covenant

We've been talking about this word in Sunday school. Our lessons have been the well-known Bible stories, but the students are asked to engage and fully listen to the stories. We have looked at the whole story, not just the children's version. There have been murders and deceit. There have been promises and prayers answered.

That sounds kind of like a movie, which is interesting because I had to tell the youth to stop using Hollywood when they talked about the Bible story we had just heard. I want them to use their own imagination, not what someone else has already shown them. It is not easy to do. There is a movie for every story.

Which makes this post all the more interesting because as I write it, I'm watching the Oscars. Yes, it's Monday. I recorded the show. Not knowing what time I would have to get up this morning to wait for the plumber, I decided to go to bed like normal last night. Now I'm trying to avoid social media and all news outlets so that I can be surprised as each winner is announced.

I'm not really avoiding the news or social media. I don't live or die by the awards. In fact, I'm so far behind watching award winning movies, I think the last one I saw was from the 90's. The winner of Best Movie, that is. And I don't think I watched it until the early 2000's. I'm clearly not your entertainment fanatic.

So the word for today is covenant. A promise, an agreement, a contract. We make them every day. The plumber kept his when he called to say he was on his way and then he arrived and fixed our pipe.

Celebrate

Today did not start as a day to celebrate.

While I was in the shower, Bill came and knocked on the door. He told me not to waste time.

It turns out all the freezing and unfreezing of our pipes caused our powder room toilet pipe to burst.

Then, when I walked through early morning lit living room something caught my eye.

We have a dead mouse in the living room!

Atticus is a good killer. But where did it come from? Oh right, the crawl space that is flooded because the toilet pipe burst.

I'm celebrating my cat and his killer instinct. I'm also celebrating the fact that while our crawl space isn't insulated, it is also not a poured concrete space. The water that leaked out of the pipe went straight into the ground and not into our basement. I'm celebrating that our basement didn't flood.

While I celebrate these small things, I'm also celebrating that we still have electricity. And that with the water main shut off our pipes can't freeze because it's going to get really cold again.

I will also be celebrating when the plumber comes and caps off the pipe. Then again when they come back and give us an estimate for plumbing the entire house. And I'll definitely celebrate if the price doesn't knock my socks off.

I'm also celebrating that I finally called someone to come and insulate that space so that the toilet pipe didn't burst and that person is going to be here Tuesday. Two days too late.

I think you'll agree that you can celebrate too. You don't have dead mice, frozen/burst pipes/no water.

Blog days on Wednesdays

I knew this would happen. I have been remiss in writing posts at any kind of regular intervals.

I have thought of several things to write, but just never wrote them.

I declare that I will make Wednesdays Blog days.

And it won't just be for writing here on my blog. It will also be to keep up with the blogs I follow, which I have also been forgetting to do.

First, it has snowed in West Michigan. We are in a vicious cycle of lake effect snow. I shoveled four times in the last two days.

Of course this doesn't bother me. As I told my neighbor, it's my exercise. I am more than happy to go out and shovel. There are just a few things worth noting.

I did all that shoveling and was not sore.
At least not until this morning when I realized I slept wrong. The good news is I'm not sore from shoveling. The bad news is I can't turn my neck.

I need long underwear.
The temperature has dipped into the single digits which means with the wind chill it's in the negative numbers. My legs are not warm enough when I'm out shoveling. To compensate, I tried pulling my leg warmers up as high as I could. Surprisingly, they reach mid-thigh! But I don't want to stretch them out, so I'm going to have to find a warmer alternative. Long underwear seems to be a good solution.

Sub-zero temperatures means our pipes freeze.
Sure enough, last night when Bill got home, he went into the powder room to wash his hands only to find that when he turned the faucets on, nothing came out. We are trying to heat the house to thaw the pipes. But since the pipes are in the basement and heat rises, this has been to no avail. In fact, it doesn't even feel like seventy degrees in here.

That had nothing to do with shoveling snow.

Neither does this; I finally made French Onion soup.

Where have you been all my life?

I enjoy cooked onions (it's raw onions that upset my tummy). And I'm very much on a soup kick right now.

If you are like me and have never tried French Onion soup, but like onions, give this a try! Here's the recipe I used. It's in her new cookbook, the one Chandra, Jason and Addison gave me for my birthday.

I used three medium onions and kept the rest of the amounts the same. Oops, except the beef broth. I used what I had left which was three cups. I don't think it ruined the soup.

It is slightly time consuming, but definitely worth the wait. And Gruyere is definitely worth it. Unless you cut your finger using the cheese slicer.

Okay, the Gruyere is still worth it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have other blogs to go read.