Vignettes

One word description of the last week: cold! And I do mean, cold. Maybe not by Arctic standards. Or Maine standards. Or by Himalayan standards. But by Seattle, Washington standards, the temperatures that dropped into the teens this last week and froze our world solid definitely qualify as "cold!" With an exclamation mark.

Peter innagurated the cold snap early in the week by setting out a couple of buckets with varying levels of water. He was hoping they would freeze solid. Only the shallow one did, but he is still hoping. The cold isn't quite over yet.

He is also chipping off chunks of ice and saving them...just to have them, I'm not sure why. He calls it his ice collection and he is rather proud of it. Today was the first time Mom had heard about the ice collection.

"Ice collection? Where?" she wanted to know.

Dead silence reigned for a moment, then all the kids said in unison, "In the freezer."

****

I was asking Abigail last night what she was going to wear to church today.

"Oh," she replied, vaguely, "a bunch of your stuff."

When I first saw her this morning, I found a "bunch" of my "stuff" rather an understatement. She was even wearing my jewlery.

She grinned, "I decided this is 'Wear Katie's Stuff Day.'"

I love having a sister.

****
One of my bad bad habits is bringing my stuff in the door, dumping it on a nearby chair, and forgetting to ever put it away. The other night, as I was heading down to bed I happened to notice my stuff on the chair.

"Oh," I said, "I'd better grab that. I want to be a good example, after all."

Paul and John laughed.

"Good luck with that," Paul said, dubiously.

"I was just about to say that doesn't sound possible," John said, politely.

They gave each other a high five. I rolled my eyes, but I love having brothers too.