The White Stuff and A Stocking Surprise

Bing Crosby might have liked it, but a white Christmas is a big pain in the...well actually...it's a pain in everything! This morning I woke up and could barely move. I thought to myself, hmm it feels like I have been exercising, of which I really don't do very often. Then it hit me, duh, I shoveled a snow packed driveway! Every muscle in my body hurts and the worst part...I didn't completely finish the job, I was saving that for today! Ugh. I have lived in this house for almost nine years and have NEVER had to shovel my driveway. I have prided myself on my snow shoveling technique....just drive over the snow on the driveway until the snow is flat. And, I have never had any problems. I secretly laughed at those shoveling fools and thought why don't you just do what I do...drive right on over it. Even the stuff the road crews pack up to the edge of the driveway - not a problem for me and my car - we just drove right on over. Well not this year! The 2009 Christmas blizzard was quite a sight to see and there would be no driving right on over the piles of snow in my driveway. Plus, the road crews did quite a job piling a hedge of protection from any hope of getting out of the driveway! I got stuck twice in my driveway...or the road....hard to see where one begins and the other ends. I'm not sure I'll be singing the words of that white Christmas song ever again. Sorry, Bing, but I've had my fill! For more on this snowy Christmas story read here.

In addition to the white stuff that fell on Christmas eve, there were a few more surprises. Hannah awoke early on Christmas morning, as most kids do, and being the loving parent I am, I told her to go back to bed until 7:00! I finally relented at 6:30 and we headed down stairs to see what Santa had brought. She was delighted and surprised to find that Santa had brought her something she never thought she would get. It is hard to surprise Hannah. She has this weird talent that she can hold a wrapped present shaped liked all the other presents and tell you exactly what is in the box! It is weird. We have resorted to wrapping her gifts in multiple boxes to throw her off. But Santa gifts come unwrapped and she certainly knew, or at least she thought she knew exactly what Santa was bringing her. But he surprised her with a Wii! Never ever did she think she would get a wii. Hannah has wanted a wii for as long as they have been around, but I just couldn't justify spending the money on it. Until this year!

After she had opened her gifts from me, I went to feed the cat. As I headed back into the living room, she proudly popped up with my stocking. We have two stockings that hang on our fireplace mantle, one for her and one for me. Of course Santa only fills her stocking. But not this year! Hannah almost knocked me over as she handed me my stocking and said "look mom, Santa filled your stocking this year!" "Oh how exciting," I exclaimed as I apprehensively looked inside. I figured she had scoured the house looking for some things to fill my stocking, but no, it was filled with great little gifts, just for me! A new pair of gloves, a warm fuzzy pair of socks, perfume, and more! Wow, I was stunned! I have to admit that I enjoyed reaching my hand down into the stocking with the anticipation of what I would find! Turns out I have the best, most thoughtful sister-in-law in the world! She purchased these thoughtful little surprises and asked Hannah to hide them and then fill my stocking when I wasn't looking. Hannah played it out perfectly.

As I think back over the past few days, I am in awe of my many blessings. I am in awe that the God of the universe, the creator of all things, is mindful of me. I am in awe that He loved me enough to create me, but even more to save me. The greatest Christmas gift of all is God's gift of eternal life through His son Jesus. 2009 has been a Christmas to remember.

2009 Christmas Letter

For those of you not on my Christmas card list, here is a post of this year's Christmas letter!

I was beginning to wonder if this letter was going to get written this year! Life has just been so busy lately. I love this time of year, but it seems even busier than usual. I started out with such high hopes for the Christmas season – our tree was up and the house was decorated before Thanksgiving (thanks to a little, I mean a lot, of help from my mom). But unfortunately that is where the story ends. To Hannah’s dismay, our house sits dark in a neighborhood lighted for the season. I have not had the time to dig out our outside decorations. Yes, we are probably known across the neighborhood as the house without lights! The outside may look gloomy, but inside all the halls are decked with holly…um…well, really with fake greenery from Hobby Lobby, but who can tell the difference!

I can’t believe 2009 is coming to a close. The most notable news of the year is that Hannah is now officially in middle school. We are in the throes of what I affectionately call middle school madness - complete with girl drama, boy craziness and a side of pre-teen attitude. Mix in the hormones of adolescence and all I can say is MERCY! If this is a pre-curser to the teen years I am doomed! I am, however re-learning all my communications skills. Hannah now has her own cell phone and I have discovered a whole new language the young-ins use today: IDK, CUL8R, G2G…any guesses? I think

we may be raising a generation that won’t be able to spell or maybe they’ll rewrite the dictionary and lol will be an actual word! I never thought I would utter these words, but oh my how the world has changed since I was a kid!

