Raising Hands

When I was a kid everything about Christmas was beautiful and fun and exciting. Now that I'm older, and a Mom. Those things still hold true but in different ways. I certainly appreciate how hard my Mom worked to make every Christmas magical for us kids. What's struck me more and more is that this time of year can also be an emotional minefield. Once seemingly happy or tender memories become bittersweet. Some down right painful (I've written about it before ). For me, these memories usually have to do with my grandmother. She went home to her Heavenly Father eleven years ago today.  A Hymn in church, the cookies I bake from her recipe. The scent of the hand lotion I use everyday (the same she used) trigger a flood of tears. Suddenly she's everywhere and the dull ache of her absence is as raw and painful as it was a decade ago. This happened recently in a big way when I got so excited to watch one of my favorite old movies on TV. Meet Me in St. Louis. I wa...

If you follow my Instagram feed you know that last week the Hands were struck by plague. The good news is that we survived. The bad news is that Mama had a list as long as her arm of things she'd planned on getting ready in preparation for Christmas. Cleaning, baking, decorating, you know the drill. Instead, I called my Mom and cried like a five year old. I happen to have a five year old so that description is pretty accurate. The other big task that was not accomplished was a whole lot of sewing and crafting I had planned. Last year I loved making hand made Christmas gifts for all our family, teachers, and coaches. I had a similar plan in mind for this year but instead I'm adjusting my expectations and relying on Pinterest . Enter my last minute gift. 1. Go get a bottle of yummy smelling hand soap or sanitizer 2. Go here and print out these adorable gift tags. (They have tags that don't say teacher too.) 3. Grab some twine, a hole punch, and your preschooler, t...

Scientists at NASA have developed a gun for the purpose of launching dead chickens. It is used to shoot a dead chicken at the windshield of airline jet, military jet, or the space shuttle, at that vehicle's maximum traveling velocity. The idea being, that it would simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl, and therefore determine if the windshields are strong enough to endure high-speed bird strikes. British engineers, upon hearing of the gun, were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high-speed trains. However, upon firing the gun, the engineers watched in shock as the chicken shattered the windshield, smashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two, and embedded itself into the back wall of the cabin. Horrified and puzzled, the engineers sent NASA the results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and asked the NASA scientists for any suggestions. The NASA scientists sent back a brief respons...