Having Faith

Three days and a wakeup and then it’s Christmas.  Holy cow it’s climbing up fast!  Just two more days and we get to start on Christmas Eve.  I think it is more fun than Christmas day for me.  To start, Christmas Eve Masses are always magical.  Then there are the cookies out for Santa, tucking the girls all snug in their beds, waiting for Santa ;-).  It is a night of Faith, belief, and true wonder.

          The other night we watched the movie Prancer.  I’d never seen it before, and there was one scene that touched me to my soul.  The little heroin of the tale was Motherless; we didn’t hear how Mom had passed away except one little part about Doctors that lie.  Her friend informed the little girl she no longer believed in Santa.  The friend’s reasoning was based on she had never seen Santa.  The little star replied “but you’ve never seen God…”  The little girl was crushed when her friend said she wasn’t sure she believed in him either.  You see, without God, there is no heaven. 

          I get really frustrated with the materialization of Christmas and I’ve never tried to hide it.  I also get frustrated when people don’t want to allow the spirit of Santa Clause to go on.  You see, I’m like the little girl in Prancer, if you don’t believe in things, how can you believe in heaven?  Santa gives us a chance to teach our children a bit about faith, and the importance of being good and giving.  Santa himself started out as a Saint, Saint Nickolas.  He is as much a part of the season as Christ, because he is all about giving and love and doing for those much less fortunate than himself.  Unfortunately, too many folks have found a way to commercialize good old Saint Nick, but that doesn’t mean that he is to blame. 

          I’m all for faith and believing, and I am thrilled to be able to share the belief in Santa Clause with my daughters, because as far as I’m concerned he is real, just as real as our Christ, Jesus.  Santa is within us all, and despite the excessive commercialization, he still encourages the gift of giving.  What do you believe?

Ready or not, here comes Christms

Christmas is upon us, just a few more days.  Oh my how the time flies.  Let’s see, how many of my goals have been met for the Christmas break.  Okay, it’s better than I thought.  I’ve started more than I had realized and I hadn’t looked at my list until just now.  What a great list that is.  Seriously, if you are like me, when you make a list, most of the stuff is unattainable pipe dream type of stuff.  I have a pretty good list this break.  I even completed one of my items on the list although I now hate George R.R. Martin.

OK, maybe I don’t hate the guy, which just isn’t in my nature, but if any of you are reading his Fire and Ice series, be prepared to stop at A Dance With Dragons.  Not only is the next book not yet released, he refuses to give a release date.  Had I known, I’d have never started the series, not yet anyway.  I don’t like to start reading an incomplete series.  I am not patient enough to wait for the next book.  I also hate having to think back to whom everybody is and what their roles are.   Ugh!  Note to self, try not to do that if I ever become a rich and famous author.  Note I said “try”, I know I’d much rather wait a bit for the book and know that it is what the author wanted me to read, it’s just frustrating. 

A house just down the street was destroyed by fire the other night.  We heard the fire engines, and then a police cruiser was blocking the road in front of our house.  It was around 9:30 pm when I heard the first fire truck go by, I finally fell asleep as I heard the trucks leaving around 1:30 am.  It didn’t click that it would really be on our street.  I was driving back from Wal-Mart when I first saw it.  I thought it was Georgia’s friend’s house.  The house next to the gutted house had people sitting outside in lawn chairs.  It turned out they were waiting for the fire and water damage people.  Everyone, pets included got out of both houses safely.  Apparently the fire started in a dryer.  Georgia now understands why I’m a bit obsessive about the lint trap and such.

I was so glad when I found out I had gotten houses mixed up.  Georgia’s friend is the oldest of about five kids, and his Mom hasn’t been mentally stable since their Dad left.  A fire is bad enough for anybody.  A week before Christmas is worse.  I couldn’t image how that particular family could have survived it.  They may have a great support system, I don’t know, but they’d need a fantastic one.

Things to be thankful for?  Our health, a home, cloths, food, each other, God has provided well for us and for that I am ever so Grateful.  Our God is an Awesome God!

New Habits?

We had a nice evening tonight, for the most part.  Once the bickering ended, and the girls settled into the movie, it was really nice.  We watched Prancer; a sweet movie about a little girl who finds Prancer injured, restores him to health and returns his to Santa.  The movie over, little miss gets ready for bed and I get the story ready.  Did you know the first chapter of The Hobbit is 27 pages long?  Poor BA missed the last few pages, I kept thinking I should stop so she wouldn’t miss any of it but I was engrossed, and so, she did miss the last few pages of chapter one.

I’ve been ill, I hate being sick.  It started Saturday night after we finished watching Dr. Zhivago.  This evening I am finally feeling more like myself.  Two whole days lost to illness.  At least it was after finals. 

