Happenings...

No rhyme or reason to this post.... just a little pukage of all the very random things going on in the Notelpat world.

1. Jeff and I kind of randomly ripped up the carpet in our living room the other day. I've been wanting to do it for a while as there were lots of stains. It looks awful! Paint stains, a few small spots of water damage, glue streaks all over it. We are going to rent a floor sander to sand it and then my awesome dad is going to come and refinish it while we are in Houston to visit Jeff's sister (and future nephew) and her hubs. It will be nice to come home to a finished and ready floor after Thanksgiving that will be just screaming for a Christmas tree to sit on!

2. Carley is not a happy camper right now. She has 2 HONKIN molars cutting through her fragile little gums. Poor thang. Lots of drool, Lots of patti (paci), Lots of holding, and Lots of tears. It makes me sad because its not like her to not smile!

3. Colin is doing fairly well with his new medicine. He had a few weird side effects the first few days but then those went away. The only thing that we have noticed with the new meds is nightmares. And he is all of a sudden scared of the dark when he lays in bed at night. But...the medicine is working. He is having WAY fewer seizures than before. We can hold a normal conversation and have consistent eye contact. He is still having them some though, so we will probably up the dose soon.

4. I've decided that Colin will be coming to my school for Kindergarten next year. I'm really excited! I had originally planned on him going to the school by our house because there had been issues at my school that have now been resolved due to district rezoning. So, he will be coming with me! I'm excited that I won't have to miss out on things like his first day of Kindergarten, awards ceremonies, etc. It might be a little of an adjustment for him to realize that he can't come see me whenever he wants or talk to me in the hallway, but hopefully that will resolve itself.

5. I love Jeff. Can't even explain why. We just have loads of fun together and make a great team. He is a great daddy too. I love life with him. We were talking today about how its weird to think that we used to "date" and we were scared to even hold hands. Then Jeff said, "Now we're...old. We're like adults or something." Yup. Kind of weird that we've been married for almost 8 years, have 2 kids, step on legos in the middle of the night, have a mortgage payment and entirely too much stinkin laundry. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Thankful

I was going to wait until the week of Thanksgiving to write my annual "I am thankful for" post. But decided to go ahead and write now so that I can be in a thankful mindset this whole season instead.

My mother is what I like to call "Positive Polly." She would always make us tell her 5 positive things about our day or 5 things we are thankful for. I would tell her the cliche answers. "I have a home, I have good parents, I have food." Well, some days I just did NOT want to tell her, nor could I even think of, 5 positive things! But I see now the point she was trying to get across.

Now, I am not saying that you are a terrible person if you've ever complained or not been in a thankful mood. Sometimes life just sucks. We don't get our way. Tragedy strikes. We fail. We lose people. We get depressed or lonely. The Bible even says in Ecclesiates 3 "There is a time for everything...a time to weep...a time to mourn." I don't think we would be honest with ourselves to not hurt and be angry sometimes with the way that life happens. Sure...take the time to weep and mourn and be mad and grumpy.

However...

“To say we feel grateful is not to say that everything in our lives is necessarily great. It just means we are aware of our blessings.” -Dr. Emmons

I have realized here in the last 2 or 3 years how very life changing it can be to have a thankful heart.

I heard somewhere that being thankful means learning to live your life like everything is a miracle. It is a continuous process of being aware of what you've been given. A funny thing happens when you practice thankfulness. Thankfulness depletes pride. Suddenly your life does not revolve around what you want or what you think you deserve or what you don't have. It turns into an acknowledgement of even the simplest things in life that we DO NOT deserve.

I do not know how we ever got to a point where we think we deserve all that we do have. I think back to the cliche answers I gave my mom as a child. "I have a home. I have food." That meant nothing when I said it, because I guess I thought I deserved to eat and be sheltered and did not realize how food and shelter is a rarity to some. I also did not know this little tid-bit of scripture at the time...

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." -Luke 12:48

The Message Bible says, "Great gifts means great responsibilities."

Everything God gives us is for us to give away and share with others. Not to hoard.

As we approach this Thanksgiving and Christmas season, practice bringing thankfulness to your experiences, instead of waiting for a good experience to make you thankful.