~Aaaaahhhh~

It's been a good weekend around here. Yesterday was the big Undecorate the House Day. Trouble was I was in slo-o-o-o-o-ow motion all morning! I kept moving and kept working, but it felt like I somebody had pushed a button and put me on half speed. Very frustrating when there's so much to be done!

All of my wood was soooooooo dry and I decided I would lemon oil every bit of wood in the room, from shelves and furniture down to door trim and baseboards. It takes quite a while to do that, especially when you're wood is as dry as mine was. It just soaks it in! But things look and feel sooooo much better! And it always feels good to take care of the things God has blessed you with, you know? It's one of those "good steward" feelings. :-)

Remember how dried out your piano was, Mom? Look how pretty now! :-) :-) :-)

Makes me so very happy.

We did have one little issue with the undecorating. I couldn't make myself do it all! Before I go on, let me ask your opinion. That's all I want--just your honest opinion... (Anybody seen "The Shop Around the Corner"?! Ha!) This display... does it look Christmassy, or just simply wintery--what, with all of the red and BLUE instead of red and green. It's just snow and trees and snowmen carrying some BIRTHDAY presents...

~sigh~ I just couldn't put them away yet. It seems like they just got here, you know?! So I pulled out a few of my favorite pieces and decided to let them stick around through January. :-) It's so weird... I'm usually DONE with all of this stuff and ready to get back to normal life by the time Christmas dinner is over with. This is the first year I ever remember just wanting to let it all linger a while longer! James, HE WHO STARTS LISTENING TO CHRISTMAS MUSIC IN AUGUST, is giving me serious grief over it. "What?! You can't keep that out through January! Christmas is OVER, Bec--it's time to put all that stuff away!" ?!?!? From HIM?! A wee bit hypocritical if you ask me. ;-) We've made an agreement, though. Since he's letting my winter snowmen hang around for an extra month, I'm supposed to let him listen to "winter" music throughout the month. I told him he's welcome to listen to anything that speaks of snow or the winter season, but has no direct referrence to Christmas. Of course, right now "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" is pouring from his computer! Ha! We listened to Christmas music yesterday while I was packing all the stuff away and I was even kind of sad to know that I wouldn't be able to hear all of it for another 11 months. I put my three favorite CDs on shuffle and enjoyed them to the max. Between George, Harry and Michael, it was great stuff! Of course George (Strait, that is--that CD you got me last year is one of my FAVORITES, Tammy! It's SOOOOO GOOD!) has this one song (in spite of how much I love the others) that drives me absolutely bonkers. It's too... country for me, I guess! He just talks it instead of singing it. It starts by saying "Leon Dixon keeps his Christmas lights up all year round" in a thick, Texas drawl. So James kept following me around yesterday and saying in his best Yankee-turned-southern accent, "Rebekah (last name) keeps her snowmen up all year round... It's somethin' diff'rent about our town... Folks wonder why she never takes 'em down... but Rebekah (last name) keeps her snowmen up all year round..." HA!

In the end, I burnt out way before the project was actually finished. I got all of the Christmas stuff boxed up... but it's all stacked in the living room still! I was able to get almost all of the wood oiled and room and floor cleaned up and back into place. I just need to vacuum the couch real good, oil two or three more pieces of wood, and scrub the middle of the floor. (I did the edges as I went so I could put the furniture back into place.) Hopefully it will all be gloriously clean and shining by this time tomorrow. :-)

I got my Sunday School stuff all ready last night, then curled up by a very toasty fire and finished my book. ~aaaaahhhhhh!~ What a great way to end a long day! The book was EXCELLENT. One of the best I've read, even in this series of really great books. I'm sad they've come to an end!!!

We had good church services today. Sunday School went good with the kids, good worship (I was blessed, anyway!) and James preached about how the Pharisees skipped over such commandments as "Honor thy father and mother," but harped about folks not washing their hands before they ate. CRAZY! I don't want to be that way. Getting all wound up about things I believe God has called me to while overlooking the basic truths and requirements of the Word.

Have I ever mentioned how wonderful our church folks are here? They are the most AMAZING pounders I've ever seen. Sister Galaviz had a really nice pounding for us this morning, then Sister Grimes said to come by her house after service to pick up the one from her and Pat. We got to her house before she did, however, so we ran down the road to the empty Taco Bell on Central. I can't imagine why we were the only folks in there at lunch time. I mean, it's really no big deal for a fast food joint to have run out of EVERY kind of soda except Baja Blast and lemonade, right?! We toughed it out and the kids thoroughly enjoyed studying and discussing the two bullet holes in the window we were sitting next to. ~ahem~ Gotta love Central Avenue in Albuquerque! Ha! We then went back to Sister Grimes' house and were overwhelmed once again. Between the two poundings, we received several items we had JUST ran out of. God is so amazing that way!!!

We got home to some very icy roads. It had been spitting snow throughout the morning up on our mountain and there was a new inch or so of it on the ground. :-) I told Joe to sit tight and I'd get the gate so James could drive up to the house. HA! Not smart. I was wearing my dress boots. They're great and I love them (I'm not a very fashion conscious person, but boots are so fun!), but these were NOT meant for snow and ice. I didn't think anything about it because there was an inch of snow on the ground, but underneath that inch of snow was a nice, solid, smooth, skating-rink-quality slab of ice. HA! I started slipping and screaming and laughing and for a split second had recovered my footing, just in time to lose it again. I went sliding and flailing and wailing and laughing and finally ended up in a little pile at the rear of the Envoy. HA! It's been ages since I've fallen. I've had several near falls, but have always managed to clumbsily recover myself before I actually hit the ground. It was quite humerous even from my angle. My dear husband sat in his heated seat, pushed the button to roll down the passenger window and hollered, "You okay???" Ha! My hero. ;-) I wrestled my way up to the window and assured him I was fine. My hip should show some pretty good evidence of that hard ice by morning, I would suspect, but otherwise it was actually kind of fun. :-) A good fall (with no broken bones) does a body well every once in a while.

I got a really nice Sunday afternoon nap, which is the only way to have a truly grand Sunday. Especially after staying up late and reading a really great book the night before. ;-) I was sure to wear some different shoes to church tonight, some with better traction. James talked about Regeneration and then, after overcoming some technical difficulties, showed a clip of Sister Morrow's message from the Assembly on the subject. It was so good and really a blessing to everybody there, I think.

One last thing before I go. Am I the only person who is immensely amused by this???

We were at a dear lady's house recently and this is what her walls look like. She's in the process of moving, so she's clearing all of her walls and packing things up. Her shelves had already been hung with some heavy duty anchor bolts so when she decided to paint the rooms in this house she didn't want to take the shelves down due to the giant holes that would be in the walls. So she left them in place and simply painted around them! HA! I understand her logic, but I'm still CRACKING UP over it! So now that she's moving she's taking the shelves down, filling the holes, and painting over the white shadows of the shelves that used to be there. Ha! I love it! She occassionally looks at my blog and I thought she might enjoy seeing this picture here. Love you, lady!!! ;-)