Snowman Update

So Maddie ran straight through a red-light this morning, completely oblivious that it was even there.  She blamed the rear view mirror in her vehicle, which doesn't make sense because that's used to see things behind you.  But the problem is this:  the mirror was actually obscuring her vision of the light, so she just took a guess about the intersection, and figured the light would be green by then... and went for it.  If you're wondering why she can be so callous about all this, the reason is this:  it was a virtual driving simulator.  Oddly enough, the rear view mirror thing was something that is part of the introduction last week and she didn't remember how to adjust a rear view mirror.  And now as a result, the entire virtual neighborhood is in grave danger.  Imagine what could have happened if a virtual semi truck carrying virtual liquid nitrogen was heading through the intersection at the same time, suddenly having to veer off to get out of the way slamming instead into a virtual stadium hosting a virtual concert, resulting in a massive virtual biochemical emergency with virtual ambulances and virtual police cars all over the place.  It would be virtually catastrophic!  

Yeah, she'll probably need to get that rear view mirror thing figured out.  Until then, it was a close call.  Or, at least no big deal.  Today was a good day at school otherwise, one where Maddie started doing some drawing and continued her studies elsewhere.  She did get out early, and that's always a plus. 

About that time, I was in a meeting at KidPak with everyone about the completed booklets and upcoming events.  That's when Maddie sent me a text:  

NOOO HE GOT BEHEADED

Which might be the most random text I've ever gotten from Maddie.  Which is saying a lot.  Fortunately, a moment later, I got a picture to explain what that was all about.

Maddie was writing about our snowman, of course.  And as bad as it looks, consider that we're in the South and that this snowman has been here since last Friday.  that's a good long stretch.  In fact, there's still a small patch of snow on our driveway.  There's snow still all about, although greatly diminished.  But still there.  The temperature at night has been cold.  And in fact, it's about to get colder.... yikes!

Fortunately, Mom had her classic corn chowder soup made, a nice steaming hot bowl to come home to tonight for dinner.  Yummy!  While I was enjoying some soup, Maddie and Mom have been working on that new puzzle, a winter scene.  We'll have it done pretty soon at this rate.  Tonight Maddie had taekwondo, so we were over there for a good bit.

I did do some walking on the treadmill for a while, and my habit lately has been to watch a movie while walking.  Given our basketball theme upcoming, I popped in a movie I've never seen before, "Ernest Slam Dunk."  I got about halfway through today and will finish tomorrow, but this movie is pretty fun.  I do miss Ernest.  I haven't seen all these movies, but we do own all of them - I made a Ernest themed Easter Basket for Mom some time ago, just because it was a goofy idea!  Anyway, the theme of the upcoming series is basketball, and I'm having fun doing all this research.  None of us are really "basketball people," but it's fun diving into this culture.  I'm making walk-in music for the services, an upbeat "jock jam" with lyrics I wrote about KidPak - the series will be called "Slam Dunk!"  Mom ordered the Space Jam movies, so we'll probably be watching those soon, and who knows?  Maybe this year we'll actually finally go see those Harlem Globetrotters!

  

We did our Chosen-themed devotional tonight, and that's about all we had time to do before bedtime.  We were reading our book tonight, and then afterwards we said our prayers.  After the Plush Entourage got down the hall and tucked in, it was time for a good nights rest.

One other note:  cabinet confirmations are going on this week, and our current President is saying goodbye.  He had his farewell address, and we only have a few days left under President Biden.  Time will tell as to how this Presidency went.  This was the guy that was President while Maddie was in high school, although Trump will be President when she graduates.  Ronald Reagan was President while I was in high school, for what it's worth!  I think Maddie's only impressions of Mr. Biden are largely not Presidential, given his age and ability to communicate.  And that's somewhat of a reflection of what her parents think, although we do try to look for the good in all things.  I respect the office tremendously, and when his official ornament comes out with the White House ornaments, I'll be picking it up of course.  I wish him well wherever he goes from here.  Hopefully this peaceful transition of power can continue without incident, without any bitter back-and-forth like we're seeing in the cabinet confirmations.  These confirmations seem to be a waste of time.  The real purpose of those seem to be how well a candidate can handle being repeatedly insulted and harassed by one party, while the other party asks guided questions about plans and so forth.  Copy-and-paste, I think, if the opposing party is in power.  Why do we even have these?  It's all about sensational moments and gotcha questions and attacking one another.  They take up so much time, and everyone has already made up their minds beforehand about how the vote will go.  It's an unfortunate showcasing of bickering and talking over each other... a waste of time and money.