I’ve been doing a lot of business travel lately. Most of the travel is north of here, which is great in the summer, but not so great in the winter. I have always feared getting stuck somewhere because of bad weather and last week that fear was realized. A group of co-workers and I found ourselves snowed in…in Des Moines! 15 inches of snow kept us hotel bound for an extra day. I have never seen snow quite like that before. It basically shut down the whole town, even Burger King was closed! Luckily we found a Super Target open so we could get some necessities and food. Believe it or not some of us went to Iowa in December without gloves! I think the 6 of us collectively made Target’s sales goal for the day. While we were there we decided to make the best of the situation and we bought white elephant Christmas presents. I should probably mention that we got our rented minivan stuck in the Target parking lot and nice strangers helped dig us out. That night in the hotel we exchanged our gifts while we dined on Papa John’s pizza – the only place brave enough to deliver! Ah, making memories with my co-workers!

In April I became a published writer! My first published article entitled, The Monster in the Crowd, appeared in a local Christian news magazine. I was so excited to see my name in print! But with the victory came defeat. Riding on the adrenaline of getting published, I sent off another article to one of my favorite Christian Women’s magazines. The thrill of being published came to a screeching halt with the sting of rejection. I’ll try again. I just have to believe that God is going to use the whole single parent to the strong willed child thing to His glory! I’ll keep you posted on the writing front! I’m still writing a blog, although I haven’t had a chance to write in it much lately. I hope to get back to it soon and write more often. Feel free to drop by sometime: (http://sweetmothermolasses.blogspot.com).

We are so grateful to God for His many blessings. We look forward to what He has in store for us in the coming year. BFN! (For those of you not fluent in text, let me translate – Bye For Now!)

Merry Christmas

Krista and Hannah Grier

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to

harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Best Laid Plans

A couple of weeks ago my best friend from high school came in town. We had been orchestrating this "girls weekend" for months and I had every minute planned perfectly. The timing for our get-together was centered around a high school reunion on the last night of our weekend. Every "i" had been dotted and every "t" was crossed. This was going to be the best "girls weekend" ever!

My friend was actually staying at my house. Usually when she comes in town she stays with her dad, but this time we were taking advantage of every minute as a girlfriend's retreat. Things started off perfectly. I met her and her dad for breakfast on Thursday, the first day of our 4-day weekend, and then she and I went shopping while my daughter was in school. The day was absolutely beautiful. We couldn't have created better weather. We shopped like only two girls that haven't seen each other for long time can, hitting every store and some stores more than once! We bought outfits, shoes, accessories and even had a wonderful Italian salad while sitting on the patio of a great little cafe style restaurant. Yes, this was a beautiful start to what was sure to be a nothing-less-than-perfect weekend.

Until, that is, the first sign of a mishap. As we finished shopping we were heading back to my house when my daughter called and asked me to pick up some cough drops for a little bit of a sore throat. Hmm. I should have probably thought more of the fact that my 11 year old daughter was asking for medicine, but I didn't. The plan was to take Hannah to her dance class that night and my mom would pick her up. Hannah was going to stay with my parents for the first night as my friend and I enjoyed a night out with some old friends. Not long after we dropped Hannah off at dance, she texted me saying she really wasn't feeling well. Hmm. Again, probably should have taken that a little more seriously. My mom picked her up early and our evening went as planned. We had a great time connecting with our first batch of old friends, but oh how much more we had in store for the days and nights to come.

At 6:30 Friday morning my mom called to tell me Hannah was definitely sick. I rushed to my parent's house and took Hannah to the morning walk-in clinic at her doctor's office. I had a bad feeling about this, and my mother's intuition turned out to be right. She had the flu! The doctor explained that she tested positive for influenza A, but most likely she had the H1N1 strain. They are only testing for H1N1 in the hospital so she could not tell me definitively which strain she had. There has been so much news about this particular strain of flu that even my daughter has heard some of the horrors. As we got on the elevator to leave the doctor's office, Hannah looked up at me and asked me if she was going to die. Wow, my heart ruptured into pieces! I explained that there was no reason to believe she wouldn't recover from this yucky bug, and most likely she would be feeling like her old self in a few days. The doctor was not alarmed and didn't even prescribe anything but fluids and ibuprofen. The flu can certainly be dangerous, but with her strong immune system she would recover just fine.

