Reflecting

I lay in the bed last night reflecting on the past year. I thought of all the times, the tender times of the heart, I thought of a peaceful mind, which I so long for. Both have something to do with quality, the quality of feeling and reasoning.

Here it is the last day of what has been a trying, sometimes beautiful, sometimes uneasy, joyful, and painful year for me. I look forward to dawn tomorrow and, as the days get longer, to begin to feel my way into newness. It is not strange though it is mysterious that our "New Year" comes at the darkest time in the seasonal cycle. When there is personal darkness, when there is pain to be overcome, when we are forced to renew ourselves against all the odds, the psychic energy required simply to survive has tremoundouse force. I did some self portraits today, I put myself in darkness although, I feel the light coming at sunrise as great as that of a flower pushing up throuch icy ground in spring, so after the overcoming, there is extra enerygy, a flood of energy that can go into creation. This morning I woke up feeling it, knowing it, trusting it.

Class on teamwork

Well what a wonderful blessed Christmas our family had. It was so nice to be home with those I love so much. But now I'm back to the grindstone of work, and getting ready for the new year. We had a class today on teamwork. In the class they quoted some sports guy forgot who it is, I'm not the best with sports like my brother Lance. Anyway it was "What counts most in the creation of a succesful team is not how compatible its players are, but how they deal with incompatibility." When we don't get along with other, we are tempted to ignore them and shove them aside. This hit big with me, I thought of my past relationships and present as well. I've been guilty of this one for sure. Seems many of my relationships fall into this category. I'm not saying I was always the one to start ignoring, there were times I was the one that was ignored as well. I've been thinking on this one a bit today.
Althougth this hit big with me I also feel we are called to take a diffrent road. I've read somewhere in the bible "Be of one mind, and have compassion for each other; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this. I started by remembering, but had to look it up, it's 1 Peter 3:8-9.
Walk in light, I have many feelings on this, and may write more on this later but for the moment I'm at work and really better get back to work. I feel I'm in the writing mood today. Or maybe just a thinking mood. I just hope I can capture what I'm feeling and it doesn't go away. :)

Cleaning up and bad back

Well I spent most of the day picking up, washing clothes, grocery shopping, and hurting.  I made the mistake of bending over the wrong way, and my back has been hurting pretty bad.  But I trust it will be better tomorrow.  I'm cooking some homemade chicken noodle soup which I've been craving with this cold weather.  Mike wrote me the sweetest handmade card for Christmas and gave it too me yesterday.  He even wrote me a poem which I really loved.  I'm looking forward to a new year with him.  I want to sit down and for us to make goals for the new year and things we want for us.  I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year, and a prosperous blessed year.  I want to make some resolutions, but decided I just break them, so I'm just going to make goals for the New Year. 

Christmas Day

Autumn woke us all up early, and Santa came, he didn't come see me, but he sure came to see Autumn, she must have been really good.  We all got ready pretty fast for church and enjoyed a very nice Christmas service.  These two guys sang a great rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy".  We came home, Mama and Ray, Dena and Andy, and Sherry all had prepared another Christmas feast, chicken and dumplings were my favorite.  Mama's chicken and dumplings.  The day just seemed to fly by, as always I'm just starting to feel the most relaxed.  We all unwrapped presents, I made videos for everyone of the kids, and Sherry's wedding, and it was awesome watching their faces as they watched.  Especially the kids, they kept wanting to watch their video over and over.  Then they fought for the camera afterwards, well not fought, but they kept jumping in front of each other wanting their picture taken.  I think I've created camera hogs now.  Andy looked at Eli and said you want him to make another Eli video don't you.  Eli smiled big and said yes.  Somehow I didn't get to say goodbye to Autumn, because while I was taking pictures of the boys, her mom came and got her.  They said she cried because she didn't get to tell me goodbye.  I sure love that little girl.  I love them all.  I left late and was so tired driving home.  I thought of good memories made on the way home, and of the biggest birthday celebration.  The celebration of Jesus' birth.

