.  Oh my goodness, the presents!  

This is what Santa brought our boys.  Banjo got a Dremel nail trimmer and Tabbie got a feeding maze toy.  They each got a toy (Tabbie's is a catnip-filled banana!) and treats and new vanilla-flavored toothpaste in their stockings.  And Larry loved his Notre Dame plush blanket and lounge pants that Santa brought him!

Larry got me the Farm Vet Barbie set (with the itty bitty chicken squeeeee!), a rare 1960 promotional Golden Grapes Pyrex chip and dip set, a vintage Petunia Pig drinking glass, a new cereal bowl, some Optical Illusion cards and a sweet, sweet coffee mug that he wrote on with permanent marker.  He wrote, "When I was young and dreamed of love, I saw a shadow of you.  When I grew up and experienced love, I realized the shadow was you."  Yep, he's a keeper!  He also got me a Pyrex Old Orchard casserole dish (with the lid!), a pair of Pikachu bedroom slippers, a Pokemon Monopoly game, a selfie stick, a beautiful Christmas bracelet and I know I'm forgetting something...anyway, I racked up!  I got a new FryDaddy from Mama and Daddy (along with a cute top, socks and my old stocking slap FULL of stuff) and a gorgeous tapestry from Ami and Brian that I think I'm going to use as a tablecloth.  I also got some soft slippers, a new coffee mug and some bath stuff.


 
Santa came to see our backyard birds, too.  They got a bird seed bell that I smeared peanut butter on and hung from our magnolia tree on Christmas Eve.

We went to Christmas Eve service at Southside Baptist yesterday afternoon (and even though it was 70 degrees when we got out, it was snowing in the lobby!  They had a snow machine going and it was so fun!) and then we went to see the new animated musical, Sing, and we enjoyed it so much.  Such a cute story and some really amazing talent.  We loved it!

Another Christmas has come and gone.  It's always so sad to me to see it go.  After weeks (months!) of planning and shopping and picking up this and that for this person and that person and then it's all over in a flash.  A big, wonderful, chaotic, wrapping paper flying, flash.

And we'll do it all again next year. 

But the greatest of these is love

My Andersonville blog was one of the hardest ones I've ever written.  This one will be the easiest.

I have wanted to go be in President Carter's Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church for as long as I can remember, for as long as I've known it existed, really.  For one reason or another, I just never went.  In light of the recent health issues he's had and his progressing age, I decided I'd better go NOW.  I encourage anybody reading this blog to go, too.  Soon.  If you want to hear him share God's word in a way that only he can and get your picture made with him and Miss Rosalynn (and that's pronounced ROSALYN not ROZLYN, in case you didn't know), you better try to go in the next coming weeks.  His Sunday School schedule is posted at the church's website.  September 13 and 27 and then October 4, 18 and 25.  Those are all of the dates posted right now.  He told us that he is undergoing immunotherapy treatment and with cancer, you just never know when he'll feel up to it.  He LOVES it, though.  He LOVES us and wants to do this for us.  He's quite a remarkable man.  But we already knew that.

So.  To help the church handle the crowds that are coming, the church came up with a plan.  Beginning this week, they started giving out seating arrangement tickets to ensure folks get in.  Or at least the first 400 folks.  Larry and I drove down there Saturday to be at the church at 1:00 to try to be two of those 400 folks.  We arrived a little after 12:00 to find the parking lot of the small gas station next door to the church absolutely packed.  They wouldn't let you on the church property until 1:00 sharp.  There was already a numbering plan in place to line up to go onto the church property and Larry and I were able to get number 70 for our truck.  Now when you have that many people in one place, things start to get a little sticky.  I'll just say it was organized chaos and leave it at that.  Everybody was desperate to get a ticket.  While we waited, we got somebody to snap this picture of us with Jimmy The Peanut, something you pretty much HAVE to do when you're in Plains.  Cheesy, maybe.  Historic, absolutely.  We were all over it.  :)  

We all lined up best we could and drove onto the church property.  Now that was organized!  You never even left your vehicle.  You drove up to a man (who we now know is George Williams) and he gives you a ticket for every person in your car and then you drive around the church and back out onto the road.  Easy peasy.  We got numbers 69 and 70!  We were so excited!!
 

