Saturday December 27 2008

PHOTO ESSAY - SNOW DAYS

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. Sunset Yesterday

Scott Came to Plow

This kind of shows how he uses the plow to

drop it into the drift and drag the snow backwards.

Joe Watches The Plow
(Bad Picture, My reflection in the window)

Street Plow a Few Weeks Ago
(the pictures "got lost" so didn't get
on the blog then.)

Street Plow - He came by Again Yesterday.
He has done a nice job with the roads.
We pay our share of this in the
Home Owners Association.

Raven Next to Garage Drift
She's about 2' tall, so I suppose at this
point the drift is 4'. But It was taller -
Probably settled down and/or the wind blew it.

Not Like At the Rach,
But this is a day and a half's worth.

Could Barely Get In and Out the Front Door.

I shoveled this off Yesterday.

Sunrise This Morning.

It cleared off pretty good with blue sky

until in the afternoon, but no more snow.

The wind is still moving the snow around.

Friday December 26 2008

This is the Aspen Trunk Wastebasket

Craig and Bonnie Made. Isn't it beautiful!

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Here's a picture of the moccasins

Nancy Smith sent.

I love them.

Well..... the wind howled and it stormed and snowed all night - all day yesterday as well. This morning it's not snowing (at the moment) but the wind is still very strong. It blew a lot of the front yard clear of snow down to the ground including the driveway. The front porch has snow piled up to the window. The front walk is totally bare, an anomaly. There is a 5' drift packed against the garage door however, extending out about +20'. It's garbage day but although I can't see that corner directly, I bet the garbage can - which sits beside the garage door - is buried in the snowdrift.

The back deck is piled about 4' deep, being blown off the roof, and snow in the back yard is at least up level with the deck. In the back yard snow has to be 4 or 5' deep there in places - since the deck must be 4' off the ground - i.e. yard level with the deck and more deep drifts piled on the deck. I put the dogs out the front door this morning because once down the steps they can walk around there and do their business. It all changes around hourly. Not sure it got as cold as they predicted. We're supposed to have snow for the next week. I'll take some pictures. The sun is trying to shine and there's patches of blue sky.

Later in the morning the dogs were ready to go out. They dove off the corner of the deck and were able to get over to the part of the yard which isn't very deep. Raven frolicked around for a while. Sparky watched. Then coming back Sparky tried to jump back up at the corner and got hung up. He rolled his eyes back and forth between jumping back up and coming up the totally drifted stairs. Raven made a track up the stairs and finally Sparky decided that was the lesser of the two evils and came up Raven's track. The snow was over his back.

I can see several of the neighbor men out clearing their drives with shovels and snowblowers and getting their garbage cans out to the street. And the big snow plow is going around clearing the roads, so they are on the ball with that.

I flushed the picc line myself yesterday, and likely will stay home and do it again today. Can't get the car out. But we are arranging to hire Gina's grandson Scott to come. He has a snow removal business. He might be able to come later this afternoon. Doing laundry. Might try to hook up my new printer. I heard there was to be a planned power outage on Sunday, but don't know for how long.

Here is a really cute Holiday dog video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUtPKbMwnRo

Thursday December 25 2008

Roses from Joe

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MERRY CHRISTMAS

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Our Tree a few years ago at the ranch.

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May the Lord Bless and Watch over you

and your loved ones this Christmas 2008,

And may He bless and prosper

the work of your hands in the New Year 2009!

'

Joe got me beautiful long stemmed red roses for my Christmas gift. It's too difficult to figure out what to get for him so I didn't try to buy anything. The family sent him shirts and maple syrup, and me a new printer, which I'll put to good use, once I go buy some paper. I haven't got one sheet of paper in this house except post it notes.

Yesterday while I was gone to the clinic etc., we received a very nice Christmas gift. Someone, we don't know who, came and shoveled our sizable cement drive area in front of the garage door. (Our driveway is gravel to the road though). Joe asked if I knew who shoveled the drive and I said "I thought you had shoveled it". I haven't even got a clue who might have done it. Joe said a couple of dark haired kids. So ..... whoever came and shoveled out our garage door, we thank you very much. That is truly what Christmas is about, in my opinion.

