Music Recommendation

I received a whole flash drive of music from Joe for Christmas. It was mostly free samples he's downloaded from I-tunes but the selections are varied and interesting (to say the least). I also treated myself to a new CD in an after Christmas sale. Here are my two top CDs of the week:

First, the one I got for Christmas is Building 429's latest. It's self-titled so easy to find. I loved this group's Space in Between Us CD. I've worn my copy out - luckily I also have it downloaded onto my computer and I-pod. There are several great lyrical songs on this CD. I strongly recommend this one.

Second is Tenth Avenue North - Over and Underneath. It's on sale at Family Christian stores for $7.97 until Saturday. I've barely gotten past the first two songs without conviction and encouragement. The second song I've heard on the radio. It's one of those that their name keeps coming up so I decided to splurge on their album. I have not been disappointed.

Very rarely will I put an entire album on my I-pod but both of these have been added in their entirety (such a strange word). Which reminds me - I can now listen to my I-pod in my car. Very excited for this so I don't have to keep CDs rolling around in my console any more. I can change songs and types of music much easier. I tried it out on my grand adventure to Blowing Rock/Boone today. That's for another entry...

Phamily Photo

Mom's one command of this holiday season is that we all bring appropriate apparel for a family picture. In our previous picture, Jasmine wasn't born yet and April wasn't officially a Procita. Five years later we took a new picture together (dogs included). What a bunch of goofs!

You never really know what is going to come out of Jasmine's mouth. She discussed the difference between boys and girls with me one afternoon. "Girls are more sen'stive and boys are stronger" (what were you thinking?). She asked April why she didn't have any babies yet. She asked everyone in the family why Kali and Brandie didn't have puppies. I was told that I couldn't be Aunt Holly until I got married. I could just be Holly. Her other grandparents were not going to hell because their name was Hellar. She always got on a real serious face before some of these comments and questions too! Straight from the mouths of babes...

My Little Man

Silas has been taught to be VERY REVERENT before the Lord! This was his first Christmas play and he is playing a very humble, worshipful shepherd! Little Man is the one bowed in reverence at the bottom! I hope you're having a great Christmas! I've got stories but those are for another post. Have a great one!

Exhale

Not to be too cheesy but I've been waiting to exhale for quite some time now. Life at school has been extremely busy and most of December has been jammed packed with stuff as well. This past weekend was no different.

Saturday I finished my Christmas shopping pretty early in the morning. I went to Majesty Motors to work for a few hours and ended up helping Dad with his Christmas wrapping. That afternoon Mom and I tried our hands at making candy. It was definitely a learning experience for me. Everything is edible - this we know because Dad has been sampling it all! That evening I went to church for the Gloria Tour. It involved Shaun Groves, Cindy Morgan and Travis Cottrell. It was a great concert and the church was PACKED. Aunt Barb went with and we had a good time together.

Sunday was the church thing in the morning. I volunteered to help Mom with the grocery shopping that afternoon. We each had a list and a cart full by the time we met at the checkout lines. It's amazing how much food is needed to feed my ENTIRE family. I am excited about everyone being here AND having the ability to sleep in my own bed each night (not on the air mattress of the past couple of Christmases). We had our candlelight service at church that evening. It was different this year and I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do. Then Rena came down to visit for about 24 hours. I "forced" her to watch the rest of the Panther's football game before we went to bed. We had a good time visiting and me explaining football to her.

Today Rena and I went bridesmaid dress shopping. We have discovered that many stores no longer believe in dresses. You would think a store called DRESS Barn would have some choices in dresses! We found one the fit almost all of Rena's requirements, but let's just say it wasn't too flattering to my hips or bum. We looked at all the obvious places in Hickory with no luck. I saw a couple of girls from church at the mall AND I saw my Mini-me! That's always a happy moment. Tonight I spent a few hours making cookies. I had an interesting experience with the last batch I made but they tasted OK to me when I tried it. I didn't even have to eat dinner for all the batter tasting (you have to lick your fingers every once in awhile) and final product tasting. I can't very well share them with my family and suffer the never ending teasing if they don't taste right.

