In last week’s journal I lamented the fact that we had no snow. That was remedied during the week. The snow arrived on Wednesday night. By Thursday morning we had six inches on the ground. More snow fell on Thursday night.
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| Thursday after the snow. |
Last week was Hannah’s last week of school. She had a final exam on Monday (Anatomy and Physiology) and then came home that night. Her second and final exam (Nursing) was on Thursday morning. That was the morning of the big snow. School was canceled at Northern Potter, but not at Alfred State. I drove Hannah to Alfred and it was an adventure. We left at 6:45 planning to get her there by 8:00, but it didn’t work out that way. The roads were not plowed and it was still snowing hard. We slowly made our way into New York but were stopped just outside of Wellsville because the road into Alfred over Jericho Hill was closed. We had to take another longer route. Hannah was eleven minutes late for her exam, but it was okay. Several students didn’t show up at all. Hannah passed her finals and is home now for a long winter break. She doesn’t have to go back until the end of January.
Tuesday morning, just before the storm arrived, Daniel, Seth, and Asa departed for Missouri. They made good time and arrived at the Shillig house that night around 10:00. They (Daniel and Seth) spent a day or two resting and then left again to go west. They will visit family in Utah for a week and then head east again. Daniel should arrive home a few days before Christmas.
On Wednesday night the lady that Stacey takes care of passed away. Doris was 87 years old and had been in declining health for quite some time. Stacey has been taking care of her for more than two years now. Here is a link to Doris’s obituary:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/wellsvilledaily/obituary.aspx?n=doris-rigas-nielsen&pid=173464896&fhid=15331
We finally got our Christmas tree. The family Stacey works for sells trees (among other things) and they let their employees pick one for free. We drove up to their lot in Hebron Township on Saturday and chose a beautiful eight foot tree. We spent the rest of the afternoon decorating it. It's a very pretty tree. Now our hall decking is complete.
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| Picking the tree. |
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| Josiah carrying the tree. |
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| The tree decorated. |
With Hannah home from school now, some of our holiday baking is finally underway. So far she has baked sugar cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies, and frosted orange cookies. The idea is to have them on hand for the holidays, but somehow we’ve managed to eat them up almost as fast as they come out of the oven. This week she and I will make lebkuchen and gingerbread.
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| Hannah's peanut butter kiss cookies. |
We also made some progress in watching our favorite Christmas movies last week. We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Bishop’s Wife, It’s A Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and Home Alone over the course of the week. We still have Home Alone 2, Little Women, Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, Holiday Inn, One Magic Christmas, and few others to watch.
During the cold dark days of the year, I try to keep sane by reading garden books. Last week I ordered a bunch of books from the library about apples. To some that might not seem like such an interesting subject, but apples fascinate me. One book is just a compendium of one hundred different apple varieties with their histories. Another book is a sort of philosophical exploration of apples. And one is a guide to keeping a holistic apple orchard. I love to look up from my books and see the 35 apple trees in my orchard standing dormant in the snow. I’m making lists and plans in my head of the things I will do with my apples in the year ahead.
It’s warmer today, above freezing, and the snow is turning mushy and is melting off in places. The next few days are supposed to be like this and I’m fretting again about having a white Christmas. I prefer cold (within reason) and snow (no more than a foot deep) to slush and mud.
Dinner is almost ready. We’re having oatmeal burgers and home fries. It smells so good. After a good Sabbath nap, we will head over to Shillig’s house for our Sabbath Soiree – good food and another Hallmark Christmas movie.
