Vacation, vacation

When I found out that my work was going to force me to take vacation days at Christmas, I was upset. I only get fifteen vacation days a year and I need five of them for camp. I'm also using at least two this year for Summit. Combine that with the fact that I want to build up enough vacation days to take a trip to Europe someday in the near future, it doesn't leave a lot of extra days.

This year however, the fact that I had to take vacations days turned out to be a huge blessing. I probably wouldn't have taken the trip to Colorado if I hadn't been forced to take those days off. I knew I needed a break, but I had no idea how much I really needed it. Not only am I more rested (although my sleep schedule is whacked) but I feel a lot more positive in general.

I had a great time in Colorado. And I have a wonderful family. And crazy cousins. =)

I Celebrate The Day

This is without a doubt my favorite Christmas song ever. If you've never heard it before, I highly encourage you to go listen to it.

I Celebrate The Day - Relient K
And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You've touched my life
Because here is where You're finding me, in the exact same place as New Year's eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever

And so this Christmas I'll compare the things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That you were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life

Cousins, cousins

Christmases the last two years have been pretty "blah" for me. As you get older Christmas starts to lose a lot of it's luster and until you have kids I think it has a tendency to stay in the "blah" zone.

But at least Christmas means that I get to see my cousins. And although I won't get to see all of them this year, I will get to see most of them. And for the first Christmas ever (since I was 3 or so anyway) I'll get to see my cousin's from my mom's side of the family over the holidays.

Here's to hoping that 2010 makes for a much better Christmas than 2009! At least this Christmas will be spent with family. =)

Spending Time - Part 2

About a month ago I wrote a long post about convictions I've had this year about how I spend my time and about my attitude towards the things that are a constant part of my life.

Tonight while I was driving home I had a familiar realization come to me. That realization was that I've drawn closer to God going through this stressful year than I have during less stressful times of my life. and what it all boils down to is that I'm content to live on cruise control (set at MY speed) and as long as life is going well I just continue on. It's not  until I hit a bump in the road (stress, strained relationships, etc) that I come running back to Him. And once I weather that storm by leaning on Him I then slowly start going back to relying on myself instead of Him. It's a cycle that I can look back on my 23 years on this planet and see it over and over again.

I don't doubt that I'm going to fail yet again. But maybe, just maybe, I can learn to start leaning on God during the good times too. And maybe, just maybe, I'll stop relying on my own abilities to run my life and give it over to the Holy Spirit's leading.

It's pretty quaint that this is happening at the end of the year. I could say something dumb like "this is my 2011 new year's resolution". But this isn't my 2010 new year's resolution. This is the rest of my life.