2019 Christmas Letter, Part 9

Okay, it’s crunch-time. Last post before the new year. 

The last four months of the year were as busy as ever.

I went to Kenya for the sixth time the last two weeks in September. I think it was my best trip there; everything went off without a hitch for a change.

A week after coming home, I bought a new car (only new for me, a 2015).

Then I got my hair cut. Still working on getting it to do what I want.

Hubby’s nephew got married, and it was fun getting together with his whole side of the family.

A few weeks later we saw a lot of them again at his aunt’s ninetieth birthday party.

Our annual Thanksgiving dinner was another success. Yikes! More family!

Oh, but right before the snow started, the power was out again for 18 hours and the tree that fell half-down back in the spring, completely came down with a crash.

Then there’s poor Dino. His hips have been getting worse, and then he fell and messed up his knee. He’s on anti-inflammatories and hobbling around with at least a little more energy. But he didn't even help everyone open their presents Christmas morning. 

I’m not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to the New Year. It’s gotta be better.

What the Camels Know

      Welcome to this year’s Christmas edition of my Sunday inspirational blogs. For six weeks, starting the first Sunday in December, I have been posting an updated version of the blogs I posted in 2011 and again in 2016. I thought they were kind of cute, so decided they were worth revisiting. I’ve been updating the pictures from my most recent trips to Kenya, but unfortunately, for today’s post, these are the same weary camel pictures I’ve posted before. That first trip to Africa in 2006 is the only time I was up close to camels.

 When the wise men saw the star, they were filled with joy. They came to the house where the child was and saw him with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. They opened their gifts and gave him treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

Matthew 2:10-11 (New Century Version)

 Visitor: Hi, there. You guys look tired.

 Camel 1: Not so much.

 Camel 2: Really? We just trekked half-way across the world, loaded down with all sorts of stuff.

 Camel 1: Are you truly whining? We are camels, we were born to carry heavy loads for days on end. We do not whine.

 Visitor: I didn’t mean to start anything. Why did you come all this way?

 Camel 1: Our masters were on a quest to find the new-born king. We have been following the king’s star for a very long time. Our masters are well-educated men who knew the meaning of the star and it brought us here.

 Visitor: Something brought me here too, but it wasn’t a star.

 Camel 2: What was it then?

 Visitor: Something drawing me to the baby. You say he is a king?

 Camel 1: The king of the Jews.

 Visitor: Hmm? But I’m not a Jew, so why do you think I care so much about this child?

 Camel 1: Maybe he really came to be the king of all.

 Visitor: Wow, but he’s so little, so young. And his parents are so poor. How can he be a king?

 Camel 2: We are just camels. How should we know? We don’t need a king. We have our masters who care for us and feed us. And then work us half to death.

 Camel 1: Stop your whining. All I know is that our masters are good men. They have brought expensive gifts to this boy-king. You need to just keep following him. You will get your answers.

 Visitor: Thank you so much. I have been questioning all the animals that I have met along the way, but you have been the most helpful of all of them.

 Camel 1: Good luck on your own quest. Have faith.

2019 Christmas Letter, Part 8

(Hoping that you all had a happy and healthy Christmas. New Year’s is right around the corner, which means this Letter only has a few more episodes left. Today’s episode, however, is a bit of a bummer.)

1983, at my other sister's wedding 

I mentioned back on Part 5, I believe, that my sister’s husband Claude was diagnosed with brain cancer in April. The doctors gave him 12 to 18 months if they attacked this thing aggressively with chemo and radiation. If not, they guessed six months. Claude decided not to chase it; if it couldn’t be knocked out completely, what would be the point in just buying himself more time, time spent running back and forth to doctor’s appointments.

With my husband, at my brother's picnic in 2011

On July 27, they drove up to our house, and Hubby and I took them for a ride around some lakes up north. Claude seemed pretty good, more quiet than usual and a little unsteady on his feet, even more thin than he had always been.

We had some laughs, though, and my sister got to see some loons. It was a good day.

Just three weeks later, my sister called to say he was going downhill fast and hospice was only giving him a few more days. I thought, what? He’d seem so good the last time I’d seen him. 

Hubby and I went down to see him. And my sister was right, it was getting close. And two days later she called to tell me that he had told her he loved her and then God called him home.

Their wedding in 1968

A few weeks after that, on a chilly, dreary day, she and I went for a ride up north, once again looking for loons. I think they may have all already gone south for the winter.

