So This is January...

I don't know about you, but so far 2010 has proven to be c.o.l.d. And apparently, I have difficulty blogging and typing and generally forming thoughts coherent enough to blog about when it's 16 degrees in HOUSTON. Houston, we have a problem. And it's called January.

So what have we been up to besides running the heater and wearing all sorts of layered shirts and warmy shoes?

--Aidan informed me the other day that "When Harper grows up she is going to be a boy." This led to another unfortunate conversation about how girls are always girls, and boys are always boys (minus the occasional confused celebrity).

--Aidan also said a prayer in his preschool class at church. Included in his prayer, was "And God please help Harper to grow up to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 and 11 and 13 and 17 and 20."

--Brandon came home with a bowling ball (in it's own bowl) at a white elephant gift exchange that we went to last weekend. Um ,the last thing that we need in our house with our children (and their father) is a 16 pound bowling ball. I can just see it crashing through the stairs at some point. I tried to hide it from Brandon and leave it at the hostess's house last weekend, but he found it and got it in the car. Then I took it from our car, and snuck it in our worship minister's office while no one was in there.

The next day, he found it and just assumed it belonged to Brandon (where else could a random bowling ball have come from?), and returned it to him. I was putting groceries in the car a day later and found that the bowling ball had found it's way back into the trunk. So I promptly drove to another friend's house (another co-worker of Brandon's), and left it on their front porch. Again, the bowling ball appears in our car a couple of days later. Hopefully last night I got rid of the ball for good. I hosted 14 of my nearest and dearest girlfriends at my house for a night of Pokeno, and the 6th place winner went home with her very own 16 pound bowling ball (complete with bowl). Congrats, Kim! Enjoy it with gusto!

--I didn't make any New Year's Resolutions this year, but I did start something a little different. I have been needing to be more disciplined with my Bible study time, and I heard about a Read the Bible in 90 Days reading program. There's a book, and it just basically is an NIV Bible that is broken into 90 sections, and you read 12 pages a day. Starting in Genesis, finishing in Revelation. 12 pages a day, straight through, for 3 months. I'm a couple of days behind (I started on the 5th, and I meant to start on the 1st), so I'm still playing catch-up, but so far, I really like it. I figure if I can plow through Leviticus and Numbers this week on schedule (yikes--gotta be honest, not looking forward to that), then it should get better from there.

The program is not for everyone, there's no study questions, journaling, and obviously it's not an in-depth study of each verse and the context, etc. It's just plowing through the entire Bible from start to finish, but I think I'll like finishing the whole thing in 3 months. Hopefully since I've posted this on my blog, that it will provide a smidgin of accountability. I figured there's no point in making New Year's Resolutions regarding other aspects of my life if I wasn't spending the time with God that I needed to be spending.

--I haven't been working as much as I was hoping to be working right now to save up for our adoption. Shifts have been very hard to come by, since the hospitals I work with are cutting back on extra staff to save on budgets. I'm trying to not freak out about it, but it would be really nice if I could work more hours. A lot more hours.

--The boys are trucking along with school (um, Dane is learning fractions in his kindergarten math class. Yikes.) and Harper girl is as sweet as ever. Brandon went back to work this past week, and I have been working on our adoption paperwork as usual. We received our documents "certified" by the Secretary of State of Texas on Friday, and tomorrow I will mail out the rest of the certified documents to the Chinese Consulate in Houston for "authentication". Then our dossier will be (drumroll, please)...COMPLETE and I can mail it in to our agency to be sent to China. Then the ball's in their court, so to speak, and the uncertain waiting game really begins.

So, what have you been up to?