Last Christmas

Last Christmas.... 

was basically the same as every other Christmas that I have experienced so far in my life. 

And I never even thought of it. 

That it might be the last Christmas that everything was the same, that everyone was there. 

I contentedly sat on the same bench in the same corner that I sat in every year, enjoying everything, but perhaps not fully appreciating it all. 

This Christmas.... 

we were forced to break tradition. 

And I remembered again that loss is not something that you feel fully right away. It kind of seeps into you after time, and you slowly begin to notice this giant gap in your life. It's when the phone rings in the evening, and you think "I bet that's Nana", but then realize that it isn't. It's having to find a completely new way to celebrate Christmas. 

And we did it. 

We really did. 

It has been a wonderful Christmas so far. =) 

On Sunday, at church, Howard said some really good things in his devotional. 

He talked about the innkeeper. To be completely honest, I forget what he actually said, because I got a little bit caught up in my own thoughts. So that is what I am going to write about. 

So this innkeeper...

I am not convinced that he was a bad guy. 

Somehow, in my head, he had become this nasty, bearded character... one of the bad guys in the Christmas story. A villain, if you will. After all, he had no room for Mary and Joseph (Jesus!) in his establishment. 

But he was just busy, I think. Too busy to pay attention to the tiny, quiet feeling somewhere deep in his being. 

And imagine being him. 

The inn is full. There are literally no rooms left. 

And then there's this couple... they are young and tired and obviously need a place to spend the night. 

But the only way that they could have a room would be if you kicked someone else out, and that just hardly seems quite right either. 

(Okay... so clearly, this guy must have been just a tad hard-hearted... because it seems like you would do your absolute best to help out someone who is obviously going to have a baby very soon. lol. Or it seems like someone else who was around would have maybe noticed what was going on, and could have offered to give up their room for them. What was wrong with these people???? lol. Okay, that is not where I am going with this. Forget that this set of parentheses and all the words inside it ever happened.) 

Maybe he was just thinking too logically. Thinking like a business man. 

Ignoring his heart. 

Maybe deep down, he knew what he should be doing for them. 

Maybe he wanted to give them the best room he had.... 

but he just didn't want it badly enough to actually give it to them. 

So he settled for doing the very least he could possibly do, without actually turning them away. 

The stable.

I am like this innkeeper in so many ways that it is not even funny. 

It's really not. lol. 

So many times, I am busy. I think I am so busy. Too busy to spend THAT much time doing devotions or praying. But there is definitely something in my heart that I feel, letting me know that I should be doing more. There is also a longing to be closer to God... I feel that often. I am not content with who I am right now, or the things that God has already taught me. I want to be more, and know more about Him. I feel that longing... but often, it is so much easier to just do the bare minimum. And I have to ask myself how sincere I actually am, if I am not willing to do more. 

So that was thoughts from Sunday morning. 

And I also had a thought on Sunday evening. We went Christmas caroling and a phrase from "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" stood out to me and Kaylin. The phrase was referring to the angels that announced Jesus' birth to the shepherds, and said this: "still through the cloven skies they came". We noticed it because we didn't know exactly what the word cloven meant. But after discussing it later (and asking my mom. lol.) and looking it up in a dictionary when I got home, we found out that it means split. And I just think that is so cool. 

So I guess we don't know how everything literally played out that night. 

But whether it happened literally or just figuratively, the sky between heaven and earth definitely split, and heaven's radiance beamed down on earth. I love this thought. I usually think of the sky as being what separates our little earth from the rest of the giant universe, which in my head, is kind of where God exists. I know... God is everywhere. But I think of heaven as being out there somewhere. And what is amazing is the thought that for a brief period of time... that divider was eliminated. There was nothing separating heaven and earth. If it didn't happen literally, it did happen figuratively. Jesus, who was completely holy, and who came from heaven, was placed on earth. Heaven and earth were connected in a way that they never had been before. 

Because of a perfect baby, who was placed in a manger and wrapped in rags. 

And you know what? 

Jesus' birth was not the only time that God bridged the distance between heaven and earth. 

It happened again, 33 years later at his death, when the curtain in the temple was torn. The holiest place was exposed... anyone who chose to could access it. 

I love that God loves us enough to give us that choice. That the fact that we fail, and are stubborn, and love the wrong things is not enough to convince Him to give up on us, and completely cut Himself off from us. I love that He loved us back then, when Jesus was born, and He still loves us now. 

And I think He wants us to close the distance between us and Him. 

After all, He made it possible. 

He has done more than His part in reaching out to us. In fact, He made incredible sacrifices for us. 

And then He placed the rest of the responsibility in our hands, to do with as we please. 

It's up to us. 

Doesn't thinking about this just kind of make you want to be the very best Christian you can be? To serve and obey Him as completely as you can?? 

The cloven skies.... 

