House in Holland!

YEAH, internet is up and working!!! It is truly a blessing and a curse. I can now communicate with the 'world', you know Skype & Facebook; pay my bills and other such things that the computer and internet allow us to do. 

 

However,  it does have a downside...  I can find myself spending way too much time in front of this screen.  Life and the weather here is really nice right now, so I will work hard to limit my time.

 

Below I am giving you a 'tour' of my new home. Kearsten and I spent a lot of time yesterday bringing the pieces together.  It was a real delight to watch how pieces of our furniture fit together.  The upstairs is not complete yet, so you will be seeing only the middle floor.  The basement is that, a basement! Very functional, clean, painted with separate rooms for Kearsten and I to store our stuff! 

(captions under picture)

 view coming in back door

notice Frankie on couch sleeping

 view coming in front door

there he is closer :)

 front porch

 looking into kitchen from 1/2 bath doorway

 looking out from kitchen door

 close up of our 'den area' if you look at the first pic you can see where it fits in the scheme of things

the view from my work table...

 

 

I've met a few of the neighbors, Loretta is going to take Frankie and me down to the Dog Park, she has a puppy about the same size and age so they want to run together .. a downside to the back yard is it isn't fenced in ... guess you can't have it all :-) 

 

Here is Frankie taking a nap near me, patiently waiting for me to get off the computer ! 

 

 

Love and blessings till next time... 

Margaret



WHAT'S MISSING?

I heard myself say, "I'm going to do my Blog".  It was said out loud in the presence of others!  So here goes ...

This was my view at 70mph traveling down RT 90 ... I will miss the sunsets that can often be specular

If I had a picture of all the people I've spent time with over the last two months saying Goodbye to, I'd add it...  there are old friends, I've lived in the Finger Lakes area since 1995 .. a few years :) I followed my daughter up here from Northern VA to Bible School .... She stayed and now calls this part of the country home.  I will miss having someone to go exploring NY with ...

Sunday we spent some quality mom and daughter time exploring the wonderful State Parks NY offers ... I will miss them ...

I have new friends, some I've come to value through the Tea Party and the Festival for Freedom ... like minded and kindred spirits! 

I won't miss the politicians NY State offers!  But I won't use this to vent that :) 

Friday the movers arrive to put all my earthly belongings into their truck and take it to Holland...  OK, if it is going by truck it is obviously not leaving the States .. so 8 hours West they will stop in Holland, Michigan! 

I will share about Holland in my next Blog ..  I'm promised myself I would get this out!!  

My email address, cell phone and Skype addresses all stay the same ... my new address is:
56 E. 21st St
Holland, MI 49423

love,
Margaret and Frankie

 

Winter's HERE!

It's official!! We have had our first real snow fall. The locals are happy! I've learned over the 15 years of living here, that if it doesn't snow before Christmas the locals get pretty cranky!

Well, they are happy and not cranky, but that sure doesn't stop them from complaining :0) ; but again, that's what makes them Happy! It's all a part of the culture.

Watch and listen to the awe and joy in their voices when describing how they navigated over the roads and through the white outs the the lake effect snow created.

Now there are two new phenomons of living in snow country I had to learn -- lake effect and white outs. White outs are pretty self explanatory, but until you are in one on a sunny day with no precepition falling from the sky, you realllly don't understand it. But because of the lake effect snow -- which is light and fluffy and not wet and heavy it is carried real easy on the wind.

So now to what is "lake effect"?. Not being a meteorlogist I probably won't explain it too scientifictly but it sure can pile up high and fast. The cold and wind conditions get 'just right' over the lakes and it creates a 'snow machine' ... that is lake effect snow!

Coming originially from a part of the country that got snow because of storms, getting used to lake effect took some time. EVERY day when it is cold you wake up in the morning and have to brush (sometimes you can just blow it) off your car. It keeps the ground white from December to March and sometimes into April! But as all things you adjust!

Gotta love upstate New York!!!

CTC completed

In Switzerland ... Aug 19, 2010

Lots to catch up on....

There is soooo much to catch up on so I'm not going to try to be too organized. This will be a stream of conscience, random thoughts, etc...

I am supposed to be leavingfor home tomorrow... but there is a couple coming in for meetings, and one of the meeting participants couldn't get here before Monday .... so I'm booked to leave 11:55 am Wednesday ... arriving in Rochester 6:30pm!

Since I last updated the blog a lot has happened --
SPRING being one of the most important... the video is from a "Miss Cow" contest in one of the Swiss Valleys ... NO Kidding!

When I left Trogen April 3rd we still had snow on the ground. but now there are flowers!!

Cologne, Germany is where I visited friends, and we did some sightseeing in the city, the childhood home of Marc Schmidtke. It was fun to experience the city through his stories and history, especially what it experienced in WWII. Everything was totally bombed by the British, except the cathedral as it was the 'landmark' that let the bombers know where they were.
This is a church that was built around the bombed out section of the older church... look close you can see the old section of the building....

FROM Germany, I flew to Dubai, UAE ... this is a city that has more five star hotels than any other place in the world. The city is unbelieveable ... the 'national bird' this the crane... over one fourth of the world's construction cranes are in Dubai. the next picture is of the world's tallest building... it is still under construction. Dubai is the Altar to Materialism... what I learned while there is that Dubai is one of the emmerites of the United Arab Emmerites ... it has no more oil... consequently the Shieks decided to create a place their 'oil buddies' could spend their money... and that is what has happened. It would take me pages to explain the level of outragious ways you could spend your money in Dubai. One of them being at the ski slope built in the desert ... it was 95 degrees but inside the Mall of the Emmerits you can go sking, ice skating or snow boarding!

But as always God has his ways -- the city is also used as a place of rest and respite for the international worker of the Gospel to come out of their countries for a break. I met many families who needed a break from Pakastian, Afganistan, Morocco and many other closed countries. One thing Dubai does do, is allow some freedom of worship. It is still a muslim country but because it wants to be international it has to allow some freedom... Consequently, we were able to have sunrise service on the beach Easter Sunday. We right under the 7 star hotel on the beach...


I arrived back in Switzerland, Sunday, 19 April ... Tuesday I was on my way to Frutigen. A village in a valley between the Alp Mts. I was visiting with a family that will be leaving for Papua Indonesia in mid-July. Erwin is a helicopter pilot and they will be going to their first Helimission assignment .... And what a delightful family!!
this is where I saw the "Miss Cow" contest at the beginning of the blog... I'm learning that each of the villages has a Miss Cow contest every year!

Tomorrow I travel to Zurich (an hour by train) to stay overnight with friends. Some other friends from Holland are coming in for teaching. I am looking forward to seeing them, as it was 2001 since the last time ...

If I have a chance I'll update before I come home, but if not it has been fun... hope you've enjoyed the Blog too!!!

Lots of Love,
Margaret