Just one more cousin activity

From Mary

Alice and Rhiannon both love to read. 

One evening they decided to read together, 
taking turns reading a page each and then switching.
 

Betty wanted to be close by.

Betty was more interested in building and toppling a tower of paper cups.

Rhiannon with a Purple Based Colour Scheme

From Mary

You know that feeling when you find just the right pair of new shoes and you get them for a great price?



Well, Rhiannon and I were at Winner’s and we hit the jackpot.

She found two pairs of converse low tops – one black with rainbow stitching and the other with a purple based colour scheme that looks sort of like a galaxy or milky way image.



As soon as we got out to the car, Rhiannon wanted to change into her new shoes.



We did an impromptu photo shoot.



Since going back to Lethbridge, she has decided to colour a rainbow pattern on the sides of the white rubber sole.



I will have to do an updated photo shoot when I get back to Lethbridge.



Mary

Sweet, sour or salty.

From Mary:

What is your favourite taste? Sweet, sour or salty.

I love all three, but I am especially fond of sour and fermented flavours. This must be why I love Kombucha. A few years ago I was inspired to start making Kombucha because Richard was making it. I had never even tried it before when I started making it. I just wanted to be like him.

I used to bring it in and share it at work, and eventually convinced some friends at work who love to buy it and who were spending exorbitant amount of money of it, to start making their own as well.

So our Kombucha club was established.

It wasn’t until I tried the batches my friends were making that I realized how much sugar is typically found in the drink. I make mine very, very, very dry.

My friends affectionately called it “medicinal grade.” Sort of just like drinking vinegar.

I gave up making it many months ago when I started to cut more sugar out of my diet. 

Every once in a while I really crave a bottle but I usually find it too sweet when I buy it. 

This week, I decided to buy a bottle. This brand had three flavours – two had 24 grams of sugar in the bottle, but the blood orange only had 12 so I decided to give it a try.

It was very delicious, but I drank half one day and half the next day.

I am missing my medicinal grade Kombucha. Maybe I can just drink some apple cider vinegar.

Mary

Aunt Mary Goes to Taekkwondo

From Aunt Mary:

I got to go watch Betty do her class where they did testing.

She got her black stripe!!!

Her instructor also told her that there is a tournament for kids 4-7 coming up in March and that she was ready to participate if she wanted to.

Then I got to watch Michael and Alice’s class.

It was so fun watching all the kids practice sparring.

My heart rate jumped right up watching them try to get a point. Mister Scott is an amazing teacher.

He did a great job teaching the kids about the 5 tenets of Taekwondo which are: Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, , Self-Control, Indomitable Spirit.

Mary

More Park Pictures

Look at the beautiful arch in the Chinook sky.

The round steps that lead to the second floor
of the climbing equipment
are just the right size for Betty's feet

Alice goes to the top
via a different set of stairs.

Going to the Park at Banff Trail School

... leaving the south side of 26th Avenue...
We have been spoiled for days and days with a beautiful Chinook.

... onto the north side of 26th Avenue ...
She says Chinooks are way better than the winter freezing rain we get back in Gatineau.

Rhiannon is starting to like them.

Alice, Betty and Rhiannon decided to go for a walk to the closest park,
which is the one behind Banff Trail School.

This is the park where I played when I was young.

But they have a new updated playground which is beautiful.

First Day Home -- Post Surgery Happiness

Everyone wants to come home from the hospital to good food and good company.

We tried to spoil her with both.

Betty came by for a visit and some reading with Grandma.

... just one more tug on this braid ...

Then was served breakfast 
(avocado toast with tomatoes and a fried egg) 
with the most recent issue of the New Yorker magazine 
and lunch with the Montreal Musee des Beaux Arts magazine.

Later, Rhiannon did Betty’s hair. 

Arta was already happy with her hairdo,
so she just read her books.

This was followed by lunch.
The menu was banana slices with peanut butter and 
freshly made spelt chocolate chip muffins delivered by Wyona.

Cheesies at Grandmother's

From Mary

... the best size ever ...

Have you ever looked in all the cupboards at your grandma’s house looking for treats?




Since we had polished off all the chocolate in the candy basket with Uncle Richard the night before, we were searching for something new.




Rhiannon found Arta’s stash of Hawkins Cheesies.

We have only ever had the small bags of them.

