Happy New Year!

I took my laptop to Humboldt Thurs. afternoon to Computer Geek and got it back at noon today. Very good service and it seems to be virus free.

We had Camry overnight last night and took her home this evening. She ended up getting sick right before we took her home. She sure didn't feel good. She's usually such a happy baby but she had a hard time smiling just a little for me.

We are getting snow tonight. The forecast was for a wintry mix and lots of wind between now and tomorrow at 6 pm. In the past couple of weeks we have finally gotten about 1 1/2" of rain in two rains. Could use some more!

Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve and a Happy New Year!

** We only have to stay up till 11:00! Being in the Central time zone, the ball drops at 11:00 (which seems really weird!!!!!)

Uh Oh - Virus

It's a beautiful day in Iowa! Sunny and 48, no wind. This winter has been unbelievable so far.

Tim has been hauling corn, and they have one bin empty so they're cleaning it out. Usually they don't haul corn until later after clearing away snow from around the bins.

We had a nice Christmas with my mom in Indiana, getting back last night.

My laptop has a virus so I'm using Bill's. I'll do a longer post when I get organized. May need to run mine to a computer repair place this afternoon but wanted to let you know. I think I got the virus when downloading music using ITunes. My cousin showed me how to do that so I can use the IPod I recently got from Diane when she upgraded to a new one. Darn technology!

Bill has a nasty cold and it'll be a miracle if I don't get it after riding in the car together for 10 hours yesterday! (washing hands a lot)

Christmas Eve

Bill, Mom and I went to a Christmas Eve service tonight - quite a production. This church is very large. There was a gathering area that had a bunch of these really pretty Christmas trees. Afterwards we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. One home always has lots of lights synchronized to music. See video below! Hope you are having a nice Christmas weekend and remembering that Jesus' birth is the reason for the season. Luke 2:1-20

25 Days of Small Gifts

I mentioned recently that I've been reading the blog Reluctant Entertainer. Here's part of a recent post there with some good ideas for all year round.

“25 Days of Small Gifts.”

Here are a few ideas:

-Buy coffee for the person behind you in line.

-Over tip the breakfast waitress.

-Write a thank you note.

-Strike up conversation with someone in the grocery store.

-Take another family a “surprise” dinner and leave it at their front door (and include the recipe!)

-Over pay your babysitter.

-Offer to help remove groceries from the cart to the car for an elderly person.

-Have your kids tape a little money to a vending machine and write a note that says, “Candy Bar on US!”

-Go to lunch with a neglected friend.

-Help a coworker scrape the frost off their windshield at the end of a long day.

-Buy lunch for the person in front of you.

-Offer to do the dishes when it’s your kid’s “dish day.”

-Give a back rub to someone in your home.

-Shovel (or blow) your neighbors’ sidewalks too.

-When playing games with your children, let them win.

-Watch It’s a Wonderful Life, together as a family or with friends.

-Slow down and prioritize a date night with your spouse.

-Encourage your kids to share musical talents with the elderly.

-Hug a person.

The list can go on and on …

Don’t you think this is a great idea to share with your family? It gets us thinking more about others, less about ourselves.

Caramels

This year rather than spending lots of time making 75+ Christmas cards, I've been doing some other things. Several people like my caramels I make at Christmas time so this year I decided to use my stamping supplies to make toppers and package them cute for gift giving. Bill helped me wrap them which was great! He does it so you just twist them and the paper unrolls.

I did a post with the recipe and pictures last year on Dec. 15th. If you want to see it, look in the right column for the Recipes label, click on Recipes and scroll down to Dec. 15th. The post is titled "In the Kitchen". I notice this time last year in that post I was talking about being careful on the ice. This year it looks like our area will be having a Brown Christmas which is unusual.

