The Varelas

Random thoughts 11 days before Christmas
I finished the rest of my Christmas shopping on Saturday--with two weeks to spare! That's actually cutting it a bit close for me. I don't like big shopping crowds and aisle upon aisle of cluttered merchandise thrown every which way. Before his married days, Jon wouldn't have even started Christmas shopping yet. "Two weeks?! That's plenty of time!" That's why I do the shopping. This year, he just has to buy gifts for his dad and his friend Scott (and me).

At my doctor's appointment last week, they took some blood to do a screening for Down's syndrome and a couple of other birth defects. The doctor said the results would be in within a few days, and they would call me if there was anything to discuss. "If you don't get a call from me," she said, "consider that good news." Yesterday, I had a message on my cell phone to call the doc office to "discuss some lab results." Yikes. I called the number and waited on hold for 10 long minutes. The "lab results," though, were from a urine sample, not the blood test, and I just have some hints of a minor bacterial infection. I already got the prescription and everything is fine. But I wish they could have been a little more specific about which lab results they were calling about. Of course, even if they were calling about the blood test and there was something "wrong" with the baby, we wouldn't be changing a thing. The doctors may recommend "terminating the pregnancy" (come on, people, call it what it is: killing the baby), but we would not consider that. The reason we agreed to have the blood test done in the first place is just to know, to be prepared.

We were very busy this weekend, but it was mostly with fun stuff. The wedding on Friday went very well. Jon was very groomsmanly. I saw quite a few old friends/acquaintances (Mickeal, the Millers, Amy, the Johnsons) and even a person/family I did not want to see, but even that went very well. On Saturday after a Christmas program rehearsal, I tried to help Jon's parents move into their new house, but only being able to lift light boxes doesn't help very much. So instead, that's when I finished my Christmas shopping. Saturday night was the annual ornament exchange party. This was our third year going, and I think we had the most fun this year since we knew a few more people. I even liked the ornaments we went home with (a first!--many people bring joke/ugly ornaments, and then the several that are really neat get "stolen"). After the party, we went over to Neil and Casey's house and had a really great time sitting around and talking until way past my bed time. That caused Sunday morning's message to be a little fuzzy in my mind, but it was still good. I was back at church at 4:30 for a last rehearsal before the Christmas program, which started at 6:00. It went surprisingly well, considering the singers had never practiced with the band and the actors had never practiced with the musicians and the lighting was never planned and there had never been a dress rehearsal. Dinner out with friends after the program was a nice ending to a full but nice weekend.