We left there and went to the old Plains High School, which now serves as President Carter's main museum and visitors' center.  We walked around in there and learned a lot about President Carter that we never knew and were reminded of lots of things that we did.  The photos of him and Miss Rosalynn when they were dating and first married made me cry.  This Navy photo of him and what he inscribed to her had me squalling.  Darling, I love you with all my heart - for all of my life.  Jimmy 

These are a few of my favorite things from the visitors' center.


This poster.  I must have one.

I would totally put this up in our yard.  :)  There are signs now all over Plains that say "Jimmy Carter for Cancer Survivor".  Awesome.  His entire family has been cursed by and died from cancer.  His daddy, James, Miss Lillian, his sweet mama, his sisters and his brother.  Cancer sucks.

These election pins.  This is the kind of stuff Larry and I look for at estate sales!

This old schoolroom. 
 

We picked up some goodies in the gift shop.  Some cajun peanuts, peanut brittle and post cards.  On our way back home, we stopped in Andersonville, went by and visited with Mama and Daddy for a little while and then came home and went to bed early!  We had to get up at 4:00 Sunday morning in order to be at the church by 7:00.

We drove down in darkness, getting to Maranatha a little after 6:00.  Not knowing what to expect, we wanted to get there early.  We lined up in front of the church, by number, just after 7:00. 

There was a bunch of us!  You can see how the line wraps clean around into the parking lot.
  

When you go to see President Carter and be part of his Sunday School class, you gotta get through Miss Jan and the Secret Service first!  The Secret Service is much nicer.  :)  "Miss Jan" Williams has been a member of Maranatha Baptist Church since it split from Plains Baptist in 1977.  Having been raised a Southern Baptist, I know all about split Baptist churches.  Mama, Ami and I were all members of a split split church.  Mr. George, the ticket passer-outter, is Miss Jan's husband and all I gotta say about Mr. George is bless his heart.  She is a tough old bird but there's a heart of gold underneath all that toughness.  And she loves President and Mrs. Carter dearly.  She protects them like a mama bear protects her cubs.  Miss Jan comes out of the church about 7:30 barking orders -- no bags, no purses, nothing but your camera or phone, your keys and your money if you're tithing.  That's it.  Then she proceeds to line us all up like second-graders and that was more than a little off-putting but she's been doing this a long, long time so if you decide to go on your own or because of something you read here, just remember that.  Go easy on her.  Smile at her.  Thank her.

Don't take pictures of the Secret Service OR Miss Jan unless she tells you you can.  I took a few before she told us.  :)  This guy, Dan, looks SO MUCH like Anderson Cooper.  He was super sweet, down-to-earth and friendly.  They work shifts so Dan may not be there when you go.  They're all pretty nice, though.  You place everything you own on a table and while one Secret Service guy looks at your camera and stuff, another guy wands you.  You clear, pick up your stuff and walk into the church.  Just like any other Sunday morning, right??  :) 

Just listen to Miss Jan and you'll be just fine.  You think I'm joking, don't you?  I'm warning you is what I'm doing.  Ha!



Inside the church.  What a beautiful sanctuary!  President Carter made that cross that hangs over the baptismal pool.

Miss Jan comes out after everybody gets seated and she starts her hour of instruction.  You're not to applaud President Carter when he comes out (he hates that), you're not to stand when he comes in, you can't take pictures of him until he starts his "Where Are You From?" part where he walks around and asks each section where they're from.  You can only yell out your state once so if somebody else says "Georgia!", you better shut up.  Don't let her hear "Georgia" more than once.  Once he's done with "Where Are You From?", he'll go right into asking if there are any ministers or missionaries, past or present, in the audience.  It's then that you turn your phone OFF and you can't take any more pictures.  They film the entire service and supposedly the phones cause problems with the filming.  Turn it OFF.  Don't try her.

After her hour-long instruction period (She's not all bad. She's funny and very entertaining, too.), you have about 10 minutes to go potty and get back before President Carter comes in.  Be back in there before he comes in.   

