10 Days Past December

Usually I am a bit more up-to-the-minute on my New Years post with a review of the past and hope for the coming times.  2013 was put to rest none too quickly for my liking.  It was a hard and frustrating year due to the car accident and slow healing.  Glad that’s almost over!

On December 31st I pulled my journal from the bottom dresser drawer… the journal with the hot pink cloth binding and the swirly letter L with bling bling on the cover.  The journal contains my bucket list.  I usually don’t look at it but once or twice a year, so I’m pleasantly surprised when I get to highlight the completed items on the list!  In 2013 there were 2 1/2 items completed…. 1. Go on a girls road trip! CHECK!  2. Build a chicken coop and raise chickens. CHICK!  I mean CHECK!  And 1/2 of 3. See the Parthenon…. well, I did see the Parthenon.  The one in Nashville.  I didn’t even know there WAS a Parthenon in Tennessee!  It’s in far better shape than the one in Greece.  When I made the list, I meant the one in Greece, but I didn’t specify Greece…. so I half-way highlighted it with hopes of Greek Islands in my future still.

On the horizon for 2014, other than we should start getting fresh eggs come May, we have a few out of town weddings, a graduation, some missions trips and lots of excitement and hope!  I relish a fresh new year with no scribbles on the pages.

As far as resolutions go…. REZ#1: I’m going to lose the weight I gained while lying on the couch for months eating casserole after casserole that my homeschool peeps brought to feed our family! Believe me, I am SOOOO thankful for my community who surrounded us during that time!  What’s a bigger size of jeans?  Or 2?  But everyone plans to lose weight, right?

REZ#2: I am reading the Bible through again.  The Children’s Living Bible is the chosen translation again.  The best I ever did at reading the Bible through involved a plan that took weekends off.  I needed the weekends to catch up!  So I divided the number of yearly weeks by five days and then divided the number of pages in the Bible by that number.  Voila!  Brilliance!  Four and a half pages a day.  And it’s already January 10th and I’m ahead of schedule!  Oh Yeah!

REZ#3: Make a few more mind and life changing resolutions…. like spending time each day in silence, and spending time each day being artsily creative, and knitting (well, that is creative too), and spending time each day listening to good music.  “Good” by my standards, not my children’s.

What are your resolutions?  Did you make any?  Will you keep them?  Share the wealth!

Tours, Tiaras and Two T-shirts

Our summer travels for 2013 have come to an end.  For three weeks I have been away from home (2 of those weeks without my family!) and I have learned several valuable tidbits that I feel compelled to share with you, faithful reader.

Trip #1 Nashville, Tennessee.  I learned that I really am a jewelry diva…. you may be surprised I didn’t admit this until now, but I seriously outfitted my roommates with GREAT accessories several times!  On this trip to the South, I realized that I love the South.  I haven’t been there for several years and the greenness is intoxicating.  The rolling hills of swaying grass call to me.  The magnolia trees waved in the moist breeze enticing me with their ivory blooms and the brick homes with their neat and tidy yards make me wanna spit at the desert and move tomorrow.  The grand finale of the trip was touring Hermitage, President Andrew Jackson’s plantation.  Oh, did he spend good money paying an English gardener that is still making women swoon at the aromas of the flowers he chose!

Trip #2 Southern to Northern California.  This was a high school girl’s roadtrip that reunited five friends after 30 years of separation.  It was non-stop laughs and stories of yesteryear.  One of the roadies brought us all Superwoman t-shirts with hot pink capes and tiaras with pink bling bling.  You couldn’t really miss us…. AT ALL.  It was great fun but tiring for this mama.  By day #4, I was a bit of a party pooper.  I’m still not back to my old self and the car accident was almost five months ago.

Trip #3 Family Vacation at Lake Tahoe, California.  Please see the last blog as to my dire straights due to my husband’s negligence.  So, here is the REST of the story.  In addition to my light blue ONLY shirt, I ended up purchasing one t-shirt, a pink v-neck that had tasteful Lake Tahoe lettering on the front.  I tried it on in the hardware store dressing room, yanked off the tags and wore it to the register.  The attendant commented, “Oh, wearing it out!  Showing your Tahoe pride!”  I shook my head and blurted, “You don’t know half the story!”  So, I wore each shirt on alternating days while the other was in the wash.  I wore my jeans every single day in Tahoe, save one when it was warm enough for shorts. And my two pair of socks took turns hugging my feet or wiping the insides of the washing machine.

Thanks to my hubby and parents who had pity on me, I flew home so as to avoid my already painful arm from sitting in the truck for 15 hours straight.  Yes, on the plane rides I wore my jeans and my blue t-shirt.  This was like a flashback to our trip to Colombia where we only had three shirts each for a month!  On the first flight, a neat-as-a-pin 20-something gal sat next to me with her head aimed at her book the entire flight.  She didn’t say a peep to me (and I kept my nose in my current historical novel as well) until she popped open her hand sanitizer and with pressurization it squirt all over my jeans that I have been wearing for nine days.  I thought it comical that they probably did need sanitizing at this point, but I didn’t feel like telling a stranger that I haven’t changed my pants in over a week.

Not nearly as entertaining as my flight from from Nashville sitting next to the narcoleptic man, I was in LAX on a layover and knew my seat number was 5D.  It is a smaller plane with only two seats on each side of the aisle.  Fine.  However, there was a family with two little blonde haired bundles of screams and energy also in the waiting area.  I hoped and prayed they wouldn’t be seated near me.  I mean goodness sakes, I was only 45 pages into an enrapturing tale from Reformation times set in the Netherlands.  Screaming + Reformation = NOT ON MY WATCH!  Right before boarding commenced, I visited the little girl’s room.  When I wandered back to the gate I heard the quite loud mother of the two girlies tell her husband matter-of-factly, “Whoever is holding the baby is supposed to sit in seat 5C.”  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  This was an emergency situation of gargantuan proportions in my mind.  I went straight to the desk to ask to be moved.  The kind lady at the counter asked, “What is your name, please?”  Not sure why she needed the information, I simply retorted, “Crosby.”  She looked down and then handed me a new boarding pass, adding, “I’m sorry, but we had to move your seat to 8D.”  If we weren’t in an airport surrounded by 87 travelers with cellphones that take photos, I would have jumped over the counter and hugged her little neck and kissed her over-rouged cheeks!

Our story ends with me blogging at our home computer, contented to be in my own house with my two dogs licking my feet, sitting here in my jeans and my blue t-shirt.  :o)  Safe travels!