Happy Epiphany everyone!

My family and some of the Facebook readers recognized today as being Epiphany, which also doubles as my youngest sister's birthday---today, her 50th! Wow! Now she could be a wise man, or woman, as the case might be! She is spending her day fishing (ooops!, I was not supposed to let our mom know that!) Certainly the lake is plenty hard to allow for ice fishing and I even think the St. Johns River would work for that, too, today! Kerry very much enjoys fishing and reported on her first outing this a.m. that she caught only one tiny perch (awww....I want some!!!), had come home to warm up, and was going out once more this afternoon. Good for you, kiddo, I wish you good fishing and a happy birthday!

This is a photo of Kerry in Lori's kitchen in Holmen, getting things ready for Dusty's graduation party. Oh, we had such fun that weekend!

*

As for me, Justin recommended I not get out of bed today because it is terribly chilly 'round these parts. In fact, Kerry reported this morning that a quiz on the TV news showed that Jacksonville was actually colder than Sturgeon Bay, located on Green Bay. Now, that is just messed up, as Suzanne would say! Many are anticipating the possibility of snow falling here this Friday, as the weather situation looks like this could happen. I will not starve or thirst to death by staying in, because I have several pizzas in the freezer, some from my 'bonus' shopping at Winn-Dixie plus one left from my family was here. My "shopping like a rock-star outing" at WD the other day garnered me another fantastic deal--get this---buy two Tombstone Pizzas and get frozen cheese sticks, frozen garlic bread, Breyer's ice cream, and a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke for the price of the pizzas! Wow, by any standard, wow! I must have about four containers of ice cream in there now from previous deals like this, plus some leftover from when we had dinner here in November with Linda J.!!! Lori had some when she was here but not nearly enough to make room in my freezer....

*

Justin came by quite early to carry up my purchases from yesterday, and told me he did not need to refrigerate the soda or water because it was already quite cold. He has to mow lawns today and that might help him to warm up some, at least, I hope so. I would think the grass would be crispy enough to just snap off rather than be mowed. We will be at Bible study tomorrow at Victory before his class in Local Governance. Sounds interesting to me, and he plans to talk with my upstairs neighbor, Travis, about this. Travis recently ran for and was elected to local office and certainly loves to talk! Justin's Earth Science professor is not a follower of the 'global warming' theory and spent their first class debunking the 'science' used to make the claims. Finally! Justin was quite excited about his "first day of school" experience in 2010!!

*

I was in school a bit today too, as I did not vacate my bed until absolutely necessary. I read an interesting article on the back cover of the January "Forward in Christ" magazine about the game of "Sorry" and a child's death. The author uses the example of playing this board game, moving the tokens around to get to "HOME" the fastest. This is how it is when a child dies, they achieve their place in heaven sooner than expected, but in God's time. How appropriate an article for 'this time of year' for me. Even Pastor K. mentioned it to me yesterday on the phone, about this time of year, and he was not even around here when Timmy died. That means a great deal to me, as one would imagine. Since Justin does not get the magazine, he asked me to make a copy for him and bring it along to Bible study tomorrow morning.

*

Mom sent me an e-mail today reporting that a former co-worker of ours had died, that her picture was in the local paper in Manty. I went on-line to read it and found myself reading more than I expected to read. There is a quilt show at the Rahr Museum until this weekend which I hope my family takes advantage of, since our family friend is a competitive quilter and might have one there. Also, I read through a couple discussion threads, one being about people's favorite bars around town (yes, this is beer country, folks!) and surrounding areas. Oh, how fun! While I did not attend these bars, my sister and Linda did, so many of the names were familiar to me. The only bar I remember going to was on 8th Street where my future bro-in-law was a bartender....can't recall the name, though. Of course, the Green Street Tavern does not count because I am not there to drink!!!

*

The other 'thread' I read was about the characters of old and now that roamed the streets of my hometown, and the neighboring community of Two Rivers. What fun that was!!!! Many I did not know, since we lived in the country, but many I did know, and one I know well---Tommy Drill! He got rave reviews throughout the thread, many kudos for his generosity and good nature. Others did not fare as well, mostly due to their being a few pickles short of a jar or similar descriptions applied to them. Many commented on Mike, the window washer, who took care of business' windows in any kind of weather, working off his bike. "Hector the Inspector" was the way he was addressed. I learned lots of Manitowoc history plus got a link about an area author who wrote about growing up there. Amazon will be bringing it to me in a less than a week, and can be my first book read in 2010!