January 5 – “Red Book”

Today I completed version 8 of our "Red Book," the important little notebook that holds all our family's and friends' and church folks' telephone numbers and addresses.  It's the first step in preparing for income tax season.  Next I get to gather up all our receipts and bills from 2009 and compile them for our tax preparer.   We undecorated the Christmas tree today.  That meant I got to crawl up into our new attic and get down the boxes to put it all in.  Nathan got it all in there for us, so it was pretty easy to slide it down our new attic stairs.    For some reason I pulled lights duty.  I guess because I took down the outside lights the other day.  That meant I had to figure out how to get the little light-infested deer and swirly light tree back into the boxes they came in.  Nathan and April bought those, and they actually set them up this year in our yard, so I had no idea where to begin.  The tree proved easiest.  It was a series of poles within poles, and the lights were coiled around the finished product.  All I had to do was take apart the inner pole and the light coil collapsed.  The animals were not so easy.  How was I to know that the back lifted up, the head and neck pulled back into the body, and the legs folded underneath?  And what was I supposed to do with the ears and antlers and tail?  I finally got everything into its proper place.  Well, the ears and tails I just popped off and stuffed in wherever they would go.    Chris was taking her time packing up the ornaments.  We lost most of ours that we had collected over the years, so she was carefully making note of what was still with us.  Then she had to incorporate a spot for the new stuff people gave us last Christmas.  I think it was therapeutic or something.  I stayed out of her way and just handed her things.    Then it was my turn again.  The tree lights.   I decided to use the new technique brought to the Vaughan table by one of our daughters in law, I think.  Instead of coiling the strands like cable, I rolled them up into a ball.  It was going very well when I discovered that at the points of connection between the strands, someone had cable tied the strands together.  To separate them I would have to cut the cable tie.  No way.  I just kept going.  And going.  A total of three strands were together, so they made a very big ball.  Mom was worried about it fitting into the box.  I told her I was going to leave it as it was and let the girls sort it out next year.  The girls – Christina and April in particular, are usually the ones who phut the on the tree.  See you next year, girls.   Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."   Father, it seems to me that if I would put your plans in my heart, then your purpose would prevail, and we'd eliminate the middle man.  Amen.