No More Pigpen / Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Grandpa Aune turned 86 this past Friday! One of the millions of things I love about Grandpa is that he’s willing to act a little silly to make his grandkids smile. Here are a couple of pictures… the first is from a visit we had over Christmas break. Gramp brought me the mail, I provided some chocolate, and in return – he agreed to wear a pink hat for a picture. 🙂 The second dates back to when Gram and Gramp first got married. He’s kept that twinkle in his eye for 86 years!!!

Twice, now, we have come back from breaks to a house covered in soot. After Thanksgiving, we noticed a black film on EVERYTHING we touched. After discussing this with our neighbor, Bill, we decided the problem was that the vent outside was probably blocked with snow, causing the heater to expell all the extra soot into our livingroom and beyond. We fixed that problem, and as a precaution I made sure to shut all the doors in our house before we left for Christmas. To make a long story short, it wasn’t the problem, it happened again, and now we now the true problem and it’s been fixed.

Unfortunately, the soot took over our home again! Worse than that… I start feeling like I’m covered in soot (which isn’t too far from the truth). And so even when I’m not at the house, I feel like I’m smudging things – truly I’ve felt like poor Pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoons.

Today I fixed the problem though, as I finally had some time in Unalakleet. Plus, since Bill began his adventure to Hawaii yesterday, I really didn’t have a lot of better things to do with my Saturday morning and afternoon. I was a scrubbing fool – floors, walls, windows, counter tops… any surface I could get to got it’s fair share of windex, pinsol, or pledge today. And I can finally say – I don’t feel like the dirty kid any more!

Aside from that terribly interesting morning of cleaning, I’ve had a very lovely weekend so far. We had our first official “girl’s night” of crafting, yummy foods and drinks, and a movie. I’m looking forward to a regular schedule to help encourage productivity in the card making arena. 🙂

Tomorrow will be used to catch up on work reports and preparation for Monday’s travels. Soon, I will trade in my consulting shoes for my role as a student… I am taking 6 credits this semester in order to be able to renew my MN teaching license – which is already up this spring! Where has the time gone?

Anyway, the weather here is cool, but the days are getting noticably longer. I believe we’re gaining around 5 minutes of light each day! And now that my windows are crystal clear and free of film, the sun can invade my home again.

Happy January!