December 9th

Howdy-hi everyone!  My goodness it’s a dismal day outside today. Completely opposite from yesterday. We had what they call a wintry mix off and on all night long, but when I woke up it was 34°F so at least nothing was freezing to the road. Just very messy. It hasn’t warmed up at all today and it’s dark and gloomy too. I’ve had all of the lights on and candles lit since I woke up this morning. Our sunsets now are about 3:50 in the afternoon.  It doesn’t come up until 7:30 in the morning. By the winter solstice we will have well less than eight hours of daylight. But the glorious summers make up for it, when the sun comes up at 4 in the morning and is out until almost 10 at night!  Believe me, I’m not really complaining, some some days we just don’t get much light this far north at this time of year.  Some of you in Canada have even shorter days, so please forgive me if it seems like I’m whining.

My sock today held some more surprises. Candy and a charging cord for both my iPhone and iPad. Very nice!

I did yesterday and today’s color on the charity blanket. The blue stitch is called the floret stitch. The yellow is plain single crochet.  The purple was for today and it is the double crochet cluster with a single crochet in between each cluster. I’m really enjoying this blanket as it’s giving me a break from the sweater I’m working on. I can’t show it to you because it’s a surprise for the recipient. 🤫
 
This is the sticker that was in my day 1 mini-stocking. I wasn’t sure if it would stick to the wallpaper wall in the bathroom here in the RV, but it did. I really like it! It’s on the wall next to the sink and the shower is directly to the left of this.  It is removable and will just peel off.

I had a few readers who are newer to my blog ask me about our kids. So I thought I would explain our family a little bit to you all.  Our oldest is Mandy and she is married to Brad and they have a eight-year-old daughter named Piper. Mandy is a nurse and she has been very busy over the past year as you can imagine. Brad is in management  and I’m not sure exactly what his job entails, but it involves drilling tunnels under rivers!  Our middle child is Jamie and he is married to Crystal and they have two children, Kyleigh and Caleb. They are teenagers and Kyleigh is driving. Oh my, I can’t believe it. Jamie works for a silicon valley company while living in Montana. Don’t even ask me what he does. It involves computers! Crystal works for the post office.  Our youngest is Alex and he moved to Japan permanently when he was 19 and has his own company there.  He just turned 32. He is engaged to be married to a lovely young lady named Tara.

Dennis’s job brought us from Omaha, Nebraska to Spokane, Washington 27 years ago this month. We never thought we would leave our families and move halfway across the country. We will hopefully be retiring before too long and moving back to be near our family.  As much as we love the inland Northwest, family means even more. We knew it before, but this past year has cemented it even more into our hearts and minds. Well, that’s us in a nutshell!

I hope you’re all hanging in there. From the comments on yesterday’s blog it’s pretty apparent that many of us feel the same way. Some days are good and some days this isolation really gets to us all. I’m sure glad we have each other to talk to and we know we’re not alone. If any of you ever need to just talk, please reach out to me. I would be happy to give you my phone number so we could visit. Sometimes you just need to hear another voice don’t you? 

I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday.

Blessings and love,

Betsy