2019 Christmas Letter, Part 7

     (I don’t usually post on Mondays, but since I won’t be writing on Wednesday due to Christmas, I have to add an extra day somewhere or I’ll never finish my Christmas letter by the end of the year (Note to self – plan better next year.).)

 Summers are for traveling, road trips both long and small, and it seems we took our share of them this year. 

 I just looked back at my pictures and see that I totally missed the quick trip I took to Minnesota in June with a friend. She was in the process of moving and wanted me to join her in looking at some apartments. It was such a quick trip that I didn’t have a chance to take many pictures. This one is at the Acoustic Café in Winona where we had lunch.

 The middle of July we took our yearly weeklong camping trip to Michigan. Not sure how many more summers the shoreline at McLain State Park will hold up, or how much longer Dino will be able to join us camping.

 He got pretty worn out this year, but he’s still a trooper. He’s my inspiration when I feel like giving up. Talk about giving up, our last night of camping, a storm blew through back home, knocking the power out, once again, and taking down a few trees. Not the best thing to come home to.

 The first weekend in August, I returned to Green Lake for a Writers Reunion. I made a ridiculous amount of stops on the way, suddenly wanting to track down covered bridges. This one is at the Red Mill just outside of Waupaca.

 My time at the Green Lake Conference Center was as relaxing as it always is. And I’m loving the zoom on my new camera.

 The second weekend in August we drove to Iowa to visit Hubby’s brother and sister-in-law. We would have made more stops along the way, but the skies were cloudy and rain looked imminent most of the drive down. This was a quick stop at the petroglyphs at Roche-A-Cri State Park.

 While in Iowa, we toured the German American Heritage Museum in Davenport.

 But the John Deere Tractor Plaza is where I lost it. Really? Farmers get to drive these beasts every day? So cool.

I took two more rides in the late summer and early fall, but those will have to wait for next time. That will be Friday, two days after Christmas. So let me now wish you a blessed holiday, be safe and healthy, don’t fight with the relatives, 

life is short, as you’ll read on my next post. 

Finding Mary

     Welcome to this year’s Christmas edition of my Sunday inspirational blogs. For six weeks, starting the first Sunday in December, I have been posting an updated version of the blogs I posted in 2011 and again in 2016. I thought they were kind of cute, so decided they were worth revisiting. All the pictures were taken on one of our trips to Kenya. I hope you enjoy the pictures and the story.

 And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born; and she gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn. Luke 2:6-7 (Living Bible)

 Visitor (whispering): Excuse me, can you tell me if that is Mary?

 Cow: Yes, it is. With her husband Joseph and their brand-new baby.

 Goat: You should have been here earlier. It was like a miracle when the baby was born.

 Visitor: Really? Why is that?

 Goat: I really can’t put my hoof on it.

 Cow: Me either. But it was beautiful. It was like total peace and serenity suddenly came over this stable.

 Goat: And this light seemed to be coming straight out of the baby. Only it wasn’t a light. I can’t explain it.

 Visitor: Then I am pretty disappointed that I missed it. I have been all over the countryside the last few months, looking for Mary. I can’t believe that I finally found her.

 Cow: Why have you been looking for her so long and so hard?

 Visitor: That’s what I don’t know. I thought I was drawn to her but now that she has the baby, I think that all along it was the baby that I was looking for.

 Goat: But here you are and you still don’t know?  

 Visitor: No, I don’t. But I am going to figure it out before I’m through.  

2019 Christmas Letter, Part 6

    I wish I was to the part of this Christmas letter where things got better for us. Not quite, but hang in there, like I did all year.

 Five days after that spring storm in May that took out our power and a tree, I fell off our bottom basement step and broke my foot. I know, right? 

 What else could happen this year? At least I didn’t need surgery, was only laid up for a few weeks, and gimpy for a few more. Apparently, it didn't slow me down much. 

 By mid-June, things were already looking better and I was up for a trip. From all the pictures I took, I had to have walked a few miles, but I don’t remember how I did that on a broken foot. Was I still wearing my boot for all that? No clue. I think I’m losing my mind

 Anyway, we had a good trip, even though it was only for overnight. It was good to get away.

 On the way home, we stopped at the camera shop in Madison to buy me a new camera. If you look back at some of the pictures earlier in this Christmas letter, you may have noticed a string through the middle of the lighter ones. It was driving me nuts and I couldn’t take it anymore. I just had to invest in a new camera! Thank you, Hubby, for supporting me! 

 Fourth of July weekend, we had a picnic at our house. It was nice to have everyone over and the weather was beautiful.  

 The only blight in our lives during those early summer months was that another one of cats left the family fold. The last time we saw Betty was around the first of July. The hardest part is not knowing what happened to her.

