Bear With Me, I Have A Lot Of Stuff To Tell You

First of all as you may have heard, somebody mistook Mississippi for Minnesota.  It has been down in the single digits here.  And the bad thing about it, we didn't get any snow to speak of.  It snowed for a few minutes and stayed on the ground for a few minutes.  At work we were hanging around the windows ooohhing and ahhhing like crazy.  The lake behind our house had a thin sheet of ice on it, and our neighbor who was living here when the lake was built said this was a first......15 some odd years and it has never frozen.  It is slowly going away now.  Yesterday morning when I woke up, I saw geese sitting in the middle of the ice and since I couldn't see them moving, I thought they had frozen to death in the ice over night. Dummy.  I got out my binoculars and I could see them moving their heads...so I thought they were trapped in the ice.  Dummy.  And of course when I looked later they were gone.  Dummy.  They had just been enjoying themselves.  Here are some pictures of the lake.

 

 

Now the other thing is this.  The central unit that heats the west side of the house is out.  The heating dude came over and said blah blah blah warranty yada yada yada parts in Tuesday blah blah blah...Long story short we go get two electric heaters because the west end unit heats the living room and the two guest bedrooms and DIL and 2 gchildren are coming to go hunting. (Crazy in this cold)  She wants to prove to son who is now back in Iraq that she can kill a deer.  (I hate hunting, but there is nothing I can do about it..why can't they hunt with their cameras?)  Still the temperature in the house has never gotten above 64 with the east side unit going semi-full blast.  Had to be careful, we didn't want to burn up the fan motor or something.

Also the Christmas decorations are still up.  And I'm not going to sweat it.  David has to get the boxes down out of the attic for me to pack them up.  And he has to move the tree out.  Remember, nothing is more important that hunting.  I'll let you know when I finally get them down.

Now the other thing to tell you is that my mother's house has sat empty since my uncle went to the nursing home 3 months ago.  My Mama has been dead for 3 years.  For the first year I wouldn't even go in the house.  I just pulled up to the house and my uncle came out, and he visited me.  The second year I would go in for a few minutes maybe, but he mostly came to my house.  Only after he went to the nursing home would I actually go in there and look around.  The house was just like they left it.  They both could have walked right back in and picked right back up where they left. Sigh.

I knew it was wasting money not to rent it but I was procrastinating about getting it ready.  Last week I got a call from friends of an elderly couple that their house had burned.  Friday night David, Amber and I put all the keepers in one of the bedrooms, bagged up all the junk and then yesterday Cassie and I (#2 gchild) cleaned up the kitchen and vacuumed etc.  They moved in last yesterday afternoon.  It was bitter sweet.  And it was time.  It was just what I needed to get me motivated to do it.  They will only be there 2 months, but the money will help me pay for my uncle's private room at the nursing home.

Cassie was invaluable to me.  She could reach all the things that I couldn't--like in the corners of the bottom cabinets.

As I was cleaning, I turned on the cassette player and there was a tape of Mama and me singing...I listened and smiled.  It was such a sweet memory.  And then as I listened further, there was more on there of her singing Amazing Grace a cappella.  I called my brother and played it for him.  He was speechless. 

Another sweet thing happened Thursday.  I met the gas man at the house on my lunch hour so that he could turn the gas back on.  I went into one of the bedrooms and opened a file cabinet..and there was my baby book.  I opened it and found this picture...it had been years since I saw it.....and it is the only picture I have of her holding me as a newborn.

Some of the treasures that I found.

 My Grandmother's butter bowl and my Mama's juicer.

 

My Mama's cranberry sauce server.

 

 Almost like new Faberware-that I really needed.

 

Brand new iron. Sigh......it makes me wonder if she put it up under the cabinet and forgot about it....I just don't remember her using it....
I guess I have goofed off enough and now it's time to get moving........more later.