Thursday Thirteen: Christmas Carols

Earlier this week my brother asked us what our favorite and least favorite Christmas carols are. Got me to thinking. It's amazing how I can simultaneously LOVE and HATE Christmas carols. But, to be more positive today, a Christmas carol lyric list of ones I love.

Thirteen Christmas Song Lyrics That I Love
(Some it's about the word usage, some about nostalgia and some it's simply about the swell of emotion it brings out in me.)

1. God with man is now residing
   ~ Angels From the Realm of Glory

2. Late in time behold Him come,
    Offspring of the favored one.
    Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see;
    Hail the incarnate Deity
    Pleased as man with men to dwell,
    Jesus, our Emmanuel
   ~ Hark the Herald Angels Sing

3. Mild He lays His glory by,
    Born that man no more may die;
    Born to raise the sons of earth,
    Born to give them second birth
   ~ Hark the Herald Angels Sing (yes, it gets two mentions. I love me some Charles Wesley hymns.)

4. The belfries of all Christendom
  ~ I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

5. Still through the cloven skies they come
  ~ It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

6.  You gave birth to the death that would bring us to life
  ~ Bethlehem Town

7. No more will sin and sorrow grow,
    Nor thorns infest the ground;
  ~ Joy to the World

8. Son of the Father,
    Now in flesh appearing;
  ~ Oh Come, All Ye Faithful

9.Long lay the world
   In sin and error pining,
   Till He appeared
   And the soul felt its worth.
  ~ O Holy Night

10.  That your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
       When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?
     ~ Mary Did You Know

11. Israel's strength and consolation
      Hope of all the earth Thou art
    ~ Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

12. Father show me where I fit into this plan of yours
      How can a man be father to the Son of God
      Lord for all my life I've been a simple carpenter
      How can I raise a king, how can I raise a king?
   ~ Joseph's Song

13. Through the rude wind's wild lament
      And the bitter weather
  ~ Good King Wenceslas

my love list

Many moons ago I read an article written by Kristin Armstrong (yes, Lance's ex) where she talked about getting lost in her marriage. To quote part of it: "If you ask me today what I truly love, I can easily tell you I love God, my family, my friends... If you had asked me when I was married what I loved, I would have automatically told you the things that I loved about my husband..."

I found it intriguing and although I do NOT think I'm lost in my marriage I did think it an interesting exercise to write down things that I love. Things that are not connected to my marriage or my children. Just about me. 'Cause if a blog can't be self-indulgent, what's the point. :-)Without further adieu, my love list (with random paragraph breaks that have nothing to do with anything but more so that you don't get exhausted):

I love my wool comforter. I love it because it’s cozy and it keeps me warm but more than that I love it because I made it together with my mom from the wool of sheep that my father had raised. I love that I have friendships that have stood the test of time through many life changes for all of us. I love working on a calculator. I also love working on spreadsheets. I realize this makes me a geek and I am completely comfortable with that. It also means I’m in the right profession.

I love black coffee. I love taking a sip of it, the warm cup in my hand and holding the sip in my mouth to taste it fully before swallowing. In turn I also love chewing on a stick of gum after I’ve finished the cup to rid my mouth of the coffee taste as soon as possible. I love looking at cooking blogs and reading cookbooks and dreaming of trying out new recipes. I love the crunch of celery, especially one that has been sitting in a Caesar for a few minutes. I love my province and I love to read books or blogs or see photos or hear songs from people who love it as well. I love a good walk. A slow, meandering, enjoying the outdoors walk – by myself or with people I love. I love Christmas lights. I love mini white ones on the tree, and crisp, clean straight lines of coloured ones on people’s houses and fences. I love my Kitchenaid mixer and baking things that have brown sugar and pecans and butter.

