and more pictures of snow

Didn't realize it when I took the picture, there are two geese in the river...

Looking into our landlord's backyard

More snow

The maple tree out by the road

I figured we don't get snow like this very often, when all the trees are really covered and pretty. Trying to make lemonade out of lemons...

Natalie's first picture

Penny enjoys watching Dad play the Wii.

Natalie had a little "adventure" with my coupon organizer one day.

"So happy together!"

The twins

Last May we "rescued" along with Nick's cousin Laura a pair of abandoned kittens. Its been fun having them around and life would seem empty without them. Even though they look very close to identical, their personalities are completely different.

Natalie is the darker one, she has no orange in her fur and a streak of black down her back. Natalie likes to play, mostly with her sister, but more often I will find her curled up on the couch napping. She is always the first one to come cuddle with me when I am reading on the couch or in bed. She also spends most of the night sleeping on me...

Penny has the same markings as her sister, but less black and more orange. She is the adventurous one; jumping the gate that keeps Freddie in the kitchen so she can see if there is any food to steal. (its happened more than once)

Ever since she was tiny Penny has had an appetite that cannot seem to be satisfied. She will steal a whole bag of cat treats, run with them, proceed to rip open the package and eat all of the contents. I guess you could say Penny is our problem child...When she is behaving like she should, she will climb into my lap on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon when we're being lazy. She will stay there all day if I let her...

We love em. Its fun having sisters around, they do mostly everything together, they love to take naps together, giving me lots of excuses to use my camera! I'll post pictures in a bit.

Our Neighbor Jack

Jack is a friendly guy that lives next door in Alva and Amanda's garage. He's a little skittish of certain people, and we don't see him very often during the winter.
This morning I was taking the newspapers to the curb when I thought I heard him, but wasn't sure. When I was walking back up the driveway towards the apartment I noticed him in one of the spruce trees dividing the two driveways. (In case you hadn't guessed by now, Jack is a cat.) Jack is gray with black stripes, he has a small pointed face and short tail. He looks remarkably like our Natalie, but right now he is much bulkier because he stays outside all year.
He was sitting about halfway up the tree, crying at me. So I walked over and was talking to him, he acted like he wanted to get down, but wouldn't jump for some reason. My guess is he found a bird family and wanted to see if there were any treats up there for him. I came back in the apartment and found something to tempt him down (Jack has a taste for chewy cat treats).
That did it, he found a way real fast then, ate the treats, let me scratch his head and his back, rolled over on the ground and looked at me like he was really considering adding me to his list of friends.
I will have to try to get a picture of him someday, but he may be nervous about cameras, he's nervous about everything else.

Lazy Saturday

Its so hard to believe that the shower was a week ago. I feel like I just finished cleaning up yesterday. And this is a Saturday when Nick has no service calls (yet), I have no where to be, so we hibernate so to speak and spend the day being bums. Its nice though, we don't have to spend money to go anywhere to eat or on gas. Yet we still spend the day together. Well, part of it. Since this is one of the few Saturdays Nick can sleep in he probably won't be out of bed before noon. Its ok, I slept later than usual too. I had some cleaning up to do in the kitchen anyway from Gret and Betsy being here last night.

I'm typing this and can hear Jesse's cat Tinka above me running back and forth like crazy. She was in the window overlooking the back yard when I took Fred out earlier, she seemed very interested in what that big hairy white cat was doing on a leash hooked to me. Its hard to imagine what Tinka would think if she and Freddie ever met face to face...

Life is Peaceful

Now that the shower is all over with, life has gotten very nice and quiet. Tuesday and yesterday evening we had dinner with Jesse. Its nice having family close by so we can have dinner and Nick has someone to play games with.

