New Flower Bed: Phase 2

The snow’s all gone; the rain has stopped for a couple of days; the sun is shining; and it’s not freezing cold. So it’s time to dig in the dirt since it’s A) fairly soft from all the rain and B) not frozen solid. The space where the oak was is going to be a, hopefully, fairly large flower bed. The first bed will be along a very small ledge of stones that lines that drive way. So today, I dug it out to begin the process of amending the soil.

The whole space:

Yes, the daffodils are already blooming.

View from the end of the driveway.

From from the mail box.

It’s our break week for CC coming up. The extra day—plus the extra time in not having to prepare will be nice. Next weekend, we head to North Greenville for Rebekah’s second round of scholarship interviews. And in three weeks, Jenna and Lauren will be home for spring break.

 

Scholarship Weekend and Snow

We went to Covenant this past weekend for Rebekah to interview for some scholarships (and to see Lauren!). She participated in two group settings (an activity and a discussion) and one individual interview with a professor. As is usually the case when we make college visits, it was cold. It snowed most of the day, but not a lot stuck.

The day before we got lots and lots of rain and there was flooding in various places. The river in town got out of its banks and flooded the park. There was a mudslide in the gorge between here and Asheville that closed that road for the weekend. If it has been cold for all that rain, we would have gotten a couple of feet of snow.

We got back after midnight Friday night and then woke up to snow Saturday morning.

The roads were bad Sunday, so we had no church, but by the afternoon, it warmed up and most of the snow was gone by Sunday night. We’re back to rain again, and it’s supposed to rain all week with more potential flooding.

But occasionally the sun is out around here and there are nice sunsets.

Decisions, Decisions

2020 has gotten off to a good start. Jenna and Lauren are back in Nacogdoches and Covenant College. We’ve gotten through four weeks of Classical Conversations. Rebekah and Dana are back tutoring after school at the Pinwheel program. I’ve been reading every Wednesday to our adopt-a-class at Andrews Elementary. While the web design class ended last semester, Rebekah and I are going over every other Thursday and learning a few more things. Rebekah’s “assignment” for the class was to design a website for me, and there are a few more things she needs to learn. The dad was gracious enough to continue meeting with us this semester to help her get finished.

We’ve also taken a couple of college visits this past month to North Greenville University and Lipscomb. Next weekend, Rebekah goes to Covenant to interview for a couple of different scholarships. Two weeks after that she goes back to North Greenville to interview for a scholarship. Then sometime this spring, she’ll actually have to make a decision.

The tree cutting and splitting is making slow progress, but progress has been made.

This is all that’s left. The piece on the right, I still need to cut and split. The piece on the left, I’m going to get milled into some boards for some book shelves, as one can never have too many books, and thus one need shelves.

Oh, and my neighbor and I cut down another small tree to allow some sun for a spot that I want to put in a bigger flower bed this spring.

We’ve started our small group back up. This spring we’re doing Ruth and then Colossians. We’ve added a couple and a single. It’s getting too large for our small living room. It’s about time to multiply the group.

It’s the end of January and still no snow. So I’m officially ready for spring.

 

 

Bailey Visit

We had a great time with the Baileys as always. It is so good to get everyone together. As usual there were lots of games—but only one puzzle this year. A gingerbread house. Some hiking. Some reading. Lots of good food. And one flat tire (no picture).

But now we will slowly transition back to normal. Jenna goes back to Texas on Saturday. Lauren is going to camp this weekend for a summer staff mini-reunion. She heads back to school on the 12th. We’ll take a couple more college visits with Rebekah in January or early February to North Greenville and Lipscomb. And she’ll go to Covenant for a weekend in February for scholarship weekend. CC starts back on Tuesday.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Christmas and Puzzles and Company, Oh My

The girls made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

 

We had our annual Christmas Eve tamales after our Christmas Eve service, and then we finished the pre-Christmas puzzle—one has to make room for the Christmas puzzle!

We had 6 people from church over for Christmas lunch. The kids hung around and played games most of the afternoon, and then we started the Christmas puzzle, which we finished last night.

The fact that the box was different than the puzzle didn’t make it too hard!

We all went to see Little Women this afternoon and enjoyed it thoroughly. I hadn’t been to a theater in a year and a half, and it was the first movie we’d seen as a family without going with other people since we’ve lived in North Carolina. While we can’t specifically remember another time that just the five of us went to a movie, surely we have—somewhere—at some time.

The Baileys will be here in a little while. We will have a house full for several days. That means more puzzles and games and gingerbread houses and lots of good food and conversation. We are always thankful that they make the trip to see us.

 

Home for the Holidays

Lauren got home on Tuesday; Jenna on Friday. It’s good to have everyone home again. And we’ve jumped into the pre-Christmas puzzle already:

But I suppose we ought to back up. The college/post-college game night after Thanksgiving was lots of fun.

Our 10 year old neighbor took some ends of the wood I was cutting and brought back a bird feeder he made. It gets a good deal of business—when we remember to put bird seed on it.

Tamales have been assembled in preparation for tomorrow night.

And Rebekah had her end of semester piano recital at the Andrews Nursing home.

Tonight is our annual viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. And if you’re looking for a new Christmas song and haven’t heard this yet, you should give it a listen. We’re a little biased for more than one reason, but it is really good.

Preacher’s Rock

We hiked up to a place called Preacher’s Rock on Big Cedar Mountain on the AT in North Georgia today. It’s a short hike (2 mile round trip with a 450 ft. elevation gain on the way up), but the view at the top is really nice.

The girls are having the college group over for games tonight. It’s fun seeing all these kids who were between 10 and 13 years old when we moved here as adults. They are all exceptional kids, and we couldn’t have asked for a better group for our girls to grow up with.

It’ll be an earlier morning departure for Atlanta to get Jenna to her flight. But we get her back in three weeks for a little longer visit.