Sunroom Picture

This is the result of mostly Renae's work over the holidays. I helped take down the old blinds, prime, move furniture, and of course picked out paint and blinds. Oh yes, and paid for it all too. Glenn helped Renae put up the hardware for the new blinds, but Renae spent many hours priming, taping, painting a couple of coats on the ceiling and the walls, hanging blinds, replacing the light fixture (which I forgot to get a picture of), shampooing the carpets, and putting the furniture back.

It will be so nice to open the blinds and not have some fall down from being rotted and to have it feel much brighter even though the paint color is somewhat dark. It's still not as dark as paneling!

Thanks, Renae!!! It's great to have a friend like you.

A Different Church

Yesterday I left my bag with the things I need to get ready in the morning at Renae's so she said to come over this morning to get ready and then just go to church with them. I did that even though it meant one more week I didn't go to Grace.

It was kind of nice to go to another church. The sermon series now is Why Church? Today the talk was when the church is the church this is what results: God is glorified, evil is struck down, Christians are unified, and something about angels. I learned an interesting piece about the spiritual armor in Ephesians 6--every piece is discussed elsewhere in Ephesians. Truth, righteousness, gospel, etc. Unfortunately I didn't have anything to write with to get down all the verse, but I will look them up later.

Jayne, from handbells--last night I had thought about visiting St. Rose of Lima but went to Evergreen instead.

Isn't this the best looking college sophomore around? I know my parents enjoyed Andrew's playing the piano and singing while he was in AL.

Thankful Thursday

I've been pretty bummed about work this week, but then today I got an e-mail about a missionary couple in Siberia that has no heat and the temp is below 0, and then I remember that I'm thankful for my job in a warm building.

I'm also thankful that this week I had a series of e-mails with a friend throughout the day that has made me smile and even laugh which has helped make work more bearable. Now if only she lets me know she read this.

A couple of Jeffrey stories from the holidays:

I was telling Jeffrey, Grandma, Andrew, and K-Daddy about growing popcorn this past summer. Jeffrey jerked around to me beside him in the car and said, “No you didn’t.” Me: “Yes, I did.”
Jeffrey: “No, you didn’t. That’s impoppable!”

Then he stopped and started laughing at himself. “I said impoppable instead of impossible. That’s a pretty good pun isn’t it? Impoppable.”

I bought this purse with some Christmas money so I asked Jeffrey to take a picture of me with it. He took this one, and when I told him, "Hey, I do have a face" he just smiled and said, "But I got the purse and that's what you wanted!"

On Tuesday Jeffrey, Andrew, and I washed and vacuumed one of Grandma and K-Daddy’s cars. Jeffrey really enjoyed the noise, water, and machinery of the car wash so I suggested after lunch we do the same for their other car and then go get Aunt Mary’s and do hers as well. With big eyes and smile he said, “Yes, and then we can go to the mall!”

We finished one car and then went to get Aunt Mary’s car. While we were inside she told a few of her co-workers that we were washing cars if they wanted their’s washed as well. Mrs. Cook wanted hers washed so Jeffrey and I took that car first. On the way there I said, “Now I don’t know if she will, but if Mrs. Cook offers us money for this, don’t you think it would be good to say, ‘Mrs. Cook, we’re just glad to do a nice thing for you and Mr. Cook.’ “. His reply, “Yes, but if she insists then we should take it, right?” “Well we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but since Mr. Cook is sick and they are good people don’t you think we should just say, ‘Mrs. Cook, we’re just glad to do a nice thing for you and Mr. Cook’?” “Yes, but if she insists then we should just take it.”

We went through this several times to make sure he knew to say we were glad to do it for them. When we got back to Mary’s office, we handed Mrs. Cook the change, and then she gave him a tip. He says, “Mrs. Cook” and then looks at me and says “What is it I’m supposed to say?” Talk about exasperated! She said, “I’d give anyone who washed my car a tip so you take it.” He looks at me, smiles, and says, “She’s insisting.”

Here’s a picture of him on the carousel enjoying his tip.

There's been a lot to blog about lately, but no time or access to do so.

I have a couple of stories from Christmas break to share.

Mixed feelings I have about being at work--seeing the office I sat at for over four years disassembled within a few minutes, seeing Renae's office disassembled as well, saying goodbye to people in other departments who are moving to a different location, etc.

Some big successes in MK over the last few weeks.

Thoughts from some Bible reading.

I want to upload some Christmas pics as well.

In case I don't get any of the above done, you know what I've been thinking about.

My Annual Migraine

I get about one migraine a year, and when I say migraine I mean the aura, feeling nauseous, etc. and not just a bad headache.

Last night I sat down while on the phone and realized that the upper right corner of my right eye was blurry so I knew a migraine was coming on. I took some pills and went to bed as that is usually enough to get rid of a migraine. Throughout today I've had a nagging pain over each eye so it's not completely gone.

Hopefully since as I said I get about one a year I've had my one migraine for 2009.

Oops, tomorrow I go back to work so the migraine will probably go on and on and on.