Story of my Life

It's been a good day today. James started us off right when he got up and fixed biscuits and sausage and eggs and oatmeal. I'm tellin' ya, I don't know what's gotten into him lately (maybe bragging publicly on the blog helps, so I'm gonna keep doing it!), but he's been GREAT! We had a good morning devotion, though one of our readers couldn't find her Bible. Maybe by tomorrow she'll have located it. The kids did well in school and finished decently early, leaving them the rest of the afternoon to play--which they did. Like... instead of fight! It was GREAT!!! The three of them all ended up piling into the boys' room and making "houses" for themselves out of blankets draped over the bunkbeds and various other furniture. They had a blast, they were getting along, and they and their mess were all contained in one room. It was fantastic! And it gave me time to get our Christmas letter all put together and printed out (actually, James did the printing part) and get all of the Christmas cards out and ready to start working on. Then James said he wanted to load the family up and go to town tonight. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HO! HO! HO! HEE! HEE! HA! HA! HA! HA! You can't possibly understand how funny that really is. You see, I don't GO to town. I go gladly for Church. And... that's about it. I'm NOT a big city person and I am WAY out of my element in the mobs of people--over half a million of 'em there. The times when James DOES drag me into town it's in the middle of the day (preferably morning) when the largest percentage of people are either at school or work. I want to be out of town and back up to my cozy little house by 3:00 before the real madness begins. I don't go in the evenings at ALL and very, very rarely do I go all summer long because it's just way too crazy. I guess I'm a public school fan after all. HA! Anyway, I CERTAINLY don't go to town after 5:00 in the evening. And in DECEMBER when the whole world is out there all over the roads and stores and restaurants?! No way. I prefer to do my shopping ahead of time and then live like a happy little hermit throughout the holidays. ;-) Anyway...

James got me to town tonight.

Wanna know how he did it? It really wasn't fair at all. He threw out the bait knowing full well I'd take it. Here it is:

Ha! I couldn't believe it when I saw on Aunt Kay's blog that they'd been to the new Krispy Kreme in their area--we just had one open up this past weekend, too! People actually CAMPED OUT there the night before the grand opening--tents and all--and it was COLD outside! It had to have gotten down into the thirties that night, maybe twenties. But the first 12 people through the door got a full year's worth of free doughnuts. :-) Anyway, you can get Krispy Kremes sometimes at a gas station or something like that, but it's just not the same. I hadn't had a HOT, FRESH Krispy Kreme straight through the grease and under the sheet of glaze and into my mouth in YEARS. You know, when you go to pick it up and it just squishes between your fingers because it's so soft and warm, then you put it in your mouth and don't even have to chew because the pure deliciousness of it all just melts there all by itself... ~Mmmmmmmmm~ James played that card and it worked like a charm. Ha! So at about 5:00 tonight (I'm struggling to believe I actually went for this now that I'm rehearsing it) we headed into town and then to the FAR end of town where the KK was reported to have opened up. We needed to get a bite to eat and I told James I didn't care where--if he saw a restaurant with a parking space, TAKE IT. It was in the area surrounding the big mall and I knew it would be CRAZY busy. We ended up at Chick-fil-A which, of course, had all the kids singing the song. "Suddenly... I need waffle fries in front of me... And some nuggets and large sweet tea, oh, Chick-fil-A, you set me free!" Ha! I was surprised to find that they knew most of the words to that song. Amazing. I was also surpised to find that I actually enjoyed my meal. I've discovered that a great many things can be made quite enjoyable if slathered in make-shift fry sauce. Just don't count the calories. Especially when you're on your way to Krispy Kreme. Ha!

Ah, yes. Then we were off to find the Krispy Kreme. The girl at Chick-fil-A gave either pointed to the wrong street or James misunderstood which street she was pointing to when she told him how to find it. So I went in and asked a guy at a gas station. We wandered around for a while and finally discovered that the huge swaying spotlights flashing back and forth across the sky were coming from the Krispy Kreme! Trying to light the way the whole time, and we didn't even know it! Ha! You can see the lights in the back of that truck in the picture above, but you can't see how bright and far the beams were shining. It was cool! The line was quite long, of course, but we didn't have to stand outside so what's to complain about?! We bought two dozen and cleared out one box right then and there. Each kid had two and James and I had three! Ha! I feel like such a pig! But a very, very happy pig. :-) The second box was brought home for breakfast tomorrow.

Before we left town we decided to drive a few streets to look for Christmas lights. I don't ever remember doing that when I was a kid, but James LOVES doing that and our family does it several times during the Christmas season. It's fun. But it's a lot harder now that we live here--it was so easy to know where to go in Andrews! We just drove a couple of neighborhoods tonight, but saw some pretty good displays.

We had seen this one in the daylight last week (it's right behind the Pizza Hut where we went for the kids' Book It! stuff) and we knew it would be great at night, so we went to see it. :-)

We got home at just about bedtime, so we shuffled all the kids off to bed and I sat down and started writing out Christmas cards. I think I made it to "C" in my address book. Maybe. Ha! I don't have the motivation to do any more tonight, so I'm hoping I can work on them tomorrow while the kids are doing school. We'll see!

Tomorrow night is sure to be a grand and glorious night even though we're going to town again. ;-) We're going for Church this time (I'm always okay with going for that purpose!) and then sometime tomorrow night the Hays will be coming to stay with us. Wa-Hoo!!! Gotta get the house cleaned up, the snacks prepared, and the games warmed up. :-) They'll be going to Texas to preach a weekend revival and decided they'd stop here on their way. I told James to let them know that it's TRADITION that they come see us because they've come here the past two Decembers--it just wouldn't be right if they didn't come again. ;-) They will only be here the one night, but I'll settle for that. ~sigh~ I'm so excited!!!

After that I've got to get to work on my ABM service for Sunday night. We're going to have it here at the house, which makes me happy. I'm pretty sure I know the direction I'm wanting to go with the service--a scripture from Hebrews just jumped out at my during devotions with the kids the other day--I just need to get it all put together. Next week, who knows! I'm SO enjoying this Christmas season. I was thinking the other day about how very, very blessed I am and how very, very happy I feel. Sometimes life gets hard or you have trials that are tough to deal with. God is good even during those times, of course. But right now I'm not facing any of those hard things. I look around me and see a husband who loves God, loves the Church, and loves me and our kids; three kids who are fun and crazy and talented and (for the most part) very good and happy; a home that is nice and cute and cozy and comfortable--and Christmassy! Besides all of the other reasons to be thankful--salvation and The Church of God and good health and food to eat, clothes to wear, the best friends and extended family in the world, etc. I am just feeling so grateful for all of the blessings He's flooded my life with. Things are so good and I feel so very blessed. :-)