time flies...

Today is my oldest nephew's 4th birthday.  WOW.  Time flies, especially when it comes to kids growing up.  It definitely does not seem like four years ago when I was in college, waiting for the phone call to drive home for his birth.  Who knew - he waited to come until my finals were over and I was already there!

Two more days of work and then I head north.  Today my plan is to take something back to Wal-mart that I don't need for a Christmas present anymore... wrap a couple more things, and start packing.  Tomorrow I have church in the morning and we are going scavenger caroling tomorrow night.  That is a fun twist on caroling - they stop at each house (we are going to members' homes) and have to sing a song before asking for an item from their Christmas scavenger list.  We'll come back to the church and have hot chocolate if it's cold, which I think it's supposed to be.

Monday morning I'm just going to work 10ish-noon and then head on out.  Since there is supposed to be snow up north on Tuesday and Wednesday, I want to get there ahead of that.  I can't WAIT for the cold weather and the snow.  Bring it on!  I miss it so much.  Yesterday it was at least 65 degrees here and there was no air or heat on my apartment.  But the problem is that my apartment was a little warm.  I didn't really want to turn on the A/C in December just to cool it down, so I hung in there. :)

Maybe I'll watch Elf (again) today just to get a little more into the Christmas spirit.  And I'm going to make Mom's Christmas cookies at some point... probably tomorrow night, but I may do it tonight.  The Colts beat the Jags and clinched a playoff spot, so that helps everybody's Christmas spirit, right? ;)

I may not blog again before Christmas, or even New Year's, for that matter... so...

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I hope you have wonderful holiday celebrations with your family and friends.  Rejoice in the reason for this season!

so far, so good

Well, I've made it this far without getting sick.  I worked from home one afternoon this week to get away from the sicknessess that were going around church.  Now I'm "off" (at least out of the church building) until Sunday morning, so let's hope I can continue to avoid it.  I'm not usually this worried about germs and getting sick, but when I'm just a few days away from holding those babies, I don't want to be anything but a healthy aunt!

I went out to dinner tonight with a new friend at Taste of Thai.  I LOVE that place.  I hadn't met her before, but actually a friend of my mom's from home knew both of us and said that we should meet.  We had a good time and hopefully we'll go out again!

My Christmas shopping is one gift away from being complete.  It's even almost all wrapped - I still have two more things here that I need to wrap, and the rest is, or will be, at my parents' house.

I guess I should head to bed, since I really have nothing exciting at all to say.  I hope you have a great weekend and are looking forward to sharing the holiday with family and friends!  See you soon...

Sick?

Everybody around me is sick. It is absolutely going around at the office. At least 3 people have been sick on staff - there are only 8 of us! We also have a preschool in our church (although today was the last day for 2008) and it's been going around there, too. I had been in for about three hours today and I made a decision to head home and work from here. Thank goodness that I have that flexibility - I didn't want to get sick and could attempt to avoid it by staying away for a while. I came home and took a shower and changed my clothes. We'll see if it works.

My parents and Ian were here over the weekend. We had SUCH a great time. We did several "festive" things and Ian really enjoyed it. His birthday is this Saturday and I am going to miss the party, so I gave him his presents while he was here. It was a very, very fun weekend.

I'm looking forward to being home for the holidays. It will be nice to be there for just short of two weeks - and I get to spend time with great friends from growing up, high school, and college over New Year's. I can't WAIT to see them - some of them I haven't seen in 3.5 years or longer. Wow!

I am enjoying my Christmasey (I made that word up) apartment. I love laying on the couch with the tree lights turned on. I love my nativity (from AtHome America) and it all just looks so pretty!

I have something every evening until I head home, so hopefully the next days will go by quickly. I can't wait to see people on Christmas Eve and hopefully at other times during the break, too!

Enjoy the season of Advent as we look forward to the greatest gift of all...

'tis the season

'Tis the season for great football games... for staying inside and being warm when it's really cold outside... and for being just a little bit sick.

That sums up my weekend for you. I wasn't feeling the greatest on Thursday (sore throat), so I decided I would take it easy this weekend. I have spent a lot of time watching football and making my Christmas cards (which I definitely didn't think was going to happen this year!).

