So tommorow is 2009

Sounds strange, doesn't it? I've hardly become accustomed to writing 2008. This year has flown by...in some ways. In other ways, it's been long. But mostly it's been fast.

Christmas at our home was lovely. I know I haven't written here since Christmas Eve; and it was on purpose. I certainly have been thinking about y'all...but I just wanted to spend a week pretending that my world - instead of covering the world wide web - consisted of just my family, my church, and our little city. It's nice to be alone at times. It's nice to have fewer pressures.

But, like I said, I've been thinking about y'all; hoping you've had good Christmases, wondering if you are taking computer breaks, like me, and remembering things I wanted to say when I got back on here.

I have several dozen pictures I want to share with you; mostly from Christmas week. I'd like to share some of the gifts I made for others, since they qualify as "fruit of my hands." I'd also like to tell you about the gifts some other folks in my family made.

...One gift in particular sticks in my mind, since it's being completed as I write. Curtis and I - well, actually, just I - decided that our adventures with Mom's wooden gift this summer were not enough. We needed to make Dad a wood gift for Christmas.

Curtis is so patient with me.

I wanted to build Dad a greenhouse.

Did I mention that I thought of this about 2 and a half weeks before Christmas? For those of you who don't work with wood, two and a half busy weeks are not nearly enough time to complete a project like a greenhouse.

Or save up for it.

So we bought what we could afford, and put together what we could. Of course we had to work outside, and of course this was the rainiest December in the history of my life. Come Christmas morning, we told Dad about it, and he went out into the backyard where we had hidden it, to take a look.

Now, after buying what supplies we still needed, we plan to complete the greenhouse this week. (We hope.) I've just come inside from spending a little time helping Curtis out there in the wind. Poor guy. The wind has been biting cold, and I'm guessing somewhere around 20-30 miles/hour. But Curt is doggedly working away. I've handed him nails, held boards in place, and fetched supplies, but he's done most of the work. What a brother.

Dad has been taking pictures of us now and then, when he comes to look at how we're getting on, and I hope to post some of those pictures, too.

~ ~ ~ ~

Well, time got away from me, and I never finished this post this morning. Now it's evening, and we've just come home from midweek prayer meeting.

What a lot I have to update on! I wish I had time to talk about what's going on in my mind about the old year, the new year, the future years....and what God has taught me, is teaching me, and will teach me.

Time is a strange thing. It can drag and fly. It is intangible, yet it holds things. You can never get it back....and never get an advance on it.

...And it is getting away from me again now. Ah, well, I shall hope for more posting time this coming week. Until then, Happy New Year's to y'all!