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I am on a quest to get some decent Christmas music. You see I love Christmas music. It’s a tradition in my home to play Christmas music while we are putting up the Christmas tree and decorating it. So far I own Kenny Chesney’s All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan. It’s a great CD however I am tired of it.

Every year I decide I am going to buy Christmas music and every year I am faced with so many options (this year being the year I’m faced with so few) that I go home without purchasing anything. I’m afraid I’ll buy a CD, get home, play it and absolutely hate it.

This year I was I was determined I wasn’t leaving the store until I had a CD. It was definitely hard to decide and I finally chose Disney Channel’s Holiday CD. I knew hubby wouldn’t like it but I wasn’t buying it for hubby, I was buying it for me and the kiddos.

I love this CD. It is so much fun and so bubble-gum pop! The kiddos and I sing and dance around the house being silly and having fun.

This post was written as a part of a blog giveaway at OhAmanda on what puts me in the Christmas spirit.

1. What is my passion?
2. What drives me?
3. What do I want to accomplish?
4. Which goals are ones to strive for and which ones are frivolous?
5. Why at the age of thirty-something do I keep switching back and forth from what interests me?
6. How can I be so absorbed in one thing and then a week later (or less) be completely not interested?
7. How does one go about finding oneself?
8. I know who I am in Christ but who am I outside of Him?
9. Surely there is something more than just rearing my kiddos but what is it?
10. What is my purpose? (Do not tell me to read The Purpose Driven Life or I will puke.)
11. Who am I?

Let’s see if I can answer any of these questions…

1. I like to read but what can I do with that?
2. Not sure.
3. Not sure at the moment…ask me tomorrow because I might have changed my mind.
4. Not sure.
5. Because I am indecisive.
6. Because I get bored easily.
7. Still trying to figure that one out.
8. Still don’t know the answer to that one.
9. Not sure.
10. Don’t know.
11. I don’t know who I am.

I wasn’t able to answer very many of the questions but I didn’t really expect to have any answers. These are questions I have had for quite some time and don’t ever want to voice them because then it seems like I am depressed or don’t like where I am in life. That’s hardly the case at all however I know there is more to me than what I am seeing right now. I want to do things but don’t know what I want to do. I’ve been praying for quite some time and still don’t have the answers but I have had God tell me some things are ‘no’ and some things are ‘not right now’.

Am I going through a mid-life crisis? What exactly is a mid-life crisis and if it were mid-life shouldn’t it be happening much later in life? How does one get out of a mid-life crisis if one were in one? Can’t I just get a sports car and my answers and be done with this?

I want a Mustang preferably one of the newer ones…like 2005 and up. I also want it in orange. If I going to get the car for the crisis I might as well get it in my happy color.

I check my email this evening and find out that the next Oprah Book Club book is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I am ecstatic so much so that I took a flashlight into my kiddo’s room so I could look on the bookshelf to see if the book was still there. I was hoping that I hadn’t given it away in some freak I have no idea what I’m doing moment. I absolutely love this book, not because it’s good or anything but because of the memories I have of this book.

You see I was tricked into meeting the man who is now my husband. Some acquaintances of ours wanted us to meet. Since I knew her taste in men I wanted no part of this whatsoever. I like my men handsome, intelligent, employed and have a vehicle that they own amongst other things like honesty, integrity and so on. So…I end up on this date with a guy I didn’t want to meet so I’m acting like a ditz because I want to make sure he’s not interested in me. Plus, I was in a car accident earlier in the week and was on some pretty good pain medication. I’m at this place having to listen to the three talk about computers (blah, blah, blah…have I mentioned I didn’t care about computers and didn’t like people who obsessed about them?) I’m bored out of my mind but like looking at the cute guy I’m being set up with (at least I have some eye candy if I have to listen to their boring talk). At some point in their conversation my ears perked up when I heard the word ‘book’. (I have a radar for books since they are my passion.)

I don’t really recall how he and I started talking about books because I was doped up at the time (and I’m doped up on cold medicine now so this will be interesting). Anyway, I find out he reads like actual books. Real books with words on the pages and not pictures. I mention how I just finished reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett and he tells me how he’s also read it. I was hooked. I didn’t care that he was a computer geek. He’s cute, he reads and he’s read a book that I’ve read and liked it. There you go. I couldn’t let this guy get away and eight months later we were married. All because he had read The Pillars of the Earth.

When my grandmother passed away I was allowed to go through her books and take what I wanted. I found Pillars and took it because of the memories behind it. This was the book that made me fall in love with my husband. Whenever I looked at that book I thought of my grandma and my husband.

Jump to eight years later…I find out my husband has never read Pillars of the Earth and has no idea what book he was thinking about. Imagine that. Oh well…it makes me want to tell him that the only reason I even read Pillars is because an ex-boyfriend loaned it to me because I was bored and didn’t have anything to read. But then again, he can read it on my blog. (I love you hubby!)

It’s still a good book and I will be reading it again just so I can relive the memories of falling in love with my husband and because I enjoyed reading it the first time.

This week the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is hosting a blog tour for James Scott Bell’s latest book Try Dying. Check out my Book Reviews page for more information on the author and the book. This is a book I have been wanting to read and wished I was part of CFBA when this book was requested to read.

When books on cassette first came out I threw a huge fit and declared that I would never ever listen to a book on cassette. How sacrilegious is that? I mean books are meant to be read by holding it in your hand and peering over every word and letting your imagination take you away with the pictures that the words are creating. How tacky to listen to the book in cassette form. Yuck.

