ShamWoW?

Arriving home this evening from our fifth and final family Christmas celebration, Mark and I started unloading, unpacking and attempting to find places for our new gifts and trinkets.  Though we've already done some major sorting followed by some significant Goodwill trips this year with all of our moving about, we did of course find a few more things that we no longer needed as new Christmas items replace the old.  One of these "old" items, happened to be my pile of ShamWow's.

You have to understand... when we registered for wedding gifts, I was SOOO excited about the ShamWow's!!!  I wanted them bad, and some dear friends of ours bought them for us.  I was thrilled!!!

Of course, as many of those things go, once I got them home I didn't have much use for them... you know, waiting around for spills to happen.  So my first reaction when Mark finds the pile of ShamWow's is excitement, let's clean some messes!  Then I think about it and say, well... I really don't use them that often... I guess maybe we could give them away?

...Then I falter again...

So my hysterically logical hubby takes the stack inside, picks up the water pitcher and proceeds in pouring it all over our kitchen floor!!! 

I stand AGHAST. 

Then -- just like in the infomercial -- Mark takes a large ShamWow, lays it over the puddle, pats it on one side, flips it over, pats it on the other side and picks it up.  Of course the ShamWow is fairly filled with water as any towel would be but um... the floor is still preeetty soaked.

Needless to say, he won and the ShamWow's went to the Goodwill box.

*sigh*

I feel I may regret this... perhaps I'll buy a new box in the spring?

So... anyone else have experience with the famous ShamWow?  

Do share!  

I'd like to know if others have found them useful... then maybe I could convince Mark to rescue them from the Goodwill box...  ;)

Our Rather Informal Christmas Greeting

I concede; 

Christmas cards just aren't going to happen this year. 

I had planned, in spite of finishing my last semester of classes and Mark moving home, to be super-wife and get them sent out anyway... alas, I yield. 

So here is our official Christmas greeting from the Young's home to yours! 

Merry Christmas! 

Enjoy celebrating the blessing and miracle of 

Christ's coming this season. 

Love and blessings to you all!

Days, Hours, Minutes...

At this time tomorrow my hubby will almost be here with the last of our belongings from Texas and I will be finished with the last classes of my undergraduate degree and officially on Christmas break... just in time to unpack boxes.  ;)

I don't mind.

I can't wait to have him home... it will finally start feeling like Christmas around here.  =)

Merry Christmas to me.

That's about all folks.

Maybe I'll spruce up the creativity of my posts once I'm finished with my LAST final, in approximately 6 hours... =D

Until then... 

A Happy Thanksgiving to You!

I hope you're spending this wonderful Holiday with those you love!

It's the Little Things...

So last week, Franny the Focus rolled over 100,000 miles... Get it girl... she's officially an old lady now!  =)

Then Sir Skylar Kal held a super vogue pose just for me... geez... never realized how big his ears are!

And the 17th was Miss Bayley Rae's 2nd birthday!!!  

Needless to say, when I got home from the H.S. Choir concert, there was a cookie with her birthday candle waiting on the counter... Nana likes to spoil her grandpuppies!  =)

Bayley wasn't quite sure whether or not this was a mean joke... she just didn't know if she was really being allowed to take a cookie straight off the plate.  I might pay for this confusion of expectations later...

And last but not least... 

a little something to help your Holiday spirits along:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Testing, Testing, Is This Thing On?

This week is the week of tests in the land of university.

Apparently just before Thanksgiving break, when students are most fatigued, is the time professors deem necessary to test every student on their knowledge absorption before stuffing themselves with turkey and pumpkin everything over break.

Thus, this week I feel as if I'm sprouting an irrational number of fresh grays while too many of my reds fall out.

*sigh*

I'll make it, no worries... pressing on, pressing on... =)

PS, this afternoon I've decided to reward a day full of studying and testing with a bit of retail therapy... I'm really excited.  I may share my findings with you later!  =)

The season is upon us...

This afternoon I am enjoying the last of these precious weekend hours with my hubbers in Texas amidst napping, baking, just a bit of cleaning and a lovely fall breeze that floats through open windows.

And as I begin to contemplate the changing weather that will soon bring about the hustle and bustle of the holidays with family, feasts and gifts overflowing, I can't help but reflect on a bit of conversation we ever so lightly brushed the top of this morning.

In light of the suffering world all around us, how would Christ prefer us to live out the holidays?  How would He spend his holi-days?  What would Thanksgiving look like at the dinner table of the Lord?  And what about Christmas?  Oo that's a scary thought, isn't it.  

As Mark and I have become increasingly challenged by this study that we are {sometimes reluctantly} wading through in our small group, we find ourselves looking closely at our lives, our finances, our blessings... our overflowing abundance of blessings... and wondering how Christ would have us live differently than we do now.  

What would our lives look like if we were to truly embraced the call to feed His sheep?  

Christ commands us to love the weary and the broken, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry.  If we claim to seek after His heart, and these are the desires of His heart and therefore the responsibilities we have undertaken by giving up our lives to follow him, why do we not fulfill them?  Why are these not the desires of our hearts as well?  And looking toward the season that is upon us, why do our holidays often result in weight gain and absurd overspending from our gluttonous appetites for these cultural trends of consumerism?

These are all questions we have begun asking ourselves... asking the Lord.

How will we spend our holidays this year?

We're not sure yet, but I have a feeling this may be the beginning of breaking apart from what has been the norm in our lives and how we spend this "season of giving."