The Four Days of Christmas

I had a wonderful Christmas this year. :) There were four parties in four days, and each day had it's special highlights. Here's a few of them:

Wednesday, 24th, Christmas Eve:

• Family Day!
• We made our feast together that afternoon and opened our stocking presents at random times
• Took a break for the first Home Alone movie in our Home Alone marathon :)
• Set the mood for our dinner - setting the table with the fancy dish set used for only this date every year, candles flickered through the dimly lighted room, and manheim steamroller played in the background
• Dad reads the Christmas story right before we dig into the yummy food. This year our ham balls took on a little different form - Nice work, Mo. ;)
• Then the whole family cleans up together!
• Off to the presents! - I got a Precious Moment - the Christmas one that we get every year, but this year I thought it was especially beautiful :) I also got some "Greek lookin'" decorations with nice sayings on them - I especially liked the "Live well, Laugh often, and Love much" one, because in honor of the significance behind the title of this blog, I want to start collecting things that say Live, Laugh, and/or Love. My other favorite gift was this sweet leather covered Franklin Covey planner. It's the perfect thing for me - I've already started to fill it up!!
• After goofin' around with our presents for awhile, we watched Home Alone 2. Ah, great times, great times. :) It'd been quite awhile since I've seen these movies, and they're just seriously funny!!
• Then our parents went to bed, and... Mo, Chris, and I were nearly there ourselves when a random idea came along... but since it happened right about midnight, let's move on to Christmas day 2!

Thursday, 25th, Christmas Day

• During the first hour of the day, Mo, Chris, and I are bundled up and sledding in our backyard. We even snowboarded, made a snow angel, and actually ALL went down the hill on ONE sled a few times. My favorite was pausing for awhile laying on our backs lookin' up at the beautiful night sky. It was so clear, and the stars were so bright! :)
• Our little mid-night adventure didn't end there. We made a human Christmas card for Mom & Dad. With Morgan's new camera, we took pictures of ourselves forming human letters on our living room floor. Most of them took two of us to make the letter look the best, except for Chris' "T," hehe. Unfortunately the printer was acting up, so our plan was postponed to later today. More details to come... :)
• Oh yeah, there was some sleep
• Then this morning Mom, Dad, and I sang in the choir at church. It was a beautiful Christmas morning service. There was a neat poem read about the fruits of the Spirit. :) And after singing "Go Light Your World" with the choir, I had it in my head all day. I also got to talk with two of my old L-S classmates who I hadn't seen in awhile, that was great. :)
• Then it was off to the community building for the Rozendaal reunion. Soup and sloppy joes were the traditional items on the menu, plus super yummy salads and desserts!
• Then a bunch of us ladies played Skipbo. The game lasted quite awhile... and then Great Grandma pulled off a win with a sweet streak at the end! That was fun!
• I took a nap this afternoon, and I spent lots of time consolidating my random lists and condensing them into my new planner!
• Then it was time to fix up our "human letter spelling" gift. We got the printer to cooperate, and then spelled out "MERRY CHRISTMAS" and hung the letters with yarn across the stairway. Plus we put "We Love You" on the cute picture of us kids that we took right before our sledding adventure. :)
• But then Mom & Dad said they were going to bed... how to get them downstairs. Finally, a loud, frustrated whine and "Charlie peed down here again" exclamation got them curious enough to come looking. Our poor dog Charlie, sorry to stick the blame on you, hehe... but atleast we got them to notice our gift on Christmas!
• Then we cuddled up on the couch to watch Home Alone 3. :) NIGHT!

