Christmas on our own

Yesterday I decorated the house for Christmas. I was very excited as I pulled my four boxes of Christmas decorations out of the basement clutter and trudged upstairs. Then I opened them.

What? This is it? One box full of Christmas cards I got on clearance last year during the post-Christmas sale season, one box full of Christmas ornaments, and the two smallest boxes filled with candles and lights. I have two wooden-crafted wall-hangings, and a bag of cinnamon pine cones. And one (granted, large) nativity set. Really? I was a little depressed.

See, I always spend a lot of time crafting Christmas decorations or cross-stitched projects, but they're always gifts for my family or friends. And by the time post-Christmas clearance items come around I'm pretty much out of money due to my love of giving Christmas gifts (My grandma's the same way, so I do get it honest).

Maybe this year I will save some money specifically to find Christmas decor for my little house so that next year when I get my boxes out I will be singing "Joy to the World" while bustling around the house deciding where to put it all. But I did make two items that will stay in our house for as long as they last (or as long as the cat decides they aren't worth ripping apart). So here they are, in all their glory. Ribbon Christmas Trees. Part of the very limited Christmas show at the little white house with black shutters. They're very easy to make and can be found on Michaels' website under projects - Christmas.


Happy December!

Adventures in Poultry

A few weeks ago I made my first roast chicken, all by myself (well, I did have to call my mom for one thing, but still... mostly by myself). It was pretty yummy. I got the recipe from a magazine, which listed a bunch of meals you could make with the leftover chicken. I am a big fan of leftovers recipes. So I made the lemon-garlic chicken, which called for stuffing the skin of the chicken with a lemon, garlic, butter mixture. The recipe also had you cook potatoes in with the chicken and as I am also a huge potato fan (meat & potatoes, ya know?) I added those as well. Here is the chicken pre-roasting. Notice the cell phone hanging out so I could call my mom and ask where the giblets are located :)
And here is a picture of the end result. We thought it tasted pretty good, although next time we're putting less lemon in the chicken. And my husband thought it was way too good to leave leftovers for another meal. He had the rest of the chicken for lunch the next day, so I guess I'll have to make it again and hide the leftovers if I want to make the other recipes!



In other news, only 39 days until Christmas... Yikes!
Happy Tuesday!

Letters to Friends

Well, today is the perfect kind of day to write letters. It's rainy, but not depressing, because the sun peeks out every once-in-a-while. So there's no risk of writing an overly gloomy letter. It's not too cold in the house, so I don't feel the need to stay under a blanket or glued to my husband - the human heater - to keep warm. Today is also a great day for writing letters because I should clean the bathroom. Therefore, I can postpone cleaning the bathroom in order to write letters because - I argue - my answering letters are sadly overdue. And I have clam chowder on the stove and hot tea in the pot. It's a fantastic time for writing letters.

I love writing letters and sending them snail mail. I feel more myself when writing a letter than any other time. And getting letters back is also a wonderful experience. I have the joy of writing letters to supplement my phone calls from my best friend who now lives in Mississippi. The only positive part about that situation is that I now have a reason to spell Mississippi. (Didn't everyone grow up reciting the M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I chant?) I miss her very much. We lived together in college, and I got so used to having her around for a heart-to-heart almost anytime I needed one that this separation is a killer. We've been apart for over a year, but I'm just now starting to really feel it. I guess the newlywed fascination is wearing off! :)

I also love sending birthday cards. I'm not great with people. My social skills, while not bad enough to get me a diagnosis or therapy, leave a lot to desire. I often think back and realize that I should have said this to so-and-so, or I should have encouraged this person to hang out with me more. Sadly, I have left several starts of friendships die out, especially in college. I'm naturally a loner, but for some reason I don't really want to be. So I maintain my few remaining contacts by snail mail and thoroughly enjoy it!

So I'm going to go relish my clam chowder and biscuits, watch the end of Harry Potter, drink some tea, and write some letters.

Keeping the World out of our hearts

I am not about to reveal an epiphany on this topic. I merely want to share my thoughts from my devotions this morning on 1 Corinthians 7. I often find the notes in my Bible to completely skip commenting on the verses I want most to hear comments on, so my mom got me Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible for Christmas last year (in such tiny print that I can only imagine I will only be able to see it unaided for another 5 years!). I find his comments so useful, for the most part.

Verses 29-31: "This is what I mean, brothers: The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it (NIV: those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them, NKJ: and they that use this world, as though not abusing it). For the present form of this world is passing away."

Commentary on v. 31 (from the King James, I suppose): "We must keep the world as much as may be out of our hearts, so that we may not abuse it when we have it in our hands"

I often struggle with verses like these, wondering if I am "abusing" my station in the world. Especially because I love reading, (especially stories, which are often "of this world") I wonder if I am too much engrossed in the world. I usually respond to stories from a Christian perspective, thinking about how selfish a certain character was, or how vain another was, or how the outcome would be so different if only they had trusted God in the situation, or how Harry Potter reminds me of the Christian's battle with sin; but I also wonder if this is enough separation from the world.

