Cs and lindy, thanks so much for your encouragement. Hopefully I will get some answers on Tuesday, but I'm not really planning on it.

mama

jean and boann,

I have everything autodrafted except credit cards because they change so much[for me]. Paying online got me into a whole lot of trouble - so I still write checks for them. I still owe back taxes, not too much, but have even let IRS letters sit there and look up at me and give me a stomach ache. So I am putting that payment on auto draft. That's when I realized that I was in trouble - when I found out that I owed taxes for last year and didn't do a thing about it for a few months.

They were very nice about setting up payments and filing a very late extension.

Jean, I think I'm moving to Phoenix - it was 39 below this morning and even the house seems cold. The muscles along my back tense up so badly, and my tremor doubles - so much fun. One of our older horses started lying down on the snow yesterday, seemed okay but that's not normal behaviour. So he spent the night in the barn with blankets on him to warm up, and was fine this morning. So I guess he's going to get a little more pampering when the temperature drops.

Went to my husband's work Xmas party last night - I hate noticing that 80% of the work force here is younger than me! We have had such an oilfield boom going for awhile, it's a bit surreal around here. Houses sell for ridiculous amounts, 18 yr. olds out on the rigs make more than their parents, and you can't get service in stores or restaurants, they've all left for higher paying oilpatch jobs. McDonalds pays $14 or $15 an hour starting wage for kids.

I was complaining to my daugter on the way to church this morning becaue it was 13 below and I was aching and shaking.

I had a good week and good Thanksgiving meal with my daughter and grandkids. It apparently was a bad week for deaths though as I lost a friend Friday to cancer. It was his 9 month wedding anniversary. They flew back to Nebraska last Sunday since he wanted to die there. I don't know how he made it as it was a 4 hour flight to Seattle, 4 hour layover, then 3 hour trip to Phoenix before a 3 hour flight to Omaha. I would have been a mess making that kind of trip.

Wendy --

Everyone loves Phoenix in the winter. But you have to remember our seasons are reversed. Summer is the horrible season for us. Temps are commonly above 110. The summer heat is hard on me - i don't go out much - only to swim. And a trip to the mall has me circling the parking lot for shade of any kind so the car isnt' 140 deg when I finish shopping ...

But as my mother always says, you don't have to shovel sunshine. So i'll take the heat over the ice and snow.

It is with a sigh of relief that I welcome winter.