Reindeer poop, used couches, and Tinkerbell

If you’ve been in Michels in the past couple weeks you would have had 1 of 3 reactions.

1)    Indifference

2)    Denial

3)    I think I just threw up a little bit.

I was more along the lines of number 3.  All we wanted was a plain tin box thing that wasn’t Christmas.  The encounter went something like this

Excuse me, miss... do you have any plain tins, or really just anything that isn’t Christmas?  I feel this isn’t a terribly huge request seeing as Thanksgiving hasn’t passed, yet the entire store is decked with holly and the reindeer poop.  And dost mine ears deceive me?  Is that Macy Gray singing Christmas carols?  Um…what the darn-it?!? …it’s November 22^nd.

(At least it did in my head.  In reality my wife was MUCH more pleasant)

I love Christmas.  I really do.  I love cold weather, Christmas blend, pine trees, Advent, and big choirs celebrating Jesus.  But, can we first be Thankful?  It saddens me that Macy Gray’s Winter Wonderland exchanges Abe’s Day.  (Fun fact: it was Abe that made the final Thursday in November a national day of Thanksgiving, but Congress made it a holiday in 1941)

Before this turns into a rant about when a person can listen to Christmas music, I want to change direction a bit.  This isn’t about when a person can or can’t listen to Macy Gray (answer: never) or when they can deck their halls.  A wise person once told me, “You’re not the boss of me!”  They were right.  I’m not the boss of you.

Tonight I am not listening to Christmas music, not surrounded by pine or lights and reindeer poop.  Tonight I am sitting on my used couches sneaking peeks at my beautiful wife who is currently sleeping peacefully in one of her infamous ‘20-minute-naps’, and I couldn’t be happier.  I’m thankful for my used couches.  I’m thankful that I have a home, a furnace, my incredible wife, and that cute little Tinkerbell blanket she’s cuddled under.

I’m not here to tell people when they can celebrate Christmas.  You do your thing.  My only concern is that in our haste to deck our halls, and brew a nice pot of Christmas blend, we’ve missed a wonderful opportunity to be thankful.  Not just for the big things, but also to live a life that is daily thankful: not getting a flat tire on the way to work, the post-it your wife left you on the coffee pot, you came home safely after braving Trader’s a few days before Thanksgiving, that you have used couches to curl up on, that once upon a time your parents gave you a sweet blanket so you can take naps at 11pm, for cell phones and the ability to talk to loved ones in times of hurt and joy.

I’m thankful for Thanksgiving.  I’m thankful for the food and drink, the funny hats and feathers, and the inevitable handprint-turkey-art.  I’m thankful for talk during meals, the laughter of shared joys, and the unity in shared pains.  I’m thankful for football and the turkey-coma-nap on the floor.  I’m thankful for spending time with family and the chaos of kids running around.  I’m thankful for sharing a slice of pumpkin pie with my girl.

And, I’m thankful for my blue chair.

single flame serenity

It's been a while since I've had a few minutes to sit.  It's that time of the semester when the few minutes of free time are allocated to studying or inadvertent naps.  While I love and am so thankful for all that is my life, I miss the times when I am able to sit and rest.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how busy and tired I've become.  Britt and I have a lot on our plate.  We know that we can't just strip ourselves of our obligations (nor do we desire to), but there definitely are days when we wished we had more time to sit.  We have such a strong desire to just sit that sometimes we'll drive a couple blocks out of the way just to have a few more minutes of serenity in the car.  Or that moment between deciding to get out of bed, or off the couch, or up from the table and when it actually happens.  Our butt seems to lag for just a few moments more to soak in the last bit of "sitting".

I've missed my time of sitting.  So tonight as I should be studying for my Cognitive Psychology midterm, I decided to fore-go the academic responsibility, and take up the mantle of psychological responsibility: the lights are off, the iTunes is closed, and one candle is lit.  It's quiet.

There's something about a candle that has the ability to calm the noise and stress.  The slow flicker of the flame seems to create a new rhythm of time.  The faint shadows cast on the wall shifts our perspective to help us release our distractions.  The soft light seems to shine just enough to illuminate ourselves and the air around us.  It's almost as if air around me has clung to the light of the candle and with each breath I take, my mind and body are slowed to the rhythm of the candle, and less to the stresses outside the light of the flame.

I'm thankful for this small flame.  I'm thankful for the serenity that it brings.  Tomorrow I will have things to do, papers to turn in, tests, work, church, and some time during all that I should eat lunch... but for now those things do not distract me.  Right now, all that matters is the little light that is cast around the room, the rhythmic flicker of the flame, and the serenity that is now aflame within me.

I need to do this more often.

She is the sunshine of my life.

I love me wife.  To no end.  She's incredible.  And I know she loves me.  But recently, we've been SUPER tired.  We were laying on our bed yesterday morning, fully dressed, shoes on, teeth brushed, all ready to go to school, but refusing to actually grab our keys and go, when Britt said, "This semester sucks."

-"Do you concur?"
-"I concur."

Well, with that said, we've gotten into the habit of staying up far too late working on homework, and then around 12-1 we take a "20 minute nap" and then get up and continue.

Well....this time was a little different.  It was 10:30pm last night (Monday) and I was crashing and needed a nap.  So we told each other, "20 minutes...." and were soon fast asleep.

20.....+340 minutes later..... (yes that would be 6 HOURS) she sits up and says in one word and breath, "ohmygosh!!!"  It was now 4:30 in the morning and neither of us had done our homework.

Oops.

Now, what I failed to mention earlier was how exactly the "nap discussion" played out.

Brian: "Let's take a nap."
Brittney: "I don't know if I'm tired.
Brian: "Just 20 minutes....?"
Brittney: "Fine."  (She then sets an alarm.)  "Set your alarm in case mine doesn't go off."
Brian: "Eh....we'll wake up."
(I don't set my alarm.)

Well, I was right in that we woke up...5 or so hours too late, though.  Yet, we just got up, spent an hour and change finishing up our homework and went back to sleep for an hour.

Now, back to how much I love my wife.  There was a gagillion ways this situation could have played out.  I felt terrible, that much was certain.  But she just smiled, kissed me, and we laughed it off.

She's awesome.  And maybe the best thing about it is that I know it will be one of those things that in 5 years we'll come up and we'll just giggle.

THE END

P.S. I set my alarm the second time to wake up at 6:30.  At 6:30 I turned it off and we got up at 7:15.
Dang.

Thanks for marrying me.  :)