o holy night

We went to our Church's family Christmas service this morning, and our worship was jut amazing. We ended with this song which has always been favourite, but this was the first time we had actually sung it all the way through. It was just amazing to sing these words during this season. It hit me again how incredible it was that Jesus came to be on this earth as a baby, and how much that did on this earth and has done and will continue to do. The power of Christ with us, God on earth is amazing. Anyway, here's the song to remind us again of how amazing our God is to send us His son.


O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

gordon ramsay

John and I have been watching Kitchen Nightmares (Fox 9/8c) with chef Gordon Ramsay. And I have to admit I find him a fascinating person to watch. I admire his passion and natural skill with which he runs a restaurant. It's a part of who he is. He's not just an excellent chef (what I wouldn't give to taste his food), he's an excellent restauranteur. He enters a restaurant and in the space of one week finds all the trouble spots and fixes them.

He confronts in a way that is scary. It reminds me of a term I heard from Joy Dawson a few years ago - "brutally honest". He says the meanest things a person has probably ever heard and yet most of them give him total respect. They listen to him and change. He's not there to make friends, he's there to fix their problems. He also knows when to come from a softer angle, using gentle, encouraging words to breakthrough to people.

I feel like I can learn a lot from this guy, particularly when it comes to staffing and leading DTS's which is something John and I have talked about doing (even though I am not 100% excited by the idea!) I feel like DTS needs to become part of who I am, as restaurants are part of who Gordon Ramsay is. I need to have the same levels of passion that he has. To believe the values and objectives of the DTS. To understand it and know why it works, and how it can continue to work better.

I need to not be afraid to confront, even if it means being "brutally honest". Being a DTS staff is hard, because you want to be friends with the students, even though that is not why you are there. You need to give up being friends with the students, because your goal is for their growth, and sometimes that means pissing them off like crazy so they can grow. And that's hard! I am afraid of good confrontation, which is weird, because I am quick on bad confrontation. Watching him has made me realise I need to step it up and not care how the students might react, just know that sometimes a slap in the face is exactly what people need to grow and change. And then of course, there's the times of knowing that you just need to love, encourage and affirm someone to see them grow and change.

All that said, I think he's cool. And I would love to taste his food one day. I'm contemplating getting a Gordon Ramsay cookbook in the hopes of being able to cook some meals half as good as he does!

life & fun

I haven't blogged for a while, and have only just been able to upload pix, so I thought I'd do a pix blog of the last few weeks! I had a lovely birthday here after Seattle. We went out to sushi with Jim & Kelly then had them and other friends over for Mojitos. Here's a pic of Kelly and I accidentally wearing matching outfits!



And we didn't have candles, so this is John's finger being a candle on the lovely Banoffee Pie that he made me for my birthday!



Here is my gorgeous iPod Touch that I love!






The tree outside our house looked like this for a couple of weeks, I just had to take some pix. These are my favourite (and yes, the colour has not been enhanced - it really was this gold!).





Then a quick trip to Milwaukee area for Siebring (John's mum side) family fun, quick visit with Matt, Tracie & fam, and quick trip with Sam & Beth & fam, quick Chicago trip to do two of my exams (one left in November), and then back home to be with John!

I'm back at work, which is continuing to be fun. I'm really enjoying it so much! And John and I just recently booked our wedding anniversary weekend away. We decided to stay in a cheap hotel near Copper Mountain (where we have our season passes) so we can have a whole weekend of snowboarding. The hotel also has a hot tub so we can super relax and get warm in the evenings! We are so looking forward to it! We can't believe that we're already approaching our one year wedding anniversary!

job

Am loving it so far. I've worked two 4 hour shifts, and tomorrow and Friday I have two 8 hours shifts. So far, it's all training, but it's cool. I think I'll like it at Starbucks. Everyone I'm met so far has been super cool and really nice. I feel like I clicked with one of the girls immediately and we only were able to chat for a few minutes. I'm excited to be done with the training and start with the job! Here is a pic of the Starbucks I work at (not taken by me). It is less than a mile away, takes me about 4 minutes on my bike. It's in a little shopping area called Scotch Pines, and was the first Starbucks to open in Fort Collins. I think I'm going to really like my job!

job!!!!

In case you didn't already catch it on my Facebook status, I GOT THE JOB! I am super ecstatic, but also kinda nervous, as this is the first new job I've had in about 11 years. Craziness! But fun! I can't wait. I go in on Monday to do all the paperwork, and I'm guessing to start training. WooHoo! Yeah for AMAZING benefits coming in in 3 months time!

Added later: I forgot to mention that it's the Starbucks closest to our house, less than a mile, so I'll be able to bike there every day. It takes about a song on my iPod to get there! So so so so excited!