Hope Continually -- Psalm 71:14

  GOODBYE January!  :)   You are my least favorite month of the year and I am always glad to see you go.  LOL!  You seem to last forever and the days are usually dark, cloudy, and cold.  Goodbye for another year!

Monday, hey!  A break in the overcast skies and we actually saw blue!  Monday is my grocery shopping day and chiropractor day.  They are in the same shopping complex and the chiropractor I like is only at that office on Mondays.  So I combine both errands for that day since it is a long drive. Pastor Kenny Baldwin was the speaker for Opening Convocation for Pensacola Christian College.  He spoke four different times and the sermons were so good.  You can find them on YouTube. It was bath time for all the animals.  Max - I gave him a lime sulfur dip.  It helps with his skin which has more problems as he ages.  Next week, I will give him a regular bath with a medicated shampoo. Bathed both cats.  They do pretty well.  OK, they don't love it and give me the low growl but we did fine.  LOL!  Fig always is the drama queen and tries to escape the bathroom once she's done.  I leave them in there until they are mostly dry....

The weekend was not very good weather-wise!  Saturday morning was cold, has some sleet balls/hail then big, fat snowflakes.   Eric finally was able to get out and repair a patch where the shingles had blown off in a recent storm.  Summer helped him. Our eggs haven't been as high as some in the country but this is not good. After fixing the roof, Eric and I went for an early date to our little Mexican place.  He always gets a torta and I get a carne asada burrito.  MMMM!   We then went to Wal-Mart for a few things and then to the gym for a long workout. The girls were supposed to have a Youth Activity with Timberline from 6-8:30pm but was cancelled due to Colin being sick. This is Fig's schedule.  Come out in the morning and sleep right there on the couch.   Sunday was normal schedule.  The girls go to Jesus and Donuts at 9am for the teens and church is at 10am. I made cheddar smoked sausages and fries for lunch and then we had ...

  Today was Eric and my anniversary when we began dating.  Today will be 24 years since our first date!  Holy moly...we are nearing a quarter of a century. :) Our first date was a Christmas party for the bus workers of our bus division held at Connie's Pizza in downtown Chicago.  It was a big event and we had so much fun that night.  I was a senior in college and he was a freshman.   What a great memory of our first date and the beginning of 21 years of marriage as of today!

Friday, I worked from 8am-2:45pm.  The girls were off Friday so they worked on school and housework. I did a quick trip to Walmart after work and then tanning at the gym.  Definitely need some sunshine therapy.  The clouds and overcast skies are getting to me.   I made hamburger gravy over bread with pickled beets on the side for dinner. Autumn and Sierra went to a high school youth activity from 5:30-10:30pm.  They went to a Winterhawks hockey game and had a blast.  Summer and I played some games and watched Little House.  Boy, I was tired.  I think the last two weeks caught up to me. Old Max decides to just chew on a stick on his walk.  LOL! Trying a new author and finished this audiobook. On to the weekend!

Game time with Nana. Nana gets to see three of her grandkids at their jobs.   Autumn-17 at Hobby Lobby, Sierra-15 at McDonald's, and Kylee-16 at Wendy's. Summer and Jack went with me to take Nana to the airport.  We left at 9am.  Her flight was right before noon.  We took her in and checked her bag and left her at the security checkpoint. Autumn and Sierra both had to work so they came over before we left to say goodbye. Last photo with the grandkids - January 2023.

I didn't get hardly any pictures for Wednesday.  In the morning, I did some light cleaning while the girls did school and Autumn went to work 8:45-4pm. I picked up Mom around 10:30am and I took her to Hobby Lobby to see Autumn and do a little browsing. Summer was done with school and she and Mom played several games together.  I made two Shepherd's Pies for dinner. Rachel and the kids came over at 4:30pm for an early dinner together at our home.  They left at 5:15pm for their Awana and Youth Group.  My girls went to Youth Group at 6pm and Eric went to Men's Bible Study at 6:45pm.  Mom and I chatted until Rachel was done and picked her up for home.

  Tuesday morning, Addie flew back to Pensacola for the spring semester of her sophomore year at Pensacola Christian College.  I took her at 4am for her flight at 6am. I did have a photo inspection job scheduled but just as I left to do it, they canceled it.  I did laundry, swept, mopped, and vacuumed, did a little blogging, did school, etc.  Autumn worked from 8:45-4pm and Sierra worked from 11-4pm. Mom was at Rachel's and went for lunch to a lady friend's home - Miss Shirley. We made parmesan crusted chicken , hash brown casserole , and corn for dinner at Rachel's house.  We ate up the leftover ice cream for dessert as well. After dinner, we enjoyed a fire in the fireplace. Mom played many songs on the piano and worked with Sierra. Rachel and Kylee looked through the scrapbook and then we looked at Rachel's wedding photo album. Enjoyed bowls of ice cream sundaes.

Sleepy kitties. The five minutes in the whole day that he actually uses his dog bed! We had a little weak January sunshine on Monday.  I saw Brownie (my feral outside cat) taking advantage of it. With egg prices skyrocketing, I decided to try out this baking substitute. This is the price at our Winco of eggs here in Oregon. Silly Fig. Addie was busy getting packed up to go back to college for the spring semester.   It always cracks me up how she swaddles Elmo. Addie, Autumn, Kylee, and Summer took Mom to do some antique shopping.  Here are some photos of their outing. :) When they got back, Mom had dinner at our house.  I made turkey Reubens  and lemon rice soup .  Autumn had made chocolate chip cookies (an assignment for her Family and Consumer Science class). After dinner, we had fun looking at the girls' finds at the antique shop and a scrapbook made by a teen girl in the 1940s!  The girls love vintage and historical things like this. :) ...