There were a few notable events this week: Becky’s household goods arrived, we finished putting up our outside and inside Christmas lights, and I took a fall.

Becky’s household goods, which we are storing until she finds a new apartment, arrived on Monday. While most of her gear ended up in our garage, many items were taken upstairs to the guest bedroom. Unfortunately, Becky’s home sale ran into a snag and may not go through with this particular buyer. We will know more this upcoming Monday and hope for the best.

Here are a few photos of this event.

Moving company arrives
“Stuff” in garage
Guest room

Becky has an interesting collection of houseplants which made the move OK due to mild weather. We have unpacked them and put some in the Media Room and in the Guest Bedroom. Here is a shot of one of the plant stands in the Media Room:

A few of Becky’s plants in the Media Room

We hope Becky can sell her place and join us in the next few days.

This past week saw us pretty much completing our Christmas decorations for the year, with the exception of getting our tree. The place looks pretty good in daylight and when lit up at night. New this year is a large heart, made from rope lights, that we put up on the garden fence. Here are several photos of our decorating:

Garden fence heart
North and east sides of the house
Main Street view
East wall and porch

(Note: I added another string of white lights to the lower porch railings after this photo was taken as both Pam and I felt it was needed.)

All the outside lights are now on timers which eliminates the need to plug them in at dusk and unplug them when we go to bed. The inside “window” decorations are now powered up and down with little switch modules that plug into the outlets. This eliminates the need to plug and unplug their cords and is a quite handy addition this year.

The only drawback to the week was a fall I suffered when filling the bird feeder. The two-step ladder I had been using collapsed under me and I landed hard on my right shoulder. Using a combination of ice packs, my TENS machine, and Aleve capsules I have regained some movement in the right shoulder but it will be weeks before I have full use of it again. I had injured the same shoulder a couple years ago and this fall certainly didn’t help matters. Good thing our outside activities have pretty much ended!

General activities: I was able to do a final leaf clean-up but still need to take the trailer to the dump and unload it. That may not happen for a few days but is not really critical. I have been working on inside stuff such as scanning a few more slides and reading. A couple galleries have been upgraded and another dozen photos have been added to the Heart House Gallery. When I decide to sit a spell, Elmo The Cat has approved of my reading location, landing on my lap as I read.

Elmo and Jerry

Pam is nearing the end of her greeting card project and plans to finish this coming week. We scan the weather report for a good day to travel to the tree farm and fresh cut our holiday tree. I will continue to work on scanning some of my slides and negatives and weeding out many that are not worth keeping.

Photo Archive

Ranging from the late ’70s to the ’90s, here are some family photos.

Late ’70s. crossing South Dakota in late summer
Destination in early ’80s
Toby on a wet Oregon day, late ’80s
Felicity enjoying being outside, late ’80s, in Oregon

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Solstice cards are taking a wee bit more time than initially planned. Cards being sent outside the Midwest are ready to go. Midwest cards still in process.

Happy Trails.