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. ;)