Diane's Salon

This afternoon I went for a cut and color. I'm very lucky that my niece, Diane, has her own salon, Di's Hyway Style Salon, in Pocahontas. It's in Glenn's Dunkerly Ag & Truck building. Her salon is cute and cozy.

She would charge me for just the products that she uses but her regular price is HALF of what I paid in Indiana!! So I pay that and I'm thrilled!

You should've seen her a year ago when she was giving me "my new look" (shorter hair). She was having so much fun! Since then I've let her highlight, make my hair different colors (all brunette) and style it kind of crazy. It's kind of fun!
Something else different here is that people don't make their hair appointments very far ahead - and sometimes just "walk in" - especially the men! It's kind of nice to be able to go in the week you decide your hair is just not right anymore!

Groves

Groves are new to me. People living in the country here all have one to block the north and/or west wind. This is a fairly new one to the north of a house and is about 5 rows of trees. People usually plant a mix of evergreens, leafy trees, and bushes/shrubs for best blocking of the wind and snow. Ours is very old and scraggly so Bill is thinking about whether we will add to ours or start over.


This is the north side of Peggy's grove. She had a row (closest to the house) of 22 pine trees with canker disease so one of Bill's winter projects was getting them cut down.










Tim is up in the loader putting a line around the tree. That's Dave on the ground. Some they could just make a cut and push them down with the loader. Then they just hooked on to them and pulled the whole tree to the burn pile.







This shows the stumps down the line. They hope the next row of trees will now fill out better.





This is the pile of the first 14 trees. It's gonna be a big fire when they light all 22! Hope to get a picture of that!

Iowa's Dallas Clark

It was a sad night last night - the Colts lost to San Diego in overtime in the playoffs. And the boys didn't get to come over to watch the game due to the slick roads/weather. For those that might not know, I'm originally from Carmel, an Indianapolis suburb, so I'm a Colts fan. Most people out here are Vikings or Packers fans and those are the games that are usually on TV here.

We are proud that talented Colts player, Dallas Clark, is from Livermore, a small town about 25 miles from here. Last Feb., Glenn took the boys there to a basketball game and Dallas was "home". They got their picture taken with him. He called them "the 3 amigos".

Colts tonight!

Not much happening here today except the heat wave of 27 and it's been sleeting. The roads are very slick. There was no work done on the house. Bill had planned to cut some trees at his mom's but it was too windy. I've had a nasty cold so I've been reading some Beverly Lewis books about the Amish. I've always been curious about them. Ross called to see if he, Reed & Rob could come over and watch the Colts game with me tonight! I went to get some "party/game" food. I'm making Chex Mix, Lil' Smokies, and Funfetti Cake but have a feeling they may not get to come over due to the roads. GO COLTS!!

Soffit & Siding

Mark got quite a bit of the soffit done today - looking good!









Greg sent a truck about 3 hours away into Minnesota to pick up our siding. The flooring guy came out to measure our "new" carpet in this house to see if we have enough for the basement - and we do. Bill had new carpet put in this house before we got married with the idea that we could use it in the basement of a new house whenever.








Another one of our awesome sunsets. I had noticed while talking to mom on the phone that the sky was looking really orange. When we hung up, this is what I found!

New Year at 11:00?

I totally forgot something else that I found out here last year!! On New Year's Eve I NEVER thought about people to the west and that the New York ball does not drop at midnight for everybody?!!! My friends and family in Indiana - did you ever think about that?? Mom said she didn't either. I guess I assumed that TV delayed the ball dropping show for people west of the Eastern time zone until their midnight! It's really strange for the ball to drop here at 11:00 and it's not Jan. 1 for another hour! For us, there is NO BALL - at all! After New York does their thing, the party goes on in California for another 2 hours? until their ball or orange or whatever drops! (I didn't stay up to see what they have - anyone know?) It's good for all those people who don't want to stay up until midnight! For me, I guess I'm going to just have to pretend that it's midnight at 11:00 from now on!

Bill and I are going to do some measuring and try to start deciding where we want electrical outlets in the new house. I now have faucet AND lighting books to look at. Thanks for the couple of comments I got re: stoves. Anyone else have the 2 oven range - or wish you did? Our 2 showers and tub were delivered yesterday. Two out of the 3 were wrong and one will be going back. The plumber didn't check what came in and was being sent out to us. Mark and crew are going to start on soffits tomorrow and siding next week, weather permitting.

Hope you have a very relaxing New Year's Day!