Skip to main content

12 Days of Christmas: Blog 1!

 Merry Christmas, Mama!!! We kids know that you love blog posts, and learning things about our lives, even when you’ve been a significant part of it all. ;-) So here are some memories of our childhoods/growing up that you may not remember or know, but that we think of as significant memories. Merry Christmas!

 The toy store on Nagelstrasse will always hold a special place in my heart. I thought that place was amazing, with all of the Warhammer figures that it had, the floor dedicated to stuffed animals, and the incredible assortment of board games and Playmobil figures. It certainly could blow Toys-R-Us out of the water, even with much more limited store space. 

It was always fun to go there, and as I would often go on my own after school. So one night before bed, I told you I was going to go the next day. But that night, as I was thinking about it, I just got this sick feeling in my stomach. It wasn’t a sick feeling as more discomfort. And I spent quite a while that night wondering if it was the Spirit warning me not to go, or if it was just me being nervous about missing my train after I went or something. By the time I went to sleep, I had not really made up my mind about what to do, but was leaning towards not going.

The next morning I got up to get ready for school, and whenever I came to wake up Papa so that he could drive me to the train station, I always came to say goodbye to you as well. I can distinctly picture your room in Germany, with the sloped ceiling/wall next to your bed because of the roof, and I think you had a white alarm clock that sat on your bedside table. As I kissed you goodbye, you said: “Cheese, I think you should just come home after school today.” And I immediately decided to not go. You and I had the same prompting that it wasn’t a good idea to go walking around Trier, and so I was going to follow that prompting. 

It was one of the first (and only) times that I received a physical prompting about some danger, and you had the same prompting I had. Thanks for listening to it, because it pushed me to listen to my own prompting and kept me safe from whatever danger or bad situation there was.

Merry Christmas, Mama, love you!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Quest for Birkenstocks

One of the main reasons I go to Germany every couple of years is to restock my supply of Birkenstocks.  I started buying them when I lived there, and I basically can't live without them now.  It just about kills me when a pair runs its course and needs to be thrown away.  I think in my lifetime, I've thrown away only three pairs.  One that never was quite right (the straps were plastic and would cut into my skin after a long day), one pair that I wore gardening one too many times (the brown dirt stains wouldn't come out of the white leather), and the pair that I was wearing when I broke my ankle (they were an unfortunate casualty of broken ankle PTSD because those purple and blue paisleys go down as one of my favorite pairs of all time).  I only threw out the garden ones a couple of days before I left for Germany, because I knew I would be getting a new pair. The only store where I have ever bought my Birkenstocks is Hoffmann's in Speicher.  (Well okay, t...

Like Dominos....

It all began with glare.  Simple, obnoxious, I-can't-stand-it-anymore glare. Our 60" rear projection TV in the family room was basically unviewable except after 10 o'clock at night.  The glare from the windows was making it impossible to see anything during my 10 minute lunch break each day, and something had to change. Too, the TV didn't fit in the entertainment center from Germany.  John, wanting bigger and better, hadn't considered that the space is only 40" wide.  For the past five years, I have been nagged by 6" of overhang on both sides of the TV stand. I went to Lowe's to price blinds.  $1,043 for five blinds, and that was at 20% off. I figured a new TV would be cheaper than that.  I was right, even with the state-of-the-art receiver and new HDMI cables that sly salesman told us we needed to have. But where to put the old TV?  It just needed a quiet, dark place to retire. Glo's bedroom.  Her TV was a relic from the paleoneoneand...

Your Life in Two Suitcases

I remember when Johannah told us that she wanted to serve a mission.  It was a couple of months after her freshman year had begun.  When she uttered those life-changing words, "I want to serve a mission," my heart sank.  Mark hadn't been home from his mission for very long, and the pain of having a child gone was still pretty fresh.  Let's just say that I wasn't at all encouraging. However, time passed, and when she actually submitted her papers, I was so excited for her.  I was excited for me too.  While I can't pinpoint any specific blessing that came to us when the boys were serving their missions, there is just a special kind of purpose that enters my life.  I can't really do anything without thinking about my missionary, and in some special way, my life is changed.  I write daily letters which, for an introvert, is cathartic.  I study my scriptures a little bit better because I want to be able to offer encouragement.  I'm constant...