During the day I have been reading or crocheting. I finished "Girl with a Pearl Earring" yesterday. Betsy had recommended I read it ages ago, and I finally found a copy at the library here in Belmont. It isn't due until next week, but I will probably walk down there with it today.
Now I'm reading Tiger Lillie. Which seems interesting, the author certainly has a sense of humor. I'm just not sure where she stands on some things. Supposedly its Christian Fiction, but I reached a part last night where the main character has a bad date and calls her friend that lives in the same building. The friend is male, and seemed a little questionable to me. We'll see what the next chapter brings. Hopefully its one of those Harry and Sally things...

Nick and I have avoided the flu or the plague if you will, up till now. I'm almost afraid to go out of the house!!! That will probably change tomorrow. Gret and Betsy want to get together to do something. We'll probably end up eating in Wellsville or here in Belmont. It would be nice to see them, I think Christmas or just after it was the last time we did anything.
Well, stay warm everyone!!!

Whew!

Well the shower is done. All that planning and its over in a matter of hours. A bunch of people didn't make it because of weather and other various reasons, but Hannah and I both agreed that if there were many more it would have been very over crowded!

So we had WAY too much food, no one had really cancelled until Saturday morning, and all of the groceries were already in my fridge by then. Oh well. Nick and I are eating leftovers all this week.

Today I have to get regular food though, we need milk and other staples. I have to declutter the kitchen first or I may go nuts. There are food containers, bags with serving trays, bags with candy and nuts, leftover cake, and leftover favors everywhere!

Nick had to stay for the lock-in Friday night so he was completely exhausted all weekend. He slept most of Saturday and Sunday. I went to church yesterday morning, came home changed into jeans and did almost nothing productive. I always forget how tiring it is to plan parties.

The one productive thing I did, was call the landlord about the hot water in the kitchen. For months now, every time we would turn it up too far, it would sound like the pipes were shuddering like mad and the pressure would drop off. The dishwasher wasn't working right, and I was hoping that the water was either not warm enough, or it wasn't enough pressure. So Alva came over, turned a knob under the sink that I must have bumped or something, and viola, we now have pressure! And it seems to have fixed the problem with the dishwasher too! It took about 45 minutes less for it to run through last night. Thats the best its ever done since we got it in November!

That was my weekend. Now I get to look ahead to the next shower, Darlene and I are throwing one for Laura sometime this summer. The weather should be better for this one I hope. ;-)

Bad Weather

We are praying for good weather. It can snow, just no rain, or ice, and not so much snow that the roads close. People in this area know how to drive in snow, its the other stuff that worries me.
We have so much food for this shower Nick and I will be eating muffins and scones for the rest of our lives if no one comes! Please pray for a changed weather report! I want this shower to be a happy memory for Naomi, not a sad one because everyone was snowed in.

Shower planning

As a Matron of Honor in my sister Naomi's wedding, I have the pleasure of co-planning a bridal shower. This is my first shower of any kind, so it is uncharted territory. My partner in the planning (my other sister Hannah) doesn't arrive until the morning of the shower, which is completely understandable. She is driving from NC to my parents home Friday and coming the rest of the way with them Saturday. I really don't know how much time we will have to setup, etc. once they arrive.

It seems like there are a million things left to do yet:
Try to decorate the room upstairs in the church so it will look nice.
Bake all of my goodies that can be done ahead of time, probably on Friday.
Bake cookies with Deb and get them packaged and tagged for favors.
Buy groceries for this week and for the party.
Strain the syrup for the punch so there are no strawberry seeds in the punch.
The list goes on and on....
Please pray for my sanity.

A new neighbor!

We have a new person in our building! Nick's cousin Jesse moved into the empty apartment upstairs yesterday. Its exciting to have some family here in Belmont.
He'll be bringing his cat Tinka down soon, yesterday we worked on getting his big furniture moved in so he could at least sleep and have a place to sit. Aunt Chris and I did some cleaning in the kitchen and bathroom for his first night here. We also unpacked his dishes for him to get the kitchen a little more settled. Jesse was subjected to my cooking for the first time late last night. After he made his last trip from Wellsville we offered some dinner for his first night here. Who wants dirty dishes on their first night in a new place???
He's got a nice little place up there, a "bachelor pad". We hope he'll stay a while. =D