Just because I said I would

I almost missed it.

The same week I set some guidelines (I mean real guidelines) for my blog and already I'm tempted to ignore them.

Like they say, habits die hard.

And, like I expected, I don't really have anything to write.

Naturally.

....

Yeah, I'm just staring at the screen trying to think of something. Between it being past my bedtime and Lost playing loudly in the background, I can't think.

I visited Gail Carson Levine's blog today. There was a post about author quirks, and she was talking about how she could write anywhere, anytime. Ha. Not me.

I can't concentrate with loud noises (or people who talk in a manner that demands you pay attention to them and nothing else), lots of activity, and more. I subconsciously built certain guidelines I act like I have to meet in order to accomplish anything. Well, eventually, if I'm able to settle into my work, I can do it if the conditions change, but that doesn't often happen.

Okay. I ran out of stuff to ramble about.

Can't. Think.

We're having another thaw here. It totally doesn't feel like January. More like late March. We got snow last week, but it all melted, and now there are puddles all over the yard. I'm sort of glad I don't have to wait for spring to get to properly use the rain boots I got for Christmas. Every time I take Sasha out, I splash around in the puddles like a little kid.

I was reminded recently on facebook that I always remember how to act like a kid: coloring outside the lines, singing off key, scribbling with chalk, wearing mismatching clothes.... Growing up is hard enough without forcing myself to stop having fun. (I know. I make it seem like growing up is this awful, nasty business that should be avoided at all costs. It's not like that. Sometimes it just gets a little confusing.)

So that Day Zero list I started a little more than a year ago.... I finally completed the list. The final item on the list: go puddle jumping. I've decided that, if the weather is right, that's one of the things I want to do on my birthday. (Yeah, I hope for rain on my birthday.)

Okay, I'm really not making any sense. I'll come back when I can actually form complex thoughts and I'm not trying to focus on Lost at the same time.

Not the Only One

Too many days like this, where I sit here staring at the screen, the words having abandoned me. What to say? What to write? I know what needs to be written, but the words won’t come.

It sounds far more poetic than it really is. In reality, it’s a huge bother, a predicament that, more times than two, has ended with me banging my head against the nearest surface while I moan and growl in frustration and come so close to swearing it probably is a lie to say I’m not.

Does every writer go through this? Surely C. S. Lewis never had this problem, or Ted Dekker, or Gail Carson Levine?

In writing, as in other areas of my life, I’m prone to think I’m the only one going through my particular issues. Somehow I get the idea they’re unique to me. (How I think that’s possible when I’m living on an earth more than 6,000 years old and the current population is nearly 7 bil., I don’t know, but I do.)

I’ll be browsing blogs, checking out facebook, or (as is most often the case) sitting in church, and something will be said (or written) that will make me jerk to attention. That’s exactly how I feel! The speaker or writer will continue, describing my problems exactly. Time and again it hits me that I’m not alone, I’m not the only one, this is normal and it can be overcome.

And that gives me the power to try again.

An example that has often sprung to mind lately is a sermon I heard a few months ago. A young man who used to come to our church. He and his wife moved down south a couple years ago, where he became the youth pastor at a friend’s church.

All my readers know him as the man who suffered serious heart issues back in August. When he preached at our church, he didn’t spend much time talking about the circumstances surrounding that time. I can’t even remember exactly how he got around to the part that impacted me the most, but when he did, he talked about something I’m very familiar with.

I believe he was talking about prayer, or at least our relationships with God. He described the feeling he said he went through when it seemed like God was distant, like there was this wall separating himself from God, like all his prayers were bouncing off the ceiling. That was when I sat in shock, my mind racing.

Because I’ve had those moments. I’ve had those weeks. I wonder why I don’t feel anything, why nothing seems to be happening. I lie there in silence and fear, breathless and searching, though for what I’m not sure.

I feared that I was the only one who felt that way: like I couldn’t find God, like I was too small to reach Him. I was…hypocritical?...to even really think it, but sometimes it felt like God wasn’t even there.

It was such a relief to know I wasn’t alone, that others had been through it before. And it happens time and again (like I said, mostly in church). Whenever I’m going through something, there will be something mentioned every day – something I hear, something I read, something I see – that reminds me of my struggle and encourages me to keep moving. It’s in those moments that I wonder how I could ever doubt God; His timing is perfect. It’s like He reaches down to tap me on the shoulder. “Pay attention, Amber. This is for you.”

