Christmas Song Sunday.

Rocking Around The Christmas Tree
Johnny Marks

Rockin around the Christmas tree
At the Christmas party hop
Mistletoe hung where you can see
Every couple tries to stop
Rocking around the Christmas tree,
Let the Christmas spirit ring
Later we'll have some pumpkin pie
And we'll do some caroling.

You will get a sentimental
Feeling when you hear
Voices singing let's be jolly,
Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Rocking around the Christmas tree,
Have a happy holiday
Everyone dancing merrily
In the new old-fashioned way.


[Rockin Around the Christmas Tree was written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958.]

Saturday Obsessions: Christmas + Ray + New Venture

Christmas Christmas Christmas

Hello Christmas, we've missed you. Today is the Morlet house decorating day. All Fall is getting stored and we'll have Christmas bursting from our seams. Last year we got a real tree. It was fun and a good way to start off our first Christmas together. But the clean up and maintenance was awful. So this year we are going with a fakey. She's gorgeous tho. Pics to come. 


One of the things I love about Christmas is the traditions it brings. We don't have a whole lot but we're looking to create some. What traditions do you do? 

Rachel Ray:

I love her quick tips and shortcuts on cooking. Like, the honey count. 
I'm always lookin for chicken recipes because we love chicken but eating the same 5 recipes is getting kinda old. Rachael Ray is a genius at chicken. Gonna try this one. 

Starting My Own Business

I've always had a dream of owning my own business. I just had too many ideas to find a target audience or even a target idea. ha. But I think I'm getting closer. Just doing all the research now. Blah. Any of you ever started your own business?? Any advice??

What are you obsessions lately?


Love,

Gobble Gobble.

Going to the parents today and parent-in-laws tomorrow.

Had a turkey dinner with friends on Tuesday and it was goooooood.

What I love about Thanksgiving is that it just has that thing about it.

You know that thing that makes you want to just sit and laugh with your friends and family for hours. 
Playing games, eating pumpkin pie, drinking cider and telling old childhood stories.

Stories that you tell every year without fail.




Sometimes I wonder why Christmas and Thanksgiving had to be so closer together. 
That way we could span out this season all year long. 


My favorite part of the Thanksgiving feast is the Sweet Potato Souffle my momma makes. 
I made my own version on Tuesday but today we get to have the real deal. Mmmm.
And Pumpkin pie of course. And turkey. Ok, I think I  just love it all.

This Thanksgiving I'm especially thankful for my family. They have been a huge support to Ty and I this first year of marriage. I love my parents dearly and we are quite close, but this last year of marriage they've so eloquently let me go to begin my new life with my new family, but they're never too far away when I need a little help [or a kick in the butt].
I adore that about them.

Happy Thanksgiving friends! 
And don't forget to wear your Thanksgiving pants.





Love,

Just Let it Go.

Sometimes I just need to let it go. I'm having a hard time finding balance in my life right now. I have this innate desire to make all bad things right. Or sometimes they're not even bad, they're just wrong, misplaced or unfair. I have an idea of what my life and life around me should be [I think they call that "ideal"] and when reality and ideal don't match-up, I try my hardest to make it match up. Or at least I dream of making it match up.


For example, in my ideal world, I would be able to schedule my life by the minute, making room and time for all the things I'd like to accomplish. In my ideal week, I want to bake, read, write, drink lots of coffees and teas and sing all day. 


In my ideal jobs, my voice students would practice, my co-workers would value my opinion more, I would have thicker skin, and my high school students would always do their homework. 


In my ideal marriage, I would be able to swiftly submit to my husbands leadership, he would come home with flowers and a Gingerbread latte everyday, and we would never have a fight that lasts longer than 5 minutes. 


In my ideal version of faith, I would never doubt the hand of God, always turn to His Word before and after any decision making, and spend an hour alone with Him every day. But ideals are just that. Ideals. Some enter reality and others never will. Or at least not anytime soon. I'm learning to be ok with that. I'm learning that just like me, others are learning too. No one's an expert at life. And if you think you are, get married. You'll change your hypothesis.  


