Temporary Home

"Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood from her Play On album. Just listen to it. Once again Carrie Underwood has an album full of amazing songs. This is one of them. :) (Man, I hope it works out to go to her concert in the spring!)


Little boy, 6 years old
A little too used to bein' alone
Another new mom and dad,another school
Another house that'll never be home
When people ask him how he likes this place
He looks up and says with a smile upon his face

"This is my temporary home
It's not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through
This is just a stop, on the way to where I'm going
I'm not afraid because I know this is my
Temporary Home."

Young mom on her own
She needs a little help got nowhere to go
She's lookin' for a job, lookin' for a way out
Because a half-way house will never be a home
At night she whispers to her baby girl
Someday we'll find a place here in this world

"This is our temporary home
It's not where we belong
Windows and rooms that we're passin' through
This is just a stop, on the way to where we're going
I'm not afraid because I know this is our
Temporary Home."

Old man, hospital bed
The room is filled with people he loves
And he whispers don't cry for me
I'll see you all someday
He looks up and says "I can see God's face"

"This is my temporary Home
It's not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through
This was just a stop,on the way To where I'm going
I'm not afraid because I know this was
My temporary home."

This is our temporary home 

Christmastime Has Come & Gone. . .

Greetings, Blog Visitors!

Did you forget about me?

I certainly did not forget about you, although it has been Christmastime, which means that it has been a busy time of year! But I am back, and I am going to *try* to be more consistent in my blog postings.
I had a greatly fun, but of course, busy, Christmastime this year. Thanksgiving came and went faster than I can say. On the day after Thanksgiving I went to the annual Coeur d'Alene Holiday Light Show, Parade & Fireworks. It was warmer this year than it has been during the past few years, so my toes and nose did not quite freeze off. I went with a group of friends this year and we had a blast watching the parade and then running to find the best spot for the fireworks. We ended up standing right behind the speakers so the amazing blend of Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra that plays during the fireworks sounded (and felt!) particularly awesome.
This year some friends and I had a gingerbread house party and I hope this is something we can continue as an annual tradition. We decided to hot glue our houses together so we didn't have to wait so long before decorating them, and then we spent a few hours decorating them. Each house was unique and definitely fit the personality of the person making it.

I didn't have a lot of Christmas parties to go to this year, but I had other things to keep me busy. . .baking, decorating my room, wrapping presents, and all of the other activities that accompany this time of year. It was a fun, successful month. I made Springerles with my mom and learned how to make Stollen. On Thanksgiving I helped with the majority of our cooking and now that Christmas is over I can now say that I have made/majorly assisted with every aspect of a Turkey dinner.

Christmas day was yesterday. Only 364 days to go before it is Christmastime again. We had a nice relaxing Christmas day. Today I was feeling really exhausted so I relaxed and watched Sound of Music (one of my Christmas gifts) with my mom, including a lot of the special features. That was a nice way to spend the day.

Like I said, I will try to be more consistent with blog postings, and have a few more ideas for posts in my head that I will try to get up soon.

Have a great New Years!

-Me

P.S. The picture at the top of this post was taken at the bakery. I went to their Christmas party this year. We turned off all the lights and played hide & seek in the dark and decided at one point to see if I could actually fit to hide in a mixing bowl. Needless to say, I can. :) (Yes, we washed the bowl out afterwards!!!!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Thankful"

(Josh Groban)

Somedays we forget
To look around us
Somedays we can't see
The joy that surrounds us
So caught up inside ourselves
We take when we should give.

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for.

Look beyond ourselves
There's so much sorrow
It's way too late to say
I'll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth
It's so long overdue

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And every day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for.

Even with our differences
There is a place we're all connected
Each of us can find each other's light

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though this world needs so much more

There's so much to be thankful for

Ode to Facebook

Oh Facebook, how I love you so.

Thanks to you I spend many a free moment perusing your pages.

Thanks to you I not only have a virtual farm, but now I, myself am a virtual person, leading a life of glam and adventure thanks to Sorority Life, and now I have not one, but two virtual aquariums, both of which require cleaning and maintenance, and cause me to feel guilty if I don't feed my virtual fish in time and they die a virtual death. :)

However, dear Facebook, you have also helped me to connect with old friends, and get better acquainted with new ones. So you see, Facebook, all of my time spent with you is not in vain.

Oh Facebook, whatever am I going to do with you?

A Day In My Life!

