Days #19 and #20

You know, it's amazing... The more pitiful I recognize myself to be, the more I feel overwhelmed with love and by the love of Jesus. WOW-- I'm just... enthralled. I love Jesus! Let the whole world know it-- I love Him! Oh, how I love Him.

Now, before I go on... let me just say that those of you who may be thinking, "Oh, Naomi's on her second last day. And she's done the whole thing perfectly. How expected."

Well, you can just stop that right now. If there were any rumors floating around about me being perfect with this thing, let me just stop them right here and right now. NOPE. Matter of fact... the last number of days, I HAVE gotten up at 7 (yay!), but I've let the coldness, the darkness, the quietness, and the tiredness get the better of me. The reason I haven't started this whole thing over is because I DID get up at 7 (and granted, the deal was that I was supposed to stay up), but really... we've had company (so I've had a lot of late nights), and frankly, it's been a pretty slow couple of weeks here... so I haven't had many of my responsibilities driving me to stay out of bed. All of the things that I've been needing to accomplish every day have been easy to do getting up with the rest of the family, so I haven't felt any need to lengthen the days.

Getting up at 7, regardless of the fact that I haven't stayed up all the time, has been a very good discipline. And I'm glad that I did it. What I told myself this morning, however (when I decided to wrap up in my blankets and let my eyes close), was that this has not been a thing to only last 21 days. This has been a way to challenge myself to overcome some laziness and learn to get up and be more responsible. I feel that I have accomplished that.

I do plan to continue my early rising indefinitely. I hope I never stop. If I find that I'm letting myself slip again after this at any point, who knows-- I may very well start another 21 day blog cycle. But for now, I feel confident that this has been an effective discipline to put myself through, and I'm pleased with the results.

Now, having admitted my sleeping every morning for the past few days... well, I am not going to try to justify that. It wasn't "According to plan" at all. :-D And while I could say, "Well, I need to start over. I ruined it." --I think I won't. I'm just going to try to update this blog once a week with a little progress report and "Project" report. I've begun working on a number of projects, so there should always be something to write about and post photos of... and of course, I can keep myself accountable on a somewhat-less-regular-basis on here for the ways that I'm spending my time.

And now... FINALLY... (If you read all of that, high fives all around. You're amazing. That was long, and I'm so grateful for your perseverance!)

*picking up where I left off* FINALLY... The pictures! I didn't post a clock photo for Saturday, so here's that-- I got up at 5 that day to go with Becky to the airport in a snowstorm. We were taking Jimmy over the border to fly to Quebec for a parade. And it was cold.



Sunday! I got up, got ready, and then slept a little. As usual. :-/


Sunday was Leah's birthday, which she spent in Sweden this year. Her name was in the church bulletin, so we took a picture... and then we emailed her copious amounts of messages and wished that she was home (a few more times than the number of messages we sent). :)



Then TODAY... my good camera battery was dead, so I fumbled around in the dark for 3 minutes to change the batteries on my little camera and take this blindingly bright photograph. I can hardly look at it.



And then... here are some pictures that I took yesterday of something that is pretty special to me. My Oma and Opa sent this to me when we lived in California-- it's a glass music "Box". I love it. It reminds me of happy days and wonderful people. :)



If you read all of that, I salute you, and you definitely deserve a cupcake. Call me to collect your loot. I will gladly give you one if you want to come and get it. ;)

Day #18

So, I kinda just realized that I REALLY don't have time for a regular post today. I spent the day getting up at 5 with Becky to take Jimmy to the airport in the freezy weather, then sleeping a bit when I got home (while desperately trying to stay warm), then taking down Christmas decorations ALL day and then finally, having a movie night with our good friend Joe. And that just ended at 1:30 a.m. So... Eh-he. I'll post a little better on Monday.

In the meantime, since I didn't get any photos today, SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT WINNIE THE POOH? I practically am him. Just look at these photos.




Back on Monday!

Day #17

Hmm... You know, it's really hard to think about what to write on here while you're listening to Russian and Ukranian music (among other things). I'm also watching my siblings dance around the room. That also makes it hard to concentrate. :)

So, I guess I'll just write some randomness that doesn't require much thought. Here is the time that I got up at first... But then I realized that the reason for getting up at that time no longer stood, so I set the alarm for 7 and went back to bed.


So, here we are-- 7!


Here is one of my sketches from this week. I took this picture to be a little blurry and differently angled... so that it wouldn't be too obvious who it was. :-P Can you tell anyway?


Then, in other news: I've discovered my secret identity. I'm Winnie the Pooh in Naomi's clothing. Look! We're just the same! :o



Back tomorrow!

