Work and stuff

It's brrr.... cold this morning. It's been a few weeks since temps dropped into the mid-20's, but that's where they are. The skies look fair, and fog (freezing) is drifting through the Narrows. There is shiny, sparkly frost on the front lawn and on the roads. Once again, I drove Elise over to the hospital for her 2nd 12-hour shift.

Well, even though we don't have to directly pay for heating costs here, we sure are paying for heating an empty house in Tigard. Last month's natural gas bill that we just received came to almost $150. Here's another reason we really want to have the house taken off our hands.

The hoar frost was absolutely stunning today. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera with me on the bike. They looked like hundreds of little flowers coming up out of the sheets of ice and the wooden outside steps at the church.

For those with more British leanings, yesterday was Boxing Day, and for all others, December 26. It was Elise's first 12 hour shift at the hospital as part of her clinical experience. Everything apparently went okay, though she says her feet are tired from standing so much.

There's been a strain of the flu going around, and the long-term (nursing home) patients at the hospital are all down with it. There's probably a better than even chance of most of us coming down with it, now that Elise will regularly be exposed to all the nasty stuff.

What this all means is that I'm responsible now for handling many of the domestic duties in addition to the church duties. Things will get busier now, I suppose. Fortunately, the kids are mostly pretty good at taking care of themselves. What needs some prodding and motivation is in regards to schoolwork. I noticed that Amy has quite a bit of schoolwork left for this week still, so I'll have to nag her some more.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been doing quite a bit more sitting than moving. Various reasons, but the overall result is that I've been feeling sluggish. This morning, I rode the bicycle over to the church, stopping at the Post Office on the way to drop off a few items to be mailed. The cold air sure felt good hitting my face. On the way back a couple of hours later, there were a few snowflakes coming down.