Wow. In the true sense of the word, that really is awesome.

The hard part comes when the moment passes and I’ve descended back into the real world, back into the midst of my struggling. Seconds pass, it fades, and I return to the same old habits. I return to the muddy ruts, dragging myself through and barely getting by. Next week, I’ll hear another sermon that will stir my emotions but probably won’t get past my head and into my heart and back out through actions that change the way I’m moving.

That’s my real problem, in writing and in life in general. I see the obstacle, I ponder over it, I plant my hands on my hips and glare at it, I mutter threats against it. I hear the suggestions, the encouragement, and I start to overcome it. But instead of my hill becoming a speed bump under all the energy I could employ conquering it, it practically becomes a mountain for all the extra time I waste crawling over it.

So what to do? It’s so easy to go back to old habits. My mind defaults to all those practiced motions and methods. How do you break those personal traditions? To a mind that is so focused on the end result and impatient to get there, it’s hard to take it day by day, step by step, like I need to. With every day I hesitate, every step I stumble over, it piles up behind me and I give up before I make any progress.

Hence, presence on this blog is sporadic at best, I haven’t completed a book in more than a year and I’ve been through too many works to count, and I’ve found two dozen different ways to talk about this same personal issue.

Sorry about that.

So this is my plan: if I never post any other time, I need to post on Fridays and Tuesdays. If I post on other days of the week, I can skip those days, but I have to do at least that much. Maybe I'll eventually I'll actually figure out how you're supposed to blog and I'll learn to do it right. Until then....

What Really Matters

One of the definitions of life simply is "unpredictable". You don't live by sticking to your plans and never changing them; you live by taking what comes and making the most of it, because, in the end, plans are only intentions, never rules, of how your life will go. One little thing can disrupt the plans for your whole life, and you're left in the dust wondering what to do next. You live by acting, now and in every moment, making the most of it.

I've never had a day where absolutely everything goes as I planned it. I wonder if anyone has. And yet we still make plans, even though our best laid plans are always changed in some way or another.

The quietest moments are shattered by harsh reminders of the frailty of life. I was reawakened to that truth this past week.

I always dreaded the day I'd have to write about death on my blog: death as a personal and recent experience for me. To my memory I've only ever done it once. That time was years ago, when I wrote about one of Wes's friends who died of cancer.

This past Saturday I went to help out at Dad's store. (Yes, I spent most of my time folding T-shirts, as usual.) Right in the middle of our ordinary day, Dad got a call that changed everything.

When he went to tell me, he started crying so hard he couldn't speak, and that's when my heart dropped.

Daddies aren't supposed to cry. My dad never cries like that unless something really, really bad has happened. In a second, my mind ran through a dozen possibilities, and with each one I became more and more frightened.

Then Dad told me that my cousin had died in a car accident the night before.

Here's my second point: we tend to take life for granted, but we also take for granted those who are closest to us, those we've had the longest: family.

Yes, I didn't know what to say as Dad briefly explained the situation. But, ashamed as I am to admit it, it wasn't the news itself that sobered me and caught my breath in my throat. It wasn't entirely the death of one so close to me that shocked me.

The first thing that struck me was my dad's pain. The second was that I didn't share that pain. Yes, I cried, and I cried hard. But I cried first for him, and then for myself. I tried to fathom the fact that a man of 20 and his 15-year-old friend had both died, and not even through the fault of anyone. All that happened was my cousin swerved to miss an animal, over-corrected, and hit a tree. It was the reminder of life's unpredictability scared me.

We all want to think we'll live past 60, but it doesn't always happen. People die of all ages, from all causes. We can't choose the time or the reason. That was the fact I was awakened to.

Eventually, it all sunk in, and I cried for a cousin I really didn't know. I've been crying over the loss of my cousin because just now I'm learning what an amazing person he was, and I never realized it. I have people closer to me than him that I take for granted and, in a way, neglect. We get so used to the presence of family that we forget to value who they are to us.

I don't know if I should feel so guilty over not really being able to mourn the loss of my cousin; not the sort of mourning that comes from missing him. But I do feel guilty. Maybe my guilt is the result of being reminded to cherish the time we have and the people with whom we spend it, and the fact that I do neither half as much as I ought to.

