Repairs Of the Day

I always feel so self-righteous when I fix something. Today I finished putting bathroom #3 back together by finishing the vanity and replacing the sink, fixing to toilet so it doesn't wobble, and patching two little holes in the fiberglass shower/tub. Then I fixed a dresser drawer, too.

*happy dance*

We Are Officially Old

The president of these United States is younger than us.

The Neighborhood Zoo

I finally remembered to take my camera when I walked down to the mailbox.

I'm no expert on llamas, but I think this might be one.

Are the sheep supposed to be on the right or the left? I guess this is both.

Which Is Worse?

A dirty spot on the carpet, or a clean spot? :-(

Marshmallow Art

Most of my blogging lately has been about our home remodeling projects (did I mention I ripped the vanity our of our 3rd bathroom today, so now we have three torn up bathrooms?), but I thought I should post these photos of how to make marshmallow art:

The ink is edible so these pens can be used to decorate cookies and marshmallows. They worked perfectly for writing birthday greetings to our colleague Cyndi at her 50th birthday party tonight.

Remotes

Which one does not belong?

Doro Wins!

As I mentioned in the last post, I've updated my computer set up. This is the old piece of furniture that I'm getting rid of. It served me well for many years in spite of being built of particle board and held together with epoxy putty.


But when I got this thing out of the office this is what I found taped on the end of it and Gary and I started laughing.

You see, way back in the summer of 2004 the German exchange student, Doro, decided to say good-bye to us by putting post-it notes all over the place with little reminders of things we had done with her, or funny things we had laughed about, etc. She told us we would find them for years to come. I didn't believe her, but it turns out she was right!

Garage Sale and Lip Reading

I rarely go to garage sales, but this one was just around the corner. Mr. Olson's wife died earlier this year and he is having to move to California to live with his daughter. So he had a garage sale and I bought about $60 with of stuff. One item cost $40 and that shall remain a secret until Gary's birthday. But the rest of the stuff cost between $1-$5 each.

I ended up with a skinny bookshelf that worked perfectly as a nightstand in the apartment. Then I took the nice typing table, a file drawer on wheels, and a section of metal shelving to reinvent my computer set up.

I tried really hard to finish this conversion while Gary was outside, which didn't quite work. He can't see the point of switching furniture around as often as I do, though it is undeniable that it at least accomplishes the feat of removing a foot of dust and cat hair from behind everything.

The truth is, I made this switch so that I can see Gary's face when we are working together on reading his email each morning. Either he has learned to mumble in his old age, or I'm going deaf, so with the computer in this configuration, I can read his lips and won't have to say "what?" so many times.

Birds of the Solstice Report

I participated in the Birds of the Solstice project on Dec 21, and I was afraid I'd have the fewest number of birds to report since I did not stray from my house to do this project! But, I needn't have worried--one observer only saw one single bird! (But actually I'm surprised there are any birds north of the arctic circle!)

Click on the banner above to see who participated and what birds they saw on the shortest/longest day of the year.

Quiet

I haven't been blogging here much. Mostly I've been blogging on my family site since we're pretty involved in our bathroom remodel at the moment.

I made no New Year's Resolutions, but I need to get off the Christmas diet and back into some salads soon!

Happy New Year!

We're not much for New Year's parties, so we just went to bed. Well, Gary went to bed early because he was tuckered out from doing yardwork and I stayed up so I could blog about the latest in the remodeling saga.

My goal for today is cleaning and moving. I've almost got the Christmas stuff put away, but the main thing to do is to move our bedroom from its original location to the other end of the house in order to get out of the way of the builders. It is a lot of work to do this, but a side benefit is that everytime you have to move stuff, you end up throwing a bunch of stuff away (which in my case means taking it to the boutique, unless it is so bad even missionaries refuse it).

While I was scooting a bookcase along today, something fell. Turns out it was the Berlin Wall.

(gift from one of our former German exchange students)

Gas for Cheap

Did I mention that I got gas today for $1.03/gallon? That included a $.40/gallon discount at my local Tom Thumb because I bought so many groceries. That may sound good, but I also bought a measly 5 lbs of potatoes today for $3.59. That seemed overpriced.

Moving

Some of my readers, all two of you, may not know that I've had to move my family blog from Blogger to Wordpress. This was necessary in order to outsmart certain governments in the world who have banned Blogger and have thereby hindered my communication with a certain segment of my family--the ones with the world's cutest grandbaby of mine!

