New sofa

Because I'm sure everybody's so interested in our new furniture, right?

I'm excited because it's the first new furniture we ever picked out and bought ourselves. We went shopping for used furniture, and we liked this one. Also I dibs'd a rocking chair. I've gone three babies now with no rocking chair. It was time.

The sofa is dark green, and makes our tiny living room look quite fancy indeed.

I'm going to attempt to sand down and refinish the rocking chair over the summer, because the finish is flaking off.

We didn't realize until my hubby and brother were trying to lift the sofa into the truck that it's also a hideabed. Because it weighed approximately 5000 pounds. I helped them muscle it into the house, and we were all exhausted afterward. But we had wanted a hideabed if at all possible, and we got one completely by accident!

Does God care about sofa shopping? Because He sure seemed to direct us to the right one. :-)

Tuesday ramble

I had a few minutes to sit down and update blogs. And now that I'm sitting here, I can't think of anything to say.

Not much has been going on since Christmas. I'm glad it's over, personally. So much stress and anxiety. I do think that I ought to become Orthodox, just to celebrate Christmas on January 6th. Think of all the loot I could pick up during the post-Christmas sales!

Or Catholic. Do Catholics celebrate on the 6th or the 25th? My ignorance of this is embarrassing.

I got a bunch of great books that I've been wanting all year. Those on top of my unread library books, I'm all set. I've also been devouring freebies via Kindle. I haven't read so many genres in a long time.

It's also a good way to read books I'm not sure about *cough*christianfantasy*cough* without shelling out 20 bucks for them, then being stuck with a lemon on my bookshelf.

Although, since we got rid of the sofa and chair, there's nowhere to sit in here. I'm going to go shopping after new year's and see what I can scrounge up.

The poor munchkins haven't had any of their new books read to them, because it's so hard to sit on the floor and read to them.

So there you have it. Not much going on to speak of. The sick munchkin is finally well, but she was sick for an entire week. This morning she played with toys, and I was so relieved.

Christmas 2011

Even though a sick child necessitated canceling our family get together on Christmas eve, it was a nice Christmas anyway.

Childlike Christmas - unintentionally busy

This is the spot where the couch was. Now there is a Christmas tree. This happened this morning.

Our couch and chair were on loan from my mother-in-law. I wanted to get some new furniture, so we arranged to move her sofa and chair to storage. For some reason, that didn't actually happen until this morning.

The couch had accumulated a lot of junk beneath it and behind it. So as I was frantically trying to clean up this fantastic mess, the guy shows up at the door to fix the cracked tile in the bathroom. (We put in the work request about a week ago and I forgot all about it.)

So my hubby and my brother hauled the furniture out, I cleaned the living room with three enthusiastic munchkins underfoot, and the repair guy rushed in and out with various tools and minor demolition mess.

But as you can see, now it's all clean, and the Christmas tree actually touches the floor this year. The kids have been playing there nonstop.

I'm not sure how this relates to a Childlike Christmas. It was just our crazy morning today.

A Christmas story - Candle in the Forest

I thought I'd post this on both my blogs today. This is my traditional Christmas story to read every year. I always try to share it with folks online, too, as it’s just a little short story, and so lovely. No barbed sting in its tail to make you cry, unless you cry at happy endings.

Candle in the Forest
by Temple Bailey

The small girl's mother was saying, "The onions will be silver,
and the carrots will be gold--"
"And the potatoes will be ivory," said the small girl, and they
laughed together. The small girl's mother had a big white bowl in her
lap, and she was cutting up vegetables. The onions were the hardest,
because she cried over them.
"But our tears will be pearls," said the small girl's mother,
and they laughed at that and dried their eyes, and found the carrots
much easier, and the potatoes the easiest of all.
Then the next-door-neighbor came in and said, "What are you doing?"

Kindle books

I swore that I'd never get into reading Kindle books. Paper and ink all the way for me, baby!

My opinion of the Kindle was not improved upon acquaintance. It was clunky and hard to use. And ugly.