Christmas Eve at Daddy and Jane's

Well we finally made it to Daddy's by 3:00 p.m. with big appetites.  There was so much wonderful food.  Everyone ate well.  Lance brought Amy and her two boys so we had extra kids.  Eli really enjoyed riding everyone around in his gator tractor.  Why didn't they invent stuff like that when I was little.  Imagine learning to drive when your only 3.  And Eli can really drive good, he even parks it behind his Papa's big gator lawnmower.  It's really awesome seeing our new generation growing so fast.  They really are amazing to watch.  I think I spend more time with the children when I go home, just trying to soak up every minute I can.  There was the most beautiful sunset toward the end of the day that I've seen at home in a long time.  I was lucky to grab a few pictures.  We went back to Sherry's and wound down, my back was hurting a bit by late evening and Sherry gave me a Vicadin, which put me out. I got Autumn to sleep so Santa would come see her.  I finally got her to sleep, she was so excited and kept thinking she heard reindeer on the roof, and had many questions.  I got up and put together one of the big Christmas planets with planets and stars that shine in the room of all colors and had to go back to bed, that vicadin kicked my butt.  In the wee hours around 3:30 I was having bad dreams, and couldn't wake up from them, so I convinced myself if I could make myself scream I would wake up.  But everytime I tried nothing came out.  The next morning everyone informed me that I was screming really loud in my sleep around 3:30, along with talking to myself for about 5 minutes.  Thank goodness I didn't wake Autumn up, she sleeps like a log.

Gee my hair taste terriffic

 

 

Christmas Eve, Sherry and I woke up pretty early I had some last minute shopping to do.  She went with me and we got it all knocked out, came home, and we started getting ready to go out to Daddy and Jane's.  It started off pretty easy but got a bit frustrating after a while.  Sherry called Jane and told her we may be a few minutes later than we had expected to give us some extra time.  Autumn had got a cute little green warm up suit that Santa actually brought a day early, and she was running around with it on.  I joked her calling her diffrent green names, like junebug, and green bean, and stink bug.  She didn't like that one.  Sherry had cooked some good ole greenbeans, and luckily they had cooled down, because when we started getting ready,  Autumn climbed up on the bar and decided she was going to stir the peas, and eat a few as well.  Well I was in the bedroom getting dressed and so was Sherry, when we hear this kaboom, followed by a minute of silence, then a cry coming down the hallway.  She walks down the hall with greenbeans all in her hair and her little new suit.  And tears, not because she was hurt but because she thought ReRe was going to be mad at her.  Which worked because although we did hear a few words come from ReRe's mouth, followed by Autumn saying you owe me $5 for that word that came out of her mouth.  Then Mark noticed she had her hair in her mouth and was sucking it.  He said get that hair out of your mouth.  She followed with it sure does taste good, just like green beans.  I should of took a picture, but we were all too worried she was hurt, we were just glad it wasn't hot, and burned her.

Christmas Eve

 

Well I left shortly after I woke up on Christmas Eve to go over to Daddy and Jane's we were having Christmas Eve over there.  I decided to go over to Andy and Dena's to see the boys.  Eli was riding around on his new Gator Tractor, and Ethan was playing with their new puppy Star.  Ethan who is as big if not bigger than his three year old brother.  Ethan is only one.  Ethan jumps in the drivers seat every time Eli gets out.  I took some cute ones of them.   We loaded up the little tractor with corn and carrots that Dena cooked and all the presents and walked with the boys up to Daddy's house.   When Ethan was getting in, Eli got a lead foot and drove right over his brother.  Ethan wasn't hurt, the tractor is very light plastic.  But it scared poor Eli, well it scared both of them actually, but Ethan quit crying before Eli did.  So I guess this counts as their first accident.  But not the first accident of Christmas Eve.  More later.