Okay, I'm done griping!

Throwing Avocados

Another night of FCY tonight!  Maddie had a great time and stayed warm inside as it was quite cold outside.  Pastor Jacob gave a great message and it was just a fun time hanging out.  Maddie is usually one of the last to leave, as she really enjoys FCY on Wednesday nights.

2025 is running along just fine, although it's the coldest January we've had in decades.  And we're not out the woods yet - the month's not over yet!  There's a good bit of chatter about another possible snow event next week, and although it's about seven days away, things are looking more solid for some more real snow.  Meanwhile, believe it or not, the snow from last week is still on the ground in some places.  

So a deal was perhaps struck in Israel to release more hostages and have peace.  We'll see if it holds, and if everyone commits to that.  It would be nice to see peace, and also see all the hostages released. 

Other news today:  Easter is coming, and we're doing a production.  We'll be writing that soon, probably meeting on Friday to run through some flow ideas.  At the moment, we're thinking of a Roman soldier as the narrator, perhaps the one that said, "Surely this was the Son of God."  We may have Mary doing some narrating too, as she has the last few years.  We'll see as things go.  But yes, we're gearing up again and getting things going with some early filming and of course there's all the costumes and casting decisions, and choreography.

We did a good bit of filming today for our next series, "Better Together," and that should be fun.  I'm not entirely sure what we'll do for skits and so forth, but the booklet is done, and we're glad of that.  Everyone seems to like it, and I'm glad it's finished up.   We did it pretty fast, so much so that we're already moving towards the next series, sort of rushing to get that one done already.  We've got to find a bit of a rhythm here.  

Anyway, tonight was good at FCY for Maddie.  And the day was good for her too - she's been getting some of her negatives printed on 5X7 sheets of developing paper and she says they're coming out pretty good.  She's also looking into what kind of research paper to do - it'll have something to do with her school, some sort of topic that has two opposing points of view.  We'll keep you updated as to what!

Before church tonight, Mom and Maddie spent a good deal of time working on our next jigsaw puzzle.  How great to be able to relax and do that together.  It's been a nice little side thing.  Maddie and Mom got a lot done on this, so by the time I got home, there was a lot of progress!  We'll do a picture of that one when it's finished up.

We read tonight, of course.  This after I got hit in the face with a plush avocado named "Steve."  Maddie frequently tosses Stevacado at me super fast, yelling out, "Stevacado!"  And bam!  I get hit in the face.  I have no idea why she does this.  I just wanted to put that out there.  

And after that, we said our prayers.  It's cold outside, but we're nice and warm inside, and quite grateful for that.  Everyone got tucked in, even Stevacado.  Right after I threw her back at Maddie's face.

Basketball

 

We finished the puzzle tonight, and it turned out well as you can see.  Mom put that last puzzle piece in and we were good to go on another completed puzzle.  We might do another one or two immediately after this.  Maddie, Mom and I sort of worked on this together the past few days.

But here's something we did tonight.  Maddie invited her friend Maddie to a basketball game tonight, and we watched East Forsyth High School go up against Walnut Grove in basketball.  

The girls had a good time cheering on the home team, and it really was an exciting game.  I thought we were goners pretty early on when the other team had almost a ten point lead.  And then just like that, the momentum started to shift, and we got in a late 3-point shot to be up by three at the.  That lead would grow somewhat, although the other team had talent had a persistence to keep in the game.  It was fun!

