2009 in Review

Everyone always does end of the year lists on their blogs. I love lists! So here's one for 2009.

Some family/personal memories and highlights from the past year:

My practically non-existent Jury Duty at the Henderson County Courthouse in January.

Working with other church members to build a worship team for our early service. We started from scratch and I'm so proud of how far the group has come in just a year!

The Ice Storm and no electricity or heat at our house for 2 weeks at the end of January and beginning of February.

Monday night bike rides with Breck's Bicycle Shop (until they started doing crazy things like biking 20 miles at a time).

Finishing the Youth Room Mural.

Spending lots of time with Whitney and Vallerie!

Hearing all of the awesome stories from Jenny's hip replacement and recovery.

Our high school summer mission trip to Mission, SD and the Rosebud Reservation.

Biking Tunnel Hill with Jason, Jonas, Whitney, Vallerie, Jeff and Chris.

Listing with Kathy Jackson at Remax and finally selling our house and moving in with Mom.

Celebrating a 7th anniversary with the most wonderful man in the world.

A new school year of new and fun work at the church.

Attending the National YouthWorker's Convention in Cincinatti.

Jonas' miraculous recovery from being shot in the eye with a BB gun.

The Fee Concert.

Jonas receiving his Arrow of Light and crossing from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.

An awesome Christmas with loved ones.

And I know that there are a lot of things that happened this year that I did not mention!

I'm grateful for this year. It was not always easy, but I'm so glad for new friendships, new experiences, new lessons, a new understanding about my call in ministry and all of the great things that did happen.

I'm ready for 2010!

The Beatles Rock RockBand!

Jonas got Beatles RockBand for Christmas! I was thrilled--so thrilled, it was like I got a gift instead of him! Finally, a RockBand/Guitar Hero game that I can appreciate. I mean, I'll sing some of the songs on RockBand World Tour, but most of them aren't so singable and I'm not so big into the hair bands of yesteryear.

But I know all about "Yellow Submarine" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand!" And in RockBand format, those songs are so much fun to sing and play! Now, I just need Jonas to play in guitar mode and open up all the locked songs because some of my favorites are missing...

Here are some pictures from last night's jam session!

What Christmas Did To Jonas

Christmas Pictures

Some Random Christmas Stuff, 2009 Edition

Merry Christmas, everyone! I don't feel like winding a neat, easy to read tale of Christmas delight today. I'm just going to give you a list!

My sister drove up a day early and completely surprised Mom, who was really surprised and excited. Jeff arrived just before the Christmas Eve service yesterday. It's fun to have everyone together once a year!

The Christmas Eve service was wonderful last night. There were so many people who worked behind the scenes to make it a beautiful service. There's something about the music, the readings, the candelight and the wonderful friends and family gathered for worship that always makes for a beautiful celebration of Jesus' birth.

Jonas received a laptop for Christmas. It's one of those netbooks. I'm attempting to set it up for him right now (while he's celebrating Christmas with his family at his mother's house). I'm downloading Firefox, iTunes, and AVG, setting up his security settings, and working on a plan to keep him from clicking "YES! Download that virus and spyware to my compter!" on pop ups that promise new cell phones, etc (yes, firefox will help with that) and making sure that he's blocked from things we don't want him to see or do online. Let's hope Jonas doesn't have the same computer trouble that seems to plague his father.

We're watching "A Christmas Story." Jason loves that movie. I love it, too, but it kind of gets old every Christmas on the 24 hour loop.

All of my loved ones apparently want to make sure I have plenty of television to watch when I'm sitting for a week or more with my surgically repaired achilles tendon next month. I received a LOT of television shows on DVD. So, I'll be catching up on my "LOST," "Glee (ordered, not here yet)," "Grey's Anatomy," "Criminal Minds" (which I've never seen an episode of, but Carly loves--so she gave it to me) and the entire series of "Six Feet Under." That's a lot of hours of television. In contrast, Jason gave me a watch with a heart monitor and a pedometer.

Whitney left for Florida last night after church. Vallerie is leaving for Crown Point on Sunday. Both will be gone for more than a week. That seems like a long time. :(

We have one Christmas celebration left. At 3:00, we'll go to the big family Christmas party at Jason's mom's house. It will be crazy, chaotic fun! We pick Jonas up right before that, so we'll all be back together again.

I've picked up a silly little head cold somewhere. I've fought it off as long as I could--mostly I wanted to make it through worship last night, and I mostly did.

In the course of typing this post, Jason started watching a Christmas movie with Dolly Parton. Not sure what it is...It's on the Hallmark channel. This is apparently the only time of year that's it's okay for husbands to watch Lifetime and Hallmark. There are a lot of sweet, sappy holiday movies on both of those channels.

I'll do a picture post, next!

Merry Christmas!

Waving Goodbye To 2009

It's Most Definitely The Thought That Counts

Me: So, Jonas, what did you do today? (he spent the day with his mom.)

Jonas: Oh, went to Evansville. I bought your gift. And Daddy's gift. And Grandma Jane's gift.

Me: Oh, wow!

Jonas: I got them at St. Vincent Depaul (that's a thrift/charity shop). I mean, they're in almost perfect shape. Not cracked or anything. Well, your gift is a little bit cracked, but you can hardly tell! I mean, almost perfect condition!

Me: Wow. That's awesome!

All At Once

Conversation On The Church Van

Ben: You don't even have to ask your parents for stuff. You just have to ask God. I mean, you can ask God for anything.

One of the girls: Like a new phone?

Ben: I didn't even ask my dad for a truck. I just asked God and like three months later, I had a truck!

India: So what, she's going to ask God for a phone and she'll walk out her door and it will just be there?

Ben: Yeah. Probably like dangling from a tree.

Girl: Ummmm.

Ben: I found my phone in the sewer. I just cleaned it up and it's great!

Becky: Ummmmm.

May We....

An original liturgy from Roddy at Abbotsford in Clydebank, Scotland. He publishes "Mucky Paws" monthly. You can find his site here.

As the lights begins to shift
and a crack appears in heaven
As stars slide across the darkness
and angels clear their throats
As an unborn agitates
with the labouring of love

may we…

As incarnation moves from promise
into skin
As words of prophecy
spill into every empty silence
As you, O love, shift restlessly
and begin to let go

may we…

As the world turns
and the rumour goes unnoticed
As grandiose words are spoken
yet never contain the word
As the longing and waiting and calling
are missed

may we…

may we shift restlessly along with heaven
at the breath-taking vulnerability of hope
speak justice into the silence of injustice
move towards those others move away from

may we forgive in order to bring new life to the world
prepare to change as all of heaven changes now
live towards what is right and away from what is wrong

may we pull on the hope of advent
live on the cusp of incarnation
and proclaim with our lives
the Good News
of promise
of holy flesh in a messy world
of emmanuel

may we…
may you
make way
for birth
So be it