My Advent

Both work and my personal life have been crazy busy this week. Every night I planned to accomplish a bunch of items that I didn't manage to get to each night. Add on top of this, Diamante's younger sister and one of her friends came into town yesterday. Last night I found myself in a state of panic because one of my Christmas present ideas failed, I had no back-ups, and I wasn't spending time with Diamante's friend and sister because I was frantically trying to get last-minute things done before I leave Saturday. I felt like a horrible sister and host and pretty much just wanted to cry (I don't think the sleep deprivation of the week helped either).

As I was lying in bed that night, all of a sudden it struck me how ridiculous the whole situation was. It's Christmas time for heaven's sake! It's not even supposed to be about the gifts, but about celebrating that Jesus came to give his life for us so that we don't have to be perfect in ourselves and our relationships. So that I can have this loving relationship with my heavenly Daddy. When did I get so lost in the noise and the shopping and the running around without stopping to breathe? Jesus, even in this Advent season, I am reminded of how much I need your grace and new vision.

How can it already be December?

Sorry I haven't updated in a long time (thanks for the note, Steve :P). Now that I'm working fulltime, I've been finding it a little overwhelming to work, do Servant Partners, work with Northwest Neighbors, and cook, clean, sleep and all of those other necessarily life activities. I'm still figuring out how to fit everything into my day, and I can scarcely believe that it's already almost Christmas.
Work is going really well. I love my boss and the coworkers in my department, and it's a great work environment. I also carpool with my boss to work some of the time, and take the bus the rest of the time, so transportation isn't difficult. Even though I don't like folding and stuffing hundreds of letters, or making tons of photocopies, I'm enjoying learning how to use Raiser's Edge, a donor database program.
Last Friday night, I had a sleepover with the junior high girls from the Bible study I've been doing with the two other leaders. It was CRAZY, but lots of fun. :) Seven girls and three leaders, so not a bad ratio. There was lots of sugar consumption, games, hiphop and Latin dancing (the girls tried to teach me to dance merengue and I failed utterly!), sugar cookie baking, and movie watching. And of course, in the morning the girls woke us up by spraying whipped cream on us! ewww.
After pancakes and coffee (for the grownups), the Pasadena Servant Partners guys picked me up and we drove down to south L.A. for our "end of quarter" SP get-together with the second year interns and the internship staff. After eating lunch together, the second years displayed and explained the artwork that they had each made about their quarter, and the first years gave skits in teams about our experience in SP this quarter. I have to say, our Pasadena team had a wonderfully hilarious skit! :) There were some other things that took place too, including an excellent piece of spoken word, and all in all it was a good time, though I was pretty sleepy by the end.

A few firsts recently...
Accumulating eight paper cuts in two days of letter stuffing (sometimes I think this job will give me scars!)
Sitting in front of Tim Allen at one of the churches we visited and shaking his hand during the greeting time (I confess I did not know who this was when my roommate freaked out, and she had to whisper it to me)
Being the grown-up person who goes to bed "early" at a sleepover (aka 1 am)
Making a Christmas tree with my roommate by taping a bright gold streamer in the shape of a tree to a red cloth, and hanging it on our wall. :P
Decorating a homemade wreath together and putting it on our door (it looks much better than the Christmas tree!)