He came in so quietly I missed it.  I just heard him start talking to us and when I looked up, there he was.  Frail, pale, soft-spoken but with that same big smile on his face.  He started by telling us he was so glad we were there and he told us a little bit about his cancer and his treatment that he's undergoing.  Not chemo right now but immunotherapy, to boost his immune system so that he can fight the cancer better.  Peacemaker that he is, he was supposed to go to Ghana this week but had to cancel due to his treatment.  After we all told him where we were from and he had a young missionary woman lead us in prayer, he started the lesson.  1 Timothy.  Faith.  Paul was telling young Timothy to stay there in Ephesus and tell the people to stop teaching false doctrine, for false doctrine is not advancing God's command to love from a pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith.  The folks in Ephesus wanted to teach but they had no idea what they were talking about.  He spoke some on the importance of women in the Bible, in the church and how Jesus lifted up the women in His life.  He didn't mistreat them or treat them as second-class citizens.  Jesus loved everybody.  It was a great lesson.  I hung on his every word.  He strayed over to 1 Corinthians 13 once and quoted one of my favorite passages.  Verse 13 says, And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  How wonderful our world would be if we only loved like Jesus loves.  

He finished up his lesson, we had a short break and then morning worship began.  President Carter joined Miss Rosalynn on a pew to the right of us and we enjoyed church together.  They have a wonderful young preacher who knows his Bible, he's funny and he loves the Lord.  You can tell.  After worship service was over, the Carters went down front and sat on stools (his doctor told him he could continue to do pictures as long as he sat down to do it).  Miss Jan came back out, dictating who goes first and who goes next, taking folks from all over the sanctuary randomly.  I guess that works best.  She should know.  When it was our turn, I went straight to Miss Rosalynn and Larry went to the President's side.  It was over in a flash, literally.  She said "good morning" to me and I told her how happy I was to see them.  We took Larry's phone from the photographer and we marched down the left side and out of the church, just as Miss Jan had instructed us.  :)

I had my eyes closed in the picture so we got back in line and got a second one!  This time, Miss Rosalynn was the one with her eyes closed.  But that's all right.  I made her laugh and it's a very sweet memory for me and I wouldn't change one thing.

Not so much in this one but in every single photo I took of President Carter, he has a light all around his head.  The lighting in the church is pretty bad but Larry nailed it.  God is all over that man.

We left and ate lunch at Mimmie's Diner, along with just about everybody else from the church, including Miss Jan.  Good old Sunday dinner country cooking.  Baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli casserole, squash casserole, collards and okra, corn bread and biscuits, pecan pie, ice box lemon pie and pumpkin pie.  And cold sweet tea.  It was delicious!

I'm so happy we went.  Nobody knows how long we have so first of all, we should make sure things are good with God, then things are good with others and finally, things are good with ourselves.  I encourage everybody reading this to go have this experience for yourselves if you can.  It's a little work getting your seating tickets and all but we all know that anything worth having takes a little work.  

Sunday School with President Carter is worth having.


***I made a sweet new friend from North Carolina this weekend in Plains, so Julie, if you're reading this, Happy Birthday, girl!!***

Sunday morning

After I made my first ever frittata for Larry for breakfast this morning and quickly decided that I need some sort of frittata pan (like this one!) so that his future frittatas don't look like scrambled eggs trying to be omelets, I got ready for church and tended my growing family of flower babies.  I just love spring!  I love growing flowers and this year, I'm so excited about our vegetables and herbs.  I never had much luck at the condo growing things so I have really high hopes of having a bountiful harvest all summer!

The cucumbers are the biggest in the pot!  We haven't had to water a single thing in days.  Lots and lots of rain.  April showers, right??  We should have some beauties come May!!

Here I am pruning my petunias.  :)

They are really growing!  And I'm still loving that pink flower pot!

I took this picture of Larry and Banjo with Tabbie Hoffman totally photobombing at the front door!  Ha!  I love all three of my boys!  And isn't Larry SO handsome??  Oh my!!

I am absolutely bringin' booty back in my tie-dyed skirt but y'all ain't heard that from me.  ;)

We got a new living room rug!  I just love it. 

Larry wrote this message for me when he started pressure washing the house.  It's been raining so much he hasn't been able to finish but if we get a sunny day this coming week, he will and I thought I'd better get a picture of it before it's gone.

Sweetness!

Do what makes you happy

Yesterday, Larry and I went on a shopping spree!  Thursday is our 15th wedding anniversary and of course, Friday is Valentine's Day so we did our shopping together.  That way you get what you really want, right? 

Larry's birthday is the 24th, too, and I already knew I wanted to get him a new watch.  We found a beautiful gold Seiko at Belk.  On sale, too!



