2009 is nearly over

Well it’s the final week of 2009. My how the year has gone so quickly. It seems like just the other day it was freezing outside and I was stressed out about getting to La Grande for Christmas because of all the ice. Only, that was a year ago!

So, since it’s a new year several people have asked me what my New Years Resolutions are. Honestly… I haven’t put too much thought into this because I can’t remember ever having one that I’ve kept/fulfilled. I mean I always have the basics… pray more… read my Bible more… and lose weight. But this time I’ve decided I’m going to put more thought into it and make realistic goals.

Rather than “lose weight” I’m asking myself to lose the last 35 lbs by the end of summer. This means I have to lose approximately 0.8 lbs a week. Not much, but completely realistic.

I want to start an exercise program. Something I can afford, and will enjoy, but not something I can get bored at easily. So, I was debating a wii fit, but changed my mind. I am going with the floor mat, hand weights and good ol DVD’s. AAAAHHH you say, DVD’s get boring… well, not when you have Netflix and there is a huge array of exercise DVD’s I can have at my house and keep for an unlimited amount of time. I will more than likely increase my usage from 3 at a time, to 4 at a time just so I don’t mess with the amount we use at home.

I want to be less organized and anal. Yes I said that. Sometimes I think I’m too organized … and that causes grief for me because there is little flexibility for other things. We’ll see how this works…because I don’t have any clue how to implement it. I think it’s my nature and just the way I was born!

We’ll see how these all work out as I try to implement them. Just pray I can follow through and not be such a lazy girl.

Christmas is just around the corner!

Christmas is just around the corner and I’m sooo excited this year! The funny thing is, I’m not even sure exactly why! Maybe it’s because we’re done shopping and I can just sit back and enjoy everything!

Today John and I got off work about four hours early so we could get a few things done in the day-light, like get the Christmas lights up!!! But get this, we’re not done. No it’s not because we have a bazillion lights like Clark Griswald. It’s because Christmas light stink now-a-days! Seriously! Why is it that every year I have to buy new lights? They are always the specialty lights too! Last year, new icicle lights. The year before? New icicle lights. It’s these ones the most that drive me nuts. You can’t replace the bulbs because nine times out of ten you can’t figure out which one is broken! So you think well I’ll just go get one new set, they’re only seven or eight bucks. Then you go to the store. You buy the set you think looks like yours. Get home…. Nope. They’re too short. Or too long. Aren’t the same color of white. Don’t twinkle the same. Either way, they don’t match, and you’re stuck… because alas you cannot locate a set that is exactly like yours. Why you ask? Probably because the dumb light-makers know this and do it intentionally so you have to buy a whole flippin butt-load again!!! Errr. So this year? The icicle lights are coming off and we have regular lights up!!! Yay!!! But we only got the strip along the house done, the window, and our snow-flakes up, because it got too dark because of too much time at the stores!!

Onto other Christmas things… we got our first Christmas card today! Yay!!! Amy & Dave Bertolini were the winners! Usually I already have mine out… I honestly try to mail them out the first couple days of the month. I’ve been a slacker so far and haven’t even addressed the envelopes or purchased stamps (bad me!)! But I love getting Christmas cards. It’s one of the few times in life where it’s fun checking the mail! Not to mention I use them to decorate up my closet door in the living room. It’s so fun to see how full it gets! Every year I take a picture and compare it. This year I want to try something new with our Christmas cards. I read about it in a magazine once. After you take down your cards… you keep them and don’t throw them away. Every night for the next however long it takes, you pull one card from the stack and throw it away. But not before you first pray over the family or company that sent you the card. What an awesome idea!!

Speaking of new things I’m doing this Christmas season… I’m baking a ton of cookies! Or, well, maybe a ton! I was talking with a couple ladies at work today and we decided to do a Christmas cookie exchange. We sent a slip around the office to see if anyone else wanted to participate! FUN! If you don’t know what one of these is, it’s where each person in the group bakes a dozen cookies for all the others in the group. So, if there are five people participating…you bake five dozen cookies. But you bake all the same kind. And they must be homemade. Then, you each end up with five dozen different cookies when you’re all done! We’re doing it slightly different as in once it reaches six participants we’re doing a half dozen for each person. If we get more than a dozen I think we’re doing four cookies per person. In an office of 34 people… I am not risking making 34 dozen cookies! The beauty of this is if someone doesn’t do it, it doesn’t hurt too much!

So as you can see…I’m really starting to get in the Christmas spirit. I love this time of year…and I love being able to have friends and family over…celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus!

His Blessings!

the Bestest Husband!