  You’re forever in our hearts, sweet Uni-Kitty.

2019 Christmas Letter, Part 5

 As we were driving home from our vacation to Virginia in April, we received a call from our house-sitters when we were about four hours out. Our basement was flooded. The snow melt was soaking into the ground all around our house and water was coming up through the basement floor at an alarming rate.

 We beat feet to get home, not that there was any more we could do when we got there. The sump pump which had faithfully eradicated incoming water over the past twenty years just couldn’t keep up.

 It was a constant battle for several weeks. And just about the time it seemed as if the war was won, a storm in mid-May took out power, as well as a tree. 

 From three am one morning, Hubby and I bailed water out of the basement, before finally giving in sometime after six when we needed to start getting ready for work.

 At least with all that water and a gas stove to heat it, I took a refreshing bath before heading to work.  

 Other events in the spring brought these inconveniences into perspective. My sister’s husband, Claude, was diagnosed with brain cancer. He had surgery to debulk the tumor, but there wasn’t much more they could do to slow the growth. (Claude's birthday in 2014.)

 Around that same time, Hubby’s mother finally went to the doctor because she could no longer walk on one of her legs. Not to say “told you so”, but I called it, knowing that she had to have broken her hip. Surgery went surprisingly well, but it put a lot of stress on the family, stress which hasn’t abated. (Dino, of course, helps everyone deal better with stress.)

Sheep without a Shepherd

     Welcome to this year’s Christmas edition of my Sunday inspirational blogs. For six weeks, starting the first Sunday in December, I will post an updated version of the blogs I posted in 2011 and again in 2016. I thought they were kind of cute, so decided they were worth revisiting. All the pictures were taken on one of our trips to Kenya. I hope you enjoy the pictures and the story.

 There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified.  Luke 2:8-9 The Message Bible

Visitor: Good evening. It’s quiet out here.

Sheep 1: Seriously? You should have been ten minutes ago.

Sheep 2: No kidding. It was ridiculous.

Visitor: What happened? And where is your shepherd?

Sheep 1: We were just all having a quiet evening, doing some grazing and thinking about laying down to sleep, when all of a sudden, there was this light in the sky.

Sheep 2: And these people were in the sky and they were singing.

Sheep 3: They were angels.

Sheep 2: How do you know what an angel is?

Visitor: It doesn’t matter. Just tell me, what happened? This sounds amazing.

Sheep 1: These angels – if that’s what they were – told our shepherds that their Savior was born in Bethlehem and that they should go meet him.

Visitor: Really?

Sheep 2: And so our shepherds left us out here by ourselves.

Sheep 3: I think when angels tell you to do something, you better do it. I think that one of the angels is still up there, watching over us until our shepherds come back.

Sheep 2: Are you nuts? What are you talking about?

Sheep 3: I think there is something magical about tonight.

Visitor:  I do too. Did they say anything else?

Sheep 1: I think one of them said that there is a baby in a manger and his mother is Mary and –

Visitor: What? Did you say Mary? I’ve been looking for a woman named Mary who is going to have a baby.

Sheep 1: Well, you best get going then, I think this is your gal.

Visitor: I just came from Bethlehem, but I guess I will head back there. Thanks for all your help. I hope the remainder of your night is peaceful.

Sheep 2: I do too.

2019 Christmas Letter, Part 4

     Looking at the calendar, I see I’m gonna have to get a move on it if I’m gonna finish blogging about 2019 by the end of the year.

 March continued to be a blur of snow and cold and more snow.

 So much snow, that roofs around the area were threatened with collapse. It doesn’t look like much, but this water sprinkler hanging out of the ceiling like that meant that the weight of the snow on the roof of the clinic where I work had just about reached its max and required an emergency team to get the snow off the roof as quickly as possible. As already mentioned, this wasn’t the only roof in town that this happened to.

 April arrived, though the weather didn’t hint at spring. We left for vacation during a blizzard on the eleventh.

 We kept thinking we should pull over and find a hotel until it blew over, but we just wanted to get somewhere where there wasn’t snow.  

 This random yard in Kentucky was the first picture I took where the grass was this green. I would have been willing to stay there, to soak it all in, but our destination was Virginia.

 I blogged about that vacation at length back in May, so I’m not going to tell you all about it all over again. But it was a great trip, once we got out of Wisconsin. There were flowers in bloom everywhere.

 When we got home, quite a bit of snow had melted. Unfortunately, it had to go somewhere. More about that next time, as well as the other bad news I received that month.