Lauren

Last week was long and tiring. Much of our college staff is still on Christmas break, so that meant extra time in the classroom, then trying to get things accomplished after the kids were gone for the day. I spent much of the weekend holing up and recovering, which was great.

Some not-great things happened. Lloyd’s Uncle Vernon went to heaven on Friday. He was 96 and lived a great life, but it’s still sad. The funeral is Tuesday and Lloyd is going to try to head down to Missouri for that.

Our furnace/ thermostat is giving us some trouble. Twice Three times now it has said it isn’t hooked up – which it is. The fix involves turning lots of electrical things off and on again, and maybe getting an expert over here.

There is one thing i accomplished that I’m proud of, and that is cleaning my closet. I did the Marie Kondo thing where I took EVERYTHING out and put it on the bed. I cracked up because I’ve said that I don’t have many clothes, and I really, really do.

I weeded through a fair amount of things that went to Goodwill, and put things back. I even did the thing where you put all the hangers on the rod backwards, and when you wear an item, the hanger goes back the right way, showing what you really wear. (I just did that with my shirts.)

Good job, Lauren! Now, somebody go buy me some nice pants. I don’t own any nice pants, and I really hate clothes shopping.

Well, it’s all back to normal. Not exactly ‘normal’ – there are still lots of college workers on vacation, so my days in the classroom are longer this week. (Dad, my phone call will be later tonight.) Yesterday I had a smaller bunch of children which was a nice way to ease into the week, but today is rainy and icy and I think we are stuck inside for the day. Awesome.

Lloyd got back from Missouri last night. He had a wonderful time with his family, and we got to wish each other ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year’ in person. Wally, of course, was the happiest to see him.

Not much else going on here. I’ll catch up with your later, ok?

I’m sorry I didn’t write much over the past several days. I had such a nice, relaxing time at my Dad’s, I really didn’t want to do a lot of work. I love hanging out with him – he knows I’m not a big talker and seems to take it pretty well. 🙂

I did a little baking while I was there. The first round was hilariously bad – I set the bowl of dough on a pan on the stove. I would turn the burner on for a second every so often to keep the spot warm…. until I forgot and left it on for a couple of minutes. Burnt dough, smelly house – sorry, Dad.

I worked on deleting a couple thousand photos off my iPad. You heard that number right. I’m not even done. I have 128 GB of memory and recovered about 8 GBs. I have no idea what GB means.

My second-to-last day was kind of cloudy, rainy and gloomy. Dad wasn’t feeling great so he rested and I got some medicine that his doctor prescribed. (He has good doctors.) Overnight, the rain turned to snow!

Dad took me to the airport and I had a blessedly uneventful trip home. We had some delays but NOTHNG like what other people experienced. Gretchen, to answer your question – yes, there were LOTS of dogs at the airport. It was amazing! I had two dogs on my flight from Montrose to Denver.

Lloyd is down in Missouri visiting his folks. His Dad is home now and seems to be doing pretty well. Thank you, Jesus! When he tells me more, I’ll tell you more.

Happy Friday!

I made it to Colorado with very minimal trouble. My foight to Denver was fine, and my flight to Montrose was just delayed by a couple of hours. My situation was very different from people who had tried to fly the day before, or who were flying to places further east. There were lots of sad people and a loooooooooong line at customer service. I count myself blessed.

I’m here with my Dad and my brother Phil, who has been here a week and is leaving tomorrow. We went to the Christmas Eve service last night which was lovely and delightful, and we’ll have church today. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Well, preschool was called off on Thursday due to the weather. I am not sad about that one bit, but it made Wednesday a little hectic. I am not great at getting holiday things done in a timely fashion. We were getting our gifts to the children ready to send home that morning, which they actually loved. It’s fun getting a sneak peek!

The big job was to get all the furniture over to the carpet so the tiles can get waxed over the holiday. I had a map to get it all over there in the right spots, and thankfully there were still staff around who helped get it there.

Oy. Everything needs to get moved back on January 1st. Lloyd is going to be in Missouri, so this will be a bit of a trick.

In other news, Brad is here! He had some pretty significant delays due to the weather, but he made it….. just in time for our freaky cold weather. Lucky guy.

Have a great Friday, everyone!

It’s been pretty dang cold here the past couple of days, and it’s just getting colder. We didn’t make it outside yesterday because the wind chill made it below 0. (“If it’s above 0 or below 100, we go outside. There’s no bad weather – just bad clothing.” – our motto.) Today we might squeak out for a few minutes, but blizzard-y weather is coming. Lloyd’s school ended yesterday for regular reasons, but other schools are calling off/called off for tomorrow already. We will still be open, of course.

Brad, if you are reading this, I can’t find your wool coat here. I don’t know who is picking you up from the airport, but they might want to bring a bunch of blankets. (Brad arrives tomorrow night.)

Brrrr. Stay warm, everyone.