I missed it myself too Sarah... but nobody taped it (pout). Can't blame them, I was the one that decided we didn't need that old VCR in the tv cabinet anymore (the only thing it was good for, was, grandson likes to stick his toy cars into the slot). I had a good excuse though! I was still on my way home from a long weekend in California! Babysitting said grandson and his darling baby sister. I'm hogging the TV tonight though! I'll see the akita then. I llllovvvve those. :) Mary * we had breakfast on a sidewalk cafe in L.A. yesterday... and now I'm looking at the thermometer and it says 2 degrees... (still balmy by comparison to Minnesota!)... snow storm tomorrow... * *sigh*

It's a really cool broadcast to have on. No need to watch constantly, so it allows for plenty of family conversation... when they show the ridiculous poodles, good time for a bathroom break (especially if I feel like throwing up)... and a great excuse to stay up late. The poodles, I have known a few over time, and I think they're perfectly fine dogs - it's just the haircut that makes me gag. The puli's hair was much more fun to watch. My favorite was the Scottish deer hound. So elegant. So large. So beautifully grey. *sigh* But the little spaniel guy was very cute. I'm glad he won. :) Mary

2010 was great for us. It was one of our wettest years here. I just loved it. The garden did really well and I didn't have to expend much energy watering it in order to keep it happy. I remember that ice storm and all the damage it did in your part of the state. It was stunning to see how long it took to cut down all the trees and get the broken limbs and collapsed trees off the power lines and get the power grid up and running. I know I am going to jinx myself by saying this, but we've been here since 1999 and never have had an ice storm come far enough south to hit us and cause that type of trouble. The closest one damaged trees maybe 3 to 5 miles north of us. We've had several rounds of freezing rain that did coat the power lines and trees, but they didn't bring down the power lines or tree limbs. We've been incredibly fortunate. I know that Marietta was hit by a storm like that about 10 years before we moved here, and our local electric co-op had to replace miles of power lines and tons and tons of poles. Ever since then, they have worked very hard to keep trees trimmed way back from the power lines in order to avoid a repeat of that year. One year Tim and I were at Wal-Mart in Gainesville on the day after a fairly mild snow/sleet storm. Our VFD was paged out to a pasture fire. We were shaking our heads because we've just driven though that area a few minutes earlier and knew that everything was covered with ice and snow. How could anything burn? When our son got to the fire in the brush truck, he found a power line had fallen, and apparently it melted the snow/sleet enough to catch the ice-coated grass on fire. That's sort of our all-time strangest fire. I'd like a nice, calm winter with some pretty snowy days that don't coat the roads with ice and cause problems, but that's asking for a lot here in OK. The good thing about our winters is that there is so much variability in them, so that whatever weather we are having, good or bad, won't last long and next week we'll have different weather from whatever we've had this week. At least we get those occasional warm, pretty, sunny days instead of having months of endless gray skies and gloom. The yard is so depressing today---browned and blackened foliage and limp blooms where we had tons of green foliage and bright flowers in bloom just a couple of days ago. It has been cloudy all day and I am tempted to say that I am "over winter" and ready for spring, but the truth is that winter isn't even here yet. A few years ago, I jinxed us by saying we only had hail an average of 1 time a year, and some years never had hail at all. So, what happened? That year we were hit by hail on 11 different occasions. Now, I guess I should be expecting an ice storm in the winter of 2013-14. The one little bright spot in the garden is a couple of Laura Bush petunia plants that had some freeze damage but which also still have some green leaves and small, barely-damaged flowers. Two plants isn't much to get excited about, but it is better than nothing.

I don't read in the bathroom either, Marygail, but have heard the bathroom called "the reading room" for so long, that was my first thought when I saw it. I had hoped to be able to use it and a lot of my other old things, and I hate that it took so long, but circumstances didn't dictate until now. I haven't lived in a real house in many years. I have often said, I hope I live in a house again before I die.