I've been debating for a few days about what to say in my next blog post. I feel like every sermon I've heard recently has been a call to live a life with purpose, to live with my eyes wide opened so I don't miss a heartbeat or a smile on a love one's face. Yet I keep going back to my old deeply rutted trail of habit and memorized motions. Sad that it takes death to shake me out of my trance and reevaluate. I pray I don't waste or forget the things it's made me realize.

New Year, same old habits

Oh.

Hi.

Yeah. I feel like a total bum.

I can't even think about recapping. The very notion is painful. So I won't!

Well, not really. Maybe a little. What else do I usually have to blog about?

Our New Year celebrations were great. Up until midnight, ringing in the new year with sparkling grape juice and fireworks echoing through the city. Paper routes made it feel like any other day, but then we skipped Sunday school and only had a morning service at church and spent the rest of the day with friends. (Sasha hated that, because she was in her kennel for 9 hours.) There, we mostly played games and laughed until we cried and ate a bunch of junk food. Yay!

Other than that....

School is back in. I'm battling it out with math. Something about algebra simply does not click in my brain. Neither does the notion that it's all life applicable. Right. But I must suffer on. Get through June. Get through June. Then it's all over!

My personal challenge for the year (well, one of them) is to write two complete books. Technically, the challenge started in November, because that's when I started the book I'm currently working on. I'm guesstimating that's about 150,000 words, give or take. I have 9,500 now. That's about 550 a day from here to November. (I think. I can't trust my math.) The problem is looking at it as 550 a day, not 150,000 in 12 months. And then there's the part where I have a hard time finishing projects.

Um.... We got more snow (finally!), I'm now attending adult church on Sundays (still in Youth Group on Wednesdays), my youngest sister had a birthday, my puppy hasn't changed, I have five books on my "Currently Reading" list, and I got a new box of tea.

Yup. That's about it.

Summing it up like that makes me feel so under accomplished.

I'm still trying to figure out what I can do to motivate myself to blog more than once every week (or bi/tri-weekly, as the case has recently been). People say telling your friends about it is good motivation. I linked a few of my posts on facebook a while ago, but that didn't seem to work. What to do, what to do?

This literally was just a "checking in" post because chores are calling.

And just like that, it's over.

I'm having a hard time believe Christmas is already done.

Strange.

I spent a good part of Saturday out doing last minute shopping with Mom (she had all of my gifts already and there were some small things I still needed, so it worked well). Then we went to the Christmas Eve service and proceeded to squeeze all of our family and the Wrights into one pew. (Well, Dad was working, so not everyone, which is the only way we managed without moving a few people onto laps.) That was exciting. Mom said we didn't need to bring our Bibles because it's a candlelit service and we can't see them, and by this point we all have the Christmas story pretty well memorized. So we didn't, and I still felt stupid for not having mine.

A few special songs, the reading of the Christmas story, and a brief message, and then back home.

Then, due to paper routes, as well as a general disregard for normal traditions, we decided to open gifts on Christmas Eve and got our stockings Christmas morning before church. Soon after Dad got home, we all gathered in the living room. Allenna set up her video camera, Mom had her camera, and for a while we had Sasha in her crate while Hershey sat quietly by Mom.

We girls passed out the gifts, and then we debated about how we would determine the order in which the gifts were opened.

I suggested Dad use a die like he did a few years ago. He would roll a die and, based on the number rolled, one of us would open one gift (Dad being #1, Mom #2, and so on). Some didn't want to do it that way, but eventually we pulled Monopoly out from under the couch and Dad was given the die.

My number didn't appear much until the others started coming to the end of their presents. I've been wanted some colored socks so my sisters wouldn't take my socks, mistaking them for theirs and consequently wearing them all over the house and on missions involving paint and dirt. My wish was granted. I think I ended up with a dozen pair of socks!

I also good a fair amount of chocolate, which I didn't expect but was happy with, as well as some jewelry and a watch, fingerless gloves, a hat, polka dot rainboot-style boots, an uber-fuzzy blanket, and an upcoming year-long subscription to ancestry.com!

Apparently I'm usually quite boring to get gifts for. (While I think notebooks, wind chimes, and books are great gift ideas, most people don't seem to agree. Perhaps I'm too specific?) So I tried to branch out and suggest some things that haven't been on any Christmas list before.

