First Sunday of Advent!

 It's time again to prepare for the coming of Our Lord! And as much as I love to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I also love to anticipate His coming again, and I pray that it is soon! 

I do wait in Joyful hope! I love to decorate and make the house look all festive, but I don't like to do it all at once. It took a long time for Jesus to come the first time, so I like to make the preparations for Christmas slowly as well. I have started by getting out some of the Nativities and, of course, the Advent Wreath! 

It was a beautiful day, and I worked on planning for the next few days, trimming Cora a bit, getting a walk in with her and now I am waiting for the Ravens to try to beat the Browns. Hoping that they manage to pull it off. 

Paul and Madi drove back to school today. He'll be back in a couple of weeks and we will head off to Texas! We'll be there for a week, which is short, but he needs to get back and get some work in before he goes back in January. 

Such a Beautiful Week!

 It has been such a wonderful week of fun and family!

I haven't blogged, but I have been taking pictures. There has been so much color in every day. I am just going to put up a bunch of pictures and caption them.

The weather has been just amazing, until today. Today was windy and freezing. 

Last Saturday at the Lockhouse. We walked on the Joe K loop.

Love the Fall here in our little Town!!

Hey! A water view!

Pretty Cora in the Fall leaves- 11/23

And Thanksgiving was yesterday. It started out beautiful and went on all day. What a Blest life this is!

A sleepy puppy

Turkey in the oven

Sweet Madi making the frosting

Table is ready!

Sweet Potatoes ready to bake

And brocolli!

Some of us

Sterling hiding from Cora. Sh. Don't tell anyone.

Thank You Lord!

 What a beautiful morning!! I am so excited to get out in the yard today and get things cleaned up. We have wonderful warmish weather, that is probably going away next week, so I am looking forward to my projects. I think I will start a fire and burn some leaves! 

A Beautiful Ride!

 Lilly finished school early today so we headed to the farm and Ivy. It was a gorgeous fall day and perfect for riding!

Those two are really getting along well. I am so impressed. Ivy has blossomed with added training, and Lilly is a confident and capable handler and rider. Ivy is a bit of an imp and likes to have her fun, so she plays around and acts like a silly filly, but not in a serious way. She was being goofy and spooky and giving Lilly something to pay attention to, but Lilly took it in stride and made her do a few things to make her think. A good pair those two. 

In Town for the Season

 In Britain it used to be fashionable to go "down" to London for "the season", which was a very important time to get your little ladies out into the public view so that they could find mates, in order to secure the estate and bring up the next gaggle of aristocrats.

In the good old US, particularly in my neighborhood, the season is different, but the gents are coming into town for a couple of reasons. For the ladies, and because it is a whole lot safer here than in the back woods. This guy has been hanging around our yards for the past few days. Yesterday he was checking out the backyards and enjoying the relative peace of a gun free environment. 

Today he was parked across the street, courting, for a good two hours. The object of his affection was hidden in the bushes and playing very hard to get. He was oblivious to traffic, school buses and Cora barking at the front window. 

He's an impressive fella!

Quarantine....

 Well, Tim has come through Covid with flying colors, and numbers too! I am so glad!! 

Three more of us have pretty severe colds, but have tested negative for covid. Still, we are staying away from everyone until our quarantine is up, sometime the middle of the week. I think I am going to have to go into the doctor's to get antibiotics because I have had a sinus infection hovering around the edges for weeks and now it has become a real thing. 

The weather has just been magnificent!! Sunny and almost warm! Today was windy and chillier, but still so nice. I took Cora downtown for a walk and she seems to enjoy herself very much. 

The Marriage Enrichment evening is happening right now! I hope it goes well. I wish we were there. Barbara took some pictures today and everything looks so nice! I hope the program goes over well. 

I will be so glad to get out of quarantine! I went to Walmart and picked up some groceries, and I am really glad to have that service. 

Then we drove over to drop Nina and Lilly at the farm so that they could feed the horses. Fin's truck blew up last night... Hopefully he can get that replaced. 

Now that the marriage event is behind us, I will focus on Spiritual Direction for my new people. One of my small groups is almost finished, and I will be down to two bible studies a week. I am looking forward to the holidays! 

Caught in Covid

 

Well, unfortunately, after months of vaccinated security, Covid finally caught up with our family. Tim was away on a work trip and he probably brought the nasty home with him. It was a surprise, I will say! 

We had been having a busy week preparing for the Marriage Enrichment evening that we have been working on, and Tim and I attended a dinner meeting at the home of our friends Ed and Kate, with most of the rest of the team. The next day I was busy running around and Tim worked as usual. Yeah that was the day that I had to go down for Spiritual Direction. That evening Tim started to feel like he was catching a cold, and then the next day he was feeling really rotten. He thought that he had some kind of virus, but Nina said that he should get tested to be sure that it wasn't Covid. It was Covid. 

Of course, my first thought was, "thank goodness for vaccines"! Tim is healthy, but he has a few risk factors and even people with no risk factors are getting very sick. The vaccine has mitigated the worst of the symptoms. He has a been really tired, congested, and feels rotten, but since the weekend, it is definitely better each day. Praise God! I am just so glad that things are not going the way that they might be. 

He has to quarantine for probably another week. I have to quarantine for a little longer than that, although I have been going for walks and getting outside in the beautiful weather as much a possible! It is just such a beautiful Fall!

Sunday was a good day for my sports! Max Verstappen won the F1 race in Mexico, and the Ravens squeaked out another win, just barely. If it weren't for Justin Tucker and Lamar Jackson, this season would be a complete loser. I hope they figure it out, because my nerves just can't take too much of this.

In other news, Cora got her winterwear, and she is not impressed. I put it on her and she immediately became immobile, which may come in handy for one thing or another, jk.

This morning the neighbors surprised us with a tree-removal company, and the removal of all the trees between our yards! It's really different now! It will take some getting used to. 

Cora enjoyed watching the action in the front yard. 

Days in This Season

 

Weather has been the theme for the last week or so.

I haven't blogged in a while, but I have been taking pictures, so all is not lost. 

It was another busy week, and every time I would think of blogging I would get pulled off into something else. So here's what happened last week.

Tim was away, so I had to stay fairly close to home because I was on puppy duty. We still don't like to leave her in her crate for more than a couple of hours. I have no idea when I will be able to trust her in the house, but it's not this week! She has taken to snacking on the covers of the books on the bottom shelves of the bookcases. It isn't cute. She is doing great on potty training...but I can't trust her with a thousand other things.

Wednesday night we had our Revelation study, and I made an apple cake out of some of the apples that Dean gave me. Man, those things are good. I made two more for various reasons and they have all been very well received! And I have also made some chunky applesauce, which is really good!

Thursday I had a Spiritual Direction appointment here with one of my ladies, and then I took Cora out for a walk. The weather last week was amazing!

 

We had quite a little storm on Friday as well. The tide was higher than usual, and with the wind and the rain it was pushing up above the promenade! I went for a walk, took pictures, and got soaked. It wasn't cold though.

 This week is entirely different. The mornings are freezing!! I had to get out my heavy coat!

I have a lot to do around here. Lots to read and prepare for. I have a few appointments with prospective directees, and my own Spiritual Direction today. Tomorrow I will head up to the home of a friend to help her get some organizing done, and then tomorrow night is a healing mass and I am going to be on a prayer team. 

I'll try not to let so much time go by between posts.