Pre-Christmastime Confessions

I have a confession to make. I have listened to Christmas music already. (I'll give you time to gasp in shock and disappointment.) Now for an explanation...well...you see...I'm not sure I have one. But I happened to be in the library the other day and their shelf of Christmas CD's caught my eye...and I saw they had Steven Curtis Chapman's newest Christmas CD...and I love his song called "All I Really Want"...and the next thing I know I'm popping it into the CD player in my car.

That's where the real problem starts. I happily listen to my favourite songs and then when I'm finished I press the 'eject' button. Nothing happens. I try again. Same thing. Oh dear. Not good. To make a long story short, it has been about a week and I am still unable to get the CD out of my player. My dad (who knows just about everything there is to know about cars-- love you, Daddy!) took a look and thinks the whole player will need to be sent somewhere for them to fix. Oh joy. What do I tell the librarian?

I guess it serves me right for listening to Christmas music too early this year...

I have another confession. (Ah, this feels so good to get out in the open. Confession is good for the soul.) I have already watched a Christmas movie, too. This time I have a pretty good excuse. Well, I think so anyway. I had reserved it through our interlibrary loan system and it came in much earlier than I anticipated. What else could I do but watch it? I mean, come on, it would be due well before Thanksgiving even arrived. So one night I was alone in the house and I cozied up in my pajamas for a night with "The Christmas Card."

If you haven't seen this movie, do find it and watch it (during the real Christmastime, of course). It is a beautiful story of how a young woman's thoughtfulness in sending a card to a random soldier touched that soldier's life. And then when he returns from Afghanistan, he finds the woman who sent the card, meets her family, falls in love with them all, and there's a happy ending. I'm not good with short synopses, can you tell? Grant calls the movie a "cheesy Hallmark one," but hmmm, he also happens to have seen it twice. (I think he liked it.)

I have to admit that although the movie was great, the timing was not-so-great with Grant being in Iraq. I didn't realize how hard it would be. So many things in the movie reminded me of him and of the gap between us right now. But God is good and we know He has a plan for this year. We are trusting in Him to mold us and prune us in these difficult times. He is faithful. Knowing this and knowing Him make me smile through the tears.

And listening to my Christmas CD over and over and over again in the car makes me laugh.

The Issue Above Them All

It's Election Day 2008! I've already made my way through the crowds, cast my vote for McCain/Palin (as well as others in my local elections), and am now praying throughout the day for a pro-life victory.

I suppose some would scornfully consider me a single-issue voter because of my focus on pro-life candidates. After all, editorials in my local paper have haughtily asserted that to center in on this one issue is narrow-minded and ignorant. One went so far as to say that a person can be pro-life by caring about world poverty and environmentalism and still maintain his pro-choice stance on abortion. What kind of logic is that? How can you disregard life at its earliest stages and call yourself pro-life? Well, they argue, it is too simplistic to focus on the issue of abortion alone when other complex issues are involved. Whatever. To me, that mixed-up view sounds like an excuse. The country’s problems wouldn’t be so complex in the first place if we focused first on the moral issues. Without morality, every secular effort to fix America is only a band-aid on a symptom rather than solving the cause of the sickness.

What if the reason we focus on one issue is because it encompasses all other issues? A candidate who values and respects life at all stages is a candidate we can trust to serve the American people—all of them. How can Obama's followers truly believe that he values and respects the life of each American if he does not value and respect the rights of the tiniest American?

I love America with all my heart. I love my lieutenant in Iraq who is fighting for America. We both love America enough to admit she needs help. And the solution starts with the single issue of abortion. It’s really not that complicated.

New Doggie Game Invented By Border Collie

Now I know that I'm a little biased when I say my dog is the smartest in the world, but it is a fact that border collies are one of the most intelligent dog breeds.
This morning I decided to let the dogs inside with me while I walked on the treadmill. I feel sorry for them with the cooler weather and plus they're amusing to watch. Well, my Micah gets tired of playing with his yellow ball and brings it over to me on the treadmill. He knows I don't like tug-of-war, so he gently sets the ball on the belt of the treadmill for me to throw. You can guess what happened next. Well, he decided he liked this new game almost better than catch, so several times throughout my exercise time, he brought different toys to take a ride on the treadmill. It was so funny.
Never a dull moment with dogs...