Fourteen Days of Christmas!! Post Views....28,412

           Dec. 11  Sunday....time for a Christmas concert at the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Vancouver.  



Friend Nancy and I (minus the turkey legs) headed out on a rainy afternoon to get to a 3 o'clock concert by the Vancouver Singers.  I drove and since we had gone there last spring I knew the church was downtown.  I did check mapquest to make sure I knew what streets to turn on and what direction.  It showed directions from a major interstate. I was going on a town street, but I saw where they both exited to the street we needed. I wrote down what direction we were to turn and how many blocks to the next turn.  That we did when we got there.  Nancy was happily counting the blocks we past.  Whoa!  We were headed to the interstate.  How did that happen and where is that final street we belong on? 
Why do strange things occur when one reads directions from the wrong direction?   I got turned around and Nancy started happily counting blocks in reverse.  We were somewhere near the church but I couldn't quite find it or the huge parking lot.  Luckily (for us) there was a couple walking near an intersection.  I stopped and asked where the church is.  They instructed me how to get to parking lot a couple blocks away.  The patient 2 cars waiting behind me were...well....seemed patient.   I had kept waving to them from the front window.....
    We were pleasantly surprised when the lady at the table gave us 2 tickets for the price of one.  Someone had just given them a donation.   The concert was a mixture of Christmas music from around the world.  My favorite was one about fish in a pond jumping and swaying for joy that Jesus had come.  Never had that visual before.  

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Monday, Dec. 12.  Went to town to see what I might buy....

                               Found something new, used to try.....

                          A treadmill, Oh My!!                 Found a spot where it snugly fits.       Now I can walk hills without going to the hills.....                  

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Tuesday, Dec. 13  Getting my cornbread on....


That evening our church was going with Pointman ministry downtown to give out coats, blankets, mittens, flashlights and tarps to the homeless.  We were also providing a spaghetti meal with corn bread and desserts.  

I decided to bake up 4 dozen corn bread muffins to take....used corn meal from the local grist mill.  

Having put on Christmas music I was soon dancing with my batter to the screeching and blaring of the Trans Siberian Orchestra.  Great stuff if one has had sufficient sleep followed by large quantities of caffeine..tea please.  

       It was a frosty, cold night for the PNW. We all bundled up toasty, except for our feet.
We were greeted by a full moon in a cloudless sky.

 I had pictured us standing there dishing up spaghetti and sauce on plastic plates, etc.  The reality was ladies had pre-packaged it in round covered cardboard contains and kept warm in an insulated carrier.  I still have much to learn...

Tents and shelters set up by the homeless.

We were fortunate on that Tuesday night because on Wed. a full blown cold and wind blew in that would have made it impossible for anyone to be out and about.  
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    Wed. Dec. 14   

Ladies from the park  out to lunch, 13 of us.  

No pictures of ladies, but of a nice patty melt. I had never hade on before and wanted to try.  Yummy!
Home before the freezing rain and snow set in.....
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Thursday, Dec. 15

Yep, it happens out here! Some folks like it...
Some of us don't....









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Friday, Dec, 16.....Gotta venture out....Pretty....sorta.....sunshine!
Time to mail  19 grand kids' cards...
Shopping day at Freddy's...
  Perm at Sophie's salon


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Saturday, Dec 17.....Yeah Deb!!  Congratulations!!

MBA from Concordia University, Portlan 

She was surprised and pleased to be "HOODED".  She didn't know that was part of an MBA!

Proud mom of rightly proud daughter!


Time to get my  party Portland on...

"Fire on the Mountain" buffalo wings....











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Sunday, Dec. 18  Children's service at church...and carols...

Home for more 

decorating and Christmas movies...

Not wishing to be there!!

Monday, Dec 19 ....don't remember

Tuesday Dec20...
lunch with a friend
                    

 SHOPPING at Freddy's
PM set up winter village...stays thru Feb.

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Wed. Dec. 21. winter solstice  
 cooking chicken dumpling soup
Home waiting, praying
    Angie Miller in surgery in Portland to get pain control device removed from her back....her and her mom's day...early morning to late night.
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Thurs. Dec 22....daylight starts getting longer again...my favorite day!

Afternoon and evening hanging out with the girls while Angie recovers from 1st day post op.

Chicken soup, tea and Uno, cookie making and movies


A Gracie dog's tail, tale.....

Mic says I can play Uno with the girls.  

