Packing Up Christmas

Taking down Christmas decorations always represents a time of reflection for me.  It's one of my least favorite things to do, so I usually pass the time by  letting my mind wander.  Typically, I start off by recalling  what my life looked like this time last year when I did the same chore.  This year, that part was easy. Last December when I took down the Christmas decorations, I was pregnant with Landry, just starting to really show.  I had a lot of apprehensions about his delivery, and I remember often wondering whether I would even enjoy motherhood.  Sad, but true.  What a difference a year makes!

As I pack up even more decorations, my mind can't help but wonder what life will look like when I take down Christmas next year.....

• Will we take any fun trips this upcoming year?
• Will we face big hardship?
• Will we still be in this house?
• Will we still live in this city?
• Will all of our loved ones still be alive?
• Will we still be a family of three?

So many questions, so many unknowns.  Then, I breathe a big sigh of relief because, despite the uncertainty, this I know for sure: God is faithful, and I can count on Him to see us through whatever the next year holds.

Deuteronomy 7:9 "Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is god, the fiathful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments."

To Brian on Our Third Anniversary

I'm so thankful for the Godly man you are, the caring husband you continue to be, and the wonderful father you've become.  Through you, God has blessed me more than I ever could have imagined and certainly more than I could ever deserve.  Each year that I'm married to you, I love you deeper and respect you even more than I did the year before.  I am so thankful that I'm the one who gets to spend the rest of my life with you!

Love,
Your Wife

Chocolate Chip Cookies

For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm a serious chocolate chip cookie aficionado.  This hobby started shortly after I acquired my first Kitchen Aid mixer a handful of years ago, but it's taken on a life of its own now that I'm married to someone who could eat chocolate chip cookies every day of his life and never tire of them.  (And, just in case you think I'm exaggerating, on a typical day, Brian eats a chocolate chip cookie in his lunch and another one about halfway between dinner and bedtime!)
I had settled on "my" chocolate chip cookie recipe a couple of years ago (the Southern Living recipe with a little bit extra flour to compensate for the Texas humidity).  Since then, when I come across other recipes, I usually skim them using mine as a benchmark, just to see the different variations.  But, I never had any intentions of trying a different recipe because I was pretty sure that I would be disappoointed, given that I was admittedly a pretty big fan of my own recipe.  That all changed a couple of months ago when a friend from my high school debate team gave me a recipe that imitates the chocolate chip cookies made at the Levain Bakery in New York City.  The New York Times dubbed their cookies "the best cookies in Manhattan."  And, although I haven't had the real thing, I will boldly stand by the declaration that this is the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever had.  So much so, that I am not sure that I will ever use my former recipe again!

Here's the recipe (with a few of my own tweaks)so that you can enjoy it too...

1 cup butter (I use margarine)
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs (I use egg beaters)
cream above until fluffy
Top with:
 2 1/2 cups flour (I use 2 3/4 cups in Texas humidity)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp corn starch
2 cups crushed walnuts
3 cups chocolate chips (literally 3 x what I used in my former recipe!!)
Mix dough together
Chill dough overnight
Bake at 390 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until tops are slightly browned

If you happen to try it, I'd love to hear what you think.  If you don't think it's the best cookie you've ever had, then reply back and give me your recipe that tops it!!

Our Christmas Ham...

How did we get fortunate enough to have Landry's first Christmas coincide with a phase in which he loves to smile for the camera??

A Few of My Favorite Books of 2010

Although I don't have a lot of spare time for pleasure reading, I try to always have a book that I'm reading on the side. It often takes me more than two weeks to finish a book, so I'm thankful for the Houston library's six-week checkout period!  As 2010 is quickly drawing to a close, I'm devoting a post to a few books I enjoyed reading this past year, primarily so that I have them documented somewhere for me to remember that I've actually read them!

• Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt - This is a great book that challenges Christians to live a more purposeful life and calls every believer to become passionate about taking the Gospel to the nations.   I can't say that I "enjoyed" this book because that's not really the point.  But, I can say that I was challenged about how I use my time, how I spend money, and how I view the Great Commission.  That's a lot of conviction between the pages of a relatively quick read!

• Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson - Yes, I succumbed to the hype after watching an episode about the author on The Today Show.  I was completely engrossed in the mystery, and I look forward to the two others in the trilogy.  This book is also particularly noteworthy to me because it's the first book I read on my Kindle, so I read the vast majority of it at the gym and while walking around the neighborhood with Landry.