Friday, 26th, The Day after Christmas

• Today I talked with my parents about packing for Greece. It got a bit stressful...
• My stress was relieved when I bought some Skype credit to call up my friend Janet in Greece! :) It was soooo good to talk to her. :) I can't wait to see her in a few weeks! I asked her a lot of the big questions that were stressing my parents out. (yeah, just my parents mostly, since I'm not as anxious yet as I "should" be).
• I also made up a short letter to send out soon to all of my supporters with an update about my leaving date, my address in Greece, and my commissioning service details.
• This night was the party with mom's side of the family. Cousin Sam & her husband Jer brought cousin Emily with them to to spend Christmas with us. It was great to see them!
• First thing, I got to show everyone the T-shirt quilt grandma and I made! It's nearly done!
• We had our traditional lasagna, salad, and jello with marshmellows meal. :)
• Then we opened presents. A few stockings for all the grandkids were first. Grandma always wraps 5-10 stocking gifts for each kid with that many different kinds of wrapping paper. Then she'll hold up the type of paper we all have to find to open at random times. Ah, memories, hehe... It's starting to lose it's excitement as we get older, but traditions like these can't help but make you smile with the memories. :)
• We always exchange names, and this year Sammy had me. She got me some cute jewelry, but what was the coolest is that the necklace said Live, Laugh, Love!!!! And I hadn't told her about my new idea to collect things that say just that. :) Grandma also got me a nice shirt and some sweet guitar chord/scale charts. Now how am I gonna get my guitar to Greece....
• The rest of the night we played the games "In a Pickle" and "Hilarium." Good times.
• And of course we had our traditional pistachio dessert, mmmm. I almost forgot to mention the apple cider and amazing chex mix and other goodies that kept our taste buds occupied all night. :)
• Another great Christmas party! :) One to go...

Saturday, 27th, Birthdays!

• I slept in! But unlike on Home Alone, I didn't have a plane to catch, so it was all good. :)
• Today is my Aunt Sherry and my cousin Heather's birthday. :)
• This afternoon I spent time scheduling dates with all my friends for the week to come.
• I also finished reading the sweet Christmas story "Gideon's Gift" by Karen Kingsbury. It's part of her Christmas red glove series she started and finished a few years ago. I received these short stories as gifts over the consecutive Christmas' when they first were published... and now I thought it might be fun to re-read them this Christmas.
• I also had some fun conversations with my friends on the phone and facebook
• Finally, it was time to go to the last Christmas party - Dad's side of the family
• We had a yummy meal including chicken, ham, salad, beans, peach jello dessert, almond bars, and... probably something else good I'm forgetting
• Before the meal, I helped filled the personalized glasses with ice, juice or water by the freezer... like every meal at grandmas. :)
• After the meal I helped dry dishes and count silverware, hehe... while the younger kids were playing ping pong. Ah, I love it...
• Present opening time! The ones who do the most opening are Grandma and Grandpa. Allow me to explain... The tradition of the past several years has been for gma & gpa to give us $20 at Thanksgiving to buy ourselves a gift with by Christmas. Then we wrap it up and bring it to the Christmas party... and we give it to them to open and see what "they got" for us. Then we explain our gift, give them a hug, and get some more money. ;)
• This year I bought myself a sweet Greek cookbook with lots of stories about Greece and Greek cooking mixed in between all the recipes.
• Afterwards there's more sweet treats and hanging out... This year it included a birthday cake and homemade ice cream in celebration of birthdays!
• And albeit a bit silly to share, I was thrilled by the final event of the night... my 2 year old twin cousins had me help them go potty on the big potty! hehe. I was so proud of them, remembering to wash their hands and flush the stool and everything... :)
• Before I went to bed tonight, I started to read some random books off my shelf that I either hadn't read or haven't read in awhile.

Overall, what a wonderful Christmas!!! :)

Today was pretty great too... I really thought a lot about the sermons I heard (I posted about them on my other blog). I also watched "Becoming Jane" with Mo & Mom, read some more, and took a nice long nap. Then... I have deeeeefinitely stayed up to late - but it was all for a good skype conversation with a great friend, and of course, catching up on this post about my fun Christmas celebrations.

I've got a big week ahead. Thanks to my planner I have goals listed, plans made, and a schedule to follow. We'll see how well it goes. :)

So much to update!!

Wow... I'm behind on blogging about all the good stuff going on lately. :) Haha... it's funny how I can rarely start a blog post without saying that. Anyway...

