Thanks and Giving

This is my favorite time of year. Yes, I love spring with all the new and I love summer with the playing outside and vacations and flip flops. But the months of November and December are my fav-o-rite!!
I love the cool air, wearing boots and puffy vests, the dark early evenings and Christmas shopping online at work.
WHAT?!?!?
Yep. True story. I am so blessed to be working with people who are as filled with the spirit of Christmas as much as I am. Any given time of day we can be found in each other's offices, taking a "break" and talking about what we bought our kids, our spouses, and even more fun.....our Adopt a Family. Our Med Services team has adopted a large family from a list of families that receive services through our office. It is such a blessing to work with a group of gals that are cut from the same cloth as me. Seriously. This family is going to know people care about them this Christmas when we are done.
Even better, not only am I taking part in the gift giving for that family, but The Martens 5(and grandma Ann too) adopted a family to buy for. The family has a single, very pregnant momma and two children aged 2 and 6. The third child is due in January. Yesterday The Martens 5 took a family field trip to shop and came home with a car full. What a blessing. When we got home I thanked Andy for "letting" me spend a bunch of our money on someone else. His answer? "Well we have more money now........" My finish to that sentence? "so we gotta give more........"
Exactly.

This family has the ability to give more this year than ever. It makes my loss of free time to working full time seem TOTALLY worthwhile.
Here are some other ways this family has given to others and I encourage you to do the same:
Did you know that if you buy a pound of fudge at Rocky Mountain Candy Factory they will send a pound of fudge for free to the troops overseas!!!! I don't like fudge, but my parents do......and I hope it brings some surgary JOY to someone protecting my freedom. It also brought some sugary JOY to my dad. :)

When you check out at stores this year, if they ask you to donate $1 to some charity....DO IT! It's a dollar people, and they are doing the hard work for you. I will never understand when people say NO to donating a dollar(or five for pete's sake!) or NO to letting the clerk round up your total to the nearest dollar and donating the difference to a charity. Are you kidding me?
Yes, please!

I will still be slowing down at stoplights to give $ to people with a sign, etc. Do not rush me or honk at me.

I've got to find some Christmas pencils to put in my pencil jar at work. The good doctor and I give out fruit and pencils to kids(and their parents) that come to our office. It is amazing how much JOY a new pencil can bring a kid, and how fruit is a universal love. Fruit is such a huge part of my grocery bill each week, but some families just can't afford it. Thanks to a group effort of me, the doc, and a brown-nosing drug rep(she really wants/needs our business and I don't mind exploiting that on behalf of my people!), we get bags of fruit each week to give out.

The girls and I just finished doing some Christmas shopping in the World Vision catalog. I just bought some ducks. Not going to say who they were in honor of, just in case they are a reader.......
Get this. Do you know why they now give ducks to poverished nations instead of chicks? Because chickens drown in heavy rain seasons while ducks just swim around in the flood waters and consider it an adventure!
Now that is a solution I want to be a part of.

Did I mention that while filled with the amazing love of this season, I am also feeling a bit frantic at the lack of quality shopping time I have now? Between working every day, activities every evening, and weekends full of stuff......when does a girl have time to shop?
more on that later.