I can be quite opinionated at times and be so completely totally wrong. I gave in once and tried to listen to a book on cassette. I would listen to it as I worked out on my treadmill because it was too hard to hold a book, read the book, and try not to fall off the treadmill at the same time. I think the first and only book I listened to was Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells. Everything was going great except I had two young children who seemed to think that if mom was trying to exercise then she wasn’t paying enough attention to them and needed to do everything they could to thwart her efforts. Needless to say, I didn’t finish the book and gave up.

After the kiddos were a little older I tried books on CD because I could enrich all our lives while listening to a classic on the living room CD player and we would all be a little smarter for listening to the book. I think I tried The Chronicles of Narnia…a dramatization (this was way before the movie came out). Nope didn’t work. Kiddos could care less and kept crying at me because they couldn’t watch Thomas the Tank Engine.

My next efforts were loved by my family. It was at some point I decided my kiddos weren’t getting enough literature in their lives so we started listening to Hank the Cow Dog in the car. Pure genius I am. The kiddos loved it. I was their hero and they were begging to go to the library for more tapes. I even tried a CD version of Hank at home but no go…it had to be when we were in the car and they couldn’t be distracted from anything like their toys or wrestling with each other. As long as they were strapped in their seat belts and not able to go anywhere else and forced to listen to the story they were happy. Once I tried to listen to Emma while in the car when they were gone but couldn’t remember how I put the tape in and didn’t know if I was in the right spot or not and found out I can’t concentrate on the story and drive at the same time. Hank I could listen to and laugh but Emma was impossible.

I quit getting books on tape for quite some time because we had listened to most of the ones the library had and the tapes were starting to wear out. I was afraid I would get stuck with the bill for replacing a tape so I stopped checking them out. Then I started “knitting” and would sit there thinking how I could be reading a book but I can’t read and knit at the same time. I would knit for a bit and then read for a bit. Back and forth I went one weekend and thought there has to be a better way. I had a revelation! I have an mp3 player. The library now carries books on mp3 format. I could listen to a book on mp3 and do both things at once. I could even listen to a book while I work out at the gym (because we can afford that now) while kiddo is in child care and can’t interrupt me while I’m getting cultured through my literary experience.

My choice of literature? Dedication by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin. This book and format are so great that I listened to it while I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner this evening. I am tempted to listen to it while I’m in my car but don’t think that would be very safe driving around with earphones on. Don’t think I haven’t toyed with the idea and the temptation is strong but I have talked myself out of it. I just can’t justify the safeness of it. Drat. I keep trying to find opportunity to listen but alas kiddos seem to think that they need my attention as soon as I direct it somewhere else. Oh well, they do eventually go to bed. You know what? I think it’s bed time now.

One of the things I don’t like about being sick (besides the fact that I feel miserable) is it really puts a damper on my social life. Once people realize you are sick they run away from you as fast as they can and it’s not like I’m a good enough actress to fake being well so they can tell I’m sick immediately.

It’s not fun being quarantined at home with nowhere to go and no Wal-mart does not count. When I get to the point that I am going to Wal-Mart for social hour please put me in the nearest mental institution as soon as possible. Not that going to Wal-Mart for social hour is a bad thing it’s just not something I want to do and don’t picture myself doing. Ever.

So I’m stuck at home with my sick self, my sick hubby, my oldest kiddo who’s bored, my second kiddo who doesn’t know how to be quiet and youngest kiddo who’s two. Yeah, we are a lot of fun.

It could be worse, we could all five be sick and then I’d really have a melt down. I am anxiously awaiting the moment I am no longer sick so I can socialize with my friends and have a life again. Until then I will go knit.

A few days ago we found out one of our kiddos is allergic to two different kinds of dust mites (I didn’t know there were more than one kind). So we have been in the process of getting his bedroom allergen-free such as encasing the mattresses and pillows in allergen resistant coverings, washing the bedding in hot water and we had the carpet cleaned.

Not only did we do all that we needed to change our filters to make sure they are HEPA filters and replace the filter in the air purifier which will actually go in his room until we get another one (it had been sitting in the hall where it was close to all the bedrooms).

The thing that excites me the most is I had to get a new vacuum cleaner. I have needed a new one for quite some time but just hadn’t taken the time to buy one and if I had bought one I would have gone to Wal-Mart and just grabbed one off the shelf. I wouldn’t have taken the time to do any research because a vacuum is a vacuum right? Well, I had to do research because I couldn’t get just any vacuum so after asking around and on the advice of others (our carpet cleaning guy was the one whose advice really made us choose) I purchased a Dyson. It is my birthday and christmas and birthday and christmas and…anyway I love it. I was expecting it to suck up a lot of dust and dirt based on the reviews I had read and it lived up to my expectations (which are high by the way…sometimes too high). Hubby and I had so much fun cleaning everything in our living room. At some point I will vacuum the rest of the house but I have to go get ready for the Veteran’s Day Parade.

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Timestamp: 2007-11-09 13:00:34 UTC

Congratulations Lynne!

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest.

Ok…it’s my hubby’s blog but it’s excellent anyway. You’ll have a chance to see the man I fell in love with and you’ll see the man I get frustrated with at times for his political views. Needless to say, he has a lot of good info and doesn’t just spout off the top of his head. He thinks about what he wants to say and actually backs it up. He also doesn’t care whether you agree with him or not. He’s not afraid to say what he feels needs to be said. So be sure to check out 123pizza.org/rant to see what he has to say.