A Glimpse of Mountain Life

 Happy Boxing Day! Happy St Stephen's Day! Happy rainy Tuesday! Oh, Happy Day! Take it Edward Hawkins and the Hawkins Singers. We are recouping from our not so very busy Christmas. I recouped by sleeping in and Roy is now taking a morning nap. He is learning a pace of life from The Boys.

So fun to see Christmas Day pics on FB. Before you think well, you just showed us cats...and I could have shown a whole bunch more, do not feel sorry cause we had a fabulous day. Roy said last night thank you for a great Christmas Day. If it hadn't been raining for much of the day, we had planned to take a little day trip as we are wont to do on holidays. Hint, it involves Buc-ees. Alas, so content to be around with books to read and football games to watch. All those trauma induced holidays make the fact of no plans to be the way to go and most welcomed. Even makes the slow days of January inviting. Lots of local shops close or have limited hours during the first month of the new year. It can clearly upset some. That's the beauty of local shopping and buying. It adds to the charm of living in the mountains. 

In the middle of the night, there was a flash followed by thunder. Just one episode but old wives tales says if you hear thunder in winter it will snow within seven days. There are a few forecasts that says we might get snow but one never knows around here. Several have said if it had been colder with this precip we could have had snow, blizzard like 1993. Hey, we were no where around here back then but I have heard stories. 

The end of produce stand season, at least how I celebrate it, happened on Christmas Eve. Barbers Orchard closes then and will reopen August 1st. Now, lots of other stands reopen or stay open all year but now comes that waiting season of strawberries, peaches and apples. 

I began studying for the lesson this week and then I nodded off and took a decent nap. My study partners influence me with their napping habits. 

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Happy I haven't a clue what day is today but I think it is Thursday. Although every evening feels like Friday evening for some reason. We have been taking it easy this week and not too project driven. Roy has been doing some reading and I have too. We went to Publix on Wednesday before the horde of old people arrived...we consider ourselves the younger set of that bunch. Well at least in attitude. We were happy to see strawberries are still on sale. Roy got his dinners and while he was in line to check out, I went over to sale table where lots of Christmas stuff had been marked down. The best find was two packages of Eggnog Coffee. We had used the one bag Roy bought the week before Christmas. These bags, deeply discounted...Yahoo a festivus miracle. Been watching a little bit of Seinfeld this week. Also got some cloves and they expire in 2028. All in all a good thrift savings at the Publix. 

I actually got two Christmas gifts mailed, okay Roy took them to UPS, before Christmas. In both cards I mentioned that the gift was just a glimpse of the mountains or mountain life. That will be a key phrase for 2024 I believe as well as finding my one word for the new year. This year, my one word was joy. Like I have mentioned previously, it was a hard year but it also was a year of joy. I love the conversations that Roy and I have at breakfast. We would talk about our lessons but he is till in Mark and this Sunday is the last of field trip Sunday lessons. We will get to Genesis after this Sunday. The past couple of days we've talked about moving and living here. The difference it has made in our lives. 2024 marks the tenth anniversary of buying our home here. For this we rejoice. 

My Christmas heating pad has been a god-send. It is helping so much. Too bad I can't wear it everywhere I go. Well, I could but....yeah, someone would always be tripping on the cord. Could I plug it into the EV charging port for cars? 

This morning around 3:30 I went to the front room to wrap up in that heating pad. Before falling back to sleep I prayed for my friend's brother who is having open heart surgery today. Then I got to thinking back to memories of a friend who passed away on Saturday. Lots of laughs for sure but she truly helped us by riding with Roy to Lafyette when I fell and broke my hip at the Cracker Barrel. She drove the truck home for us. She and Dena organized our Cinco Ranch kitchen. She came up here in 2015. The first official visitor. Several years ago she got a diagnosis and that diagnosis is what overtook her. But, we know where she is and will welcome us. Hope she saved me a seat in alto section of choir cause I always sounded better when I sat next to her.