A lot has been running through my mind, but I haven’t been up and about long enough yet to catch it all and put it in one place.  I just wanted to be sure to work on this new habit I am determined to develop, this one where I blog every day.  Funny how that works, a habit we don’t want takes extreme effort to break if we ever do.  I’m still working on the nail biting habit.  Oh, I can get it licked for a month or two, but that’s about it.  I’m back onto the fake nails method.  It appears to work, but I haven’t been able to afford to keep the nails on for more than a month at a time yet.  Maybe this time and we will know for sure.   

Maybe that is what I need to do.  Maybe I need to start making habits instead of breaking them.  The next habit I intend to make is the Yoga habit.  Oh… my back and neck feel so much better when I exercise regularly, and Yoga is one of the nicest.  I need to turn dieting into a habit as well.  Not just the caloric dieting, but another form of dieting I’ve found very useful when I’m on track, Financial dieting.  Seriously, not sure how that works, but somehow when I get onto the financial diet, finances go much better. 

So, maybe that should be my New Year’s resolution this year.  Just one, make new habits, it’s definitely something to think about, and I think I will.  So, who’s up to joining me on this newly found quest of forming new habits?  Think about it, I know I will be.

Growing Up

I took the girls to see The Rise of the Guardians today.  Barbara Ann had spent the night with her friend last night, and we took Peyton with us to the movie.  We got there on time, and there were not four seats together.  My little girl has grown up so much over the last year.  Barbara and Peyton sat at the top of the theatre (where I could turn my head and see them and they would have to walk right past me to get out of the theatre) and Georgia and I sat two or three rows down.  I hated not seeing the movie with Barbara, but I was so proud of her that she could be trusted to sit with her friend without me at the movie.  Oh, and by the way the movie was great.

It’s often hard to tell if it is happening or if it is just me, seeing a child maturing.  I was thinking I’d seen it, but last night, I knew I had.  Barbara and Georgia were trying out for the Kroc center play as usual.  This time was a bit different than past times though.  Georgia was reading lines with Barbara Ann in tow; Barbara read lines in a different group all together.  No one had to redirect Barbara to what she was doing or help her read or find her lines, this time, Barbara Ann was helping the other kids.  When other children started playing marbles while others were doing their readings, Barbara Ann was able to walk away without a fuss.  My baby girl is growing up.

Both girls I thought did a fantastic job in the tryouts.  Georgia had been personally invited to the tryouts, but I don’t believe the director had expected Barbara to be as prepared for the tryouts as she was. 

There is something magical, although a bit sad as the kids grow up.  Georgia is anxiously pulling at the reins of freedom and responsibility, Barbara is becoming a reliable independent young lady.  What a blessing it is to have them both, and to be able to hug them both today.  I am so blessed.

Have you hugged your kid today?

I was sitting in the nail salon getting my nails done; catching bits and pieces of some stupid soap opera playing on the T.V. they had hanging on the wall.  There was some woman that was being accused of arson, her kids were trying to get her the legal help she needed because she was bi-polar, and she was all better now that she was on her meds again. Soap operas, news shows, there isn’t a huge distinction between the two for me.  As far as I’m concerned they are both a sensationalisation of the baser parts of our society.  So, when the news interrupted the program, I didn’t catch it right away.

There was a mass shooting, or not.  I was confused.  The numbers didn’t make any sense.  How could the hospital have only seen two people and they’re claiming twenty something people dead?  It was bad, yes; it was in an elementary school. It didn’t matter how many where dead when the school was K-4.  It was a sensationalisation because it was at an elementary school, it had to be.  Then, the story started to unfold.  The shooter was between 18 and 20, then he was 26, then he was identified, next his brother and girlfriend were missing.  He had killed his mom at the school and his dad was dead at home.  Eight O’clock I catch CNN and FOX news with their respective spin jockeys leading the discussion.  The shooter was 20.  20 of the 28 killed were children.  The shooter’s dad and brother were brought in for questioning.  The Mother had been shot and killed in her home.  I heard the word Asperger’s.

One news show says all mass murderers are sociopaths and should not be walking the streets ever, the other calls for gun control from one expert and an end to the failure of our mental health system from the other.  Earlier on Facebook the petty politics were kicking in and people were calling our president a fake with fake tears, others were devastated that anyone would give a crap about the politics at a time like this, especially name calling.  I was delighted to see both news channels state the true and obvious fact that our president, like every other American parent is bewildered, wondering how such a thing could happen. 

