Lotta’ love!

I’m just so excited! I love Christmas! I love my husband! I love my family! I love being with my family at this time of year! I just have the warm fuzzies about going up to be with my family and Phil’s parents. People always complain about the stress of this time of year, but it is the opposite for me. I enjoy shopping for Christmas presents (but don’t ask me if I’m done… EGAD! This is the most last-minute I’ve ever been; must be a newlywed thing — we spend too much time together, not enough time shopping! Can you believe it? I don’t shop anymore!), I love being with my fam, I relax when I’m up North, and I don’t have too many commitments that keep me going to holiday event after holiday event.

Another nasty trip to the dentist yesterday — had an upper wisdom tooth pulled. Yuck and OUCH! Why do wisdom teeth come in only to be yanked out?

This past weekend Phil and I had a kick-off to our Christmas celebrations. We went to London to have a little Christmas with his sister and brother-in-law and their two boys. It was great! I feel as though I’ve known them for years. They are wonderful and have welcomed me into the family in such a loving way (see, it’s that holiday cheer — who needs the spiked egg nog, I’m drunk on love — please return to reading this after you’ve puked….). After the Britton’s it was on to my Aunt Martha’s for the May Family Christmas. Phil met my extended family on my Dad’s side for the first time. You’ll have to ask him about it – he says he had a good time…. He did get to play Euchre and Crokinole, so I think he was happy, oh, and he REALLY enjoyed the food (any event with a spread like the one my Aunt Martha puts out, and Phil’s going to be happy). It was a pretty good time.

Well, this blog isn’t really all that deep or entertaining. Just me blathering. I just haven’t written in awhile and thought I should…

Anywho, I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Have a relaxing time, and a loving time, enjoy your family.

Laughter: the best medicine, or the best therapy?

My husband laughs in his sleep. The man is so happy his joy spills over into his dreams. How is that possible?

I’ve never known anyone as generally happy as Phil. I’ve been searching the apartment for a hidden stash of morphine lifted from the hospital, but he’s been like this the whole time I’ve known him (granted, not a very long time, but we’re working on that). True, I do wonder if he should be animated, or a very large puppet, but when I want to be angry or sad or frustrated and Phil disarms me with laughter, I know why God put us together. Not that his good humour is always wholly embraced by yours truly — ever want to slap the silly grin off someone’s face? The grouchy cynic in me does. What a challenge for me to focus on the joy of Christ; what a blessing to live with someone who does!

So, what is it like living with Mr.-blue-bird-on-his-shoulder? I can tell you what it is like to live life as a musical (thankfully, without “choreographed movement”). I can tell you that a grown-man excited about a new vacuum cleaner can look an awful lot like a 10-year-old excited about a new bike. I can tell you that the inner joy of knowing God mirrors the inner peace of knowing God and can bring comfort to those around you.

P.S. Suggestions for the cartoon/muppet that Phil most resembles (real or imagined) are completely encouraged.

Don’t let ’em steal your holiday cheer….

Well, this entry is going to be a rant…

Phil and I were robbed yesterday. Robbed! Our car was broken into (very back side window on the passenger side), and a bag from Old Navy was stolen. What follows is my rambling account of the event:

When I got home from work yesterday, my sweet husband greeted me at the door with plans for a night out. We went to Quiznos for dinner (can I recommend the Black Angus Steak sandwich — otherwise know as the Blocked Artery Special…), and then decided to do some Christmas shopping before heading to the mall to watch a movie. Little did we know we were stumbling onto the scene of the crime — The Cambridge Centre parking lot — hotbed for thievery and other bad things (I see punk kids smoking there all the time, baiting the dragon of chronic disease). Thankfully, Phil stopped to put on the new winter coat we’d gotten a fantastic deal on (make sure you compliment him on it when next you see him — don’t tell him he looks like an orange Michelin Man, apparently men don’t think he’s attractive [the Michelin Man I mean, I’m sure that men and women alike find Phil very attractive]). This meant there was one less thing to steal. Anywho, while we watched Ocean’s Twelve our window was smashed and Christmas presents stolen (highly recommend the movie though — very funny, but don’t tell Phil he’s like the Linus character in the film, again, he doesn’t find that to be flattering, I tell ya’ you try to compliment a guy…) . Apparently someone has forgotten that this is a time for goodwill to all men (and women, and Saturns).