I don't know what I was expecting Ty to do or be as a husband. And I don't know what I was expecting to do or be as wife. Girls are weird that way. We don't know what we want until something that we don't want is in front of us and then we realize, yea that's not really what I want. Am I alone here sistas? Tyson makes fun of me all the time for this. He'll ask me where I want to eat and I'll reply, I don't care. You pick. Then he'll pick some guy-food restaurant [although now his default is the Vietnamese place thanks to A.Pitts] and I'll realize, Ok maybe I do care because that does not sound good. 


I didn't realize that I had preconceived ideas about marriage before I was married. I thought I was going  prepared and with an open mind, but I quickly discovered I was not prepared and opened minded at all. I don't think you can prepare for marriage as some say you can. Sure there are key obvious things like if and when you wanna have kids, is your faith the same, who's going to be the breadwinner, how do you fight, etc. But that stuff is all theory until you are in the muck and mire of it all and are frantically trying to recall that list of tips, tricks, and tidbits all those married ladies at your bridal shower wrote down. 

Then one afternoon, in conversation with my momma, I had an epiphany. I had been "expecting" my Ty to be an experienced, well-rounded, perfect husband. I expected him to be a perfectionist at husband-ing. Even though he'd never done it before. He'd never been a husband before. What was I thinking? And I wasn't good at wife-ing.  I have never been a wife before. Ah it was so freeing. It was like all the burden of perfection was released from us. We allowed each other to make mistakes. We allowed each other to grow and learn and get better at this whole marriage thing. 


And let me tell you. We have. 


I love you Tyson Morlet and am so happy to be growing more and more in love with you.


I let it go. 


Mmm. 


Love,

Saturday Obsessions-Poofy Hairs.

I want my hair to look like this:

Volumous. Red. Perfection.

I've been taught how to tease my hair but its never good enough. 

Any tips?

Love,

{My Little Sister's Wedding} Dresses...Check!

{From here out, all the posts titles for My Baby Sister's Wedding segment will be abbreviated: MBSW}

Thanks to David's Bridal we have the Bride's dress and Bridesmaid dresses picked out and in the file.

All the girls are wearing black dresses with black heels and a blue-ish hair piece. Probably flowers but we're still looking. Tomorrow in fact. [If you have suggestions leave a comment!] 

Flowers are being decided, we were going to go with Hydrangeas but I hear they're a real pain to keep alive long enough for the event. @ one friends wedding, they wilted within 10 minutes of being out of water. Eh. We'll skip these pretty beauties for now.


The sis wants there to be alot of different kinds of white flowers. I love the idea.

Here's a lot of sites we're been frequenting for ideas and inspiration.


Style Me Pretty
The Knot
Junebug Weddings
Wedding Chicks

Next step, Shabro's house for Operation Decorations. 


Love,

Life Will Always Be Bittersweet.

I went to school in Grand Rapids, Michigan and while I was there I attended Rob Bell's church in the city. It was a great church. I didn't really get involved because I was so over-booked with school and music, but I enjoyed the services and love love loved the worship. At the time, Aaron Niequist was the worship leader. He led from piano and was anointed for sure. His heart for the church was so evident and his music communicated that. 

Anyways, my friend Tommee knew him and he had recently discovered that Aaron's wife was writing a book. He printed out a copy for me and it was love at first read. In a weird way, I related with nearly everything Shauna wrote about. Not necessarily the circumstances [although the similarities in those were a bit eery as well] but more in her emotional journey that she went on. Plus, we have the same favorite breakfast place in the golden city of GR. 


Insecure yet funny and out going. Yup. 
Loves food. Yup. 
Had self-image issues. That's me. 
A hopeless romantic. ME?! 
English major. Almost. 
Broken. For sure. 
Humbled. Most definitely. 
Struggling to find security and trust in God. It's my daily routine. 


I devoured that book in three days. And have read it several times over. 

