Weekend Update

I'll get back to the rest of the trip soon, I promise (I need to, or I'm afraid I'll forget what I did! :)).

I have a confession to make...I haven't decorated for Christmas yet! I'm going to blame it on traveling, and then jet-lag. Is that okay? I intend to go get a tree and get to work tonight since I'm hosting a brunch on Saturday morning and would like to have the house looking a little more "festive" by then. I had every intention of decorating Friday night, but I got home from work and really didn't feel like lugging boxes from the garage...plus I had to finish the cuppycakes for the Room at the Inn Christmas party on Saturday. I made chocolate fudge and red velvet versions - dipped in red, green and white candy coating.

Saturday morning I got up relatively early (for a Saturday morning at least) and got ready to head downtown Nashville. I stopped by my office on the way out since I'd left my cell phone at work. When I checked my voicemail, I had a message from one of the girls that was organizing the Christmas party for Room at the Inn (which is a homeless ministry in case you were wondering), telling me that, unfortunately, the party had never been written down on the calendar for Room at the Inn, so they were not staffed to be able to have the party that day. I was pretty disappointed because I was really looking forward to it! Bringing fun snacks, playing games and hanging out with the homeless honestly sounded like such a fun afternoon to me. I did get to hang out with them a little bit anyhow since I had signed up to help with the Room at the Inn Toy Store that morning/afternoon. There were a variety of activities to accomplish between helping the homeless pick out toys from the "toy store", wrapping gifts and then taking the gifts and packaging them up in a box for shipping. I was in the shipping room, but even that was a lot of fun. There were a few homeless guys hanging out in there that just cracked me up! I was actually really disappointed when we finished early and had to head out. Definitely hope to go back and volunteer again sometime soon. And since we didn't have our party, we went ahead and donated the food that we made to a shelter downtown Nashville. I'm glad to know that someone enjoyed a little bite-size festiveness :).

Sunday evening I headed over a little early to my friend Stephanie's house to help her set-up for her annual gingerbread house decorating party. I can honestly say I've never really constructed a gingerbread house on my own. One year I started to, but never really got into it, and therefore never finished it. We used graham crackers to construct our houses at the party, and that is tough! They like to break pretty easily...so it was kinda challenging! I had decided ahead of time that I wanted to make a barn and had seen someone use Big Red gum for one before, but the rest of the items I brainstormed with Ben (co-worker) and then just kinda winged-it as I went along. It took entirely too long (I was the last one to finish - out of 18 or so people...sheesh!), but at the same time, it was kinda therapeutic! Here's the finished product...


I really love this time of year - all of the parties, festivities , service projects and FUN! Now I've got a full week ahead with decorating, Kairos, going to hear Rob Bell speak, volleyball and then cooking for the brunch! Hope you have a fun and festive week as well!