I just find it frustrating. If I knew it had gone to someone who needed it more than we do, that’s fine, that’s great, glad I could help. But I have a sneaky suspicion that it was stolen by someone who has different motives than trying to keep warm on a cold night. It’s a sad reminder of the state of the world at a time of year when I usually am so encouraged by the spirit in the air, and I just feel all warm and fuzzy. It’s an intrusion into my Christmas gaity.

However, in the grand scheme of things we have not suffered too greatly (thanks again to great deals the monetary value was not that staggering). There are a lot of people struggling with much greater difficulties, this is just an annoyance. It is up to me not to let this disturb my feelings of holiday cheer, and it hasn’t really. We’ll replace the window and the gifts and the next time we shop and then go to a movie, we’ll take my Topaz and lock the bags in the trunk, out of the sight and temptation of tobacco-sucking, baggy-pants-wearing, messy-haired, foul-mouthed, punk kids (I know, I know, as my Dad says, I shouldn’t make assumptions about the profile of our thief; for all I know it could be a little old lady on the lam from the retirement home…). Such is life!

Supportive love

I receive a newsletter from crossroads.com entitled Marriage Builders. In this newsletter I just finished reading the story of man who attends a gym daily with his wife. She is frail and bent. Her arms are bent at the elbow, her spine is curved, and lifting her legs takes tremendous effort. Every day this man and his wife plod to the treadmills where she walks for 20 minutes while he straddles the moving belt behind her, supporting her as she painfully takes each step. It is a touching story. I love these stories, where one partner supports the other through the horrific challenges of this world, sickness being the most obvious challenge. It’s beautiful to see that love.

My question, though, is do we remember the importance of the supportive hand when the walk isn’t so agonizing? One of the positive aspects of Phil’s surgery, for me, was that I would be able to care for him. I was looking forward to nursing him and babying him. My healthy guy didn’t need much pampering and I was disappointed. But when he is not recovering from surgery — when he is his happy-go-lucky, here-let-me-get-that-for-you-you-sit-down-Heather, confident-content-competent self, do I remember to support him? Am I at his back with a helping hand that says I am here if you stumble (or even if you don’t)? How do we support the strong spouse? How do we support other family and friends when they are not sick or in need — or don’t appear to be? Or am I the only one who questions this; who hasn’t perfected it?

Master of information…

There is too much information out there! It’s overwhelming! As an information professional (official title: Information Specialist — eek! I specialize in information? Don’t you have to know a lot to do that?), it is my job to keep a cool head, weed through the information, find what is relevant and get rid of the extra noise. It is my job to swim the seas of information and find the pearls of wisdom. When someone has a question, it is my job to find the answer. Isn’t that scary? What responsibility! What has me freaked today is that there is a plethora (I love it when I can use that word) of tools for librarians that support them in their tasks. I don’t have the time to examine all of the things that exist to help me do my job and actually do my job.

On a positive note for my noble profession, Phil and I watched a movie this weekend that actually gave a positive portrayal of a librarian. Librarians show up in movies now and then, and sometimes they are pretty stereotypical (mousy yet stern, old spinsters, bun in hair, glasses on chain, cardigan buttoned at the neck). This librarian was in fact quiet and wore glasses but she also saved the life of one of the characters by knowing where to find information on her condition. There was a small band of people trapped in the New York Public Library trying to escape a storm that was freezing the northern hemisphere because of an ice age brought on by global warming (yes, the premise seems sketchy, but it’s an o.k. flick). One of the characters had blood poisoning from a cut on her leg that she sustained while escaping the advancing water that was filling the streets of New York. The librarian was able to diagnose her mysterious illness and they were able to get her the help she needed, thereby saving her life.

The moral of the story is: while it may overwhelm me to do my day-to-day job, in the event of an impending, world-wide natural disaster, do your best to be trapped with me in a library — I may just save your life.