It has been pretty quiet over the last 12 days. And, whenever you paint a room it seems to affect the rest of the house.
OUR WEATHER has been something else. We started last week out cool and it got colder. It began to snow a little on Tuesday night. Schools were closed on Wednesday due to less than an inch. By evening very little snow was left and the next two days brought temps warm enough to leave my jacket in the truck until evening. I was talking about this with an older gentleman who works as a day porter at one of our schools. He is also a Robertson County native and said to me, “When I was a boy the ground froze in November and didn’t thaw out until April.” Our climate isn’t what it used to be. (This is the warmest January since 1950). And all the rain we had yesterday had me and Jenna saying, “If it were only 10 degrees colder!”
REDECORATING. One thing Vicki has wished we could do for many years is redecorate our living room. Our love seat has been with Vicki since college. (It was a rental!) The couch was purchased before we got married and the recliner came a few years later. They have seen better days. Vicki is now getting to realize this dream as we have ordered new furniture for the whole room. Most of it should be here this week. We spent all last weekend painting in preparation for this change. Wednesday Vicki and Pauline went shopping for curtain material. After we get this done our next two projects will be our bedroom and the foyer.
BASKETBALL UPDATE. I have two games to report on since I last wrote. Last Saturday Jenna played well and scored two goals. One thing she has to learn is that it is okay to pass the ball when she doesn’t have a good shot. She is learning though as she did steal the ball a couple of times.
Jenna scored two more goals in Saturday’s game. I think all the players are getting more comfortable with basketball as there were quite a few turnovers and fouls this time.
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. We highly recommend this film. The story focuses on the emperor penguin and its journey to breed its young. Like salmon, these birds return to their original breeding grounds to mate. The particular colony that was filmed hikes about 70 miles inland to do this. Once the females lay their eggs they leave the eggs in the care of the males and hike back out for food. The fathers spend the roughest part of the Antarctic winter with their egg balanced on top of their feet and tucked under a fold of skin to keep it from freezing. By the time the mothers return from feeding they have gone 120+ days without a meal. We all found this very fascinating. Jenna was disturbed with the inevitable tragedies, but Ben was so taken that he has already watched the movie again. I think he will be really sad when we have to return it to the video store.
Joe
