FEEDING THE BIRDS

I took this out the dining room window through two panes of glass, but it shows clearly the gray skies and the feeding frenzy of the birds. With the blizzard warning in effect, I think the birds know their food will be buried tomorrow, so they'd best stuff themselves to overflowing today.

RANDOM PHOTOS

My little kokopelli is tired of the snow and is ready to head south. We bought this stained glass window insert for our camper down in Mexico last year about this time.

The weather was quite different from the weather we are experiencing this winter. These photos are from last week's storm, but we're getting a new one tonight. We are under a blizzard

warning so these scenes will seem like a peaceful Norman Rockwell painting compared to what we are promised tonight.

Out on the road last week.....

I know, I shouldn't be taking pictures through the windshield while I'm driving!

This was the sunset on Wednesday as we came back from visiting our daughter Gail, about 2 hours away from our home.

COUNTDOWN

Is anyone paying attention to this countdown?---------------->
I am! Getting close!

HIGH TEMPERATURE TODAY

Minus four!

THE TRIP UP NORTH LAST WEEK

We didn't have time for much other than the visitation and funeral when we went up North last week, but in the hour before we needed to be at the church we went for a little drive and checked out some of the family landmarks in the area. This is Clearwater Lutheran Church, the church my husband's family belonged to when they lived up there by Oklee. There are no longer services being held at this church, but it is an important piece of the history of the area. The cemetery is across the road, but it was too cold to get out and take pictures of the headstone marking the spot where Ernie's parents are buried. Isn't it a beautiful little country church?

This spot is the place Ernie's grandfather lived. That house has seen better days, don't you think?

This next picture is the place that our kids remember as grandma and grandpa's house. They lived in a small trailer with an addition on it. Obviously it has burned down since. At the time Ernie's parents lived there, we were living at Grand Forks Air Force Base just 90 miles west of here, and we spend many weekends over at the farm. Many years before this, when Ernie and his seven brothers were growing up, they lived on this farm in a small farmhouse that burned down in 1958.
See the big rock under the tree? Grandma planted a few flowers there and called this her rock garden. If you followed that road to the left and crossed the peat field, you would come to the river where the kids liked to play. Once when we went down there, Kevin had on his knee high white tube socks and they got filthy in the peat. Grandma gave him a wash board, a piece of home made soap, and made him scrub his socks.

Here you see the lane into the home place. If you turn left you are on the South road which takes you to the Big Grade. The road straight ahead was the New Grade, or the road by Land's place. When Ernie and his brothers get back up there, they slip right back into the lingo of their growing up years. And they continually point out spots along the way: "This is where Larry shot that 10 pointer." "This is where I was posting when that big doe ran right across the road in front of me." "This is where Milton rolled the car." And on, and on, and on.
After the funeral, as we were heading back to southern Minnesota, the sun came out for a spectacular sunset. We didn't stop the car, but I took a couple of shots through the window of the moving car at the huge orange ball in the sky.

We got home close to midnight, after being stopped by a cop. We were riding with Neil, Ernie's brother, and he was getting a little tired of driving so he pulled off the highway at a small town, drove down the snowy deserted street, pulled a u turn, parked and got out for a little fresh air. As he got back in to leave we noticed a police car up ahead at the intersection, but it just sat there as we pulled out, turned left, and headed back to the highway. All of a sudden we saw the lights and the policeman pulled us over. Seems Neil u turned on a one way street, so he was going the wrong way on a one way street! We needed a little excitement to keep us awake for the last hour of our journey!

SAGA ENDED

The saga of the tooth is ended. It's gone, and we're not going to talk about it again!

Our weather has turned frightful! When we left for church at eight this morning the temperature read 37 degrees. It really felt warm, and I ran from the car into the church with just my sweater, no coat. After church and Bible Study it had cooled off, but it still wasn't really bad. We went to brunch with my sister Betsy and her husband Ross, and my sister Lois, and when we came out it was noticeably colder and white stuff was coming down. I needed a few things at Sam's place, so we stopped there, and when we came out the wind had really picked up and the white stuff was blowing sideways. And the temperature was 7 degrees! A thirty degree difference in four hours!

Now I'm home, and going to go through a couple of cookbooks to find something to bake that the grandkids will like, but that I won't like, so I won't be tempted to eat it. And I have a bunch of pictures to post, so I'll be back later this afternoon.

THE TOOTH IS GONE AND QUADS

Okay, so we got back from northern Minnesota at about 11:30 last night, and I had to head off to the dentist this morning to have my tooth pulled. Dr. K couldn't get the back side to numb up, so it took five lovely shots of Novocaine to get it deadened enough to pull it. It cracked in two as he pulled it out, which he said proves that it would have given me trouble had it remained in my mouth. Anyhow, it's done, doesn't hurt too much, and mashed potatoes really do fill a person up!