A blog that I frequently visit, the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship, is having a blog carnival today! Each of the five or six regular contributors to the blog has done a "Day In My Life" post, and they have encouraged their blog readers to do the same, and, ultimately, share their links on the blog so all the other readers can peek into their day. While I can't share my blog link on the website due to my privacy settings, I thought I might still do a similar post, just for you wonderful readers. So, here is a peek into my day this past Monday, October 26.

Morning always comes too early, but it seems that it especially does so on Monday mornings. This morning was no exception. It didn't help that I had trouble falling asleep the night before! At precisely 6:45am my radio turned on and the friendly voice of the DJ on 104.9 greeted me. I, being the polite listener that I am, promptly rolled over and hit the snooze button, hereby allowing myself another 7-minutes of blessed rest. 6:52 comes around, and I, once again, roll over and hit snooze, ignoring the fact that I really enjoy hearing the weather report as soon as I wake up, and it typically comes on about this time. Another 7-minutes to try to wake up. At 7:00am my cell phone alarm goes off (yes, I know that there is a chance I'll hit snooze subconsciously and sleep through my alarm, so I set two). It normally plays a song (the 7am alarm is set to Keith Urban's Days Go By), but lately I have purposely set it to vibrate, because a loud song isn't exactly the best thing to wake up to. Needless to say, I continue to have a hard time getting out of bed (a warm bed with a down comforter is hard to get out of!), but by 7:10 or so, I finally convince myself I had better get going, and climb out of bed. I have found that by taking a shower the night before, I can enjoy these precious few extra minutes in bed in the morning.

My first order of business every morning is to greet my two beloved furry friends, Cody & Reba. Both are so excited to see me every morning, that I almost wonder if they half-expect me to not get up in the morning, so they are excited that I decided to. After petting them, telling them goodmorning and also greeting my parents, it is time to quickly get ready for work. I rush around to pick out the perfect warm outfit (it's pouring rain!), which, today is some cute brown casual pants, a black long-sleeved t-shirt and a black fleece vest. I also decide to wear my rubber Crocs, but later decided that was a bad idea in the rain! I hurry to get dressed, put my contacts in, make my hair look decent, make my bed and put makeup on (not a lot!). Pretty soon it is time for breakfast, which Reba joins me for every morning. This morning it is a bowl of Cheerios, my typical quick morning feast. After a hasty breakfast I brush my teeth, grab my red winter coat for the first time this year, pull the hood up over my head, grab my coffee mug and some apple cider mix, and make a mad-dash to the car, getting quite wet in the process. One problem with working so close to my house, is that my car doesn't begin to warm up until I am turning into the parking lot. So my chances of drying off before I get to work are slim. :)

I arrive at work, exactly at 8am on my clock, a couple minutes after on the clock that matters. I'm still convinced that the clock at work is not synchronized properly - everyone at work agrees with me - but there is nothing we can do, and nobody cares if we show up a couple of minutes after 8. I clock in, and head into my cubicle, where I turn my computer on and get ready to start my work day. I am not a huge fan of Mondays. . .there's usually a lot of emails to be read - many of them junk - and you can just tell that everybody wishes the weekend was a bit longer. I check my email, decide what my game plan will be for the day, and then I decide to make myself some hot chocolate to try to wake myself up further, warm myself up, and because hot chocolate on a very wet, rainy Monday, sounds like a perfect idea. My cup of hot chocolate prepared, I set to work on my tasks for the day.

Around 12:50 I head home for lunch. Because I work about 5 minutes from my house, I often head home for lunch. My dogs run to greet me in the driveway (of course!) and then we all head in for lunch. Today I enjoy two cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches on white bread. They are delicious. I head to my bedroom where I proceed to eat lunch and check in with the Facebook world. I enjoy relaxing for about an hour, and then it's back to work to finish up my tasks for the day. Today also happens to be my friend Aley's birthday. Aley is one of my best friends from California, and since I can't say Happy Birthday in person, I decide to leave her a video message on Facebook (something I recently learned I can do) on her wall. After about 5 attempts, I finally get one I am okay with. And I post it to her wall for all to see. :) I return to work soon thereafter.

At precisely 4:58 I leave work. Normally I would stay until 5, or a few minutes after, but today my boss (the only person with keys who stayed till the end of the day) has to leave right at 5, so those of us who are still there quickly finish up and get ready to leave. I head home and again check in with my Facebook friends and take some time to relax some more. I am so tired, and it's so dreary outside, that I curl up under my down comforter until dinner time, and promptly fall asleep. I wake up in time for dinner and enjoy some BBQ chicken that my mom oven-baked. I thought it was very good, but I'm not sure the rest of my family shared the sentiment. Oh well.

