Blessings of adopted mothers, hot water, and clean clothes...

Happy New Year, everyone! I love clean, fresh starts. Our New Year started out with a wonderful visit to Grabers for scrapbooking and visiting with Jenny, but the best visit was with Mom Graber after everyone went to bed the night before. What a treasured gem. I can't even begin to explain how precious that was for me, so won't even try.
The next day was spent (for me) finally going through all those scrapbook drawers, cubbies, nooks and crannies, and purging and putting to order. Now my paper is once again grouped by color, and no, I still don't have enough blue!! Gonna have to look online...
Today, most of us are in the store for showers. Sounds innocent enough, doesn't it? However, I use the term loosely. Our shower only produces HOT water and is not a good thing to stand under! I am blessed that it does produce hot water, and that we have a shower to throw water around in. It sure beats standing in a tub on the cold back porch of our home wishing I had more hot water as my teeth chatter :) The girls rigged the shower with two 5 gallon pails...one full of cold water and the other for hot. If you run the shower just right, it trickles into the hot water bucket, creating steam to help you stay warm, and supplying you with ample hot to mix with the cold...a much improved bird bath :)
Our washer is also on the fritz, leaking water all over the floor through a bad gasket. We are blessed with not one, but two laundromats in town within walking distance. AND a dryer that works, for the most part. It's so nice to be clean and in clean clothes...makes you appreciate living in the USA where such things are commonplace and not luxuries.
Back to fresh starts...they have to be my favorite things on the face of this earth. And they cover so many parts of our lives...they are a little bit of "new" life. A new house, after you've de-junked and scrubbed and swept and re-arranged...the family all knows that's in our immediate future and while they groan about it, we all feel such satisfaction to have something fresh and new to look at. There's the feeling of knowing all the hidy-holes have been cleaned out...even if it doesn't last forever :)
I would DEARLY like to have the chicks out of the house...wish their feathers would grow faster :) The dust they create is really getting to me. But we have a plan and soon they'll go live with Denise's hens.
Do continue to pray for Herb...he's been feeling crummy all week, and not improving. Pray that the Doc would have the wisdom to figure this thing out and get rid of it for him. We want and need our man back. It's so sad to see him down. Thanks! Have a wonderful week, everyone!