I tried to get to bed at a decent time Christmas Eve, because of paper routes. However, Wes is trying to get in a lot of gaming time so he can make progress on his new games before his Christmas vacation is over, and he seems to have forgotten all about the trial of Sunday morning papers, and I have a hard time going to sleep when my room isn't dark, so that plan didn't work too well.

Maybe the whole idea of Sunday being Christmas felt surreal because I was up at 3 to deliver papers, just like any other Sunday. Either way, I was up by 3:30 and not home and in bed for three hours or so. The routes we're subbing didn't go quite as quickly as they should have.

By 8:30 I was back up and trying to get ready, but the skirt I had planned to wear was missing and the only other one I could find that would work with my new boots was dirty. (Pastor had recently mentioned that if the kids wanted to bring a new toy to church, they were allowed to, and I was determined to wear my new boots.)

Eventually I got everything settled. Aside from my shirt, leggings, and skirt, everything I wore was from Christmas: new socks in my polka-dot boots, my fingerless gloves, my new watch, my pink elephant necklace, earrings, and my slouchy hat. (I was informed by one friend that I looked totally hipster in the hat.) 'Twas delightful.

If I decided to wear all my favorite clothes (accessories included) at once, I would look certifiably dorky: blue-striped Peru pants, multi-colored polka dot boots, teal fingerless gloves, and...well, I haven't found a shirt yet that I call my favorite. All I know it is would really clash worse than all the rest. And I'd be happy.

We had intended to have most of the food made and ready to go on Christmas Eve, but we only managed to get the turkey cooking and the potatoes peeled, so we didn't eat as soon as we got home. Mom got the rolls ready (we didn't eat them with dinner but after) and I made apple crisp and helped make a pie. Later in the day, Heather helped Mom make fudge. Now all we need to fulfill the traditional list of holiday snacks is chex mix, but that might have to wait until January.

After we ate, we spent the holiday like any other: quietly, most of us in the living room watching movies and/or napping. I don't know what Christmas is for everyone else, but that's pretty much how it always goes for us.

And I still can't believe it's already over. Crazy. And we still don't have any snow. There's a 60-70% chance of some tonight and all through tomorrow. We'll see.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Whether we'll actually have one remains to be seen.

I can't believe it's Christmas Eve.

Granted, I sometimes live a little disconnected from reality and the occurrence of most holidays seems a bit surreal to me. Usually all it takes are some fireworks or songs or a church service to make it sink in, but I'm really having a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit without snow.

We've been listening to Christmas music since mid-October, I had most of my shopping done probably a month ago, we had the Christmas program at church two Sundays ago and the choir cantata last Sunday, we have a tree, we've watched A Christmas Carol, White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Polar Express, It's a Wonderful Life, and so many other classic movies.... All that would settle the "Christmas spirit" firmly in the minds of a lot of people.

But what exactly is the "Christmas spirit"? Here's the part where a loony fuddy duddy would go into a rant about the commercialization of the holiday and how Christmas is a time of giving and loving and peace on earth and all that. In some areas I agree, but that's not my point.

As I said, I tend to live a little disconnected to reality. I'm not in any way condoning my habits. It means I'm behind in school, I can't finish a book, I didn't rake the yard once this autumn, the hose is full of frozen water, there are months-old rotten watermelons in the garden, and a wealth of other things. My mind tends to wander through a hazy fantasy world far too often, and when someone pulls me down for a breath of fresh air, I get mad at them. When a holiday comes along, I do all of the outward things right to try to get that magical feeling everyone else says they have. I don't have a clue what that's supposed to feel like. Sometimes I wonder if I've ever known what the true, honest, original meaning of Christmas is.

Most the time I manage to keep my head above the clouds because I'm riding one giant of a high horse. It really hurts when you fall off one of those, believe me. Matter of fact, I think I may have tied, glued, and duct taped myself to the saddle just to avoid falling.

This is going to sound cheesy and cliche, but I think this Christmas spirit everyone's talking about is something we are supposed to have all year round, but the holiday reminds people about it and brings them back to it for one month out of the year. It is the mindset of giving and love and laughter and family and hope and peace and beauty and the warm and fuzzy feelings we all want in our lives, but it's being crowded out by rushing and cooking and traveling and other holiday activities, at least in my mind.

