It's here!!!

Winter is here! And it has arrived with greatness! It's simply beautiful! I love walking outside and listening ... the crisp clean quiet ... it is breathtaking. Well, of course it is, it's freezing! Walking in the winter wonderland, as the song goes! The first snow picture is our neighbor to the right as you're looking at our house (Bruce) ... the second is our house and the third is what I did on Saturday to invite this!!! Friday I took the pictures of the wood pile and the cropped trees. I just wanted to mention after so much grief, that the tree trimming saga is now history! They are all three trimmed beautifully and hopefully will be much healthier for it! So, now we're preparing to live in the snow. Paul keeps saying, "look where we live"! If nothing else, it's definitely different from the Orlando weather! We've been trying to accumulate warm work clothes for Paul (insulated work overalls and such!) and trying to insulate the house to make life warmer for us. We had a fantastic "root around" upstairs yesterday ... discovered all kinds of things in the attic, which is under the eves of this house. It was fun to figure out where the hidden walkways actually go. I would love to have been a kid growing up in this house! All the adventure~I'm sure there have been many before us! There are parts of the attic which have been insulated and boarded up ... and unfortunately parts which are truly open and letting cold air in! We actually found a HUGE (non living) wasp nest ... quite interesting to see how they're made ... but so far we've found no bags of money. However, we certainly haven't given up on that! We went to the local high school production of "the Diary of Anne Frank" yesterday and it was fun to support the local drama dept. The kids did a great job ... but I'm afraid I'm still just over the top about the Ailey performance!

I know y'all are wondering about the Queen B at the top of the page. Well, it's Paul's mum's birthday ... and so, Happy Birthday, Mum! Her name is Beryl, "B" for short ... so it's in her honor. It was one of the most fun mosaics I've done to date ... the whimsical stuff is a lot of fun and it's a nice compliment to all the painting I'm getting to do! Speaking of which, should go for now and get some of that done. I was rearranging the office and ran over Paul's x-box power cord and broke it. Now I'm trying to figure a way out of being hung at sunset! We certainly hope all of you are safe, warm and loved this Thanksgiving. I know we all have plenty to say grace over and I think Paul & I are especially blessed. We certainly wish for everyone else the same blessings and good fortune. Take good care and Happy Thanksgiving, Paul & Cheri