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Before the Christmas holiday, and before we left on the Florida trip, I was busy trying to finish a king-sized quilt for Doug and Matt that had been in the works for a long time. At left, I'm taking the last few stitches in the label on Dec. 23, before our flight. 
The quilt, at right, is a Trip Around the World pattern that I learned in a class in 1990 or so. The top sat around for a long time until I decided in 2002 to add a border and present it to Doug when he finished his PhD. Hand quilting takes a long time, and I was still working on it when he graduated this spring. But it is now in Florida, where I hope he and Matt will enjoy it.
The week before Christmas we had amaryllis blooms upstairs and down. The plant at right was in our South window in the upstairs bedroom. The one below was in the dining room and came from the "mother plant" bulb and some bulblets. There were four stalks from three bulbs when we left. We also left behind two other pots full of plants loaded with buds that have probably bloomed while we were here. 
Tuesday and today we have helped with packing and pre-moving activities. On Wednesday we spent the entire day on Sanibel Island, an hours' drive over and two hours back, given the traffic at this popular place. I need to crop and adjust our pictures from that adventure, so I'll post about Sanibel after we return home on Saturday. Tomorrow (Friday) is Moving Day.
A blessed Christmas is our wish for all of you reading this blog today or in the future. We sent part of our cards before Christmas, and the others will be going to the post office tomorrow and Wednesday. Our Christmas tree at home glowed with holiday anticipation all last week, and Norm and I celebrated "Little Christmas Eve on the 22nd by exchanging some gifts before leaving for Florida on the 23rd.
We flew to Ft. Myers and were welcomed by Doug, Matt and Sam the poodle. On Christmas Eve morning we attended church at First Christian Church of Lehigh Acres, a community about 10 miles from where they live. It is an Open and Affirming Disciples Church and is distinguished by some unusual architecture.
As you can see, Norm and I were claimed quickly by Sam, who found a space on my lap. We got up on Christmas morning to a lovely brunch cooked by Doug and Matt. We took a long walk around the apartment complex where they live. We tried to go to a movie, the opening of The Good Shepherd, but the theater had oversold the tickets. So we had a nice drive to Naples instead...a place we will enjoy seeing more of one of these days. The rain is supposed to end tomorrow, and be sunny and a bit cooler. We will be helping pack this week for their move to the new condo on Friday, but with luck, we may get away to the beach for some shelling and bird watching, too. Stay tuned.
I'm a Christmas light addict. From toddlerhood on, my favorite holiday activity was to drive around the nicer parts of town to look at the Christmas light displays. Tulsa had some spectacular ones when I was a kid. Here in St. Louis, we often make a ritual of driving around on Christmas night to enjoy all of the neighborhood displays. But if it's mild, as it has been this week, we often just walk around our village and look at lights on foot, which gives us a chance to admire them up close. We did that last Friday night and enjoyed it. Of course, it's not fair to look without contributing. Since we lack outdoor electrical outlets, we have to settle for letting our inside tree be seen through the front porch French doors. And since we often use our back door for entry, and guests do too, Norm always drapes the fence along the driveway with swags of evergreen, white lights and red bows. At night (see below) it's an arresting sight. Even more so with snow on them. He is able to use an outlet in the garage for these lights.
We have been busy with Advent activities. A week or so ago, our church was able to reach a milestone in its accessibility campaign. Members have raised over $105,000, more than 87 percent of the goal for the project, so we should be able to begin construction early in 2007. That's one of the projects Norm and I have worked on most intensively this year and the response has been...miraculous. Our reading group discussed the memoir Mixed by Angela Nissel and it was especially poignant since one member has a mixed race grandchild, one member is in a mixed marriage, and another member has nieces who are of mixed race. And then there was the young woman with a Nigerian father and a white mother who saw our book club notice in a bookstore, called one of the members and showed up at the coffee house for our meeting, bringing many more experiences for us to share. On Saturday our pastor held an open house which we enjoyed immensely. It was so warm, many of us gathered on the patio out back around the copper fire pit...all that was missing was some marshmallows and sticks to roast them on. Sunday we had a carry-in dinner after church, with lots of visiting and informal caroling. I was knitting furiously to finish a scarf for the Tree of Warmth that benefits clients of our family crisis ministry, Isaiah 58. I managed to finish it just after dessert! I'm still not sure when the Christmas letter will be written or the cards sent. We have plans to do some traveling during the holidays, so our big party and communication season may be Epiphany this year. Whatever your holiday plans or preparations, we wish you the merriest. Please do drop us a line or comment and let us know what you are doing.
The reports are coming in....Linville amaryllis (amarylli?) are indeed blooming! A few years ago, Kay sent me an email: The Amaryllis is blooming! I think hers may be the early bird of the family, although if that's not right, someone will let me know.
Tonight Kay and Don sent an e-mail with these three photos attached. Don reports that they have 4 bulbs in one pot, producing 6 stalks among them. Last year, they saved seeds from one of the blooms (how they manage to pollinate, indoors, is an untold story) and started some baby plants from seed--there are 10 in the pot below. An amaryllis nursery?
