Bye Bye Christmas

Today's high temperature was: 25 degrees

2" new snow and sunny

As yet--no power for my friends and family

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Pammie has been staying with Jennifer.  She picked me up on Christmas Eve morning to go up to The Farm--where son Mark is staying with Susan and Chuck.  We had to stop at Pammie's house (where I used to live) first.  It was 35 degrees in the house!  Now--I lived in that area for 50 years.  We had ice storms and we had wind storms that broke off trees and shut off power, but the longest we ever went was 2 days--and that was in the summer.  I have never seen anything like this in my life.  It truly is a state of emergency for most of the county.  The problem?  The county and Consumers Energy USED to trim tree branches back from their lines--especially around their sub-stations.  They cut back on that about five years ago.  So this time, we have line men crews from Kansas, California, Nevada, Ohio and Indiana coming in to get the power back on.  I wonder how much the county actually saved--whatever it is, they will have to pay it to the crews.

So--Pammie and I figured out how to shut off the water and drain the pipes.  Then we got some RV anti-freeze and put it in the toilet bowls and down the drains. Pammie said, "If a man can do it--we can do it!"  and we did!!

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Christmas Eve was wonderful!! For the first time in 43 years there was negativity in the house! No critical remarks--no jokes at another person's expense.  Susan had a picture of our Mother and Dad and also a picture of us with our Grandma--back in 1961 when Karen was just 2 months old.  I haven't seen my son so happy and congenial in years!!!

Then Susan sat down at the piano and played Christmas carols and we all sang.  Pammie got tears in her eyes and said, "This is just like it used to be when Grandma was alive.  I remember it so well," and son Mark said, "I remember too.  We always sang songs while Grandma played the piano."  None of my grandchildren remembered as they weren't born until 15 years after my Mother died. but my oldest grand daughter, Helene said, "Oh that must have been so nice!"  We could be "real" again this year, with the step-mother gone, and you could tell that everyone of us in that house loved all the others and knew they loved us.  What a blessing!!!

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This is the frame I have had (like forever) for the cross stitch I am working on.

It is 26 x 9".

I have the farm I grew up on all done.  Kind of hard to see in this pix.

I got my Mother's little vegetable garden in there, and the Lilac bushes she loved.

Also the little well house and the windmill.  That group of trees, represents

the woods between our place and my Grandma's.

The white building on the upper right, is NOT a church.

It is the school house on the corner, where my Grandma

taught and my Dad attended for 8 years.

Williams District #10.

Now--this farm, my Grandma's farm and the one I lived on and raised by kids--is next.

The house and the hatchery across the drive.

I am wondering how to do the stone work on the front of the house.

YIKES--

P.S.  Bella,  you need new glasses.  I haven't colored my hair in six months.  It is grey all around the front and dark in the back.  I look like the old woman I am!!!  

But, thanks anyway.