Good grief!  Its been a long time since I was thankful on a Thursday.  So I’m going to be thankful today for three Nadias.  In alphabetical order 🙂

Our WorldVision child is named Nadia.  We get periodic stuff about her well being, but after hurricane Ike caused a lot of trauma, I’m glad to hear that she is well.  I’m thankful for the opportunity to sponsor a child and and that she’s growing up and maturing with health and food and a family.  We need to send her a letter to tell her that.  I’m a bad sponsor in that department, but I’m thankful for the opportunity nonetheless.

My second Nadia to be thankful for is my niece.  When I look at these pictures I just smile.  She’s getting bigger and bigger and soon she’ll be getting married talking to me instead of just smiling at me.  I’m thankful she’s growing and is generally a healthy well taken care of baby girl.

Lastly, but not leastly: our friends daughter Nadia just makes us smile (and sometimes cry – in a good way) when we get to see her in person and online at the YouTube.  I’m thankful for our friends and their amazing care for not only their daughter, but so many others directly and indirectly.

Thank you to all three Nadias.  You bless us.

I was just telling my mother via IM that I was glad to have had the girlfriend I had before Jessica because she really made Jessica stand out.  That probably sounds like a slight, but later changes in her life lead me to believe that she grew a lot as a person, as did I.  The ex-girlfriend is often a marker for comparison, and I just didn’t have a lot of girlfriends so this one had the unfortunate position based on a weird High School boy and his whims as well as various other circumstances which will remain shrouded in mystery because she doesn’t need me to air things that I have no business airing. I’m genuinely grateful for the roughly three months we ‘went out’ because it gave me a greater context.  The XGF had to put up with my ‘no kissing’ rule which meant that on a few occasions when she wanted me to kiss her I had to refrain and she probably felt I was holding back.  Perceptive, and accurate.  My no kissing rule involved not kissing a girl unless I knew I was going to marry her.  That made things a bit restrictive as you can imagine.  But with out the XGF I would have missed out on Jessica’s brilliance in the particular context I did.

Jessica’s love for Christ, her genuine listening to me, and her commitment to her family and desire to respect her parents made her stand out like Yao Ming at an ewok convention.  Her honesty was compelling.  Her asking questions and wondering about biblical things meant she was trying to sort through things and make sense of what she was learning and it meant: she was learning.  Jessica was an amazing friend before she was a girlfriend and it was just brilliant to watch her grow in life, in the Lord, and in her desire to make something of her life.  Of course she also looked amazing, had a great brain (her intelligence has always kept me humble) and she liked good food – so it was a great match.  Jessica’s desire to serve her friends was also amazing.  She was still a teenager, but a teenager with a compassionate attitude of service and her willingness to serve blew my mind.

Without the XGF I’d have still probably been drawn to Jessica, but I was very glad to have the contrast that I did.  Jessica is really who I’m thankful for, but I’m also thankful for and still sometimes pray for the XGF simply because she’s a person whom I cared for and I hope she’s doing well.  I hope she’s found a great guy, and I hope that she’s living a great life.

I loves me some Christmas time.  Once I get past the fear of having purchased the worst possible gift for Jessica I enjoy the time.  I have a psychological disorder that probably has a name but I don’t know it, so I’ll call it GivingJessicaTheWrongPresentPhobia.  I am always afraid she’ll open up the present and say, “You got me this?!  I hate this!  It is the worst present ever given on a holiday other than the time that you didn’t ask me out on Valentines day.”  This fear is not a legitimate fear, but the part of my man-brain that second guesses every thing I do in regards to Jessica works over time there and is always on vacation when I say something that causes an argument.

We had a great time with family and even got to video chat with some family in other parts of the country.  I loves me some Skype, too!  I was able to get a mere 5 hours of sleep or so the night of Christmas Eve, but that was OK, too.  We had an enjoyable Christmas eve service at church as well.  You can listen to the recording of the MP3 here.

I am thankful for my family yet again, and I’m also thankful for the thoughtful gifts that I received – I hope nobody else has GivingRandyTheWrongPresentPhobia 😉

This last week has been quite a week.  Its been a week where I have had ups, downs, sideways, diagonals, and hobbitses.  This week they announced that there will be two new J.R.R. Tolkien based films.  Peter Jackson will be producing, but not directing.

I got to do help participate in the potty training of Evie.  Which is going.

I got to give some feedback to a client that I felt needed to be stated, even if it wasn’t popular.

I got to go to the doctor regarding my parasite.  The doctor didn’t quite believe I have a parasite even though I have the lab results to show that I did, in the past, have a parasite – maybe its gone now.  I’m skeptical.

I got to hug and kiss my wife and tell her that I love her.  That’s important and good to do.

I got to hug and kiss my girls and tell them that I love them.  That’s also important and good to do.

Lots of other stuff happened.

Merry Christmas a few days early – which I’ll repeat on the actual day of celebration.