Home.

I'm feeling a little homesick.

This usually happens whenever I talk to anyone in my family.

I spoke to my sister a few days ago, on Skype.

We only spoke for an hour, which for some people may be long enough but not for us.

Normally we talk for around 3 or 4 hours.

Seriously.

We can talk.

I am excited because our conversation was mainly centred on my trip home at Christmas.

I will be going home for a month.

I cannot wait.

My sister will be home.

My brother will be home.

My heart will be happy.

Here are some of the things that I am looking forward to.

(in no particular order)

1. My sister picking me up at the airport. I haven't seen her since September 20th, 2011. There will be tears.

2. Seeing my family. It is going to be wonderful.

3. Going on a little trip with just my brother and sister.

4.Snow.

5. Watching Christmas movies by the fire. So wonderful.

6. Christmas baking with mum.

7. Last minute Christmas shopping with my brother because he won't have any gifts yet.

8. Christmas Eve church service.

9. Wrapping presents.

10. Decorating the Christmas tree.

11. Eastenders Christmas special.

12. Coronation Street Christmas special.

13. The Queen's speech.

14. Watching Love Actually, The Holiday, Home Alone, Family Stone, White Christmas, Miracle on 34th street, Santa Claus, Elf...and every other Christmas movie!

15.Spending time with my two sisters.

16. Going for long walks around our favourite places.

17. Making soup.

18. Dancing and singing with my sister in the kitchen while our brother disowns us.

19. Giving gifts.

20. Making new memories.

I am excited.

December will be here before we know it.



Music.

I love Christmas music. 

I get quite upset when Christmas passes and I have to start listening to "normal" music again. 

(I do occasionally sneak in a cheeky, wee Christmas song!)

So I have been listening to Christmas music since November. 

And I don't mean after Thanksgiving, I mean like November 1st. 

I know the rule - no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving.

I'm sorry, but not really. 

I am from Scotland and we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, therefore I can start whenever I like.

Glad we cleared that up! 

That is 2 months of solid Christmas music. 

(which is basically 2 months of solid joy!)

If I listen to anything else during this time I feel really bad and feel like I cheated on Christmas. 

I realise that this sounds like I have a problem, but this girl just really loves Christmas and celebrating the birth of her Saviour!

The other wonderful thing about it is that because I haven't listened to other music for a while it now feels like I am hearing it for the first time! 

I have been listening to a lot of Kari Jobe. 

If you don't know who I am talking about please go and look her up. 

She has some beautiful songs.

Her words really speak to my heart. 

Over the past few days I have been listening to one of her songs over and over. 

I find it really hard to listen to her music and do anything else because I get so lost in her words. 

You are for me. 

You can find a link to this song below. 

I don't know about you but sometimes I have to remind myself that God is for us.

You fill me. You see me.

You know my every move

and You love for me to sing to You.

God knows our every move, and knows what lies ahead. 

Lord, I know that You are for me. 

I take great comfort in that. 

p.s. I will share what else I have been listening to soon. Some of it hilarious, well not really but it is stuff that my brother listens to and we he had it on when we were driving all over the world last week! It is not at all what I would normally listen to but I got a kick out of it! 

On purpose, with purpose.

I am really going to try and work on being more consistent with my posts.

I think one a month is a little bit pathetic!

 I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and took some time to reflect on the real reason for the occasion. I have to admit that Christmas became a whole lot more special when I really appreciated all that the birth of Jesus meant for me.

He is really the greatest gift we could ever ask for.

I am back in Scotland for a little bit.

Hopefully, I will be back in California soon.

(please pray for me)

I am enjoying spending time with my family and especially the little brother.

He is a such a blessing to me.

I do have some fun photos from Christmas day, but I need to get them from  brother first.

We had a some what eventful day.

My brother, Dad and I headed to Bridge of Earn for Christmas day to spend it with our Granny and Great-Aunt.

They were very excited to have us spend the day with them, as were we!

We arrived, and I put the pavlova safely in the kitchen.

(I don't know how you are supposed to travel with a pavlova but I was holding the plate, the pavlova was sliding all over the place so I had to hold it with both my hands. I had 2 fingers on one side of the pavlova and 2 on the other and still had to have hold of the plate. I don't know how it made it there in once piece because I dosing in and out of consciousness.)

Annnnnyhoo.

We said "Merry Christmas" to the girls (the old girls) and started unpacking all the presents from the car.

As I was coming back in Aunty was on the floor in the house.

She had tripped and must have hit her head off the cabinet.

She had a cut just above her eye.

She sure gave us all a freight.

Thankfully she was alright.

