Sometimes I Write

This picture makes you want to come and see me in Colorado, doesn’t it? 😉 That my friends, is the Broadmoor Hotel and Resort. Here’s what their website says:

Located just minutes from downtown Colorado Springs, The BROADMOOR is the pinnacle of meeting locations in North America. It has 700 rooms and suites, 185,000 square feet of flexible event space, 15 restaurants, cafes and lounges, three golf courses, a tennis club, and world-class spa. These lush 3,000 acres are easily accessible…

Paula, Carmen and I had a wonderful time there last weekend at the Whole Hearted Mother Conference. It all began when we pulled into the circular drive and the Valet attendant unloaded our luggage for us and drove off in the cold with my minivan. No walking through the snow for us! YEAH! We checked in and were escorted to our room and encountered the first of our fumblings on tipping at a 5 star hotel. yikes. You would have laughed at the looks on our faces as we tried to discuss what was an appropriate tip while the bell hop was in the hallway in between trips into our room to unload all of our stuff. I thought it was $2.00 per bag, or is that just the tip for skycabs at DIA? Was $1.00 per bag enough? Somebody please educate me on this ritzy etiquette! Anyway, we gave him $10.00 not knowing if we were too generous or if we stiffed him. Like I ever thought I’d be stressing over something like that!

The conference was amazing and I came away from it a bit refreshed and renewed in my walk as a mother and as a homeschooler. I also made a new friend. You can’t possibly be surprised by that. Carmen’s friend Julie met us there, and she was so sweet and funny. At the very end of the conference she asked to see a picture of my family and this look of confusion and surprise came over her face. She said we had met before because she recognized Benny. After two minutes of guessing we realized it was Halloween night at the Chik-fil-a near my house. Our kids were all in costume and we went out for dinner there. She was there with her family and remembered that Petey ran into the girl’s bathroom. As we headed that way to retrieve him, they told me which way he went and laughed at the situation. Benny had chatted with them a minute or two before we left and that was that. Three months later I meet Julie again at the conference and she encourages my socks off. God is so good.

A woman in my homeschooling group at FACE where we attend Friday school classes, and where she teaches, could really use our prayers. She is the loving mother of five children. In April, there were permanent court orders regarding a legal separation between her and her husband. In May, the husband filed motions to change many of those orders. New orders gave him sole decision-making authority over the 5 children. Parenting time was also changed to one week with each parent. The orders were pretty stunning, and there has been quite a bit of sadness and grieving. It seems the magistrate may have a bias against homeschooling as he ruled on education authority yet education authority wasn’t the subject of any of the motions. The woman made another motion to modify parenting time and educational decision making authority. That motion is up for hearing in an initial status conference on January 17 at 8:30 in the morning. Please pray for this family for a positive outcome for the kids. They are all so sweet and really struggling through this awful time in their lives. Thank you!

I’m off to the Wholehearted Mothers Conference tomorrow with my friends Paula and Carmen. It’s being held at the Broadmoor Hotel and Resort in Colorado Springs. The place is GORGEOUS (and way too expensive)! The conference is for mothers and homeschoolers, and I am so excited to be going. We’re going to have workshops and guest speakers, good food, and lots of books…I’m close to crying just thinking about it. Please pray the weather will cooperate. Evidently God decided Colorado needed a change and He gave us Winter – finally. We have had some major snow every weekend for the last three weeks. I know it’s supposed to be white here in January, but come on!

I have about ten posts juggling around in my brain, so be ready for some heavy blogging next week. Seriously.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

Nothing new, but hopefully improved…or atleast published more frequently. It’s been a busy two weeks. Here is a quick rundown of the events that have kept me from blogging:

Angi was here until yesterday. Pete had a birthday. We’ve had 3 snowstorms – with another on the way in a few days. We spent New Years Eve with the Captivating Women and their families, then came home to ring in the new year with Angi who had stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well. All three Nowell kids stayed awake to see the ball drop on t.v. – much to my amazement. I had a tooth pulled and spent a few days on Vicodin, not in a loopy, “don’t have a care in the world” sort of daze, but a “crap! My mouth hurts! When can I take some more drugs?” sort of way. We went to Colorado Springs to see some our youth ministry friends – Chris, Alan, Jared, Brooke, Trevor, and Brittany, who were all attending the National Conference on Youth Ministries. The Hartnagle’s were here for a visit lastnight. And that brings us to today.

Our day began with a visit to Dr. Zack’s office for our weekly adjustments. My jaw was out of alignment – no big surprise there – my dentist is a strapping young man with big biceps. He was nice, but pulling teeth out of this jaw takes some serious force. It’s laundry catch up day. Max is working on his reading lesson while the other two kiddos nap. Benny is working, and I am stealing some precious moments of silence to get back into my blogging groove.

