Saturday: I am never totally excited to put up my Christmas tree ... it kind of puts me out of my comfort zone to move furniture and add MORE clutter to this already small space. But having said that ... I DO love this time of year--not because it's all warm and cozy and emotionally happy--lots of times there is quite a bit of added stress that comes with the holidays, especially with relationships ... but putting those things aside I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I love it because I can play Christmas carols without feeling "odd" like I do when I play them in August! I love it most because God stepped out of heaven and became a human being for us, when we were His enemies through and through. I don't think I will ever exhaust the amazement of His awesome love for us. Christmas is a good time to remember all He has done for us.
I took a few pictures of my Christmas trimming adventure. For once, I actually put the tree together, got both strands of lights draped around it without any negative incidents ... and then I stopped and waited to decorate it until Sunday. That was a good decision.
My tree is tall and narrow. It has to be! I only have a 3' sq. space to put it in--and it fits pretty good there!
A few years ago, I condensed all my Christmas decorations into these two totes, which are easily spotted in the shed behind my house.
I move this small bookcase from the living room into the "dining room" to make room for the tree. I have a "Little People" nativity set that I got probably 10 years ago now. The little kids love to play with it.
I picked Kaity up at 3:30 from Jesse. She came over for a little while and we just hung out together. It was good to see her--she had been sick last week and couldn't come over. I missed her!
I've been noticing a "noise" in the last few days while I am driving. At first I thought it might be the brakes--but it wasn't exactly THAT noise I was hearing. Kaity noticed it too. On the way back to Jesse's, we decided to road test our noise to see if we could narrow down when it occurred and under what conditions. Kaity looked in the glove box and found a note pad and a pencil to write our findings down. She was hugely enjoying this. We found that the noise happened especially when first starting up (like from a cold start) and going slow, especially when turning the car LEFT. Fast speeds? No noise. Slamming on the brakes at a good speed? No noise. Driving straight ahead ... a noise now and then.
We reported our "findings" to Jesse when we got to the house. Jesse diagnosed that I have a wheel bearing that is going bad. He looked things up on the internet to see if he could do the mechanical work on it, but found that since my Kia is a SOUL, the wheel bearing requires a certain compression machinery to replace and install. SO, Jesse is going to talk to some "car" people he knows and recommend a place first thing Monday morning.
This last picture of the tree was taken Sunday evening. The tree is all decorated now. I moved the little nativity underneath the tree where Erin and Cal can readily reach and play with it.
PS. The 14.5 inches of snow we received out here in Belmont just one week ago has entirely melted! There are just a few "piles" where it had been shoveled out of the way. What a weird weather week. Two weeks ago on a Friday, we had a high of 75 degrees. Six days later, we started our 3-day snow event with temperatures dropping into the upper 20's and low 30's. THIS weekend, we've been in the upper 50's. Only in Michigan!
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