Here are my thoughts that I wrote in my devotions notebook, entirely unrelated to reading: "Abusing the world means not using it to give glory to God. And so we should not always be desiring this or that "thing" of the world, because when we get it (or if) we will only use it for us and not for God; whereas if we only desire God, to glorify him, period, we will use anything we are given (big, small, wealth or poverty) to honor him and worship him."

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God
And His righteousness,
And all these things will be given unto you..." (from the song)

May I strive, more arduously, to seek God alone, above all else.

Day One

The month of May fills most parts of North America with increasing beauty. By the end of this month, spring has definitely arrived, even in frigid northeastern Pennsylvania. Schools are close to being let out for the summer, college graduates join the workforce temporarily, flowers bloom, birds sing, the sun shines, the beaches' boardwalks fill with people. And normally, I love May. This year, however, I'm really shooting for June.

See, I like to fast forward. When I was in high school, a few friends of mine and I got into the habit of frequently wishing for a "fast-forward button" for our lives. I wanted to fast forward to, well, now... (irony?), when I would be married and working, and running my own(ish) home. Mostly we just wanted out of high school. I mean, they say it's the best time of your life, but really, they are lying!

(Strangely, this impatience thing never affected me around Christmas time. Probably because I was too busy preparing my own gifts for everyone (right down to the morning of Christmas!) and didn't have time to be impatient. )

Recently I've been noticing this desire for a fast-forward button creep up again in a few ways. First of all, my husband has a major project at work which requires him to work overnights and away from home until about June. So, of course, I am longing for a time when I don't just see evidences of someone living in the house with me, but the person who wears the socks and drinks the carnation instant breakfasts.

I'm trying to be productive in my solitude, so I started reading a book that the ladies at my home church gave me. It's called, Created to be his help meet, by Debi Pearl. I'm only on like chapter 3, because I just got it this past weekend, and it involves some heavy Bible reading that I *shamefully* haven't been able to tackle expediently. However, the first two chapters have been excellent and have spoken to me recently because they are about being joyful. And let's face it, it's pretty hard to be joyful when your number one man is absent a lot. But I've been trying to smile, and not let his bad-news phone calls get me down - make me pity myself. Because really, I have a husband, and he has a job, and those are things to be thankful for.

But anyways, after scanning through this book and even reading the first two chapters I felt my trigger hand reaching for that imaginary "fast-forward" button, thinking "How am I ever going to tackle all these tips and perfect them at once!!" and "But learning these things will take so much time and I won't get them all right at first, so let's see, in about 10 years maybe I could be pretty decent at half of these things.... let's go there. 2020 please?" I seem to have this feeling that I need to master everything there is to know right now! And the only way to do this would be to... yes, that's right. Fast-forward.

But unfortunately for my trigger hand, that's not how it works. I have to muddle through many, many failures until I can even think that I'm coming close to being more godly. I have to go through many fights with my husband before I learn to control my tongue; I have to have a few more pity parties before I will learn to be thankful in all circumstances. I know this. And it's discouraging. But I also know that I will have a Savior who has promised to be there along the way, picking me up, dusting me off, pointing out where I went wrong, using other people and other books to encourage me, and just generally guiding me as I stumble, fall, limp, and trip my way through my marriage, through my Christian walk, through life. And he will guide me into being who he wants me to be, not who the author of this book wants me to be, and not who I think I want to be. He certainly knows best!

I want to do it the right way. The perfect way. That's why I read books about it. But I just need to do it one day at a time, like everyone says. Worry about today. This moment. These next 5 minutes. And maybe someday I will master the skill of taking one step at a time. Maybe :)

A small, but valuable life

My favorite movie has been You've got mail, for a long time now. I remember my mom taking my sister and I to see it in the theatres, and I have loved it ever since despite my sister falling asleep and claiming it was the most boring movie she'd ever sat through. It's just so cute. And quotable. This is one of my favorites: "Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave?" I know what you mean, Kathleen Kelly. During the winter, I often feel like life just slows to a crawl. I sit at home and read, or sew, or watch movies/tv with my husband. I like doing all of the above, but it just feels a little aimless.

Now that it's beginning to be spring again, I just feel like I'm more alive. I'm planting things, and feeding birds, visiting people, going for jogs, and watching the green come back into the Earth. Talk about breathing life into things. Once again, I feel like I have a life. I'm working on projects and thinking about goals I can create for the summer. It's a good time. Even though none of these things are large things, they are so important to my well-being. It's a small life, but one I thoroughly enjoy, especially around this time of year.

