Friday Craziness

Today I got to church, wrote a sermon, did a funeral, did a graveside, participated in a scarf exchange with the preschool staff (fun!), started Sunday's sermon, finished my sermon for Christmas Eve, did a bunch of other stuff, ordered pizza, picked up the pizza, did youth group with the 3-5 graders.  Whew.  A 12 hour day, and I'm glad to be done.  So, some tidbits from the day:

 

Christmas socks!  I was wearing them with boots under my skirt, but the boots had heels, and eventually I had to switch to flats.  So I was wearing these with my skirt, running around the church, looking oh-so-professional.  But very festive!

 

 

This is the scarf I got in the exchange.  It's actually a lot more fuchsia than you can see in the picture.  My phone apparently just picked up the gold.  I don't wear a lot of pink, generally, but this is beautiful and will go with all of the black I wear.  Yay scarf exchange!

 

My fabulous parishioner has struck again.  First there was the ornaments and then the towels, and today I got these.  They are gift tags!  She said she found them in a bunch of stuff, so she gave them to me.  Woohoo!  I used one of them as an ornament on the shoe tree, and it looks adorable if I do say so myself.

 

It was a crazy day, but a good one.

 

Take A Page Out Of My Book

Our worship and music director got roped into choosing a number for today's post.  It was something of a comedy of errors as it's been so long since I looked at the handbags book that I couldn't remember how high the pages went.  She had to choose 3 or 4 times before we got low enough.  So...here is page 432:

 

 

It's hard to tell, but it's a snakeskin and gold metallic clutch.  Not so much the snakeskin, but at least the gold is kind of festive.  Nothing terribly festive about page 432 of the shoe book:

 

 

These are cute, but what cracks me up is that the description starts with "a rounded backside."  Yes, I'm being totally immature, but I'm tired, OK?

 

And the calendar picture for today:

 

 

This has nothing to do with page 432 of anything.  You want segues, you're going to have to come up with your own until I get a vacation (which I will in January!!!!).  These are cute enough. I like that they look all snuggly and fleecy inside.

 

Today was busy but fairly good.  Had a discombobulated morning followed by crappy traffic on the commute, and then a bout of grumpiness at church, but then I had a lovely Christmas lunch with staff and SKD.  Then it was back to work with a funeral planning meeting and worship tonight, even though it's not my usual night to be at Wednesday worship.  Definitely time to go home.

 

 

 

Presents!

I know it's getting closer to Christmas, but the calendar chose an odd way to express it's holiday spirit:

 

 

At first I thought they were maybe from the 60s, and even thought they're still crazy, I maybe could have been OK with them.  Nope.  These are from 2005, and they are officially hideous.  What the heck?  Who would wear these?

 

Thankfully I was recently given a gift that will help to cleans our collective palates.

 

 

Towels!  Shoe towels!  Christmas shoe towels!  The same parishioner who gave me the 6 ornaments for the shoe tree also gave me these.  How cool are they?  How cool is she?

 

Today the December panic kicked in.  I've gotten a LOT accomplished, but the next week is going to be crazy busy.  It will all get done, and everything will be fine, but I'm at that point where I'm staring everything down and trying not to hyperventilate.  Good times.

 

 

Advent 3

 

We're getting closer!  3 out of 4 candles are now lit.  I decided it was time to finally be liturgically correct and put the pink candle in the wreath.  I always get excited about buying pretty blue ribbon and space out the pink.  But I had some pink at church and thought I would add it this year.  Pink is for week 3, which is Joy.

 

 

These are my new blue Advent boots.  This is the first Sunday I've worn them, but I have been wearing them on the Wednesdays in Advent.  I love that they are blue, of course, but they also have almost no heel, which means I can wear them all day and still be comfortable.  I forgot to take a picture while I was wearing them and now I'm too tired to go take my own photo, so this is the one from Amazon, which is where I ordered them.

 

Speaking of being tired...holy buckets.  Last night was our Christmas party.  Tate counted around 70 people who were all crammed into our house.  It was really fun, but I left about 11:45 and went to the hotel so I could get some sleep.  Today I had 2 worship services, as usual.  We also had our Sunday School Christmas Program between services.  The kids were really cute.  One of them wasn't able to make it, so I got to participate this year as one of the characters.  After church I had a funeral.  I was so tired after I could barely see straight.  Thank goodness for Sunday afternoon naps.  I'm still exhausted, as is the hubby.  I didn't get any pictures of shoes last night, but here are some Christmas Party shoes I found:

 

 

These are oddly cute.  I'm not sure they are me, but they are sparkly and festive, which is good for this time of year.

