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Happy New Year 2022
On New Year's Day we convened at the Sleight/Eby house in Auburn,
leaving Nancy home to work on her oak floor installation. The kids
played their Dungeons and Dragons game while Helen Eby and I watched
four of the five grandkids.
How good and pleasant it is when brothers (and sisters)
live together in unity! Psalm 133:1
At lunch time, Cynthia casually shared the news that she and
Nathanael were expecting a sibling for Jonathan and Reuben in September!
This
news is always a big surprise but never unexpected.
Any time I have my grandkids as a captive audience, they become the
subjects for this journal, my pictorial family history.
The big Northwest snow event lasted from December 26th until it rained
off on January 2nd and 3rd.
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  Alicia
Pastrick's Birthday Play Date
On Thursday the 20th, Nancy and I drove to Lake
Stevens with Charis and Valerie, to have a play date with Alicia's kids,
our surrogate grandkids. Richard is currently living elsewhere,
struggling to cope with special needs children, especially his
eldest, Rowan. He does stay involved by assisting with some family
tasks. Alicia and Richard need our family ties and Christian fellowship and
support.
Alicia turned 39 on the 25th. Charis and
I baked a cake and Nancy brought a few gifts.
Like so many other events, I didn't want to go,
but enjoyed myself immensely when there.
I am one of those grandparents that likes to get down and play at baby
and toddler level. I continue to apply my general rule for kids to
grandkids. The ones I love most are the ones I'm with.
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 I
Miss Galen
Jean keeps us updated with pictures of
Galen, or as I sometimes think of him, #5. He has quickly
grown from infant to baby.
On the 30th, Galen brought his parents
by for a drive-by visit. I gave Joel a promised male
Cherry Barb to go with the four females I gave him last month.
Jean borrowed the van to move a sofa. And Galen just
looked his happy handsome self.
I will see him again on my birthday.
Then mid-February, I've been invited to hang out with Luna again
for a few days so that Jean, Joel, and Galen can celebrate the
Sitte's 2nd anniversary in Leavenworth.
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Doing My Homework: Acts 20-28
I managed to retrieve many of the
commentaries on the book of Acts that I'd loaned to Randy.
I've restarted my studies that will produce nine 50-minute
lectures covering the last nine chapters, Acts 20-28.
I recognize, as I have since 1978, that
I am a teacher rather than a scholar. My job is to cull
and organize the scholarship of others and to present it in
edifying and interesting ways. For the book of Acts, I'll
rely on the significant work of theologians like F. F. Bruce,
James Montgomery Boice, John Stott, and others.
Now that I am retired, I may also
finally find time to get into the many commentary sets that have
gathered dust in my large library.
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 My Fitness Plan: Digging, Sawing,
Chopping, Hauling
The planned southern expansion of my
garden on the sunny side of the house has begun with the
excavation of "Fort Mountain." This large hill of dirt was
left for our kids to play on after the 1992-93 construction of
the Big Blue House. An hour of digging takes it down about
six inches. January rains have limited my opportunities to
dig. Removing Fort Mountain will more than double my
garden area.
I restocked the bar oil for my Poulan
electric chainsaw and have begun reducing the various piles of
branches and scrap lumber that litter our
 0.42
acre yard. Many of these piles grew with the understanding
that I'd have time in retirement to deal with them. Alas,
hours each day playing with Charis and Valerie, coupled with
chronic sleep problems, have limited my time outdoors. The
snow, rain, and general January cold has not helped either.
(It's 5:38 AM as I type this, and I've been awake since before
4:00 AM.)
During the late December to early
January snow event, I had our woodstove going nearly every day.
I don't think I will ever lack for firewood from my own yard.
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 In
the Aquariums in January
On the 1st, I spotted a clutch of Mystery snail
eggs on the glass above the waterline in my 29-gallon tank. For
Christmas, I'd given Joel four of the Cherry Barbs he'd bought for me in
the summer, and I hadn't replaced the water. This provided a space
out of the water where these useful and attractive snails lay their eggs.
After six months back in this hobby,
I've finally begun to make water changes. I replace about
four gallons of water at a time in one of my three tanks.
Until the basement bathroom is completed, this will mean 14
trips hauling water from the master bath tub to the basement
every few months.
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  The
2022 Garden Plan
Tomatoes, peppers, and onions are sure to be
planted again. I have green onions, Walla Walla sweet
onions, and leeks started by the south living room window. Six
peppers from last year thrive in the dining room.
For my birthday, I purchased a small metal
stand through eBay. My hope is to start 33 cups with tomatoes
grown from seeds on it. I'll place it on the south-facing dining
room window bench. Don has asked for eight tomato plants for his
planter boxes at the cabin.
I have seeds for cucumbers, lavender, and a
variety of herbs. I'm hoping to fill all my 5-gallon buckets from
last year with something, and to add more buckets.
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Bits and Pieces
 The home office clean out
continued in January. For example, I culled a collection of 140 American
Rifleman (NRA) and Guns & Ammo magazines from 140 down to 20.
I have been slowly learning to part with non-essential pieces of my past
which Annie hauls away or offers to others on Buy Nothing.
I moved furniture around in my office to increase the floor space and to
help with the clean out.
At the end of the
month, Nancy has only 27 more 10-foot rows of oak flooring to screw down
in the library. Then we'll paint, add moulding, and then move in
the five bookcases that have waited in the living room and dining room
for years. Susan has been keeping the dining room set from Uncle
Jack and Aunt Cora that will go in the middle of the finished library.
Nancy's love chest, one of my stereo racks, and perhaps a recliner chair
will fill the rest of this long dreamed of room.
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My Quote from January
“The real damage is done
by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to
be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by
anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.
Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of
antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or
enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only
literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the
reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it
under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you.
But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up
their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From
what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the
same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just
like a flaming torch does.
I choose my own way to burn.”
Sophie Scholl,
1921-1943
Sophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student and
anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent
resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason
after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University
of Munich with her brother, Hans.
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