Nothing between God and me... 

That is the way it should be. 

The Random Monday Before the Monday Before Christmas!

Okay... today is a very special random Monday. 

Because it is not just random pictures.... 

It is random pictures from my Ipod. 

You heard me. 

From my Ipod. 

I don't know why that is significant. lol. 

It just seemed special somehow. 

It is a glimpse into my life... a series of moments from the past five-ish months where i would be like "Whoa! I should take a picture of that!" but didn't have a camera or didn't feel like getting it out. So in a sense, these pictures actually are truly random, because they are just random individual pictures that were taken with no connection to any other pictures at all. 

This is the Christmas tree that has been around at Christmas for as long as I can remember. This is the first Christmas that it won't be around. It was my grandma's tree, and it was always set up downstairs on this little table thinger... but this year, it won't be. 

This is the same tree. I had to undecorate it. Due to the fact that it is crooked and very old and not in such great condition anymore. Undecorating it was kind of a sad job... this year we have a different Christmas tree. It's tiny. Tinier. There's no way that our Old Order neighbours will be able to tell we have it. 

The beach with Wendy and Renee.... I just have a thing for pictures where you can actually see the sunshine. 

This is the very very first picture that was ever taken on my Ipod. See how excited Kenton is? Actually, to be honest, I don't know what that expression means. 

I love beautiful, bright summer mornings. I took this picture the morning that Megga and I left for the cottage. It was a beautiful beginning to a wonderful weekend. ;)

This was when the hydro went out for a few hours. I lit candles. Lots of em. And it was all pretty and glowy. So naturally, I took a picture of it. 

This is a sleepy Wendy, all cuddled up to me. I am the tiny bit of orange and blue that you see in the bottom left corner. 

I love this face! I love this girl! We are so good at being at the beach together! We are actually good at a whole ton of things together. We work best together. I think that our science fair project from grade ten proves that. 

So at the cottage, there are limited sleeping quarters. And somehow, I am the one who always ends up sleeping on a couch? Actually, it is completely fine with me, due to the fact that at the cottage, there is the most comfortable couch in the world. It is also officially the ugliest couch in the world. But I love to sleep on it, and I love hearing the water, and when I wake up, I love to see the sunshine. 

If I owned a cottage, I would totally just leave a chair down by the water. It would be my thinking chair, I believe. If I felt a thought coming on... I would run to my chair. If I felt like writing, I would run to my chair. If I felt like reading, I would run to my chair. If I felt like talking, I would set up a second chair beside it, and grab a friend, and run to the chairs. It would just be so useful to have a chair. I could write wonderful things in a chair like that. I would think deeper thoughts in a chair like that. I could totally read "War and Peace" and "Middlemarch" in a chair like that. If I had a chair like that... I would be a better person. I can tell. I really could use a chair like that. 

Wendy sitting on a rock, in the sunshine, being all thoughtful. 

This is me. In a pink apron! And a blue sweater. I am by far the most colorful baker at Hillcrest. The sweater is actually just as much for protection from the ovens as it is for warmth. This picture was taken on the day that I learned that you shouldn't wear black if you work in a bakery. But it was taken in the morning, so it was before I was all hand-printy. Also, I don't know what I am doing with my mouth while I am taking this picture. Maybe my mouth just does that at 4:35 in the mornign. It might. I don't know. I think maybe it is trying to do the thing it does in the cute/funny pose with meg, except that it is failing miserably. Because Meg isn't there being all funny beside me. Obviously. 

This is Lancelet! Lancelot the penguin air-freshener. =) Thank you, Tory. =) I know that he is technically supposed to be in a car... but he is just so cute! And so he is on the thing that holds my pens and pencils and high lighters (which I decorated myself, by the way. Me and meg are just crafty like that. lol. I am ruining the randomness of these pictures by connecting all of them to Meg. lol. It's just that I have such wonderful memories of sitting on a little bed in a little bedroom in a little cottage with Meg and sticking all these jewel thingers on our pen holders.=)) Emily, you should know that this little guy always makes me think of you! "Poke the penguin... fear the penguin... be the penguin." lol. Nobody appreciates a cute penguin like you do. =) 

And this is the journal that I bought today. The tag called it a "Jumbo Journal". That's right... now I am allowed to have jumbo feelings, because I can deal with them in my jumbo journal. Yup... 192 pages. All to be filled with my massive emotions. This is one of my wiser investments, I believe. 2013 is just shaping up to be that kind of a year. I just love everything about this thing.... I mostly like its pure jumbo-ness. It is big, so even though it is not spiral bound, you can still spread it open, and one side doesn't keep popping up while you are writing. It just stays flat. This is a very important quality in a notebook. Also, it has pink lines! pink lines! And the paper is kind of beige. It is just inspiring. This is actually going to be my prayer journal for the next year (or two. lol.). 

