Evening storm

A couple years ago I captured this storm developing near the mountian at sunset.

Low clouds

Blood Stained Cross

When the Blood stained the cross
Major gain, major loss.
Shook the earth
Veiled the sky
Son of God born to die

Heal my faith draw me near
Change my heart, Lord, let me hear
Of your love so pure
Your grace so free
All of the blessings meant for me

Come into my heart
Let me be your dwelling
Give me all the words
Let me do the telling
Let me see the cost of cruel Calvary
Let me know the love
Poured out for me

When the tomb Lost its prey
Opened wide resurrection day
The dark could not contain the Son
Light of God, Victory won

Heal my faith draw me near

Change my heart, Lord, let me hear

Of your love so pure

Your grace so free

All of the blessings meant for me

When the Blood stained the cross

Major gain, major loss.

Shook the earth Veiled the sky

Son of God born to die

Baaaaa

Driving around Sunday afternoon, we met Toni. she was building a snowlamb. She said he was looking up toward Heaven.

Warm days following deep snow

Almost as quickly as it piled up the snow melted and formed the mighty Division Street River and attracted the river runners.

Digging Out

We measured 16 inches of snow in our backyard. The bottom inch and a half was slush.

We cleared the driveway and sidewalk and now it is nearly dry.

We let the dog out of the kennel, but she didn't get very far and I had to carry her back.

20 inches!

I think the snow has quit falling. We couldn't see the mountain today, it snowed all day. The wind did not blow, that is unusual. I love it when the snow piles up on narrow surfaces.

It snowed heavily enough that by the time the driveway was cleared and the sidewalks were shoveled, there was another inch and a half to scoop off the driveway.

Heart Mountain and Snow drifts

This is the scene as I bust drifts on my way home for lunch today.

Some friends stayed with us last night, not wanting to drive home in the blizzard conditions.

Ahhh, Spring in northern Wyoming!!

Odds and Ends

Some things just strike me as odd. The irony of this scene was one of those things.

Our western skyline is dominated by Heart Mountain. Different weather conditions and sun position almost give it personality. Today the mountainside was burning for about an hour.
The formation is identified with a relocation center left over from WWII

Decapus

This blower is drying out the wall. Each hose leads to a hole drilled through the drywall. It was dubbed the decapus this morning.

Another wall a different blower.

Another room has a large dehumidifier. There are blowers without hoses in several rooms.

We asked about filling the baptistry and the guy running all the blowers said, "no way, we are trying our best to remove humidity from this building!"

We have 2 classrooms dry and set up for tomorrow and chairs back in the auditorium.

The Flood

Tuesday afternoon, the caller said there is water running out of your church building into the parking lot.
Lots of water. The pipe leading into the holding tank from the pump had been leaking, long enough to soak the entire auditorium and a few classrooms.
There aren't very many people available to move furniture in at 4:00 in the afternoon. Johnny, Tonya, and I moved the chairs to the back room, and cleared classrooms. Another family came and helped with the cradle roll room.
Johnny had called a cleaning service when he first saw the standing water and Glenn came to vacuum water out. He set fans and has been working on drying out the walls. The insurance adjustor looked at the damage today.

We canceled Wednesday night dinner and scheduled a work day for Saturday to put things back together.

Today was one of those rare days where neither of us had to be anywhere, turn anything in, complete anything or fix something. It was very relaxing.
We took our dog for a walk. In spite of her age she still likes to run.
We did a little cleaning and hauled our pile of newspapers and catalogs to recycling.
We closed out the evening with a concert,
http://drumbrothers.com/groups.htm#bros

We lost a little friend today. Lady, the one on the left, didn't wake up this morning. Missy and Lady are from the same litter, I am sure Missy will miss her too. We have had them for about 15 years.

I'm all thumbs, really, I have all these thumbs. Six of them, and they didn't fit!, bummer.

I made mittens in January, starting with the thumbs. Each thumb is 3 pieces sewn together then made waterproof with an iron on seam tape.
Shown here is an inside out thumb pulled over a mini ironing form. I am applying the tape with a small iron. That thumb is then sewn into the palm of a mitten, but not these, I sewed them with a seam that was 3/8 and they were supposed to be sewn with 3/16 inch. That made each thumb 3/4 inch too small when it was complete. Back to the cutting table.

This is the little fellow who got in the car tonight after singing practice.

I had put my tote bag and purse on the floor and he jumped right in. He didn't want to get back out. So naturally, the first thing I did was take photos!!

He was probablly looking for food, he was not at all afraid of me. He went from the front to the back seat of the car, but would not go out either door.

I tried to push him out with a pillow, He grabbed it, so I tried to coax him out with it, he didn't come.

He stepped on my tote bag and my pitch pipe went off and that scared him and he jumped out of the car. When my friends came out we were very careful not to let him back in, he was still close by.

The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle is a children's board book with a flashy last page. There are 8 tiny light bulbs embedded in the back cover that turn on and blink when that page is opened. The illustration on that page is of 8 fireflies with the lights in their abdomens.
The switch for the bulbs is a plastic strip connected to the 3rd to last page; it goes through the next to last page and slides under the last page to operate the lights. This switch quit sliding back into place and left the lights on when the book was closed running down the little batteries.
My friend at the library asked me to fix it.
I pulled the back cover off revealing that the slit in the page for the sliding strip was torn just a little. This gave just enough slack for the strip to bend backward and not turn off the lights. I cut thin strips of plastic tape and repaired the edges of the slit, glued the cover back on and the fireflies now light up when they are supposed to and sleep when the book is shut.

We sang today at the Buffalo Bill Museum and then sat with Santa for a photo. The group has changed a bit from last year.

We are still doing fun songs and having a great time singing.

I came across a comment that we only have one word for snow. One of C.J, Box's books, Winterkill, I think, debates that and gives a list of words. The ones I remember are powder and slush. Anyone have other words that we use for the mantle of white?
I can think of many adjectives, drifting, blinding, gentle, sparkling, deep. I have driven in a whiteout that was probably a blizzard and shoveled 3 or 4 inches of what the weatherman called partly cloudy.

Whistle While You Work

I heard a new term tonight, "aggressively friendly". It seems our local hospital is taking the Disney approach to quality health care and going out of their way to be friendly.
I have been visiting friends in the hospital the last few days and have noticed that the staff seem on the alert for ways to make you comfortable.

The Disney institute is spreading the magic with seminars and showing the health and hospitality industry how to be more hospitable, "Be our guest! Be our guest! Put our service to the test." Their 4 elements of good service would improve nearly any organization.

Quoting an interview on Line Zine " One example is our program called Take Five in which cast members take five minutes out of their day to proactively do something special for a guest. We call it being aggressively friendly. Our cast members look for opportunities for magic moments—those little things that happen for guests that are utter surprises. For example, a housekeeper in one of our resort hotels discovered that a guest was not feeling well so she took the time to get chicken soup from a resort restaurant and bring it back to the guest.

As Mickey would say, "That sure is swell!"