It's been sort of a wild week around our house.  I took on a project I thought would consume perhaps a day, more or less, and so far both Fred and I have been working at it for about three days or maybe a bit more, it's hard to remember.  It's a computer thing we don't do very often and unfortunately we've both upgraded our computers since the last time we undertook a project like that (building a DVD), and now don't have a program that will do what we need.  Actually, now I think about it, in 2003 was when we did a DVD of family photos and gave them to the kids for Christmas, and we had a very similar experience as we're having now - we need to have this one done and mailed as a Christmas present but nothing is going right.  On that family one we worked well into the night previous to Christmas Eve to get it done, and we were successful - but exhausted.  Fortunately Bill was hosting that year, not us.  It always seems so simple when the plan first comes to mind, and then complications set in.  I think we'll make it, though.  Jamie came to our rescue with a program on his Mac, and in the meantime, Fred may have found a solution, too, so suddenly we may have choices!

As a consequence of being tied up with our computer problems, I never got out to measure the snow or clean off the measuring stake in the yard, so I have no idea how much snow is on the ground - but even though we haven't picked up more, we haven't lost much, either, and it's still weighing down the trees and utility lines.  The only times I've been outside since Thursday, I've been walking on the road, not across any fields, and certainly not through the woods with all that snow on the branches.  We've had that experience in the past and endured snow showering down on us at a mere touch as we passed through the trees.  It's still really pretty in the woods, though.  The picture above is of our lower lawn - the small mound in the snow to the right of the tall birch tree is the blue spruce we transplanted this fall - hard to know if it will survive at this point.  Could be a tough winter for it.

In between other stuff, I have been able to get out tree up and decorated, and as of this afternoon, all Christmas lights are in place and working.  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  The greeting cards are beginning to come in, and as usual, I haven't done anything about sending any - and haven't even thought about doing one to send electronically, which I normally do to JPA members and to our family.  Last week I was totally absorbed in the West Danville history stuff and made some real headway, so I'm anxious to get back to that, too, and we're getting close to when there will be more concentration on Ice-Out Contest stuff.  Life is complicated and unpredictable.