restful day

well, after all the doings yesterday today was a day to relax. i made the mistake of weighing myself this morning so instead of pancakes i had instant grits and toast. daddy and ingrid went to helen today, keith worked on his storage building and i rested today. i think we all forgot about the railroad display. this evening we picked up daddy and ingrid and went to longhorns. matt and tasha, bonnie and jim, and bj met us there. and as bj said, we ate yet again! we had a fun time just being together.

tomorrow we have tuba christmas from 9 until the performance at 12. we have got to get to wallyworld for my contacts and maybe some more christmas shopping then everybody is at our house for matt's b'day party. i have coerced everyone into helping me decorate the tree. the more the merrier!

this season is shaping up to be a doozy. next saturday is our lady's dinner and on sunday is our piano christmas program, christmas in black and white. lots of practice for that one. i'm playing about 4 pieces and my friend and fellow pianist, holly, is playing about 2 pieces also and then holly and i will be doing some duets as well. the following saturday is the big party at our house with about 20 people! there's more this december but as the brits say, that's quite enough to be getting on with at the moment.

well, going to bed now and rest for tomorrow. oh, btw, nathan and kayla are going to get to meet the members of casting crowns, hope i get an autograph : )

thanksgiving day

we had a wonderful time today although the beginning was very busy what with cooking and getting all the food packed to go to tash and matt's. we made mac and cheese, turkey, dressing (that we forgot to take!), cranberry sauce, pink salad, deviled eggs, we brought the cucumber salad (thanks to oma). that was what we brought and then everybody else brought food, too. it was quite a feast. the house was decorated so beautifully. tasha made placemats and name place cards.

after we ate, tasha had a cute multiple choice test about thanksgiving. did you know that there are 3,500 feathers on a turkey??? do you realize that somebody counted feathers on a turkey? of course keith won! he knows more trivia than anyone i know. pepere and i tied for 2nd place. when we got home we got our pj's on, watched some of the "house"marathon, built a fire, read for awhile and relaxed.

tomorrow we are going to have "panacakes" for breakfast, go see a railroad exhibit and then pepere and oma are taking us all out to eat at longhorn's for dinner. we're also going to get the christmas tree and decorate it. btw, my house is all decorated for christmas : ) saturday is tuba christmas, some shopping and matt's b'day party! all in all a great way to begin the holiday season.

hope everyone had a wonderful turkey day and are very thankful to our terrific God for our innumerable blessings.

christmas list

since everyone sends christmas lists i thought i would like to send mine, too : )

clothes:
sweaters (medium) cable knit (nothing fancy) in brown, red, or hunter green

trouser socks- brown, black, blue

music and/or books:
classical music (especially Mozart, or anything from the Baroque or Renaissance era)

gift certificate for Barnes and Nobles or Books a Million

the Left Behind series

Movies:
the Lord of the Rings trilogy
the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia

jewelry ( of course!):
a simple white gold bracelet with a bar clasp (this is the one with the loop and and a bar that goes through it instead of a clasp)

asheville,nc getaway

keith and i finally got away for a few days. we went to asheville, north carolina. we had our fall break oct.27-28. it was absolutely beautiful and it snowed! of course we went to biltmore house. talk about more money than brains! who in their right minds needs 543 rooms????

we got there on monday and it started snowing monday evening. i was looking out the window at around 1:30 in the morning and these big, fat snowflakes were coming down. i woke keith up and probably the whole hotel. i just thought everyone should enjoy this beautiful sight : )

it was so nice not to be in a hurry to get some place, no eating lunch in 15 minutes, no watching the clock and NO getting up at 6:00 in the morning! anyway, it was sweet.

a day off

saturday was such a fun day! i slept in, keith took me to wahoo for breakfast, and then we went to the farmer's market and got some early christmas presents. we also bought some more mums for the garden. when we got home in the early afternoon i just rested and enjoyed the rest of the day. keith built me a fire in our firepit and we roasted hotdogs over it and ate outside. it was chilly but nice around the fire. we played with patty puppy and then watched movies that evening.

yes, my house still needs cleaning and the clothes need washing but it was so nice to just put everything on hold and just enjoy the day off. i'll clean this week : )

lessons learned in a cornmaze

this is the cornmaze i took our youth to this evening. last year at this time we had at most 4 youth and more times than not 2. we started praying and tonight we took 14 kids to this youth outing!! praise God : )

this was titled lessons learned so let me tell you the lessons we learned. when we entered the maze we followed our map and got to the end of the maze where the exit was. we didn't believe it could be that easy so we decided that we knew more than the map, see where this is going?? we went back into the maze and really got turned around. we could see the light that the maze had to kind of guide you in the right direction to get out but we just got farther and farther away from it. we eventually, 1 hour later, sort of found our way out. if you can see where the square above the name pat is, that is where we came out. as you can see, there is not an exit there. we blundered our way through and made a way out. we got out but it certainly wasn't what the makers of the maze had in mind! there was also a platform so folks could stand high above the maze and see the people trying to find their way out.

we got to talking as we were making our way around the maze back to the entrance and said this was what we do as christians. When we see the exit from our sinful lives we figure it can't be as easy as believing, surely we must have to work harder to get out of that life so we go about trying to figure it out for ourselves. as we do this we find ourselves getting farther and farther from the light. god sees us wandering around and he hollars at us to turn right or left or go straight but we ignore this and decide that we will not follow the path, hey, we'll make our own! we stumble, are caught in brambles, sometimes even fall. we may eventually get out but it certainly wasn't the path that god intended for us. it would have so much simpler if we had just gone out by the path that was marked.

good fun, good lesson!

funeral

have you ever wondered what would be said at your funeral? will people say how good you look? (i've always thought that was a terrible thing to say like you look better dead than alive?!) will people say what a wonderful person you were?

as you can tell i went to a funeral today and as always it makes me think of my mortality and what a really short time we have on this earth. i always feel funny about singing or playing for a funeral when i don't even know the person, as happened today. it is interesting to hear what people have to say at funerals. many times it makes me wish i had known this person. sometimes when i overhear what people say when they don't think anyone is listening it makes me glad i didn't know that person!

i would like to be remembered as someone who made a difference in somebody's life. i want people to say they saw christ in me. i would like to be remembered as someone who lived every minute to the fullest and had no regrets. keith said that this lady never said, "i wish i had done thus and so." i don't want to waste my life waiting to live. i think that is something profound that i have learned in the last year or so. so many times we are waiting to "do something" that we forget to live each day, i mean really live it!

i'm going to try very hard to remember that this week!