It was crazy because on the way there I had been thinking about how old they are getting (Aunty will turn the big 9-0 next year)

For the most part she is doing great. But she has had a few little bumps now.

I do worry about her.

But honestly, I think (ok I know) that I fall over more often than her.

I was putting up Christmas decorations last week and stepped back, lost my balance and took a heavy step back and smashed a glass bauble. Great.

No glass in my foot though! Phew.

I am enjoying relaxing these holidays.

It is horrible outside. Really it is.

I think I could quite easily go into hibernation right now.

I have no desire to go outside. The wind is crazy, and throw rain in there and it is just nasty.

There is no fear of me blowing away though, I have not stopped eating since Christmas Day.

Why does that happen around this time of year?

You just see food and think that you need to eat it or something terrible is going to happen.

I just want to eat all the food so it is gone.

I've not just been eating.

What I've been enjoying more than eating is reading.

I am finding it hard to put down a book just now.

I am readying a book called The Power of a Praying Woman by Stormie Omartian.

It is very challenging, and encouraging.

I started reading it a while ago, I may have spoken about it here before.

But I haven't read it for a good few months.

It is actually a 3 in 1 book and it also have The Power of a Praying Wife and The Power of a Praying Parent.

I have been reading parts of all 3.

Now is hasn't been that long since I have posted.

I am neither married, or had a baby.

But I still find it relevant.

As I read through the different chapters and sections I find myself agreeing with what the writer is saying.

It is very real, very honest and I can relate to what she is talking about.

I find myself reading it and saying "YES" in my head.

Yesterday I read this.

" We have to put our expectations in the Lord and not in other things or people."

Emm, yes.

How often do we forget this? I know I do.

As I wait  and pray for my visa sometimes my prayers are not focused on the Lord and His plan but focused on the outcome I want.

That is not to say that I don't believe that the Lord wants me to be in California.

I do.

But my prayer should be, and is, that the Lord's will be done in my life.

His plan is far more perfect than any plan I have for my life.

"We want to live life on purpose and with purpose"

It is so easy to get caught up in the things of this world.

I want to be part of something greater.

My prayer is that I will live my life on purpose and with purpose.

Ladies, I would definitely encourage you to get this book if you haven't already done so.

My dear friend, Juliet, gave me this book for my Birthday 3 years ago.

I have picked up it a few times in these 3 years but I am feel challenged to study it more closely.

I'll leave you with a photo of my in my new Christmas Pjs!

Yes, they are covered in robins and holly.

And yes, they are beautiful.

Praying that you have time reflect on the things/people that really matter this holiday season.

O Holy Night.

Merry Christmas (a little late!) I hope that everyone had a wonderful time, ate too much and smiled all day!

My day was just lovely. Every year on Christmas Eve we attend a Church Carol service at our local Church. I have to admit that it has hardly changed since I was little but it is still a joy to go to it! When we were younger, my sister, brother and I would usually be taking part in the service in some way. There are different readings and performances inbetween the different carols. It is lovely to see the different kids that participate now and see how the little kiddies that I used to watch in Sunday School have grown! It was beautiful. I always get emotional during the service because I always reflect on why we are here, and why we are celebrating.

After this my brother and I came back with our mum and spent the evening with her. Lucy came later on, she went out for a few drinks with her friend. I have to say here that it has been a joy having Fin home for Christmas. I love that boy and I love seeing how he is growing up and changing. He is a blessing. We were all sick on Christmas Eve, with colds. It was not nice. I was up late wrapping presents, making yummy truffles and cheesecake for Christmas day. So I was exhausted. I slept SO good. Could of slept all day. I woke up at 8:45am and all was still quiet in the house. I don't remember a Christmas when I have been able to sleep that late. Usually I have a sister or brother in my room whispering to see if I am awake, or doing what they need to wake me up! So I just lay there for a while enjoying the moment where I could wake up on my own. It didn't last long. Soon someone was in the bathroom, I heard the toilet flush and it was like this was an alarm telling everyone it was time to get up. I heard one door open, then another and Christmas greetings being passed around! I knew that I would be next. I didn't do a very good job of being my cheery self. I had a horrible head-ache and stuffy nose.

I finally made it to the living room where everyone was VERY excited to see what gifts they had received. I wrapped myself in a blanket and was ready to fall asleep again. But that's what little brothers are for, to wake you up even when you are not ready to! So he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. Great. Just what I was wanting to happen. And just so you know, I am about 6ft tall and my brother is 6ft 4or5 so you imagine how ridiculous this looked. I do find it very impressive when he manages to pick me up but doesn't mean I appreicate it!

