2009 November — Giving Up on Perfect

Four Days

11:02 am ByMary @ Giving Up on PerfectFiled UnderUncategorized

Four days to spend with family.
Four days that Mark didn’t have to go to work.
Four days that I didn’t have to go to work.
Four days to play with my baby.
Four days to eat ridiculous amounts of delicious food.
Four days to make lists, scan flyers, map out stores and hit sales.
Four days to spend half our Christmas budget.
Four days to get coughed and sneezed on.
Four days to catch a cold. (Annalyn, not me.)
Four days to fill up my purse with post-its, receipts, tissues and wrappers.
Four days to clean the house and mess it up again.
Four days to read one book and watch three movies.
Four days to laugh and cry and love and fight and plan and remember.
Four days to celebrate Thanksgiving.

How was your Thanksgiving weekend?

P.S. If you missed it yesterday, I was at (in)courage, talking about my list of hard questions. And in case you’re not quite ready to return to the real world just yet, don’t miss my favorite (fictional) Thanksgiving scenes.

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My questions . . . and His answers

2:16 pm ByMary @ Giving Up on PerfectFiled UnderUncategorized

Photo by eleaf

I have a list. (Surprising, no?) A list of questions that I plan to ask God as soon as I get to heaven. It’s not a real long list, but it has some of the most important questions in my heart:

* Why did my friend Carrie have to die in that car accident?
* Why did my mother-in-law have to die before she was even 50?
* Why did God send me to grad school? (Why didn’t I love grad school?)
* Why didn’t our church plant work?
* Why did I lose my job while I was pregnant?
* Why are Annalyn and I okay and healthy (despite a delivery at 33 weeks)?

These are the hard questions of life. Or at least of my life.

To read more, please visit me at (in)courage today.

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The One with the Thanksgiving Episodes

11:02 am ByMary @ Giving Up on PerfectFiled UnderUncategorized

Chandler: All right I’d like to propose a toast, a little toast here. Ding, ding! I know this isn’t exactly the kind of Thanksgiving that all of you planned, but for me, this has been really great. You know, I think because it didn’t involve divorce or projectile vomiting. Anyway I was just thinking, I mean, if you had gone to Vail or if you guys had been with your family or if you didn’t have syphilis and stuff … we wouldn’t be all together you know, so I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m very thankful that all your Thanksgivings sucked.

Everyone Else: That’s so sweet!

Ross: And hey, here’s to a lousy Christmas!

Rachel: And a crappy new year.

Chandler: Here, Here!

Friends aired a very special Thanksgiving episode every year in its 10-year run. You can actually watch them all on the WB’s site. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why the WB still has a site. But they do. And they’re showing the full episodes until November 30.

But fun Thanksgiving scenes and episodes don’t stop with our six favorite friends. Here are some of my favorites. I hope you’ll share yours, too!

How I Met Your Mother: Slap Bet – Three years ago, Barney lost a slap bet to Marshall over Robin’s big secret. Hilarious and the start of a running gag that’s lasted all the way to this Monday’s episode, Slapsgiving.
Ed: Something Old, Something New – In the first season of one of my all-time favorite shows evah, Ed deals with his first Thanksgiving after divorce. Mike bets him ($10, of course) that he can’t get the grocery store manager to tell him where the lettuce is in under a minute. The catch? He must pronounce it “let-oose.” I don’t know why, but this particular $10 bet cracks me up every time. Just like it cracks me up every time Mark and I use this alternate pronunciation. Which might be more often than you’d think.
Gilmore Girls: A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving – You know I love my Gilmores. In season three, they tried to eat four Thanksgiving dinners in one day, and I fell in love all over again. And that was even before Jess kissed Rory!
Will & Grace: Moveable Feast – This season four double episode has me laughing every time I watch it. Instead of going their separate ways for the holiday, Will, Grace, Karen and Jack take a road trip, trying to fit in visits to each of their dysfunctional families. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video clip, so here are a couple other clips instead.
Home for the Holidays – I was introduced to this movie in college, and I have loved it ever since. There’s just something special about a family that’s so messed up, isn’t there? This scene isn’t for the faint of heart, so proceed with caution. But it’s darned funny if you don’t mind some holiday freaking out!

What are your favorite Thanksgiving movies or TV episodes? Or songs! Let’s not forget “Turkey for you and turkey for me . . .”!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

11:02 am ByMary @ Giving Up on PerfectFiled UnderUncategorized

Praise the LORD.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
(Psalm 106:1)

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The library brings sunny days and sweeps the clouds away

11:02 am ByMary @ Giving Up on PerfectFiled UnderUncategorized

Can I just tell you that I am unable to count to 12 – in English or French, not that the francais comes up often, except maybe it does – without doing it Sesame Street style? Anyone else?

I know, I know. Sesame Street had its big birthday party two weeks ago. Google and the rest of the world shouted their congratulations and wished the kids show well, and it’s all over and done with.

Right?

Except . . . I want to talk about it today.

Being late to the party is fitting, though, because our family has just recently gotten hooked on the friendly neighborhood. Of course, Mark and I are long-time fans, first-time callers of all kinds of Muppets. (Although, to be fair, more me than Mark.) But Annalyn is a newcomer to the Street of Sesame.

More specifically, it’s only been in the past couple of months that we have seen the start of a beautiful relationship between Annalyn and – I’m sure you can guess – Elmo. Sometimes we even pray for Elmo before bed. That’s how much “we” love him.

Actually, I don’t hate Elmo ~~yet~~. He might have that crazy voice and ridiculous grammar, but that happy-go-lucky guy makes my daughter so happy that I just can’t complain.

The reason she’s just recently discovered Sesame Street is that for most of her life, she took a morning nap. And it coincided, unfortunately, with the daily airing of the show on PBS.

[That didn’t stop me from saying, every time I saw that our friends Amy and Jeremy did this for their kids, “I should record episodes so Annalyn can watch them any time she wants!” Not that I did it. But I totally thought about it.]

Since live TV isn’t working out for us and I couldn’t get it together enough to set the VCR, I finally had a better idea. We get our Elmo and Sesame Street fix from the library.

So far, the biggest hits have been Elmo’s Christmas Countdown (with a Ben Stiller Muppet – brilliant!) and Elmo & the Bookaneers with Tina Fey as a pirate. And yesterday we picked up Sesame Street: Being Green with Paul Rudd, also ~~forever~~ known as Josh from Clueless. Next on the reserve list: straight-up Muppets.

To sum it all up: Sesame Street has just celebrated their 40th anniversary, we love Elmo at our house, and checking out Elmo videos from the library works for me.

Do you watch Sesame Street at your house? What’s your favorite Sesame Street memory or story?

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