This was a very strange Christmas here.
It seamed so odd because everywhere around us were major life crisis with so many many people we know.
Our little family was cocooned into a hushed season filled with so many many intercessory prayers for so so many. Left me a bit sober and lack luster. I remember Dove asking if I were excited and I could feel little of that. It was just a real real sober quiet time for me. Steve was off from the 18th of Dec. and paid holiday. We had the opportunity to bring in income so he worked and has worked many many hours on a side job for a customer that left Steve a bit under the gun. We are very grateful the employment. Just a real strange time.
It is so wonderful to have him home but we have yet to really have any off time together. I had set up many medical appointments for the kids while they were off school. All our needs are met and we are really fortunate. Left a strange sorrow for so many who are really hurting in this economy. We were frugal this year and it was really nice.
The big gift was a WII for the family.
WE are really enjoying playing and the physical aspects of it.
Oh it was so sweet...Dash opened a package that was a game they look just like movie's so I saw the WII logo and said opps I must of got the wrong movie...smiles and the anticipation crescendo as they opened the WII the glee was palpable. It was so wonderful to see our children so very happy.
We all have tired shoulders.
My dearest of treasures was this orange.
Dash recalled that all during my childhood an orange was always a prized gift in our Christmas stockings.
My days were early in the 1960's YES I'M THAT OLD...
We were rather poor in my early childhood and the thought to readily transported produce was in the early stages and things from the warm climates were very pricey.
Americans forget their history too easily.
The family gave me a set of garden gnomes.
They are each a gnome.
Still have to get that down who is who.
A picture said it all.
This is the room colors I have awaiting to be painted in her room.
Here you see me stunned and confused and speechless.
My sweet man had talked with a friend who told him of a way for a non monthly billed
Yes...are you ready ....
a cell phone.
Me interning into the 21 st century.
It is the principle of it I have to get over...
For emergencies and for contacting help if I need it.
I am so overwhelmed at learning it.
I did find myself getting a little giddy at the idea.
However it appears a rip off of sorts for they are charging too much.
We buy a card for 20. and use it but it was misrepresented to Steve how it works.
We still have to figure that one out.
The children got a lot of needed clothing that I had found a great deal on.
So as the family played I prepared for the guest.
Ham was main menu
so I did it with pure maple syrup, pineapple juice and brown sugar.
It turned out very moist.
I cut my hair Christmas morning in the bathroom...that is how chilled out we were.
It really was wonderful not being all stressed out.
I was really hushed in prayer a lot of the time.
The tomatoes ripened for Christmas day and I was able to offer up my prized harvest for the meal.
It was so perfect and it really was a gift to my heart for all the hard work on the garden this year.
It was a gift to my guests to offer them a real tomato.
The Pickles are my first harvest.
I canned them, they were a bit tart but they were dills.
More to learn about pickling.
After our meal we had gifts for the children.
They opened the games that the Grandparents gave they were for the WII.
Their Uncle gave them gift cards for a book store.
Their other Aunt and Uncle on steves side sent checks in the mail.
The kids are thrilled about going to the back and getting the money.
Steves Brother spent time helping me blanket the garden for the night.
He was so helpful and really peaceful. Often he is lost behind a vail of words.
A very intelligent man. But on Christmas I got to be with him in the garden just heart to heart.
Non to many a word just the pleasure and appreciation of the garden.
He really like the creation of it and offered such thoughtful support as too tending it.
He just was the most relaxed and natural I think I had ever experienced. It was one of the best parts of my Christmas Day.
The folks left and returned after a very long drive home.
They returned with a very thick blanket to offer up for to cover the chicken coop.
It was so touching. To travel so far for to offer it to me.
It was very very loving to receive so thoughtful an act of kindness and support.
In the afternoon as our guests had all departed our little family thrived at just being home.
Playing WII and chilling out, cleaning up and securing all the left overs.
I relized I totally forgot to send goody plates of left overs. That is how laid back a Christmas we had.
It was alright not to do it all just so. No one died or got angry haha.
In the evening we had a commetment to attent a gathering at my Sisters .
Our children love to see their second cousins and their Aunt and Uncle.
My niece and her husband was there with the baby as well.
It was so sweet.
I gave my niece a crock pot...strange thing I thought to purchase but I did it anyway.
Thinking of the difficulty to transport such a thing was a concern.
All concern vanished when that young lady opened it.
IT was the very thing that was number two on her wish list that they were saving up for.
She was so genuinely thrilled it really blessed me.
I am concerned over her for she was ill with respiratory infection and not health insurance to get care.
The little child there is not wanted by the maternal. She is the maternal of the little boy born from my nephew who gave up his life this summer. She is married and has a new infant the grandchild to that woman in the background and too my sister.
The kids are sore neglected criminally so.
That young woman had the audacity to return after a short absence with her husband (that woman annoyed by infant little girl and the great nephew was acting inappropriately toward the kids. Well if you know me...
so I took the infant into a distraction (better than her slapping its hand and saying...no no no no no without any redirection. I also tried to give the little girl a break so that she could play with a gift she had been given.
The woman had a rude open tone exploitation of how I was so horrible to pull the infant away from the little girl so the infant was entertained and the girl not being punished by her for no real infractions...
so at that point the maternal and the husband walked in STONED! higher than a kite on a very strong perhaps heroin type high. Oh I was furious!
So said I to the so called grandmother who condoned it..."did I offend you over the baby being distracted?"...her biting response then left me to say then"If I offended you Please excuse me"...
I went down got Steve in a very angry state TOLD him it was time for our emediate exit.
Told the children to please trust my wisdom
We left. I was so angry!
Dear God!
the grandparent just condoned it!
My sister was also furious but was outside the loop and so I graciously thanked her for I did not want to make a scene. I told my children on the ride home what had happened and assured them they would not ever be left in the company of someone on drugs if it were in my power to remove them.
The thought of the children under the authority of a woman who would allow the use of the drugs and to abuse and control those little kids is just undoing me.
Evil flourished when good men do nothing.
My sister and I spoke.
She supports my stance and is so very grieved for these kids.
I am awaiting further data.
Waiting knowing is just infuriating me!
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So after My temper was reeled back into being able to find the joy under my own roof...
My sweet son came to me at his bed time to give me on last gift.
A gift of words about how he knows his mother loves him.
I was healed in that moment the furry of the wicked removed and the tenderness returned me,
He is my gift. He is my son. We have our lives together. They are safe.
This world stormed all around us this Christmas and we were sheltered withing the wings of the almighty.
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My dear sister who is my friend. She is 18 years my senor called
She may have lung cancer...she is very ill in another state.
The waves hit the crest of the rock splashing with great intencity.
I am undone.
Pray for her with me. Please.
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One of my brothers lost his home to foreclosure...
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and 10,000 shall fall...
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We have a great thing to rejoyce that an Amber alert on the freeway as we were going to my sisters...we all prayed that God would save the child...an off duty police officer spotted her. She is alive and safe.
Our state is now number one in trafficking children for the human sex trade.
The man just walked up and lifted her 7 year old sister who made a fit, set her down and took the 5 year old.
They were playing out front at an Aunts.
In Japan this happens all the time to little boys to sell as heirs...
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and 20,000 at your right hand.
My heart is so weighed down in these terrible days as is so many a soul.
A time of hushed intercessions.
ll
