For Us?

On December 1, we received this anonymous basket full of wrapped presents:

This was no ordinary basket of gifts, directions were included. There were a total of 24 gifts and 1 gift per day was to be opened. The gifts were all numbered and had a Bible reference and a name of Christ. How wonderful is that? We were trying to find some meaning of the gift in the scripture reference but quickly realized there wasn't any connection just pure fun.

The opening of the gift always came after our advent reading so we dubbed the basket the Advent basket. As you can imagine, there were minor arguments over who opened the gift the day before or two days before, etc. Brianna has a friend that comes over almost every Thursday night so we included her in on the fun and that was her night to open a gift. Alas, the 24th arrived. The last gift. Oh, the fun was coming to a close. Did I mention that a card was included on the last gift telling us who all those wonderful gifts were from? Of course, we had a knock down drag out fight over who got to open the card and I believe Charles won. Brianna guessed who it was, Chris and I thought it was someone else, and I don't think Charles made a guess. You know what? I'm not telling who it was that gave us this awesome basket. They will remain anonymous because what if you're the recipient some year? Don't want to spoil it for you.

I sat one afternoon with the cards in order and read through the names of Christ and looked up all the scripture references and was totally blessed. Something really cool, is that in a lot of those references is God's name "I AM". The gifts were great but the tags pointed us to THE GIFT!

Jesus, THE Greatest Gift

I have a new favorite hymn. Although it was written in 1851, by Edward Caswall, it is new to me. Here it is:

See, amid the Winter's Snow

See, amid the winter's snow,
born for us on earth below,
see the tender Lamb appears,
promised from eternal years.

*Chorus:

Hail, thou everblessed morn!
Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
Sing through all Jesrusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Lo, within a manger lies
he who built the starry skies:
he who, throned in height sublime,
sits amid the cherubim.

*Chorus

Say, ye holy shephers, say-
what's your joyful news today?
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
on the lonely mountain steep?

*Chorus

"As we watched at dead of night,
lo, we saw a wondrous light;
angels singing, 'Peace on earth,'
told us of the Savior's birth."

*Chorus

Sacred infant, all divine,
what a tender love was thine,
thus to come from highest bliss
down to such a world as this!

*Chorus

Teach, O teach us, holy child,
by thy face so meek and milk,
teach us to resemble thee,
in thy sweet humility.

Oh, Happy Day (Part II)

Well, I made the brownies yesterday. They were not a complete flop but somewhat of a flop. I have some refining to do, namely, finding the right size pan. I'm not ditching this recipe yet because these brownies have potential to be so amazingly wonderful that I just can't give up on them. I've decided that I'm going to perfect them in January!

I, of course, had to have some of the batter. Okay, I ate more than I should have but I couldn't resist. Then, before I went to bed at midnight, I was putting them away and just had to cut into them and check 'em out. The middle was completely gooey but the edges were awesome. Chris and I were eating the edges and loving every bite it. As you can imagine, for me, it turned out to be one of those nights that I laid down and, boing, my eyes were wide open. I had so much cocoa coursing through my body that I couldn't go to sleep. I'm seriously hoping for a nap today.

Oh, Happy Day

I have a new brownie recipe that I have been dieing to make. I also can't wait to taste the batter! The recipe calls for superfine sugar which I have not been able to find here in the city of Little Rock. (In the back of my mind was an idea to grind granulated sugar in my blender making it fine but not sure if that's the way to go) My last resort was calling William Sonoma as soon as they opened. Matt answered the phone and helped me out~they do not carry it any longer. Ugh! Matt didn't let me down, though. He came to the rescue and, confirming my idea, he told me I could put granulated sugar in my blender and grind it. Huh, how do you like that, Matt has saved the brownies. Kudos to you, Matt! FYI, if you ever have to do this yourself, grind the sugar and then measure out the quantity you need. Can't wait to mix up brownies and taste batter!

A New "Special" Day

I was sending a text to my sister this morning and instead of texting Monday I texted Momday. Hmmm...I'm thinking I may be on to something! I'm all for Momday everyday but one day a week would be very doable. Now I have to figure out how to implement this idea and get my kids on board.

