Happy Monday, World! An entire new week has opened up giving us all opportunities to face new challenges, share new joys, and maybe solve lingering issues from last week. This week, like every new week will become what ever we make of it. So, I hope that as you got out of bed this morning you slid your feet into your "great attitude slippers", threw on your "robe of love", and thanked the Lord for this day and the blessings it will bring.

I'm feeling especially blessed this morning. Great things are happening within the Heumann family. Our middle daughter, Heather, got engaged a couple of weeks ago; our youngest daughter, Lisa, and her husband have gone into business for themselves as they open a new automotive repair shop; and last evening our oldest grandson, Joshua, announced his engagement to his long-time girlfriend, Christina. So, sometime within the next year to eighteen months we will gain a new son-in-law, John, a new granddaughter-in-law, Christina, and two great-grandchildren, Jake and Abby. So my first prayers of the morning are prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for the success of each of these young folks as they begin new and exciting adventures and chapters in their lives. God is so very good.

It is a really cloudy and gloomy looking morning and is 37° out there, which means it is a damp cold. Ms. Kate and are hoping that it won't rain this week. We have some quite expensive flower bulbs that really need to go in the ground and we need the weather to warm a bit and the ground to dry out some. If we get them in soon, they still will have an opportunity to bloom this spring. Right now, the ground is still thawing and we would just be "mudding" the bulbs in if we tried to plant them. We have had to do that in the past, and while it worked, it didn't work well. So, come on out sunshine and do your job!

We have a fairly full schedule this week once again filled with meetings, doctor's appointments, choir practice, run of the mill "stuff" that we do weekly, and the big event of the week; --- date night on Saturday night for Valentines Day! We have reservations at our favorite resturant, R'z. If my math is correct, this will be our 51st Valentines Day and she is more the love of my life today than she ever was. To paraphrase a verse from Psalm 23; "God annoints my head with oil, and my cup overflows." I am a blessed man.

The Cardinals, the Bluejay, the Wrens, and the Starlngs ar all out here this morning as well as a half dozen squirrels. No doubt that by tomorrow I will have to fill all of the feeders again. It is a never ending task. But the task results in a setting of peace and enjoyment so it is worth the expense and work. However, my coffee cup is empty and I have a day of writing ahead of me and I better get to it. Have a great day!