After dinner I head to college group at a local church. I had attended a college group in the past at my church, but stopped going for various reasons. However, recently I have been feeling the need to spend time with more young people and to get involved with a college group again, so now I am going to this particular college group. We sing a few songs and the pull out our Bibles for our study. Eventually we're going to go through the book of Zechariah, but before we get there we've been doing some background. Tonight we are doing a chapter in Ezra, and then the book of Haggai. I can't say I've spent much time in those books before, so it is an interesting study. Afterwards we all chat over nacho cheese Mexican dip, and eventually I head home, ready for bed.

Before long it is truly time to get some sleep. I'm a night owl at heart, which means that even with my best intentions I usually get less sleep than I should, but I'm in bed before midnight (I think it was before 11:30!). I read a chapter in my Bible (tonight, because I'm eager to turn my light out to start preparing my brain for sleep, I use the Bible App on my iPod), double check both alarms to make sure they are ready for the "snooze routine" in the morning, and say goodnight to the world. I snuggle deep down in my covers, pull my comforter up tight, and quickly. fall. asleep.

A Peek Into My Week

I hereby declare that this past week was one of the best weeks I've had in awhile - although it was also one of the busiest. :) During the day I worked, but it was the activities in the evenings that created the busyness. Here's a peek into my busy week.

Monday

Obviously I began the work week at 8am. Because everyone was pretty tired, my co-worker and I made a Starbucks/Donut House run and picked up coffee for those who wanted it. I, of course, greatly enjoyed my tall caramel frappucinno. Yum! Monday evening was college group. I have been going to the college group at a local church on Monday nights for a few weeks now. I had gone to a college group a few years ago at my church, but when I had night classes for school I ended up not being able to go, and eventually, for various reasons, decided that wasn't where I was supposed to be. I was content with that, but lately have been feeling the need to get involved with a college group again, and hang out with young people outside of my tight circle of friends. So I am going to a college group at a different local church now. Yes, some of my circle of friends also attend the college group, but interacting with a larger group of people my age has been wonderful these past few weeks.

Tuesday

I'm going to assume it's a given that I had work Monday through Friday, and won't mention it anymore. :) Tuesday night was Awana. I am working with the 5th & 6th grade girls and am loving (almost) every minute of it. :) I have some of the sweetest girls. It's so cool to be involved in their lives in this small way. It makes me doubly appreciate the time that my Awana leaders spent investing in my life when I was a clubber. :)

Wednesday

For the past 3 years or so, my close friends and I have been meeting for Girl's Group. For the past couple of years we have been meeting on Wednesdays. Over the years our group has grown and changed. The girl who originally started the group, my friend Andrea, left us to attend school at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Other girls have joined us for awhile and then moved on. My friend Val is away at school in Boise. My friend Kristy moved back to California. So, now there are three of us: me, Michelle and Sarah, and we get together on Wednesday nights to talk about what's going on in our lives (and we usually laugh a lot, too!), and for about a year or so we have been going through some Bible study guides. Right now we are going through a Kay Arthur study of 1 & 2 Corinthians. We have only covered Week 1 so far, but I think it's going to be a good study.

Thursday

Normally Thursday nights don't contain any planned activity. This week, however, happened to be the opening night of the local college's production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and I happened to know two of the actors. A group of friends and I went to see the production, and it was very well done. However, it started at 7:30pm and ran for about 3-hours, so it was a late night.

Friday

On Friday I went over to my friend Sarah's house with several other girls to help her finish up decorations and food items for her future sister-in-law's bridal shower the following day. We had a blast making brownies, decorating cookies, cutting out decorations, and dancing around the kitchen to a random blend of music. . .and eating sour gummy candies. :)

Saturday

On Saturday I slept in (finally!) and went to the aforementioned bridal shower. It was a really fun shower. :)

Yep, that's my week in a nutshell. It was busy, but super-fun. I enjoyed every minute of it, and look forward to the adventures of this upcoming week!

Current Playlist: Bublé & Groban

As you might have noticed, down at the bottom of my page is a music playlist. It doesn't start automatically, just because I know some people would rather not listen to music while visiting my blog. However, if you would like to listen to random blend of music, it's there. I do update or change this from time-to-time, depending on my mood or the season.

Current Playlist: Bublé & Groban - the music of (you guessed it!) Michael Bublé and Josh Groban.

Enjoy!