Deep Thoughts and Sledding Down the Streets of Kenmare

So I have a lot of business to take care of today in my blogging world.

First off, I've been thinking a lot lately about a bible verse for this year. I have some friends who at the beginning of the year assign a bible verse to the year that kind of becomes their theme for the year. It becomes a verse that encapsulates their goals and dreams for the year.

I've never thought to do this before, but this year I've decided to ask G-d to give me a verse that will become extremely real in my life this year.

I'm going to keep you in suspense, but for a lot of December I was really worried about assigning a verse to an entire year. I'm just weird about those kinds of things. But I began praying about the verse, and here is what G-d has given me over and over the last couple of weeks.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me...to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

This is found in Isaiah 61, and people often refer to it as the "beauty for ashes" verse. G-d does indeed turn people's ashes into beauty, and I am looking forward to a year of restoration. For a lot of years now life has just been rife with a lot of ashes and not a whole lot of beauty, but G-d has already in the last few months turned a lot of things into beauty.

So, this is my verse for the year, and while I try not to go all "Jack Handy's Deep Thoughts" on you, I guess I've had quite a few deep thoughts lately. Who knew that was possible??!


That reminds me, here's a Deep Thought for you from the great Jack Handy.

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind." Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

If only I could reach Jack Handy status....

Anyway, so I've also got a word for the year. It's....drum roll please....VALIANT.

I've gone through a lot of years with a lot of fear, and especially if you a very melancholy personality (which I was so happy to have inherited from my grandfather), I guess to really get past a fear of the future you just have to wake up one day and resolve to face the day valiantly. And if you do that enough, you become valiant.

And of course, while I'm cleaning bloggy house, I have to fulfill my commitment to the letter P. See, dizzblnd over at Soggy Doggy Bloggy has graciously extended the letter P to me for the purpose of coming up with 10 words that start with P. They're supposed to be 10 of my favorite things, but some of these things on the list are definitely not some of my favorite things.
Palace - one day this place will by my palace
Pizza - maybe one day I won't eat so much of it and I'll be a size 0
Permanent - are we here in the middle of nowhere permanently??
Pandemonium - hopefully there'll be a little less this year
Piano - maybe I will regain my title as master pianist, meaning, maybe I'll find a little more time to play the piano
Poetry - I don't like writing it, but every once in a while I'll read it
Penguins - I don't know why, I just like them
Plan - gotta have a plan
Predicament - hopefully none pop up in the near future
Picasso - love Picasso

Oh, and I have yet to share with the blog world the final pictures of our latest room renovation - Kaydn Rye's room finally put back together....





Don't ask me why my child is so weird in his picture poses.



This is his story reading chair that we have moved about four times and that always requires we pretty much shove it through the door to get it in. That chair is indestructible.



You don't even know how much Kaydn Rye loves organization. He is quite the anal child. Having his games and toys all organized sends him into a crazy dancing frenzy.

Our next project is the bathroom...dun dun dun.

Oh, and here are the remaining New Years photos that made it into the New Year's letter. It's always a mystery, which one will you get in the mail??





And today (like I really had any free time), because it was actually above zero, we took Kaydn Rye out for some sledding. We really weren't sure where the good sledding hills are around here, so we just went sledding down the streets. By the time I realized we were having a heat wave, it was like 3 o'clock, so it was a little late to venture out to my parents' farm and go sledding down the pasture hills, which by the way, is only fun in years like this year when the snow is deep enough to cover up the frozen cow poop which is like hard as a rock in mid January. That's probably one of those redneck things, you know, "You're a redneck if...your sledding fun involves frozen cow poop."

We live on one of the highest hills in town, and we thought we'd take advantage of it. Kaydn, who always thinks too logically to do anything remotely dangerous, thought sledding was fun yet frightening. I don't know if I could have gone any slower on any smaller of a hill, but apparently he still worries about safety violations.





At first he was actually crying about going down the hill too fast, but I told him to just do it and get over it, and hubby ended up going down with him. In Kaydn Rye's little purple sled, hubby looked like a guy with some missing legs going down the hill.


And here are some shots of all the snow piled up in front of our house. The snow is just insane.





I guess hubby wants you to think that he actually shoveled all that snow. But I told him that by the time he actually exerted himself with that much physical activity he'd probably have a heart attack.

And here's a shot of all the snow on the street. Seriously, there was so much snow yesterday that when I finally ventured out I actually got stuck driving down the street. That was a first for me. In this picture it's been plowed pretty good, but seriously, you know you live in the wrong place if can't even go to the post office without snow tires.



So, that's it for tonight.



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