We have snowy weather, blowing the drifts, and lots of small flakes falling. Can't quite tell how much has fallen because of it being blown around but maybe 5 or 6 more inches? For some reason, it feels like a dreary day out there, and I don't want it to be dreary. I want it to be beautiful. There is beauty in small parts. It will probably be more beautiful when it clears up. It doesn't feel very cold. Guess it got down to about 4 in the night and is about 20 now. Well, enough of the weather report. We're snug here in the house.

I had asked Joe to take me out for dinner today, but then decided yesterday, I didn't really want to do that after all. And now I'm glad not to go out in the weather. I just don't want to do a big dinner, the cooking, and have a bunch of leftovers to deal with. Joe says he doesn't care what we do. So we're having T-bones and pumpkin pie. I forgot to get the whipped cream yesterday though.

O. Henry's short story "The Gift of the Magi" is still well known. It was published in 1906, and he wrote it while sitting in a booth at the front of Pete's Tavern in New York City. It's the story of a young couple, Jim and Della, who are very much in love and very poor. They can barely afford Christmas gifts. But Jim wants to buy Della tortoise shell combs for her long, beautiful hair. And Della wants to buy Jim a fob chain for his one prized possession, his pocket watch. Jim sells his pocket watch to buy the combs for Della's hair, which she no longer has because she sold her hair to buy the fob chain. And of course, Jim no longer has the pocket watch.

Wednesday December 24 2008

Charm and I at Lunch

Charm is one of the special blessings

in my life.

Sunrise Christmas Eve Day

Not much to write about yet. Probably another day much like the last few. At 8:30 a.m. it was 22 below zero. Don't know what it was in the night. The first thing I do when I get up is go turn a faucet on to see if we still have water. And the news is just full of the way people in other places are having awful events with the cold and snowy weather right now. Joe went out to the ranch, and I'm hoping he has no trouble with the roads and getting in there. I don't know how much snow is out there now.

WOW! Nancy sent a wonderful care package with fun things. Bonnie brought it over since Nancy had sent everything to her in one package. It was just like Santa had come and just gave me a lot of joy. And that way I got to visit with Bonnie too. Nancy sent a pair of deerskin moccasins with my spirit colors in beading on the front. I didn't ask yet, but I'm sure Nancy made them. They are wonderfully soft and finely made. Also a fun thing was a back scratcher made out of a palm branch, the wooden part - if you can imagine the scratcher part being the wide end. It is all smoothed off without the spines. And VERY long. It certainly evokes a gift from the Southwest - they are in Wickenburg. THANK YOU MY SPIRIT SISTER, FOR THE THOUGHTFULNESS OF SENDING GIFTS. All I have for you is my best wishes to you both for the Holiday Season and the coming New Year, and thank you for your gift of friendship.

Yesterday had a nice phone visit from Sheral. They are visiting at their son's place in Denver for the holidays. They had been to their daughter's and other son's in Texas for Thanksgiving. The second daughter is on a cruise to Hawaii with her family, and having a ball I'm sure. They are my adopted family.

Charm and I are meeting for lunch at the Bottoms Up to celebrate her birthday. I really enjoyed seeing her this afternoon. After that I'll go to the grocery store, clinic and P.O. again. Might make some Christmas cookies. Might not. Might write the Christmas Cards. Or..... Might not. Have the pumpkin pie filling ready to bake a pie tomorrow. And hopefully the doctor is in his office so I can call and order prescriptions that I've procrastinated on.

Well, I'm pretty resigned now to the fact that I'll have this PICC line in my arm from now on. And am going to put up the hand held shower head that Betty gave me. That should work much better to get some kind of shower/bath and keep the line dry. I just have been in denial about this. To see a hand held shower head somewhere always seems to be a symbol of an invalid or infirmity. So I rejected installing it so far.... because..... I'm FINE! And Bonnie found a website for a place that makes a waterproof cover for PICC lines - will investiage that. She said it says "in the shower or the ocean". I don't know why I almost never think of googling things.

The new washer (second one) is making funny noises this morning.

Better go take my morning medicine. I keep forgetting to do it lately. Only can surmise I must feel pretty good.

Tuesday December 23 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR BEVERLY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOOO YOUUUUUU

WITH LOVE AND HUGS

FROM YOUR MOM

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Happiness is contagious. The happy people you know are party to your own happiness. Moreover, the happy people you do not know and will never meet also have an influence on your happiness. Happiness (or misery) is epidemic.

