Wonderful Wednesday

That's right, wonderful.  Why not?  We are 7 days away from Christmas Eve.  I think that qualifies as wonderful!

My day started early and pretty normal.  Cereal, toast and coffee for breakfast.  My son's schedule was pretty packed today for a change:  he had 5 assignments to do, but one he'd done yesterday and the other he'd started, so he was ahead of the game.  He also had 3 live lessons to attend, so I got him up early to get started - it was gonna be a busy day.  At 9:30 he logged on to his music history class.  The teacher never showed up.  I guess the class was cancelled, but search as we might we couldn't find any announcement from her.  I told E he needed to keep working even if the teacher wasn't there, so he worked on his music history lab:  questions regarding the music of the Renaissance.  At 10:00 am he logged in to his science class.  Another lab, but this one the class did together and she said he could use her notes and results for his portfolio.  He's gonna leave that assignment for tomorrow, since he has all of tomorrow's assignments caught up.  After that it was algebra.  This particular class was really important:  he hadn't done a collaboration for algebra, and if he didn't do this one he'd get a zero.  Not only did he do his collab, the teacher gave the class credit for 2 assignments with the one class/collaboration, so he's now done with algebra till after Christmas break.  Once that class was done he finished his music history lab and submitted it.  Two classes down.  He still has his PE assignment, and an English assignment for Friday, plus sending in the science lab.  Once that's done, he can relax.

Today's lunch was fried chicken tenders, stuffing with gravy, corn, and a salad with fresh greens from my garden.  This is a butter type lettuce but while it has some sweetness to it, it also has some bitterness, kind of like endive.  It's very crunchy too.  I'm really enjoying it.  There was a little housework to be done while my son took his live lessons:  sweeping up an enormous amount of dog hair (well, it felt enormous, anyway), cleaning the hallway bathroom, and getting a load of laundry in the wash.  Other than that there wasn't a whole lot to do.

Today was our church's end of year mid-week services.  I serve as an Awana leader, and my son attends youth group.  Both had their parties for today:  Awana had a Happy Birthday Jesus party, and the youth had their Christmas Fiesta.  I showered early and did my hair; it's been about 6 weeks since I got my last haircut and already it's getting harder to style because it's grown so much.  My hair grows like a weed.  I hear women complain about how slowly their hair grows.  Mine is the exact opposite.  Maybe it's all the vitamins I take or something, because my hair has no growth issues.  I've been using a sample of Matrix Oil Wonders Egyptian Hibiscus Color Caring Oil (say that three times fast) that I received with one of my Ulta orders.  It can be used before shampooing, before conditioning, or as an after conditioning treatment.  It's supposed to make color treated hair more vibrant.  I will admit my hair color does look brighter, but I don't know if that's because our humidity has gone down and my hair doesn't get frizzy like in the summer or during the rainy season.  So far my hair feels nice.  I would have to try it during the time when my hair looks its worse to see if there's really a change.

I kept my makeup look simple today, but I did try the new blush I got from Bare Minerals.  It is so pretty!  It's a light pink shade, not overly pink, very natural looking.  My daughter has been using hers too, and she likes it as well.  She's been having a rough time with excessively dry skin, though.  I don't know if it's because she was taking medicine for her rosacea, or if maybe it's the dryness in the air, but her skin gets downright flaky.  She's been trying different moisturizers but none seems to stop the dryness for very long.  She got some intense hydrating cream by Burt's Bees last night, and it seemed to be working - her skin felt smoother this morning.  When she got home from work I thought she looked much better, till she got up close to me and I could see the skin flaking under her makeup.  She's getting frustrated; whenever her skin starts to clear up from acne the rosacea flares up, and when the rosacea calms down her skin gets drier than the desert.  The cleansing products she's using work great.  It's the moisturizers that aren't doing the job.  We are on the search for a potent moisturizing cream.

Back to Awana:  our evening started out fun.  The party room, which is the school cafeteria, was decked out with balloons for Jesus' birthday.  After the pledge of allegiance and prayer, we broke off into separate rooms by groups for counsel time.  This is the time when the kids listen to a teaching.  One of the kids, who has Asperger's Syndrome, was acting up, so we took the rest of the kids while several of the leaders stayed behind.  It was a good thing we left - he became violent towards the leaders and one of the pastors and had to be held down by 3 men so he wouldn't attack one of the female leaders.  It put a damper on the festivities for the adults, but thankfully we were able to shield the children and they had a fantastic time.  We loaded them up with sugar before sending them home ;-).  I ate a bit too much as well; I'll suffer for this in the morning, I'm sure, but hey, Christmas only comes once a year, right?  Actually, the teaching was about was how Christmas isn't about shopping or Black Friday or gifts or food, it's about God so loved the world (John 3:16).  So really, Christmas is everyday, because everyday we are loved by our Heavenly Father.  That is a comforting truth.

We have no Awana now for the next two week.  I'm gonna miss my girls, but I'm also gonna enjoy my wonderful kids and vacation time.  Looking forward to that!  Good night folks.