So needless to say, when she was getting ready to release her second book, Bittersweet, I was out of my mind excited. I knew this one was going to be good too, but with the title Bittersweet, I didn't know which direction she was going to take things. But after I read it I closed it, laid it on my coffee table and wept. This woman had gone through normal distressing life circumstances and came out on top. But that's not what shocked me. What shocked me was her honesty and authenticity through the whole thing. 


She never once pretended that she fully trusted God. She confesses that she doubted. She was angry. She was so heartbroken that she had a hard time getting in and out of bed. 


I think we've all been there.


But what caused me to cry was that she speaks what most of us feel but are too afraid to actually say out loud because that would make them real. 


She says this in her prologue:


"Christians, generally, aren't great at lament and mourning. Jews are really better at lament, maybe because they've had more practice. My favorite part of a Jewish wedding is the breaking of the glass. Like most Jewish traditions, there are a whole bunch of interpretations: some say that all the shards of broken glass suggest loads of future children and future happiness. Some say that the breaking of the glass references the irreversible nature of marriage: in the same way that the glass can never be put back together after it's been broken, two people can never be separated once they've been connected by marriage. But my favorite interpretation is the one where the wine in the glass is a symbol for all of life, and when the bride and groom drink it, they accept both the bitter and the sweet aspects of life. They accept that sometimes they'll celebrate and sometimes they'll mourn, in the same way that sometimes they'll drink wine and sometimes glasses will shatter.

This collection is an ode to all things bittersweet, to life at the edges, a love letter to what change can do in us. This is what I've come to believe about change: it's good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean that it's incredibly painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God's hand, which is where you wanted to be all along, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be. So this is the work I'm doing now, and the work I invite you int when life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow." {excerpt from book}


So thank you Shauna, for speaking the truth and allowing your faith to shine through it. It inspires me to be real, to not pretend to be who I think other people want me to be. But admit my struggles and fears and bad days. To squash that voice that swears I will never be good enough or strong enough or trusting enough. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being human. 


This is a must read for everyone. A must read. [If you're a writer, you will fall in love with her writing style.] And because I liked the book so much, I'm going to give one away! 

[Or if you wanna buy, buy it on Amazon Affiliates here or on the bottom left side-bar. This means if you click through to Amazon from JM, any purchase you make supports this site.]

Easy peasy: just post a {comment} on this post. It can be about anything. No prompt :) Winner will be chosen next Wednesday night. 


Love, 

[You can buy her book on Amazon or get the audio version on iTunes. Just search "Bittersweet Shauna.]


[She speaks too! Check out her stuff here]. 

My Husband is Pretty Cool.

I think my husband is amazing. All wives should think their husband is amazing. Don't get me wrong, there are times when I think he's a bonehead but most of the time he's amazing. ;) He has exactly {2} priorities: Loving God & Loving me. Everything he does fits into one [or both] of those categories. He's not a complicated guy. Feed him, love on him, and let him do his job and I'm good to go.

Ty is a talented man. He is musician. A songwriter. A worship leader. A youth pastor. A counselor. A student. A mentor. He can also do tile. And is a phenomenal handy man. He's athletic. And he is the best husband in the world. 

He puts his heart into everything he does...like everything. Let me give you an example. When Ty became the youth pastor, he labored for hours upon hours, dollars upon dollars, by the sweat of his brow to get the youth room ready for the fall launch.  
E v e r y   s i n g l e   l i t t l e  d e t a i l  was in place by the time those 200 middle school students walked into that room. There were times when I got frustrated he was spending so much [to me] unneccessary time into it. It's just a room. They're not even gonna see whether the cords are hung on the side wall or put into a big black box. Oh but he cared. And I should have known better. I knew he was like this when I married him, but now I get to see just how like this he is. And it's good. I currently have a love/hate relationship with it but I hope that someday soon I'll just plain love it. :)

Anyways, all that to say, I have told him for quite sometime that he should start a blog. I told him he doesn't have to be as crazy about it as I am and it doesn't have to be fancy shmansy. But I think he has alot to offer from his experiences and has a great amount of wisdom to share. In other words, he has a story and I want people to hear it.

But he won't do it. 

Blurg.

Tyson Morlet, we are coming for you ;)

Love,

Your Wife