Update on the deck...

In the midst of winter and raging winds and rain (drama drama drama) Jim finally was able to get the boards on the deck completely attached. We had purchased a very heavy table that has been hanging out down on the parking pad for months. So Jim rented a hyster today and lifted it up. Even in winter things CAN get accomplished! (If you click on the last pic it will enlarge it and you can see the goofy face that I get to see all the time but others never do)

shnikies...

That last post bit me in the butt. Yep. I am now having such a time of getting to the top of my days lately. What? I have such bad news surrounding me? No. Impending doom yet to turn the corner? I don't know. I have a burden to carry? Nope. Instead I feel like it is a burden I get to throw off. And yet, I like it for the moment. It's a burden I have carried almost my entire life and now I see it is a burden where before I thought it was the way it was. A fact of life. A trueness. But it's not. It's not true, real or factual. I must have made it up and then decided that it was true for everyone and no wonder I have been disappointed when others don't play by that rule. I cannot be disappointed as they (others) have consistently been living true and it is I that have been in the dark. Crap.
I cannot share the thing I have held as it is too intimate, too personal. But what I am willing to share is that when faced with truth and another's real feelings about it I must make a choice to honor it instead of stay in my crossed-arm-across-my-chest demand that I have my way. When I ask for the truth and it is given, will I choose to hate it or love it? Do I choose to accept it and move in another direction other than my pretend real or do I want to stay in my lala land? I like my lala land. So I could stay. But then, I would be on the outside of truth and that will not serve me.
Lord, create in me a clean heart. Cleanse me of this demand to have it my way. Wipe the slate clean so that I can see the truth and love it. Thank you.

Happiness...my choice.

Yes, as the years pass I realize how much happiness is a choice. How I desire to always choose it. When smacked in the face with difficult people (who seem to make it their daily ambition to get under my skin), traumatic illness, death, when others choose actions that dramatically affects so many around them and in the world, and just plain boredom, I can still choose happiness.
Happiness has a bad rap. For some they will say I may not be happy but I have joy.(This is stated in the most pious form.) Please pardon me if you have said that from the deepest part of you. I realize that we have been trained to believe that God does not want us to be happy. That somehow carrying around a burden is my responsibility. But for some they say this almost as an excuse of sorts to keep from making the choice to be happy.
Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life and life abundantly." I really think He would love for my choice to be to rest, breathe, and love. When I act in faith that all is well and in it's perfect order then I can easily choose happiness. When I know that my life is perfect and resting in the hands of a loving kind Father then I can choose happiness.
This is my goal. This is the way I want to live. I choose happiness.

Christmas 2009

I had so much fun this year with these Scrabble board for each neice. Each board was personalized for each individual. I stole this idea from Lisa and am I happy she created the idea to begin with! They were a blast and I think they were a hit! Diane was so tickled to show Zoe their nativity. We had Christmas dinner at Diane and Charley's. There was a photo op and we took advantage of it! In attendance: Mom and Dad (celebrating their 53rd wedding anniversary on the 22nd), Diane, Charley, Meg, Dave, Bev, Angelica, Zoe, Hadassah, Alex, Travis, Staci, Aubrey, her boyfriend Micah, his brother Nathan, Lizzy, her boyfriend Alec, Leila, Phil, Jim and me!

2010...Wow.

And so here we are. 2010. Amazing. My life is so full it's hard to imagine that one more good thing can fit. But I welcome it. Yes, all things that come are good. Sometimes I question that fact, but the reality is everything happens for a reason. It will take it's place in my life and provide whatever it came to provide. I just get to take hold of it and grasp it for what it is to me.
I am ever so grateful for 2009. With it brought a wonderful 2 new great neices (one arriving at just the last minute!), a potentially awesome deck for fun and beauty in 2010, illness and wellness, new friends, the beginning of a new great nephew, triumphs, weight loss and weight gain, so many memories of laughter and tears, creativity and the birth of more creativity.
2010...here I come. Watch out cuz I am on a roll!