Spring has always been, for me, a metaphor for the Christian's relationship with Christ. C.S. Lewis' line in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, "It's always winter and never Christmas," is like a life without the saving grace of God. You may be able to tolerate it, and live through it, but there's no Christmas. There's no redeeming event at the end. Spring always reminds me of what is to come. Winter is rough, and this life certainly has its rough moments (and it doesn't get easier as you get older as I always thought it would), but there's something better at the end of this life. And it's the spring. It's the light at the end of the tunnel. Only it's so much better than spring that I can't even imagine it.

So how appropriate is it that Easter and spring go hand in hand. You may claim that Easter is another one of those holidays that the church took from a pagan holiday and turned it into a Christian one, but quite frankly, it doesn't matter. It's appropriate. The time when we pause to remember our Lord's death and subsequent resurrection from the tomb is when the world renews itself, the flowers raise out of the ground, and you feel the warmth of the sun (or Son, if you will!) once again.

Let's remember, as we enjoy this beautiful weather in PA, that the beauty of the Lord's sacrifice for us surpasses all this earthly joy. And let's thank the creator for giving us both the gift of spring, and the gift of eternal life.

Baby it's... a mess outside.

Today is March 30th. This may seem like an unnecessary statement, but if you, dear reader, could look through your computer screen and into my world, you would see not the beginnings of spring cheer, but cold, dreary, wet, wintery white stuff. Yes, there is snow laying on top of our almost-getting-green grass. *Sigh*

This morning, I was thinking about a quote from the book I'm reading, "The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God," by John Piper. It's been on my mind a lot lately. It says, "He is not poor, or much enticed / who loses everything but Christ." As a Christian woman who grew up in a Christian home, I have always heard the concept of losing things for Christ, but this concept of losing everything but Christ really caught my eye. Because unless something changes in my lifetime, I will probably never be held at gunpoint for believing in Christ. My family will probably not be murdered because they believe in Christ. Losing all for Christ, I can experience in a small way. But losing everything but Christ, now that, my dear friends, I think could easily happen.

Have you ever daydreamed about bad things that could happen to you? That sounds depressing, I know, but sometimes I hear a fire alarm, or see a fire truck on its way somewhere, and I start to think about how I would handle a situation where my house burned down, or even caught on fire, and all my material things were destroyed. I have to admit that every time I think like that I pray for contentedness, because I know that I would struggle with losing things like books, diaries, pictures, computers that have all my started projects, quilts that I've made, gifts that I'm in the process of finishing, decorations that I'm particularly fond of or hand-me-downs from my Great Grandmother. I have a strong doubt that I would be spiritually ready for something like that to happen.

I know that the root cause of my ill preparedness for such a fate is a lack of contentedness. I used to think I was very content. I quoted Paul's contentedness verse and thought that I was not too far behind him. But I know now that I was sorely mistaken. So this morning, after I read my daily devotions in Acts, I asked for help with contentedness. Because, let's face it, the world doesn't let us rest too long without showing us something else we think we really need or that we just plain want.

And so it's snowing. At a time when I check my seedlings daily to see if they've grown any, or turned greener, or if any more are lurking about under the soil, it's snowing, and cold, and windy. And I am remembering what my father told me about asking for patience. "If you pray for patience, you'd better be ready, because you don't become more patient by being in less frustrating situations." So this is my own personal trial. And I do apologize to the rest of Susquehanna County for this unusual weather :)

Here's to you, Dad. Your wisdom still hits home.

A beginning

I started this blog a few months ago to be an outlet for my frustrations with my job as a reading tutor. However, I've since discovered that I could really use a blog for everything in life. I need to get my creative juices flowing; I'm a writer, I think, at heart, and I'm out of school and presented with few opportunities to flex my writing chops. So here I am, flexing.
And since it's the beginning of January, I thought I would share just one or two of my goals with the internet world. (I have no followers, so I can't really say that I'll share it with my readers, can I?)
So first of all, I'd like to blog. I guess that one would have gone without saying. My second goal is related to my first; I'd like to write more. I have several stories in progress, but I always stop because I feel like I'm no good, or the story has been done, or I don't know where it's going, or no one will ever read it. But I have determined to stop worrying so much about that. I must silence my inner critic (or at least turn the volume down). I just read a piece by Donald Miller - on his blog, incidentally - in which he explains that resolutions don't work because they are out of context. So instead of just saying that I want to write more, my goal is to finish one story. This means that I must write at least one hour a week to start. Perhaps I will get excited and start writing two hours a week! Who knows, but the important thing is that I'll be writing.
I do have other goals, of course. I want all my students to pass the PSSA's in April, and I want to work on my relationships with my friends, and I want to live where I am instead of longing for home. That last one is a hard thing for me. I don't really know how to be where I am without leaving home for good. And the thought of leaving home for good just terrifies me. But it's something I want to explore in the next year. Who knows where I'll be next January. Maybe I'll be right where I am now, sitting in the living room of a little white house watching it snow. Or perhaps I will be "home" again, or maybe I'll be somewhere entirely different. I certainly can't see into the future. But I'll try to enjoy the ride while I'm on it.