I’ve gotten grief from some of you for staying away so long. And a few of you have been teasing me about what I blog about here. I talked to Billy while I still had a mouth full of gauze and told him about the whole tooth pulling experience. His response? “So are you going to blog about it?” Nice. What a friend – teasing me in my time of pain. 😉 It’s nice to know I’ve been missed. It will take me a few days to catch up on my reading of your blogs, so bear with me.

I met another blogging friend a few weeks ago. Heather Diane Tipton is a friend I met through Paula’s blog. She just moved to Denver from San Antonio, so lucky me! I was also surprised to hear from an old friend from college. Destany and her family live here in Denver and I didn’t know it. New friendships for the new year…God’s blessings never end!

We spent the morning packing up the tree, lights, decorations and all of the stockings. Everything is neatly stored until next year. I know a lot of people leave decorations up until after New Year’s Day, but Pete’s birthday is Friday and I want him to have a celebration all of his own. I can’t believe he’s going to be 3 years old. Time really does fly. I’m about to leave to pick Angi up at the airport. Everything is beginning to melt around here…just in time for the snow we’re supposed to get on Thursday. 😉 I hope we don’t get too much- we’re supposed to go to Benny’s parent’s house for a few days.

I finished reading ERAGON lastnight. Wow! It was awesome and I’m eager to get the second book , THE ELDEST. My friend’s kids that have seen the ERAGON movie have been disappointed with it. They read the book first and the movie didn’t live up to their expectations. I’ll probably see the movie anyway, but I’m already setting myself up to be disappointed. How sad is that? I’m telling you people…the book is always better. The ONLY exception I can think of right now is The Polar Express…that movie rocked, and in my opinion, was better than the book. Can you think of another book that’s been made into a movie, where the movie was better than the book? Bring it on…I’m listening.

We have finally dug out from under all the snow we’ve gotten this week! No doubt you’ve heard about the Denver blizzard of ’06! We got about 28″ at our house and were truly snowed in for two days. Thankfully, I had grocery shopped as the snow began to pile up and I made it home safely. Benny had to shovel out the driveway so I could park. I haven’t seen a snowfall like this in several years. I grew up in WI, so a lot of snow is nothing new to me. My kids loved playing in it, and we even have video footage of Max jumping off our roof. Yeah, I’m a fun mom – I was the one recording it. This has been a great opportunity to connect with our neighbors as we all helped each other dig out our walkways and driveways. We didn’t have anywhere to go really, everything was shut down and the roads were horrible. The airport is still struggling to get the runways clear. They have five open as of this afternoon. DIA is huge, and so is the job of clearing the snow away. They couldn’t clear it out faster than it fell from the sky. The worst part of this blizzard was the delay in Angi’s arrival. She was supposed to fly in from IN on Thursday, but due to the blizzard she won’t be arriving until Tuesday afternoon – after Christmas. We’re sad she’s missing out on the Nowell festivities, but look forward to ringing in the new year with her.

I have received several Christmas letters this year from many people I love, but there is one that I enjoyed so much that I had to share a bit of it with you. I’m on Lisa Whelchel’s mailing list, and she touched my heart with her Christmas letter this year. She talked about feeling inadequate after reading about some of the stellar tidbits of activities in other families and child prodigies in training. She shared about her weight gain this year and how her latest book fell short of it’s projected sales goal, how her family struggled through some tough things this year, and how through it all she needs Jesus. I laughed and got teared up reading her words and related in so many ways. Here is the last part of her letter…

“Now, don’t you feel better? Merry Christmas! In my opinion, this letter more accurately reflects the spirit of Christmas. No, stay with me here a minute, I’m serious. Why did Jesus come to earth in the first place? Because we desperately need a Savior! We are fat, yet so empty. We owe a debt we cannot pay. We are not good enough in our own strength. He came to heal the brokenhearted. He calls us friend. He came to set free those of us who are bound because of the mess we’ve made of our lives.

We aren’t the first ones to celebrate Christmas as primarily the birth of the King of kings, conveniently skipping the whole “Suffering Servant” role of the promised Messiah. Yes, Jesus will reign and rule forever, but the “good news of great joy” that the angel declared to the shepherds on the very first Christmas was that a Savior was born. I need that Messiah this year!

How about you? Have you, like me, been tempted to believe that we will be better witnesses for Jesus in our Christmas letters if we are living victoriously, reigning over our circumstances, and ruling with authority, as befits a child of the King? If that is where you have lived this year, then praise God, you have enjoyed an early taste of heaven.

If, on the other hand, you have lost or failed or died or cried or experienced any other symptom of humanity, then celebrate Christmas with me this year. The birth of the baby Jesus, God in human form. Our High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. The King who wore a crown of thorns. We have eternity to reign with the King of kings. Today I need a Savior. That is the reason He was born. This is why we can celebrate no matter what kind of year we’ve had.”
– Lisa Whelchel