I've really enjoyed the last couple of weeks. Exactly two weeks ago I gave another presentation about my summer, this time at the Sully Christian school. Then I went over to grandma's house to finish arranging my quilt blocks for the massive T-shirt quilt we're making together. And that afternoon I made the long, familiar drive up to NW IA one final time before my adventure to Greece.

The weekend was GREAT! I got to see nearly everyone (and more!) on my "must see" list. There was another special trip to the little town of Nora for Christmas caroling, and then on to Spink for the famous Spink burger. Then it was time already to start saying good-bye to friends. I prefer to call them "cya laters" actually, it's just that this time the "later" will be a bit longer than usual. :) The weekend was chalk full of precious visits with friends, including watching my favorite high schoolers in action at their Traveling Nativity, and hugging my apartment roommates at their sweet Christmas party. I could easily type forever about all the joyous details of each minute of my weekend, but I haven't given myself enough time... :(

Last weekend was another great one. My sister made it home safely from college after her last final, and then last week Friday my whole family (+ Jaden & Trevor!) went out for a very nice meal at the Depot restaurant in Grinnell. I had a lamb chop... mmm!! And my sister and I split an amazing piece of cheesecake for dessert. The next morning Morgan and I went to get professional massages in celebration of her finishing another semester so well. That felt great! That night I went caroling with my church family, we had a nice meal after, and then a bunch of us went to Kristin and Steve Lewis' for games - telephone pictionary and Catch Phrase! We had a blast. We also planned to meet again to start a Bible study. Also, on Sunday morning I got to sing with the choir, and the Holy Spirit prompted me to lead a prayer for our Pastor after he gave a great message about willingly saying "May it be" to God, just as Mary told the angel after he explained she would be giving birth to the Son of God!! :)

This week has been great as well. On Monday I had another Greek lesson with Voula, and we gave eachother sweet holiday treats. On Tuesday I got a lot more cleaning and organizing done in my room. And then on Wednesday the Christmas celebrations began! I would love to share more fun details about all of my Christmas activities so far, but now I need to get going to my 3rd Christmas party. Hopefully by Sunday at the latest I will have made time to share the exciting stories of my "four days of Christmas!"

I'm so thankful to be celebrating Christmas with all my friends and family!!! :) :)

Yesterday, Christmas day... marked exactly 3 weeks from my flight to Greece! :) Keep preparing me well, God!! Thanks for all of the provision and encouragement so far!! :) :)

Living a Life Of Love

It's been far too long since I've posted to either of my blogs. I guess those goals I set up for myself were somehow intimidating... haha. It's more like I have been busy doing too many fun things, and I haven't given myself time to sit and write about it. But I desperately want to get a post on my smileMEDs page again, so hence my rule of posting everything here first, I wanted to start flushing out what I might try and say on that post before I come back here hopefully later today and give update with more thoughts about what I've been up to lately.
I'm constantly sifting through the stuff in my room and coming up with more and more stuff to give away. I just gave 20 or so hangers a lighter load - nothing! And I boxed up another stack of books that I decided would be best in the hands of someone else who might want to read those words instead of taking up space and distracting me from more important priorities.

As I've said before, I'm praying God will help me strip away and travel with a lighter load, because with less stuff around me, I can better focus on the task in front of me: to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ - his complete self emptying on the cross in order to cover my sins with his precious blood, so that I may have life - and life to the fullest measure of joy for the glory of our awesome God!

I'm also going to post Acts 20:22ff, because I've been meditating on those words lately... and it's especially important to me because it's Paul's words as he is traveling to Jerusalem and he is saying good-bye to his friends who don't want him to go because they know there will be great trial for him there and they probably will never see him again. As I have already started saying good-bye to friends before leaving for Greece, it hits home. Anyway... I've got to post my smileMED now, hehe. :) I'll hopefully be back on here later today.

Sleepless in Sully...