Christmas Music

Do you remember Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics? She, Annie Lennox, has a Christmas CD out entitled A Christmas Cornucopia. Oh man, I'm lovin it. My favorite Christmas carol she sings is "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". The drums are awesome. The last carol on the CD is "Universal Child". I'm just not understanding it and do not like it; therefore, I skip it everytime. If you get the CD or listen to it let me know what you think.

A while ago I bought a Kentucky Bourbon cookbook. Tonight was the night to try the Kentucky Bourbon Chili recipe and I was looking forward to it. As it simmered on the stove I had the corn bread baking. Everything came together nicely and the call went out for dinner. We gathered prayed and started eating. As I took my first bite I happened to look over at Brianna who had her first bite in her mouth. Our looks froze and were suspended in time, then we came to and just about gagged. I proclaimed I couldn't eat this chili and with some hesitation she agreed.

Charles' response: "We need HAZMAT Toxic cleanup to come over"

Chris' response: "Honey, in the 18 1/2 years we've been married you have never made anything this bad!"

We sat laughing and carrying on over our cornbread and, yes, the jokes kept on coming. The cornbread wasn't cutting it so Brianna threw out the idea of pizza. Little Caesar's is right down the street. Kids went and got pizza, Chris and I cleaned up the toxic dinner. It was really bad! Thank goodness for pizza!

A Note to Bubbles

I have a loving bone to pick with you, Bubbles of http://www.bubblesandmoney.blogspot.com/ .  Bubbles, I love you and you are a dear friend to me but...you've influenced me indirectly with the whole library thing.  You have raved about being able to go on line, set up an account, and "order" books from other branches then go in and pick them up.  I succumbed to your exuberance and opened an account.  I now have 4 books sitting on my nightstand to be read and more on order.  Yes, I love it and am so thankful for books to read.  I'm thankful that a new door has been opened for me but, yikes, I could be overrun with books.  Renewal, it's a good thing!

Although, Bubbles, I've not given in to self-checkout.  I did learn something new about myself in considering it.  I'm a total introvert and you'd think self-checkout would be perfect for me but it's not.  I truly enjoy talking to the people who check me out.  Guess what?  I inquired, to the gal checking me out, about their book club.  Lo and behold, she's the one who leads it and I had a great chat.  I have the schedule of books and dates and a couple of books coming to participate.  Now, if I had done self-checkout, I don't think it would of happened.  I am open to self-checkout but just not right now.  I'll warm-up to it.

Keep on influencing, Bubbles.

Today's Worship

We sang this in worship today and it grips my heart everytime.  Today was no exception.

"How Deep the Father's Love for Us"

How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure

that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss.  The Father turns His face away

as wounds which mar the Chosen One bring many sons to glory.

Behold the Man upon a cross, my sin upon His shoulders.

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that held Him there until it was accomplished;

His dying breath has brought me life.  I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything: no gifts, no pow'r, no wisdom.

But I will boast in Jesus Christ:  His death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from His reward?  I cannot give an answer.

But this I know with all my heart:  His wounds have paid my ransom.

Change of Plans

My day was started off in the usual way.  I had my things to do list and was headed out on a couple on errands. First stop of the day was picking up a few things at the grocery store.  As I was picking up some lettuce, sitting right next to it were these beautiful leeks:

 

How in the world could I pass those up?  They were screaming to be made into potato leek soup.  I scooped them up quickly without much thought to my day. Then it hit me, how in the world was I going to have the time to make this?  My day was packed!  Yet, I couldn't let them sit.  They were so fragrant and awesome.  It all worked out by fudging things around and working like a maniac but I did it.  Brianna was so excited because she LOVES potato leek soup.  Charles not as excited because he was counting on the burritoes that had been planned.  What to do but have both!  Last night was "Have the Dinner of Your Choice" night.  How much better can it get?

Too Long

I am back after a several month hiatus from blogging.  While I was on my hiatus I discovered, to my surprise, that I missed writing my blog.  I don't have a lot of time like most folks but I think I'm ready to come back and get something written periodically.  I'm rather proud of the fact that I was able to pull this back up from the archives and restore it to it's original state.  I decided to start changing things and am unable to "hide" my blog while under construction.  Bear with with my while under construction.  Check in from time to time to see Transforming Julie being transformed.