Some pictures from the storm of '08!

This will be a collection from the Portland area with which to remember this storm! (The worst in our area since 69) Hopefully, I'll get some of my area. I live on the East side of town and we often get it worse here because we are closer to the Gorge.

This is my high energy friend's driveway. She shoveled this space so her son-in-law would be able to pull in when he comes to put on her chains so she can get out! Pretty good for a 72 year old lady!!

My friend's home on the West Side. She hadn't done her driveway yet!!

This shows the iced up trees.

And from my cousins' home on my side of town near Troutdale,
where the Interstate 84 has been closed for three days for a stretch of about 75 miles.
The car is nearly buried, but the U. S. Flag is flying proudly in the snow!
Notice the lamp pole buried in the snow!
Looking out from her kitchen nook window. It IS beautiful, but my oh my,
how a collection of snowflakes can stop an area dead in its tracks!!

My brother in law's pickup!
Brother in law, Bill beginning to shovel out the walkway.
He is making progress...
Look at the depth of the snow where he has cut into the walkway!
Poor old fellow. that was a lot of work!!


To be added, some pictures from my front yard tomorrow, unless it is all gone by then! (I wish)

Well, Surprise!! It didn't melt!

From my garage to the right front yard
To the left is my six foot fence with drifts
house across the street
hope this tree stays where it belongs
to the back yard--my poor geraniums--all buried in that drift except for one pot
I think my hedge may have bitten the dust.
No baths for the birdies today!
According to the weather reports, five more inches tonight!!
I'm waiting for a pizza to be delivered!! Hope he makes it!!

OH! The weather outside is frightful!!!!

My cousin's home above her family's farm in Troutdale.

One week ago today, we awakened to snow and ice and thus began our week! There was some type of snow, wind, cold weather all week long. Yesterday, (Saturday) we started getting snow in earnest. Along with the snow, came the East wind from the Columbia River Gorge....which caused drifts!

In looking out my bedroom window this morning, I see that I have a drift right up to the window sill, covering all five of my Azaleas completely! The trees are covered in ice for I forgot to mention that an icy rain fell all night long. We are still under 32 degrees, so it looks like it will stay for a while.

I am so thankful that:
my Christmas shopping is done
I am warm
my electricity is still working
my freezer is full of oven ready foods
my phone is working
many friends and family call to check up on me
I don't mind being snowed in
I have lots of things to do
this, too, shall pass

As we age, we become very protective of our bones that have remained in one piece, and for that reason, I have not left my house except for one hour during a calm, melty-looking day. I managed to finish getting all of my stocking stuffers, so I am so thankful for that. Other than that I have remained inside--not even going to the mail box. I have some braver friends who stop by and when they do they bring in my mail for me.

With this update from Oregon, I must close. I think my garage door is frozen shut....so even if I wanted to go some place, I couldn't get the car out!!

We are all hoping we can get to our family gathering for Christmas Eve dinner and opening of presents.

A friend of mine just wrote her reflections about being stranded up in her vacation home on Orcas island. She has a flair for writing, so it is an interesting read if you have the time.

I trust all of you are almost ready for this precious Holiday in which we take the time to honor and celebrate the birth of our risen Lord Jesus!

Odds and Ends

My tooth surgery is behind me and I was thrilled with the lack of pain!! Its been a great recovery--some bruising down my chin, but truly unremarkable for which I am soooo thankful!

Unfortunately, I've been down for eight days with my back....and so since I have nothing exciting to post about, I'm going to share some pictures of the Christmas spirit at my house---where I no longer do a big tree, but have groupings of pretties collected together. Nothing exciting like I have seen in some of your beautiful pictures...but its all I need for this chapter of life.

The entry way, looking down the hall.

From the entry looking toward the kitchen.

The pie tin in the family room with all of the little goodies, trains, etc.

The hearth holds joys from childhood with a large red tin of
Christmas books from over the years.

On the mantel is a catchall of hand crafted wood items.

The candy cane tree is a project from many years ago. This is the family room and all decorations are available for kids to play with, look at and explore.

Since son, Jonathan, was married eighteen years ago, we have the tradition of them sleeping overnight at my house and getting up together for stockings in the morning, followed by a Christmas breakfast. I try to make it festive and always have the table looking pretty. The following two pictures are from the breakfast tables from several years ago. and I have no idea why this suddenly began to underline!)This was the year of decorating with tulle--notice the light fixture even!

This must have been when the children were small, as
I am using the everyday dishes!

This is my current dining room--not yet set,

but it will be beautiful for Christmas morning!

This is one of my favorite rooms, for I love how the sunlight dapples into the room!

The Angel Caper

I never come to the Christmas season without remembering the year we made angels which was many years ago.

As my teaching partner and I sat down to plan out our Christmas project for our two classrooms of third graders, one of us had seen this beautiful angel and we decided to tackle it!! It seemed doable, and fairly inexpensive since it was mostly made of things around the house.

We began collecting for our magnificent project!!

old sheets, doilies, odds and ends of trims, old panty hose

We supplied the cardboard needed, as well as the styrofoam heads and the spray paint. We also bought a large spool of white crinkle type paper ribbon.

Finally the day arrived to begin the project. Friday afternoons had been set aside for working on this project. Our mother helpers came to help. (We couldn't have done it without them!)

We began with our forms, which were made from cardboard half circles rolled into a round pyramid looking thing. That was the easy part. (as I look at the pictures, I forgot to add that the arms were taped to the cardboard form before the actual work began.)