Oops...
I have not gotten near enough sleep in the last week, and now my health is paying for it. I don't have much of a voice left today. I haven't even been on this blog to update since I made such good plans last weekend! Hehe... oh well, here I am now for a quick update before I hit the sack!

I had a BLAST last Saturday. I had a great time with my family, and then I hung out with some wonderful friends. First on the list was traveling to a South Dakota town with called Spink with Ryan, Chelsea, and the Spidahls. On the way, we sang a new Christmas carol every 5 miles, and in between time we took turns updating everyone on what we've been up to. It was a blast to share, be encouraged, and SING! Then we arrived in Spink - population 8! There's a great little restaurant in an old house that we ate at. It's one of those places you just HAVE to go to atleast once. :) AND so was the next stop of the night - an even SMALLER town called Nora - population 5. In this town there's this cute old house with the main room filled with an organ, a couple pianos, a ton of chairs, and a packed room full of people singing Christmas carols! THIS was so fun! Anyone who can play an instrument is invited to help lead the music... and even I got to play the jingle bells and the piano awhile. I even ran into some of my friends from the Maurice congregation there. I had a wonderful time, so much so that I'm hopefully going back again this weekend... :) It's these simple, yet uniquely beautiful things of life that just... make me SMILE and bubble over with warm fuzzies and nostalgic feelings. :)
The night was far from over after this great adventure. When we got back to Orange City, we said goodbye to the Spidahls, and we searched three dorms and the Christmas formal dance for our friend Andrew. We finally found him a few blocks from the college visiting with other friends. It was so great to see him again! Andrew and Chels had just gotten back from their Romania Study Abroad this week... I missed them very much...
Then we went back to West Hall and sang great classic country hits, bluegrass songs, and old hymns with Ryan at the guitar. I absolutely LOVE doing that. :) At this point it was already past midnight, but of course I just had to stay up a few more hours into the morning to look at some of Andrew's pictures and hear some of his stories from Romania. Fun times! The others hanging out all night in the West "living room" even shared their sparkling juice with us... mmm!

Wow and that was just last Saturday. I said I would try to be quick... I guess I'll just bullet point the rest so I can go to bed super soon...

• Said goodbye to MO after breakfast Sunday morning
• Went to the candle light service at my church Sunday night - very well put together... my church family members of ALL ages encouraged us with singing, memorized Scripture, and a thoughtful "children's message." I was blessed. :)
• I don't even remember everything from my eventful Monday, but I a couple of the highlights were confirming my registration into Greek language school, going out for coffee with my grandma & great grandma, and finally nailing down the rest of the details for my great gift idea for all of my friends and family members for Christmas.
• Right before I went to bed I got to talk to my friend Andrew from Canada who will be going back to serve with Hellenic Ministries full time soon too. Yeah!
• Yesterday I spent a lot of time cleaning, doing laundry, and coming up with helpful suggestions for Andrew's newly designed webpage. I really enjoy editing things. :)
• Today I had a phsyical... woot woot, so exciting...eh. I figured I should try to make sure I'm as healthy as I can be before leaving the country. :)
• My other grandma took me out for lunch at the Coffee Cup! I had the Dutch lettuce salad which made the Des Moines Register's list of top 100 things you should eat before I die, hehe. I also split a very yummy peace of pumkin pie with Grandma. Have I mentioned yet that I have an extreme weakness when it comes to anything pumpkin... cheesecake is my other worst dessert weakness!
• This afternoon I got a few more things on my to-do list crossed off, from calling friends to set up dates for my one last visit to NW IA this weekend, to sending in receipts to HM for recent expenses... LIKE MY PLANE TICKET and MEDICAL INSURANCE for GREECE!!! :)
• Then tonight I hung out with my mom getting groceries, making a great supper (ham steak, rice pilaf, and snap peas!), and going to grandma's house to continue working out the design for my T-shirt quilt! So fun! :)

I have also been making more preparations in my head lately for leaving the country in less than 40 days... I tried looking up tips for traveling light. I also go through a new corner of my room each day and make a box full of stuff to give away. Yesterday it was more stacks of books! Today it was a few more T-shirts, jeans, and coats... which yes I still like, and they still fit, and... they're nice and all. I just don't NEED as much as I've got!