Hello, I am speaking through my Cheesie telephone

She had the big bag of Cheesie that can be purchased at London Drugs.



And of course, it had been on sale.



We opened it up and Rhiannon for the biggest Cheesie either
 of us had ever seen.



It was as big as her hand.

... wow and wow again !!!

We thought it could even pass as a telephone.



Mary

Our first try at Tambuzi

From Mary Johnson

Uncle Leo sent a new board for Betty, Alice and Michael. Sadly, they saw it on the counter (Mary forgot to hide it) but it was too late at night to start playing. It was torture to know that it couldn’t even be played right after school the next day because the kids had Taekwondo.

... one quick picture before we run home for dinner  ...

We managed to find half an hour before dinner but after Taekwondo.

Only enough to learn the rules and play one round.

Hopefully we will have more time soon to play again.

The kids loved the game. It is sort of like a board game version of musical chairs with an electronic musical dice rolling contraption.

Everyone loves an element that includes flashing lights and music.

Mary

Musical Chairs in its newest form: TamBuzi

Review of Tambuzi by Haba
https://www.boardgamequest.com/tambuzi-review/

Leo sent a gift to the Johnson children: a board game variation on musical chairs.

Now musical chairs, itself, usually sends someone to the other room crying, or having another child fall to the floor having been pushed there by another more aggressive participate in the game, or it might involve someone with a record player, having to turn his face away from the game, so that taking the needle out of the groove doesn’t advantage one of his friends to win.

At least that is the way Musical Chairs was played years ago.

Leo couldn’t not buy the game. It was regular $50.00 for $5. OK. That made the price of the game tolerable.

... the game set p and ready to go ...
... the electronic bongo buzzer in the middle and ready to go ...

Mary and I played the game once last night so that we could refresh our minds with the rules. 

We took our time, since knowing how the game was played before (in real life) didn’t help us all that much.

We were sure that there had to be two rules when we played with the children.

No crying.

No touching the game board if it isn’t your turn.

With that we were armed the next day with the rules in our hands and the children by our sides.

The children were super thrilled to play the game of musical chairs in its board game form, shouting out TamBuzi.

One of the good points about the board game is that at least a participant gets two turns to loose before they are right out of the game. That was one good outcome.

The second is that the equivalent of taking the time keeper’s arm off of the phonograph is now a timer which can be made to flash with only with lights, or sound as though it is lightening, or growl as though it is an African jungle animal.

Now that is quite the time keeper.

The third good rule in the game is that the scoring is a little more difficult, making the participants needing to add a column of figures at the end of the game, which no one except Michael  can do yet, so the melt down over loosing can only occur when that part of the game happens, and which we just didn’t allow time for.

For out test with the children,  Mary and I decided to start the timer with the least aggressive sound and work our way up to death by lightening. Silence was the first mode of the timer.

“Ahhh,” the children wailed, thinking they were ready for the whole “African death by safari” sound at the outset of the play.

We had our characters jump around the board for just 30 minutes and then supper was ready. 

TamBuzi might not be the best pre-supper game to play, if parents are wanting a calm 30 minutes before eating begins. But we did have the advantage of knowing we can play the game tomorrow evening, so back into the box the pieces went before a winner was declared.

The analysis of the advantages of the game as declared by Mary and Arta?

Well worth the $5.

Arta

Musical Houses

I find that that it is not that easy to get Mary to do as I say. I would probably find that with everyone, having told them before the operation that I will be asking them to do irrelevant and sometimes useless jobs to do.  I also told them not to do these things.

Even given that I remember say that, Mary is not that compliant or flexible. She is, however. taking care of me so I am going to take that back. Mary is super flexible. For example, today Mary and I learned how to play a variation on the game of Musical Chairs, which I shall now call, playing Musical Houses.

Michael was having a D&D party at his house, getting his group of Grade III friends ready with characters for when the real work of playing D&D will begin next week.

Miranda must be the dungeon master. That is my guess for Alice and Betty were to come to my house. Richard came as well hoping to have some quiet time. Rhiannon took the girls

The True Spirit and Original Intent
of Treaty 7

to the park. Mid winter. Only in Calgary can mid-winter be a beautiful day. Maybe it was 9 degrees Celsius at the park. The girls swung from the monkey bars and slid down the slide. Richard spent most of him time sending me back to bed as Mary had instructed him to do. He has more fear of her than of me.

Of course, I am in a weaker condition than she. I laId on my bed some of the time and read The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 by Treaty 7 Tribal Council, Walter Hildebrandt, Sarah Carter and Dorothy First Rider. I am at page 110. I’ve finished this week’s New Yorker magazine, cover to cover. Well there you have it. Between the park and my house and Miranda’s house and switching who went where, all of us were accommodated.

Taking care of me is the most work. My pills come to me in small dishes. Liquids I have to drink come in tall glasses. Somebody has to be counting all this out and I am not quite able to do it my own yet with any accuracy. I am surprised at how much I drift in and out of sleep. I sometimes wake myself up out of my dreams giving instruction to people about what they should be doing. The are not in the room when I am giving these instructions.

Richard brought over dinner again tonight. It was Octoberfest sausage and cabbage – slow cooked. As well, everyone got to tell their favourite part of the day. I wanted to finish the day off with my favourite story. Or at least the one I am to make into my favourite according to Rebecca. It is a story created for Grade III kids and up – all about excrement.

Alice has a high need for things being fair. If Michael has had two cans of pop at his D&D party she wonders where her two cans of pop are. Richard reminded her that she got special treats on their grocery trip. “Does one sucker and one chocolate bar equal 2 cans of pop?” She was stumped.

Rhiannon left to go back to her Lethbridge home today. I wanted to show her anything that was startling or unbelievable or just too much to believe that a grandmother could think or do such a thing. Being already a bit over the edge, I find it hard to tip myself there again. In the back of my mind, I am always wondering just how far is too far with my stories.

Betty in full personal make-again,
thrilled to have foiund "twins" i Arta's box of dolls.

I did want to show her the secret compartment in a bedroom pieces of furniture where I keep all my rings.

She only found it boring to take a look at the drawer since she has no interest in jewelry. I did were a neon lime green top with black and white zebras appliquéd on it with lots of sparkly silver beads attached to the arms as well. I wanted to amaze  Rhiannon with my sense of fashion.

Mary thinks it was no shock, since this look oftren cmes from me.

Thus endeth day 5 of what seems to be just a normal recovery..

ARta

The Cat and the Hat and her audience

I brought these pictures down from Google docs, for they deserve to be seen and were so cute.

Who could ihave magined that Gabe and Naomi, two second cousins would be starring in the same part in the same musical just before Christmas -- and in cities 300 miles apart.

... Naomi as the "Cat in the Hat" with th full chorus ...

... Naomi disguised as a judge ... 

... Naomi disguised as the doctor in The Cat in the Hat: the Musical ...

... Richard and Michael waiting for the performance to begin ...

So many flavours of deer sausage

As we were eating supper last night, the old question came up, what was your favourite part of the day. Since we were eating bratwurst sausage, how delicious the meat was is often the topic of the answer to that question.

Richard was laughing and said, yes, and tomorrow there would be another discussion for he was going to make Stampede breakfast sausages which are very salty. The first one is delicious, the second one is salty, the third one very salty, the fourth one requires a glass of water, and the fifth one becomes the topic of conversation. Either the sausage requires another glass of water or the question is asked, “By chance, did you salt this sausage as you were frying it?” Yes, the stampede sausage is delicious for the first and second one.

Octoberfest is the flavour that the Johnsons will be ordering next. The butcher told Richard’s family to try the Stampede breakfast sausages first. A very good idea.

To finish off the list, Richard’s butcher also makes mild Italian sausage and chorizo sausage.

Something to watch for is does this sausage of nitrates. And that is a question all of us can ask at the meat counter now. In general, people are starting to watch.

For me, at the top of the list is deer bratwurst and deer chorizo. Who would have know there would be such wild choices.

Arta

Post-dinner Entertainment

We had 3 categories of post-dinner entertainment tonight: singing with a trumpet, unrestrained dancing, stories about famous games played in my basement. Firstly, to speak to the last first, Rhiannon introduced the children to a game called “who can run around the island the most times”. One game: 3 players; get ready, one at a time, get set, go. Michael is the winner of the game. 151 times before he stopped. Betty stopped to tell me that she wants to play the game tonight so that she can beat yesterday’s record. “I got a pain right here, yesterday,” Betty says, touching her lungs with her fist and looking into my eyes with terror at the pain of thinking of that run yesterday. I think to myself that she should just start today’s run with the number where she left off yesterday. Is there anything wrong with beginning the count using a cumulative number?

Arta. Sumarga, and Sumin reading

Some of the pages of the book may be taped together by now.
That is what happens to a well loved, well used book.

The second kind of tonight’s entertainment involves beginning with the Rhiannon’s trumpet and we get to sing every tune from the Lethbridge Grade VI band; “Old MacDonald had a Farm”, “The Camptown Races”, and “There was a Dog Who Had a Name”.

Fifteen minutes of crooning with a beginner’s trumpet and the kids know all of the songs, for we have been singing them out of a book that has picture from the United States National Museum at this level.

Fabulous pictures and Richard and Miranda’s kids love it that they know all of the songs.

We do all the most famous dances: the Crabwalk, the Dental Floss Move, the cartwheel move -- I love it that the 8, 6 and 4 year old feel as though the moves belong to them. Rhiannon didn’t know most of the moves but she could follow along. “Name a move!” “We can do it.”

Now, that’s entertainment!

Elk Bratwurst Sausage

Betty in full make-up,
hours before I go into surgery.
She is fully aware that the picture on her purse
has been done upside down,
so she is making a correction on that
for anyone who might see the picture.
I am sure everything inside fell out but
Betty was willing to take one for the team.

I don’t know if it were elk bratwurst sausage that we have this evening.

Perhaps we had deer bratwurst sausage. Large round sausages laying in a slow cooker with with cabbage.

Richard was afraid that the cabbage might not soften a few hours before we ate it.

But then, everything worked out. The $12 cabbage softened. I should write “12 cabbage” in bold and in caps.

He did pick the biggest cabbage of the lot.

 $12 for a cabbage.

Now does that look any better.

Ah, the meal was so wonderful, even at that price.

I was wondering if anyone else was sitting at a table tonight with this fabulous wild meat, so delicious.

Michael wanted his mango drink before we started to eat.

“One sausage, first,” said his dad.

Michaels fuel pump just needs to be primed and then he can eat.

Mary and I must have both been watching if that would work.

Michael asked for a second.

Michael asked for a third.

Michael asked for a fourth.

He does like those sausages.

His dad said, “Why don’t you ask Alice for the half she is not going to finish.

He asked and they made the trade and that was enough to finish him off.

So sweet to watch him eat, since he is a long match-stick width of a child, who takes the stairs going up, two at a time.

My goal is to do them one at a time with a crutch in three months.

10 Minutes or 60 Minutes

View to the prairies from South Campus Health Hospital

What I can’t tell since I got my new hip is how long I have been asleep.

Pain meds have given me a lost sense of time. 

Of course, the lost sense of time could also be that I haven’t been wearing a watch.

When I wake up I have no idea of what time it is.

In any event I went to bed last night at 11:30 pm and was up by 1:30 am.

So I stayed awake for an hour organizing my bedroom by putting everything that was had no home, on my bed. Then it was time for me to go to bed but I had no clear place to lie.

I cannot be the only person who has just shoved all of the pieces of clothing on my bed over and up a bit higher and then climbed into bed. If it is good to do once, it is good to do many days in a row, though I don’t think Mary will let me operate that way.

I had a wonderful time in the hospital – everything so new: the building, the equipment, the procedure, the view. I asked one of the nurses if they find that older people have a loss of memory during hip surgery. “That won’t happen in your case,” she said.

“How do you know?”, I asked.

“Because you are using your phone to take pictures and anyone who can do that at your age probably isn’t going to have that much memory loss.”

That really made me laugh. If I were to choose 3 highlights of my hip surgery, one would be watching the needle go into my hip to that it could be frozen for the hip block. That procedure took two doctors and a nurse and I got to watch that happen on a lovely black and white screen. I guess the next step will be doing having the show in Technicolour.

The second good part about the hip surgery was physio getting me right onto my legs and showing me the set of exercises for the next 6 weeks. As I grow older my respect deepens for two professions: pharmacists and physiotherapists. When I am told I am part of a health team, I really believe it.

The third thing I want to recognize is that there is a binder for everything – a binder and tabs. And a class that goes with the binder. I know our health care system is in danger of folding but in these three instances I hope there is no decrease of services.

And oh yes, a fourth componentthat makes good surgery: Mary coming to help for 10 days. I need every moment of her time. Mary goes to bed exhausted. I have the best of care, and the bonus of having Rhiannon here as well. She does homework or colours or goes to Frozen2 with her Mom.

Operation Left Hip

The case manager told me that my operation would be at 3:45 pm and that I should arrive at the hospital at 12:45 pm. All of that sounds easy. Many tests preceded this day. When the day had magically arrived, every step was activated with ease.

I had a choice. I could have a general anaesthetic or a frozen hip.

 I choose the latter. “Do you think Dr. Mackenzie does all of his own home repairs?” I asked after hearing a lot of grinding and chopping.

“I don’t know,” said the anaesthetist. “We could ask him,” he went on. "Helen is standing right over there. She works in the operating room as

 Dr. Frank Schnell and Dr. Willie Cabanatan are my hospitalist doctors.
They told me that the femur had fractured again,
just like last time, and thus the wire wrap to keep it together.
I am to do only general weight bearing on my legs for 6 weeks.

“He seems to be pretty good at it,” I said. “Still, no need to ask,” I said. “He probably does his work in the hospital and lets the home repair people do theirs at home.”

I elected to have just the frozen hip, not the general anesthetic. A person probably only gets two chances to do this in a lifetime.

The next day Dr. Frank Schnell and and Dr. Willie Cabanatan came to visit me. “You are still Dr. Schnell’s patient but we will be giving you after operation, they went on. As soon as your team tells you you are on your way, that is as long as we want you to stay. There are studies staying that the faster people get using their leg’s they bette they feel.

There is a lot of information that comes with hip surgery; first there is a 2 ½ hour teaching class. Then in the hospital everyone reinforces information that has been given over the days. I noticed that I paid a lot of attention to the facts that seemed immediately relevant and to those that seemed to be coming up soon.

My room mate fell to the floor as she was trying to make it to the bathroom the night after I had my surgery. Mary was there beside her, asking her if she needed help and she was saying no. That is another tricky point – when to accept help. There are many ms-steps along the way and after I saw her fall, I noticed that I began to take special care with my own two-wheeled walker. The physio-therapists had just been telling her that her best friend is her walker.

In my case, this is true as well. I am thrilled to be home, and even happier to have Rhiannon and Mary with me here this evening as well. They stepped out to see the earlier show, Frozen 2.

There is a mantra for walking with the walker: the good, the bad, the ugly. The good is take a step with the old hip, since it worked and has already been artificiailized. The bad is the old hip that required surgery. The ugly is the crutches or 2-wheeled walker. But the mantra doesn’t work for me. I consider the good hip, my new one, having waited so long for it. So I must say the surgical, the bad, the ugly, though none of the whole process is ugly. Quite the miracle from my point of view.

Arta

Hip, hip hooray

Betty is showing you the design
on the purse into which she has
packed small dolls.

There is one doll who is bad in a film,
so she has been hidden in a dark place.
Too scary to play with her, I think.

Betty likes to be called Brave Heart, Foxy and BBJ
but her mom mostly calls her Betty.

Betty has been to my house this morning, playing with dolls and doing crafts as I am packing to go have surgery today.

Sometimes they realize new hip people the same day.

I don't think that will be true of me, as my operation doesn't begin until 4 pm, which I well know could be pushed to hours later depending on how things go with the patients ahead of me.

I have to fast.

I don't feel one hunger pain.

I think I have at least a two day reserve and maybe even more.

Mary is coming up from Lethbridge to "work from home (my home), and do intermittent care

Marilyn Kearl 1925 - 2029

Her daughter, Kathy, sang the song (about her),
"More than Enough"

Greg and Wyona picked me up to go to Marilyn Kearl’s funeral on Saturday at the Crescent Road Chapel. Greg watches the obituaries in the Calgary Herald. That is how we knew to go to the funeral.

I first knew Marilyn Kearl because she sang in a trio with my mother and her sister in law, Ruth. They mostly sang at funerals. There aren’t a lot of other places for trios to sing unless they sing in church. They were asked to sing often and soon my dad would be shaking his head and making some comment about the type of music they were singing, and of course pratising, for I can remember all three of them gathered around the piano and practising.

Marilyn’s dates were 1925 – 2020 which would have made her 95 years old. After those early memories about her singing in a trio with my mother and Ruth, the most vivid memories I have of her is over the years at funerals. Harold and Ruth attended funerals, at least all of the ons I went to. I began to expect to see them there, always together when they talked to you, always friendly and reminiscing about the past, for they knew everyone who had been in my past, as well as many others, I am sure.

Three of her sons spoke. A grandchild played a piece. Her daughter sang. I wanted to say something about the talks. I don’t think I have ever heard talks at a funerals so consistently elevated, but delivered to the mourners and to the audience in such a way as to make all feel welcomed and indeed, adored. And this was also true of the way they felt about and talked about their mother. She had faults, one said, and then he went on to say that her teeth had been crooked, but that in the resurrection, those would be straight.   He went on to speak about something else.  I was left thinking, yes, he saw her as perfect except for her teeth and she is the one who wished them to be straight, not he.

... her children and her children's children ...

This is a funeral I want to say more about, a funeral people were talking about the next day at church and one that will be remembered as pretty close to the most perfect funeral a person could want or ever attend.  On the point of wanting such a funeral, it would only have to come if deserved and many women afterward were shaking their head and saying, i don't think that my children will speak of me with as much respect as Marilyn's spoke of her.

Since I may not get back to this, let me try to express my feelings about the funeral today.  The men who spoke did so with such refined language, sometimes refeerring to art or music or referencing literature, but in such a way that Marilyn was always the focus.  The light shone on her and how it shone that day of the funeral.  And this light was reflected back onto her loved ones.

Just a wonderful set of talks, even motivational for me in terms of giving respect to the task of parenting.

Her children probably knew her longer as an adult, than they ever knew her as children, and I think it was this mature relationship with her that was outstanding.

More to come, but today is my day to get a new hip.

Some must wait for the resurrection for straightened teeth.

My new hip?  I get to have mine today.

I am sure Marilyn would approve. 

Straightened teeth for her and a new hip for me, all in the same month.

Arta

A pair of ungulates spotted dining on willows.

Dinner conversation can be hard to get started. We each need time to shift our focus from what we were doing to what is in front of us without our thoughts skipping ahead to what we want or must do next. January 16th was no expection to this rule for the three of us gathered around a Churches Thrift Shop table in our sanctuary in snowy Secwépemculecw.

Apple pie always makes me think of Grandpa Doral.

Joaquim reported over dessert that at his work there had been some unexpected visitors. I offered him no more than a fleeting glance of acknowledgment, my mouth watering, with my mind focused on the hot slice of Laura's apple pie on my plate, my fork hesitating above the the tiles of the triangle, my eyes darting back and forth between the cooler crust and the tongue scalding potential if the pie filling.

It wasn't until today, more than a day later, that I processed what he had been sharing, and understood the joy in his voice. I was catching up on the news, and read in the  Shuswap Observer that two moose had been sighted at the Okanagan Community College. The article included a link to a video: there they were, a pair of magestic creatures on the other side of the library glass windows,  having a mid day snack. "If they had been in Catalonia," I wish I had asked Joaquim, "would it have been a little early for berenar?"

Alice Comes By to Read

.... Alice and Betty sharing a toy lll

Alice slipped over to my house to see me today. She said that Michael wasn’t coming. She didn’t know why.

Moiya had called me just as Alice walked in the door, so we had a three-way conversation, before I sat down to read phonics with her.  Moiya at the Shuswap and Alice and me getting ready to read.

Alice was listening carefully to Moiya’s questions. When Moiya quizzed Alice about the Chinese New Year Party last week, Alice didn’t have much to say until Moiya asked her what was the most fun of the party.

... Alice on Christmas Day ...

“Going home,” said Alice.

Moiya was laughing pretty hard and said that shc could hardly wait to hear what Wyona would say to that.

 Then Alice told Moiya that it was the red envelopes at the end of the party: the ones filled with money. The bags that she could take home.

Yes.

That was a sweet part of the party.

Every party should finish off that way.

Arta

Snow, snow and more snow ... from Moiya

In one of these pictures you will see that we were a little 
unprepared for the amount of snow and cold this year.

Enjoy your warm cosy homes today, everyone.

It surely would have been nice to have Internet 
during these times we are confined to the home. 
We’ve now been without it again for four days.

Just look at the small amount of logs we have left for our fireplace.
Thank goodness we have electric heat as well!

Love and warm wishes,

Moiya