We started out getting haircuts and he got his beard trimmed.  His very first time in a salon!  I got a few layers cut into my hair.  Not too much of a change.  Just enough to not make me cuss when I'm trying to fix my hair.  During the week, it's fine since I wear a ponytail to work but on the weekends, I wear it down and it was starting to really make me talk ugly.  I have extremely fine hair and it will not hold a style to save its hide.  Never has, except for that period in my life that I completely lost my everlovin' mind and got a perm every three months.  We probably shouldn't go there, though.  The girl who cut my hair yesterday did her job and sold me some foamy gel to go along with my new haircut.  Some stuff called Blow It Up.  Absolutely fitting for how I feel when I try to fix my hair.  Blow. It. Slap. UP.  :)  It's good stuff, though!  I love it!!  

We each got some new church clothes and a couple of shirts a piece and Larry got some jeans and a belt.  And an absolutely beautiful aqua blue paisley tie.  I just fell in love with that thing the moment I saw it.  And when I held it up to him and saw how it made his eyes just pop, he had to have it.  He bucked a little when he saw the price tag, but it was on sale!  Plus 20% off!  Plus it makes your eyes pop!  He couldn't say no to that.  Or me.  :)

I got some Clinique Happy for my Valentine's present and since Belk was having their Clinique bonus time, I got that, too.  My anniversary present was a pair of Skecher's GoWalk shoes that I've been wanting ever since Brian, Ami and I went to Stone Mountain in October and stopped at Tanger Outlet on the way for a bathroom break.  Ami and I saw those shoes in the window at the Skechers store and we both said how comfortable they looked.  And they are!  They're like not even having shoes on at all.  And y'all know how I like that.  I put them on right then in the store and wore them the rest of the day.  

We picked up a few more albums, too.  We're getting quite a collection!  Larry had hundreds of albums when he was younger but lost them all so we're trying to replace some of them.  No way can we get them all back but the ones we can get, we're going to get.  We got Carole King's Tapestry.  One of my favorites.  We have it on CD but there's something about that crackly vinyl sound.  A CD cannot compare with that.  Larry told me that he bought this album as a soldier boy in Germany in 1971 and it was one that was lost to him.  Well, now it's found.

When we got back out to the truck with all of our purchases, Larry found a little blue card under the windshield wiper and on it was written, "Do what makes you happy".  We thought that was so appropriate because that was exactly what we were doing!  We were spending the day together.  A day that was still way out of our reach this time a year ago.  We looked around and the car behind us had a card as well.  What a sweet, thoughtful gesture somebody made!  We were both so touched by that.  It's behind a magnet on our refrigerator right now.

We had such a great day!  And today, Larry felt the Holy Spirit tugging at him at church and he made the decision to join our church!  I went down to the altar with him and when our pastor introduced us to the congregation, he told them, "If you get to know this couple, you will find that they are a delight."  How sweet that was.  Everyone came around and shook our hands and welcomed Larry to the church family.  

Right now, I can hear the power saw out in the backyard.  Larry's building a work bench for his shop.  

Another wonderful weekend. 

Weekend three

 

So hard to believe this is our third weekend together.  Yesterday we went shopping at the mall here, had Chick-fil-A for lunch, popped in to Bath and Body Works and Victoria's Secret but didn't stay very long at either place because they were having their semi-annual sales and were soooo busy!  We bought some really cool albums at f.y.e, Janis Joplin and Crosby Stills and Nash and I got a Michonne bobblehead!  She's my favorite Walking Dead character and I just love her bobblehead.  I think she looks awesome on our coffee table.  :)


 


Larry even rode the Garfield car!  Well, not really.  But he tried.  He could barely get his legs to fit.  :)

Last night, we went to our pastor's house for a couples night.  There was us and three other couples.  We had Mexican -- tacos, guacamole, salsa, cheese dip and chips, sliced apples and dip and just had a really, really good time.  We played games, too.  Heads Up and Battle of The Sexes, which was downright hilarious.  We laughed so much our cheeks hurt.  We played girls against boys and the girls won!  The guys cheated SO BAD that I was starting to feel sorry for them.  Ha!  It was really sad.  :)

Today we attended church at Trinity United Methodist, trying to make our rounds to all the churches who supported us and prayed with us throughout our long, long journey.  We have quite a number of churches to visit!  The one furthest away is in Canton.  We'll make that one a weekend trip, I'm sure.

