"Your Hands" by JJ Heller.

I have been fighting some undiagnosed illness since mid-January. Today I went to see the infectious disease doctor. Low and behold I have mono. I was told I had mono in high school but this doctor says there is no way that is true. My Epstein Barr numbers clearly indicate that this is a first time occurrence and not a re-activation. Crazy! I wonder what I had in high school... Anyway, so life has been quiet for me. Lots of napping. :-)

Today I found this video from KLOVE and it is just so beautiful I had to share.

Snowmaggedon 2010

33" Inches over the weekend.
10-20"+ predicted for tomorrow night...
No school until February 16th!

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for my marriage and husband.

Oh sure we don't live a glamorous life and sometimes life gets pretty mundane and other times totally bizarre, but through the thick and thin we stand by each other. We choose each other over anyone else on this earth. I am extremely grateful for that.

You all know, I can get annoyed with my husband (and he can get annoyed with me) but one thing I have always known is that God gave him to me. I try my best (and my best is far from perfect) to cherish that gift. I can see almost every step of my life leading straight to him and knowing almost instantly that he was the one for me.

KLove is doing the Love Dare until Valentine's Day, I have been intrigued by this dare since we saw the movie Fireproof (which was excellent by the way) but of course my marriage was/is not in the turmoil of those characters. But the Love Dare is for anyone. I probably won't post about this again, but I am challenging myself to this Dare so I can better cherish the gift God has given me. Will you challenge yourself too?

Amazon Kindle

So for Christmas my dear husband got me a Kindle. I had initially poo pooed such a thing but then I saw the Barnes & Noble Nook and I got all hyped up on the fact that they said you could share books with your friends. I admit, I was coveting.

I then noticed that the Nook wasn't shipping for weeks after Christmas and then one day at ES's fencing class there was a mom with a Kindle. She spent a lot of time talking to me about it and how FANTASTIC Amazon has been. She also said that she and her husband could share books. Hmmm... wasn't that Nook's claim to fame? So I decided I should actually research digital readers! I know, novel concept (pun not intended)!

After researching the Kindle, the Sony and the Nook I decided the Kindle was the way to go. Apparently most of the book publishers were not actually going to allow B&N to share books on the Nook and if they did you could only share it once and for TWO weeks. Oh as if Blunoz or any of my other friends had time to read a book in less than two weeks! As long as the Kindles are linked to the same Amazon account, you can pass books back and forth, so yea I can't share with my friends but I can share with my husband (if and when he gets one of his own). The other thing I liked about the Kindle was that is actually has international capabilities. Now I don't plan to travel internationally but Blunoz is going to deploy in the next few years (no this is not imminent) and maybe I will get lucky and be able to go join him at an exotic port call, or maybe someday I will be nice and get him his own Kindle. :-) The funniest thing I read was that B&N released the information about the Nook so far in advance that Amazon was able to upgrade all the Kindle software to compete before the Nook was even released! The mom at fencing said all her software was upgraded automatically and without problems.

My MIL knew I was getting a Kindle for Christmas so she cut out an article she read in the newspaper comparing the Kindle to the Nook. Once again Kindle was on top. The one new thing this article told me was that it takes 3 seconds for the Nook to turn a page and 1 second for the Kindle. I think that would drive me CRAZY, but what do I know? :-) The other thing that article says is that yes, B&N lists more free books but the books they are listing Amazon also has as free but the quality is so low on them, Amazon doesn't count them as books (but they are available to download for free).

Once I got my Kindle I stumbled upon the Amazon Best Sellers in Kindle list and there is an RSS feed to it, so I added it to my Google Reader. I have downloaded some fantastic FREE books from this list! Such as Conspiracy in Kiev and Midnight in Madrid, neither of which are free now, but they were when I got them! :-)

So there you have it, my Christmas Present from Blunoz in a nut shell. :-) Thank you my dear husband. I LOVE it!

Half Full or Empty?

Awhile back a friend got stuck listening to a woman complain for an entire swim lesson. She had no way to escape.

We have all met them, those people that never have anything positive to say. Those people that focus on all the wrong going on in their lives. We have even been that person sometimes, I know I have my moments. But we often come upon those people that are ALWAYS that way. People that seem as if they are not happy unless they have something to complain about. It can be a huge downer, but it started me thinking about the glass is half full theory. I like to try to always find the fullness in my glass (but of course have moments when I can't seem to see it). When faced with a perpetual complainer, is it possible to sit there and listen to someone complain about all the things going wrong in their lives and focus on all the things going right in our own?

On a similar note, I think I can see too much the half full glass. Are people like me annoying as well? I have another friend that had a valid complaint that she was tired of having a wrist in a splint. I said "well, at least it hasn't been amputated". She thanked me for putting it into perspective for her, but it still doesn't get her wrist out of a splint. :-)

We may be equally annoying but I am going to continue to focus on the positive aspects of life. Life has way too much to offer to focus on the things we don't like about it. God has blessed me in so many ways and these are the things I choose to focus on. Of course life is going to have its valleys (the bad) and mountains (the great), but don't the valleys make us appreciate the mountains all the more?

Happy New Year! May you always see the half full glass in front of you!

Wild Olive Follow Up

Last spring I had been coveting the Wild Olive T-shirts and finally succumbed and bought two when MckMama was doing a fundraiser with the Unfolding T-Shirt. I have to tell you, I LOVE THEM. They have held up great and always start my day off right when I wear them. I am currently wearing my Such Things t-shirt layered over a long sleeve t-shirt. Now that winter is coming (here) I am excited to see that they have new long sleeve t-shirts. Again, I am coveting. This is bad, the Bible tells me not to covet. Dang you Wild Olive! :-)

Can We Have Some Discipline Please?

To the Mom at the Bus Stop:

Yes my son hit your son on the playground last month, but this was after your son hit mine multiple times and would not stop, even after being asked to. My son was punished, was yours? Did you even ask him if he hit first? Hmm, going to guess not since from our phone conversation I got the impression you did not believe me. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of the multiple red spots on my son's back.

Today, I now understand you think my child is evil, but really he is a sweet little boy who only wants to protect himself and have fun at the PUBLIC playgroun.

Today your daughter picked up a stick and was swinging it at my son, so he made fists and put them up in front of his face to protect himself. He never once made actions to indicate he was going to punch your daughter (you know, the one with swinging the STICK).

It was unnecessary for you to keep telling your son to tell his friends not to make fists at his sister, over and over again, when no one was making fists!

Yes, my son was kicking mulch, he was clearing a spot on the ground and NO ONE was around him. Your daughter ran up to him as he was kicking, so dirt went towards her. She then ran back to you to have my son stop kicking dirt at her. He was NOT kicking dirt at her, he was kicking dirt, she got in the way. It was not appropriate for her to come over to me to have him stop and to indicate she wanted me to have him stop by screaming at the top of her lungs "STOOOOPPPPPP!!!!". She is old enough to speak with respect to an adult. She is also old enough to ascertain she should NOT run towards someone who is kicking dirt. She is also old enough to learn she doesn't always get her way, but I suspect this is something you are not teaching her.

My child is NOT perfect. But he is not the brutal bully you make him out to be on a daily bases. Spend some time watching your own children and stop blaming EVERYTHING that goes wrong on my child.