Hey Carolyn,

Seriously, I thought you would have written by now! You know that just means I will bug you on the phone daily if you don’t write, right? So I was driving on this beautiful crisp morning to take Abby to school and thought of a million and one things to write about. I’m in the mood for writing for sure. I’m just not sure where to begin. I was thinking about how familiar I’ve become with the changing of the seasons here. It no longer surprises me to wake and find the mountain tops covered in beautiful white snow in September when the day before saw temps in the 50′s. Today was the first day I asked Abby to keep a hat and gloves in her backpack in case of emergencies. Soon we will just transition into wearing them out of the house without batting an eye, like movie scenes that seamlessly happen without noticing the changes. I am a little concerned about getting Keith to keep a hat on but I’m sure we’ll figure that one out too. We could go real Alaskan and use duck tape somehow. I was truly thankful for my garage this morning since it was about 30 degrees.

There are other things lately that make me think, “hey we are truly becoming Alaskans!” Mike went moose hunting last week and came home with a fox. He wants to have it tanned, which I am not wild about, but I’m okay with. So I suppose we will begin hosting dead animals in our home and try really hard to not be freaked out by it. Plus also, one of “my” volunteers at church has a husband who is a taxidermist. It feels good to know people. And to take frozen dead animals to church in a trash bag and hand them off to someone else. Sorry if that was too much for some of our more delicate readers.

One last thing: we are now the proud owners of a generator. I don’t know the wattages and all the specs but I know it will run enough of our stuff to survive a windstorm that takes out the power for 2-3 days. I know because we just did that. It is different for us to not have water because the well pump is electric. Duh!!!!! And so, welcome, winter, our old pal. We knew you’d be back soon! But please keep the high winds for another time. They were not fun, but that’s neither here nor there.

So, how are things in Virginia? A beautiful fall minus the air conditioning bills I suppose. Do tell.

Kristy

Share