All this to say that even though it's been incredibly busy, I feel rested and somewhat relaxed. I've had some good conversations with good friends who I haven't had time to talk to in months. I'm excited about my Christmas presents for my family and that we're going to all be together for a few days. I'm VERY excited about Dad's "big" present to all of us this year, but I'm not allowed to talk about it yet. Hopefully I'll get on and share with all of you soon. Merry Three-Days before Christmas!

Good night for Basketball

VS.

I have been trying my best to get in the basketball frame of mind. Volleyball season ended at the middle school on Monday. I got to come home last night and relax somewhat (even got to cook dinner and at the table to eat it!). This afternoon was try-outs for girls' basketball. I borrowed all of Dad's basketball movies, but haven't watched one of them yet. I was very excited to see that UNCA and Duke were playing against each other tonight. Granted my alma mater is getting slaughtered by my Blue Devils, but I'm enjoying cheering on both teams. I'm proud of my university for fighting hard and as always, I love my Duke basketball! I must confess that it has helped with the basketball frame of mind. I even started drawing up some plays for my team. I'm crazy tired of being at school until 5:30 or 6:00 each afternoon but hopefully Christmas break will prepare me for the LONG basketball season ahead. I'll keep you updated on the team!

I had a moment

So at about 1:30 AM I woke up and saw my alarm clock flashing at me. I was somewhat perplexed because I had not heard the power go off. I managed to push some button to make it stop flashing and turned over and went back to sleep. I convinced myself that it must have the correct time because it has a back-up battery. I awoke several hours later to see that it was about half an hour before I had to get up. The strange part was that it was getting pretty light outside for being 5:00 in the morning. Mind you it was a night where I had my contacts out so I couldn't see past my nose AND my cell phone was charging in the living room. I staggered to another clock to check the time to find out that it was 7:05!!!! I am usually on my way to school by this time. I managed to get a shower, get ready for school and out the door by 7:25. It's a good thing I do most of my thinking the night before and can just get up and go! I made it to school on time, but only by the skin of my teeth. The scarier part was that my team teachers were pulling in with me so if I really had been late I don't know who I would've called. Maybe we all subconsciously didn't want to be at school today!

Speaking of the subconscious, I received my certificate of Christian Counseling in the mail on Thursday. I am excited to have it and am going to buy a frame for it soon. I'll hang it in my office or maybe it should go over the couch because that's where I do some of my best work. Either way I feel accomplished and am looking forward to the next set of classes that I have waiting for me.

Finally, I'm on a hunt and I'm accepting help from anyone. My friend Rena has asked me to be in her wedding in June. Rather than try to gather all of her differently shaped bridesmaids together to go dress shopping, she has turned us loose. She has given us a checklist of her expectations for a dress. The high points: black, mid-calf, no frills, and be modest. I KNOW that last one was for ME! One of the other criteria I got clarification on last night. It said straps or strapless - that definitely helped narrow it down some :). I've been searching around on-line hoping to find something during all of the Christmas sales. I hope to go looking at some department stores soon.

Here are two that I'm looking at so far:

Wish I had Pictures

I spent the weekend in Independence, Kentucky. I'm just now realizing how few pictures Melissa and I take when we are together. If you look at her blog, then you'll see pics of everyone elses' visits to her house. I don't believe you'll find any of my weekend there. How strange? Am I that non-photogenic? Maybe I didn't have any "cute" moments, picture worthy this weekend? It even snowed there yesterday and I didn't see any pictures being taken of it.

I digress...I had a great time visiting up there. Melissa and I went to the Casting Crowns Christmas concert on Friday night. Avalon, Natalie Grant, Michael English, Pure 'Nergy, and Denver and the Mile High Orchestra were all part of the show too. We have some definite opinions about each of these groups. If you're in NC, they are coming to Greensboro next weekend. It's worth the money and helps you get into the Christmas spirit. Saturday we bummed around the house. Brent had mentioned a hockey game that evening, but we ended up staying home and watching movies instead. It snowed/flurried most of the day on Saturday. It was pretty and the first snow I've seen this winter. Sunday was church, some "authentic" Cincinnati cuisine, and flying home. It was a good weekend with some good conversations along the way. It was great to be away from teenagers for a few days. I even turned my phone off for most of the time so nobody could call or text me. Now I'm home with a basket full of laundry and a crazy two weeks ahead of me. Deep breath...time to dive back into the hustle and bustle that we call December!