On the lighter side of life ;)

My heart has been on the heavy side lately. The truth is that sometimes obedience is costly. But always – no matter the cost, doing what God tells you to do is worth it. I find myself having a case of “spiritual schizophrenia” these days – choosing one minute to trust, and with the very next breath, I falter.

Thankfully, I’m being surrounded by tons of Scriptures like this one: “For I the Lord your God hold your right hand; I am the lord who says to you, fear not; I will help you.” (Is. 43:13) And this one: “The Lord is my Strength and my impenetrable Shield; my heart trusts in, relies on, and confidently leans on Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices and with my song will I praise Him.” (Ps. 28:7). One of my favorites is: “And the Lord said, My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Ex. 33:14). I carry these verses everywhere with me.

Oh how I want to “buck up” and walk in full faith in the God of these truths – without flinching. With God’s help, and our choosing to keep our eyes and ears focused on God and His Word – and not on what others around us are doing or saying, every single one of us can walk ahead without flinching. Faith is a choice. A minute by minute choice. Today, I plan to choose faith! How about you?

So… with being a little on the heavy hearted side, when I saw this YouTube video on Susan Skitt’s blog “Adventurous Living” (which is a great blog, btw), I literally laughed out loud! I’ve watched it several times and it still makes me laugh! It’s not a fictitious comedy routine – it’s “real life”. …And, what makes it so funny to me is not the trauma caused, but that I can tragically see myself doing every bit of this. In fact, I have done what the green car did (maybe not taking as long as she did – notice the time stamp on the left-, but I have done it often) and have also been helped/saved/rescued by a stranger on more than one parking excursion.

Wonder what I’m talking about? Watch this. (And please don’t get offended by the statement at the end. In my parking life, that statement is also true!) Then, please…. somebody tell me I’m not the only one who can relate to this craziness! 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygtBxhFc24A

Praying The Lord’s blessings and joy upon you this day and this week!

Merry Christmas, my friends! I’m praying for each of you – and asking that the Lord fills each one of you with Himself and His presence during this week! What a gift He is!!! I pray that you hear Him call you to come and spend time at His feet, and that He blesses you beyond all you could ask for or imagine.

Smelling Coffee will be on the quiet side for the next week. I’ll be back by Tuesday, the 30th, when I’ll announce the winner of my 100th Post give-away. If you haven’t left a comment yet, there’s plenty of time. 🙂

So… as I sign off for the next week, I wanted to leave you with one last Christmas greeting from my family to yours…

I love you! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Now that that’s out of the way, this is the e-mail he sent me last week:

Hey Jen,

I prepared my first article for your blog if you would allow me to be a guest columnist from time to time. I think I’ll call my writing series “Cappuccino with the Crawdad”. It won’t be as spiritual as your columns, or as crafty as “Friday Fun with Fanny”, but maybe it will be good for a laugh. (Jennifer here: This cracked me up! You know he meant “Frappuccino Fun with Amy”. And, his last name is Crawford, hence the Crawdad. He originally said it should be called “Smelling Chris Crawford” – but that didn’t sound to appetizing! :-))

Anyway, you don’t have to use it. I was just something I started thinking about when I heard a song, so I wrote it down. I was cracking myself up, but other’s may not see the humor in it. I’ve attached a picture for you to use for me. So here it is.

So… it looks like Smelling Coffee has a new guest writer… and it looks like he is in a lot of pain. 🙂 Cappuccino with the Crawdad today, and Frappuccino Fun with Amy on Friday… I guess I’ll be back to my own writing next week. 🙂 TTYL. Jen

Cappuccino with the Crawdad

Good tidings, and Merry Christmas!

Nothing gets me into the holiday spirit more than listening to Christmas music. As I was sitting at my PC trying to crank out some code, my boss decided to pop in a Christmas CD that one of our vendors sent. The first song I heard playing was “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. As I listened to the song I could visualize Christmas carolers standing in the freshly fallen snow singing to the residents of a country cottage.

“We wish you a Merry Christmas;”
“We wish you a Merry Christmas;”
“We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

What a nice gesture! Just think about it…. These people took time out of their busy lives to stand outside in the snow and wish others a Merry Christmas.

“Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;”
“Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

Not only are these carolers wishing the dwellers of this cottage a Merry Christmas, they are also wishing them and their families good tidings, as well as a Happy New Year.

“Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;”
“Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;”
“Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer”

What’s up with that!?! After all the well wishing and good cheer, the carolers are now demanding pudding! And what is “figgy” pudding anyway? My spell checker couldn’t even identify it. However, the spell checker suggested that it could actually be “piggy” pudding, but I’m not sure that would be much better. And what do they mean by “a cup of good cheer?” It sounds to me like they may need a designated sleigh driver when it’s all said and done.

“We won’t go until we get some;”
“We won’t go until we get some;”
“We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here”

OK, now it’s getting a little creepy. Sure they came with good intentions, but now they’re refusing to leave. It’s like “Merry Christmas. Now bring out the pudding! We’re not leaving until we get some pudding! If you want us to leave, you had better just go ahead and bring out the pudding.”

And the song finishes with this:

“We wish you a Merry Christmas;”
“We wish you a Merry Christmas;”
“We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

I guess they got their pudding.

-Chris Crawford

This past Friday night, Toby Mac had his “Winter Wonder Slam” concert in Nashville, and we were there, baby! All four of us and some good family friends are huge Toby fans and we’ve been looking forward to this concert for months. If you’re not a Toby Mac (or that type of music) fan, this post may not make sense to you (sorry, Mom). But if you are, then you’ll totally get all the “Momentum” leading up to the concert. I may be 40, but I still know how to “Get This Party Started.” 🙂

*I charged my cell phone so I could shine it with the best of them.

