An Eventful Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning, I got up and went downstairs. Papa Nikolai was wrestling with Sonya and I thought it'd be fun too. I was pretending that she was tackling me. The first time was just fine. It was the second time I did it that was not so good. As my head went down to the ground, I heard a "crunch" kind of sound coming from my neck. I sat up slowly and for the most part felt alright. It was almost just like a stiff neck after sleeping funny during the night.

I went to eat breakfast and tried spooning my cereal into my mouth, but all of a sudden, my neck just hurt worst for some reason. I couldn't stay sitting. Standing seemed to feel the best. Then I tried to do ice, but I realized my neck wouldn't allow me to lie down. It hurt so bad. I got back up pretty quick and just started pacing around because it hurt to sit, but I felt like I needed to rest. Then I must've tried turning my head to the left again and that's when I felt pain like no other. I asked for Tim to come by me so I could quietly discuss my need to probably see a doctor. As he and Tim's dad looked up the nearest clinics and hospitals, the room started spinning and I was so nauseous. I thought I was going to pass out. So I quickly went to the bathroom to hang out for a few minutes until the nausea passed.

Then we were ready to head to the clinic. Tim's dad drove us since they had a van. It was much easier than trying to lower myself into our car. I was so thankful that he took the turns slowly so as not to make my pain any worse. We got there a little after 9am when the clinic opened. There were a few people ahead of us. Luckily, I was able to figure out a way to keep ice on my neck and sit in the chairs of the waiting room. I kept trying to joke around and not think about the pain. Luckily I had taken some motrin right before we left the house so that was slowly kicking in.

I was slightly concerned that I might've broken something in my neck, but then I was thinking I might be paralyzed or something weird. The pain was shooting down through my shoulder almost to my elbow and it kind of felt numb when it did that. At least it wasn't constant pain -- more of just a throb in the lower left hand part of my head into my neck. If I moved, then I couldn't think of anything else, it just hurt.

The doctor was really nice and sent me to get X-rays down the hall. Nothing was broken. Thank goodness! I just sprained my neck real good. So he gave me instructions on how to take care of myself with resting my neck and applying heat and cold packs. I also got a prescription for Vicodin. I wasn't sure if I'd use it or not since the pain wasn't so great at that point. But, once I was up and moving around, then it hurt like heck again.

We were back at the house by lunchtime. I spent most of the day on the couch and only ended up using 1/2 of a Vicodin to start off with. Later that night though, my neck started spasming again. It felt like there was a seizure in my neck and it freaked me out. I made Tim get me a full Vicodin at that point. Let's just say that everything was a little funnier than normal. haha... It made for an interesting night when we played The Game of Things.

Christmas Day was good. I think I only took 1 Vicodin after lunch and slept all afternoon.

The sheets that I got for normal recovery said that it sometimes takes 2-3 weeks for swelling to go down and 3-4 weeks for full recovery. It's been 6 days and I'm still a little sore. I could maybe drive today if I had to, but I still don't trust my reaction time because if I move my neck just right, it still hurts pretty good, but not enough for me to use any pain relievers. I still can't believe I got beat up by an almost 2 year old. haha... I just had to document this so I could tell Sonya when she's older. I think I better go rest again. My poor neck and shoulders are tensing up again because I haven't been babying myself at all today.

Hope your Christmases were less eventful than mine!

Getting back on the horse...

For a few days there, I somehow got pulled into the darkness. It was scary. I cried for no reason and didn't even want to go to a friends' house when normally I'd be so excited to go see her and her kids. The thought of the effort it would take to get over there just overwhelmed me. That and I felt like the few chores I had to get done around the house were going to take over my brain. So I stayed in my pajamas for most of the day and attempted to clean the bathrooms and work on Sunday School preparation.

I was a little scared that I'd be stuck in this pit again. My passion for God seemed so far away and even when I tutored last week Thursday, I really had to force myself to have fun with it. On Friday, the worst of those days, I finally decided it was time to memorize a whole Bible passage so I started with a few verses in John 15. I love the analogies of being a vine with God as our gardener. Anyway, I repeated the first few verses over and over until they stuck in my head. As I did that, a huge weight just lifted off my heart. The veil of darkness was gone. I shed tears of happiness at the realization. Now I'm prepared for the next spiritual battle -- I just need to arm myself with the Word and God will do the rest. The next battles might not be so easy to overcome. I'm just thankful that this time was such a short spell. I don't ever want to get lost in that dark again.

Here's to memorizing more verses in John 15 -- I can't wait until I can say the whole thing by heart. :-)

Christmas Treats

I just love making Christmas goodies -- sweets are so much more fun to make than real food. :-) I baked two batches of cut-outs the other night and did two more today. Yesterday, I dipped my truffles. They turned out pretty good! Not only are they pretty, but they are pretty darn tasty!

The first couple batches of cut-outs

Caleb got to make letters out of leftover cookie dough

Making chocolate truffles

Pretty Truffles

From another angle

Christmas Goodies

I have no idea where to start this year. We'll be traveling around a lot.

• For some reason, I always feel like we should have cut-outs because they're tasty and fun to decorate with the kids. 
• I kind of want to try my hand at chocolate truffles this year. I found a recipe last year that looked like it'd be easy to make, but never got around to actually testing it out. 
• Tim likes mint chocolate pinwheel cookies, but I'm not sure I want to do those this year. 
• Maybe I'll do caramels again though. My mom got me a candy thermometer for Christmas last year so this time I'll know exactly the time to pull them off the stove so they're not too soft. 
• I'm definitely going to do white chocolate and regular or dark chocolate covered pretzels again though. That's the one thing I know for sure!

