Busy Nothings

For as much as I can’t stand the materialism of the modern-day Santa Claus hype, last night the Mr. and I rented the movie “Elf” and I loved it! Not just because it’s a hilariously funny heartwarming adoption story, but mostly that. I still can’t get over that I got all emotional and weepy over a Santa Claus movie, but stranger things have happened. I’ve discovered a few movies that I like this year that seem to be unusual for me to like–”Hellboy” is another one of those. Anyway, I can see myself watching this movie as a holiday tradition just like “White Christmas.” And the soundtrack is awesome!
There’s my review of a secular movie. Go figure.

A recent gallup poll shows that the average person plans to spend about $730 this year on Chrismas presents ($400-500), food, drink, and extras. Just for fun I checked out what I have spent on Christmas gifts for my immediate family of 25 and my in-laws of 2. I’ve estimated the cost to be about $114. That comes out to about $4.22 per person’s gift. Am I a cheapskate? Yep–but not because I don’t love my family. I have also put about 80 hours into these presents because I made them all!
Last year I realized we just didn’t have money for gifts and so I decided to make gifts from what craft supplies I had lying around and what I could pick up on clearance or on super-sale at craft stores. I enjoyed the time spent on each individual’s gift that I decided I would make as many as I could. Even though gifts were small, I poured all the love I could into them.
This year is the same. I had more fun making my brother and 3 nephews matching pajama pants than I could ever have browsing through the crowded toy aisles. And more fun making a collection of cards for my mother and mother-in-law (hope they won’t read this) than paging through catalogs trying to find another knick-knack to take up space in their already crowded houses. I have two gifts left to make for two of my brothers, and I’m sure I will enjoy spending the time on those, too.
Christmas gifts of long ago used to be practical and homemade, and only in recent years have they become the extravagent gifts people are crowding Walmart to buy. I say we restart this whole gifting thing and put some time and heart back into what we give each other for Christmas. After all, don’t we give gifts to the ones we love? Why not put the time and love back into the gifts? Who’s with me?

It’s Thanksgiving. This is the day set aside by congress to have a day off and get together with our families and feast on turkey and pumpkin pie (but before you do that, read this post). Well, not just to stuff ourselves like a turkey, but to give thanks to our Heavenly Father for all his many blessings.
I am thankful for His provision, but thinking back over the year, I can recall many other Thanksgiving Days. After seeing The Passion of the Christ I spent three days in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving for Christ’s sacrifice for me. In July my husband and I prayed as we watched his temperature climb past 103. Not even an hour after we began praying, his temperature dropped to 99. The praise and Thanksgiving that went up that night! My greatest Thanksgiving Day celebration of the year happened in a hospital waiting room when, after 5 hours in the OR, the doctor came and told me my husband’s surgery went well and everything was fine. And there have been several other bone infection-related Thanksgiving Days this year.
I can’t limit my Thanksgiving to one day–24 hours is not enough time to praise my God for all the blessings this year. Imagine being told “I love you” by your spouse or another family member only one day a year. I don’t know about you, but that would be hard for me. In the same way, we shouldn’t relegate our thankfulness to God to the fourth Thursday of the eleventh month. He deserves our thankful prayers and praise every day of the year.
I do not mean to sound self-righteous. I am chastising myself as much as the next guy. It’s pretty sad that I can remember the few days (emphasis on the few) this year when I was so thankful to the point of tears. But as I cultivate my relationship with God I become more and more thankful for his many blessings and especially for his plan of salvation. Lord help me to be thankful every day, not just one day a year!

The fetus in my sister-in-law’s body turned magically into a baby boy at the exact time of 4:20 p.m today. Up until that time, of course, he was nothing but a blob of tissue that my sister-in-law could have discarded from her body had she not wanted the inconvenience.
Sounds rediculous, doesn’t it?

Today I was out shopping for a few left-over gifts for my students. One in partiular because he is a batchelor and I wanted to find something cheeful to help him decorate. I was in a local department store and was looking at display after display of Christmas ornaments. Two women were in department ooh-ing and ah-ing over all the “cute” ornaments. Interested in what they found to be so cute, I went to that particular display when they had moved on. There were frogs, Santas, more Santas, a few other Santas and a couple of dogs with bobble heads. Out of the 50 or so ornaments in the display, I didn’t find any particularly cute.
I then moved on to the next display they had just vacated with ornaments they just had to have. This one had Santa baking, all kinds of cookie and candy ornaments, but, again, nothing too exciting.
I listened to their conversation as they filled up their basket with all kinds of ornaments, still not finding the “right” one for my student. How could I be looking at 100s of different ornaments and not find a single one?
There was a “wall” of snowmen. Another of outdoorsy theme. Two of victorian ornaments, two of just silly animals, Santas, etc. One of candy and cookies. One of clear plastic trees, snowflakes,snowment. One of metallic trees, balls, and other shiny stuff. I did not see, in all those hundreds of ornaments, even a single angel.
I know the materialistic world has taken over Jesus’ holiday, but it saddened me to hear first hand the secular excitement of decorating and spending money on those rediculous ornaments, and I was saddened even further that not a single remotely religious ornament was being sold.
I love holiday traditions as much as the next person. Gift giving is my love language to others, so it’s a holiday that I really enjoy. But without the joy of the birth of my Savior, or any acknowledgement of Christ’s birth at all? I can’t imagine.
I am more convinced than ever that my gifts to my students this year spread the message of Christ’s birth. The world really, really needs to hear the significance of that little Bethlehem baby.