Random things: 

-So several weeks ago... my family went to this place for lunch.... and I didn't want to go... and there was only one couch, and me and my three siblings just fit perfectly on this couch (although kenton thought it was a bit close. lol.).... and then the elderly man of the house must have thought I looked bored.... so he so kindly handed me an open magazine... and said "I think you would probably be interested in this article!"... and I looked at the title of the article... and it was "Love for the Unlovely"... and me and Kenton cracked up. I guess now we know what Laverne thinks of me. lol. 

-At work the other day, me and Florence were talkin'. And when me and Florence talk... well, nothing important gets said. lol. But this just made me laugh. lol. We were discussing how I should move far away somewhere, so that she could come visit me. And she asked me where I would want to live (Ireland, duh.) and I said that maybe she should pick the place that I live, since the entire purpose of me moving away was so that she could come visit it me. And the following conversation took place: 

Me: "So where do you think I should live, Florence?" 

Florence: "Hmmmm... Which would I rather see- the Africa men or the China men?" (and i'm pretty sure that by "men", she was just meaning like, the general people of those countries. Not actually like just the men. lol.) 

Me: "What about the Irish men?" (meaning just the men, and not the general people, of course.) 

Florence: "Did you see the man with the sign that was in here last week?" (Topic change! This happens a lot at Hillcrest. I love it, because it means that I also get to be as random as I want to be. At Hillcrest, you are free to be yourself. As long as you are a Mennonite.) 

Me: "There was a man with a sign?" 

Florence: "Yeah! His hat said 'kiss me- I'm Irish! But I don't think he was any more Irish than you or I.'" (hardly a sign, in my opinion. lol. But I think that some things must just get lost or confused in the mental translating from German to English that they do in their heads.) 

Me: "So did you kiss him?" 

Florence: "No!" (I guess that would be taking customer service a bit farther than she is willing to go.)

...okay, so that conversation was a lot funnier at the time than it is now. lol. 

-I just have one Christmas present left to buy! and then I'm done with that. =) 

-My family is baaaaaaaaaaaad at names exchanges. It's Renee's fault. 

-Renee and Wendy invented a game. It's called "Test Your Temper". And basically, it requires two players, and one player is just generally as annoying as they can possibly be. The aim of the game is to see how long it takes the other player to lose their temper. Yeah. That's my little sisters for you. lol. 

-I am bad at advent calenders. I got behind, I caught up, and now, i am like six days behind again or something. And it's still sitting close to my heater thinger. Some people never learn, eh? 

-I can't go to Wal-Mart without buying those 98 cent packages of three Lindor chocolates. I just can't do it! 

-I bought a new Bible. It's pretty. 

-The school shooting in Connecticut... is incredibly sad. Yesterday afternoon I saw a picture of some of the kids outside of the school after the shooting in Saturday's paper, and it nearly made me cry, because some of them looked terrified, and some looked blank, and some were crying, but they had all been exposed to fear that no child should experience. So sad. 

-A quote from Wendy, about the sucker she was eating on the way home tonight: "It's sweet- but it's violent. It's the kind of thing that you like, but you don't like. You can't put it down, but it's too sour." Yeah- that's an intense sucker there, kid. She also came up with an entirely new superstition while we were driving home this afternoon (this one was directed at Kenton. lol.): "If you make your little sister mad, you will have ten years bad luck." So there you go. Ya'll better treat your little sisters real nice. I just used the word "ya'll". and do you know why? (see point below)

-It's because Annie F. Downs is one of my writing heros. And I haven't even read her book yet. I own it though. Ordered it from Amazon. It's sitting on my bookshelf, with its cool cool cover, and I can't wait to read it, because I can tell that it is going to amuse me and teach me great things. Which is exactly my goal as a writer. So yeah- Annie is a completely hilarious writer. thank you, Joy, for introducing me to her! I love her blog.. it is one of my "most visited" pages in google chrome. Anyways, she uses "ya'll". And it just sounds so good. lol. So I couldn't resist using it just once. Here is the link to her blog, if you are interested. http://annieblogs.com/ 

She says a lot of good stuff, and also a lot of funny stuff. She also says a lot of things about writing that I love and when i read them i go "HEY! THAT IS HOW I FEEL ABOUT WRITING!". she says things like "It's like constantly making a DQ blizzard in your head that stays on that little spinner thing until you sit down and write." True. and..."I sat down at my computer and I typed away like my next breath depended on it- It literally felt like I was underwater and the only way to kick to the surface was to let the words out. Pages and pages and pages flew as the tears poured and when I was done, I had somehow run a marathon emotionally as well as felt my heart be gently wrapped in a bandage that I could not see, but felt the coolness of it." True. I know that feeling. and.... "Hello, six truly large cans of stewed tomatoes- I don't know why, but I'm buying you." Okay. So that is not a deep revelation about writing. That is just funny. 