There's a guy here in town that likes to give little things to people randomly. This past fall during harvest he gave me a caramel and said he buys 80 at a time for $35 from the Amish. I told him I'd have to give him some of mine at Christmas - so one of these is for him! The first time I met this guy was several years ago when Mom & Dad and I were here visiting in the Fall. A friend of Glenn's let me take a wagon of corn to the elevator with his pickup and Diane was with me. This guy went down the line of people waiting to dump their loads giving us water or pop from his cooler.

**That trip to town with the wagon could be a blog post by itself. Diane had her learner's permit and I let her drive while we were waiting in line - inching forward slowly. When we got to the scales, we didn't get on there straight and a guy had to help us. Dad was not happy that I had let Diane drive! Now that I live here, I wonder what all the others in line were saying about us!

Around Town

Ok, I was just in town mailing a package at the post office and saw the funniest thing! We just have a flashing red light in the middle of town (no stop lights - it's great!!). We have so little traffic in town that most of the time you "could" walk across the street from the library to the bank or wherever and not even look to see if any cars are coming before crossing! (almost) Well, just now this woman was stopped at the flashing light - in the middle of town - and texting and totally didn't have a clue that not one but TWO vehicles were behind her because normally you could do that, no problem! ha ha!! And, they were both waiting patiently - no honking even! :) Bill always tells me to have patience like that (I'm getting better/slower), and has always said that here you can stop and have a conversation with someone in another vehicle in the middle of town in the road and people will just wave and go around!

For those that used to live here, I took this picture so that you could see that Ropa's, our only restaurant, is being torn down. That corner is going to look different - already does.
Overheard in our little grocery the other day, someone was picking up a pizza and said "I sure hope you never close or I would starve to death"! The grocery now does pizza, broasted chicken and some other things for carry out.

I was going to get "stuff" done today but Diane called this morning and wants me to run to Ft. Dodge with her and Camry this afternoon. She needs to pick up something for Todd's ice fishing shack and wants to go to a "big" grocery. So off we go! Things will get done, right? (I'm taking my old Amy Grant Christmas CD that Diane and I always listened to in the car when she was like 8-12 or so!)

Interesting Experience

Last Fri. I did something I had not done before. I volunteered to take a lady to her chemo treatment in Mason City. I'll call her "G". The hospital there is very good and is sometimes called "Little Mayo" and is affiliated with Mayo Clinic. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive from here so for those that have to go for several treatments it can be difficult just getting there.

This is a woman who turns 60 this month and had never had a mammogram but found the lumps herself. She is a teacher and has told her story to those she works with and her students hoping it will encourage others to be sure to get their mammograms and other preventative check ups which is also why I'm blogging about it and sharing her story.

We left her house in Emmetsburg at 8:00 to be there by 10:00. She first had blood work, then a talk with the dr. where he checked her blood levels which were ok for her treatment. She was to have a 4 hour treatment, but this day also needed blood which added an hour and a half. They have small alcoves large enough for the patient's reclining chair and a chair for their driver/guest and a TV with floor to ceiling windows overlooking a courtyard with some trees, birdhouses and a small waterfall. There were 11 of these. Very nice. They bring around a cart at lunch time with sandwiches and chips for the patient. "G" likes their egg salad sandwich and was able to have that again.

I went out for lunch. I wanted to see what the Mason City mall had in it. I was driving around and found this cozy looking coffee shop which had a "Lunch" sign in the window so I stopped there and had a chicken salad croissant.

The mall was nice and I did find a few more little gifts - one I will post about after Christmas! I was gone for a couple of hours which gave "G" some time to doze.

"G" was nice to show me things like her port under her skin where they can easily stick the needle in each time for her treatments, talked to me about how nice the American Cancer Society is and how much they do for people that you would've never known and talked about her hair loss and wigs and hats, etc. She just kind of wanted me to know how it all works. She and I had a lot in common: she has been divorced and single for many years like I was, has bought a home where things are handy and in a good location etc. thinking of her later years - all things I had thought of. She faces surgery in about a month and then radiation treatments. Her dr. says she has an 80% chance of being in remission after treatments.