But, as I walked into the dentist's waiting room a woman had just entered pushing a double stroller, and right behind her was her husband, also pushing a double stroller. They are the parents of two year old quads! The husband parked his stroller and left, leaving mom with the four kids. Were they ever beautiful! The kids had dark eyes and dark hair....I'm guessing mother was maybe from South America, but she spoke very good English, and was obviously highly educated. I found out later that the husband is a professor at a University. They had moved here from Texas where the babies were born.

The kids were there for their two year check up. Mom took the first little girl, Elizabeth, and stripped off her snowsuit and took her in to the dentist and left the other three in the strollers, under the watchful eyes of the receptionist. Soon little James wanted out, as did William a few minutes later. Samantha was shy and wanted to stay in the stroller, buckled up, just like mom left her! Soon mom brought the first one back and took one of the boys. By now all of them were playing with the puzzles, blocks, and snap apart beads on the floor in the reception room. Up down, back and forth, in and out, and up and down again! Oh my! Two year old quads would keep a person busy. And they are probably the reason that mom was very slim and trim!

The kids went in, one by one and as I was heading back for my "procedure" the last little girl was brought into the cubicle next to me. The dentist was so gentle with her, playing games of counting her teeth and showing her his mirror, etc, but she wasn't happy, and screamed the whole time. Poor thing was scared. But, those four beautiful children had been a wonderful distraction for me, and as I settled back into the chair I think I actually had a smile on my face, and I was ready to "Open Wide!"

UPDATE ON TOOTH

Cast of characters: Dentist, Endodontist, Periodontist and me

After the dentist appointment this morning where I was told I needed a root canal, I had lunch with hubby (a bowl of butternut squash soup that was wonderful!) and then went home to regroup and brush before going to the endodontist. I was still a bit numb from the Novocaine at the dentist when I got to the endo guy. He immediately takes Xrays, which I had just had at the dentist! Can't they share? Then he shoots my already numb mouth full of Novocaine. He proceeds to take off the temporary crown which the dentist had just put on two hours previously, and then started digging around on the tooth. Eureka! He turns off the lights, takes the rubber dam thing out of my mouth, sheds his rubber gloves, and proclaims that he has bad news, and then tells me that he can't fix the tooth. It is cracked, so I will have to have it pulled, and then decide between a bridge and an implant. Oh, goody! just what I wanted to hear! But, meanwhile, I'd best go back to the dentist and see what he recommends. I told the endodontist that I think he and the dentist and the periodontist get together for a beer after work and plan what next they can do to Marge! He thought that was funny. I was serious!

So I take my doubly Novocained mouth and head back to the dentist, about 4 blocks away. See, I told you they are working together, they're close so they can send folks back and forth between them! Funny thing is that hubby was just driving in for his appointment! He got in first, and after the dentist numbed hubby's mouth he came out to talk to me. Okay, new plan. Now I get to go back on Friday to have this tooth pulled. It's the next to the back one, so it won't show, so I can just let it heal until we get back from Florida. THEN, I will get to have a bridge put in, after putting new crowns on the tooth in back and the tooth in front of it.

What is the periodontist's part in this? Well, I get to cancel my appointment with him, unless, of course, when they are laughing in their beers over this, they decide to create something else for me so I can go back to him, too.

THE TALE OF MY TOOTH AKA MY MILLION DOLLAR TOOTH!

I went to the dentist a few weeks ago for normal cleaning. Nothing hurting, nothing wrong, no problem, just due for my 6 month cleaning. After digging around they decide my gum is goofy by one tooth and there is spongy gum or bone starting or something like that.

Off to the periodontist. Yup, bone loss around the tooth so that needs to be fixed with donor bone tissue! But first the crown needs to be redone on that tooth.

Back to the dentist this morning to have the prep work done to replace the crown. Take the crown off and discover the botched root canal from eons ago. Nope, can't do the crown until we do another root canal to correct the bad one.

Now I head to the endodontist this afternoon for an emergency root canal.

Heading up north Wednesday for a visitation on Wednesday night and funeral on Thursday. Back home Thursday night.

Back to the dentist on Friday morning to hopefully complete the new crown prep that we couldn't do today.

Back to the dentist on the 22nd to set the new crown.

GO TO FLORIDA!

Come home on March 1. Back to the periodontist to start the procedure on the gum......that involves donor bone tissue?!?!? And how many visits will that involve?

This is not a fairy tale, but a huge nightmare that ought to be banned!