Plans interrupted in a major way! I had made arrangements for Hannah to stay with different people each night of my girls excursion and now she had the flu, the very contagious kind of flu! I felt so horribly torn. My baby was so sick and yet my friend, who only comes in town every few years, was expecting a weekend filled with friends and fun. After arriving home from the doctor's office, I tucked Hannah into my bed, as my friend was staying in her room, and got her as comfortable as possible. My friend and I talked about what we were going to do. My parent's had already been exposed to Hannah so they would be the obvious choice to care for her if I continued the original game plan with my friend, but they had a reunion of their own to attend. This was the weekend of my mom's 50th high school reunion, in fact I knew several people with high school reunions happening at this same time. Must have been nostalgia in the air or something!

Who do you call to watch a sick pre-teen? It's kind of hard to find a babysitter when you have to start the sentence with "my daughter has the flu but," not too many takers on that one! I tried to find "rent-a-nurse," but no such organization seems to exist for what I was needing. I called a friend who was a nurse and asked her if she knew anyone, who had already received the flu shot that would be interested in making a little extra money. Um, no. Wow, things were looking bleak!

We had a get-together with some high school girlfriends set for late Friday afternoon and then planned to meet up with more friends later in the evening. We canceled the first part as we still didn't have an answer to the babysitter problem. We both had been excited to see these friends as they weren't coming to the reunion on the following night, but oh well, plans had to be altered. Finally my mom came to the rescue. My dad, who could take or leave my mom's 50th high school reunion, would stay back and watch Hannah. This way my mom and I could both enjoy our festivities. THANK YOU DAD!

Although the first part of our Friday night plans had been canceled, the second part went off without a hitch. That is, until we were home and everyone was blissfully enjoying dreamland. At about 3:15 in the morning we were all awakened to the smoke alarm going off! Good grief!! What else could possibly go wrong!! There was no fire, must have been dust or something that triggered it. Can, I just say one more time GOOD GRIEF!! My friend stays with me for a once in a lifetime weekend and I expose her to the flu, disrupt months of planning and startle her from her sleep with an ear-splitting smoke alarm! I'm sure she will never stay with me again!

The final day of our weekend actually went well. Hannah was already starting to feel a little better. We stayed in most of the day doing fun girly things. We cut and colored my hair, tried on clothes and prepared for a fun night of seeing high school classmates. We made a quick trip to the mall to return some shoes and it was there my throat started hurting. Have mercy, I just couldn't be getting sick! After a quick nap, believe it or not, I was raring to go...no sickness here! Thanks to my babysitter hero, my dad, we were off for our last night of fun. We had a great dinner with my friend's dad and then headed to the reunion. The next morning she headed back home and thank God never has gotten the flu! The best laid plans proved to be worthless, but all-in-all it is a weekend neither of us will ever forget! I have the pictures to prove it!

Shaved Legs and Grown Up Stores

The last couple of months have included some major rites of passage for Hannah. And, I'm not all that thrilled with them! Hannah has been bugging me for over a year to start shaving her legs. I have resisted for a couple of reasons. First, she is my little girl! And second, shaving your legs isn't all that fun after the first few times and then you're stuck with shaving for the rest of your life. Unless of course you get some fancy schmancy laser hair removal, but let's not even go there!

So I finally relented. This year is her first year in middle school and let me tell you that middle school is one very big deal! About a week before school started Hannah and I went to the grocery store specifically to get her a razor and shaving cream. She picked out an orange Venus razor and mango shaving cream. Yes, I said mango! She was so excited about this, you would have thought she'd just won the lottery or something. As soon as we were home from the store she was bugging me to show her how to shave. We both sat on the edge of the bathtub and lathered our legs with mango shaving cream. The whole bathroom smelled like mangos! I wasn't sure a razor would actually get through all the cream on her legs, but I was kind of okay with that! I went first, showing her how to hold the razor while explaining how much pressure you should apply. I warned her about the possibility of nicks and cuts, but to my surprise she finished without one single scrape. She was so proud of her newly shaved legs. She must have asked me to feel how soft they were at least 10 times!