This isn’t the first school shooting in America.  It isn’t the first mass shooting.  When people were chewing on the facts of the Joker shooting in Colorado, people were horrified to hear children had been at the theater at such a time, as though it was the parent’s fault their children had been at risk.  That was because this isn’t supposed to happen to young children.  This was a way to pretend there isn’t anybody so sick as to randomly attack children.  The high school and university shootings, someone had felt shunned, blocked out, and or picked on.  Those shootings could at least be explained as retaliatory.  Jared Loughner’s history of creeping people out was immediately presented and the children hurt or killed were collateral damage, he wasn’t going after them.  That makes more sense.  No one is going to go specifically after children.  That would be sick.

As a nation today, we are struggling to understand why such a thing could happen.  What was this guy’s motive?  How could he do this to children, their parents, grandparents, siblings, classmates, neighbors, the nation…  What could cause such a senseless slaughter?

I have my own theories, theories that precipitated my returning to school to complete my education, but they are irrelevant right now.   Right now I think about how I felt sitting in that stupid salon getting my nails done.  I wanted so badly to go pull the girls out of school and hug them, or just go to the school to hug them.  I had pressing appointments.  I debated calling the school to see how they were handling the news with the kids and asking if I should come get the girls.  The drive to San Antonio and back was excruciating.  I didn’t like that distance between myself and the girls.  I am so glad now that I had that drive.

The drive gave me time to think.  I realized that had I been nearby and interfered with their school day I would have scared them much more than necessary, especially Barbara Ann.  She’s not much older than the majority of those victims.  I did however; give each girl a big hug as soon as I saw her.  This time, I really paid attention to their play tryouts, as though it was the most important thing in the world, because it was, at that moment.  This past semester I’ve spent so much time on homework, often feeling guilty for the time I spent on homework instead of with the girls.  I am so grateful I was able to give them each a great big hug. 

I didn’t want to let Barbara Ann go spend the night at her friend’s house, but I knew I had to.  If I’m scared, she’s going to be scared.  She needs to feel safe.

I remember the campaign, “Have You Hugged Your Kid Today?”  Like most campaigns, it was overused and became a source of humor.  “Have you hugged your (choose one of the following, horse, dog, cat, car, tree, fish…) today?”  I even have a little sign hanging by the picture of my horses on the wall, “Have You Hugged Your Horse Today?” but today I truly do have to ask the question.  Have you hugged your kid today?  If you did, remember to thank God, because there are so many parents out there today, for whatever reason, didn’t have that opportunity.

Windows 8 Upgrade? Hope it works!

So I bring my little flip screen laptop in to Office Max to see if they can do anything to get it running better.  After about an hour (at least) I leave with a copy of Windows 8 for the little bugger.  Why?  Well, if I had them go through the software and fix all the little issues, it would cost around $200.00.  If I bought Windows 8, I could do a clean boot, wipe all the old crap out and get the little devil running again, by myself.  It was on sale for 69.99.  It is also designed for a touch screen computer.  My little devil is a convertible, it goes both ways.  It is meant to be a computer or a tablet.  He He He, so, now I’ve rebooted it with windows, it’s past my bedtime but how I want to play.  I just found an app for Tetris.  I’m sooooo happy!  My most favoritest video game ever. :-D

I don’t know if it is Windows 8 or my computer getting all that crap off of the hard drive, but either way, the LittleDevil is running nice and smooth, better than when I got her.  So, short I know, but that’s my story for today.

Oh, by the way before I go, I learned an important lesson at Office Max today.  When you install or update anything, go with custom install and watch for those little check boxes where they sneak stuff into your computer that will bog it down bigtime.  Also, disable sleep and hibernate, these apparently where the things that nearly killed the little devil.

The semester is finally done.

          The semester is finally done.

          Yep, done.

          Finally.

So…

What now?

It came out pretty good, I maintained my 4.0 by the skin of my teeth, and I mean by the skin of my teeth.  I finally earned a 100 on a Dr. Mulry paper, I can die happy now.  Those are practically unheard of.  So, all in all, a good semester but it sure wore me out. 

So, back to the “now what?” question.  To start with, tonight I’m going to watch TV with my girls.  We got Dr. Zhivago from Netflix, it’s been sitting for weeks now, and we are going to start watching it tonight.  I was Barbara’s age or thereabouts when we watched it on TV in Louisiana.  I remember most clearly the scene when they came up to the house in a cutter sleigh, and then went in and found everything perfectly frozen over with ice.  One of my professors told me it had been filmed in Spain in July, that everything had been made with wax.  It looks like I’ll be looking for two different things as we watch, the scenes from my childhood and the evidence of summer filming.  I can hardly wait.

For the rest of the nearly month long Christmas break, I think I’ll start following the list I made last night.  There is one thing I need to add to that list, get this blog going again.