Tonight, we're watching movies and having chips and salsa and cheese dip.  We didn't quite get enough at the party last night!  It's supposed to be c-c-c-c-cold here the next few days so we picked up some starter logs for the fireplace today.

Life is good.  Still SO good. 

The happiest of new years

I started this new year off right by joining the church this morning!!  I've been going for a while, I love the people and I've felt the Lord tuggin' on me for about three Sundays now.  The Sunday before Christmas, He 'bout pulled me right out of my shoes!  So I thought New Year's Day would be the perfect time to do it.  New year, new church family, all kinds of new stuff coming up!!  I'm very excited to see what 2012 brings to me and Larry and our family.  2011 for me was a year of fun and laughter, sorrow and loss and just about everything else in between.  It was lots of school school school and trying to balance my job and my classes, my life outside of both and it was a challenge at times.  So I started praying and I started going to church regularly and you know what, the Lord worked it ALL out!!  That's been the biggest and best thing that happened to me in 2011.

I started a little New Year's Day tradition of my own three years ago.  Instead of cooking all the must-haves for New Year's just for me, I go over to Cracker Barrel and get a plate.  I did that today and they were SO busy, I had to park over at Lowe's and walk.  I've never seen them that packed.  Anyway, I waited and got mine to go.

Black-eyed peas, greens, fried okra, chicken and dumplin's and cornbread.

Hush ya mouth.

And while I waited, I looked around a little in the gift shop where they had Christmas stuff 70% off!!  I got a few things for next year!  :)

Happy New Year to every single one of you who reads my blog.  I just want you to know that even if you don't leave comments or let me know you're reading about my life and thoughts, I consider you my friend and I wish you the best year you've ever had! 

December Daily

December 17th

Brian's birthday.  He and Ami and I have a little tradition of riding around and looking at Christmas lights after his birthday party.  We ride around Lake Wildwood, where they live, and then venture out into really nice well-to-do neighborhoods to see how the rich are doing Christmas.  This year, they didn't do so hot.  Some of them didn't even try.  Scrooges.  We had a lot of fun, me wrapped up in a quilt in the backseat and Brian and Ami up front.  We listened to a beautiful instrumental Christmas CD along the way.  It was very nice and cozy.  I look forward to this little tradition of ours all year!  We spotted this Christmas countdown in somebody's yard and I took a picture of it.  Not your usual Christmas light display and counterculture chick that I am, I chose this one for my December Daily shot for the day.  :)

 December 18th 

This pretty little clay jug came ALL the way from Bethlehem to rest on my hearth.  Our church said goodbye to its 14-year labor of love, Walk Through Bethlehem, this year and we had a celebration potluck supper Sunday night.  There were things that were used during those fourteen years that decorated the tables where we sat and we could take something home with us as a memento if we wanted to.  I got a brass candlestick and this little clay jug.

 December 19th

I finally got around to putting some lights up in my bedroom.  I twisted a strand of lights together with some green and silver garland and I love how it turned out!

December 20th

We had our Secret Santa Finale today at work and this is what I got!  A beautiful poncho-style sweater, a long-sleeved tee in a pretty hot chocolate brown and a pair of cute peace sign marshmallow socks!  My Santa this year was Cheryl, our office manager, and she really hooked me up!!  I absolutely love everything.

December Daily

December 9th

My new Christmas cactus plant
 

December 10th

Gifts beneath my tree.  That pink box right in front is a little tradition that Ami and I started some four or five years ago.  We take turns with that little box and next Christmas, something she gets me will hide in it until Christmas morning.

December 11th

A photo I took at our The Gift of Christmas musical drama at church Sunday night.  I cannot even begin to tell you how incredible it was.  Music, dance, the Christmas story reenacted and a completely packed church!  It was so beautifully obvious Who that party was for.

December 12th

Some pretty Christmas holly that I stole borrowed from my next door neighbor.  He will NEVER know because, yeah, the MOON blocks the whole bush anyway.  Grrrrrr.  Hush, it's Christmas.

 December 13th

My second Secret Santa gift today at work was this awesome metal peace sign!!  I absolutely love it.  It's hanging on my kitchen wall right now!