Then my hubby bequeathed his old ipod to me, and it had a Kindle app. I bought an ebook or two for it, and reading stuff on the ipod wasn't too bad.

Then I discovered the Kindle store on Amazon. Or, more specifically, the free books section.

Every old book that I've adored in my life is free on the Kindle. I found House of a Thousand Candles, and everything George MacDonald ever wrote, and GK Chesterton, and Dickens, and a jillion more. I keep thinking of new authors to look up.

The Kindle isn't half bad when you can get truckloads of free books. GOOD books, too.

Christmas thoughts

I informed Grandma how the munchkins had no concept of how close Christmas was. She graciously found this calendar for them. We hung it up and the munchkins have ritually moved the marker each day.

The anticipation is building. I love it when the munchkins tell me they want such and such for Christmas. I get to shrug and say with an all-knowing air, "You'll have to wait until Christmas and see." Then they look at the little calendar and count the days. I remember doing the same when I was little.

When I was young, Mom had this counted cross stitch Christmas tree with bells sewed to it, and little ornaments to hang on the bells for each day. They were so tiny that the least breeze knocked the ornaments off, so there was always a sprinkling of tiny candy canes and gingerbread men on the floor beneath it.

Ahh, good memories.

Refracted light

I had set my quart jar of drinking water on the table beside our little Christmas tree. I turned around and saw this.

I had captured a jar of light.

Childlike Christmas and chats

Going to cram two memes into today's post!

First off, Pom Pom's Childlike Christmas. It's my first time participating.

Here's one of the little waifs, looking very Tiny Tim in mommy's big hoodie.

Seeing as they're only 4, 2, and 8 months, they're just trying to grasp this whole Christmas thing. They understand the whole "getting presents" thing very well. We're doing Advent candles with Bible reading in the evenings, so hopefully they'll have some idea about the Christmas story.

On Saturday we went to the library, and they went to the storytime thing the library puts on for the kids. The lady had a craft afterward where all the kids made paper ornaments with glitter and those little fuzzy balls and stickers.

I should have taken a picture right after we got home, because they had a lot more stuff on them.

As you see, the fuzzy balls and most of the stickers have been peeled off for use elsewhere.

I'm sad to say, I don't have many pithy thoughts about seeing Christmas through a child's eyes. I feel like that's how I see life right now, and it's actually more difficult to see Christmas as an adult! I do wish I had a nativity creche, so they could play with the little Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Maybe next year.

Now on to Patrice's Farmhouse Porch Chats:

Have you ever had a blog slump?

Yep, all the time. Usually when I'm terribly busy, or sick, or tired. I just have nothing to say, so I look at my blogs and go, "Eh."

Lately I've been playing games with my husband in the evenings, and it's really cut into my blogging. But it makes my hubby so happy. And I've read stuff that talks about how you should keep playing with your husband, because that's what you did when you were dating, right?

What's your favorite way to serve hot chocolate (cocoa)? Marshmallows on top? Whipped Cream? A cinnamon stick?

Marshmallows or whipped cream. The best hot chocolate is the kind where you heat the milk and cocoa and sugar on the stove to make a hot base, then mix it with milk to cool it off. Man, that is the absolute best.

How do you handle it when you see someone you think you know, but cannot place? Do you approach them and ask, shy away, or just go home and hope you don't think of it at 2am?

I remember names, but not faces. I've heard that this is a trained skill, and alas, I never trained it. I'll see someone, smile vaguely at them, and go the other way, wondering why they look familiar.

What was your position in your family? Were you the oldest, a middle child, the youngest or an only child?

I'm the oldest of six. That means I handed down the smacketh from on high when I thought Mom and Dad were being too soft.

And now I have a son who does the same thing. And I don't like it. Oh, the irony.

How do you handle accumulated possessions (stuff)? Are you a pack-rat, a minimalist, or somewhere in between?

I hate having too much stuff. Once in a while I go on a clearing-binge and throw everything away, or haul it to Goodwill. The trouble is, I wind up getting rid of things I probably shouldn't have, and wishing for it later.