Ice Skating on Riverstone Drive

 

Well, here's a new thing!  That's in fact me, literally ice skating on Riverstone Drive.  This morning I spotted our neighbor across the street giving it a try - he's a young kid who can skate really well, and he too had some ice skates at home.  So I thought to give it a try myself, because I've had these ice skates at the house for years, picked up from a thrift store a good while ago.  I've used them once at a rink, but never here at the house!  Anyway, as you can see above I was a little rusty on the skates, but this new friend (a kid who actually plays on an ice hockey team) gave me some tips and showed me how to skate a little better.  I got a lot better than what you see above, I promise!  I wasn't flying down the road at all, but still it was pretty unique to say here in Georgia that I was skating down my own street. 

This is Hardman, the other young man across the street next door.  He was doing a good bit of sledding yesterday and today, but I passed on that for now.  It's chilly out there and I was ready to be inside!  Here's our ice hockey neighbor moving around much better on the ice: 

Other than getting the mail and feeding the birds, this was pretty much it for the outdoor activities for the day.  It dried out, but it was chilly.  There's going to be ice on the roads still tonight, simply because so much water came down last night.

In fact, tonight as I type this we're hearing the occasional THUNK!  It's all these chunks of frozen snow sliding off the rooftop and hitting the ground or deck below.  Anyway, today was definitely a good day to be inside - it's cold and getting colder out there.  

We did our usual chores today, including walking - here's the latest post card with Elvis I earned today.  We were cleaning up a bit today too.  Maddie was drawing a lot today as well, working on a pretty big creation throughout the day.  At one point, we opened one of our Christmas gifts,  a jigsaw puzzle by a company called Odd Pieces.  

This is the "before" image that you see on the box (and posters provided).  There's a very short comic book that sets up the story being told here, and then you put this puzzle together.  As you do so, you discover that the actual puzzle is different in many different ways than the image above.  On top of that, you have a list of things to look for which represent clues that help reveal the story.  Finally, there's an envelope that you open when done, and that envelope explains the solution to the mystery of this puzzle.  It sounds intriguing!  We started this one above called "Silver Linings," and we're almost done with the four edges.  Darn it, I have one more edge piece to find!  But the three of us were working on this puzzle for a little bit today, getting started on it.  We'll all work on it here and there for the next week or so.  We'll let you know how it goes!

Today is Australia Day, so in honor of that I had the AI tool create a fantastic version of Psalm 79, one that  features the didgeridoo.  It's a different Psalm with some bleak imagery, and it was interesting coming up with an idea for a music style for it.  But this one came out pretty fun!

Tonight's movie was "The Sound of Music," the version with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.  It's so good.  We were inspired to watch this one after seeing the live production version the other night.  I forgot how long this movie is, but at the same time it doesn't actually feel that long at all.

We did our reading tonight afterwards, and then said our prayers.  It was a nice day together!  Goodnight!