Alrighta, that's a quick catch up on my story for the week...

I should do some more editing for Andrew now... but I really need to sleep, or I don't expect my voice back anytime soon, and I have another presentation for a Christian school chapel on Friday! NIGHT!

Over-due...

Confession - I haven't posted on this blog awhile.. because I was at 18 posts on my other blog, and like 22 on this one... and I was trying to play catch up. Now my other blog has 21 posts, and this one 22 (make that 23 after I hit Publish Post to this one...), but I had to write on here too...

because... I NEED to state boldly and plainly what my distinct purposes will be for each blog. The ideas have been there... but they've been trapped in muddy water for the last couple months yet, lol. I do want to keep both... even if only for the reason that I love both of the site names I've come up with, hehe.

oh, and I've figured out why it's so hard to keep them distinct for me... it's because I feel like my "encouraging" life and my own "personal learning" life are too hard to separate!! I can't separate the encouragement I want to pour out from the own encouragement God reveals to me through my own life experiences each day!

Nevertheless... I still think it's a valuable goal to regularly attempt to draw boundaries and define purposes - with an allowance of grace to fudge the lines every now and then.

So, here we go:

:) L.O.L. :) blog:
Purpose: Telling my "Living Out Love/Laughing Out Loud" life story as it is being lived out
Boundaries: None... Can "no boundaries" be a boundary? Eh, yeah, I think so, LOL. ;) What I mean by this is - I think this is the blog I will give myself the freedom to be as much "diary-like/stream of conciousness typing/thought sharing/A.D.D. posting" as I want to be!
Posting goals: As often as I have the energy and opportunity to type!

:) M.E.D.s blog:
Purpose: A thought-full, purpose-full sharing of what God is teaching me lately with the distinct thought in mind to encourage others with my story
Boundaries: I need to have posted about whatever I write at this blog in some form on my other blog FIRST. In "writers terms" I'm saying - I need to have "free written/first drafted" these thoughts before I attempt to reflect on them enough to share well with others
Posting goals: Minimum of once a week. First reading through all of my L.O.L. posts since my last smileMED post, and then summing them up as intelligently, creatively, and concisely as my writing skills allow!

YEAH! Okay, that was fun. I'm proud of myself. We'll see how these new boundaries and goals go! :) Now, again, I'm tempted to go back and report on all the goodies of these last few days - like brainstorming how to gather young people in my area to meet in a small group, encouraging Bible study... like my awful Thursday night where my throat closed up all of the sudden, I couldn't swallow, and I had to fall right asleep without finishing the stuff I needed to do to prepare for the next day, like how God helped my presentation Friday morning to go so well - and I even was fairly well over the awful sick feelings of the night before, and how on my long drive up to NW IA I watched the movie Definitely Maybe... and how it makes me reflect so much on my own life and love story. Of course I don't "condone" or "like to watch" all of the details of some of the characters' in this movie's immoral lives... but I do still appreciate the journey of life the characters go through!... AND THEN!... I got to listen to my sister sing with Sophie and Josh squared at the HUB while playing cards with my parents and grandparents, indulging in a yummy "swirlie - equifvalent of a blizzard," and running into old college friends... :) and last night I got a wonderful sleep - after laying awake forever trying to make my own music and thoughts play loud enough in my head to distract me from my parents' snoring... and this morning had a fun little chat with my parents and g-parents in the hotel lobby... and how now I've had this precious time to catch up on my blogging. :) And I'm looking forward to the day ahead - eatting Chinese and going to the movie "four christmases" with my family... plus NW's Vespers concert in the chapel tonight... aaaaand...

that's enough "dairy-like/stream of consiousness typing/thought sharing/A.D.D. posting" for this post, lol. I think I'm getting off to a good start with my purpose and "boundaries" for this blog. ;) Until next time... :D