JUST BREATHE
November 20, 2016
Merciful heavens, if the whirlwind of life hasn’t swirled and blown us smack dab into the holiday season once again! It’s incredible how quickly time flies these days. Back when my house was full of daughters, I used to start my Christmas shopping in September in order to spread the financial pain and get it all finished, so I could possibly enjoy Thanksgiving and the advent season a little more. That rarely actually happened though. I was just stressed out for a longer period of time. The last few years, the season has snuck up on me and I’ve had to focus my energies into a few weeks of craziness, which I’ve somehow survived and almost enjoyed. It also helps that since the girls are all grown, we’ve toned down the gift giving by drawing names, letting our family time together be the focus of our joy.
Saying all that, I’m right at this moment experiencing the holiday crazies coming on. My mind is churning with all the details of the coming Thanksgiving dinner/Christmas decorating/Christmas letter photo session with all of us here in our house together for the four day weekend. It will be great! It will be hectic! It will be a zoo with six adults, two tiny children, one tiny dog and one huge puppy all vying for space in our little house! This is why I plan on listening to this song, *Breathe*, by Jonny Diaz whenever I start to hyperventilate. Listen to it [Here](https://youtu.be/hnjeMwxFuBAby).
This will also be the first time we will be celebrating Thanksgiving here in Corbin since my sister and her husband passed away. Last year, only a few weeks after Vernon’s funeral, we had Thanksgiving at our oldest daughter’s home, so it wasn’t quite so obviously weird. Now that we’ve made it through the first anniversaries of all the awfulnesses of last year, I’m feeling a need to move on, WHATEVER (that’s my word!) that means. So I’m listening to this song, *Tell Your Heart to Beat Again* by Danny Gokey, [Here](https://youtu.be/F77v41jbOYs) quite a bit.
To finish this off, let’s all enjoy a little stress relief through laughter via some recent favorite comics of mine. I like to clip comics that speak to my personal life, then when I have enough, I make a poster out of them. These are definitely poster worthy for me!
Happy chortling and Happy Thanksgiving!
