Oh how I love the Holidays!!!

Okay so its my favorite time of year. I can't even describe the sheer excitement I feel when it gets this close to the holidays. It's like my insides are going to explode (probably not the best visual) but that how much I love the Holidays. My plan is to have our christmas trees and decorations up this weekend (Londons little tree was put up and decorated just last night)! Christmas music had already been resounding in our house for weeks (love Faith Hills new christmas CD) and my Home For the Holidays Candle has been lit for a month! I also plan to have all my christmas shopping done by 5pm on black friday with presents wrapped the end of next weekend and then start the christmas cookies (I'll make sure you guys are on the receiving end of those). Our Turkey Potluck is December 13th (anyone reading this is more than welcome to come). The Holidays just makes me want to have a lot of people in my house and lots of babies for some reason. Who knows. Anyway just had to share some of my excitement for the holidays and some pictures of last christmas! London was just a year old. It's hard to believe hes turning two! Guess I'll have to get started on those babies...

The Favor Goes On...

All I can say is Thank You at this point of Gods favor "reining" down on me. If you read one of my prior posts "The peace after the storm" you'll get this one. When God whispered to me at the alter "I've got this", I really didn't know how or what but there was a breaking when that was spoken and He's definitely got it. I had a friend having some issues in her marriage and they have seeked marriage counseling and are continuing to work things out and it seems they are doing good. Another friend who is going thru turmoil and choosing a new path but yet it seems that person is still confident in what they're choosing. My mom who is at this point not really even able to work has seen Gods favor too in that church people and her work peers are stepping up to help out by meals or decorating her house for christmas. All of these I had taken on personally and felt somehow that I was supposed to fix them. God is good and He is fixing them. I have also come to another really hard pill in my life to swallow. My mom needs a liver transplant and I am a match. I have decided after much prayer and consideration to not be a donor. There has not yet been a "settling" for me to say yes. It is a complicated surgery which could have life long complications. At this point scientifically they don't know the longterm complications for the live donor. I feel I am young and want more children and most importantly, be here for the family I have. God's favor is still coming I can feel it in my "knower". I feel like right now Gods favor is raining on us gently but definitely raining. If it rained too hard we would flood. Just like when it rains and the ground is dry and hard at first the water just sits on top of the soil. But once it goes thru that soaking phase the water will then soak in because the soil is soft. God is softening us. We were dry and hard and God is softening and quinching our thirst before the pouring rains happen.

About the dust...

FYI...

Did some research regarding the dust in my house and our skin cells sheding at an enormous rate...well here it is...enjoy!

What happens to old cells?
Just like us, cells grow old and die. When old cells die, new ones replace them. For example, a blood cell in our body lives for about 120 days. Another example is our skin cells. We shed our skin cells about every 35 days. Don't worry, we do not shed all our skin cells at the same time like snakes do. In human beings, only the skin cells that are old are shed, others are not.
Here is a amazing fact for you, if your skin cells are replaced every 35 days, by the time you are 20 years old you would have replaced your skin cells roughly about 200 times. (found at http://askabiologist.asu.edu)

Who knew there could be so much crap...

So we are going to put our house on the market (come on favor of God)! A little nervous but excited and who knew you could accumulate so much crap in so little time. We decided to rent a storage space to box up some of the stuff we won't need for the next few months so I have been going room to room working on this. I generally see myself as the neat freak and maybe even a bit on the OCD side of living a clutter free life. All I can say is whatever. That image has been blown to h-e-double hockey sticks. From old magazines, dusty books, nasty towels to paper clips in places that don't even have paper to fulfill their destiny. The dust is incredible. Really we shed skin cells at an enormous rate. My closet was the worst black hole ever. I took about 6 bags to the goodwill (if any of it was great stuff I would have totally let you guys have first dibs). Most was faded shirts, dated purses, worn out shoes, etc. Anyway, I am now feeling like my house can breathe. aaaahhhhh! It's a great feeling.

So now for metaphor time...

I also realized that spiritually I might be living this way. Thinking that I'm living this OCD, clutter free spiritual life when really there's some dust and cob webs that need to get cleaned out by Jesus so that our spiritual life can breathe. aaaahhhh! We gotta clean the filth to get to the core of our problems.

Well, cheers to cleaning out your closets!