Merry Christmas to all...

and to all a good night- tonight.

right now.

good night.

That is actually a wish for myself, but I'm sharing it with you too.


Haven't been sleeping very soundly lately. I'm not certain if it is all the moving to South Africa energy over here... or the overwhelming to-do list... or the Christmas excitement... or the fact that we switched to the guest bed a couple of weeks ago and I keep waking up every few hours because it just feels... different. Whatever it is, sleep is becoming very hard to come by. But I have two good things to say .

One is that Bill(y) and I wrapped all our presents today - so for the first time in - ever- we won't be up at midnight on Christmas eve trying to wrap packages for the kiddies, knowing they are still awake with excitement knowing what we are doing, and knowing that they are going to wake us up way earlier than our 7am I-don't-care-what-time-you-get-up-to-open-your-stockings-but-do-not-dare-wake-us-up-before-7 rule. Do you have one of those rules at your house? It never works. Ever. Bill(y) and I lie in bed, totally awake, listening to the three of them scampering and calling out to each other and giggling. Pretty soon, one of them comes in just to "snuggle" and within minutes, the lights flash on , all 5 of us are in our bed, candy and stocking stuffers strewn everywhere and I am lying there soaking in the moments that I know I will be missing terribly someday as these guys grow.
At least this year I am prepared.. and I will NOT be wrapping presents until one o'clock in the morning! So I will have open eyes whenever they come bounding in to my bed. I still hope it is after 7:00 though.

TWO... because I'm not sleeping, I've been reading. A lot. I have a stack of books I've been collecting over the past few months - fully intending to open. If you ask, I'll even tell you that I am reading one or two of them... but the truth is.... I was just looking at the covers . Until now.

I've just finished a part memoir/part cookbook by my favorite Gluten Free Blogger - Gluten Free Girl Shauna James Ahern. I've been following her blog for the past year - and celebrated the release of her book. Julie and our other friend Shauna and I even threw around the idea of road-tripping to meet her at a book signing this fall. She just is like that, you think you are her friend even though you only know her from her writings. The book is amazing - she has totally taken the posture of - "I'm not missing anything by living gluten free! Look at all these amazing other foods that naturally have no gluten in them!" I have compiled a long list of recipes I must create... and she has gotten me excited about alternative grains for their own tastes... not as a bad supplement for wheat. Quinoa, Teff, Buckwheat, Amaranth. I'm telling you. I am scared of you no longer. And, I've been saying this for months, but before we leave our fabulously streamline high-speed Internet... I MUST collect and print the recipes from her blog as well to make my own cookbook of sorts. You know, I'm not really doing anything else right now. I'll be sure to get that done soon.

I'm in the middle of reading BOTH Banker to the Poor and Three Cups of Tea - two amazing stories of real people who saw things that they couldn't let go of... things that sat in their hearts and kept swirling and surfacing while they each in their own story said "this just isn't okay"... so they made a choice and redirected their lives to do something about it. I'm riveted by both... so I carry one around with me to read in my unplanned quiet moments... and keep the other by my bed to read when I can't sleep.

In school we just finished "House of Sixty Fathers" - and I sobbed the entire last chapter. AS I was trying to read it out loud to the kids. Next we begin the biography of Corrie Ten Boom. We decided to break away from the curriculum for a few weeks and detour over into WWII Germany and then into Italy - in anticipation of a long layover that is being planned into our itinerary.

Because did I tell you ?
We are going to South Africa soon.

Time for bed now.
I'm sure I'll dream about gluten free bankers in the middle east trying to print recipes on wrapping paper to mail to me because I am snowed in in South Africa. My mind is playing rude tricks on me trying to process all these things that keep crammed inside my brain.
Maybe that is why I'm not sleeping...