Blueberries

 

 

 

Here we are cleaning and bagging blueberries we picked today in Georgia. We have 14 bags in the freezer and some in the refrigerator to eat fresh!

Lowrey Again

 

 

 

I am now starting a Lowrey "Play For Fun" organ program here in Tennessee. This is my work place!

Natalie Plays For Church

 

This morning, Natalie played "God Is So Good," for both services at church. I accompanied her and everyone seemed to enjoy her participation very much.

Surprise behind the new door!

 

 

If you look closely you can see some fingers where the door knob should be. I think something is in there! . . . Surprise! It's Natalie!! (Look at sister Joelle snickering in the background)

Building a Kitchen

 

 

 

 

Our carpenters are putting together our new kitchen. Sandra and her mom are studying two countertop samples and Doreen is sounding her opinions on the matter.

A Painting Job

 

 

 

 

I have been doing an inside painting job in a house which is 55 miles from where we live. It is located up in the knobs off the road about two miles. You get there on a two track mountain trail up the hill, through a fjord and back in a Holler! There is no cell phone service because the house is surrounded by high hills. Here are some pictures of the place. It really is quiet and peacful up there. Sandra has been going with me. We take a lunch and make a picnic outing out of the trip.

Almost finished

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple pictures of the downstairs bedroom w/carpet and paint and the bathroom and utility room with patching on the floor to make it smooth. We are getting closer to having our house project finished.

Lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's

 

 

 

Here is the colorful table set for lunch while Natalie and Joelle's mom and dad are in Texas. And, of course after hay stacks comes ice cream!

Ready for Church

 

Here are Natalie and Joelle ready to go to church. Isn't this a great picture?

Child Sitting!

 

 

 

 

Bad Pa Pa - Playing with food! First a mustache, then a down smile (with disapproval from Natalie), then eyes blocked out and finally, grandma tried to get Joelle with a mustache but it fell off and looks like a little beard! The food? Oh, it's a mostly eaten veggie sausage pattie!

Covering Drain Lines With Concrete

 

 

 

 

Today we rented a small cement mixer so I could fill in the trenches in the floor where we took out concrete in order to install drain lines (see November 13, 2008 entry). This little mixer was so cool. I mixed two bags of quickcrete at a time and wheeled the mixer right in to the ditch. We only needed a half yard of cement so I bought 15 bags of ready mix which almost did the entire job. I had to go back for one more bag, 16 total. Now I can finish hanging sheet rock. Of course Sandra helps by holding the trouble light and taking pictures etc. . .

Construction progress

 

 

The electric rough-in is completed. We have a new panel which was very artistically wired. The garage is covered with sheet rock. Some of it is actually on the walls! Isn't it a mess?

Hungry?

 

Take a look at this relish tray Sandra made for the Super Bowl party tomorrow night! I'm getting hungry!

Making a room

 

 

Well, we are working on putting up sheetrock. I was trying to figure out how to work the sheetrock lift. Then you can see that Sandra and I figured it out. This is the garage and we are putting up 5/8" Fire Retarder Type X on the ceiling and the wall between the garage and the living space. I have almost finished hanging the sheetrock upstairs and this is the garage. There is also a bedroom and bathroom on the other side of the wall on the garage level.

Grinder Pump

 

 

 

This is a continuation of the progress we are making on the conversion of the garage into a house. We do not have a septic system. It is a grinder pump which pumps sewage into the sewer pipe in the street. This is the hole where the tank (which houses the pump - the house drains empty into this tank) is placed. When the tank gets filled to a certain point, the pump turns on and empties the contents. The "smoke" is concrete dust. the tank has to be secured with cement!

Main Plumbing Drain

 

 

Yesterday, the plumber dug the ditch for our main drain out of the conversion house. It is about 3 feet away from the house.

More Flooding

 

 

 

The land across our creek is also flooding. One of the new culverts is not big enough and the water is running around it and over the flat land and down into our end of the creek.

Full Creek

 

 

 

We have been having a lot of rain and the creek behind our house is very full. Most of the year the creek has been dry but it sure is filled up now!

The Fight Concluded

 

 

 

 

The Fight Continued

 

 

 

 

The Fight

 

 

 

 

After Christmas dinner, we all needed to work off some calories. Joelle initiated a good old fashioned pillow fight. First it was just her and Steve but eventually it spread to Doreen and Natalie. You can see the sequence and they finally ended up on the floor!!

Christmas at Church

 

 

 

 

On December 20, the church put on a Christmas program in which we were asked to participate. Sandra and Doreen sang in a choir which Doreen helped to organize and they had me direct. The whole program was little vinettes staged with live people portraying encounters of several different people during the time when Christ was born. There was the encounter of Mary with the Angel, Joseph's encounter with the Angel, the Shepherds' ecounter with the Host of Angels etc. . . Here you can see some of the shepherds(Joelle and Natalie)with their sheep. At the end, Doreen and I sang with our friend, Randy. The song was "The Gift" which was sung on a CD by Randy Travis. It was the last song on the program. We had a good time helping with the play and thought all of the people acting out parts did a very good job.

Christmas Parade

 

 

 

 

Joelle and Natalie were in a Christmas Parade. They even got to ride in a float. Here are some pictures of the parade and the participants.

Christmas Eve

 

 

 

 

We had a very nice Christmas Eve with family. Grandpa reads a story to the grand daughters, Joelle opens a great gift then trys to play a tune, and wow, what a gift - a collection of State Quarters from Grammy and Poppie, then a display of money. . .money. . . money! And Great Grandma watches it all, remembering when one gift on Christmas was all that her folks could afford. We and our grandchildren are truely blessed, even if times are hard right now.