Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

Today starts my holiday vacation! We're driving to Charlotte tonight so we can leave bright and early tomorrow morning to fly to Colorado! I'm currently frantically trying to get all our stuff packed in as few bags as possible and leave the house in a neat-ish state. Hopefully we'll have a few posts while we're gone, but if not, you'll hear from us later. Here's the first glimpse of homemade Christmas, a bag I made for my mom, using a pattern from this book .

One of the more exciting Christmas presents I got this year was a new camera. I think this is the first and probably last time that both my seven-years-younger brother and I wanted and got the same thing for Christmas.

Isaiah 9:2 "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.: John 1:4-5, 14 "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

The first of the Christmas craft updates: business card holders for the other women residents - these made their way to their new owners today, so now I can post the photo!

Sorry we didn't get these posted yesterday, but we went up to Seneca and didn't get back until very, very late. Today, everyone packed up and came to Greenwood to go to church with us and hang out here for the afternoon. Here are some nice shots of my mom, in her favorite role: Grandmother. (and I couldn't pick just two, so I posted four.) Her grandbabies love her.

We have a weird dog. She likes to lie under the desk. Or behind the chair. Any guesses what Jeff is preaching on right now? This is what we really did today - at least after I took my post call nap. Delicious takeout dinner, Kung Fu Panda, and getting our Christmas cards ready to mail!

The view during my clinic today. I'm on call tonight and don't have a camera, so the camera phone will have to do.

I went to a cookie exchange tonight. Since I definitely needed an extra 4 dozen cookies around to munch on. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera to the actual party, where I might could have taken a photo of a person or something else more interesting. Instead, you'll have to settle for a drool-inducing photo of some molasses cookies, date balls, chocolate nut bark, and other frosted goodies. Excuse me....now I need to find some bigger pants.

I got home from a long day of work yesterday and the table was set and my husband had made some chicken tetrazzini. Yum.

From the table decorations at our church Christmas meal.

In Greenwood, the oldest part of town is not called downtown. It is called Uptown. I'm not sure where this got started, but we do not go downtown. We go Uptown, which is also home to the widest Main Street in the United States. I am not making that up. At least I don't think I am - that little factoid was told to me when I interviewed here. Even though it's small, with only a few shops, it does have several things going for it. 1. A really excellent sushi restaurant. 2. Cool old brick buildings that are currently being restored. 3. Beautifully decorated windows at Christmas, which we enjoyed tonight, after taking in the children's theater production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever .

Here is what our little creek is supposed to look like: Here is what is looked like yesterday: What was really amazing to me was how quickly it rose, even though it didn't really seem like it was raining all that hard, and then how quickly it fell back again. I realize these are not the most beautiful photos I've posted so far, but the contrast was striking to me. And just to make sure I have a cute photo for today, here is the cutest baby I know that I'm not related to, sleeping next to the ballerina bunny I made for her first birthday.

It is still raining here in SC. I don't think it's rained this much here for a long time. The tiny trickle of a creek that runs by our neighborhood became a raging river this morning - so noticeable, in fact, that I stopped the car on my way to work to take a picture. Although that's not my favorite picture I took today. Sadly, though, I can't post that picture, because it's a photo of a beautiful little boy born on Thanksgiving day, one of my patients. (Darn that HIPPA ). He was born to a sweet, young couple whose first baby was prenatally diagnosed with a fatal anomaly, but chose to continue their pregnancy because they don't believe in abortion. That baby was born just over a year ago, lived only 9 hours, then died. And on Thanksgiving day, I got to deliver their second child - a beautiful, perfect, healthy looking boy they named after his daddy, who has happily weeping as his son made his loud squawking entrance into this world. Some days I really love my j...

It rained all day today. Which was nice, since we are in a serious drought down here, but it still made for a dreary day. I came home from work and took a nice nap on the couch. In other news, I'm happy to announce that I actually got my act together enough this year to order Christmas cards! I made them on this website , which was easy to use, had some very cute card options, but was about half as expensive the other good card sites out there. They will be here in another day or two, so let's hope I manage to get them in the mail before the New Year!

Enjoying my newest nativity (direct from Honduras) and listening to my sweet husband practice guitar.

The view from my craft room. Yep...I'm still sewing - hopefully I'll get finished by Christmas.

Mom and I (mostly Mom) made these great wreaths to hang inside the church. They were a hit. I think everyone loved seeing the church so beautifully decorated, although I didn't get a great picture of what the inside wreaths looked like. I get the feeling it had been a long time since it had looked so nice. We also put candles in the windows, and greenery, and had these huge poinsettias on the stage. It really felt like Christmas.

Playing frisbee with friends today, and enjoying the cuteness of their kid.

Ha! Caught up at last. A fun residency gathering with about 25 people in our living room. I had three types of soup and made delicious cornbread pudding, using this recipe: 1 box jiffy cornbread mix 1/2 c. butter, soft 1 c. nonfat yogurt 1 can creamed corn 1 can whole corn (I actually used frozen.) Mix together, put in casserole dish, and bake at 350 for about an hour. Easy and delicious!

Only one day late this time....but I was on call last night. Here's what my sewing room floor looked like until I cleaned yesterday. Hmm... I wonder what I'm making?

So I'm a little late getting to this December photo project, but I do like the idea of just trying to post photos, since that requires a little less thought than actually writing something. So here are three photos for your viewing pleasure, taken in Iowa, which did technically happen in November, but I've been wanting to post them anyway. My new, very sweet nephew Caleb. He loves to smile and is super ticklish. Notice Sam moving? He is hard to capture without a flash. Notice all of the balls stacked inside the jar? That was also his doing.

Wow. It's been a whole week since our last post. That is just too long. But in that time, we've been on call, gone to Iowa and back, had several clinics, put up a Christmas tree, and with the help of my amazing mom, made 6 wreaths to hang up in our church. Things still left to do this week include: decorate our church for Christmas tonight, be on call, and host a couple who is interested in coming to our program for a few days this weekend. Of course that means I have to get our house a little cleaner. And clean the sewing room. Which right now looks like some sort of fabric hurricane blew through the room and then exploded. Whew. Yesterday I got to come home early, which was a great blessing. And instead of rushing off to Bible study, I rested, took the dog running, and then Jeff and I had fun listening to our favorite Christmas CD and decorating the tree. We ate blueberry banana pancakes for dinner before I went to two different stores to search (unsuccessfully) for some rib...