New Car

 

We bought a new car this week. That is unusual as we generally buy used cars, but this one was not a lot more expensive than used cars of this model, and new is nice. It cost a substantial amount of money, of  course, but we decided it made sense to buy a new car right now.

It is obviously yellow. Yellow is fun and eye catching.

It is a hybrid Prius. We bought an older Prius a few weeks ago which Angela will use to learn to drive on.

Many years ago, when hybrids became more common, Kevin and I agreed that hybrids were a bit dubious because you have two systems -- batteries and gasoline -- in the same car so it seemed likely there would be more problems with hybrids.

Priuses are not like that. They are very reliable. They have amazing gas mileage too, like 50 mpg.

We toyed with the idea of an all electric car but the nice thing about a gasoline engine is that you can just buy gas easily. Electric cars are nice for buzzing around nearby but it is challenging to find charging stations when on longer trips, plus charging takes a long time compared to pumping gas.

I am well aware of the absurdity of our family. We have 11 people total in the family, and we now have 8 cars total and seven legal drivers. BUT Angela will soon have her license and she needed a car which we wouldn't mind being bashed up a bit. Our new drivers usually run into something at least once, though they have never hit another car. They hit trees and stumps and mailboxes.

Kevin will be driving the new car. It is very fancy with lots of new tech. It has some wonderful safety features like it will nudge the car back into the middle of a lane. I am kind of a luddite in that I don't like new tech because I have to learn it.  :-)

So all that is exciting.

Also, the kids seem to finally be over their stomach bug so that is good.

Late March

 We are having a few cool days which is no surprise in late March. I am excited about April as we will soon have flowers blooming and trees covered with blossoms.

The next few days will be warmer and wetter. Very thankful for a dry house to live in along with heat.

My friend D. whom I visited at the beginning of this month passed away a few days ago. I am sad for her family and friends, including me, but so happy for her.

I have another friend who lost a son to a sudden medical problem. It was out of nowhere and heartbreaking, of course. With D., she had been sick for many years and battling more and more medical problems. She loved... well, she loves... Jesus, and was so ready to be in Heaven with Him.

So yes, I am sad for us and so happy for her that she is in a new body and walking Heaven's streets.

It was a gift that I was able to see her one last time before her death.

I am trudging along my latest book. I have three to four hours a day set aside for writing. I don't do it constantly; I often watch a TV show off and on while plugging away. I often need to take a break as new scenes develop in my mind. I am grateful for a bunch of gifts that allow me to write books. Not only am I good at plots, I am also good at forgetting previous plots. I have 28 novels now, all based on Pride and Prejudice characters, and I am good at forgetting scenes and ideas from previous novels so each one is moderately fresh and new, or at least as much as is possible given I am using the same characters!

Almost Spring

 Tomorrow is officially spring!

We have had some lovely days of late but today is not one of those days. It is in the lower 40s and dropping, and it is raining dismally. Good day to stay indoors!

Last week was a full lunar eclipse. I decided to go crazy and have it as a wonderful learning experience for any children who wished to stay up. It was a full eclipse at 2:30 a.m. or so? Late!

I stayed up the whole time and Angela did as well. Miriam and Joseph and Isaac, all of whom needed to work, did not.

The younger three kids stayed up for awhile but finally got super tired and went to bed, with requests that I would wake them up at totality.

So about 3 a.m. or so I went upstairs and woke up Daniel and told him to go look at the eclipse. He sat up and talked to me and then I went in and woke up Rose and Sarah, who both went to their window to look at the eclipse before going to bed.

The next morning Rose and Daniel were both sad because they missed the eclipse, claiming that I had not woken them up.

In both cases, apparently they were talking in their sleep. Daniel apparently just went back to sleep after we talked, and Rose while she did look out the window, has no memory of it.

So ... not a great success. We did talk about eclipses so that was cool, but D and R really wanted to SEE one, and did not, or at least, in Rose's case, has no memory of seeing it.

Next time I will try to march them downstairs in the hopes that that will wake them up sufficiently!

Hmmm, what else?

Kevin has been working on another audio book with one of our narrators, Harry Frost. It will be launching soon. Audio books are expensive to make because we have to pay the narrator, but eventually we will make money. 

Harry is in England and is excellent at portraying different characters with his voice. He sometimes does voices for video games along with Regency romance books.

Not a whole lot else going on. We are healthy. We have food. We are grateful.

New family picture

 In the header! Isn't it nice?

The kids are growing up!

Warm weather at last!

 

It is truly warm today, as in over 70 degrees! It feels like it has been a cold winter and early spring so hooray!

We have spent a fair amount of time outside and are thoroughly enjoying it.

Last night we had a chimineya fire. Think the spelling is wrong on that.

The last week has been moderately mellow. We have been healthy and a lot of friends have been sick so I am grateful for that.

Our older girls have found a new apartment which is much closer to us so that is awesome.

That is about it!

 

Trip to Michigan

 I am not a big traveler, and rarely am away from home overnight. Kevin and I go to St. Croix once a year and sometimes we visit my parents. Other than that, I am here. As time has gone by, I have been less inclined to go somewhere and I think it is because for so many years, we have had our beloved Horde to deal with and packing for the Horde, or making sure the Horde is fine while we leave, is a lot of work.

So anyway, yesterday and today I made a quick trip to Michigan alone to visit a friend. She and I were in college together and I truly adore her and very sadly, she is in hospice care with cancer. 

I visited her at her parents' house and we were able to reminisce and say good-bye. She is a Christian and very ready to see Jesus. It was wonderful seeing her, but very sad too of course.

Last night I stopped in Ann Arbor and spent the evening and night with old friends, and this morning I attended the church that I attended when I was at the University of Michigan. The pastor of that church presided over our wedding. I attended the very first Sunday service of this church and I think there were ten people there that day. This was more than 30 years ago.

We haven't been back in more than a decade and today was amazing. The church is huge. Like four hundred people maybe? It was awesome.

Then I drove home. I am tired and sad about my dear friend, but grateful I was able to see her and that I made it there and back safely. I am not used to driving so much but everything went fine.

End of February

 We have one week until the end of February and March will bring the very early snippets of spring. We hope. 

This week has been super cold and we have a lovely blanket of snow over everything.

I think we got four inches or so last Sunday? And it has been really cold this whole week so the snow has stayed. It will warm up the next few days and everything will get muddy and wet.

Kevin likes to make snow ice cream for the children. Get clean snow, add condensed milk and vanilla, mix up, and voila!

It was so cold that olive oil which was shipped was this weird solidified goo when I brought it indoors. It melted nicely but wow. I have never seen that before.

I finished a 1000 piece puzzle this week. I used to whine about 1000 piece puzzles and now I love them, at least so long as the picture has a lot of variety. If it is all just shades of blue I would hate it :-).

This was a lot of fun!

I bought flowers at Trader Joe's. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

So the big news of the week is that I have finished the first draft of my latest book. It is over 100,000 words so a long one.  Now I have to edit the whole thing (that is the sound of my teeth grinding.)

It is fine. I don't like editing but still, it has to be done.  Usually once I get in the groove I am fine, but just the thought of facing 300 plus pages of the printed out document is intimidating.

But I will be strong, and I will do it!