Ringing in the New...

Wow, so much to say. We had a magnificent time over Christmas, celebrating with family out in Arizona. We survived the 34 total hours in the car quite nicely, with only 1 incident of car sickness. The kids had a wonderful time playing with their cousins, hubby was able to clean up Mom's garage (and we now have a lot more tools in ours), played around with webcams (I had a great conversation with my BIL on skype while sitting approximately 2 feet apart) and of course there was a ton of food consumed by all :) We actually arrived back home on Dec 31, so had a couple days to get back to "normal" before returning to school and work schedules today. Oh how I hated to hear the alarm go off this morning!

In other interesting news, our daughter has shingles. Yes, it is VERY unusual in little kids (especially considering she never had chicken pox but only the vaccine). Thankfully she is not having a lot of pain or itching, but she is contagious until the rash dries up (which will probably take another 3 days or so) so we're going to be hanging out at home for a bit. Probably a good thing as there is still a *ton* I need to get done.

Of course there are a slew of pics I'd like to share - hoping to post some by tomorrow, but we'll have to see whether the computer cooperates. We've been having issues with it, and it's now started turning itself off and on randomly. Yeah, that's fun! We're planning to order a new unit sometime this week, which means that my dreams of a freezer will be pushed back until February.

So have you made any New Year's resolutions? I try to avoid them, but I will admit that I'm working on getting healthier. Had made some small gains last year, but also slipped into some bad habits amidst all the craziness of our lives. And what better way to kick off the decade than with a desire to compete in bikini modeling competitions (kidding! KIDDING!!!!!) Seriously, though, I want our family to tweak our eating habits, and I definitely need to tone up. I want to concentrate on 1 item each month, and in January my plan is to exercise for 20 minutes 2x/week. I know it's not a particularly lofty goal, but it's a good place to start for me personally. I'll be back each month (around the 5th or so) for a status report and an unveiling of the new goal. We'll see how this works...

I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
God's loyal love couldn't have run out, His merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst.
Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return.
If He works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way:
Lamentations 3:19-33, The Message