Okay, now for some reason my formatting has gone all weird. 

I think it is trying to tell me that it's time (past time!) to end this post. 

So I will. 

I hope you are all having a wonderful time preparing for Christmas! =)

A Word or Two Of Advice

Today I learned two very valuable lessons.
I learned them both the hard way.
Through experience.
Which, at work, Florence reminded me is the best teacher. But it is most definitely not the kindest one. Nuh uh. Actually, I made two mistakes in a row at work, and that was why Florence said that, cause she could tell I felt bad, and it was one of those things that I did because I just didn't really know any better. I was making sugar cookies, and i used all-purpose flour instead of the peach flour, okay?? And I forget what my second mistake was... but I just want you all to know that the cookies turned out fine. They really did. They were perfect, if I do say so myself. =) Anyways, neither of the lessons that I want to talk about today have anything to do with mistakes I made at work. Well, I guess one of them was learned from being at work....
Okay, I have complicated this enough.
Lesson #1- If you work in a bakery, and have the tendency to wipe sticky hands on the back of your skirt in the morning, and soon after wipe floury hands on the same area of your dress, you should never wear a black dress to work. Unless, of course, you want to walk around all day with handprints in odd places.
Lesson #2- Do not leave an advent calendar close to a source of heat. Like a heater. Don't leave that calendar there. You may think it is far enough away that it won't be affected by the heat, but just to be safe, you should put an extra ten feet or so between the heat and the calendar. Because those little squares of chocolate..... it doesn't take much to melt them.

.... Did i mention that i learned this the hard way? 

I feel sick. sick sick sick sick sick. i am going to complain about feeling sick now. maybe it will make me feel better.

I am sick.
This is my sixth day of being sick.
Day 1: was Wednesday. I got up and went to work and the bread slicer was in the lunchroom and there was a new door, and there was an electrician, and that pink fluffy insulation stuff, and I had a headache, and that's about what I remember about Wednesday. Well, except for getting home from work and being confused because the van was here, but the door was locked, and the radio was on, but i couldn't find mom, and then i found a note on the table saying that "Kenton hit his head" (thanks for the details, mom. lol.) and proceeded to worry for the next three hours or so, and then kenton came home and wondered why he was wearing a white t-shirt, but he was basically okay, which was good. and then i went to bed at 8:30, and people kept texting me to ask how kenton was doing, and i would wake up every time my phone buzzed, but not have the energy to reply at the moment. to all you people who texted or emailed at that point... i am sorry for not replying. i love that you all care about us so much. =)

....i was going to take you through each day, but then i realized that that would just a lot of me complaining about how i am sick, and that would be dumb. so all you need to know is this: i was sick thursday, i thought i was getting better on friday, but then i woke up friday night with an earache in my left ear, and then i took tylenol all night long, and then my ear felt better when i woke up on saturday morning, and then i went to benton st. baptist church and then i went to hear the messiah, and then i went to tim hortons and then i came home and defly thought i was feeling better and then i fell asleep and then i woke up an hour later and my right ear was hurting really badly, and so it was another night that i spent taking tylenol. and then i stayed home on sunday and fell asleep in random places at random times all day (like the floor downstairs... it is not even that uncomfortable. i slept there for like three hours. lol.), and then my bedroom was so messy and full of kleenexes and my sheets were so twisty that i didn't feel like sleeping in my bed, and so i went back downstairs and slept on the couch and woke up on monday morning with both my ears still plugged, and still coughing, and a brand new headache.
basically, i am so tired of being sick and feeling tired and not hearing anything properly and coughing and feeling excessively warm all the time and never getting hungry and thinking that i'm getting better but then just getting sicker.
and mom, the garlic pills you are making me take... are not helping. but at least they are odorless. lol.
i just want to feel better again!!!!
but there have been happy moments over the past few days!
like going shopping on monday with Trish and and wrapping our gifts for christmas caroling. =) this was before I got sick... and it is just such a pleasant memory. =)
like when kenton came home from the hospital and remembered all of us! he even remembered what trees are, much to wendy's relief. lol.
like going to a play with Megga and parking in a parking garage and going to Wal-Mart!
like going to the program at Benton Street Baptist and sitting with Joy!
and then going to hear the Messiah!
like watching "Christmas with the Kranks" with some of my family yesterday afternoon.
like figuring out exactly what I want to happen in chapter 8.

okay.... I'm going to go try to do things now. lol.
and random monday posts will probably start happening again at some point. lol.
oh! and i said that i would maybe post more pictures from that afternoon that me and megga took pictures?
well, she did a blog post about it, and she did such an amazing job of editing the pictures that i have decided to just give you the link to her blog post. lol. http://pensamientospequenos.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/interruption-christmassy-stuff/
there you go. =)