December | 2013 | live enthusiastically. laugh often. love deeply

We went to visit my family last weekend. On Saturday, we spent the day at my brother’s new place in southern Michigan. Then we drove down and spent Sunday at my parents’ place.

Sunday afternoon, we headed home. I was driving and Kendall and the girls soon settled down to get some sleep. I drove past familiar places for the first 15 minutes. It is amazing how that little bit of familiar took me back over half a lifetime ago to a particular time and a particular happening in my life. So many memories and emotions!

As I drove through the flat farmland of eastern Indiana, I was further hit with nostalgia. I love flatness. I love to be able to see for a long way. As much as I would like to live in the city sometime (just for awhile), there is something about acres and acres of farmland with houses here and there and being able to see the sky that just gets to me.

(google image)

Out there, one can see the sky, a lot of sky. Around here, I don’t know, it just seems closed in. It’s not quite as flat and there are so many trees or something. It’s hard to describe, but it actually takes effort to notice the sunrise and sunset, and even then you only see half of it- the rest is hidden behind the trees.

(google image)

I used to love the sunsets in Indiana. When I was pretty young, maybe 10 or so, I would write little poems. There was an elderly minister at our church that I really liked, Paul Hoover. I guess he always seemed so kind and seemed to genuinely care about people, even the children. I am not sure exactly what it was, because I really didn’t know him all that well personally, other than listening to him preach now and then. Anyway, I wrote a poem about sunsets and sent it to him. I was m.o.r.t.i.f.i.e.d when he printed it in the Exchange Messenger, a monthly church paper. I resolved never to send him a poem again, because I didn’t want the whole church reading my cheesy poems. So later I tried just a letter… and that ended up in the church paper, too. I was super shy and unsocialized at that time, we lived 45 minutes from most of the church people, and were being home schooled. I never saw anyone except on Sundays. That level of exposure- people reading what I had written, people I would never have had the nerve to talk to- I was so embarrassed that I am not sure if I ever sent Paul Hoover anything again. If I did, I made sure to specify that it didn’t go into the Exchange Messenger, but I can’t really remember if I did that or not.

I actually think I can remember the poem. It can be sung to “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Sunsets are so beautiful,
They give our hearts a thrill.
They are in the big sky,
They don’t cost a bill.
Oh we like to look at them
And their colors nice.
We can look and look at them
And never pay a price.

Oh what glories God has given
For us to look at.
They are always popping
From their habitat.

{snicker} I was only 10ish, but even then I knew this didn’t qualify as quality poetry. But hey, I got it to rhyme! Ha ha.

Anyhow, I didn’t actually remember the poem as I was driving home that evening. Writing about sunsets made me think of that.

I am glad that I don’t have to go back and relive my childhood. Some people wish they could go back and be young and carefree again, but I don’t. I guess maybe it’s because I don’t really remember being carefree. I definitely haven’t been carefree since I was 8, if ever. As much as it stinks to be an adult and face adult problems, I prefer my life now. But there are good memories, funny memories from my childhood. And I often get hit with nostalgia when I am in Indiana.

It was one of the best Christmases ever, if not The Best. It wasn’t that anything spectacular happened. It was a relatively low key month. I don’t go crazy with baking cookies and putting up Christmas décor or anything like that because…well, it could drive me crazy! If I know that baking 49 different kinds of cookies is going to end up with me in a bad mood, feeling stressed, and yelling at my girls, then why bother? It’s not like we need more sugar at this time of the year! The same goes for those other things. I considered an advent activity, but after thinking it over, it seemed like something that would end up being overwhelming, so I decided not to. Maybe next year.

What made this Christmas good was not because of all the amazing, heart-warming things we did, but just a deep sense that life is good, that we are blessed. 2013 brought some difficult decisions and changes, but for some reason, I look back and call it the best year we’ve had in a long time.

It’s just so good to enjoy the small things of life. After Lauren was stillborn over 4 years ago, it was really rough for awhile. There were months of deep grief. After Emily was born, I thought things would be better, and they were for awhile, but then came months and months of hormonal problems and depression and high stress which was likely exacerbated by Emily being a high maintenance baby and toddler. A lot of the next couple years are a rather dark blur. There were plenty of good times to be sure, but it just felt like I was living under a dark cloud.

It’s so much better now. Supplements and changing my diet helped a lot, I think. I lost 30 pounds this year, and while I was hoping for more, I am glad for the positive benefits that have accompanied that. I haven’t been exercising faithfully for too long, and I know if I am going to make it through another grey winter, I am going to need to find a way to get motivated. I trained for and ran in a 5k this year, and while I am NOT a fast runner, I found running to be amazing for my mood. It’s hard to do in the winter, though. I don’t have a good place to run right now, but I do miss it. I hope I can get back to it in the spring and maybe make another 5k one of my goals… as well as crushing my previous time!!

I didn’t set out to write about diet and exercise. Most of the time I don’t even want to think of it! I have gotten so lazy lately and my diet is far from being on track. I have to break my sugar habit again now, because of all the holiday treats! Anyway, my point is that overall, I feel so much better than I did for so long, mentally and physically. I can tell that it’s winter, though. I always feel worse in the winter.

So yes, our simple Christmas was perfect. We got together with Kendall’s family at a cabin in November, and we were at my brother’s place last weekend with my family minus the sister in Belize who we really missed. We opened our gifts on Christmas eve while enjoying the warm fireplace, and then had the ones of Kendall’s family that were around and not working for lunch on Christmas day, which netted a few more presents, much to the delight of our girls. We have one more family gathering next week and that’s it for the holidays.

I am looking forward to the year ahead. I haven’t made any official New Year’s resolutions, at least not yet, but I would like to make a few this year that I can work toward. I don’t make absolutes like “I won’t eat any junk food for a year” or “I will not lose my temper in 2014” but I want to make progress in areas like that. I find that when I make small goals to meet on the way to an ultimate goal (such as weight loss) I feel motivated when I reach the small goal to keep going toward the next one.

I will leave you with a few Christmas pictures.

I bought a gingerbread house kit because there was no way I was gonna make one from scratch. It actually tasted good, but I wasn’t fond of the candy included… or my gingerbread decorating skills. Oh wait! I could just say the girls put it together by themselves, and that’s why it’s not perfect. Yes, that’s the story I will go with! {cough, cough!} Oh well, they were happy!

These girls are only 3 months apart. They had a lot of fun together.

Christmas eve… I found the camera out in the cold vehicle, so it didn’t cooperate very well for picture taking. Not that it ever cooperates that well. I would buy a new camera if I wasn’t so confused about what to buy for what I want. There are too many options!

We got a Bible for Emily. She was beyond thrilled. That was easily her favorite gift. The second best was a knock-off Doc McStuffin-ish coloring book!

Christmas day they got almost more gifts than they did Christmas eve from us. It doesn’t take much to make them happy, so they were thrilled. I think they got way more than enough!!