I started a rant in a post I never finished and published on this blog. It was about how I could really go for a sabbatical of indefinite duration at some cabin way up in the boonies with nothing but my Bible, a notebook, my dog, and silence. As the song goes, I feel like I'm running just to catch myself. People demanding that I have my order ready as soon as I reach the counter rather than letting me peruse the menu for two more seconds; people swearing up a storm and revving their engines when the light doesn't turn green a whole second after they got there; people whining like children when they don't get exactly what they want, or arguing immaturely because they aren't willing to get off their own high horses and listen to each other. In the midst of the rushing around, we can't stop to collect our thoughts and say a prayer or we'll lose our place in line.

I think the Christmas spirit is an attitude that's completely contradictory to the human nature, and that's why it's such a novelty when people are reminded of it every December. They may not know why, but they know it's something they should strive to get. As much as we want it, though, it takes more than some snow, some movies, and a special church service to get it, and most of us aren't willing to spend more than a month a year in the effort.

Some people would puff out their chests and say, "The reason I don't have a change of heart around Christmas is because I already have the Christmas spirit all year long!" Yes, I want to be one of them. Someone please rip off this duct tape, take a firm hold of my boot, and drag me down until I'm tasting solid earth. Yes, this Christmas spirit is a mindset, but the real thing moves beyond the mind to the heart, and then it comes back out in our actions, in our everyday lives. No one is perfect, and as much as I love the thought I don't think peace on earth is possible when it's man trying to create it. We all have our own varying versions of the idea, and trying to define it could launch us into another world war. But that doesn't mean the individual can't strive to live with the hope of peace in their hearts.

I realize I've yet to say anything about the real reason for Christmas. Some people refuse to celebrate it because it has pagan origins. I like to think that the Christians of the time looked around and saw their drunken Roman neighbors praying to whatever gods they had and decided to take the Roman celebration and turn it into another reminder of the True God and His love, so they chose to honor Christ's birth in the midst of pagan revelry.

I'm also of a firm belief that no one can know true peace, true hope, true joy outside of a relationship with God. No amount of man-made peace on earth, of gift giving, of gathering with family, can creating an imitation that can hold a candle to the real thing. For those who have believed the truth, Christmas is the symbol of the spirit they ought to live with in their hearts all year long. God left all and came among His hateful, ugly, proud creation to give them peace and hope like they'd never known. He showed us beauty we'll never find beyond the light of His glory. He gave us love undeserved, unmerited by the best of us; love without limit, without cost, unconditional forever without anything required in return; because what on earth could we possibly give to God, Who is the very thing of love?

The Christmas spirit is not a mindset, but a heartset, defined by the act of a merciful and loving God in giving Himself for creatures who weren't worth it, who will never be worth it. It's an emotion that provokes action, and it cannot be mimicked or recreated by any amount of generosity and peaceful living, of music and empty prayers, of snow and decorated trees. I only pray it doesn't take a special day of the year to bring me back to that knowledge.

I'll get off my soapbox now. None of this was running through my head before I sat down to write this. As usual, writing gets my mind working better than anything. I didn't mean to preach; I just had to get it out, even though I wasn't quite sure what it was until now. I suppose it's kind of a self-evaluation and mental beating-head-with-Sunday-newspaper.

All that said, I would still like some snow, and not just on the 24th and 25th like so many silly friends say. If we're going to have winter, let's do it right and have snow. As it is, we got a very light dusting last night (it took five hours of "flurries" just to stick and layer the ground) and there's something like a 47% chance of more today, and maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

Christmas party, Christmas trees, Christmas time...but no snow.

Hershey is sitting proudly in his chair by the window, watching the world come to life. Sasha's restless in her crate, moaning and grunting because, for once, Hershey is out of the girls' room before 9 and she can't be up to "play" with him.

It's a nice change to the morning routine, if you ask me.

For the last...probably at least the last month, maybe more, I've had my alarm set for 7. I don't think I've actually been up by 7 more than 5 weekdays in the past month. I keep hitting snooze, and then that's deactivated I reset the alarm a couple times. (Usually my excuse is that I'm in the middle of a good - or at least interesting - dream and want to see how it ends. But after a few hours of being awake, I wonder how I could think it was that interesting.)

Sure, sometimes I climb out of bed around 7, but that's only to take Sasha outside so she'll sleep a little longer.