I'm thankful to not be working so that I can help Bill in spring and fall (and whenever) which I love, but also want to do things like this when I have a chance. I hope I'll get to be "G's" driver again. Just wish I lived closer so I could share some meals with her! And chocolate - we're both chocoholics!

(: a person who craves or compulsively consumes chocolate) ha ha! I had to look up how to correctly spell chocoholic! I read this definition to Bill and he said "we know what they are - we are them!" But, sadly, "G" says that chocolate doesn't taste good to her right now - but she thinks maybe that's a good thing. :)

Fire

About a week ago we went to the annual firemen's Christmas Party. This year it was at Vinny's BBQ in Dakota City. We were in the party room and had our own buffet with their rib tips, chicken and pork loin. They do a dry rub barbecue with sauce on the table. The past few years we've given the Chief a gift certificate for a restaurant, but this year one of the guys saw this display in Hobby Lobby and the guys thought the lamp would be a nice gift.

The pictures below were taken about a month ago when the department burned an old house in town.

Misc.

Bill has been doing odds and ends lately. He's been in the office catching up on bookwork, burning some stuff, and working on some equipment here and there. Last week we went Christmas shopping in Mason City for most of a day. The new snow blower arrived. Bill and Tim had been a little nervous that they had sold their old one before receiving the new one! They had to tinker with it a little to get it ready to go. Today Bill took our Enclave in (to Algona). Our fuel gauge has not been working. Sometimes we gain fuel as we drive and sometimes it goes down faster than it should.

Last Sat. Terry came out and replaced our very old dusk to dawn light that had quit working recently. See the brown van he's driving? That belonged to Bill's Grandpa and has to be really old! Terry told me that his uncle in Omaha reads my blog all the time! Hi! Glad you like it! It's fun - and surprising sometimes - to hear about people that like to read what we're up to. I know I like to read diaries of what people are doing every day in some of the magazines (like the ones written by the Amish in Our Iowa) so guess this is similar.

If we had not been on the home tour yesterday, I could've had some good pictures for a fun blog post! Our friend Kyle called and was stuck while out retrieving his deer stand at one of the farms. Tim went and pulled him out.

Last night we thought we heard rain but it was the sound of snow melting. As of today, all of our snow has melted except in the ditches and even most of it is gone. It's unusual to not have an all white December here! I personally would rather have white than brown but not too many agree with me! This brownness reminds me of winters in Indiana.

Nice Weekend!

Last year after Christmas when the decorations came down, I remember thinking we should've had people over during Dec. We did have Bill's family's Christmas Eve soup supper but that's it.


I got very little of my dad's hospitality genes, but I'm working on it! I've been reading the Reluctant Entertainer who talks about how to entertain without feeling like it's a lot of work and to enjoy it, your house doesn't have to be perfect and to not worry about this and that. Everything you read says that people who have good friends and get together with them live happier, longer lives!

So we got a date set, and I even planned a little trip to Humboldt to ride in a "Dream Carriage" to see the Dakota City Christmas lights. This is a horse drawn carriage with sleigh bells. We didn't tell the guys until that night!

We had appetizers and soup here first (got to use the new table for company again!).

We were all bundled up - it was 23 degrees or so and a little chilly when we were going into the wind but fine after that. It was fun to see these lights this way - they seemed brighter than from inside a car - and we even had the full moon.

Glenn & Sarah sat in the seat behind us and Terri & Todd were in front of us (they were too cold to turn around for a picture!). We were given hot chocolate after our ride.

The video below is mainly just dark but you can hear the clop, clop and the sleigh bells! We loved that. I hope to take Lacey since she's been singing Jingle Bells and about the "one horse open sleigh" so maybe I'll get a better picture of the horses and what we rode in then!

