Thirsty for Grace: Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

I realize I didn't write a lot in December, though with the holidays it's quite a busy month. Since Becky was coming home to visit, I took the whole week of Christmas off of work, so I was working double time at work to get everything done. Then there was the usual Christmas shopping, cookie baking, Christmas parties, that sort of thing. Also, my Dad (who loves filming home movies, with the actual reels of film on projector screens, that kind of filming) had an elaborate plan for this Christmas- my family was making a home movie set in 1964. We made our tree and living room look for sixties with our decorations and props, such as a super old TV from back then (it had been stored in one of our barns for years) and we pulled out our old tabletop rotary telephone. We had sixties clothing and tried to copy their hairstyles and makeup, and my Dad even shocked us by buying all sorts of sixties games and presents from Ebay and wrapping them up for the set. It was a blast, opening games like Mystery Date, Hands Down, and Tip-It.... plus there was this little radio and a camera, both of which had originally came out in the sixties. He even had magazines from the sixties! Needless to say, we had a blast, and the movie turned out great. We all watched it on the screen last night and are really pleased with how it came out!

I was also happy to see a lot of my friends over my break, I got together with one of my best friends, Katie, and finally met her boyfriend Steve (they met in South Carolina where Katie is working on her PhD so I hadn't met him before) and we had a blast. Also my family had an open house for my sister, so I met up with a lot of people from my home Church as well as friends from school that I hadn't seen in a while. It was a lot of fun and the time went so fast! I couldn't believe it when I had to return back to Philly to go to work on Monday. The only thing I was happy about was being able to go back to the gym.... I definitely ate way more than my share of goodies over my week off!

Though I had a lot of fun over the break, some things weren't that great, the biggest one being that my dear friend and former roommate, Jess, has been having a hard time lately. She's had a lot going on, the hardest thing being that her mother was very sick from battling ovarian cancer. I'm incredibly sorry to say that her mother (who had been battling ovarian cancer for 12 years!) went home to be with the Lord around 3:15 pm on Christmas day. She was incredibly brave and courageous in her fight and she will be very missed. I pray that this New Year will bring Jess and her family peace during this hard time.

Speaking of the New Year, I wish everyone the very best for 2009. As it wouldn't be a New Years Post without posting a resolution, I resolve to continue with working on my health and fitness (I'm very pleased with my progress, but there's always room for improvement!) and to get all my ducks in a row and apply for vet school this year. And last but not least, I resolve to work on my attitude... which hasn't been very pleasant lately. I definitely need to work on that!

So in closing, I hope everyone had an enjoyable time for the holidays, and many blessings for the New Year! Here are some pictures to enjoy from some of my December adventures :)

Playing the Tip-It game