Yes, two posts in one week

Ladies and gentlemen, I may have missed my calling. As a drummer. You heard it here first. Oh yeah, that's right. I was apparently a very good girl this year, and Santa brought me a Wii AND Rock Band! (In case you're unfamiliar, "Rock Band" is a video game with a microphone, guitar, and drums that three people play at once, sort of karaoke style. You win points by keeping up with the music.) I have had such a blast!! The guitar is pretty fun, especially for someone who wasn't willing to cut off her fingernails in order to plan an actual guitar, and the microphone is cool on the songs that I know (but there aren't many of those. YET.), but I rocked the drums!! I've always had a good ear for music, and I can hold a beat, even if my style is a bit lacking. Honestly, I willingly admit that I feel a little like Rain Man playing the drums- I have to stare at the screen and focus, so I end up being a little stiff, but I don't care- it is FUN! And when it gets to the part where all of the drums are lit up and you can just bang whatever ones you want to, I imagine that I probably look a little like Animal from the Muppet's, arms flailing and drumsticks flying. I have to laugh at myself even now just thinking about it! I'm pretty sure I'm going to be wasting a lot of time working on my rocker skills in the near future.
In all seriousness, Rob and I had a great Christmas. We had talked about inviting friends over after the Christmas Eve service at church, but ultimately decided to spend a quiet evening at home, just the two of us. It was a cozy little first Christmas in our first home! We cooked dinner together (Stromboli, Rob's favorite meal that I make) and sort of watched It's a Wonderful Life. Neither of us had ever seen it, and I'm still not sure that I can say that I have, but it was on in the background while we ate and talked and then traded one gift each. Then on Christmas morning, I attempted to make what was supposed to be sausage pinwheels. It ended up being more like a Sausage Yule Log, which was pretty good if I can say so myself. (I think I'll definitely try to make that one of our family traditions!) We read Luke 2 together over cups of cinnamon bun coffee, ate our log, and swapped gifts. Between the two of us, it looked like Santa really had come to a house of excited kiddos, what with all the boxes and wrapping paper strewn around. We left the mess, though, and drove across town to spend the day with Rob's family.
It was a fun day with the Dixon clan. I really am blessed to have great in-laws. (Rob is too!) I, of course, entertained the crowd with my drumming, and Rob only had to excuse himself from the festivities for a little while to take the call on one water damage that came in. And I'm pretty sure I at as much in the last 24 hours as I have in the past 24 days; it was all soooo good! I'm back on the healthy wagon again today, though, and plan to keep my happy self right here for a while again- I've got to get myself into a bridesmaid dress in a couple of months (exactly six, come to think of it)!
I hope you had a holly, jolly Christmas and experienced the blessing of knowing Christ in a new way yesterday.

And to all a good night

I'm not really sure why I feel like the only blog-worthy things in my life are the calamities I find myself in, but I do. I should do better. I could have written about my trip home for Thanksgiving to see my family (and trying to teach my 7-month-old nephew to crawl!) or creating lime green icing to decorate "truck cookies" to celebrate Rob's 2nd anniversary with Servpro or my Christmas-candy-making-marathon with my friend Rachel or singing my little heart out to try and become a SingStar in my cousin's living room. We have a real exciting life, I tell you. But I would like to share with you, instead, about Nashvegas Falls- discovered in my garage yesterday.

Now, you know that Rob (and I) own a Servpro franchise. One of their specialties is "Water Damage Restoration." Basically, this means that when people have a leak, or flood, that gets into their home, Rob's guys come to the rescue to clean up the water and make sure mold doesn't invade the place. I used to struggle with the idea that Rob's work thrives when others are experiencing personal disasters (I hate watching the weather and thinking, "ooh, there could be some frozen pipes tonight!"). Anyway, I expressed this internal battle the other day to a friend who is a pediatric oncologist. He reminded me that KIDS have to have CANCER for him to have a job. He wins; his job is much worse. I digress.

Yesterday night (the night before last night), Rob and I were all snuggled warm in our bed while visions of sugar plums and peppermint bark danced in my head... when I was rudely awaken by what sounded like someone filling a bathtub at the foot of our bed. "Rob- Babe- Get up-- WHAT IS THAT?" "Huh?" "Is that water? DID OUR HOT WATER HEATER JUST EXPLODE?!?" Remember- this was at around 5:15, and we weren't exactly awake. We both got up and fumbled around for our glasses and sweatshirts and shoes (our hot water heater is in the garage, where we knew it was cold) and made our way downstairs. What to our wondering eyes should appear? Nashvegas Falls! I guess it was really more like a bubbling spring, flowing forth from under our hot water tank. Either way, it was not beautiful or wondrous. It took us a few minutes to find the water shut-off valve, but I (ahem, WE) did and managed to stop the gushing before the water rose deep enough to wet the drywall and seep into our living room. Whew! I tried to get Rob to call into his own answering service and leave a message for his office manager that we needed a crew to come out and clean it all up, but it really wasn't that bad, and he didn't think she would be amused at 5:30. Probably not. In fact, Rob was so relieved that the water hadn't come into the house that he wanted to go back to bed and deal with it after the sun came up. He's the professional, so that's what we did!

After we got up again, we called our Home Shield warranty people, and the nice lady there sent Jerry over to fix our pipe. It turns out that the hot water heater was fully intact; the fitting on the pipe leading into the tank had come undone. Jerry pulled out his handy little blow torch and had us fixed up in less than 30 minutes. And we went to bed last night to the soothing sound of air movers in our garage. Ah, what an exciting life we lead.

One of my goals this Christmas has to not get stressed out by the "stuff" and focus on Jesus. I think I've been pretty successful too. We had one crazy weekend of four parties rolled into two days (but that was actually the first weekend of December) and it's been a fairly chilled out month. And here I am on Christmas Eve morning, sitting on my couch in my sweats with the presents all wrapped under my fantastically simple tree, catching up on my blog, with nothing on my "to-do" list for today except the Christmas Eve service at church tonight, which I'm really looking forward to. Oh, and the air movers in the garage. It's a peaceful morning. I think I might grab a fresh cup of coffee and my Bible, turn off "The View" and pop in Casting Crowns' Christmas CD, and sit & enjoy Jesus for a while, who came into this world as a baby for the sole purpose of giving us access to God Almighty. Come, Lord Jesus.


What a Holy Night. Peace to you.