So, if you are interested in my other blog, still named Linda's Family News, you can link here.

I may or may not end up moving this blog too, but I'm too tired to think about that right now. In fact, I'm a little sick, so I should just go to bed. I found myself coming home from the Christmas Eve service with a little fever. Gary's not doing so well either--he pulled a muscle in his back when we moved Rachel's Christmas present up the stairs to her second floor apartment--a new love seat.

Anyway, I posted photos of our unusual Christmas dinner over there, so go have a look if you want. And let me also wish you a Merry Christmas and Christ's peace for the coming new year.

I Should Never Have Doubted Her, Part II

Rachel got word this morning that she passed the 4-8 Texas Teacher certification test that she took last Wednesday.

What a relief for her, since passing was an important step in keeping her job. Gary's algebra tutoring must have helped!

We are very proud of her. Thank the Lord with us.

I've Been Busy Birding

I spent a lot of today birding. Well, I"m just an amateur, so it was just bird-watching out the back door. But I did pull the vertical blinds shut to make a viewing blind. I was doing this for the Birdstack Birds of Solstice project. I only saw 11 different birds, all but one on my bird feeder.

I also just made an online photo album for my bird photos. The photos themselves are not that great, but you get the idea. I guess you need one of those fancy cameras to make good photos. Click here to see my bird photos.

White Winged Doves

I gave up trying to get my bird feeder fixed and instead just leaned it up against the deck. What do I have to do to get some help around here?? In any case, as soon as I put the bird food out, the birds arrived in, well, flocks. There were cardinals, tufted titnice, carolina chickadees, some sparrows but I don't know what kind, dark-eyed juncos, and these lovely white-winged doves. Oh, and one red-bellied woodpecker, too.



Tomorrow I'm going to participate in Birds of the Solstice. And I just now realized that the 24-hour period has already started. But I'll likely do my bird watching after church. Or maybe before church, since there's no Sunday School tomorrow.

A Bit of Birding

When my two older kids were in college, they took science classes that were taught by ornithologists. Andrew got quite interested in birds when he spent a semester abroad in Costa Rica and I enjoyed hearing all about the different kinds of birds he was seeing. Then Rachel had to do a bird observation project for her science class and she talked me into helping her (she doesn't have the world's best eyesight for birding). I do remember her insisting the the male and female Mallard ducks had to be different species--I mean, just look at them!

So I kind of got into birdwatching a little because of them. I'm strictly an amateur, but I do think it is kind of cool to find a new bird and do the work to figure out what it is. (I know I've blogged about birds in the past: here and here and here and here. Actually, I have lots of more bird posts and that reminds me, I should go back and take those birds and add them to my life list at Birdstack.)

Speaking of Birdstack, they are having a bird-watching party this coming Sunday. Which is also the winter solstice. I'm going to join them. (I think it is kind of strange to talk about birding and parties in the same breath!) It is easy, and you don't have to be a professional! Here is the scoop--why don't you join us?

The Good Life

This morning I was again reminded that the quality of life is automatically higher for those of us who do not have to commute to work.

Gary kindly joined me as we left at 6:05am to take Rachel to a location north of the metroplex. Traffic was bad coming home and worse going there. At least the temperature was above freezing unlike yesterday morning when the city was covered in a thin layer of ice. Someone said there were over 100 accidents yesterday in the area.

In other news, we enjoyed the GIAL Christmas dinner last evening. We could walk to that, too.

Christmas At Work

Today we hosted the annual department Christmas tea. As usual, it was held in the 2nd floor hallway, which isn't an ideal venue, but we make it work.

We are grateful to work with a bunch of great people who accomplish a lot with sometimes fewer than ideal resources and almost always cheerfully.

We even have some wise men around.

This year Joan found the mother of all poinsettias for the table--so big we almost lost Kathy back there.

I've noticed that my stats counter for this blog has suddenly increased--I think it is because this coworker mentioned that he was blog-buddies with me in a public attended by some of my coworkers. Now, I bet they are seeing themselves in these photos!

I Should Never Have Doubted Her

Tonight was the church's annual "Family Christmas" service. Rachel picked the hardest Christmas song in existence to perform as a solo. Sam moved it down several keys to better fit Rachel's range, added a lovely viola part, and Rachel sounded just great!

Those of you who attended David and Sarah's wedding might also recognize her dress. Nice to wear it at least twice!