THRIFTY SHOPPING

Before meeting my daughter for lunch at our favorite coffee shop, I stopped at one of our local thrift shops. I spent $3.00 plus tax.......

A small lap quilt for 50 cents

An apron for 25 cents

A feed sack for 25 cents

An expensive table runner.......$1.50

And a faded old tablecloth for 50 cents. Well, they were all on the half price sale, so it's really $6.00 worth of treasures! All handmade. Love them! I'm going to make curtains for my sewing room with the floral table cloth. I hung the apron in the kitchen. The table runner is on the back of the futon in the sewing room, and the lap quilt will go in the rocker in the living room. I haven't decided on the feed sack yet.

I'M A GEEK!! (I THINK)

At least for the moment I am thinking I'm a geek! I seemed to have fixed my skipping letters and spaces problem. Last night I started checking geek sites and reading questions from users and replies from the tech guys. Well, after awhile I found that a huge percentage of the questions were about keyboard problems, especially skipping letters and spaces. This was happening to folks using gmail. The suggested fix was to go back to an older version of gmail, which is very simple to do. You click on the button older version which is on the upper right side of the inbox page. I figured there was no way my computer would be any worse if I tried and it didn't work, so I bravely pushed the button at midnight. In the next fifteen minutes I wrote two lengthy emails, both with not a single missing letter or space!

So the moral of the story is: new is not always better, as in the newer version caused the problem. So at least for now, I am back up and running, thanks to the geek in me! Ha. Ha. Lucky shot, I know. But it worked!

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heav'nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

#110, vs.1,5,6 from The Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary

THINGS IN TREES

SQUIRRELS

BERRIES

SMALL NESTS
LARGE NESTS

PINE CONES
HELLO KITTY PANTIES!?!?!?!

THINGS THAT START WITH T

TRAIL

TREES

TWIGS

TRAIN TRACKS

TOWER
TEVAS

THE POND

Friday was a beautiful sunny day, so I took a little hike with my camera. I grabbed my water bottle, my phone, and my camera and headed down the road to connect up with the bike trail that is about 3 miles from here. I didn't go all the way to the actual bike trail, just our connecting spur, because I had a camera full of photos just in the first couple of miles. And I am going to share.......probably a couple of posts worth!

As we say up North, "it's making ice," although not very quickly. The small ponds like this one are frozen over, but anything any larger still has only an inch or two of ice, and many open water spots. This is the time of year that the ice fishermen get anxious, head out on the ice too soon, and fall through, too often to their death. It needs to be much thicker to support a person, even more for a snowmobile, and a lot more for a vehicle.

See, this is a very small pond, and the ice is looking good. Especially when decorated with some
left over fall leaves. And there, on the bank, I spied an eager spring flower! Go back to sleep, dandelion, you need to sleep about 6 more months!

THE SECOND THANKSGIVING

We did not consume enough food at our First Thanksgiving, so we were forced to hold a second meal. Everyone knows you are supposed to consume about 3000 calories on Thanksgiving, and our first meal left us a bit short. We only had 1853, so we held a second, larger gathering, at our small town home where we consumed the lacking calories, plus an additional large amount, bringing our total well above the required 3000. We crammed 24 people and a ton and three quarters of food into this small space. Our town home has a greatroom. Here in the back of the photo you can see the kitchen, with a counter that separates it from the dining room, with a sofa that separates it from the living room! Small, but cozy, and we love it! However, it is not the most spacious spot for large family gatherings. We didn't have everyone present as Alaska is too far away for Chris to come for one meal, and Lenny and family from North Dakota couldn't make it either. And Gail is still receiving help for her addiction, so she wasn't there either. We missed them all a lot!

But the 24 of us that did gather here had a very close time. A very, very close time! I had ten by the table, four by the counter, five in the computer/sewing/guest room on my sewing table, and four in the living room with trays, and one decided not to eat. We made it!

And silly me, I took pictures of the first two families to arrive and then things got so crazy that I neglected to snap any further pictures. Below, on the sofa, are son Lance, his wife Tya, and their two girls, Jaden sitting by her dad, and Madison in the pink shirt. Lance was the only one of our sons to get a deer this year. He is the youngest of our seven kids.

These two guys pictures below are Joe in the white and Justin in the brown and orange plaid. They are the sons of our second kid, and oldest son, Kevin, and his wife Molly. Both of these guys are on the ski hills this morning, making good use of their long weekend.

Missing from these photos is my dear mother. She was feasting in Heaven with Jesus, and I'm sure didn't miss us at all. But we missed her. We did have lefsa, even though we had to purchase it this year, as mom was the lefsa maker for the family.