Operation Christmas Child

My church is collecting shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child this Sunday and this year, I'm participating!  I chose to do a shoe box for a little girl, age 5-9, and I've been buying little things here and there for her for about a month now.  And having a ball doing it!  I felt like Santa Claus! 

Operation Christmas Child brings joy and the love of Jesus to 8.5 million needy children all over the world!  I am so happy to get to be a part of it this year.

Just LOOK at all those shoe boxes!!

Here's the stuff that I put in my shoe box.  

I'm enclosing a note and a couple of stamped envelopes and cards in case she wants to write me back.  If she does, you'll read about it here!  I really hope she does.  

I want a tambourine myself for Christmas (hint, hint) so a toy tambourine was the first thing I got, along with a jump rope and a pink bouncy ball.  Then I added pencils, crayons, a coloring book, some toothpaste, a pink toothbrush, soap and wash cloths, Tinkerbell sunglasses, barrettes, a hairbrush, bracelets, a baby doll and a stuffed butterfly.  It almost didn't all fit!

 

You can register your box online and track it until it's delivered!

I'm really excited about that.

If you have time, go check out the web site.  Watch the videos.  We are so blessed (and greedy!) in this country that most children open a gift on Christmas morning, throw it down and get another one (I've known a few like that) and it absolutely broke my heart to see how happy these children are with a box of crayons or a bouncy ball.  It really puts things in perspective.

I chose a plastic box that I got for a dollar at Walmart.  I thought she might like something more sturdy to store her things in and then I read somewhere online that some of these children carry water in those plastic boxes and I just squalled.  Perspective indeed.  What a difference a dollar might make to her.

When they receive these boxes, they are also given a booklet printed in their own language telling the story of the greatest gift of all, God's gift to us, His Son Jesus.

I am so excited to see where my shoe box ends up!  Jesus already knows who she is, where she is and He's already seen her face when she opens it.

I really hope she's always wanted a tambourine.

Weekend Wonders

We're only two days into October and 

I'm already ready to do this to my porch.  

Ain't they gorgeous??

I had a pretty awesome weekend.  I woke up both days to temps in the 40's, got to wear my new yoga pants and my favorite fluffy sweater and SOCKS.  Yay!!!

Larry and I had one and a half ('cause I went to church this morning) fabulous days together and got the shock of our entire DOC-controlled lives yesterday.  The vendor who provides the food for the visitation room has apparently decided that he's made enough money and he has abandoned us.  We've noticed during the past few weeks that the candy bars looked the same and I mentioned to Larry that I thought they were going to make us buy what was in there before they put anything different in there and I don't think I was too far from the truth.  We heard today that the company has filed bankruptcy, which completely blows my mind 'cause how can somebody file for bankruptcy when they're making a fortune off inmate families??!  $3.50 for six chicken wings.  That's 58 cents a piece.  I mean, come on now.  This ain't Hooter's.  It's ridiculous how these people take advantage of us because they CAN.  There is no competition.  You pay it or you do without.

Okay, to the shock.  I got a little sidetracked there.  Ha!  That's funny 'cause that's the name of the vendor.  Sidetrack Vending.  Anyway, so the two Coke machines stopped working and after about an hour of us sittin' there 'bout to DIE of thirst, the guards bring out cups and ice and two huge coolers of red Kool-Aid and water!!  

Those of you who know nothing of prison life probably are thinking, "So?  What's the big deal?"  Those of you who live the prison life probably feel heart palpitations bubbling up in your chest just reading about it because you know that this was HUGE.

In my 23 years of walking this walk with Larry, I can tell you that this nor anything remotely like this has ever happened.  The DOC plays this game about how important family time is and how that connection with loved ones is so vital to the rehabilitation of the guys unfortunate enough to live there but that's just it.  It's a game.  It's for the newspapers, for the TV interviews, for the show. They make it so difficult to even get in there to see your loved ones, the lonnnnng lines out in all kinds of weather, the scrutinizing of every stitch of clothing you have on, the nasty attitudes simply because you are there bothering them, forcing them to get up and work.  They'd rather you not be there and they let you know it.

Can you tell they're not really my favorite people?  Ha!  But I pray for them.  I pray for them to find other jobs.  :)

But what happened yesterday chipped away some of my discontent with them.  It was such a small gesture and to the outside world, it was something you'd expect in a situation like that.  A show of humanity, compassion, kindness.  I saw Jesus all over it.  Yep.  If you look hard enough, you can see Him in everything.  Even in cups of red Kool-Aid.