So Maddie and I had decided we would go to at least one basketball game during her experience in high school.  She was glad she went, for one thing she was talking with her friend and catching up.  I was doing a bit of research, as we're about to do a basketball series at KidPak.  We enjoyed the game, and of course the girls won 56-49.  It was fun, although Maddie seems to prefer the energy of the football games.  We'll all go see an ice hockey game this weekend, which I know she likes.

Tonight we watched the last episode of "Skeleton Key," which was a good show overall.  The villain of the series is a mystery, as the thing that brought him down was the fact that he showed mercy.  So... the lesson here is NO MERCY!  Got it?  

Anyway, it was a good day today.  Cold in the office, but nicer outside.  We pretty much finished our work on the booklet for KidPak, although we have plenty more to do very soon.  We were helping with the college interns somewhat, which was pretty funny:  our job was to be a distraction for the speakers on the stage, and we did our job expertly!

We read tonight, and we said our prayers.  It was a cold day outside.  Let's get some rest under those blankets.

Woozy Snowman

 

Well, our snowman is looking a little woozy today, but that's okay, we got you!  It was a pleasant day today, and in fact warmer.  By "warmer," I mean the temperature got to something in the 50's, which feels downright springlike at this point.  It's amazing how quickly you get acclimated.

Maddie sent me a picture of the negatives she was processing, and that was pretty cool.  But I looked closely at one and couldn't figure out what it was a picture of.

I was still puzzling over this, so I did the negative reverse of it, and thought, is that Godzilla?

Sure enough, it looks like Godzilla.  Look at that eye up there.  And his mouth is wide open like he's about to do one of those fire breathing attacks or something!  This is how bad my eyes apparently are.  And how bad my brain is.  Because when Maddie got home she said that it was a picture of someone putting her hands in her hair.  I'm like, "What?"

OH.  Turn it sideways!  Duh!  So yeah, anyway, she's having fun in that class with developing her negatives.  I know she took some pictures in the snow with the 35mm the other day, so we'll see how those came out as well.  

Tonight she had taekwondo, and she's focused on that new year with new discipline in January.  They'll be focused on the team performance and of course she's focused on getting that third degree belt.  That should come late in the year, I think. 

Today Mom and I were focused on this next KidPak booklet, working together on some activities for the book within.  I was on the treadmill, and I was watching "War Room," which I've never seen before.  It's been really good actually.  I'm keeping up that treadmill routine, and the blood pressure seems okay, unless there's some dietary aberration.  I'm discovering the relationship between certain foods and these weird spikes in blood pressure.  Not cool in the middle of the night.  I just have to watch what I eat before bedtime.  Anyway, moving on, Mom started up a puzzle in the kitchen area, and the three of us spent some time working on that tonight.  We made some good progress!  We're not 1000 piece puzzle people, but 500 is just right.  This was a holiday puzzle I got for Mom last year during our "Christmas in May" day at the Inn at Christmas Place.  The three of us sat and relaxed, finding the home for each piece as we listened to some relaxing music.

Our devotional time tonight was from "The Chosen," of course, and we watched the third episode again so that we'll be ready for our new devotional material in the next chapter.  This has been a good thing, guided questions from the episode.  Listening to everyone's thoughtful answers has been so good for the soul.

Tonight we closed things out with reading, and of course prayer.  Time to get some sleep!

An Ice Day at Church

There was quite a bit of ice out there this morning, but not so much on the roads, which made for a safe drive in - although super cold!  It was nice to look at too!

Mom made me some hot tea, and I was ready to go with my new Claxton Fruitcake tumbler!

As for the morning, we were ready to go at KidPak!  All the volunteers showed up, and we had a great morning!

 

In fact, this morning's church service had a bigger crowd than I expected!  We had a lot of people coming today, which was great to see the hunger for church.  In the main sanctuary, Pastor had a few guests from Israel, each with horrible stories of loved ones still held hostage by terrorists.  