I'm happy to report that I'm feeling MUCH better. I will still nurse the throat with OJ for a few more days (because it helps and because I LOVE it), just to keep the upward swing.

Tomorrow night are the youth Christmas parties. One party for middle school, another for high school. Everybody is supposed to bring an appetizer to share (yum!) and a gift for the gift steal. It will be a fun night enjoyed by all. Then I'm "off" on Monday evening with no meetings, and then I have something almost every evening (except maybe the 18th and 20th) until I head home for Christmas. At least it will help the time to fly by!

Back to the football game...

I can't believe it...

Wow. I can't believe Thanksgiving is over. I can't believe Advent is upon us. And I can't believe it's DECEMBER. Yikes! Where does the time go? And why doesn't it feel like Christmastime?

When I went home for Thanksgiving break, I felt like I was in college again. I had a HUGE amount of things to do right up until the end, and then I was finished and didn't have to think about one single thing for work while I was on break. And it's nice because for December, I'm actually not on overload, so I might actually be able to enjoy most of it rather than be frantic about what all has to get done. Not that I don't enjoy it, anyway... I love what I do and I really do think being a youth director is the best job in the world. :)

My Christmas shopping is close to being finished. I have almost all of the adults in my family done... and then I just have to shop for the kids... which is the fun part anyway! Three weeks from today I head home for Christmas - I can't believe it's that close!

My apartment is all decorated for Christmas - my tree is up, I have the nativity out, and I even bought a poinsettia from one of my kids (it was a fundraiser for a school sport). I'm feeling very festive. It's all ready for when my parents and my oldest nephew come to visit me in a couple of weeks! Speaking of poinsettia, I probably should get that out of the plastic bag if it has a chance of living until Christmas....... later, gators!

busy busy busy

Well, I think this weekend marks the beginning of a crazy holiday season!

We are serving at the FISH pantry tomorrow for a good chunk of the morning and early afternoon. Then we'll go out to lunch downtown... should be fun! Sunday is a Christmas festival at church in the afternoon (don't even get me started on how that's BEFORE THANKSGIVING) and then we have a multi-youth group event with lots of churches on Sunday evening.

Monday I have a few things to do and then Tuesday I head home for Thanksgiving. Woo hoo!

I'm going to get some time off at Christmas/New Year's, which will be nice. I'm going to use the rest of my vacation and will be able to go back to Illinois to visit friends from high school and college as well as visit with family and friends at home.

Guess I better get moving. I'm going to a dance thing for one of my youth tonight and I need to eat something before I go. Have a great weekend!

retreat

We had a FANTASTIC confirmation retreat this weekend. Everything went well and although the weather was VERY cold for Tennessee, it didn't rain while we were there (just on the trip there!). All eight of the confirmands were able to attend, and seven of the eight mentors went, too. My co-teacher for the class also was there. It's hard to get that kind of attendance at any youth event... let alone one that lasts for 24 or more hours! I was so pleased they were all there... and it was AWESOME to have the mentors be such an integral part of our time together.

The theme was "prayer" and we prayed in several different ways. In our prayer circle before we left on Saturday morning, I told the parents that I could almost guarantee that their son/daughter would come home knowing a new kind of prayer or a new way to pray. We had plenty of time to hang out, play games, do group building activities, and even played some full-court basketball, which I thoroughly enjoyed! :) The kids did high ropes and the zip line (which is huge) on Saturday afternoon.

Last night we packed 42 care packages for college students from our church. I mailed all but 4 of them today (I don't have addresses for those yet). It was a lot of fun to pack them and think about how happy those college students are going to be to open them!!!

I have something every night this week - which is good and not good. It's not good because then I'm worn out by the time I get to the weekend! But it's also good because that will make the week go by quickly... then it's a pretty busy weekend... and next Tuesday, I come home for Thanksgiving! I'm looking forward to spending time with family and seeing friends.

Time to be lazy and lay on the couch some more. I'm good at that when it's late at night. :) Hope you are doing well!