All this bad media coverage of the war in Iraq and lately in Fallujah has really been aggravating. Our soldiers are doing their job and protecting freedom over there and we can’t even give them some positive support? I am so tired of hearing about this video of the soldier shooting an “unarmed” insurgent. Why don’t we ever hear the stories leading up to these so-called “brutalities”? Well, Mike Reagan wrote an article and posted it on his website, and you should really check it out. He blasts the media and exposes them for their left-wing conspiracies.

I was doing some research to find an inexpensive Christmas gift for my students with a Christian message and ran across this article. What a great witness!!! But what a messed up political world we live in!

It might be well spent on this little treasure listed on ebay. Oh, don’t forget the article that goes with it!

Check out this site! Glenn Beck has done it again! How hilarious!

Usually when I am asked where I moved from or where I went to college, I’ll say “Milwaukee” without hesitation. Now I can’t believe I moved here from the City Of Whining Aldermen. With only one opposing vote, the Common Council of the city of Milwaukee voted to bill both the Bush and Kerry campaigns for expenses totalling over $200,000 incurred by the police department. Good grief! I agree with the lone Alderman that the city and state should be grateful for the attention received by the campaigns. To quote Alderman Witkowski in the article: “It was wrong, he argued, to “retroactively say, ‘We’re sorry we had the spotlight; we have a bill for you.’” I agree. If you don’t want an influx of people traveling from all over the state to your city, eating at your city’s restaurants, staying in your city’s hotels, buying stuff from your city’s merchants, just refuse to host the candidates. Do they not see the revenue generated by these candidates, only the expenditures? They want the city sales tax on all that revenue AND an additional $200,000. Again, good grief!!!

Sometimes I get annoyed by all the cliches around Christmas time. They seem to be repeated so often the meaning behind them is lost. One of the most annoying, to me anyway, is “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” I’ve seen it on mugs, pencils, photo frames, decorations, ornaments, Christmas cards. Not that there isn’t truth in it, just that it’s over used.
But yesterday in the mail I saw something that got me thinking. It was a Christmas catalog from the local Christian bookstore and on the front in big letters it said “YOU are the Reason for the Season.” I got to thinking about it, and decided it’s a much more accurate version. Sure, at Christmas we Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, but is he really the reason for Christmas? “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. ” Galatians 4:4-5. It was because of us and our sin that Jesus had to come in the first place. Had we not been sinners, he would have stayed put. So, in reality, there would be no Christmas if we were not sinners that needed to be redeemed from the punishment of hell. We really are the reason for the season! I’m so thankful to have a loving God who had this plan of redemption for us.

Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away!

Or, in CISCO-speak:

Physical
Data
Network
Transport
Session
Presentation
Application

I’m helping hubby study for his Cisco certification and learning a few things about networking myself. Not bad for an arts and crafts musician who grew up across the street from a pig farm.

Every so often we get ValuPaks in the mail–envelopes filled with coupons for services or items from businesses in our area. I always look through them, but have yet to actually take the bait on any of their deals. This last ValuPak, however, shocked me. It contained a coupon for 10% off any services offered from Planned Parenthood! Yes, folks, our society is “so far gone” that coupons can now be used for an abortion! It sure helps to make abortion more affordable for uneducated women! Save money, not babies!! Good grief! Not that grief is ever good, it’s just my new catch phrase.

So it’s been a while since I blogged. Here is my list of excuses:
1. I hurriedly flew down south at the beginning of May and stayed a month. My grandma was near death. Turns out death has to really fight this stubborn German woman–she’s still hanging on!
2. In June my step-bro came up for a week. We went brew pub hopping. Can’t remember much of that week…
3. My dear hubby, bdk, was diagnosed with a UTI possibly a Kidney infection which later showed up as a staph infection which seeded itself next to the rod in his leg causing a bone infection.
4. That was June and July, in August he had surgery which took 6 weeks to recover from. That puts us in October.
5. It’s November 13, that’s only a couple weeks after October. Gimme a break!