Today I got up to take Sasha out, as usual. When I put her back to bed, I went to the girls' room to get my computer cord, thinking I might make an effort to stay awake. (I really should clean my room, but that's beside the point.)

Hershey was wide awake and standing by the door expectantly: not normal for him. Usually he's curled up as tightly as possible on one of the beds and refuses to move.

I got the cord and decided to let Hershey out, thinking he might just be thirsty and would go back to bed after I gave him some water. He downed nearly a gallon of water, then asked to go out. After that, he wouldn't go back to the girls' room but wandered into the living room.

Sasha wasn't happy, and waited for me to let her out. When I didn't, she barked a few times to remind me she was there.

I went upstairs to get dressed and grab my phone. When I came back, Hershey was gone. No where in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, or girls' room. I briefly wondered if he'd gone stealth mode and sneaked past me on the stairs and was hiding in Wes's room, but quickly dismissed that idea. Hershey can't be quiet about anything.

Then I remembered Mom's light had been on. Sure enough, he had pushed open her door and was curled up on the bed. She didn't let him stay for long.

So I gave him his medicine (buried in a heel of bread slathered in peanut butter so he couldn't pick it out like he usually does) and sat down to check a few of the games I had downloaded to my phone yesterday. Mom came out and cleared off Hershey's chair, opened the curtain, and invited him to hop up. He stared outside for a while, but now he's snoozing. And Sasha's quiet, too.

And yes, I said all that both because I wanted to change style a little and because I don't have much else to say. Even living in a family with comparatively eventful lives, sometimes those lives can feel pretty unremarkable.

I'm trying to remember everything that's happened since my last post.

Oh. Christmas party. It was fun. I'm glad we girls got the chance to get dressed up, and we ate something besides paste or taco shell-wrapped Mexican food. It was a big change from last year, when we all collapsed on the floor in jeans and colorful socks and drank dangerously bright Kool Aid and messy enchiladas.

This time, we pretty much sat around. After all of the pictures were taken, that is. (There were a grand total of 2 Sr. High guys there without girlfriends, and at least a dozen girls, so the youth pastor's wife suggested the girls pair up for pictures and the guys be in every one. Some girls were not in favor of this plan, but we did it.) I know this group of Sr. Highers typically does just sit around at activities, but usually we can lounge or sit on each other and throw pillows or something.

Anyway. Even gift time was quiet. I started out with a cool stationary set (stolen, because I was 23 out of 30 people and there weren't any exciting-looking gifts still wrapped) but that got taken and I ended up with a set of juggling balls. I could have had the pancake maker (a tube with a special tip on the end, which you fill with pancake batter and can use to make neat designs) but the girl who had it wanted to keep it and I'm nice like that.

And yes, my hair stayed curly the whole time. I was happy. And now I have a new technic for styling my hair. Yay me!

After that....

Well, on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ancestry.com offered free viewing of their WWII records, so I went and searched for a bunch of my relatives. I couldn't find my dad's dad anywhere, which is really strange, but I did find his dad, who enlisted when he was 63!

Searching those records prompted me to finally transfer the rest of the information from the family tree booklet I have onto the one I started online. It's done at last! Now whenever I decide to use the free 2 week trial of ancestry.com I can start filling in the past 40 years.

I can't really think of much else. Co-op and Institute are out for Christmas break. I failed terribly at memorizing Ephesians, so I'll have to deal with it and pay for the classes and look for a job (or because a best selling author in the next 6 months).

Last night we got our tree. We got a real tree last year, too, our artificial one finally so old and worn that we got rid of it.

It was cool and really windy last night, so we weren't in the mood for browsing every tree in the place. Mom wanted a tall, slim tree, but we couldn't see any of those. Heather found one she liked and was determined to have it, whining anyone else even looked at something different. "Mine doesn't cost as much as yours does" and "Mine's prettier than that one". Eventually we gave in and let her have her tree.

Then, courtesy of some nice route customers, we went to Logan's, and I made a note to never get Balsamic vinaigrette for a salad ever again. Sweet dressing on salad = yuck.

I can't believe we have 9 days until Christmas! Since our first snowfall, we haven't had anything. It's been gray and rainy this week. We got a dusting of snow last night, but it didn't stick. Tomorrow Mom's taking us girls shopping, so maybe a few hours pushing my way through a crowded mall to the sound of Christmas music will get me in the spirit. (I doubt it, but we'll see.)