Movin' On Up!

(sing that title to the tune of The Jeffersons' theme song)

So, looks like we are moving soon.  I am crawling out from under boxes to write this post because we are now in the packing stage!!

Brad and I spent all weekend unloading everything out of our attic, and we ended up throwing a ton of stuff out and sending six huge trash bags full of stuff to Goodwill on Sunday and three bags today.  We have moved on to the kids' rooms and are trying to go through all of their stuff to organize it into what to throw out, donate, and keep.  It amazes me to think of the junk we had hanging around in this house...

This is what our living room looks like right now (this is our "goes to the new house" pile):

It kind of makes my blood pressure rise every time I look at it, but I know the mess will just get bigger before it gets better, so I am trying to be okay with it.  This is the hard part for me, also, because this is the packing up of the smaller stuff, and even though we seem to have a bazillion boxes stacked up everywhere, we still have most of the house left to pack.  It is a bit depressing.

We plan to spend Thursday through Sunday doing our actual move if all goes as planned...wish us luck!

Prayer Request

Brad's cousin's child, Jasper, should be in surgery right now getting cochlear implants due to total hearing loss after complications from meningitis (I believe it's bacterial).  Except for a short stint at home last week, the poor baby has been in the hospital since before Christmas, and he is basically having to learn to do everything again -- swallow, eat, drink, walk, focus, and hear.  His parents have been very strong and have had a lot of support and prayers sent their way, but more prayer would always be welcome, I am sure! 

Please pray for Jasper as he undergoes this surgery, his surgeons, and his parents, Rebecca and Jim (both are Clemson grads, so you Clemson people may know them!).

You can read Jasper's CaringBridge page here.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6

We had our HANDS UP!!

For Christmas this year, I gave Brad tickets to the Luke Bryan/Jason Aldean concert in Greenville, SC.  We went this past Friday with our friends, Wes and Jeana, and had a blast.  It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to (I have to say Michael Buble still beats all).  Jason Aldean was the headliner, but my fave was Luke -- and not just because Gibson thinks he looks like his daddy.  He is pretty darn hot, though!

Random

I am getting ready to hit the sack for the evening, but I wanted to stop in and bore you with some randomness...

1. We thought we might get to move into the house this weekend (yay!!!), but those dreams were dashed this evening by the carpet people and the inspector (boo!!!).  Our carpet is at the store, but they won't install it until Monday, which means that the inspector won't come until after that to do our final inspection and give us our CO.  I believe we ordered this carpet at least a month ago, so we have been waiting on it for quite a while, and the fact that it is the last thing holding us up is irritating me.

2. Most of our furniture is in and will be delivered Saturday!  Unfortunately, they can't deliver it to our house, but rather, they will have to deliver it to Brad's packing house.  At least our living room won't be bare when we can move in...

3. My blonde roots are growing in big time, and the other day I had a panic attack that I was getting gray hair.  Thankfully it isn't gray, but I can't be going around with roots that are lighter than the rest of my hair, or other people might think it's gray, too -- not cool.  I may have to do like Gibson wants me to do, and go back to "yellow."

4. I decided today that my kids eat too many of the same things for breakfast and lunch, so I wanted to change it up a bit.  I made a batch of egg salad for sandwiches for tomorrow, and I was planning to make this Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries and Bananas from skinnytaste for their breakfast for tomorrow.  I got all of the ingredients out and started chopping up the bananas when I realized that I didn't actually buy the dang oatmeal at the grocery store today.  It is pretty hard to make oatmeal without the actual oats.  So, instead, I made these Baked Bananas.  If you like bananas, I would recommend these -- they taste like dessert but are skinny!

5. Brad didn't know what to do since I was doing all of this extra cooking.  He asked me if I was stressed out about something.  I guess that shows that I am usually pretty lazy with the kids' school lunches; he usually takes care of breakfast!

Y'all have a great night!

Happy 300!

Yesterday we had the opening celebration of our church's 300th year.  It was a fabulous service that started outside in our historic churchyard with some people all dressed up in period costumes from the 1700s, and a "town crier" who read proclamations by Queen Elizabeth, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and our governor, Niki Haley.  Following that brief ceremony, we all went inside for our normal worship service, but this time we had a special guest preacher -- The Lord Bishop of London, Richard J.C. Chartres, who preached the homily at Will and Kate's wedding (yes, the Will and Kate!).  His sermon was powerful as was the entire service; it really was a great opening to our tricentennial celebration.

I know that I have mentioned before how much I love our church.  I love it for the fact that the gospel is brought day in and day out in that place, but I also am a huge fan of history.  I love the fact that we have the second oldest church in South Carolina, and one of the oldest churches in continuous use in the United States.  I love the fact that the beautiful building that we sit in each Sunday was built in 1724 and that we often use communion silver from 1734.  I love the fact that my grandfather, his parents, and his grandparents are all buried in the churchyard, and that one day my parents, my children, and I will be, too.  That's a lot of generations and a lot of history!

But, it is just a building, and as beautiful and special as it is to me, it is the actual clergy and congregation who make St. Helena's such a special place.  As I said, the gospel is preached day in and day out there, and God is alive and moving in the church.  It can be felt when you walk in, and it can be felt the entire time you are at St. Helena's.  I am so thankful for my church, and I can only hope that it will last 300 more years.

If you care to read any articles on the tricentennial, you can read them here, here, and here.  

I'm Christie, and I'm a Planner-a-holic!

I know we are halfway into January now, so most of you probably already have your planners for the new year, but I had to post about these anyway.  I realized that I have some kindred spirits in my love of all paper products with my recent post about the return address stamp, so I thought I would tell y'all about another product to which I am addicted -- my planner!

I love a new planner!  I love to get a new planner and write down everyone's birthdays and anniversaries and every appointment that is already set.  There is just something so exciting about a totally blank, new calendar.  

Right now I am using two -- one for home, where all family members can catch up on everything that is going on in our lives, and one that I use for my daily, take everywhere planner.

My at-home planner is the Home Office Edition by momAgenda.  It is 9"x11" and has both monthly and weekly formats for writing down all of your important info.  And, each weekly page has a slot for each child -- up to four children -- in your household.  I guess if you have more than four kids, you just need to hire an assistant to keep all of your family appointments straight!!

For my daily, take-everywhere planner, I am using the Erin Condren Life Planner.  It has everything you can think of in it -- monthly calendar pages, weekly calendar pages with slots on each day for morning/noon/night, notes pages, etc.  I am really liking this one!!

 I like that both of these planners are spiral bound so that my appointments on Wednesday and Thursday don't run into the crack of the page -- I have always hated that about regularly bound planners (and, yes, I have put a lot of thought into it).  I also like that they both give plenty of room for writing down appointments each day -- I don't like for everything to run together.  I have seriously gone through some planners in the past couple of years, and I really like these two!

If you haven't already gotten a new planner for this year, what are you waiting on?  Go out and try one of these!  And if you have, keep these two in mind for next year!

Ahhhhh!

We stayed at a Hilton this weekend, and all of the products in the bathroom were the Mega Rich line by Peter Thomas Roth.  I fell in love with all of them but especially the body wash:

It smells sort of grapefruity and has micro beads and all sorts of vitamins in it.  I think I will making this purchase ASAP!