I love that I no longer photograph in auto mode and feel completely comfortable adjusting the ISO, shutter speed, aperture, white balance or exposure to suit the subject or my mood. I love the goosebumps that I get when artists hit their harmonies bang on. I love how cathartic and cleansing a good cry can feel sometimes. I love bonfires and the outdoor sounds that lull me to sleep when camping. I love traveling: the planning, the packing, the actual trip and then the memories afterwards. I love getting new CDs. I love the anticipation of the unknown as you get the final bits of plastic covering off and pop the cd out of its case and into the player. I love end of year best-of lists that newspapers and magazines produce. I love potato chips.

I love witnessing kindness. I love farmer’s markets. I love old typewriters. I love the ampersand and I love when it is used as art. I love movie quotes. I love lemonade. I love finding a pen that writes just perfectly. I love Paris and London and Sydney and New York City. By nature I prefer the country but those cities are exceptions. I love used book sales. I love that there is something beyond the grave. Something better.

I love homemade noodles with a creamy onion sauce with farmer sausage and pickled beets on the side. If I were to have the chance to pick my final meal that would be one of about 3 different choices I have it narrowed down to. I love black-eyed susans and delphiniums and daisies and irises and lilacs and lilies and peonies and poppies and sweetpeas.

I love baths that are so hot that my skin turns red nearly immediately. I love anticipation. It’s one of my favorite emotions. Anticipating a concert, a visit from someone, coffee with a friend, a movie, a party… I love the box of 64 Crayola crayons when they are brand new. I love to organize and to plan and to label.

I love to be one of four children. I love ladybugs and dragonflies. I love standing outdoors in the warm summer night with my arms wrapped around someone special watching fireworks. I love checking things off a to-do list. I love cinnamon on top of the foam on a chai latte. I love snow resting on tree branches. I love raspberries. I love throwing a party, from the menu to the cocktails to the moment the guests arrive. I love freshly picked flowers. I love bouquets of flowers from a florist too but I am still more sweet on hand-picked bouquets from a garden or from the side of a road. I love wearing a loose dress in the summer and going barefoot on soft grass or sand. I love old hymns. I love trailers before a movie. I love road trips.

I love that above all else there remains faith, hope and love.

tweet tweet

Truth is, most social media (yes, including blogs) kind of annoys me. But, then again, I'm easily annoyed. And yet, for whatever reason, I enjoy Twitter. I don't personally tweet. And, withholding a couple of exceptions, I don't really follow anyone I know in real life. But, I will follow ANYONE who can make me laugh regularly. I mean, I like to laugh anyway but if you can make me smile or laugh in 140 characters or less well my hat goes off to you and I don't even wear a hat. Here are some recent faves. Sorry I didn't include their handles but I don't feel like advertising their twitter accounts. (#5 and #8 are my SUPER favorites.)

1. Oh you don’t believe everyone in America should own a gun? Well I guess SOMEBODY never saw the last 40 minutes of Tremors. Get educated, pal.
2. It's so wrong how the tooth fairy pays baby sharks just 10p per tooth, pops them on necklaces and sells them to surfers for a huge profit.
3. Just saw Captain Phillips. Pretty inaccurate. Not a single pirate wore guyliner.
4. If I could have any super power it would be to instantly see what Internet comments a person has made when we first shake hands.
5. Getting older is hard, but eventually it stops.
6. "Any piece of information is 20% more credible if it appears to be a quote".
7. Congratulations, parents! The names yelled at dog parks are now less weird than the names yelled at playgrounds.
8. Did you guys know that at Chili's if you tell them its your birthday they'll go in the kitchen and feel sad for you?
9. I wish I could be half as enthusiastic about anything as Microsoft Word is about a footer being "out of the printable area".
10. I’m not a lawmaker, but I was thinking that if you have a really loud ring tone, maybe you should be stabbed in the ear?

2003

10 years ago I was at a baseball game. I wasn't married. I wasn't a mother. I had just moved into a new apartment. I had a new boyfriend. It was a time of anticipation and newness. And then we got that call. The worst phone call of my entire life.

What a coincidence that I'd hear this song out of the blue today.