Day 464.  That's how long ago the attack on innocent civilians was, and how long these people have been held hostage.  Two family members held hostage were an older man, I think in his late sixties, and a younger woman.  Americans are held hostage, and have been there that long.  Their experiences are beyond any horrible description.  I think this new administration is threatening serious action if something is not done by the time January 20th comes around, but it goes without saying that our hearts were filled with grief for these pour souls.

We didn't talk about that so much in KidPak, of course.  We were continuing with our Fruit of the Spirit series, and it was a really fun service with memorization games plus our favorite Wisenheimer invention doing its thing.  Maddie took some great pictures again, and we have them posted on the church's site, plus  just a few here.

We got home and Mom had another really nice fast-friendly feast for us prepared, a three-course meal with a fruit salad, then another salad with those white strawberries on it, and then some hot vegetable soup.  

Wow!  Tasty!  We did a little bit of moving things around, and there was some work towards the KidPak booklet.  Maddie was busting ghosts for a good bit online, and Mom and I were starting work on a jigsaw puzzle. 

Tonight's movie was "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," part of our Lunar New Year movie celebration.  But actually I've been wanting to rewatch this one (and "Abominable") for a while now, just because!  Anyway, we saw that, and got to bed early tonight.  School is tomorrow, so we spent some time reading, and then said our prayers before heading off to sleep.

For the Birds

It was a Saturday not to go anywhere, at least for us.  We decided to stay indoors, largely, although I did get out there to shovel the driveway and sidewalk with the snow shovel.  We actually have a snow shovel, and yes this is the first time I've used it in years.  But I'm glad I held on to it, right?  The other thing I did outside was keep the bird feeders full, and also make sure Jeff the Snowman has a good handful for the sparrows.

 

Ice froze all on the trees, simply illuminating the forest with a magical glow as little trickles of sunlight occasionally streamed down.  It was beautiful out there.  But it was also fairly chilly.  Tonight the temperature will be in the upper teens, so we spent the day hoping the sunlight would melt enough off these roads so that we could be at church tomorrow.

Today, however, we slept in a bit.  I spent much of the day working on this new booklet for KidPak, as this has been very much a heavy weight with a tight deadline coming up.  Ugh.  Still, I took a break to spend some time with Maddie as she was playing her new game from Christmas, one based on the Ghostbusters franchise that she likes a good bit.  She was actually online playing with other Ghostbusters, cleaning up the town.  

I was also on the treadmill again, and this morning I finished up "Facing the Giants," which was actually a pretty good movie.  Glad I watched it, as it has plenty of great moments within.  I'm not a football or basketball guy so much, but we're in that season, and in fact we just got some tickets for the basketball game at the high school this Tuesday.  That was one thing I told Maddie - we need to go to at least one basketball game before we get out of high school, just to say we did.  So here we are at the last season, and we'll go check it out.  Maddie is inviting her friend, the other Maddie.  And that makes two sporting events these two are going to next week, as there's an ice hockey game on the calendar for next Saturday.

Mom and I had our traditional bath this morning, the one that takes place with snow all outside - just the contrast of a hot bath and a window with a view of a snowy landscape is pretty fun.  Afterwards, she made us all a fast-friendly breakfast, with lots of fruit.  I picked up a lot of fruit from the grocery store, so we've been having delicious kiwi fruit, apples, and pears too.  Yes, we have no bananas.  We have no bananas today.

Devotional time was good again.  I read from our recent "Chosen" devotional, and we answered some guided questions.  I'm probably going to be digging into the book of Isaiah after all this.

We wrapped up the day with a movie that goes along with the Lunar New Year theme.  Yes, that's coming up soon, so we'll be watching a few movies that take place in Asia, or China specifically.  Tonight's movie was "Abominable," which seems like so long ago when we saw that in theaters.  It's a tour of China and really a beautiful movie.

We closed out the day with reading from the Discworld, and then an early night's sleep after prayers and tucking everyone in.  It's going to be chilly in the morning, but we'll be out there ready for church!