Thanks, Don and Kay, for the photos, and also for reading the blog. I wish someone in the family knew the story of how Mom Linville came to have this amaryllis in the first place. Does anyone remember?
One sure sign of the coming holidays is the appearance of stalks on the amaryllis. Our bulbs are offspring that Norm's mother gave us years ago, descended from the plant that Norm remembers blooming in winter on the farm when he was a boy. Many of us-- daughter, daughters-in-law, granddaughters and even a couple of guys-- have one of these amaryllis now. If your amaryllis is blooming, send me an e-mail and if possible, a picture. When this one blooms, which should be by the end of the week for the tallest stalk, I'll put it online. Right now, there are four bulbs in the pot (amaryllis like to be crowded) and three of them have sent up stalks, looking a bit like those processions of the Magi that appear on Christmas cards. And we have two more bulbs upstairs with buds on them, too. It promises to be a wonderful blooming holiday, thanks to Mom Linville. And if you are without an amaryllis and would like one, let us know that, too. Come summer, we'll deliver.
It has been a while since I have written, but maybe this post will explain. The end of November brought some lovely weather and we did as much as we could in the yard to clean up leaves, mulch the perennials and bulbs, and enjoy the birds. On Tuesday, November 28, the campus, and then our neighborhood was visited by a huge flock of migrating Robins. The weather service had been warning us for a week about a winter storm that would hit around the 29th or 30th, so when I saw about 200 Robins stripping the red fruit off the ornamental trees outside the gym where I exercise, I figured a weather change was near. On Wednesday the 29th, we had a high of 75 degrees. A wind blew away the plastic birdbath and this robin perched on the rim, looking at us as if to ask what we had done with his swimming pool.
Early Thursday morning, the bottom fell out of the atmosphere and everything headed South. We woke to freezing rain, which turned to sleet, which turned back to freezing rain. Norm went to volunteer at the food pantry, I went to exercise and got my hair cut, and by 2 p.m. the ground was showing white. We listened with foreboding as weather cast after weather cast warned of heavy ice accumulating on power lines and tree limbs, and possible power failures. We had gathered provisions and spare batteries, but that wouldn't be enough. On Thursday night about 11 p.m. I was checking my email when everything went dark. Our power was off, and so was our heat, since the gas boiler for our hot water system has electronic ignition and thermostat and pump. We went to bed and listened to the sleet hitting the awnings. The whole neighborhood was dark, and quiet. We awoke to a house that was at 59 degrees and falling, and to a world outside that was 22 degrees and glittering. This view (above) across our neighbor's back yard told the story. 
Even on Saturday morning, after a low of 11 degrees, the house was holding at 48 degrees inside. Outside, the world was still a Winter Wonderland. The drive beside the Normandie Golf Course was striking in its stark beauty. This frigid view is from the entrance to Bel Nor from Greendale, looking south. As you can see, street crews had been busy. The only positive thing about this storm is that we didn't get the 8 to 10 inches of snow originally forecast...the bad news was, most of that moisture came down as rain and froze instead.
We had no idea how cold the house could get with no heat, and we didn't want to test it out, so we accepted an invitation from church friends to stay with them starting on Friday night. We made daily trips to our house to see how the temperature was holding; we didn't want to drain the heating system and the pipes unless we absolutely had to!
Jan and Larry Krueger's home on Flora Place became our home away from home for the next few days.
One of their two cats, Coal, developed an affinity for us. So did their calico cat, Sneakers, but she was too shy to be captured on camera.
The power returned late on Saturday afternoon. We moved back home after church on Sunday (the Kruegers live just a few blocks from Compton Heights) and found a warming house. Although we were cozy, comfortable and grateful at the Kruegers', our own bed felt so wonderful. At the height of the outage, 515,000 customers of our utility were without power. Tonight, Monday Dec. 4, 180,000 are still out, despite the help of 7000 electrical line crewpeople from 14 different states who have poured in to help. It's supposed to reach 45 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday before we get another cold front. We pray the crews will be successful in getting everyone back on line, and that they will all be safe.
Before the Christmas holiday, and before we left on the Florida trip, I was busy trying to finish a king-sized quilt for Doug and Matt that had been in the works for a long time. At left, I'm taking the last few stitches in the label on Dec. 23, before our flight. 
The quilt, at right, is a Trip Around the World pattern that I learned in a class in 1990 or so. The top sat around for a long time until I decided in 2002 to add a border and present it to Doug when he finished his PhD. Hand quilting takes a long time, and I was still working on it when he graduated this spring. But it is now in Florida, where I hope he and Matt will enjoy it.
The week before Christmas we had amaryllis blooms upstairs and down. The plant at right was in our South window in the upstairs bedroom. The one below was in the dining room and came from the "mother plant" bulb and some bulblets. There were four stalks from three bulbs when we left. We also left behind two other pots full of plants loaded with buds that have probably bloomed while we were here. 
Tuesday and today we have helped with packing and pre-moving activities. On Wednesday we spent the entire day on Sanibel Island, an hours' drive over and two hours back, given the traffic at this popular place. I need to crop and adjust our pictures from that adventure, so I'll post about Sanibel after we return home on Saturday. Tomorrow (Friday) is Moving Day.