Today we went on a tour of homes in West Bend. Our electrician who did our electric work when we built our house had his home on the tour so that was fun to see. They started their house right after ours was done. The last picture is of one of the homes. It even has an outdoor kitchen. There were some things that these people today did that we didn't like heated ceramic tile floors, walk in showers with no doors or shower curtains and audio systems throughout the house. They all had finished basements with some bedrooms downstairs. All were very nice.

Last Weekend Babysitting

Last weekend I/we babysat the girls overnight. Lacey helped me decorate the Christmas tree like her mom always did. Sunday evening was Hometown Christmas where there were vendor booths, preorders for the cookbook and a soup supper (chicken noodle, chili or potato) which was a fundraiser for the Rodeo & Saddle Club. The highlight for the kids was Santa! This was Lacey's first time to be brave enough to actually talk to him and as you can see, Camry didn't like him and baled off right away! (Santa looks a little worried!)

Camry is like her mom and loves shoes. Every time she's here, she likes to go in the back hallway and get Uncle Bill's slippers. I'm amazed that she can walk so good in them! Just look how happy she is in them! Check out the video below. Her mom says she can also walk very well in high heels!

23rd Annual Gemutlichkeit Luncheon

Saturday we drove in snow showers to Humboldt to the German meal at the Zion Lutheran Church. We met Terri & Todd there. We waited in the beautiful sanctuary for less than 5 min. before our numbers were called. We went through a line where the ladies, dressed in German dresses, served us a brat, sauerkraut, German potato salad, and black forest cake with about 4 kinds of cookies including springerle. We were seated and a woman came and read this German prayer with us:

"Komm, Herr Jesu, and sei unser Gast und segne uns alles was Du uns bescheret hast. Amen." (Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest and let Thy gifts to us be blessed. Amen.)

On the table was a basket of various breads. One even had candied fruit in it. There was a relish tray with pickled beets, candied dill pickles and regular dill pickles cut in tiny spears. We also had a little container of fruit soup.

VERY unfortunately, my camera batteries were low and I was only able to get this one picture of the sanctuary. Up front, the cross made of pots of poinsettias was so pretty! Many of the churches here have these beautiful, high wood ceilings. I wanted to take pictures of the food and more! Will have to go back next year - and we're planning on it! Like at the Norwegian dinner Terri & I went to and got to sit with and talk to two Norwegian couples, this time we were fortunate to sit with a lady who was on the team that made the German potato salad so she filled us in on how they accomplished this meal, etc. The food was very good, and it was a relaxing, special meal - all for only $10.

We asked how many they usually serve and they said 500 with about 150 of those meals being carryout. Like the church doing the Norwegian dinner, they wonder how long they will continue to do this as it's a lot of work.

Our landscape is all white now so probably will be until Spring! This morning the temp. was right at zero when we got up - but like it usually is here, the sun is shining bright. We babysat the great nieces overnight Sat. so our tree is up with the help of the little elves. I went along too for the visit to see Santa Claus so I have more pictures to share.

I Like This Store

This is the nice little rustic store at the meat locker in West Bend. Reminds me of Uncle Tom and Cousin Todd who like to hunt, and they have things like this on their walls at home.

Besides their fresh, frozen meat Skoglund's sells cheeses, beef stick, rubs and sauces for grilling and the Butter Braids. Lots of people really like their bacon. When Jim is here, he always has a list of items to get for his friends in Kansas City - including bacon! I don't go there regularly for anything but do like to stop in once in a while. We farm the fields around the Skoglunds' house.

We're supposed to get quite a bit of snow today and through the night and it has just started. This is our first snow of the season - later than usual. We have tickets to go to the German lunch at a church in Humboldt with Terri & Todd. May be slippery getting there (it's about a 35 min. drive).

Dave and Matthew are here today for Matthew's first time deer hunting. Hope they get one!

3:30 - the snow has been coming down since about 10:30 - perfect timing for putting up the Christmas tree! The little girls will be here tonight to help!