Before I get to the rest of my list, I should digress for a minute to say that Brian often teases me about my tendencies to get on big reading kicks that involve books about oppressed women.  And, he's right!!  I have no idea why, but I read them in spurts - usually five or six at a time - before I return to less depressing and more varied selections. If I had to pinpoint an origin of this habit, I'd blame it on A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, which will forever be seared into Brian's memory as the book that I couldn't stop reading on our honeymoon.  And, I'm almost ashamed to admit that I went on one of my biggest "oppressed women" kicks of all time during 2010, as you can see from the following books:

• Slave: My True Story by Mede Nazer - This book is the autobiography of a women who was sold into slavery in modern day Sudan. 
• Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill - A novel about a woman from West Africa who was sold into slavery in the 1700s and ultimately worked for the abolitionist movement in England.
• The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom - A novel about an orphan girl from Ireland who is raised with the slaves in the kitchen house of a tobacco plantation
• Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam by Zainab Salbi - The true story of the daughter of Saddam Hussein's private pilot
• Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay - A novel about a Jewish girl who lives in Paris during the Holocaust

In the final week of the year, I hope to finish my current book, Villette by Charlotte Bronte.  It's the last book Bronte wrote before her death, and, although it never achieved the recognition that Jane Eyre did, it seems like a lot of literary critics consider it to be her best work.  I'm only about 25% done with it, but I'm enjoying it so far.  Lest I leave you with too lofty of an impression of my literary tastes, I should add that I picked it because it's on the public domain, and, consequently, the Kindle version is free!

Two Days Before Christmas...

and I'm finding myself with the sudden urge to do a load of laundry in an attempt to have a repeat viewing of these seasonal images tonight ...

Santa's Little Helper...

I'm guessing that this is the only Christmas that he'll be the least bit interested in wrapping paper and ribbon!

I Went to See About A Job...

Yes, that's right.  Six weeks into my indefinite retirement, I had a job interview this morning.  Before you think I'm re-entering corporate America, I should add the disclaimer that this was the plan all along.  When I initially contemplated staying at home full-time, I pictured myself teaching a class at the community college.  To me, this seemed like the perfect way to keep my mind sharp and my accounting skills fresh without a big time commitment.  So, I applied for several positions back in October but didn't hear back from anyone.  I even went to a job fair in November to drop off my resume in person - again no response - not even from the college that I taught for back in 2005.  Just when I thought that it wasn't going to happen until summer at the earliest, I received an email last Friday asking me if I was interested in teaching an introductory Financial Accounting course a couple of afternoons each week starting in January. This is the perfect class for me because it is basic enough that it won't even require a lot of preparation to "relearn" the textbook accounting I haven't seen since my own college days. Because the college is about to close for the winter break, the business school dean asked me to come in this week for an interview.  He interviewed me this morning, and he gave me the job on the spot.  I even left with my textbook in hand!  Brian asked me how much they will pay me (valid question, right?!?)  Wouldn't you know, I forgot to ask that question!!  Hopefully, it will at least cover the gas money it will take to make the roundtrip two times per week so that I won't be working for free!  Regardless, I think it will be a fun adventure for me this spring.

A Pictoral Week in Review

Wow! It's hard to believe that an entire week has passed since my last post. I could give a handful of reasons for the delay, but the main contributing factor is our woefully deficient internet service.  A word to the wise - never, ever get satellite internet if you can possibly avoid it.  It's overpriced and seems to be down any time there's a cloud in the sky.  Unfortunately, because we are outside all of the populated areas south of Houston, we find ourselves with few alternative options. Several times I've asked Brian to go outside and jiggle the satellite dish, but he informs me that it takes precise adjustments and sophisticated professional equipment to link up to the satellite.  (As a side note, I think it's the first time since we've been married that he hasn't been able to just fix something related to a home repair.  That gives you a pretty good idea of how handy he really is!!)  But, lest I waste away all the precious time I have online complaining about the internet, I will move on to give you an idea of how we have spent our time this first week in December...

This week, our biggest accomplishment was getting the tree up and decorated.  The decorating took place over the course of several days during nap times and after Landry's 8pm bedtime.  We stuck with our usual silver/white look, but we have switched completely over to shatterproof ornaments (thank you Target!!) so that we don't have to worry about any of them breaking into little pieces. So far, Landry seems completely uninterested in the tree, but I did hold him up close once to let him touch the branches and ornaments. 

We also drafted our family's Christmas letter.  This took far longer than the single page of text would lead you to believe.  It was difficult to find the balance between talking too much about Landry and not talking enough about Landry, fully recognizing that he is not as interesting of a subject to everyone else as he is to us!  (The final product probably talks too much about Landry anyhow, though!!)

We also have been working on Landry's sleeping habits (or lack thereof) this week.  His pediatrician recommended that we ditch the pacifier at bedtime and naptime.  This made a lot of sense because it seems like 75% of his waking in the middle of the night was attributable to a missing paciifer.  I thought that it would temporarily make things worse, but the opposite has been true.  It's almost as if, because he didn't fall asleep with it, he doesn't sense that it's missing when he wakes up in the night.  So, instead of crying out for it, he rolls over and goes back to sleep again.  It probably also helps that the pediatrician saw Bear and said that it looked safe to leave in his crib.  Up until this point, we had been taking Bear from him after he fell asleep, sometimes even prying him out of his hands.

In my spare time, I have been sneaking in some reading time on my new Kindle.  Brian's parents gave it to me for my birthday, and I love it!  I can take it to the gym and not have to hold back pages.  I also have found that I can put it on the top of Landry's stroller and read on walks.

One thing I haven't done this week is fold laundry....As you can see, it's calling my name this afternoon.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!!

Thankful....

So

Thankful

For

This

Boy!!!