weekending/Hello Monday

 

Happy Monday, friends! I'm linking up with Holly and Sarah for today's blog post. 

I have to confess that the blog break and very long weekend last week was so nice, but even though that was the case, I missed you. I purposefully didn't even up my laptop for pleasure for the rest of the week after I read blogs on Wednesday morning. I do love being here, but a break is nice time and again. I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have to confess something else—it didn't feel very much like Thanksgiving time last week, and I think I had a case of the holiday blues. I know that people have said they struggle with this sometimes, but it's been ages since I've felt like that. I had a little evaluation of my perspective on Wednesday morning and after spending time in prayer and reading the Bible, I did feel marginally better. I say "marginally", because I don't always feel different after I do those things. 

I always like to be real here, you know that, and though I know that my relationship with the Lord does make a huge difference in my life, it's not always an instant fix when I spend time with Him. I think several things played into me feeling like that—one, my personal time with God had been lacking that week. Secondly, when things get busy, prayer is one of the first things I neglect. Now I still pray, but it's not a concentrated time of prayer when I sit and really "dig in deep" with pouring my heart out to God. There's a difference in "popcorn prayers" in which I pray randomly and sporadically and really sitting and spending time with Him as I pray about all of my family, loved ones and friends. Even if I don't always feel an instant difference, this is something I diligently pursue each day, as best I'm able. Things would be so much worse if I didn't spend time praying and reading His word! And I know that the more I do that, the closer I feel to Him. It's like what James wrote about in James 4:8a—Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. The opposite is also true, though—when I don't spend time with Him, I feel far from Him. 

I said all of that to say that sometimes life can be hard and times can feel disappointing. I'll confess a third thing, and then I'll move on to the rest of this post by lightening things up—I'm struggling being a parent to older sons. I miss the days of their childhood so much that I can hardly see straight. I miss them being surprised by Christmas and excited to do all the things. If that's you and you're still in this phase, relish in it, my friend. I know people tell you that all the time, but the years go by with lightning speed. Sometimes social media and blog posts make me feel all the things, so on those days, I have to shut down my laptop and spend time with God. Life is just strange and different with all these boys of mine grown and rarely around. That is why I so enjoyed my great nieces (and niece and nephew) being here last week! I got to enjoy a few days worth of quality time with them. In case you're curious, I did pull out of these feelings, thanks to a day of working at my computer on our next Bible study that we're writing! I'll tell you more in a second...

I'm backing up to Tuesday during the day, since I never shared about that last week. I piddled around home for a while that morning, which was so nice! I did laundry, I dusted and vacuumed and straightened all of the upstairs....

...then after making my bed, I went to run a couple of errands. I had to go to the bank, then I went to get my nails done because they were way too long and driving me bonkers. 

This wasn't at all the color I'd had in mind for them this time, but I really like them now that I'm used to them. I wanted white with sparkles, but my girl gave me clear with sparkles instead. Now I love them! After my errands, I went to Mom's and Bill's to see everyone. My sister Lisa was there, so I had lunch with them, then Erika, her hubby Kyle and their four girls came over to visit and help their Gigi (Lisa) make holiday cookies and treats. 

Look at Mom's beautiful side porch! She is such a talented decorator. It was a magical afternoon! I love these girls SO MUCH, and their mom. I feel like Erika is more like my little sister than my niece, and these girls fighting over who sits with me and holds my hand is the best feeling ever. The younger two aren't as friendly with me yet, just because they don't know me well, but Kinsley and Kylie know me very well and know how much I adore them. 

I didn't stay too long because of my dogs, so I came home to take care of them  and to make dinner for us that night. That night was the town tree lighting, which was the last thing I shared with you last week, so I won't repeat any of that. If you missed that post, you can read about it here. 

We had Thanksgiving at Mom's and Bill's and I didn't take anything this year. There have been years when I contributed, but this year it just didn't happen. There was PLENTY of food, though, even more than we needed for the crowd of us gathered there this year. (There were twenty of us, give or take a couple.) Since I wasn't cooking that day, I spent the day working on my laptop. We just finished our Bible study the week before Thanksgiving, so now that we're done with that and I have a nice little break from Bible study for about seven weeks, I plan on spending that time studying, reading (over and over again), writing out, listening to sermons and writing on the book of Judges. That's the next book we're writing on, for the fall of 2023 and I got a jump start on Wednesday. It felt so good doing that! I spent the entire day working, from eight o'clock that morning until after two that afternoon. I worked myself into a headache and had to come and lay back and close my eyes for an hour. Along with helping with the writing of our next study, I am also the main editor for it this time, which is something new. I'll be compensated for the time I spend editing and I did that for the last one as well along with the other editor we used, but without the pay. I was elated when my friend asked me if I wanted this seasonal position, so after I spent time praying and thinking about it, I accepted her offer. That will be done mainly at night while I sit by my husband in our living room while he watches something on tv. I can multi-task like that. 😉

That night, Todd and I continued our second annual non-Thanksgiving dinner on the eve of the big turkey day by eating Mexican food. We went to our favorite non-local place and it was DELICIOUS. I don't have pictures, because I was too hungry to think about that. On Thursday morning I woke up early to watch a Christmas movie (can't remember which one if that says anything), then we dressed and went to my mom's at eleven. I only took the following pictures with the girls.

(The picture above is Madison...she loved looking at Nana's decorations!)

Kylie and me hanging on the couch...

Then Kinsley joined us....

And finally me with Macy and Madi. It was so much fun having them there this year! It was great to have such a full house for this holiday. Usually it's just Trish, her son Devin, the six of us in my family and Mom and Bill. (Which really sounds like a lot, but always seems small compared to when it's the rest of us.)

It was a beautiful day and the rain held off until the minute we pulled out to leave. I'm so glad it held off, because the girls ran around outside a lot and we were able to get pictures for Lisa and her family.

After we got home, I took a long hot shower and settled in for the night with my book and the lovely view of the Christmas tree. 

And that is about all I did for the rest of the weekend, which was glorious. I did meet up with my mom, sister and nephew for lunch on Friday, then my sister Trish and I went to Dad's for Friday night dinner. It was just the two of us and the two of them, but it was a lovely and quiet night, which is always kind of nice after a holiday. The rest of my family members were working, except for Jonah, but he was gone with a friend the entire day. I watched some movies over the remainder of the weekend, which I'll include here, because they were that good. I'm really into the Lifetime movies right now.

The Royal Corgi movie was my least favorite, but I still liked it because the dog was adorable. I thoroughly enjoyed being at church on Sunday. We didn't have choir, and I filled in for a friend on the praise team, so I was there ready to sing by 7:45. I love singing on a praise team, when it's just us and a praise band. Our musicians are INCREDIBLY talented and the few guys on instruments sounded amazing. Our music was so good, too...the songs had a mix of a Thanksgiving message with the hope of Christmas as well, since it was the first Sunday of Advent. Our pastor preached one of the best messages once again...he titled it home alone, but he based it on loneliness and how to handle that. It was relevant and practical, which I love. 

So, how was your weekend? I did blog three times last week, in case you missed out. Here are last week's posts, just in case you didn't read them.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

It's almost December, which means our next Currently link party is happening on the first Wednesday of the month—which will be December 7. We'll be talking about what we're currently loving, gifting, wrapping, hoping and attending. I hope you join us! If you want to read last month's, you can read that post here. Thanks for reading my blog, friends! I'll be back to my normal posting schedule this week, so check back everyday! Love to all. 🎄