Ready For Christmas

We (Tom and I) are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ready for the holidays to get here.  Starting Friday we will be off of work for eleven days.  YEAH!!!  Five of those starting on Monday will be heavy duty Chemo days but at least I don't have to take sick time for those days.  That leaves me six days of feeling 'acceptable'.  

I am finally past the nausea for this chemo round.  HURRAH!!! Another milestone behind us.  

One of my Christmas presents from Tom got here this week.  Since we don't do cable, we tend to buy movies and series to watch.  After many years of this, we have quite a collection.  In the exercise room, we have walls of movies in bookcases and in one piece of furniture specifically made to hold DVDs.  Since I like that furniture so much (It turned out to be very well made and out of real wood as opposed to pressed board like this type of furniture usually is) I asked for more of it to replace the two bookcases in that room.  Plus a single unit for growth.  The one we currently have has three units in one.  The ones I asked for are a two unit and a one unit to fit the open wall that is remaining.   (See visual below for the three units in one and a cat in the lower left hand corner that wanted in the picture. She tried to blend in unobtrusively, but I SEE YOU SHADOW!!)

Below are the cruddy bookcases that don't even match that will be replaced with the matching two unit piece and then there is room on the other side of the window for the one unit piece that matches.  You can also see our two treadmills that are currently getting no use because of my lack of energy.  We will get back into that when this is all over.  8-)  (Yes, Tom...you too, dear.)

Anyway, kind of excited about the new furniture for Christmas.  (Thanks, Tom!!) 

Last year when we went on our train trip to North Dakota to see BJ for Christmas, I got Tom hooked on Starbucks coffee.  Since then, he has become a regular customer for 'my' Starbucks store that I used to stop at every day.  I used to think I was special because they all knew me and came over to chat when I drove up.  I haven't really been there since September when the chemo started and he has taken over my 'special' status.  Especially since they found out that we are a pair.  (We drove through together once on the way to chemo and they got the connection.)  Amber (one of the girls that works there) sent home presents of VIA coffee to he and I yesterday.  (She sent me the caramel flavored and him the extra bold coffee)  I told him she was his girlfriend now that he has my 'special' status.  I told him I didn't feel 'special' anymore because now I know they treat all regular customers that way.  HA!!

Here is another excerpt from Max for you to enjoy.  He has a great perspective on the night Christ was born.

"No Ordinary Night

By Max Lucado

I came to give life—-life in all its fullness.

An ordinary night with ordinary sheep and ordinary shepherds.  And were it not for a God who loves to hook an “extra” on the front of ordinary, the night would have gone unnoticed.  The sheep would have been forgotten, and the shepherds would have slept the night away.

But God dances amidst the common.  And that night he did a waltz… The night was ordinary no more." 

I love Max's visual of God dancing.  The "I came to give life----life in all its fullness" is a loose excerpt from John 10:10 even though he doesn't reference it.  I am ever so thankful that he gave us such an extraordinary night out of the ordinary when Christ was born.

By Grace Alone...