ARK.

timmy and i had a good visit in arkansas.  it was so nice to see everyone and not be rushing around to "fit everything in."  we had lots of down time, watched lots of movies, ate so much food, and had lots of time to think and read and rest.  it was nice.  we were even able to use one day to visit joplin.  it was nice to have a week or so with people who we weren't constantly introducing ourselves to.  very relaxing.

i started reading twilight.  we got target giftcards for Christmas, so i used mine to buy the first book in the series.  i really like it.  i haven't been struck by the madness yet, like some people who've stayed up all night to finish it.  but i really have enjoyed reading it.

i've been mulling over the idea of going to cosmetology school.  i've thought about it back and forth since high school.  but now i kind of have the time and the drive to do it, maybe not the mean$, but fafsa has been good to us in the past...  and it makes sense to me to try it.  we'll see.  im just thinking about it still.

for Christmas, my grandma asked for a Bible she could understand.  it was so precious.  what had happened was that 3 friends she had made in high school came to visit her.  they are all 70 now.  and while they were catching up, one of them started talking about a verse from thessalonians and asked my mimi to go get her Bible so they could look it up.  she brought back the book of common prayer, which doesn't have books of the Bible in it, so it wasn't really useful for what the friend wanted to show her, so she had them write the verse down so she could look it up later when she found her bible.  after they left, she found her Bible- a gift that her aunt had given her when she was 9 years old.  she called her daughter (my aunt) jo ann and asked her for help finding the book and verse and jo asked her to read it on the phone.  mimi read it to her and jo asked if she understood it, mimi said, "kind of..." and jo said, "i had a hard time getting that..."  it was king james version, so my grandma asked for a Bible she could understand for Christmas.  how sweet is that?  

timmy and i got to have so many good talks with each other!  we got to talk with a lot of our family we don't see very often.  we got to eat so much amazing food!  we got to pray together and pray with family and pray for family!  it was great hanging out with my brother and getting to know his girlfriend, grace, more.  it was so great hanging out with the cousins and talking until 2.30 in the morning.  we got to skype timmy's sister phebe, and mom and dad, who (along with the rest of the stoners and maddacks) we missed soooo much this Christmas!  and we left with enough "stuff" to last us til next Christmas and beyond.  

i've enjoyed my morning today.  i read twilight for a while, talked to timmy on the phone (about work related things and youth events) and now im going to finish getting ready so we can go eat lunch somewhere, since we haven't re-stocked groceries yet.  

i'm glad to be in keokuk for a while now.  not sure when our next "break" will be, but it will be nice to have our families visit us here.  and it will be really nice to get back into some kind of "routine" with students and friends here.

love