On the third day of Christmas...

I realized how quickly I will be running out of ideas to do this series of posts!

Today was not the greatest day to find a special way to celebrate Christmas, as I was in bed most of the day with...something. Sort of a mix between a headache and that day-before-the-flu-hits feeling. But I felt better this evening so I went around the house, cleaning up and doing some more arranging and decorating -- I'm hosting a bridal shower here a week from today, so I want it to look as cozy and festive as possible! In puttering around the house and thinking what the heck could I write about, I realized that there is such a simple pleasure in annually adorning your house with cherished and beautiful objects. For example, the picture at the top features a candle set that my mother-in-law just gave me last week. Very pretty, especially in my red and white and oak kitchen!

Then there is my little New England Village (one of those Department 56 collections). I just started collecting 2 years ago, and every year I'm trying to funnel some of my Christmas money from my grandparents into this set. So every year when they come over, I show them what their dollars have bought for me, and they take genuine pleasure in seeing my pleasure at having such an adorable decoration. Thank you Mamaw and Papaw!!!















And here are our stockings. I remember just agonizing over finding just the right stockings for me and Adam! Does anyone else ridiculously over-think purchases like that??? However, I am so darn fond of these dangling socks...




















Then more evidence of my bow-tying frenzy this year:




















And finally, a little game for you: "Which one of these is not like the other?" Seriously. How can you bring home 2 plants the same day, feed them the same amounts at the same time, and end up with such drastically different results? Note to self: red poinsettias don't like you, Becky.

favorite places

~the way my fireplace looked last night~

~the way my bedroom looks right now~

Notice how both places are perfectly conducive to sleeping. My favorite pastime.

a mish-mosh rambling of life

July 10th. Now what seems so familiar about that date? Oh yeah, it's the day I got married, 7 years ago! To me it's still funny because I didn't even pick that day out; Franklin College Chapel did that for me when I called to see their availability for our wedding ceremony, and they said, "uh, July 10th is all we have left" and I said, "done. I'll take it."

Maybe I should pick a random memory from my wedding day...searching, searching: Got one. After our ceremony and after we walked/ran through the bubble clouds to the getaway car (which was my sister Katie's), our driver (Katie) took us on a brief jaunt through the countryside in and around Franklin (we did this spontaneously to kill some time so the wedding guests would all arrive ahead of us to the reception hall). Anyhoo, displayed prominently on the back of Katie's car was a sign that read "Honk! Honk! Just Married!!!" And we got the funniest honks from that sign...even a guy on a bicycle tooted his little bike horn at us. It was great! Katie also took us through the Wal-Mart parking lot (if you didn't know I was hick before now, well, there you have the final piece of damning evidence) and of course, THAT generated lots of honks and stares and good-natured waves in our direction. So there you have it, my random memory of my wedding day, 7 years ago.

Other general musings...
*my niece Abby, aka "Peanut," had to get 4 stitches in her chin/lower lip after she fell and bit clean through her lip to the skin on the outside of her mouth. I must say, there is nothing more pathetic than an 18-month-old baby with stitches protruding from a very swollen lower lip and chin. It broke my heart to see it. However, I actually have some hope now that Peanut will learn some gracefulness in her movements...or at least more caution! The child forces and pushes her way through life. She started walking at 8 months out of sheer will to keep up with her siblings. So, motivation is good but stitches...BAD.
*My company moved into a larger office suite over the weekend. I'm now back in cube-land (after a 2-month hiatus of sharing a small conference room with a co-worker, as we were plumb-shy of cubes after our staff grew by several people a while back). Cube-land is, well, it's still gray and boring and rather reminiscent of prison cells. Sigh.
*We showed our house twice over the weekend, and both lookers were second-timers, but as of this afternoon, nary a phone call with an offer. Pooh on them. Just buy my house already so Adam and I can get a teeny-weeny house and then be part-time missionaries and world travelers!!!
*I've decided there's really nothing better in the mornings than a grande, 2-pump, toffee nut latte w/ whip from Starbucks. I literally sigh with delight after my first gulp.

I think that's it. Perhaps more to come later. Filled with incessant urge to write down meaningless info.

Call us crazy

Because I have a feeling we might be.

Some big news with us: After less than 1 year at 1044 Christopher Court, we're putting our house up for sale. But wait to hear the reasons before you call the funny farm!!!

Basically, the biggest reason is this: Guatemala has changed our lives, forever. Our love and concern for the people of Guatemala has pointed me and Adam in a new direction...uh, south, right? (ha-ha!) Seriously, we feel that we've been called to become part-time missionaries to work in tandem with our church, Southside Bible, and Mario and Maria's church in Guatemala City. How this will work...we still don't know. We've been in talks with our pastor about what this might look like...perhaps leading teams down to Guatemala 3-4 times a year, so our body of believers can experience the amazing ministry of missions on a foreign field. Perhaps spearheading our church's outreach to the local Hispanic population, along with leading missions trips. Truth is, we still don't know, but the fact remains that this is what we want to do.

So what does that have to do with where we live? Well, as it turns out, quite a bit. Facts are facts...it is NOT cheap to fly to Guatemala and back, especially when 2 people are flying. And in order to spend 3-4 weeks in Guatemala per year, you have to take off work (and go without that amount of money). Essentially, we're looking at a lifestyle change.

And as we see it, not a bad one. Right now, we have a big beautiful house...and we honestly don't need it. We would be just as happy in a house half the size...probably happier, even! So, it's goodbye to Christopher Court and hello to...??? We'll be starting the search-and-find process in the next month or so, when other things settle down a bit. Just be in prayer for us, as this is yet another huge change (and I'm a bit tired of huge changes!). But, we feel so confident that this is the right move, and that God's blessings will be upon us as we seek to give Him a much larger chunk of our yearly lives.

The holiday mantel...

Okay, so the appearance of this post is a couple days late as Valentine's Day would have been a more appropriate day to show these!
In my last house, I used a console table as a "holiday table" and tried to get in the spirit of each holiday (with a few exceptions...I don't do St. Patrick's Day, for example!). Well, that console table is being used for a different purpose in our new house, so my mantel has become a "holiday mantel." It featured my "New England Village" houses and people for Christmas, but when I took that down, I wasn't ready to decorate for spring and Easter in January (unlike every retail store on the planet), so I thought, Valentine's Day! However, I really didn't want to decorate with paper hearts and pink candies...I wanted an elegant, sophisticated display that oozed classic romance instead of Hallmark Gold Crown. So, with the help of my dearest Kate, I came up with this display (small caveat: I am NOT a great photographer, so any picture I tried to capture the candlelight in is a bit blurry):














Kate had this wonderful idea to print off antique valentines and frame them, but upon further consideration, I was inspired to find translations of the words "I love you" in a couple of different languages (since I'm a pretty big fan of words, I thought it rather fitting). So, I printed these off and found some black satin frames at Jo-Ann Fabrics for $1.50 apiece!!!

Here is "I love you" in Spanish:















And in French and Hebrew:















The candles are Pier 1's newest scent, called "Mad Love."

To top it all off, I found this cherub candle-holder at TJ Maxx, which is my second favorite store (SteinMart is my MOST favorite store; I call it "Steiny" because I'm just that fond of it) for only $19. All in all, I think I spent between $40 and $50 on all the decorations (cherub, frames, greenery, candles), which was a splurge, but I can re-use everything next year but the candles!

Here's my little cherub: