Merry Thirday of Christmas

Today is officially the Third Day of Christmas, as we like to use the Norwegian system of tracking this holiday season.  It’s way more fun to stretch out the festivities twelve days after the initial blast of Christmas Eve.  It keeps the “day after” blues away and provides a slower pace in which to bring in the New Year.  We’ve scheduled lots of get togethers and time with friends during this week, just like they do in Norway.  No one is ever busy AFTER Christmas here, so it makes it easier to get together, which is a plus.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and First and Second Day of Christmas with friends.  I was maintaining my “no stress” gift to God for his present this year, right up until the bitter end.  We had two families up for a big dinner on Christmas Eve, Santa came for his usual visit just after dinner (see photo) and passed out gifts, and the kids had fun playing all evening while the adults visited.  After everyone left and Kaleb went to bed, I had a few bows to get on presents for Kaleb, and for some reason, I couldn’t find the Mario Cart Wii game I bought for him.  My stress level skyrocketed.  I was up until 2:30am tearing apart closets (which have yet to be restored), looking for that darn game.  I knew I had it at one point but when I was checking the gifts under the tree, I didn’t see it, so I panicked.  Kory went to bed without me as I continued my frantic search.  

I finally decided to put an IOU under the tree because that was one of his more expensive gifts and I knew he’d be disappointed if he didn’t it.  I went to bed but I didn’t sleep well, trying to figure out where that game could be.  As we started unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning, I was as surprised as Kaleb when he opened up that darn Wii game!  I’d already wrapped it!  Talk about forgetful!  Yikes. For some reason, I was thinking it was in a flat box, as thick as a DVD, so I couldn’t spot it, but it came with a steering wheel, so it was in a huge box and that’s apparently why I couldn’t find it! Ugh.  I was so glad he didn’t have to get an IOU, but then I was mad at myself for unraveling at the end of my month long stint of NO STRESS!  Sorry, God!

It’s a good thing I was in high spirits anyway because just before Christmas we found out Kory’s stents are working 100%.  Hallelujah for that!  The reason he is getting angina is because of a small, insignificant artery they can’t even stent if they wanted to, and with exercise, the angina will eventually just go away.  So Kory got the word that he is to exercise as much as he wants and he has no restrictions on anything.  He’s pretty excited about that news, as we all are celebrating his new lease on life.  Whew.  I’m still adjusting to the thought there is no by-pass in his immediately (or hopefully distant) future and we can make all the plans we want, so 2011 is looking good!  We know we are blessed.

Christmas Celebrations

My lack of stress might bite me in the butt the day before Christmas, as things are still just humming along in our household and I’m rolling with the punches.  Many things aren’t getting done as usual, but my “Oh, well!” attitude works just fine.  I refuse to take back the gift of NO STRESS I’m giving God during this Advent season.  I got the last of my Christmas cards out today.  I hope they all make it in time, but if not, oh well!

Kory had two days worth of tests to see why he’s still getting angina.  I’m trying not to get angina waiting for the reports to come back.  I think the doctor must be off on vacation or something as we haven’t heard a word.  Life goes on.  But today we did get good news about the 11 year old daughter of a friend of ours who had a cancerous tumor removed from behind her ear – her tests came back with a good report that the cancer hadn’t spread.  There were many HALLELUJAHs after that bit of news. 

This past week has been full of celebrations and activities and time at my computer has been limited.  We had a little kick-off party for a Bible study I’m going to attend after the first of the year, with Grammy J at the helm (see photo of 4 out of the 5 of us lovin' on her.)  I’m more excited about getting together with that group of women than I have been about anything for a long time.  Twice a month we’ll be soaking in God’s presence and His word – Hallelujah!   

Friday we attended Bethany Covenant Church’s Christmas musical – which was outstanding in all ways.  What a blessing to be part of a church with so much talent.  Saturday Kory and I went to separate parties – he to a gathering with fellow Avanti lovers (he’s joined an Avanti club recently), and I attended a gathering of some old high school classmates (I failed to attend our 35^th reunion this summer so my guilt got the better of me.)  Kaleb stayed the night with a friend while Kory and I were as social as we could be.  

Sunday was a big day not just for us, but for many families in the Skagit Valley.  A woman in our home fellowship group found out about an organization in the Northwest that doesn’t just need money to buy food for starving kids in Africa, they need help assembling the food packets as well.  We were looking for a project to do with our kids to get them involved in missions, and this was just the ticket.  We raised money for the past three months (Kaleb contributed exactly $300 of his earnings), and all totaled, over $32,000 came in from churches, organizations and individuals, which bought over 130,000 meals, which all got packaged up in about three hours on Sunday with 486 volunteers working as fast as they could (see other photo!)  It was quite the process and a great bonding moment for many.  The third world countries the food goes to won’t allow the raw food to be shipped in since it might affect the price of rice, etc., so they must be packaged before shipment.  The packets contained lentils, spices, a chicken broth/protein powder mix and rice. Kaleb took a lot of ownership around the event and did 10 of the 11 possible jobs that day and was pumped when it was done.  We’re not sure if it will be an annual event or not, but it was fun while it lasted.

Yesterday we had our traditional downtown Seattle day so we were gone all day.  We brought along a friend of Kaleb’s so that made it a bit more special.  His friend put some perspective to the day when he was thrilled just to be able to ride an escalator.  Kaleb has no idea how lucky he is.  We took the monorail into downtown and had a photo with Santa, rode the carousel at Westlake Center, spent time at the downtown library, watched the trains at the Center house and the snow inside Pacific Place.  We saw the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton and the Teddy Bear room at the Four Seasons.  I even did some last minute shopping (with no stress or lines!) and on the way home we stopped in Ballard to see a neighborhood full of Christmas lights.  I loved the whole day, but Kaleb was starting to act a bit bored with the routine.  Can’t wait for his teenage years.

Today Kory and Kaleb went skiing up at Mt. Baker with another friend of Kaleb's and the youth group t our church. I stayed home and didn’t stress about a thing.  I got a few packages wrapped, went to a prayer meeting and did some banking.  The list of things needing to be done is so long, if I think about it I’ll get stressed so I best stop here while the smile is still on my face from thinking about all the fun I’ve had this past week.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good rest.

The Best Christmas Ever

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this holiday season with my new philosophy guiding my every word and deed.  I’ve purposed to give God the biggest gift of all by ME not stressing out about anything.  It’s worked wonders!  Each day I’ve remained calm and I haven’t raised my voice once.  I’ve spoken kind words and reacted with a level head.  I’ve not run around like a crazy woman doing too many things, yet all the things I normally do are somehow getting done, even at my slower pace.  It’s like I’ve entered some kind of weird time/space dimension.  I like it, and I’m trusting God is up in heaven smiling.  I know Kory and Kaleb have enjoyed the “new me” as much as anyone.

This past week Kaleb turned 12.  This was his first year to ever have a real birthday party on his birthday.  I normally avoid that because it’s a busy time of year and getting kids together is nearly impossible, let alone adding one more thing to my to-do list,  but as it worked out, he just wanted pizza and cake at a local laser tag/go-kart place and it couldn’t have been any easier.  The night before, I could hardly sleep as my mind kept racing over the details and all I could come up with was that I was supposed to pick up a pizza and cake sometime before 6pm.  How was that possible?  What have I been doing to myself this last decade by having lavish parties that take months to plan and super human strength to execute?  I’m so done with that, well, maybe.

Kaleb enjoyed his birthday on every level.  He mostly loved that he was free from school for three days so he could celebrate it.  On Monday we had the neighbors over for our traditional soup lunch.  We are blessed to have such great neighbors.  Tuesday, Grammy J took him to the Space Needle for lunch (see photo). He was a little worried about making conversation with her without us around, but he did just fine.  She’s a class act and came prepared with all kinds of conversation starters.  They both had a great time.  And that evening was his party with his buddies (see other photo), so he made out.  Two of his friends came over to spend the night so the party went right on into Wednesday as the kids played all day together.  I love that about homeschooling, we can just call a day off when we want.

I’ve had the usual crazy busy weekly schedule and still managed to fit in his birthday, Christmas baking, design and print the Christmas cards, wrap gifts, write the Christmas newsletter, celebrate Christmas with my step-mom and brother and host a party for one of our home fellowship groups.  I haven’t slept much, but I haven’t been stressed out either, so it’s all worked out okay.

Kory went for his treadmill test on Friday.  They put the blood pressure thing on his left arm so he was unable to feel if he got any angina when he was running on the treadmill.  He went way past what they expected and they said he passed with flying colors.  When the technician injected him with the nuclear dye so they could photograph his heart, she made a mistake and the dye went into his tissue, not his vein, so they had to stop the whole thing and reschedule.  They apologized profusely and said he wouldn’t be charged for it, so now he has to go back this Wednesday and do the whole thing over again.  I haven’t seen him glowing in the dark yet so I trust their mistake wasn’t a bad one.

As I was wrapping gifts on Sunday I turned on a Canadian TV station just to have something to listen to.  It was some show where people present their ideas and then a panel of rich people decide if they want to invest in them or not.  I could not believe my ears when I heard a guy present his invention – and it was exactly the same as something Kaleb invented when he was eight years old!  Kaleb called his the “reticulator.”  He said you take a small stream of electricity, run it through some magnetic coils and the electrons would spin off and create a bigger stream of energy out the other end.  We just laughed about it behind his back, but I’ll be darned if some guy didn’t make it work, get a patent for it and is now a millionaire – and it’s exactly as Kaleb had designed!  I had videoed Kaleb describing it in 2008 and he has notebooks full of drawings he’s done to show his design.  He wasn’t happy that someone beat him to it.  Kory and I usually just roll our eyes when Kaleb goes on and on about these crazy ideas of his, but now apparently, we need to pay closer attention.  Yikes.  

That's My Boy! (After only 11 months of lessons!)

Heart Felt Christmas Preparations

This week I’ve been enjoying the emphasis I’ve put on this holiday season.  I’ve been focusing each day on giving God an Advent gift by being kinder to others.  I was doing pretty well on responding with love and kindness to Kory and Kaleb, until yesterday.  Kaleb pitches a fit at times when things don’t go his way.  His explosion of anger is contagious so I usually respond in kind.  He gets a consequence for his outbursts, but I realized yesterday, I don’t.  Of course, I have to ask for forgiveness, but I know my behavior grieves God as much as Kaleb’s behavior grieves me.  I was humbled.  Motherhood has definitely impacted my spiritual life.

I’ve been waking up each day with the words of my friend, JaRon, going over and over in my head, “Now, what you goin’ and worryin’ about tomorrow for?  None of us have tomorrow. All we have is today!” She said those words when she knew her days were numbered.  Each day since then, I’ve been focused on just being thankful for this day, because truly, it’s all we have.  This whole thing with Kory’s heart has made me even more aware that life should be lived just one day at a time, and rather than occupying my mind with all the “what ifs,” I’m just thankful each day that today is a good day.  The Bible says we are to be anxious for nothing, and that God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, so I just don’t go there.  I know whatever direction God leads, He’ll be there with us all the way and it’s during our times of having to rely on our faith that we get to know God all the more. He loves me more than I can ever know but it’s times like this where I get to see just how that plays out.  As I wrote to my step-mom this week, “It would be a very scary time if I didn’t have my Jesus.”  But thankfully, we are at peace.

Kory saw the cardiologist this week and he was “very disappointed” Kory still has angina pain.  Something is obviously not right, he agreed.  It could be a clot forming, but he didn’t think so because Kory is on blood thinners.  It could be an artery collapsed just outside the edge of the stent, but he didn’t think that was it either because of where he placed the stents.  I could be another artery that needs stenting – he said he saw one that was somewhat clogged but was sure it wasn’t vital.  It could be, as he hopes, a problem with Kory’s esophagus.  He said spasms in the esophagus can sometimes cause angina pain and perhaps Kory had that problem all along.  Who knows.  He will have a stress test next Friday to see how the blood is flowing in his heart to help determine where the problem lies.

