Today I was granted a special gift from God--a wonderful Snow Day!!! (You probably didn't realize it was just for me, did you?) I wasn't sure people still got those treats once you were not a part of a school family. But, here it is. I love it! It's just as much fun as when I was a kid--although my activities are different.
I did NOT go outside and build a snowman. I did NOT go sledding. I have NOT engaged in a single snowball fight with the neighbors. I've kept myself tucked in the house. Made fudge. Took a nap. I plan on doing some more cookies when I'm done with this blog. Just a quiet day to be home alone--well, not alone. I've got the two beast-dogs here.
First they want out. Then they want in. Then they want out. Then in. Get the idea? They love the snow but maybe it makes their little feet cold. The backyard looks terrible--all full of tracks and yellow spots. If I want to make real snow cones I'd better be sure to hit the front yard snow. :}
Today began my SIX DAY vacation from work!! I love my job, but I am sure ready to just be home and rest for six days. Sweats. No make up. Fuzzy socks. This is the life!!
For Christmas our schedule resembles something that an airport controller may have to look at. I have people coming and going, all at different times. It's crazy, but we have a three hour window when all five of the kids and their spouses and grandbaby will be here. We've had to modify our family traditions to fit this window.
December 21:
Sometime Paul gets here.
December 24:
Sometime this day Logan and Jenna come.
2:00 p.m. Luke arrives.
3:00 p.m. Grant, Angela, Payton hope to arrive (hoping that planes are not delayed!)
3:30 p.m. Lex, Corey, and Enoch come over.
3:45 p.m. Luke gives presents and gets presents.
4:45 p.m. Loy leaves for church.
5:00 p.m. Luke leaves.
5:15 p.m. Everyone leaves to go to church.
6:00 p.m. Church service.
7:30 p.m. Arrive back at our house.
7:35 p.m. Everyone gives and gets presents.
8:35 p.m. Late soup supper.
9:30 p.m. Logan and Jenna leave for Columbus
9:35 p.m. Lex, Corey, and Enoch head home.
Kind of busy, right? I'm working very hard to not be THAT mother-in-law who causes problems and demands things always go her way. Go with the flow. Bend like a willow. Don't sweat the small stuff. Chill. That's my motto. And it's hard to keep that in mind when our schedule looks so crazy.
So, if you're waiting for something profound or hilarious in this blog entry, sorry. Not happening today. I'm just resting and relaxing and chilling.
And I love, love, love it!!
I hope you get a chance to just be still during all this craziness we've made Christmas. To recharge your flagging batteries. To not have to actually cross anything off a "To Do" list. I wouldn't want to live like this all the time, but it's a delicious indulgence!!
Be still, and know that I am God!--Psalm 46:10
Love,
Kitt.
I love this story. I've probably posted it somewhere before. But it's just so darned good!!
The Man and the Birds
by Paul Harvey
by Paul Harvey
The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.
“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.
Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.
“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.
And he sank to his knees in the snow.