I love watching everyone open the gifts I bought for them months ago and hoped that they would love! It was successful. I will share more about my gifts in another post.

We had a yummy breakfast of cinammon scrolls! They are a favourite for all of us! Suddenly we didn't really have a lot of time and we were all running around getting ready and deciding what to wear, well that was more me...I had no idea what I was going to wear! I got there in the end though. I blame this on feeling really ill and not wanting to get out of bed in the first place!

We then headed down to my Dad's house. It was crazy to be going from one place to another, and leaving mum behind...but that is something new that I am still getting used to. Lucy and I were cooking Christmas dinner. It was delicious. Seriously. We had a fun day. Our Granny and Aunty joined us and that was precious. I love spending time with them but don't do it often enough.

Right. Onto why I'm not sharing photos in this post. My laptop is doing something funky. I have this horrible green tinge on my screen and it is driving me nuts! When I look at photos there is like this green tinge throughout the photo. Best way to describe it is that it looks like someone has gone over my screen with a green pencil and rendered it in! So when I am editing photos I really can't tell what they look like and don't want to bore you with terrible photos. I have lots of photos to share from Christmas day from the people and prezzies to the meal. I will try and post these soon. I will probably just use my mum's laptop.

I am going to leave you with a Carol that I have been listening lots this CHRISTmas time. The version I have been listening to it by Natalie Grant. She has a really beautiful Christmas album. I should of directed you to it before Christmas. Sorry. The song is a Medley of Silver Bells, Saviour Came for Me and O Holy Night. I really touches me.

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Love came down at Christmas.

Christmas is almost here. I love this time of year, a lot. 2 months ago I helped put up the decorations at work and everyone became aware of how much I love this time of year. They told me that I would definitely be sick of Christmas by December. I am pleased to inform you that I am still full of Christmas cheer!

Last week I finished my Christmas shopping. I so enjoy buying gifts for people. Taking time to really think about what I am going to get someone, then walking into a store and then seeing something that is perfect and completely different to what you had in mind. I have also been making gifts this year. Last year I made my sister a scarf. I enjoyed being creative and giving someone special to me something that has my stamp on it, that reflects me. You will have to wait until after Christmas so see some of the gifts that I have made this year as there may be eyes reading this that will be receiving one of those gifts!

Another love of this season is wrapping Christmas presents! I could quite happily spend all day wrapping presents, seriously. But I hate clearing up all the mess afterwards. So if there is someone out there who loves to clear up mess but hates wrapping presents, I think we could form a great friendship! Unfortunately I have already wrapped all my presents, this makes me sad. No more present wrapping for me, unless I can wrap some with my mum and sister?

Mum and I put up the Christmas tree a few weeks ago now. It looks so pretty and sparkly. But we kinda threw it up late one night and forgot about the rest of the decorations. So over this week we have been finishing off the decorations throughout the house. It looks beautiful. I am ready to enjoy this week of festivities now!

The most important thing I love about this season is the reason for the season, the birth of Jesus Christ. I tend to get very emotional at this time of year as I think about our Saviour being born. Such a beautiful thing. It is very easy to get caught up in everything about this time of year. I always make sure that I stop to take time to be thankful for the precious baby that was born. The Greatest gift.

Today I enjoyed putting decorations up and making Christmas truffles! I had some beautiful Christmas carols playing in the background too. I was listening to Natalie Grant's Christmas album, Believe. I am going to leave you with some lyrics from one of her songs. This is my prayer tonight.

"I believe

The Wiseman saw

The baby born the angels called the son of God Heaven’s child

The great I am Born to take away my sins through nailed pierced hands

Emmanuel has come"

The Never-ending List...

About a month ago I made this cute "To Do List" sign. I actually made it out of a card I got from a friend for my Birthday this year. I love it!

So, since I have made this cute sign I am always adding more and more things to this list. The sad thing is that rarely does anything get crossed off it, but the list just keeps growing and growing. Until today that is. I managed to cross off a few things from my list, a few e-mails, letters sent, birthday present mailed and Christmas presents bought! I also did a bunch of laundry, tidying and cooked a lovely dinner tonight aswell. Feeling very pleased with myself too. I also changed my room around, well really just moved my bed. But I like it. :)

Also, I have something to confess. Today I was listening to Christmas music. I just couldn't help myself. Yesterday when I was shopping ALL the shops had Christmas music on. I was jealous that the people that worked there got to listen to this music all day and think that it is perfectly acceptable to start listening now. It's only a month before Christmas, and this is the only time of year that I get to listen to this wonderful music! I think you should start now too, you know YOU want to?