1-20-15 FINE!

Can you believe we’re on the downhill side of January? That longest of cold dark months is almost over. Although for me at this stage of life, when my baby is almost six years old *gasp*, this longest of cold dark months is not nearly as long and cold and dark as it was when I had little ones that couldn’t spend all afternoon outside. But for you moms with little ones who can’t spend all afternoon outside – let me climb on my soapbox for a minute - send them out for a time every day anyway. Even on a day like today where it’s gray because the sun is hiding, it’s too warm to ice-skate (rink is pretty soft), there’s no snow for sledding, and it’s too wet to do anything much anywhere, that diversion and excitement (instigated by you, Mom!) of going outside to swing or ride a tricycle or draw with chalk or whatever is a good thing to do. That fresh air and exercise is invaluable, even if only for 15 minutes. Colds and coughs? Unless they’re miserable or feverish or it’s dangerously cold, send ‘em out anyway. Can’t leave baby? Stick him in a snowsuit and pull him in a wagon. You’ll be glad you did. And hot chocolate is always better after a cold romp outside.

Anyway. Off soapbox.

Time for a little catchup of life lately. For the record.

The first week of January found Jesse in Arkansas with ACWR building houses destroyed by tornadoes there. He had a good week and didn’t want to come home but had to because he had to start his last semester at ICC. We were glad to have him back because we missed him.

The second week of January (last week) found Levi in Arkansas doing the same thing. He had a good week also and didn’t want to come home but duty calls so he dutifully came home. We were glad to have him back because we missed him.

The second week of January also brought us two of U. Jerry’s fine carpenters who put in seven new doors and trimmed out two bedrooms and the hallway. Everything looks wonderful, and we are eagerly awaiting new carpet (next week) so we can put everything back in place and call this project done.  Only one more project to go…

School is going fine. Kids are learning a lot, although oft times I’d like to see them learning more diligence in some areas. Sometimes distractibility runs rampant and I get frustrated. Bad me, but bad them too. We all have work to do. Especially me.

College is going fine.

Kids’ and Tim’s jobs are going fine.

My job is going fine. I enjoy it a lot.

Health for all has been fine. A few runny noses/coughs a few weeks ago, but nothing to slow anyone down. Thankfully.

Life lately has been, in a word, routine.

And that is FINE!!!

Yesterday - - - -

Today - - - - -

That’s it.

1-19-15 Evening

All thy works shall praise thee, O LORD; and thy saints shall bless thee.

Psalm 145:10

1-17-15 Snowball Fights

By Tori

Today (Saturday) was a mixture of work & play. We puttied all the holes in the new trim work & also varnished everything. No one really enjoyed either of these tasks. Otherwise not much went on. I did a few small kitchen jobs, other kids did some cleanup outside. All in all, it was a pretty slow day.

This is last original door in the upstairs.

New trim work done.

Jacob & Kate struggling along with one of the most menial tasks in construction.

An impressive snow fort.

Ben is enjoying staining…not!

Some outside time – it was fairly warm & a good bit of snow melted.

Inside we are still struggling along. At this point Jacob seems to have lost all strength & has resorted to sliding on the floor…

…but now that the inside work is done, strength has returned.

Ben & Kate tried to stage an ambush on Dad & Mom while they were walking. (editor’s note: it was a colossal failure)

1-16-15 Foggy Friday

…at first…

…but the sun burned it off to give us another stunning blue sky day.

1-15-15 BlueSky WarmUp

Well I keep thinking I’ll have time to write a bit but it just never seems to happen. Looks like tonight is the night. Although the kids are always quick to tell me they don’t read much of what I write anyway – they just skip to the pictures. Which is fine. But, like I’ve mentioned before, I like to re-read life between the pictures too sometimes, and if no one writes it, I can’t re-read it. Profound, I know.

So my title is two-fold. Meaning I couldn’t decide which title to use so I used both. But it’s two separate topics. First is BlueSky.

This week has been one of the bluest I can remember in a long time. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’ll take cold and blue sky over warmer with gray sky ANY DAY. Although if it wasn’t for the gray skies I’m sure I wouldn’t appreciate the blue skies as much, right? It’s a good thing the Weatherman has it all under control…with God on the throne, every day is designed perfectly, and how we rejoice in that!!!  But I still like blue skies better.

On to WarmUp.

Warm is relative, right? Looking at the kids’ heavy coats & snowpants & boots & mittens & hats & scarves… it looks like today was anything but warm. But compared to last week’s 2 or 4 degrees or whatever it was, so cold that schools were closed all over the place and town was empty because everyone stayed home (except us because we had two ortho appointments, three eye doctor appointments, and five dentist appointments)(yes, all in one week, what was I thinking???), today was warm. It really was! See the road in the background? It’s mostly black. That means most of the snow melted, which wasn’t the case yesterday. Notice on yesterday’s picture there was still a lot of ice/snow which made fast walking hazardous. Today - - - not so. And so I completely and thoroughly and happily and thankfully enjoyed a walk, the first in a long time. Wonderful.

Okay, well, I did have more to write, but it’ll have to wait for another time. Time’s up for now.