Of course no girl should start middle school without some new clothes, so we went shopping. Once at the mall, I headed off in the direction of our favorite girl's store just to discover that she doesn't like shopping at "kids" stores anymore. Nope. She wanted to go to grown up places like Aeropostale, American Eagle and Hollister. As we walked into Hollister, Hannah looked up at me and shouted "IT'S TOO LOUD" in here mom! Oh thank heavens, I wasn't the only one that thought that store was too loud! So, Hollister may still be just a little too grown up for her, but the other places were just right. We found her some cute clothes and even a tote for school, but I have to admit I'm just not ready to move up to the grown up stores. I want to keep my little girl little for as long as possible. Shaved legs and grown up stores...good heavens, I'm the mother of a middle-schooler!

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog address. I hope you like my new layout! I am changing things up a bit, so check out my new "about me" section and take a look around. If you're wondering about my new title it was coined by my daughter. You can read all about it in this post. I think the term "Sweet Mother Molasses" sums up my single mom life...sometimes sweet and sometimes sticky! My desire is that this blog will be something my daughter will enjoy reading when she is a little older. Right now she is not all that crazy about the fact I blog about her! I also hope it will be an encouragement to others and most of all I hope it will honor my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Cha Cha Cha Changes!

As you can see by my new layout, I am making some changes to my blog! I hope to start posting much more frequently and will soon update my "about me" section to better explain my new name of Sweet Mother Molasses! I will also be changing my url in the next day or so...please take the new url and mark as one of your favs!

It's God Speaking

Sometimes you just know it is a God thing! Without a doubt you know God is speaking to you, directing you and orchestrating people, places and events just to talk to you! This happened to me recently, but to be completely honest I wasn’t really all that crazy about what God was saying!

My daughter and I are members of a large Southern Baptist church that is in major growth mode. Both of us have been feeling a little lost in the big sea of people. I have struggled over the years to find a Sunday School class that is a good fit. You would think with over 26 Adult Sunday School offerings at least one class would fit like a glove. But much like in the OJ Simpson trial, the glove just doesn’t seem to fit! I am usually the token single person in a class of couples. Hannah has also felt disconnected. She doesn’t have any good friends at church. I know how important it is for her to have Christian friends, especially during the turbulent teenage years. I even considered that maybe God was leading us to a different church. But I love my pastor and his wife and I don’t believe in church hopping! One Sunday the pastor gave a sermon about finding contentment in being exactly where God has you right now and I thought " well okay God, you must want me to stay." But how can I get connected? How can God use me here?

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday, I had a dentist appointment. I should mention my dentist is also my pastor’s wife. As soon as I sat down in the chair, she announced she had a ministry idea for me. She said she knew the perfect place for me to serve in the church. I was intrigued. “You should be a greeter,” she said. My heart sank a little….I don’t really want to be a greeter. But I politely thanked her for thinking of me and told her I would consider it. She went on about how my personality is perfect for this ministry and helping out behind the welcome desk would be ideal. Hmmm. “I don’t think so,” I thought to myself.

The next day during Sunday School (yes, I am the only single person in the class) we had a guest teacher. His lesson was about the gifts of the Spirit and how each of us is gifted to serve. He finished his lesson with a plug for the ministry area he currently serves in….the greeters ministry! Good grief! I have never heard anything about this ministry until now. I clearly knew it existed but beyond that nothing! Now in the course of two days I was confronted about being a part of it. Again, I don’t really want to be a greeter. I am a WRITER. I have such high hopes for how God can use my writing to both encourage and evangelize. I don’t want to be a greeter! But it did seem God was directing me directly to the welcome desk

After Sunday School I found the pastor’s wife and told her what had been mentioned in class. She nodded with that I-told-you-so look and gave me a smile. I told her I would email the person in charge to find out more about it. Monday came and went. I didn’t really have time to email about it. And then Tuesday came and went. I thought about it and figured I would eventually email about it, but maybe not. I'm not sure I want to be a greeter. And then came Wednesday. Wednesday evening I received a phone call from the person in charge of the greeters ministry. He started the conversation with saying he had heard I was interested in helping out with this ministry. Huh? I hadn’t sent an email yet. I hadn’t called anyone? Well okay God, I guess you want me to be a greeter! I should probably listen and say yes. We all know what happened to Jonah when he said no to God! I am all for avoiding the whole swallowed by a whale thing!

God may still use my writing someday. But today, He needs me behind the welcome desk greeting visitors and others looking for their place at church. Things have gotten better for Hannah as well. She has made a few friends and had a blast at church camp a couple of weeks ago! It is an amazing thing when you KNOW without a doubt, it's God speaking!