As most of you know, we are Lutherans. The main part of our instruction before our Confirmation in the eighth grade consisted of memorizing Luther's Small Catechism. At our church service on Thanksgiving Eve the congregation recited The First Article of the Apostles' Creed and the meaning of those words, and I would like to include these words here. It is perfect for Thanksgiving as it lists many of our abundant blessings:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth.

What does this mean?

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them. That He gives clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and home, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life; that He defends me against all danger, and guards and keeps me from all evil. And all this purely out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I am duty bound to thank and praise, to serve and obey Him.

This is most certainly true!

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

I will probably have no readers today because you are all out shopping. Not me. I am sitting here with Josh Groban. He is singing Silent Night right now, on the first legal day to play Christmas songs. In my humble opinion.
Did you have this for your Thanksgiving meal? If not, you probably did not receive your allotted number of calories or fat grams for your feast. To remedy that you must rush over to Pioneer Woman's blog and make this Caramel Pumpkin Gingersnap Cheesecake. So There. Kari made it and I can attest to the fact that it is wonderful! Rich, but wonderful. Cut yourself a very small slice. Did I mention that it is rich? Enjoy!
Katie and Clayton (Ben snuck in the picture) hosted the first Thanksgiving meal at their home. This is the buffet we enjoyed there. We filled our plates here and then sat here

Thanks Katie and Clayton! Lovely table, wonderful meal, and excellent company. We enjoyed the time spent at your home very much. And we thank your mom, our daughter, Kari, for making Pioneer Woman's Caramel Pumpkin Gingersnap Cheese Cake. And did I mention that it is very rich?

THANKSGIVING EVE

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above , ye heavenly host:
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, filled with family, friends, and food. Don't forget to thank God for your food and ask Him to bless all who partake of it. Pray that He will continue to bless our country and keep it safe.

Have a wonderful day! I'll post some pictures of our celebration on Friday.

THANKSGIVING DINNER

Are you cooking for Thanksgiving? If you are, what are you making? I went to the grocery stores today to pick up the last of the things I'll need. I am making a turkey, dressing, gravy, Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, pecan pie, lefsa.......and daughter and three daughters in law are furnishing the veggies, salads, pies, and dinner rolls. Think we'll have enough?

I was looking in the newspaper today for sales on the things I needed. Well, the sales were on: pretzels, crackers, and tortilla chips. None of those on my dinner table for Thanksgiving! There were also sales on stove top stuffing and I make my own so don't need that. There was also a sale on ground coffee, but I grind my own beans so don't need that. And a big sale on various kinds of pop. The grandkids would probably like that, but I didn't buy any. So, I didn't get anything I bought today on sale. In fact, I seldom find the things I buy on sale, or find a coupon for it. If you don't buy boxed mixes, instant whatever, highly processed foods, you don't find much on sale or with a coupon.

Oh, the meal I'm cooking is the second Thanksgiving meal of the day. Grand daughter Katie is having her first holiday meal of her married life! So we'll be there at noon. Guess we'd best just sample at both places, though. The newspaper this morning said it was not unusual for someone to consume over 2000 calories at one sitting on Thanksgiving. 2000 calories is what a grown man needs for a whole day! And I'm guessing no one eats just that one meal that day!

TRIPS

We took an unexpected trip yesterday, a fun thing to do when the sun is shining and masking the fact the the wind was blowing up a wind chill for us. Granddaughter, Katie, pictured below on her wedding day last May, had to go to the Cities to deliver a car, and she needed a ride home. So would grandpa and grandma follow her and give her a ride home? You bet we would! Gave us two hours in the car with just Katie and we had a wonderful visit. Katie is a new bride, a college student, and a PCA, making her life full to overflowing right now. But she is handling it very well, and we are so proud of her!

When we got home I had a few things to do before I could make supper for hubby. I had talked to Gail earlier, and we made plans to visit her today. She had asked for a couple of things so I set off to find them. She wanted some sweat shirts and sweat pants, and I thought I would check a couple of thrift stores first. I found one Viking (as in Minnesota Vikings football) shirt and knew she would love that, and it looked almost new. $3.00, not too bad. But I found nothing else except stretched out of shape, stained, hugely over priced, crap, excuse the language. So I went to the club Sam has, and stuff was high and couldn't find a small anyhow, which my 85 pound daughter needs. Went across the parking lot to Sam's Mart and found Hanes on sale for $5! Yes! I got her a couple of shirts and a pair of sweat pants, and she will be thrilled.

So, now it's hit the shower, meet my siblings for an early lunch, and then head off to visit Gail. She seems to be doing well. I hope and pray she is. And thanks for your prayers!