I think I have the best husband out there! Now ladies, I know you may think your hubby is the best… but you’re wrong. ;) Mine is! Last year was our 10th anniversary and John was unemployed. So we didn’t do much, we did stay at the coast in a friends beach house (as it’d already been paid for before the job loss). But we just stayed in and watched TV and visited for four days. He wants to make it up to me for this year so he just booked our Anniversary combination Birthday weekend! Yay!! Yes, our anniversary isn’t until May and the weekend isn’t until June… but I’m excited! I get to be pampered!!!

We will be stay at McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. It’s beautiful. It was built in 1922 as a Masonic & Eastern Star Home and was purchased and remodeled by McMenamins in 2000. We will arrive on Friday evening to enjoy the romance package. Complete with a bottle of sparkling wine, keepsake champagne flutes, massage oils and chocolates! Saturday am we will enjoy a complementary breakfast in one of the two restaurants onsite. Later that afternoon we will each enjoy separate 60-min massages via the spa-package. I also get to have a facial and possibly a pedicure The following morning, Sunday, we will enjoy another complementary breakfast in the restaurant and then head off to some wine touring via the tour and taste package! After wine tasting we will enjoy a complementary dinner with a free glass of wine each. Yum! Only to have to come home Monday morning. :( But alas… I am sure I will find time to take a visit to their soaking pool as well! *sigh* I am excited!!!

Now, if only I can wait six and a half more months.

So why start a blog?

So why start a blog you ask? Isn’t Facebook enough? Well, this blog is personally for me. I seem to be dealing with a lot of different emotional issues in my life lately, and for those that know me well enough you know I am not an emotional person. You know I avoid drama like the plague. And you know I avoid crying at all costs.

So… why blog? Well, it seems this last few years I’ve missed the journaling stage of my life. I miss writing poetry. I miss expressing myself through my writing (not that it’s any good mind you!). But I think I need this… for me. It seems as I’ve gotten older I’m learning a lot more about myself than I ever thought I could. I’m learning I feel a lot more than I want to admit. I’m learning I really enjoy stuffing everything inside and pretending it’s not there. Not healthy of course. Not that I have serious issues I’m stuffing away, but hey… if it’s conflict or emotional I don’t want to deal with it. So I just don’t. I tell myself to get over it and move on.

What are some of the things I’m learning you ask? Well for starters I’m more of a control freak than I ever imagined. I know some of you are laughing because you know this already. But seriously… really bad control freak. I want to control every aspect of my life down to the finest detail. And guess what? I can’t do that…. I’m slowly learning to let go and let God handle the things in my life and to trust Him to take care of everything. It’s not as easy as you might think. Especially when you’ve been trying to control your life (and occasionally those lives of my loved ones) for the last 34 years.

I was working on my study of the book of Esther tonight (for those who haven’t done Beth Moore’s study I highly recommend it) and something really popped out at me. Granted Beth is discussing the fact that King Xerxes cannot sleep, but she says

“Sometimes sleep escapes me because my mind won’t rest, I had that last cappuccino a tad too late, or my hormones are fighting over which side of the bed they want to sleep on: the sweet side or the mean side. Other times sleep escapes me because the Lord took it. He intended to keep me awake to attend to something I keep overlooking in the relentless demands of daylight.”

Lately I haven’t been sleeping well… at all. I think it’s a combination of things. Sort of a cycle probably because it seems like one thing feeds the other. If you know don’t know I have fibromyalgia. This causes my muscles to become agitated and restless. The fibromyalgia can be worse if I don’t get enough sleep or enough exercise. The muscles will also ache (kind of like growing pains when you were a kid). Hence the cycle. The muscles ache. I don’t exercise. They ache and become agitated worse. I need to sleep. I can’t sleep… so since I don’t have the rest, they hurt more. It’s an annoying little thing it is. But this isn’t the only reason I’m not sleeping. I can’t get my brain to turn off. I think about everything lately. I think about all my concerns throughout the day. And lately it’s been primarily two major concerns in my life.

Is God intending to keep me away to attend to something I’m overlooking during the daylight? Beth goes on to say “In those times when God Himself takes our sleep, His reason isn’t always a reminder or a reprimand. Sometimes He simply has something to say.” She then asks the question: How about you? When was the last time the Lord took sleep from you?

I wasn’t really sure how to answer this question. Is He taking it from me? Or is Satan because he wants me to focus on my worries? I really sat down and analyzed this and finally came to the conclusion it didn’t really matter. What I’d been learning with my lack of sleep was that I needed to trust God. I needed to trust Him with my worries. And more than anything I needed to bump up my prayer life. I haven’t been talking to Him much. I haven’t been pouring my heart out. I haven’t been telling him my worries. So I started praying at night instead. I started earnestly talking to God about everything. And the last two nights I have slept. Not perfect mind you, but I’ve slept enough that I feel rested. God is giving me the rest… in my mind, body, and spirit.

I just wish it wouldn’t have taken all the sleepless nights for me to realize the way to fall asleep.

His blessings,
Sarah