And what I'd give to go there again
Kiss my daddy's face, hold my mama's hand
Little did I know soon they would be
Lying right beside him, gone away from me
Gone away from me (Gone away from me)


Oh Dad, I miss you today just as much as I have for the 3,653 days in between. So much has happened in 10 years. It just doesn't seem fair to me that you never got to meet my kids. Goodness would you love Abby's questions and spunk and Jack's mischief. I want you to take them to see the new chicks. I want you to sneak some Gramma jam to them when they should be eating something more healthy. And the thing is, they both LOVE eggs. But beyond that I've changed too. I'm softer now. I'd like to think I'd be more willing to listen to you. I am way more interested in my history and your history than I was 10 years ago. I want to ask you so many questions.

And so it goes. We'll continue on here without you and Mom. It will be hard. And lonely. But there is good too. Much good and that's why it's worth sticking around.

Thursday Thirteen

Three reasons for this:

1. My husband told me it was about time I updated my blog.
2. I haven't done a Thursday Thirteen in a coon's age. (However old a coon is.)
3. I was wallowing in self-pity for a chunk of today so I kind of needed to choose to change my outlook. And so...

Thirteen Things That Were Just What I Needed Today

1. The warm sun on my legs as I drove home from work. I'm one of those odd people who will climb into a very warm car and not open the windows for at least 15 minutes so that I can be deliciously warm for awhile. It's so unusual for me to be warm I don't want to squander it.
2. This song. Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
3. Got my nails painted again today. This has become a wee bit of a tradition with a couple of girls at work. Sneaking out at lunch to treat ourselves to a manicure. (It will be a short-lived tradition due to my personality both with luxury and finances.) 
4. I nearly canceled the manicure. I was feeling so low I just didn't see myself wanting to chat with a stranger for an hour. But, I was blessed with an esthetician who basically chatted my ear off. I could ask her a question or two and she would go pretty much nonstop. Just what I needed.
5. An email from an old friend that made me chuckle. In the nearly 20 years I've known her I think there have probably been only a few conversations or emails where she hasn't made me laugh. It's nice having a friend like that.
6. Another friend who gets tears in her eyes pretty much any time I start to cry. It's nice having a friend like that too.
7. This song.  Without the bad, the good disappears / Take my burden away from me
   and bury it before it buries me.
8. Picking up Jack from daycare to see him laying face down on the sidewalk with his buddy. When I asked them what they were doing: "Mom! We're lying on the concrete! It's so much fun!"
9. Doing dishes while Jueun and Jack colored and Abby did homework behind me. The noises of life. Of home.
10. This for supper. Holy Hannah Banana it was SO GOOD. I mean, I should have known with words like "butter" and "whipping cream" and "parmesan cheese" and "fresh basil". Wow. I'm looking forward to the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
11. A daughter who runs upstairs to change when company shows up because what she was wearing "wasn't appropriate".
12. A short walk after supper to discover a large patch of flowers in someone's front yard. Oh spring, welcome back. I missed you.
13. Driving home with my kids and playing a song loud enough that I could feel it in my seat; singing the chorus at the top of our lungs.

the times they are a-changin

My grandmother made this memory/matching game. I have vivid memories of playing with her. She always lost and as a child I wasn't sure if she did it on purpose or if indeed my memory was better than hers.

I've played it many, many times in my life. More than I can count. I've taken a bit of pride in my memory. Just this past summer Abby and Mom and I would play it over and over again when Mom got too tired to do much besides play games. I won game after game after game. I remember saying to Mom that this was just a brief moment in time: A time when my memory is better than both my child's and my mother's.

We have the memory game now. We're playing it in various groupings of our little family. Just moments ago Jack tied my score. And yes, I WAS trying. (I'm not really one of those parents who "lets" her kids win.)

He's 4.5. I was not ready for that moment to come THIS soon.

Last night the boy announced to me that he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. A stop manager. Do you know what a stop manager is? Me neither. But I was curious... Turns out it's one of these:

But, alas, now he needs a whistle and a marching band. (his words) And, thankfully, he'll always let ME go, he'll never stop me. Ah the love.