Once I figure out what I'm making and how much of it, then I can start my grocery list and find time to make it! Yum!

What are some of your favorites to make?

A Year of Thanksgiving

Today, I turned 28 years old. Another year has gone by. It hasn't even dawned on me yet that I'm a year older.  Am I any wiser than I was a year ago? I'd like to hope so.

This past year has been filled with so many blessings. I can't even count them all. The biggest ones of course are the easiest to remember -- like buying a house or Tim's new position at work. The small blessings are the ones that I'm most thankful for -- our health, a roof over our head, plenty of food to eat, comfort, opportunities to serve at church and in the community, love, family, laughter, joy, prayer, and more. It's truly been a year to be thankful for.

Now... if only I had some snow to go along with my birthday. You're probably wondering what in the world is she talking about?

Is she crazy? 

Yes, I am. I admit it, but if you already knew me well, you wouldn't have had to ask that question. haha...

Every year I pray for snow on my birthday. For some reason, I didn't think to do it this year. The past few birthdays have had more than just light flurries too! The ground was covered in a few inches with big, wet flakes falling out of the sky. The weather was almost like a blizzard. So it was always fun to stay inside and cuddle up with a good book and a mug of tea or hot chocolate. Today, it's very strange to celebrate another year of my life without having that beautiful, white wonderland outside. I'll survive though. I know there's more plenty more time for snow to come yet. There are so many more blessings yet to come!

A Glorious God!

Oh goodness -- there's so much to write about, but where to begin?

Thanksgiving came and is already gone. I just brought out a box of Christmas decorations. There were only a handful of boxes marked "Christmas" in the basement. The decorations don't seem like they will fill up our house like they took over our whole living room last year. I guess we'll need to invest in more after the holidays are over and everything is marked down. I have no idea where to begin though! Luckily, I still have some time.

Here's a fore warning -- this post may jump around a bit. So I apologize if you're not following at all. Sometimes it makes more sense in my head then it does on paper. I'll probably read this in a few years and just laugh at myself. 

God has been at work in my heart. Well, I guess technically He always is at work, but more recently I've been feeling Him more. He's given me peace about a really tough decision that I had to make. I thought I'd be angry or resentful with the results. Instead I'm just a little sad, but know that it's for the better and look forward to this new direction. I'm just thankful that God always knows which way I should go and steers me toward the right path even when I stubbornly try to carve out my own little rabbit trails that soon get lost in the tall grass.

This past week, Sunday School was so great! I can tell that people have been praying about it because Tim and I led so well together and I couldn't think of anything that went "wrong." Maybe God is just changing me. I asked Him to do that -- to change my perception, to change my heart, to give me a more positive outlook. Every time I want to find the worst in a situation, God quickly reminds me of the good. He isn't letting me sink into that dark hole that I so often find myself in -- the hole where I feel jealous and sorry for myself, the hole where I feel alone without anyone there to drag me back up out of the darkness. I see the light shining dimly on the walls and see it penetrate the room. It's God's light shining through me. I know He is there just like He always is.

The grey clouds may dampen my spirit at times, but it won't crush it. I refuse to let it! The cold air brings apples to my cheeks and a bright cherry nose. I feel alive and it's wonderful! So instead of falling deep into a bit of blackness, I bask in the sunshine of a glorious God. AMEN!

I guess I didn't jump around as much as I thought I would. For some reason, my thoughts came out better than I could've imagined. It's times like now that the Holy Spirit seems to take over my mind and my fingers so that I can type words that fully capture the beauty of my thoughts instead of keeping them locked up in a cage. I've really missed writing like this. Sometimes I'll go back and reread old journal entries and am amazed by the insight that I had. I have no idea where it came from other than up above. Isn't God amazing? I sure think so. 

Anyway, I better finish a Christmas gift that I'm making. Over and out for now.

A Peace Offering

It must not be easy to live with me. I'm critical and negative. I try so hard to find the good and to get in the Word every day. 

But....  I  .... s t u m b l e... more often than I'd like to admit. 

*sigh*

Yesterday was a bad day for me. After teaching Sunday School with Tim, I happened to find everything we did wrong with the kids. By "we," I diverted the blame to Tim instead of myself. How horrible is that? It was actually a pretty good class compared to some other weeks. There were good questions and participation. I'm greedy and selfish and wanted more. I wanted to see those kids down on bended knee and fully realizing who God is. I wanted them to pray from their heart and not goof around. Instead of focusing on what God was doing through Tim and I, I was focusing on what we could do better by our own will rather than through God's. I just need to surrender it all to Him.

After venting a little, I felt God tell me that I could've handled that better. There was no excuse for what I said... and I couldn't take the words back. I struggle with holding my tongue at times. The words that I think should just be written in a journal and locked up never to been seen by anyone. Or better yet, I should just burn them afterwards so even I can't look back on my own ugliness. 

But through the ugly, brokenness, I can be renewed into something beautiful..... until I stumble again.

Last night, Tim and I were assembling Caleb's new bed that we inherited from Tim's cousin. The holes weren't lining up quite right and we were getting pretty upset with that darn bed. It was really a pain! There was arguing with each other and raised voices. My ugly spirit was revealed again even after I had vowed earlier to be a better wife. 

Tim went to pick up Caleb from Awana and returned with a peace offering:

I'm reminded again of how beauty shines through the ugliness. I don't deserve forgiveness, but Tim was willing to give it as freely as God gives His grace and mercy. One more day has come and gone and yet I'm still a failure in acting Christ-like all the time. I'm humbled by God's grace -- that "he who began a good work in me" would still want to "carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." I stumble, but wipe off the mud and dust my shoes off as He picks me up and sets me back on my feet again.