T'is the time of the year again

when one makes an elf of oneself.

literally.

this year, one can scrooge oneself too ( thanks BadSheep, for the scrooge link)

Enjoy.

As if that's not enough, here's a link to last year's elfinization if anyone missed it ... :P

Breakfast with Santa

Christmas isn't that far away now..

Hillcrest Church had a "Breakfast with Santa" event this morning, where pancakes and sausage patties were served with milk/juice/coffee. There were also activities for the kiddies as well as having your picture made with "Santa" :)

Father, thank You for Your care,
And the food we eat and share

Water Bill Adjustment, Car Inspection and HEB Feast of Sharing

Water Bill Update:

We called up the water company today and explained our situation, and the guy was actually pretty nice about it, and adjusted our last month's bill to $161.74 ( although I'm positive we didn't use that much, but we were very grateful that he did that ).. and he said he would adjust the coming month's bill too, so that was just wonderful.

On to other news:

David and I brought the truck for its yearly inspection today. There wasn't anything wrong with the truck except for a couple of the cab clearance lights that were out, and those were fixed in a jiffy.

Later on in the evening, David and I went to the Abilene Civic Center to join in the Feast of Sharing, an annual community free meal deal hosted by H-E-B, a regional chain of grocery stores.

Romans 12:13 —

“Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

Of Football, Deer & Pipes

It's been quite the eventful weekend

seeing how we're usually such slothy homebody bums. :)

Firstly, after Roy ( angel of the burst pipe dramatics ) went home for the day when it got way past too dark to work, David and I cleaned up as much as we could and set off for Shotwell Stadium in Abilene, where the Munday Moguls were playing the Roscoe ( Munday (11-0) vs. Roscoe (12-0), Class A, Division II regional semifinal ). Todd & Sabrina and their children had moved to Munday last year, and now Todd's the principal at the elementary school where Sabrina teaches, Tyler is in the football team and Holly's in the band. It was my first football game of any kind at a stadium, so it was exciting. And it was extra sweet that Munday won 35 - 27.

The next morning, as we were going to church, we noticed a deer kinda stuck in a little ditch by the side of our county road that led out to the main highway. As church progressed, I kinda forgot about it, as it wasn't uncommon to have deer crossing our county road. On the way home however, we passed by the same spot, and the deer was still there! It was kinda wriggling about, and David surmised it must have broken its leg ( a car hit it, perhaps? ) and called up the Abilene Animal Services hotline when we got home.

A Game Warden responded to our call, and to make a long story short, the warden captured the animal and told us he would bring it to one of the animal rescue facilities close by for rehabilitation/ recuperation.

Last but not least, we got home with just about enough time to change into regular clothes when Roy arrived to see if him and David could find the leak once and for all and deal with it.

Good news is, they managed to locate the leak, and Roy took out the pipe with a bad split down it, and replaced the length with new pipe.

Now for the bad news. Apparently the people that we had bought the place from, when they laid down their pipe, had put down pipe that was below standard for what it was intended to do.

So now, although at the moment we have running water and the leak is fixed, we may be looking at having to replace the entire length of pipe to the house. *GROAN KACHING KACHING!!*

Trust in the Lord and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
Be still before the Lord,
and wait patiently for him.

(Psalm 37:3-5, 7a)

We have a Water situation

It's way easier if your electricity goes on the blink than this.

So we got our water bill 3 days ago.

AND IT WAS ALMOST $800 !!!

Sometimes, because of watering the lawn and plants and like that, our water bills gets to be a bit up there, but nowhere close to 800 dollars!

So David and I tried to find out where the leak was. NOWHERE near the house was there any visible leak, so we had to trace the pipe from where the meter was, by the road all the way back to the house - and that's like a heckuva long stretch.

So we made sure everything was turned off at the house, the dishwasher & washing machines were turned off, and proceeded to walk down that imaginary yellow line that stretched from the water meter just inside the fence, towards the house..

And then we saw it, a soggy wet swampy mushy area. *heart sinks*

To make a long story short, David the Magnificent, managed to localize the pipe, but that's when it gets tricky.

It was a task that needed some expertise, and so when we managed to get Roy's ( a friend of Johnny's) help, we were overjoyed. Roy, who had worked with the City, had rented a trench digger for the weekend, as he had been hired by some people to do some work, but they had stood him up. ( Praise the Lord !! Their loss, our amazing gain )

We had prayed for this situation at Friday Bible Class, and God really delivers! And in spades!! And in this case, it was in the form of a DITCH WITCH - er... ( and an angel named Roy )!!!

We had turned the water off at the mains since Thursday, and had filled up a bunch of 5 gallon buckets with water for dish-washing, cleaning etc, and clean water for brushing teeth, cooking, making coffee ( LOL ) etc. So, we were beside ourselves when Roy called us up this morning and there was SOME flicker of light at the end of this long dark tunnel ( no pun intended ).

As I blog, the guys are still out there working.. My heroes...

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God:
that if we ask anything according to his will,
he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us
- whatever we ask -
we know that we have what we asked of him"

(1 John 5:14-15).