*I took my Advil so my head would not ache with the loud “scream-o” band that opened the concert. (Looking back, I should have brought some ear plugs too – Family Force Five was out in full force – and “Woopsi- Daisy, Call Me Crazy”, but listening to Fam. Force was on the painful side!)

*I planned and practiced some Hannah Montana-ish moves so I could be “Feelin’ So Fly” as I jumped to the beat. (I even gave my kids a sneak peak of me bustin’ my moves, but sadly for them, they just didn’t get it, and they both begged me to keep my moves to myself! I think they were afraid that “Somebody’s Watching“.)

*I wore some “cool” concert-style clothes – including some vintage lace trouser socks (they’re coming back in style, btw) that I was wearing back when Toby Mac was a part of DC Talk.

*I sang every word of every song Toby sang – even if I didn’t really know the lyrics. It was a “Boomin’ / Opera Trip” for sure.

*I tearfully worshipped when he sang “Lose My Soul” – which is my very favorite Toby Mac song, ever!

*I caught the Way FM DJ, Wally, and took the kids’ picture with him. (We did this last year at the concert, too…and he actually remembered us. My kids think he’s a Rock Star.)

*I texted my friends and my children during the concert – just to talk about the funny acting guy from Family Force Five throwing himself around on the stage. (They all agreed that his moves and mine were very similar. What???)

When the concert was over, James drove us home, via Krispy Kreme, in our “Get Away Car”. We were “Made to Love” Toby – and Jesus! I guess you could call us full blown “Jesus Freaks”!

*And, just so you’ll know, “Irene,”…I did refrain from photo-documenting the entire night, and from kissing or patting my son on the cheek in public, and from making the children hold my hands when we crossed the busy street, and from embarrassing them on purpose… because that’s just the kind of cool mom that I am. (Except, I wonder: are you really a cool mom if you’re the only one who calls yourself that???)

“Gotta Go”. Have a wonderful week! Love to you all…

PS: Click here to listen to “Lose My Soul”. It’s an incredible song – and my friend Mandisa sings on it, too – making it even more special to my heart.

When I first started blogging and I saw the title “Meme” on someone’s blog, I got all sentimental, because it made me think about my grandmother, and I thought we would get to share our favorite memories of our “Memes”. I was wrong. 🙂 So when I posted the title “A Christmas Meme”, it made me laugh out loud when I thought about posting a picture of my “Meme” all dressed up for Christmas. 🙂 (And I would have, but I couldn’t find one quickly.)

But for those of you who were like me, and thought this post was about my grandmother, here is the real definition of a Meme: “In the context of web logs / ‘blogs / blogging and other kinds of personal web sites, it’s some kind of list of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on… Some suggest that you get five other people to do the same meme and they have to get five people, etc.”

So, my friend Kim from My Journey tagged me for this Christmas Meme, and I thought I would give it a try. The rules: 1. Post the rules on your blog. 2. Fill out the questions below 3. Tag 5-7 people at the end of your post. and 4. Pass on the tag. 🙂

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Can I say both?

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa leaves stockings with little fun things in them for everyone in the family, and the rest of the gifts come from Mom and Dad and each other. We enjoy Santa, but he has never been the “Big” event of Christmas at our house.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White lights

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Yes, but in a dried form and we use it from year to year. It hangs in the door between our dining room and living room, but hardly anyone stands under it for a kiss except our daughter. 🙂

5. When do you put your decorations up?
We’re early birds in this area. Because Thanksgiving weekend is always full with extended family, we put up our tree, and decorate the house in mid-November. And we wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate the porch.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
I think I like the dressing best.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child:
My dad was the “Santa Claus” for our little town. My favorite memories include him in his Santa suit and our family and family friends driving around town surprising people with a visit from Santa and Christmas Carolers.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
My grandfather let it slip one day when we were at a store and he said, “that’s where your mom and dad got your bike.” 🙂

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We open one gift. Growing up, the three children in my family opened one of our gifts from each other. Now, our family gets new pjs each Christmas Eve.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
With ornaments collected each year representing something significant in the lives of each family member, lots of Angels, Nativities, Santas, and tons of Hallmark collectables.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it because when it snows here, everything shuts down and we get a day to stay home in our pjs and watch movies all day. 🙂

12. Can you ice skate?
No, but my children can a little.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I have been blessed with so many wonderful gifts, each year there is always something special. My husband does a beautiful job of listening and observing and giving me something I will enjoy.

14. What is the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
The extra things we do to celebrate the birth of Jesus and our Redemption through Him.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Fudge

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Driving around town looking at lights and listening to Christmas music.

17. What tops your tree?
An angel

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Again… can I like both??? I’m a Sanguine! It’s fun to give and it’s fun to receive.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
Joy to the World

20. Candy Canes​!​ Yuck or Yum?
Yum.

21. What do you want for Christmas?
A peace-filled, rest-filled, slow-paced time with my family.

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas Party?
We attend parties, but no “annual” ones. We used to host an annual Christmas party, and life got too busy. I hope to get back to that in the future.

23. Do you dress up on Christmas or wear PJs?
We’re always with family, so we start off in PJs, then we dress for the day.

24. Do you own a Santa hat?
Yes, quite a few. And some elf hats and Rudolph antlers, too.

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?
We always spend it with my mom, and the rest of my extended family gets together either that day or the days around it.

It was fun to think back on some of these things and to process them this year. I think I’ll ask these questions to my husband and children over dinner one night this week. It will stimulate some fun conversation! Thanks, Kim!

Now, I’m tagging:
BJ – Sweet Nothings
Christy – God’s Girl Pearl
Becky – Slipping Through My Fingers
Lisa – The Preacher’s Wife
and Michelle Helms – Happy At Home

AND, anyone else who would like to share your answers with us all.
🙂 Have a great day everyone!