Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I hope that you had a great day with your friends and families! I was supposed to work last night, so my Thanksgiving plans were up in the air until the last minute. My dad (who is the greatest!) drove up with plans to pick me up from work on Thursday morning to drive us home. I ended up getting to stay home on Wednesday night, so I met up with him at midnight and we shared the driving through the night to get into Jacksonville at about 6am. We decided at the last minute to stay home and do Thanksgiving in Jacksonville with just us this year, which we have never done before. It was a fun and very relaxing day! My sister woke me up as the Macy's parade started and we watched it until the end (something that we usually don't get to do) before getting dressed and ready to eat lunch. And lunch was fabulous! We had turkey, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole (my favorite), corn casserole (I pass on this one), homemade buttermilk biscuits, and sweet tea. Yummy! Lots of props to my super fabulous Momma who made it all herself!


And then there was hummingbird cake (another favorite), gingerbread and pumpkin trifle, and cookies and cream (which we like to call "junk") for dessert. Let's just say that I should be full for a while. I am so glad that I was able to come home and be with my family! After lunch we all took a nap before I insisted that everyone get up and dressed for a couple of family photos in the backyard. (Most of us didn't bother with the shoes...)


We missed our Pam and Jeremy! My younger sister and brother-in-law live in North Dakota and were not able to make it home for the holiday this year. We saved them a place in a couple of our photos, though:



We spent the rest of the day relaxing over a game of Trivial Pursuit, a couple of Christmas movies, and Black Friday shopping strategizing. Speaking of shopping, I better head to bed! Those 5am deals are going to come early!

Meeting MckMama

This past Sunday, my friend Kerry and I headed down into the city for a picnic with MckMama. MckMama is a blogger that I have been reading for a while now. I actually first linked to her blog through a link on Kerry's blog. So, it was appropriate that we headed down together to go meet her. Anyway, MckMama has a popular blog where she posts about life raising four kiddos, photography, natural eating, and loving Jesus, among other things. Her blog has become very popular as she has openly shared about and sought prayer for her youngest son, Stellan, who was diagnosed in utero with a heart condition called SVT. While the doctors thought he wouldn't survive the pregnancy, he was born healthy. However, when he was about 4 months old, his SVT reared its ugly head again, and he has had several hospitalizations and close calls since then. Most recently, though, his SVT was healed through a successful (though very risky) surgery. I love reading the blog (mostly because MckMama is funny, entertaining, and I love her photos), and have spent time praying for the health of sweet Stellan. So, when she posted that she would be in the Atlanta area, and was planning to have a gathering to meet some of her blog readers, I started to consider going. I was a little hesitant, though, because I knew that an actual meeting would be a whole 'nother step into my blog-addiction. But, when I got an email from Kerry asking me if I was interested in going down, I decided that accompanying her was a great reason to go! So, we went. It was a fun time, even though it was a gray, nasty rainy day. It was fun to get to meet MckMama, to see those sweet kiddos of hers in person, and to even get to hold the miracle baby himself! Here are a couple of pictures of them, using a layout that I learned from this MckMama post:

Note to Self, Volume 2:

Dear self,

When driving, please refrain from veering off the beaten path. I mean, seriously, you are not good with directions. Just face the truth. You have no idea which way is north, south, east, or west unless the sun is rising or setting, and even then sometimes you have trouble. So when driving somewhere new, just look up the directions. And when you do have directions and manage to arrive at a new place successfully (say, the Trader Joe's on Peachtree Pkwy), DON'T just decide that you can figure out a different way home. It doesn't work that way. You may just end up in John's Creek, where the people at the Walgreen's look at you funny when you ask them the best way to get back to 85. So, save yourself some trouble next time and just turn around and go back the way that you came. Trust me, it will turn out better that way.

Sincerely,
Amy

P.S. You may want to consider asking for a GPS for Christmas. That might help, too. (That is, if you weren't planning to leave the country soon and would therefore not have much use for it long-term...)

Do You Know...

Do you know who is in this photo with me? I'm referring to the one in the middle. Clearly, her nametag says Jennifer, but you might know her by another name. That is, if you are a bit of a blog-stalker like myself. I have linked to her blog here on mine before, and asked you to join in praying for her sweet son. I met him today, too. Any guesses? I'm headed to bed right now, but more about this picture and a couple of overdue blog posts coming soon...

Could Be Yours...

This coming Thursday I am having a little get-together at my house. It will be a good time of food and friends for sure, but it will hopefully also be a time for people to get to know a little more about my heart for Peru. I will also be selling a few handmade items to help to start raising money for my Peru support account. Here are some of the items:

(Click on the image for a better view)

Isn't this awesome?!? One of the fabulous girls that I work with made this for me to sell. It's a collection of "doodles" that are in the shape of the country of Peru. It is made up of a bunch of different words like, "poverty", "salt & light", "compassion", "sacrifice", and lots of others. I think it's a fun game to stare at it and see what new words I can find. The amazing thing to me is that Stacey didn't even outline the shape that she was going for. She just started doodling and just formed it into the shape of Peru as she went. Amazing!

Another friend from work, Kelly, made some earrings and bracelets. Here are a few of the earrings:





I have also been making some handmade cards to sell. While I was in Florida visiting my parents recently, my mom bought me some really cute Christmas paper. We made several cards together. Here are a few:






I also have some Christmas cards that were designed by some of the youth in Lima. These are from previous years that I have left over. Money from these cards would go directly to support the ministry in Lima.






All of these things could be yours! I would love for you to come and hang out with me on Thursday if you live in or around Atlanta. If not, and you are interested in any of these things, just let me know. I have lots more cards and also some scarves that I don't have pictures of yet. I think that I am just going to sell those things on a donation basis, so let me know if you are interested in anything!

(I apologize for the quality of the pictures and the poor lighting. I was in a hurry and my house doesn't have the best lighting for taking photos.)

Living Room Makeover

I did a little rearranging in my living room this weekend, complete with the addition of a tree branch to my wall. Wanna see?? Here you go:




Clearly, the frames are still missing some pictures to go in them. I'm working on that...

If you're wondering where the branch came from, it's from a park near my house. Yep, I definitely went outside, found a tree branch, lugged it to my car, crammed it in through the trunk (it went all the way through to the driver's door right beside my head), drove it home, and hung it on the wall. I love it!

And Another Thing...

...that I am thankful for (see previous post) is that I don't have a serious plumbing problem in my house that I am trying to sell! Yay! One of the outdoor faucets broke a while back and I just turned off the water valve to that faucet until I could get it fixed. Because that valve only seemed to control that one faucet and therefore was not affecting my life in any way, I have been putting it off for a long time now. Last weekend I was finally able to have someone come and look at it, and it turns out that it just needed a new washer! How simple. I was hoping (and praying) that it would be something simple like that, but I was afraid it might be something worse. Thanks, God, for answering that prayer!