joy to you and me

We're in the "final stretch" folks. Don't blink or you may miss me. *wink*

Today Kristin and I are filling out all the paperwork we can to make last ditch attempts for some kind of insurance coverage to begin next month, as my COBRA coverage ends with December. The day's bound to be tedious. But we're shoving it all in today in order to experience as much joy as possible over the rest of the Christmas holiday.

Yesterday was the "Foss Family Christmas"! My brother-in-law, Joe, has thousands of family (that may be an exaggeration) coming in for Christmas, so yesterday we celebrated with Kristin's side of the family. Her parents will still join us at my parent's house Saturday for Christmas dinner. But, the reason I mention it, we had a wonderful time. Tomorrow I have an MRI. Wednesday I have what will probably be my last appointment with my oncologist, or at least the last for a while, followed by miniature golf with my parents and beautiful wife. Thursday I probably have something but can't remember it for the life of me. (No pun intended.) Friday we have a Christmas eve, candlelight service, at church followed by the traditional Christmas eve at my parents house with Kristin. There's a 99% chance this will be our last celebration together until we reunite in Heaven. Then Christmas morning Kristin and I will open gifts together, pray, snuggle, then head to my parents for stockings. Dinner will be served early with several of my friends joining us. It's going to be an amazing week filled with joy and holding my wife sweetly whenever possible.

There are two projects I hope to finish in January before God takes me home.

I plan to get a little recording done. A song or two with my Dad, with Kristin, with Tim... etc. Something my parents and wife can have when I'm gone. I figure if I can at least get my part recorded, they can fill in the rest  later. LOL! (Did I just "LOL" in my own blog? I should smack myself. Later though. Right now I've got a laptop "in" my hands.)

I'm also trying to put together "a ton" of pictures of my "Choose Joy" bracelets interacting with inanimate objects. (Sorry to use the technical term of "a ton". Hope that didn't go over too many heads.) I plan to use them in my memorial video. It was my mother-in-laws idea and, I think, a great one! You can purchase a bracelet via PayPal or credit card using the button in the upper right hand corner then send me a pic to aaron@judasforgiven.com or post it to your Facebook and tag me in it. I wish I could continue to give the bracelets away for free, as I have in the past, but it's just not feasible any more. (You can see a small slideshow of some of the pics we already have if you look at last weeks post.)

We received a special Christmas present in that Hamilton, one of the editors on Gawker.com has done a little post about the bracelet project in the hopes that some of the Gawker community, many of which received bracelets months ago, will participate. Life just gets more and more interesting. You can read the article here.

Today is a short post for me. I wanted to talk about Christmas. But, more than that, I wanted to take some time and thank you all. Before I run out of time I want you all to know how important, special and what a blessing it's been to have your prayers and support over the last year and a half. Even after I outlived the original "expiration date" the doctors had given me, you never got bored or gave up. Thank you. You've been a lifeline!

May God bless you all in ways you never imagined. May His joy fill your hearts and guide your lives. May you know at least a tenth of the warmth I've felt, through your love, in the last year.

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Almost forgot... Actually, I did forget. But I'm correcting the mistake now. There's now way to get it in time for Christmas, unless you live very locally, but you can still get Christmas gifts over at my wife's sight, The Joy of Glass. You can find it, suprisingly, at http://www.joyofglass.us.