I had great plans to get out my New Years Letter today. I was going to finish it on Saturday, stuff envelopes on Sunday, and mail it out today. Yeah, that didn't happen. I did have a wonderful, absolutely wonderful time on Saturday at the Ladies of Grace brunch. What a sweet and lovely hostess, she was thrilled to have us all invade her home, dirty up her beautiful dishes, and crowd her house all up. We had tea, coffee, muffins, fresh fruit, and her famous, to die for quiche. The company was delightful, there was a very timely devotional by a lovely Titus 2 woman who shared her heart and encouraged us to keep our eyes on the Lord, not on ourselves as we strive to meet our goals. I got to meet some new people, fellowship with others, and finally got to participate in the secret prayer pals. I don't know the woman whose name I picked at all, so I am excited to get to know her and pray for her. I have never gotten to go to this brunch before, and have wanted to every year since we started going to the church. It was worth the wait, and the entire lovely experience was sponsered by my dear and sacrificing friends who gave their time, their service and their love to allow me to go to this. I love them, and I am so thankful for them. Saturday afternoon the kids took great naps, and was able to finally finish organizing the playroom/school room/computer room. I got the bookshelves moved, the dress up clothes organized, all the toys and books gone through, the craft things organized, the toybox reduced, and the stacks of stuff on the shelves contained. May I just say that I am addicted to the cute little storage boxes from Big Lots. They are white, come in many different sizes, and are only $1.50-$3.00!!! I have 9 of them on my shelves right now and they work so well. They keep everything neat and contained and easy to take down. Anyway, so I got that all done, then made Claire's birthday cake and supper and got the rest of the house picked up. Nate's parents came over at 6 and we had a little (late) birthday celebration for Claire. She was so cute, eating chocolate cake for the first time and opening her presents. Big George had a cold, so they didn't stay too long. Nate moved the living room around so the loveseat is back in front of the tv. The living room looks so empty without the Christmas tree and decorations in it. I still don't have the pictures back up on the walls. My house seems somehow bereft, like I took away it's pretty scarf and it is standing in the cold looking at me accusingly, waiting for me to wrap it back up again, in something. That night I snuggled on the loveseat next to Nathan while he watched football, and that was where my trouble started.

Well, trouble, or lack of self control perhaps, would be a better term. You see, I am addicted........to books. I love them, I worship them, I exult in the written word, the feel of pages, the heavy thickness of a volume in my hands, pregnant with the promise of interesting vocabulary, entrancing storylines, surprising plot twists; The beauty and familiarity of the classics, the evocative lustre of modern books, the transendant ability of "the story" to take you to another place, blind you with sunlight late at night and make your nostrils curl, filled with the scent of a bonfire, listening to the crackle of twigs and logs succumbing to bright flames, while you are lying in bed. Take you to another plane of experience and teach you and show you things your mind never would have gone to otherwise. I lust after books, I need them, I yearn for them. There is a sense of peace in my soul that can only be achieved by holding a fat book in my hands and knowing that I have this "place" to go to, this small haven of imagination to retreat to. I totally suffer from abibliophobia (the fear of being without books).....I get seriously stressed out if I know I have no book to read-If I have read everything on my shelves numerous times recently, and I have nothing waiting for me when I am done reading whatever I am reading. Trips to the library are almost as good as trips to Starbucks for me. (I'll wax eloquent about my coffee addiction another time.) Now, don't get me wrong, I am a mother and wife first and I don't spend all my day reading, but just to know that when I am done my day, when I do have a few precious moments to sit and not be consumed with all the many things I have to be doing at that moment, a good book is waiting for me- that is a glorious feeling.

I have been slowly working my way through the Dickens novels. My brother-in-law gave me a beautiful copy of Great Expectations three years ago for Christmas. That started me re-interest in Dickens and I read that and quickly went on to Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend, Bleak House (Oh, Bleak House, lovely, lovely) The library does not have The Old Curiosity Shop, (appalling, I know) so I tried at this point to start The Pickwick Papers, and just couldn't get into it. So I read a few other series. I love Dickens, I think he is an absolute genious, but he's pretty heavy. So, interspersed with the Dickens novels, I usually read other books inbetween, and sometimes while, reading other ones. I had resolved to get through the Pickwick Papers, and started it last week sometime, after finishing books 4+5 of a series I started last year. I got about 200 pages in, and started to languish, so I thought I would get some "braincake" reading to distract me for awhile and then be able to go back to Pickwick and finish it. Here is where my aforementioned trouble comes in. I had heard from a few people that "The Time Travelers Wife" was a good one, (in the "braincake") category, so I got it from the library on Thursday. Saturday evening at about 10, sitting with Nathan on the loveseat I started to read it. I was almost immediately hooked, and tried to stop reading several times that night but couldn't stop until page 212 at about 12:30 or 1. Yesterday Claire slept in way late, (so Nate let me sleep in as well-I love that man!!) and by the time I, and the baby, had gotten up and around, church was out of the question. Nate was wanting to do something fun with the kids anyway, so we packed them up and went to a McDonalds with Hi-fi and an outside playground, and let them have a great time playing while we drank coffee and Nate looked online at work-from-home possibilities. We had a great time. Then we asked where they wanted to eat lunch and pizza was voted best, so we went to Stevie B's, where the whole family can eat salad, pizza, and ice cream for $17.12. Then we went home and all took a nap. When I woke up at 4ish (again, my wonderful husband let me sleep) I couldn't keep myself from starting to read again, and read off and on all afternoon and evening, interspersed with reading to the kids and fixing supper and getting the kids to bed. I knew I was getting sucked into the story too much, and should go to something else, but I just wanted to find out what happened. I finally finished the book at about 1, and not only felt tragically as if I had lost something (as I usually do when I finish a good book), but also so weighed down by what the story had reminded me of. It was a very strange love story that ended with the husband dying, tragically, sadly, unnecessarily. It just made me think of love, and loss, and the worst wrenching of the heart- to lose someone you love. It brought back all the fear of when I heard my mother was in the hospital, worry over Ian's stomach hurting him randomly recently, empathy over the families of friends who have died, and anxiety for the future. I just laid in bed with tears streaming down my face next to my sleeping husband and prayed for the Lord not to take away those people whom I love. I just don't see how I could handle it. I dreamed fitfully all night, of love and loss and strange combinations of the book I had just finished and real life worries. It was not a restful night. I know if I had paced myself and read that book over the whole week, it wouldn't have been like that, but when I read a book so quickly, I just become enmeshed in the story, and I have a hard time getting my mind out of it. All of that to say that when I sat down here to write the New Years letter that I should have gotten done this weekend, all I could think of was the heaviness in my heart, the wrenching of unwanted tears, and the fear of a future that contains real reason to cry. In short, completely the opposite of what I was blessed with Saturday morning at the brunch, completely the opposite of what I intended to convey in my letter, and completely the opposite of what the Lord wants me to keep my mind trained upon.

These thoughts are not habitual with me, I do fight (strenuously) to keep them from my daily ruminations, and I hate when I succumb to the burden of anxiety, and give these things a foothold. I am disappointed in myself, and I am struggling now to dig out of the pit that I have plunged myself into. I can not live my life, I can not achieve my goals, I can not love my family and neighbors as I should when I am in that place. So, now I am trying to get back to that place, that peace of mind that comes only by having my mind stayed (fixed, determinedly steadfast) on the Lord. Not on a silly story that sucked me in, not on the uncertainty of the future, or the grief of the past, but on the certainty that nothing, not height, nor depth, not principality, nor power, nothing can seperate me from the love of Jesus.