Counting Down...

So...Christmas is just over a week away. Where has the time gone?! It really hasn't felt like Christmas to me for the most part. It's helped having the decorations up, but it was very easy for me to forget that it's actually December. I think part of that is the fact that I'm still not used to living somewhere that gets so little snow. (We did get a little recently, though...just enough to dust the ground.)

Last Friday, my facebook status had something to do with the fact that I hadn't started buying presents yet. Honestly...not a single gift (except for the ornament I bought for our "Nestie" gift exchange). Not even an anniversary gift for Shawn. So on Saturday morning, Shawn and I went shopping. And we didn't leave the living room. It was pretty awesome. :)

As of today, I think we have 3 more people we still need to buy for. Unfortunately, I think I might be on the verge of being too late to buy the rest online, so I might have to brave the mall area on Sunday. Should be interesting. :)

And as of right now (midnight, Wednesday night), I have 50 Christmas cards written...70ish to go! Oh, and Shawn still needs to sign them. And they need to be addressed. And stamped. And sealed. My goal is to have them finished by Friday night so they can be dropped off at the post office on Saturday. Wish me luck!

Using God's Gifts

If you're a church-goer, I'm sure you've heard sermons and lessons about the importance of using the gifts that God has given you...right? I remember as a kid thinking that I didn't really have any "talents." I can definitely carry a tune, but I'm not a great singer. I took piano lessons for about five years (and there were very brief stints at the violin and the flute), but I wouldn't say that I'm a talented musician. I've been in plays, but I was always cast in minor roles...no amazingly great acting talent here. I'm NOT athletic, so that's definitely not a gift that God gave me. In my mind, these were the kinds of gifts these sermons and lessons were talking about, so I always felt a little bad that I didn't have a gift I could use.

As I got older, it finally dawned on me that there are lots of different kinds of gifts. I spent a lot of time as a teenager volunteering with different groups and organizations. I think that the willingness to give of yourself and of your time is a gift that people often don't consider. As an adult, I realized that one of my gifts is the ability to handle of group of middle school and/or high school students without losing my sanity, so I taught Religious Ed to 6th and 7th graders at church for a few years.

Since getting married, though, and moving up here, I haven't really been doing much in the way of using the gifts God has given me. I think this is probably the case for a lot of us...and I think I might know why. Another sermon/lesson I remember hearing a lot is the importance of being humble. Don't think of yourself as being better than others...right? Don't be proud. And yet, to be able to use the gifts God has given you, you have to acknowledge that you are gifted in a certain area, don't you? You have to be able to think, "Yes, I am good at *this*, and here's what I can do with that."

I finally started acknowledging a couple of my God-given gifts lately. #1 - I really don't mind public speaking. It's been a long time since I've gotten nervous to stand in front of a crowd and talk. And #2 - I'm good at reading out loud. I actually enjoyed having opportunities to read out loud to my students, and they would occasionally ask me to do it for them.

So a few weeks ago, I volunteered to become a Lector at our church. If you're not Catholic...a Lector is someone who reads the Scripture readings to the congregation during Mass. I was privileged to be one of the Lectors at Mass each of the last two Sundays, and if I do say so myself, I did a pretty good job. :-)

I was particularly happy to find out that one of the readings I was responsible for (the second reading this past Sunday) was one of my all-time favorite passages. I think it's one that just about anybody can relate to...so here it is!

Philippians 4:4-7 "Brothers and sisters: Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Terrible Blogger!

Wow...I knew that I'd been a bad blogger lately, but I didn't realize that it had been almost two weeks since I last posted! I'm a terrible blogger!

I've actually been thinking about why I haven't been blogging much lately. The first excuse that I thought of was that not much has been happening...but truthfully, just as much has been happening as usual, and that hasn't really stopped me from rambling on aimlessly before. :-) Then I thought that maybe I've been busier than normal...but that really isn't the case at all.

So the excuse I'm going to stick with is this: since I now spend 40 hours a week sitting in front of my computer for work, when I'm finished working, I don't really have much of a desire to sit by the computer and type. Oh sure, I'll still chat with my friends on the Nest, and I'll still use Facebook (including playing Mafia Wars and Bejeweled Blitz), but for the most part, that doesn't take actual brain power.

I'm also going to blame part of it on Blogger (the actual blog site). For the last few weeks (or maybe it's months by now), I've been having issues with my formatting. It's really gotten to be a pain in the neck to get things to load correctly on this blog, and for the slightly-OCD side of my personality, that's very frustrating.

But as an apology, I'm going to brave the formatting issues and leave you with a few pictures of our living room, finally decorated for Christmas. The last photo is an ornament that my Nestie friend Bev sent to me, which I think is completely awesome since this is our first holiday season in our own home!

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, 2008 (374 pages)

I had heard a lot of buzz around the internet about this book, which is pretty impressive considering it just came out last year. I'm sure part of the reason for all the hype is that A) it's a good book, and B) the sequel came out a couple months ago. It actually made the New York Times bestseller list.

The story is set in the nation of Panem, which is located in the ruins of a place once known as North America. This nation is comprised of the Capitol and 12 surrounding Districts. The Capitol controls everybody, and to help keep everyone in line, they hold the "Hunger Games" once a year. One boy and one girl (between the ages of 12 and 18) from each District are chosen by lottery to participate in the games, where the 24 tributes fight to the death.

