We woke to a house shrouded in early morning darkness and no heat. The light switches were reduced to mere plastic and the stove wasn’t exactly helpful in cooking oats. So we put a log in the fire place and lit a few candles and snuggled under blankets on the couch.

Who needs electricity anyway? The mornings are so cozy without it.

My knitting needles and crochet hooks have turned into elves this week, working like mad to form yards of wool into wearable gifts. I want to show you everything I’ve made so far and tell you about the rest I have planned, but how, exactly, do I show you when the receivers of these gifts might likely read the words here? Hmm…

Our neighbor’s rooftop is covered with blue lights. His windows are lined with blue lights. His door and trim and trees and driveway and even the yard itself are all blanketed with bulbs in every hue.

Yes, we live next door to that house. People drive by and park their cars and cameras flash.

We wrapped lit garland around our porch and hung big green wreaths in the windows and tied red bows to our outdoor banisters. Sometimes I think I would prefer being 75 to being 25.

My dear friend Lisa sent us a silver star ornament and I gasped when I opened the package. It was more perfect, sitting there with its red ribbon and our four names etched around the middle, than I imagined it. Four names and a year, for the last year we’ll only have four names. Troy said, “Hey, it says our names. How did she know our names? Do your blog friends know our names?”

To think that in our time we’ve watched the line blur between online and real life and that in twenty years he may not know there ever was a line.

I think we’re going to stay in our jammies all day on Saturday and make my family’s famous chocolate dipped peanut butter and marshmallow fluff cookies. I always buy three times the amount of crackers we need and a tub of peanut butter that will last a year, but oh heavens. These cookies. We need fifty million of them if they’re going to last until Christmas.

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Lisa Leonard graciously gifted us with this molded star ornament from her new line of holiday decor debuting this Christmas season. She is also offering 10% off of all orders using the code ORNAMENT2011. Perhaps you see one of her new Christmas ornaments that will look splendid on your family’s tree this year?

The days and the nights, they are sneaky creatures.

The way they show up in hordes before vanishing a breathy mist.

The people tell me it’s expected to sleep long each day and spend the mornings bruising one’s knees and losing one’s breakfast in the bathroom. All of this happens when a woman grows a human under her heart.

Some people send notes and mention gently that days and even weeks of excessive tears and too-deep thoughts is all… normal.

And yet somehow, this third time around, I’ve forgotten. So I rest and I throw up and I talk endlessly about everything and I cry over every single little thing.

Oh well.

There’s a human the size of a grapefruit currently kicking my belly button and here I am, living these days fully and reminding my mind to be gentle with my heart.

Because these are they days, you know? The days we’ll look to and say “remember that fall when I was pregnant and so sick and Troy started school and we had just moved to Virginia and everything was just happy and crazy all at once?”

This is then. These are the days that matter.

Grace is still good even when given to ourselves, you know?

So right now we’re living day-grace.

We see:

We sip:

We munch:

We craft:

We try:

We read:

We dance:

We grow impatient:

And we thrift broken wreaths:

And we decorate early:

Grace for living.

Grace for loving.

Grace for being quiet.

Grace for being crazy.

Living is fun and stuff, folks.

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Heart and Earth Organics‘ facial products have made their way to my bathroom counter courtesy of my friend Rebecca. I’m loving them, as well as her lip balms. The cocoa mint is my fave. Merritt says it tastes like candy, of course.

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I think “this is life” posts are just kinda the best. To read and to write.

How are you living today? Tell me, purty please?