Good Saturday to you from our corner of Iowa where the weather has turned cold, but the white stuff has still not arrived and we are okay with that. We have spent a few winters without snow over the years ..........when we lived in the Philippine Islands, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Salt Lake City Utah. One year in the Philippines we had a big star pinata and were in shorts and tank tops as we gathered together with military friends. Of course the snow makes for a prettier Christmas season, but it is still possible to celebrate without it!!!
It will be a quiet Christmas this year as we stay home and as we grieve the death of Gr. Jo. She did love the Holidays and was able to be with family in the Twin Cities every year. I imagine they will especially feel her absence as they gather. I can't help but ponder what it would be like to celebrate in Heaven! Oh, the music and joy to be heard!
Speaking of music, I am playing Christmas music as I write this. Our old favorite CD's are taken out of the drawer along with a small CD player at this time of year so we can reminisce with the Christmas sounds of Kenny G, Alabama, Vince Gill, Pentatonix, Sax by the Fire, and a few others. We are enjoying having the house decorated and getting a little baking done. Unfortunately, although the baking and eating tasks are enjoyable, my body easily gains weight with only one or two indulgences!
Speaking of indulgences(?), the past couple of weeks Joel has spent a lot of time in the garage shop working on small woodworking projects. It will soon be too cold for those, but being we have a furnace in the garage I have a feeling nothing will stop him! He loves having projects to do, he is not one to just sit around until after supper when the recliner then calls his name. It's what keeps him strong and healthy! He managed one more bike ride when it was a mere 38 degrees before putting away his recumbent for the winter. We have gotten out for a few walks outside but mostly I walk here in the house. A few deer have come through the yard, including 3 who snuggled up for two days in a row to rest in our yard. Joel loves when this happens ~ he just pulls up a chair and "meditates" on nature. It always nourishes his soul.
I have not posted a Saturday's Scribbles since before Thanksgiving, but ours was a nice one, considering our kids did not come home as planned. Plans changed with CoVid. We decided to have a traditional meal with turkey, dressing, rice, gravy, sweet potatoes, fruit salad and cranberries. Plus some homemade pumpkin (for Joel) and sweet potato pie (for me). I had to chuckle because when Joel went shopping I asked him to buy a large container of heavy whipping cream......in my mind it was a pint, but Joel came home with a quart of it! Who knew it was a thing? I need to get out more!
We started the day with a long fun visit with our oldest son and ended the day with a Zoom gathering with 4 of 5 of our kids. We were able to visit with some of the grands too. So fun! Congrats to our oldest grandson who just graduated from college (early) with a degree in environmental engineering. So proud of his hard work and just who he is. All our grands do us proud!
We made a trip to the Twin Cities to pick up a few things from Gr. Jo's apartment a week ago. Joel had made her a coffee table many years ago so that is now in our family room. We were able to visit with my sister Janelle ( masked of course) in the process. Gr. Jo loved her little apartment so much and cherished all her "treasures". She would be happy to have them now in the hands of her family. That trip was the first time I had traveled 2 hours (one way) in 16 months! Yeah, I'm a real world traveler!
About ten days ago we had our Internet switched to our cable company...bunding the TV, home phone, and Internet together. They came out and set things up for us, which was so nice. So, two days later Joel goes upstairs to take the pictures off his phone and put them on his laptop. I was downstairs watching TV and all of a sudden Joel's pictures are coming across the TV! What?? I told Joel and he tried to stop it and when he did, our TV went blank. No TV, no Netflix, no Prime Video.....oh boy. After trying to figure things out ourselves we called our cable company and got someone in a third world country to help us out........she was a sweetie and more importantly we could understand her.......so she spent a half hour getting us to get our TV back and running. At the end, when I said to her, "Oh, it is BACK!! Thank you! You just saved our weekend!", I heard several people in the background, cheer and clap!
Speaking of cheering and clapping, with the FDA giving emergency clearance for the CoVid vaccine I expect there are quite a few people cheering and clapping. My prayer is that it helped stop this horrible pandemic. We are beginning to know people who have died from this plague and it becomes very real then. Our prayers are with all those who are grieving or fighting hard to live. Lord have mercy.
So this week, as cold weather gave us reason to dig out the soup pot, there is much to be grateful for. Grateful for my sister Jo, her life and her legacy of love. Grateful for Christmas decorations that bring us joy, for the smell of cookies, for a hubby who does projects for his family, for a vaccine that brings hope, for candles, old CD's, a new better Internet, for Advent, for Amazon deliveries, for deer that visit our yard, memories of snowless Christmases and homemade chicken soup simmering on the stove. So grateful................
Enjoy your weekend!
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