Snow Day

 We had a great snow day today, and it started a little later than expected, but it did in fact happen with snow coming down early, and just transforming our yard and neighborhood into a winter wonderland.  I was up first doing some chores, like feeding those birds, who were quite excited to have food they didn't have to dig through the snow to get to.  I got plenty of pictures of the birds this morning.

And the house too.  We were outside, Maddie and I, just walking around and exploring.  And throwing snowballs at each other too.  Maddie and our neighbor across the street got into a bit of a snowball fight, but soon enough Maddie and I were making a snowman on the back deck.

This one was a little difficult to make, as the snow wasn't great for packing until a bit later on.  Initially, it was so powdery that it took a long time to assemble a simple ball.  But we were patient and got it all together.  Maddie says our snowman's name is Jeff.  He's similar to one we did a few years ago, in that we have him holding a small bowl that is filled with bird seed.

Maddie was out taking a few photographs with her 35mm camera, and she also used her polaroid camera today too.

The birds started to visit our snowman earlier this time around, and that was delightful.  

Afterwards, we did some of other other things on the snow checklist.  We made snow angels, of course, and there was time for sledding too!

I dragged Maddie all the way up the hill, down the hill, and up Forest Path just a tiny bit before turning around.  Maddie enjoyed that sleigh ride quite a bit.  And she also had fun doing something else outside today:

And there was a bit of taekwon-snow!  The bo staff was taken outside, and Maddie was using it for some practice.  She was out there with nunchucks and the staff, although her fingers were getting a little cold for that sort of thing.  

Anyway, it was a really nice Snow Day, and I put it in capital letters because this is now a somewhat rare event.  It's been a few years since our last significant snowfall.  The last time we personally got to "play in the snow" was at the top of Newfound Gap last winter.  Although that was more scenic, and maybe more scary, this was more fun - we got to check off the snow list:

____  MAKE SNOW MAN

____  HAVE SNOWBALL FIGHT

____ GO SLEDDING

____ MAKE SNOW ANGELS

____ PRACTICE MARTIAL ARTS SKILLS IN SNOW

The only thing we didn't do was make snow cream.  But we're fasting sweets, so that's okay.  It was magical out there, the snow covering the landscape and just adding this wonderful beauty.  You couldn't help but get out there in it and play some!  Before we move on, here are a few more pictures from our Snow Day:

The weather above was hovering just above freezing later on, so it was frozen rain for the last part of the day.  It's below freezing here on the surface, and that really kept things icy all over the trees and everywhere.  Big icicles were forming, and a glaze is covering the forest and houses here.  Power is going out in various places, but not here.  We had a brief flicker, and got our flashlights and candles ready just in case.  But the power stayed on.  So did the heat.

We warmed up and got a few things done this afternoon - there was still work to be done with KidPak.  In fact, I'll be working on that tomorrow a little more.  Snow Day was a big welcome interruption with that.  Early evening, we watched the final entry in our High School Musical marathon, "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure."  One question is why they cut out the cameo that was included everywhere else - I mean, it was such a great moment.  We found it online somewhere still and watched that little post credits cameo later.  On the whole, the movie was fun.  We hadn't see it in a while, so none of us remembered exactly what it was about.  But yeah, that ends the High School Musical marathon, and just in time too.  Again, we were wanting to watch these while Maddie was in high school, so we got it done just in time!

We did our devotional time tonight after this, spending time with episode 2 of "The Chosen," and reading some devotional material, using guided questions and discussions.  And that was nice, of course.  

And after that, our movie of the night was "The Goonies," inspired by the recent viewings of "Skeleton Crew."  I loved watching this movie so much tonight, completely forgetting how good it really is.  It is so much fun, and the kids were so good in it too.  We watched that as we listened to everything freeze outside around us.  The power stayed true, and we're grateful for that.  We got upstairs did our reading, and after that, it was time for prayers and a good night's rest.  

It was a really nice snow day!  Here's some more pictures and videos from Maddie's phone: