December 19

I hope you all had a wonderful Saturday.  It was quiet here. We picked up mail and drove through the car wash. No contact with anyone. Dennis walked Chloe several times while I did some laundry. Nothing exciting, but I’m content. We’re healthy and have a warm home.  Also, my headache was completely gone today. Hooray! It hasn’t left that quickly for several years. I appreciate all of your prayers and warm thoughts. I’m sure they helped.

The box for the sleep mask had no information on it and I can’t get the copied link to work either. If you type in “Sleep, Bluetooth, Headphones, Headband” in the search bar on Amazon, it should appear. It was $19.85.

My stocking today.  The sweet little birds tail needed to be unfolded when I took the picture and I didn’t realize it until it was too dark for a retake. I’ll try to remember tomorrow and take another photo.

If you’re a long time reader you may recognize this view as the one from our house that we sold in July in preparation for moving back to Nebraska after retirement.  We drove by our old neighborhood on the way to the car wash, so we stopped to take a photo of Mt. Spokane. I do miss seeing this every time I looked out of our back windows at the house, but I really don’t miss having a house. The crazy thing is, we now live much closer to the mountain, but we can’t see it!

And now for the Piper part of this post.  She was supposed to be in a dance recital in the spring but, of course that was cancelled because of “you know what.” She already had her sweet little costume though. She put it on the other day and she and Mandy watched “The Nutcracker.”  Isn’t she cute?

Today she and Mandy took Grandma’s, (Dennis’s Moms), Christmas presents to her.  I had sent our gift for her along with Mandy, Brad and Piper‘s gifts so they could all go in one box. I know the postal system is overwhelmed this year. They ALWAYS wear masks and stay away from Mom.  She told Piper she wasn’t very good at math, so what did Piper do?  Little Miss Teacher made up some flash cards and drilled her Great-Grandma on her addition. 😂. Yesterday she gave me three tests, one in reading comprehension. Yes, she used the word comprehension! She’s 8!  One in math and one in sentence structure.  I had to take photos of my work and send them to her on messenger so she could grade them. I will find out if I passed them on Monday!  She’s a taskmaster.  Doesn’t Mom look great for her age?  She’s 85. I think she looks 20 years younger.

And this one is really special too.  Teresa, “Teresa Kasner” over on my sidebar, sent Piper these two books which arrived today.  Doesn’t she look happy?  Piper LOVES books.  The Betsy Beaver book was from the Vista House where Teresa played a key role in getting it renovated and open to the public.  The gardening book was a gift to Teresa from sweet Gracie, who is “One Saylor’s Log,” on my sidebar.  Gracie gave Teresa her okay to send it to Piper, so it’s from both of them.  I have the BEST blog friends. Both of these ladies remember when Piper was born in Portland, OR, very close to their homes. We girls used to get together several times a year for lunch and hours of chatting.  Since Mandy’s family left Portland, I don’t get there nearly as often.  Fingers crossed I will be there in the spring if the vaccine does it’s job. 🤞

Thank you so much Teresa and Gracie. You made my little girl very happy. You are such wonderful friends to me and I appreciate you both very much for thinking of Piper.

Well, it’s time for bed. I hope you all had a good day and are taking care of yourselves. I heard on the news today that there is a new strain of the virus making its rounds around the UK and Italy. I sure hope the vaccine is effective against it too. We all need to see our families. Keep your chin up and keep having hope. Things WILL get better.

Blessings always,

Betsy