 

These are weird.  The heel looks like those beads you buy for silly Christmas ornaments.  Very cheesy.

 

I looooove these.  Obviously because they are blue, but they are just so pretty and elegant (2 things I don't really associate with myself, but I girl can dream, right?).

 

And finally a collection so you can have a variety. 

 

 

Christmas Pageant

The Sunday School Christmas Pageant is tomorrow, so this morning was the final rehearsal.  In case you were wondering, I will be playing the role of "Ima Gossip" (unless the kid who is supposed to play the role shows up tomorrow, in which case I just get to watch).  The play will be adorable and lovely tomorrow they always are.  Today the kids were whiny, distracted, wiggly, and kept jumping off the stage.  They always do.  I decided to do an image search for nativity shoes and I'm extremely grateful not much showed up.

 

 

I expected more of this, and while I don't hate this shoe, I'm just not sure the birth of Jesus is something we need to be depicting on our footwear.  I could be absolutely wrong.  (I'm not wrong)

 

What...is...happening...here?  I'm so confused.  Why are they on the stairs?  Why are they surrounded by ugly shoes?  Why?  So many thoughts and questions.

 

OK, these really don't have anything to do with the nativity, but I thought they were sweet.  Who doesn't need this reminder as they stare at their feet?

 

Short and sweet (?) today.  I'm off to get ready for the hubby's Christmas party tonight.  OK, technically it's "our" party as it's at our house, but it's really his baby.  I'm just there to look awkward and do my best to be a hostess (which for me involves a lot of unloading, loading, and running the dishwasher...)

 

Christmas Party

Oooooh....barely sliding this one in under the wire.  It was long day.  Laundry, errands, cleaning, repeat.  Then we got ready and headed for the church Christmas party and proceeded to get stuck in absolutely horrible traffic.  Thank goodness for GPS and alternate route because we went about 3 miles in 45 minutes and probably cut another hour off with the GPS.  The staff party was fun, with dinner, and ornament exchange and the singing of Christmas carols.  I looooove singing Christmas carols.  Apparently I take it a bit too seriously though, as there was much extraneous singing throughout (AHEM, parish administer and Pinterest Friend...).  Oh well, I still enjoyed it.  In honor of the singing, here are some musically inspired shoes:

 

 

See?  Shoes have a theme for just about anything!

 

These are scary.  Why are they staring at me?

 

Same as the first, only in red.  And a different angle.  (I'm tired, cut me some slack on the witty banter)

 

Comfy musical shoes!  Wonder what the music is?

 

Also wonder on these.  Someone play it and tell me.  I could, but I'm nowhere near a piano at the moment.

 

Oh!  Here's one...

 

Boooooots

Can December be over now?  I'm sneaking in this post now only because no one showed up for my 5:00 bible study, giving me a few minutes to type like crazy.  It's been another busy day.  I actually got a lot done today, probably because I went into panic mode this morning and started feverishly crossing things off my to-do list.  Tonight I was supposed to have bible study from 5-6, dinner starting at 5:30 and the preschool Christmas pageant starting at 6.  So I'll be leaving the pageant early and getting to the dinner late.  Sigh.  Anyhoo, it's a clergy shirt day for sure, so I'm pairing it with a black skirt, red scarf, and these boots:

 

 

Pretty basic black, low-heeled boots, right?  Mostly right.  These have some little surprises that I appreciate.

 

 

They have fun buckles, and kind of look like pirate boots.  Sorry about the quality.  I always forget that the room in the church with the full length mirror has absolutely terrible lighting.  I should have asked someone else to take the pictures.

 

 

They also have red zippers!  Frankly, these are about as bad-ass as I get in my life, so I like to pretend they are my biker-chick boots.  I will say, though, that no one really expects these particular boots to be paired with a clerical collar, so it's kind of fun.

 

Speaking of boots, the calendar also had some today.

 

 

They look two-tone here, but in the original picture they actually show that it's just a black stripe running down the middle.  I really like these.  And they are from the 80s.  Can you believe I'm saying something positive about shoes from the 80s that's not tinged with a little bit of snark?

 

OK, too much time spent here.  Preschoolers are assembling as I type, and I must go bask in their adorableness!