Merry Christmas Everyone!!


Come to Bethlehem and see 
Him whose birth the angels sing;
Come adore on bended knee, 
Christ the Lord, the newborn king!


(Angels we have heard on high - 3rd verse)

Looks like Terry WILL be home for Christmas!!

Counting blessings

I have been counting my blessings this week - the main one being that Terry has been home and will be here for Thanksgiving. We have decided to have Thanksgiving at our house this year so I also get the blessing of having Terry do most of the cooking! He is a very good cook. We are enjoying each other's company and have done shopping and visiting friends and playing card games (I won 3 crump games in a row - a first for me) and watching TV together. The dogs have enjoyed having an extra lap to take naps on and extra snacks from dinner. We also are thanking the Lord for sustaining us through 28 years of marriage, giving us wonderful kids and grandkids and loving brothers, sisters and mothers and great friends.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Awesome Help

I received AWESOME help from TJ yesterday. He spent part of his Saturday helping me bring wood into the garage. I have a good supply inside now so won't have to get it out of the wood pile during bad weather. We worked 3 hours with one short break. It sure is great to have a grandson willing to help!! The money I paid him for the job didn't hurt either! We had a nice day together and topped it off with a late lunch at Dairy Queen.

Emergency plumbing training

Yesterday I was trying to blow out the sprinkler system. To do that, I had to take a cap off the pipe at the top of this other pipe (but it would not come off) so put all my weight into twisting the cap and all of a sudden I was DRENCHED from head to toe with COLD water. The pipe had broken off at the bottom of the "T" and water was gushing out of the pipe. Took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on and then how to shut the water off. Had to "dive" down into the gushing water to get the big red lever to turn to shut the water off and it was really tight so had to "dive" a couple more times before I got the water off. So, then had no water in the house. I am getting better about handling these mishaps because I did not cry!! I just assessed the damage and called Terry (who was on his way to Indiana) and asked him what to do to be able to get the water running to the house again. I sent these pictures to him (what would I do without cell phones?) I thought at first I would have to get brother Jim to come out to help me but with phone calls to Terry and Jim, I was able to find a cap to cover the break. It was harder to find the tools and plumbing things I needed than actually glueing the cap on. I waited 2 hours and then turned on the water and after 24 hours there is not even 1 drop of water leaking. It was a nerve-wracking way to get plumbing training!! Still need to figure out how to blow the sprinklers out and Terry will have his work cut out for him next sprink when he has to figure out how to hook the sprinkler pipe back up to the system since I really did a "good job" at breaking it!!

A year's work

After a year of working on this sweater (something I actually made for myself!!) it is finally done. I had to take certain spots out several times but with perserverance I finally got it done. Getting all those holes in the right place is harder work than I expected!!

Today - clear skies

Today we finally have some clear skies!! There have been several BIG forest fires in Central Oregon and the smoke from them hung all over the area for several days. You could not see the hills and mountains and could smell the smoke. I had to keep the windows closed so the smoke would not get into the house. It did provide some nice sunrises and sunsets though.

Nice surprise

Had a nice surprise when Terry's load from Edmonton, Canada took him through Prineville on his way to Santa Clara CA. I had to work Monday but he spent the day at home and mowed the lawn, finished weeding the front flower bed I had worked on all weekend, knocked down the weeds growing in the back yard and fixed dinner! He had to leave that night about 9:00 but we had a nice evening and it was so good to have some help with the chores. The dogs enjoyed having home too and got to do some extra "hunting" while Terry was doing the outside chores.