Welcome, 2011!

Happy New Year!  Is it just me or did this year go by really, really fast?  Honestly, I don't feel ready for it to be January 2nd.  I've already spent about 2 hours preparing for school to start tomorrow morning!   I printed off a really nice prayer in honor of The Most Holy Name of Jesus which is celebrated tomorrow.  We'll pray the prayer and then use it for some copy work.....I thought it would be good to use as a "warm up" to get them back in the swing of things.

We got a call from one of the basketball coaches at our parish school tonight.  Apparently, they are one kid short for one of the teams and he wanted to know if Nathan would be interested in playing.  We made the decision to go ahead and say yes, even though he just finished up with soccer.  One of the reasons is that we really LOVE this coach and I was so touched that he wanted Nathan on his team!  The practices are reasonable...just once a week and the games are all on Saturdays. 

During this Christmas break, I've learned that two of my elementary school classmates have been diagnosed with cancer.  One with testicular cancer and another with stage 4 Melanoma (brain tumor).  When does this ever end?  It seems that every time I turn around, I hear of someone else who has been stricken with this disease.  It's heart wrenching!   In addition to all of that, my nephew is back in the hospital again.  He is suffering with ulcerative colitis/Crohns disease.  I can't even keep count of how many flare ups he's had in the last year.  I would say that this is at least his 4th hospitalization in the past 12 months!  Please keep him in your prayers. 

There is also another very close family member that is suffering with fibromyalgia.  Recently, her doctors have decided to do some additional testing as her symptoms seem to be more indicative of M.S.  She will undergo a spinal tap sometime in the next 2 weeks.  Apparently this will be the deciding factor in her diagnosis.  I also ask that you would keep her in your prayers as well!

We managed to get all of our Christmas decorations down and put away this afternoon.  This was bittersweet for me.  I have a love/hate relationship with holiday decorations!  The living room looks so bare now!  However, if 2011 is anything like 2010, Christmas will be here again before we know it!

Well, that's my quick update for now.   It shouldn't be too long before I'm back into the routine again.

What's been going on in your neck of the woods?