Goodbye, Holidays...

Hello, January depression.

I want Derek Webb to come to Kansas. You can help me! :)

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I Love My Family

My crazy, creative family.

We decorated sugar cookies on Christmas Eve, something I hadn't done since I was really little. Jono's extended family is small, so we were all together.

While the parents and grandparents played games, we decorated quite a few cookies. At first they looked normal (Trees, Stockings, Stars, Snowmen, Bells)...but with this highly entertaining group, the cookies began changing.

Here is my brother-in-law thinking about how much he likes his newly acquired sister.

Cousins!

Manly men decorating cookies!

At first the creativity was still holiday themed. The Rudolph is simply a stocking shaped cookie upside-down, and the penguin was made from a snowman cookie.

Then came the TV and video game themes.

The Little Mermaid has seen better days, I'm afraid.

A Bullet Bill, for all you Mario lovers out there.

My husband made this tribute to pac man. The two on the left are bell shaped cookies that he decided to turn into bad guys. :)

Mario above, Goomba below.

Another Mario enemy...

This fish was made from a sideways Christmas Tree

Cute bell-turned-mushroom

Rocket ship (formerly Christmas tree)

Can you see Australia?

Then things got a little deranged...

Vampire thing and a Tornado (both upside-down snowmen)

By the end there was a giant mess and a slew of cookies entirely unrelated to the holidays.

*sigh*

I love my family.

100th Post!?

I logged on to write about my birthday this past weekend, but noticed that this would be my 100th blog post. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to do something special for this kind of thing (like write 100 things about yourself). However, I think I would have a hard time coming up with 100 things that a) are interesting and b) you don't already know.
Since this post was going to include how wonderful that guy I'm married to is, I could write 100 things about said wonderful guy. However, I think that might embarrass him and disgust most of you. So, to find some kind of middle ground, I'll write about my birthday weekend and include little "how wonderful this guy is!" tidbits. Fair?

If that sounds absurdly uninteresting, feel free to stop reading at any time.

Friday was the start of breaking many a budget rule. First, many people at my work were going to lunch together, and I really wanted to go. Jono came along, since he didn't have to be at work. We try not to eat out a lot, but he's a wonderful guy, and didn't object to some yummy thai food. That evening we went to eat Italian with a bunch of friends in an early celebration of my birthday. I invited quite a few people, but expected most of them to have plans this close to Christmas. We ended up having 15, though. It was a lot of fun, even if the table was a bit too big to get to talk to everyone. Also, even though my wonderful guy had plans for my birthday the next day, he bought me dessert to go (as I hadn't saved room for any). Who pays attention to the budget during birthday weekend, though? ;)
Saturday, to my disappointment, I couldn't sleep past 7. So my wonderful guy made me breakfast while I played Nintendo. Then we hung around doing nothing until I fell asleep again. Until noon (whoops!). Then we bundled up with many, many layers and headed to KC. That wonderful guy had planned a whole day for us. We started with ice skating, something I hadn't done in a few years and he hadn't done since he was little. By the time the cold wind made us decide to stop, Crown Center's pretty Christmas lights started to turn on. My wonderful guy then drove us to the Plaza, where we put our name in at the Cheesecake Factory. We got to enjoy the pretty lights there, too. During the first part of our wait, he took me to my favorite place. It is so intensely wonderful, you should all go there some time. Then, that wonderful guy bought me my very favorite kind of cheese (unfortunately pricey...for cheese). After that we met up with Matt and Shelsey and the cutest nephew in the world, who had been shopping in the area all day. After a brief waiting period (in which we loitered quite comfortably) at Barnes and Noble, we had dinner at the CF. I must say, it was my favorite meal I've had there. Mmmm.
By the time we left it was after 9pm, so my wonderful guy and I drove to the airport to read and wait for his brother to get in. All in all, it was a very fun day.

Men...

I once looked out my kitchen window to find my brother-in-law doing this.

We had to give it one more go before we cut that tree down.

One More Thing To Add To The List

An unfortunate thing happened at Bible study a few weeks ago. It's really ruined a lot of things for me.

I became convicted.

I really hate it when that happens.

But, I earned it. I spend too much time holding on to things that people have done to me. I spend too much time thinking of how I would confront someone with these things should they be so foolish as to accuse ME of wrong doing. I spend too much time being offended on others' behalf. And while I know this is terrible, I really hope I'm not the only person to fail like this.

My mom is a crazy cool lady. She is one of the most kind and merciful people I have met. And when people treat my mom unfairly, she is much faster to forgive than most people. But I take it upon myself to be offended for her. And, of course, this kind of behavior is true for anyone I care about. It's my "noble" duty.

The reason this is particularly frightening is that I'm sure that I'm practicing to become a really bad wife. I don't hold things against Jono now, but why wouldn't I get to that point at this rate? I really enjoy my marriage, and I'd really like to keep right on enjoying it.

And, of course, each little transgression that I add up takes me a step further from being like Jesus.

So, I had to give it up. When I think about something that used to make me so upset at that person, I think "I forgive them." And when a few hours later their name comes up and I get all riled, I think "I forgive them." It seems way too temporary to be authentic. But I figure if I do that long enough it's got to work eventually.

At least, I have to try.

And as I write this I'm thinking about how several people who might read this have every reason to be upset at me for past offences. So, I guess I'm hoping you'll practice forgiving me, too.