Day #16

I've decided to post today a little earlier because... dun dunna na! I just took the pictures for the day, and I thought I'd get them up.

I've been finding that I keep staying up just a smidge too late every night, and then I realize-- Shoot! Have to update the blog! So then I'm up even later. So this is an effort to avoid that situation.

Remember when I said that siblings don't tend to like it when you bust out the camera on any regular day? Well, I partially take that back. Some of them DO.



Here are my models for the day-- These pictures crack me up. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed taking them! Hehehe...

Tirzah

Anna


Tirzah and Keturah


Anna and Tabithah




(My head)


There are so many things wrong with this picture. Hahaha...






Back tomorrow! :-D

...And now I'm off to learn some French. :)

Day #15

Day #16-- Done. And what a lovely day it was! Lovely in so many ways. And I'm just... ooh. So grateful.

I'm grateful for family, grateful for friends. Grateful to serve a patient, loving God! I know I've said that many times before, but wow-- it sometimes just hits me all over again and I can't really help but express it. It's so great-- and so true.

Praise God!

Today's photo is of one of our Christmas decorations because (*sob*) they're probably coming down this weekend. I'm not looking forward to that-- I've been enjoying them so much this year. But, oh well. I guess that time had to come, and I'll get to look forward to having them around again next year.

Tomorrow, for pictures... :) Well, we'll see about that. You eventually run out of things to photograph (or rather, that you want to photograph) around the house or outside, and... People don't tend to take kindly to the camera finding its way over to their faces on any regular day. So, while I would love to borrow some siblings for pictures, I don't know how they'd feel about that. And who knows if that will happen.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, though-- we've had company for the past few days, so while I've "Gotten up" at 7, *coughcough*, I have not been keeping quite the rigid schedule that I've been wanting to. I don't mind too much, 'cause there aren't really any major pressures for me to worry about right now, and I've really enjoyed relaxing more over the last few days and visiting. I am, however, anxious to get back to checking off my goals every day.

Be back tomorrow!

(Clock from day #14)


(Today's clock-- I forgot to take the picture right away. :-D)


Oh, and also-- GOOD NEWS! I feel like I've learned so much about using my camera! Yay, yay, hurray! I still have a ways to go, but I feel a lot more confident now. On the one hand, my photoshop skills are still zip, so... eh he. But, on the other-- I feel a lot more "In command" of what comes out in my photos now than I did 15 days ago. :) That is a good feeling.

Day #14

Good day? Oui. Did it begin the same way as yesterday? Oui.

...Does that mean that I have to start the 21 day period over? Nope. At least, I don't think so. More on that later.

But for now, to bed I must go. I think I laughed my stomach upside down tonight, and now my eyes are stinging a little... and I think those things together are making my feeling of tiredness a little more tired. :-D

Be back tomorrow! (And yes, I do have a photo of the clock for today-- I'll post it tomorrow.)

--Naomi

P.S. I'm thinking about making some Valentine's cake pops soon. What'cha think of that idea? Oui?

Days #12 and #13

Welllllll.... eh ehe he hehehehe... I DID get up at 7 this morning, as you can see by the clock. And yesterday morning.

But.

Both mornings, I got up and had no reason (other than the desire to be diligent with this) to be up early-- and neither did anyone else in the house, so... it was dark, quiet, cold, and... cold. Freezing, actually. So, what I wanted to do was get my Bible-- but I knew that would put me to sleep.

So, what I did was... :-D I stayed up just long enough for my brain to wake up, and then I headed into the living room to cuddle up on the couch with a blanket. I knew I would fall asleep if I tried to read, so I decided to not even bother-- I decided to sleep, and going into the living room would keep me from sleeping any later than other people were getting up. So. I got up about an hour later.

That's my confession. Do y'all think that was okay? Or should I start the 21 days over again? I personally feel perfectly fine with my decision to do that, so I am going to just go on as usual... but if you peeps think that was a bad thing, I'll start over again. Just... let me know what you think. I don't want to cheat here.



Today's photos are mostly Christmas ornaments. (And yes, again, we still have our decorations up. But don't judge-- when your house is as cold as ours, you need the warm look of Christmas decor to keep your fingers and toes alive. So keeping them up, we are.) I also took some pictures of my Bible, focusing in on a passage that was particularly wonderful to me today. :) (Also one of Tabithah's eyes. Random, I know.)

My camera reading for the day was about zoo photography, and since our house doesn't quite qualify as a zoo, I decided to just grab my macro lense (the one with the highest magnifying capacity) and take pictures of whatever. So, here you have it-- whatever. Enjoy!

















Thanks for reading (again)! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on my decision to sleep this morning. If you'd care to share them, that is. :)