Personally, I feel like we had a genuine miracle with the stents even being able to be put in last month.  Whenever I’ve seen miracles, I see that Satan tries to steal the blessing, so my secret desire is that the angina is just a phantom symptom trying to get Kory to doubt he was healed and that they will find nothing wrong, but that’s just my ever optimist self wanting the best in a situation.  Of course, the logical course of action now is that he will need bypass surgery if somehow the main artery is indeed blocked, but I’m not even thinking about all that until I see what God does between now and Friday.  We are praying for another miracle, but we know God has a plan and He is in control, no matter what happens.

Kory hasn’t given any of this much thought at all since he’s been obsessed with painting watercolors.  He has done ten paintings of the same scene in an effort to try to control the colors and image.  He’s not been to bed before midnight all week, often up til 2am just sitting in the basement painting.  I’ve never seen him so dedicated to any project in his life.  I bought him some professional quality paints for his birthday, but he doesn’t want to use them until he feels more comfortable with his craft.

I was in LaConner this week and stopped by the Norwegian bakery there to talk to Linda, the owner.  She’s a big fan of my column and loves to talk about Norway.  I told her about Kory’s line drawings and his watercolors so she asked if she could sell some of his work in her store.  She said people are always coming in and wanting to buy something other than the baked goods, so I took her some cards I made and some 11x14 enlargements of his prints of Norway and she now has them for sale.  Kory is still shocked that people like his stuff so well.  I’m sure we won’t get rich on it, but it’s nice he has something to do that is easier on his body than carpentry.  I’m already out of wall space in our house so I’m not sure where we will hang his work, but it’s certainly frame-able and worthy of display.

We finally got the tree decorated last night and the rest of the house prepared for Christmas.  I’ve yet to finish the Christmas newsletter or get the cards printed (I had to make them myself this year because Kory was too busy with his own creations.)  I’m taking things at a much slower pace though so I’m not in a rush. 

Kaleb is looking forward to his birthday next week, but I haven’t done much to prepare for that either, so I hope he’s not disappointed.  It’s hard to keep him focused on school work with the hub-ub of the holidays and his birthday thrown in there.  He finished a big mid-term test for his Johns Hopkins Honors Chemistry this week and he didn’t do so well.  He’d been pulling a 93% in the class and studied well for the midterm, but didn’t finish taking the test before we took a break for Thanksgiving, so when he finished it up this week, his mind was on other things (like his upcoming birthday).  He got a 70% which really disappointed him and his teacher.  It lowered his overall grade down to 81%.  Johns Hopkins flunks students if they are under 85% so he has to be very intentional the second half of this course if he’s going to make it.  I felt horrible for him because on one hand, the stuff he is studying is way beyond anything I am capable of, and certainly light years ahead of kids his age, so the fact he missed half a point here and there on the test seemed so cruel.  He got 2.5 out of 3 points on many questions, meaning he understood the concept but failed to write some little fact, so he got dinged.  I am so impressed that he could even answer questions like “Why do the crystal lattice formations of ionic compounds shatter when struck in a particular way?”  or “What is the difference between atomic orbitals and molecular orbitals?”  How about – “What are the three principle types of intermolecular forces?” or “Give an example of a triprotic acid.”  He just rattles these answers off like some little professor.  Why he loves this stuff is beyond me.  I’m just thankful my only involvement with him for this class is writing the check to pay for it, and it’s a six month class, which he’s trying to do in three months so I only have to write one check, not two.  He’s so thoughtful.

One day at a time, I say.  Just takin’ it one day at a time.

(PS - the photo is of some of the kids in the debate class I teach.  We all went to Lights of Christmas together on Thursday and some of them interviewed the talking Christmas tree - Bruce the Spruce.)