you never know

It's been a fine week, quiet.  These flowers are left over from Thanksgiving.

Here we have b.g. assisting Tim with some project.

And some bored people braved the cold and hit the swings. It looks bright, but I think it was less than 30 degrees here.

They're trying to get the shoe back on him.

I ran out and boosted him into the swing.  I hate cold.

Brrrr.  Why won't the baby leave her hat on?  It still was good to get outside, even for twenty minutes.

Amusing his niece:

Okay, do you see what I'm dealing with here???  WHY has she sprawled herself on the baby's blanket?

If I yell and chastise her, she slinks around the coffee table and throws herself down between the table and the couch, looks at me with that puzzled, beseeching expression.

What kind of person hollers at a dog as sweet as Sam?

Sigh. 

Yes, I know. 

It was mean. I also swatted her with the broom on Tuesday when she kept crowding me in the kitchen while I was trying to get the grandbabies set up with their meal.    She wasn't hurt, but still the way she scurried to get away made me ashamed.

Apparently I'm also an old hag who would chase a gentle dog away with a broom.

Okay, today we sent Little Jay a care package at the university.   This is the stuff that went in the box.

If you click on it, you'll see Little Debbie, and Christmas lights, hand warmers for the pockets while walking to class, window clings, gum, and chocolate.

Little Jay told me last spring after a package arrived that the whole reason he ever even wanted to go to college in the first place was because of the care packages we sent to his sisters.  (The care packages were a great way to stay in touch with Lori's daughter too, and they are fun.)

Anyway, an entire guy was inspired to seek a college education because of Little Debbie and bath gel, Easy Mac and spray cheese.

Who could have imagined it?

Oh, and here's another great thing this week:  I lost my best mittens, one of them.  These mittens were a gift from my parents, something my mother bought at a craft sale.   Some lady made them from recycled wool sweaters and sewed in a fleece lining.

They're a bit big for my hands, but I adore them. They're so warm! I can brush off the whole car and my poor hands never freeze.

As I carried in loads of Christmas gifts from the trunk tonight, trudging in the snow, the cold was actually kind of painful, cold-wimp that I am. I had on a heavy turtleneck sweater and a silk undershirt, wool socks, jeans, a coat, mittens--and still I whined to myself.

ANYWAY, the point is the evening I lost the mitten, Kari and I approached the driveway and looked there for the mitten, and then she rode along with me to look in other parking lots where I had been earlier.  (It was obvious it had fallen out of the door pocket.)

There in the dark of the Sears parking lot, we saw it, lumped up and gray--my precious mitten!

You never know.  

I never realized care packages for other people could inspire a kid to aspire to an education of his own. 

I didn't expect to find my mitten that night.

I never expected this person to be in my LIFE either, but thank GOD she is.  Every single squirrely day, I'm glad.

I do hope 2012 is full of excellent surprises.  You know it has to be. 

Tomorrow is Friday, and those rowdies down the hall are now quiet, a guy is snoozing on the pillows here, arm over his forehead,  and my bath water is steaming in the next room.  

Thursday nights don't come any better.

love, Val