Next.......each kid got a nice square of donated sheet...and then the fun began!!

We dipped the sheet pieces in buckets of Elmer's glue and water and squeezed it out, and began draping it over the cardboard form.

The mess was beyond description--oh! I forgot to say that we did it in the cafeteria and we had Joyce, our cook, breathing down our necks not to leave a mess!

Suddenly it was time for buses, so each kid took their wet, draped angel and we found places all over our rooms to sit them to dry. After the kids were on their buses, my teaching partner and I went back to the cafeteria and scrubbed tables, benches and floors, until it was spotless. We were quite afraid of our cook, whose bark was really worse than her bite, but we had a healthy respect for her.

Besides we were well brought up girls whose Mothers had taught us to clean up our messes!

We worked on these angels for several Fridays....

And one day it was time to spray paint them gold! We did that after the kids went home as that was more than third graders could have or would have, handled well!

The next Friday, we added the bows and a little Christmas bling, and they were complete....and truly works of art. No two were the same.

We looked at each other the day they took them home, all wrapped and ready to present to their families and said, "NEVER AGAIN!!!"


Then we began to run into future parents in the hallways, and they always stopped us and told us they could hardly wait until their child was in third grade as they loved the angels we had made!! Then we had to break it to them gently, that it was a one time project!!

Several years later I had a Holiday Craft Sale in my home and one of the things that I made was fourteen of those angels!! That was absolutely the last time I ever did angels! My two that I had made with the students hung around for many Christmas' until I gave them to my daughter, Tammy, when she got her first apartment about five year ago. I was happy to part with them and she loves them!!

Here they are as part of the mantle collection at my old house many years ago.

In counting backwards, I figure that we made these about twenty eight years ago! (No wonder I forgot they had arms!!)

The $3500 Dollar Tooth!!

In August, I had the first of four appointments for a root canal. The crown finally went on the middle of October and everything seemed fine, until about 4 weeks ago when that tooth became very tender. I kept thinking it would go away. It didn't.

Long story, short version, Monday, after a referral to a specialist, I am having dental surgery which entails an incision below the roots and a cleaning out of the bone to try to get to the root of the problem. He says it will not improve on its own. (sigh)

I am NOT looking forward to this procedure. Last Monday as I walked out of the specialist's office, I was terribly upset....and scared. When I got in the car, I was trying very hard to think of something about this situation for which I could be thankful. I begrudgingly decided I was thankful that I had the money to pay for the surgery! (Certainly, not my idea of how I want to spend my money!)

So now....the tooth work will have totaled $3500 after Monday! I certainly hope there are no more teeth waiting to explode! If there are, I'll never get to cruise again!!

Because I cannot take narcotic pain pills, the dentist explained that it will be uncomfortable for 4-5 days. I'll use ice packs. My hair dresser today told me to take an ounce of Vodka every four hours and I wouldn't feel any pain!! She has the answer to everything!!

I am trusting that the outcome will be successful and there will be no infection with which to deal.

Thankfully, the house is decorated and the Christmas music is playing nonstop. I think I will take my ice pack and just sit and soak up the pretties in the living room and lose myself in the Christmas music!! (and try not to think about the wrapping and shopping that still needs to be done!)

The White House Ornaments

The White House historical association sells a White House Ornament every year that is dated.

In 1990, my Mother began our collection by giving them to each family yearly. When she was called Home in 2000, my dear sister continued the tradition until we each now have a nice grouping of them. I put mine on a small tree for the holidays. I have sixteen of them--two are missing.


Here are two of them that I took close up for you to see. They come beautifully boxed, with a pamphlet telling the history of the President who is commemorated. They have had historical presidents so far.


My Mother loved beautiful things...and she especially loved anything with gold on it. She was always excited to see what the new one looked like. We have enjoyed this tradition for the last eighteen years.

For a sneak preview of the 2008 ornament, you can go to the website, highlighted in the first sentence of this post.

Four Fabulous Days...

Well, Thanksgiving is over for this year. It is always a wonderful day to reflect, to remember past Thanksgivings, and the joys of family. We were only seven this year, as it was the 'in-laws' turn for most of the kids.

Grandson Elliot, came Thursday evening after his day with his other grandma. He stayed with me until Saturday morning, as he wanted to get home for the 'Civil War' party his parents were hosting to watch the Oregon/Oregon State football game. So, the stay was short, but we got in a couple of episodes of 'The Waltons', got him a hair trim, visited and laughed together, and in general had a great time! (Elliot brings energy, no matter where he is!)

I flew around here, cleaning up for my next guest, Nicolas, who drove himself to my house. This was his first drive clear to my end of the city, so he was quite pleased and I was thrilled to have him. We played games...and then we played games....

Our pastor and his wife called Sunday evening and wanted to know if we would be up to playing some games! Of course we were, so they arrived with their son who is Nick's age. They even brought a pizza, some yummy fruit and we ate together first.

We played ROOK. I hadn't played it for ages, but it was a game we were raised on in my home! It was known as "Christian Bridge" in my young days, as we weren't allowed to play with regular cards. (go figure!)


If any of you ever played ROOK let me know. Our company last night played it pretty different than I had ever played it. My Dad insisted on keeping it just like the rules. Last night we played ONE high, and the ROOK card as the highest. I won't even bother to explain how we partnered up! It was a raucous evening. We sure had fun!

The game in the picture is at least 48 years old, as I found the names of my first two foster girls on a paper in the box and they came to me in 1960, which was also my first year of teaching. Ahhhh, the memories of the hours we enjoyed playing games!