Monday December 22, 2008

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B Troop Soldier

(Ft. Huachuca AZ Memorial Troop

In the collection of the Ft. Huachuca Museum)

14x17 Pencil Drawing

by Lynn Thomas

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GET WELL SOON TWILA!

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Slept in late this morning. Went so sound asleep with too many blankets on and woke up about 1 a.m. soaking with sweat. I never do that - icky. It snowed during the night and was about 20 degrees this morning. Not sure how cold it got, but probably just in the teens. No wind all day. We have 5 or 6 inches of snow and it came down most of the day - just a guess. Joe went to coffee again, took the dogs, so I guess this is getting to be a regular routine now.

Looked at email and read every one's blogs, and after some breakfast I mopped the wood floors. Lot of good it did. I don't know how but the Raven is still finding mud somewhere and the clean floor lasted about 20 minutes without muddy tracks.

Hope this is not more info than you want to know..... After lunch I figured out how to get a better sponge bath by sitting on my bath stool in the tub and just running the water out of the faucet, soaping up, holding up the arm with the picc line to keep it dry, and then carefully rinsing. It felt a lot more like a real bath, still not my favorite shower though.

Twila called me last night and said she still had the three cats I brought her and said that they are fat and happy. I suspected that was so, but was so glad to hear they are safe there, because I did wonder. Guess they are getting along with her cats o.k. Twila had some neck surgery and said she is doing pretty well. She has a friend that has come to help her and tells her to sit down and not to overdo.

I called to see if the car was finished, but he still hadn't started work on it. Said it was next - wasn't that what I heard about four days ago, three days ago, etc. Yes, thought it sounded familiar. Anyway it was snowing pretty hard again, and I called Gina and asked her if she would take me to the clinic and then to get the car about 4:30 and she said yes. Wouldn't you know we waited longer in the clinic this time than ever have - quite a while, but when Amy took me in it wasn't even five minutes before she was done flushing the line.

Next we went by the post office. Joe hadn't been for a while so we had quite a stack of mail. And received a fruit cake from my steadfast friend Joan in Sylmar. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Joan. I got a card from her too, and Diane is there visiting from Apache Jct. - so big HI to Diane.

Then we went and waited a while in the auto repair shop. They had a girl boxer dog and I think we sat on her furniture according to the paw prints. The SUV was done about 5 p.m. and I drove home through the dusky snow covered streets. Gina and I agreed we wouldn't want to be out on the highway trying to get somewhere with the snowy, low visibility weather. Thank you so much for the favor of driving me, Gina. I was glad to get to visit with you while we waited.

Joe got the car in the garage with his truck and snow machine for me. I'm still going to try getting the SUV in the little garage door - he says it won't fit so he's probably right. I just want to check to see if it's any easier than the way we're doing it now - i.e. an accidental paint scuffing waiting to happen.

Fixed some leftovers for dinner and since I've now got the external hard drive hooked up, looked in there for some photos and stuck a few old ones in the last three days blog - check below. Am about ready to go watch some TV.

"Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."(Psalm 112:1,7)

Sunday December 21 2008

Charm

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TO MY DEAR FRIEND CHARM

Best wishes for many more

WONDERFUL years!

Stayed very quiet today. It is warmer and NO WIND. So I took the dogs out for a little walk around the back loop. They need to get out like that a little more often. There are three dogs across the street and two came over, one went back and one walked with us. Two of the dogs are black labs, and look just like Raven. The other has the head of a Australian red heeler and the body of a welsh corgi. It is a cute female and very friendly. She is the one who wanted to get acquainted. Sparky tried to keep her away from Raven for a while, but it didn't work. Then she tried to come right on in the house when the walk was over. I wonder what her name is.

I got the laptop set back up, hence am catching up on the last three days. Had a bunch of emails. And played some Spider.

Betty called a while ago. I forgot to ask her if she got snow. Her Aunt Ann is arriving to spend Christmas and several more weeks of special time with her. They will have a great time.

So this afternoon I had to flush the picc line by myself and I didn’t really want to do it, but guess if I do it the first time I’ll start to get used to it. I puzzled over all the parts and syringes for a while and then got it figured out. And felt nervous and a little worried about getting it clean enough so it doesn’t get infected. Anyway I got the job done. It seemed to work o.k.

Guess I've decided not to put the big tree up, but still have a small lighted one. I might get it out and bring it in. I have the Christmas cards for everyone on the new desk to write out and send and no ambition for that either. I'll try though - you may get them belated.