Banana Haiku

Frozen bananas
change to tasty, fresh-baked bread.
Want a toasted slice?

What a Relief!

This was on the "current local conditions" weather page that I use.

Whew! No need to worry about those pesky mosquitos today!
By the way, yesterday morning on my way to work it was 5 degrees below zero. Today seems like a "heat wave" with it being 35 degrees right now.
: )

Memories of Billy

My cousin died last Sunday, January 6.
He was my second oldest cousin.
My memories of him are few.
He never lived close to us, so I didn’t really get to know him very well.
I always knew him as "Billy" because Uncle Bill was "Bill".
We visited at Aunt Vera and Uncle Bill’s in California when I was 9. Billy had a little sports car that we got to ride in. (an MG?) I think we rode on the beach!
A few years later I remember helping Mom pack some cookies to send to him. He was serving in VietNam.
Billy and his wife Audrey lived in Colorado. One winter during, or just after, my college years, they graciously hosted me and a friend for a ski trip.
Billy, Audrey, and daughter Candra made the trip from their home in Wisconsin to help celebrate my mom and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary.
Cancer.
Memorial service today.
Audrey, Candra, cousin Ruth--Thinking of you, especially today.

Update Deadline

I told some that I would post by Monday night. Yikes! That's tonight already!

The last couple of weeks I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with my family. K was home on semester break, and of course T didn't have school either. B and M were mostly around--couldn't do much with all the ice (which is finally leaving, which means mud, but that's okay!)

The weekend before Christmas was at Big City Brother's.
He Who Has No Idea That His Sweater Stole an Ornament from the Christmas Tree While Taking Pictures.We had soup with B's side relatives at our house on Christmas Eve, before heading up the road for the 10 pm church service . Here's the youngest cousin "holding seven others."
Christmas Day was a leisurely day at home for the five of us.

"There must be something in here for me somewhere!""Whatever it was, I didn't find it!"

Mom was able to be here for a few days! It was also nice to see my Osborne and Newton aunts and uncles for a little bit when she was headed home.

We spent New Year's Eve playing games, this year at Friends Who Used to Raise Emus. Everyone headed out the door just after midnight.....

..........being SURE to traditionally "start out the new year on the right foot."

Then we went back inside for breakfast, even though we had spent the previous few hours eating leftover Christmas goodies.

Thanks for the puzzle, Jason. We finished it on New Year's Day. (It was NOT easy!)

Tis the season...

to wish everyone a very
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

God blessed us with his Son, and continues to bless us each day!
Enjoy your celebration with family and friends!

Power!

Power! After six days without, we have power in our rural area! And T. "gets" to go back to school tomorrow. :-)

There have been crews from Texas and who knows where all helping get the lines back up. Today I heard the number of electric poles down in our two-county cooperative was more like 1300 than the 800 I mentioned before. We really appreciate the help everyone has given.

We all rely so much on electrical power. But there's a much greater power that we don't always remember to acknowledge. Thank you, Lord, for your wonder working power!

And then came snow.

Here's the same broken tree shown yesterday from the front porch, with snow covering the ice and downed limbs now.

Here's a view out back from the kitchen window.
The photo may have to be enlarged to see where the limbs are broken off the elm in the background. The clean cut you see on the hackberry limb on the ground is where B used the chainsaw, so it wouldn't be hanging in the air.

Brrrr (adford Pear Tree, and others)

It feels like I've been gone forever, but that's only because I couldn't post for awhile. (You probably didn't even miss me here, since I don't tend to post every day. :-) I haven't had a chance to catch up on other blogs yet, just in case anyone wondered why I haven't commented much lately!)

Late Monday we started hearing strange sounds outside that continued through the night and next morning. It was the sound of tree branches breaking and dropping because of the ice that had accumulated on them. Daylight showed some of the damage, with more breaking under the weight as time went on. Of course we had no power, because the same thing had happened to the power lines. Our rural electric cooperative has at least 800 poles to replace. There has been no school since Tuesday, and still none tomorrow (Friday)! We're doing okay at our house, since B and M hooked up the generator that we have--so we have heat, water and electricity. What we didn't have for awhile was telephone/internet service because the system's back-up batteries ran down until they could get generators around to recharge them. Enough chatter... here are some photos! (most are better if you click to enlarge)

The Bradford (of Nov. 16's post)--surprisingly, it only lost one branch, and will likely shape back up nicely once the ice is gone.

The hackberry also surprised us with just a few branches toward the top broken off.

A roadside view of the front yard shows "pruned" maples and others.

These branches from the tree just outside our front door covered the ground. We lost some bigger limbs in the backyard, but I don't have good shots of those.

Icicles and shadows on the garage.

Heavy, but pretty!

Go to the ant...

Just for the record, the grumpiness is not so severe now. :-)
The list of stuff needing done is just as big as ever, but that's life.

We have snow!

Some blogger friends and I are reading through Proverbs this month. Verses 6-11 (in the Revised Standard Version) from today's chapter have been favorites of mine for a long time. "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise." Prov. 6:6

Grrr...

This is how I feel today,
because this is how I feel today.