Hey, its just a little later on Saturday night, I thought maybe you would like to meet the 3rd member of our household, Josie. She is our 3 year old cat, beautiful as you will see by the above picture. Right now, she is crawling around on my computers, yes, I have 3 computers.

When my mother passed away and the estate was settled, I used some of my monies to buy a computer, and I don't have the heart to throw it out, even though its only used right now for one purpose, and thats to look up scripture on Quick verse. Comes in very handy for me to use. The second one has files on it, that I haven't transferred to this computer. think I tried once and it said I had a virus and I didn't want to transfer it to this machine, so haven't tried since.

Now then you'll have to agree, she is a beautiful cat, and we are very happy to have her in our household. The neighbors all think she is okay too, that is until they start their spring gardening and start digging in their flower beds where she has been before. Ugh! Did I say that.

We are losing one of our new neighbors, Debbie and Roger, they moved into Phyllis's house about two years ago, got married and we were hoping they would start a family and be a part of our lives for years to come. But they feel the need for a smaller home, no yard to keep up, and this is perhaps best for them right now. Believe they have a condo rented or are buying over town, which will probably fit their lifestyle better for now.

We will be praying for a nice family to move in, so we can mother them if they need it. Its half time of the Oregon-Washington men's basketball game, and time for me to sign off for now again. So, Cherrio!

Saturday, February 24th

Today is wash day, with just the two of us in the house, the dirty clothes don't seem to pile up too quickly. When I was a boy, Monday was our wash day, Mom would get some water hot on top of the stove, and would get as much hot water as she could from the reservoir which was attached to the left end of the old wood/coal burning cook stove. Not too many of you reading this will know what I am talking about. (or do you, how about replying to my email account, howardonna@aol.com and put "old stove" as your subject in the reply email.

Today is also a rainy day, yesterday was just beautiful, and I am so glad as the chimney got repaired without any rain on it, till late last night, and by that time the cement cap had time to set.

I see by viewing my blog that the picture I had tried to download didn't happen, so right now, I'm going to try and do it again. Its a picture of me in work clothes, when I was busy last fall taking lath and plaster down from my neighbor Laura's living room ceiling. here goes.

Well, it worked, that is the picture I was trying to download yesterday, and somehow failed. Wonder if someday, I'll figure out how to do this without so much frustration on my part.

As you can see, I'm not too bad a sort of looking guy, not at all like the gent in the Christmas photo, but this is what I really look like around the house and yard most of the time.

For some time, I've been trying to find the key to a old trunk that held some mementos of years gone by, and during the time the furnace was put in, noticed a shiny object up around the ceiling in the basement, and it was the magic key, so I got into the trunk, and there was a autograph book from the 1940's. Anyone out there remember them, I doubt that kids today have such a thing, nor do I think you could by one at the 5 & 10 cent store (what's that you ask?)

Anyway, found one from 1941 that struck me as funny. I've always thought I was a very quiet kid in school, never talked much, probably hid behind my mothers apron strings whenever she was anywhere around. Here is what my first grade teacher, Norma Rosenkrans said on Feb 3, 1941.

Dear Howard, I shall always remember you as my first, first grader and I know I shall never have a better - even if you do simply have to talk all the time. Wow!!! that blew me away when I read that. She says I talked all the time, I wonder now what all that knowledge was that I was speaking forth about. If my sisters were to read this blog, they could possibly answer that, but I'm not sure they ever have read this. They just don't know what they are missing.

That autograph book also brought forth some other things that surprised me. Looks like I was much in Love with a classmate, but I doubt that she ever knew it. Looking back, I'm glad that my Love was never more than "puppy love" for I'm much happier with the Donna that I have than what she would be to me today. Sorry Donna!

This should be enought to get me deeply in trouble, so I'm going to go back to watching girls basketball. Its between Iowa State (my sister's alma mater) and Kansas State. Very good game, was half time when I came to my computer to work this blog.

So, Cherrio!!!

Well, once again, only time will tell whether a picture I tried to upload just a few minutes ago, will appear on this blog. Oh, I know you thought I had kicked the bucket, since I have been on this since January 13th. Sorry, been busy reading mystery books.

During this time, however my new electrical service has been installed, now have a nice circuit breaker panel, and no more bunch of fuse boxes hanging on the wall, have also a new furnace that is working very efficiently. And as of today, have the top 5 row of bricks on my fireplace chimney re grouted, and the top row reset and a new cap & tile on it now.

When they went to put the stainless steel liner down the chimney to the new furnace, discovered the cap was all broken up and the tile tilted, so had to get a chimney service to do a quick repair. So, I'm a bit pooooorer now, but am glad its done. the chimney people were great to work with and I'll gladly recommend them to anyone.

Will sign off, hope the picture came through. will check it out tomorrow.

cherrio!