Joyeux monday

Well, I survived the shortest day of the year this weekend. Other than that, I hate winter.

We had a housefull for the weekend. Isaac is home on Christmas break (and Laura), Carrie and Drew were here (it was Drew's birthday Friday, and he didn't have electricity because of the ice storm), and Jane's brother came for a visit (he arrived Saturday afternoon and left this morning). So we had a cozy little house.

Fort Wayne still has 50-some-thousand people without electricity, so we were lucky to never lose power at our house. Probably half of our church people lost it, but most had it back by Sunday morning (most lost it on Friday). Although, with the sub-zero (f) temps yesterday and this morning, the 40 mph wind gusts, and ice still covering everything, none of us are out of the woods yet. At least the sun was shining yesterday, and it appears it's going to today as well, for awhile anyway. And the wind has finally died down. When I got up yesterday morning it was 17F at 5 am. By 9 am it was 5, and it went downhill from there. I think it only went down to -2f last night, with -25 wind chills. It's not supposed to get to double digits today though.

Jane's brother arrived a little later than anticipated on Saturday. He wanted to do some shopping, so we ventured into the Fort, and by the time we got supper and ate and fought traffic, we didn't make the Christmas party (sorry MR).

Sunday morning we were to perform our Christmas Cantata for church. There were actually more people there than I was expecting. Basically most of the regulars. It never got above 64 F in the sanctuary, but we sang the cantata quite well, if I do say so myself. On the spur of the moment I decided against giving any of the four mini-sermons I had prepared, and we did a spiritual reading (Lectio Divina). We read, pondered, and prayed over Matthew 1:18-25. It was quite good - I thought - with good participation. Then we sang some carols, and everyone hung around for quite some time afterwards at the coffee/cookie table.

In the afternoon we all sprawled in the living room and watched movies. We watched The Family Stone, and it was pretty good. Then last night, after the kids dispersed, we watched Joyeux Noel. I had heard the story, but never seen the movie. Pretty good. According to the back of the dvd it... "tells the true-life story of the spontaneous Christmas Eve truce declared by Scottish, French and German troops in the trenches of World War I. Enemies leave their weapons behind for one night as they band together in brotherhood and forget about the brutalities of war." I highly recommend it. And yes, there is an agenda.

This morning I woke up thankful that we still had not lost power. However, we had no water. The pipes were froze. Our water tank is in the garage, and even though I have two heat lamps on it all winter, it still freezes when it's this cold. I got the kerosene heater out, and eventually we had cold water. For some reason we still do not have hot water. I don't understand that, as the water heater is IN the house. It's a mystery.

I am ready for some warm weather. I can't believe Christmas is Thursday. Now I need to get the water working right, get the Christmas Eve service planned, get something arranged for Sunday, and.... yep, it's just another Monday.

Peace.