This weekend was pretty awesome. I got to love on and laugh with my baby, I got me some Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin stuff at Bath and Body Works (thanks, Mama!  I used my birthday gift card!), I opened my windows and let that cool air in while I got my house super duper clean, I went and got recharged for the week at church this morning and I made one of my favorite comfort suppers tonight.  Rosemary chicken and roasted potatoes.  Yum!!

Pretty awesome indeed.

Today

What an emotional day.  

I chose not to watch any of the 9/11 10th Anniversary coverage this weekend.  Well, the actual footage of that day, anyway.  There is nothing they could show me that I haven't seen a hundred times already, that we all haven't seen a hundred times already.  For years following September 11, 2001, on each anniversary, the media drowned us in images from that horrific day, crying out, "REMEMBER REMEMBER REMEMBER".  As though any of us could ever forget.  What's more important than us remembering is that we tell our children and our grandchildren about that day, why it happened, what happened and what we're going to do to keep it from happening again.

I did watch a little of NBC's coverage of the memorial services in New York this morning as I was getting ready for church.  I heard stories of heroes, heard names read by the children of those lost and listened to patriotic music and I cried.

I went to church and we had a beautiful memorial 9/11 service, heard about heroes like Pat Tillman, the football star turned soldier, Todd Beamer, the Flight 93 passenger whose brave "let's roll" became our battle cry and the firefighters who saved the lady in the stairwell, who incidentally passed away in January and those same firefighters attended her funeral saying it was the least they could do, after what she did for them.  They believed her to be their guardian angel because had they not stopped to rescue her in that stairwell, they would have been killed when the building collapsed.  There are the 343 firefighters who refused to back down, refused to get out even after they were ordered to, the paramedics who kept going back and back again, desperate to help save somebody, the police officers who even though they were terrified, stayed to try to control the chaos and try to bring some kind of order to what was unlike anything they'd ever experienced before.

We took of the Lord's Supper and had some beautiful music.  The Lord blessed us with a wonderful, spirit-filled service.  And I cried.

I went and spent a couple of hours with my love, sharing with him what I'd just experienced at church and how I couldn't wait to go tonight to see the movie Brother Andy had planned for us, The Cross and The Towers, a documentary about four steel crosses that were found in the WTC rubble.

I went tonight and saw the movie and I cried.  It was a great story of hope and promise and trust and I loved it.  It was our proof that even in our darkest day, God was with us.  Even as we all questioned, "where IS He??", He was there.  I know there are some groups that do not want it displayed at the World Trade Center site and that's their right.  We have religious freedom in this country.  But all I gotta say about that is they are missing out!  They are missing out on the greatest love story ever told.  The story of Jesus and His love for us, His constant presence in our lives. 

It even had metal wrapped around it, like His royal sash.

If that doesn't thrill your heart, it ain't beating.

Walkin' Through Bethlehem

Today after work, Lisa and I went to church for an early Walk Through Bethlehem run. They started the tours at 4:00, we got off work at 5:00 and by the time we got there, a crowd was already forming. It will be that way the entire weekend. But if there's a crowd, there's always live entertainment going on in the sanctuary and your wait goes by fast! Shirley Hills Baptist Church offers this gift totally FREE to our community every December and if you've never seen it, you owe it to yourself and your family to GO!! You will leave there a different person, I promise.

This is what the church's web site says about it:

Walk Through Bethlehem
December 17 - 19
4:00 PM to 10:00 PM

This is an interactive drama where our guests become part of the Christmas story. While, the original story in the Bible, in the first two chapters of the books of Matthew and Luke, we try to re-create what Bethlehem might have been like the night Jesus was born. If you'll listen closely, you'll hear the dialogue between our tour hosts and the residents of Bethlehem that tell the story. In the meantime, you'll have to pay a tax (we'll give you the coin), and you'll be immersed in the sights, sounds, smells, and even the tastes of an ancient city. Eventually, you'll make the same discovery the shepherds of Bethlehem made, as they ran to find the place where Jesus had been laid in a manger.

Lisa and I went and had the best time!! Here are a few pics she took of me!

The gorgeous church Christmas tree!

In front of the gate going into the city

Cheesin' (not freezin'!) with some grapes

Gettin' in trouble with some Roman guards :)