Let's see, I don't like these cards


 Blue or 4, you say        Nope....             Didn't win...stupid game

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 Friday, Dec. 23...Christmas Eve Eve....

Grammy, I just woke up...2nd,day post op



Am I related to my Gram G??








Sure glad I'm not related....




From daughter Angie in southern Wisconsin....
Will this work for missing homework??

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MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

      This has been a good 14 Christmas days in the life of Grandma G.

  "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end."  (Isaiah 9:6)

Let Christmas Begin!....Post Views....28,250

     How much time and thought would YOU invest to solve a Christmas decorating problem?  How much time would YOU take to look for a set of favorite Christmas CDs?
      Shortly after Thanksgiving I started looking for my Christmas CDs that I have enjoyed year after year.  And like year after year once Christmas was over I had stashed somewhere just to quickly put them away until the following year when there would be more time to orderly organize and store all things Christmas.   
     I started out scavenging through a closet that I seemed to remember sticking them in a bag in that closet.  No luck searching there.  Maybe the closet in my bedroom.  No.  Maybe the guest room.  No.  That's enough looking for now.  
     A few days later my mind told me that with so much determination they MUST be in one of those locations. Repeat the whole process.  No success.  
     Christmas can't start until those favorite tunes are filling the air.  They must be somewhere in the teaching studio.  Search through the walk in closet, the storage Jacuzzi tub, the bags crowding the room.  No CDs.  WHERE is that bag of music??
     Couldn't even find suitable songs on the radio and even tried online recordings.  
      Guess I'll have to settle for a few cassette tapes I ran across.  At least it's Christmas music.  It took awhile to figure out how to play cassettes and rewind them.  Finally seasonal tunes, even though they were accompanied with a loud buzzing.  

     Time to turn my efforts to decorating. Bill had set up the tree, put on the lights and brought in several boxes of decorations for me.  


LET THIS BE THE YEAR!!

A fond memory I have from 60 years ago while living with my Aunt Emma in Wisconsin was the "bubble lights" she put on the Christmas tree every year.
     So a number of years ago when I found a box of them in a store I bought them.   Every year for several years I have tried to figure out how to put them on display even though I didn't want them in the tree itself.   It was awkward since the base was small with the intent of it being clipped to tree branches.  Last year I bought a chunk of thin green styrofoam but couldn't figure out how to make them stand up.  
     When Bill and Amanda were here she suggested displaying them on the fireplace mantel, hanging them from plastic hooks already there. The drawback was she thought they were icicles meant to hang down from the cord.  Nope....
     I liked her idea, though, and decided the mantel was a great place to have bubble lights doing their bubble thing.  Now, how to get them to stand up and stay standing up.   Out and on with the roll of scotch tape....
Held for a while and then a crackling sound like that of a miniature glacier breaking up started all along the mantel.  One by one the bubble lights overpowered the almost whole roll of tape.  Now What??  Think, lady....WaLa!! The light bubbled in my head....those nifty little sticky thingies that hold up plastic hooks and then can be removed at will....Oh, yah...maybe.  
A sticky side for the mantel and a sticky side for the base of each light....It worked....

All my ducks (err..bubble lights)  in a row, standing attention along with the tin soldiers!!
Salute!! 
Do you think Command Brand will send me a bonus check for endorsing their handy holders??

What's that?  Why tin soldiers, you ask??  And not graceful silver reindeer and Christmas tree that Gram G had up last year and the year before and....  BECAUSE...she found the soldiers, and not the graceful silver reindeer and Christmas tree. 

HOWEVER....when she went looking for them and thought maybe they had been stashed in a closet in the storage bathroom, she found.....

The CD's!!       And a  box of Christmas cards...

Now with her new $20 CD player Christmas music can fill the air without skips, repeats, squeals and blanks....

LET CHRISTMAS BEGIN!!!!!!


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Tell me something I didn't already know.....
Frodo is a close friend of mine...
And Sam....

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Red Hat Mamas' Christmas gathering at the Skill Center in Vancouver.  High schoolers can attend classes on cooking and restaurant work, beauty salon skills and pre-law.  They attend their regular schools in the mornings and spend the afternoons at the center.  When they graduate from high school they are trained for several job opportunities.  

Cooked and served by the students.....

I moved out here to get away from this stuff.....

can't complain too much, though....

 MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM GRANDMA G!

This has been a good 5 "Let Christmas Begin" days in the life of Grandma G.

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

(Isaiah 9:2)