I actually read the majority of this book in one day. Granted, it's a "Young Adult" novel, so it's a fast read, but it's good enough that I didn't want to put it down. I put in a request at the library for the sequel; there are 34 "holdable copies" in our library system, and I started at #170 on the waiting list. I think the quote I found from Katie Roiphe of The Wall Street Journal says it well: It's "[A] stylish, postmodern Lost in direct collision with The Lord of the Flies. It's a little science fiction, a little survival story, and a little social commentary, all wrapped up together.

I really enjoyed this book, and if you can find a copy of it, I definitely recommend it!

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Total number of books read in 2009: 41

Total number of pages read in 2009: 14760

Thanksgiving

Our lives were certainly a bit more hectic than normal last week with 7 people in the house! But that's one thing that Shawn and I are very thankful for this year...that we were able to purchase a house that allows us to comfortably have multiple people come stay with us! I had the house to myself during the days, Monday through Wednesday, since I had to work. Shawn spent those days with his family, exploring the city. They were nice enough to bring me a cannoli one day and a cupcake another day. :)

On Thursday, most of my day was spent cooking! I did have a bit of help in the kitchen, and I was able to keep an eye on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We also had the football games on (except the Broncos game, which was only shown on the NFL Network...which we don't get as part of our cable package here), and Shawn had some time to play with his nephews.

We ended up having so much food on Thursday! Much of what I made was the same as last year, but that's okay with me! For munchies before dinner, I made the caramel toffee fruit dip and served it with apple slices, and we had baby carrots and celery. Shawn's mom made roasted garlic that she served with bread and cheese. For the actual dinner, I made cranberry sauce, corn casserole, the turkey (of course!), gravy (I'll admit...this came from a packet), mashed potatoes, fried sweet potatoes, and dinner rolls. Shawn made a salad for us, but unfortunately, people seemed to avoid the more healthy options that day. :) We had some friends over, too, and our friend Annie brought some yummy stuffing and the traditional green bean casserole. Another friend brought some desserts...a pumpkin cheesecake and a cranberry-orange trifle. I also made a milk chocolate pecan pie and the same apple pie I made last year. Oh, and we had both whipped cream and ice cream available. :)

Needless to say....we were all really full by the time we finished eating! It was so nice to be able to host a holiday meal for family and friends! I'm hoping that this was just the first of many that Shawn and I can put together. :)

New Chairs

Before family arrived, Shawn and I decided to get some new chairs! We knew when we first moved in that we didn't love our furniture arrangement in the upstairs living room. We just didn't like the fact that the big couch was sitting in front of our big picture window, so we talked about finding some chairs that would go in front of that window instead. Here's what the living room has looked like for the last six weeks or so.Earlier this fall, we had taken a little trip down to the "local" IKEA, just to see what they had. I fell in love with a chair that was actually out of stock at that time. When I checked the IKEA website, it wasn't listed, so I eventually decided that it must be an old model that they were phasing out. So I chose another model that I thought would work well with our furniture.

A couple weeks ago, we headed down to IKEA again, with the intention of going home with a couple new chairs. We thought we'd leave with two Ektorp Jennylund chairs. Instead, when we got to the store, we discovered the Karlsvik model that I had fallen in love with before! And this time, the furniture had a tag on it that said "new!" So that's what we ended up buying...two Karlsvik chairs. They only come in one color, and it actually works pretty well with our current color scheme.

Of course, we realized that the chairs wouldn't fit in our car, so we had them delivered a couple days later. This weekend, before Shawn's family arrived, we rearranged the furniture. We put the loveseat downstairs in the family room, and we moved the sofa over to the little "half way" by the stairwell. Then the two new chairs went in front of the big picture window. Here's what our living room looks like now:

I'm loving our new chairs! They're really comfortable, and they look good. :) And if you have an IKEA near you, the Karlsvik sofa is on sale this Saturday for $199 (instead of the normal $299). I'll admit...I'm tempted to make a trip to IKEA again this weekend! :)

Busy, Busy!

Things have definitely been busy around here! For the last few days, we've been trying to get things ready for Shawn's family to arrive, so that's involved painting, cleaning, unpacking, organizing, and rearranging furniture. Once we figure out where the camera battery charger is located, I'll take some pictures and do individual posts of some of these things.

Saturday was Shawn's last rugby game of the fall season. Although they lost, they played pretty hard. Now Shawn has a couple weeks with no rugby at all...and then "spring training" begins. We think it's funny that "spring" training starts in early December (which is before "winter" even begins!).

Shawn's family has come to visit us and spend Thanksgiving with us! I went to the airport to pick up Shawn's mom tonight, while Shawn waited here for his brother's family to arrive. So for the better part of this week, we'll have a pretty full house! Shawn's brother and sister-in-law drove up from California with our two nephews (ages nine and five and a half). Shawn was brilliant earlier this week, and he saved the boxes that our new chairs came in. So while the adults took some time to relax after the long drive, Shawn and the boys turned the cardboard into a pretty awesome fort. Great way to let the boys run off some energy!

For the next few days, I'll be working from home while Shawn takes his family to do some touristy things around the area. I'll also need to do some more shopping for the Thanksgiving meal. I'll try to do a few posts throughout the week to show what all we're up to!