It is cloudy and gray this morning with a 1° temperature and a -7° windchill out side. Predictions cover the gambit of winter weather options; snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain.  I filled the feeders just yesterday afternoon and they are half empty this morning. The flock of blackbirds and starlings that are hanging around just rape and pillage the feeder village. There are no less than fifty out there right now. But I also have a lot of my regular crowd of aviary friends. The cardinals, woodpeckers, finches, junkos, and chick-a- dees are all vyeing for a spot too. It is no wonder I go through so much bird feed. But, with that many, they do a pretty good job of cleaning up the stuff that is on the ground.

It is Friday again already and I don't feel I have accomplished much this week. I guess that is because my attention has been focused on weather and clearing snow, cancelled worship service on Wednesday, and other "stuff". I just realized last evening that I haven't even begun to write next week's sermon. Today, as much as we hate it, I guess we will get started on filing our taxes. It has to be done sometime and as a former boss of mine used to say, "bad news doesn't get any better with age". Ms. Kate probably already has 98% of the stuff together and we file on-line, so it is just a matter of doing it. And when we are finished, --- it will be a headache out of the way for another year.

The good news is that spring is only twenty-eight days away. As I sit here looking at that layer of snow, that is a very warming thought. Of course just because the calendar says spring doesn't guarantee warm weather; but there is hope! Next week Ms. Kate and I have a couple of days planned to go to Nashville to celebrate our 49th anniversary. I'm hoping it will be nice enough for us to do that. I know neither of us wants to be walking around in 20° weather with snow and stuff. But, that is where we went for our honeymoon, and that is where we are doing a family reunion come July. We just want to try to get a bit of a lay of the land and an idea of where things are.

I'm glad to report that Gary and Lusa are well into the last stages of getting their new business set up. They will sign a two year lease on the building starting March 1st, but the owner of the building has given them permission to proceed with building modifications etc. and I think Gary has the carpenter coming in today. We are all very excited for them and pray it will work out for them. There is just so much to do when a person steps out to be in business for themselves. Julie has been a big help with all of the "tech-stuff" like computers and websites and getting that stuff set up. I wish I had time to go help them move stuff in but I will just have to man the prayer chain from here.

As the week ends, it is a good time to stop and look over your past seven days and gives thanks for all of the ways God has appeared in your life. Maybe some stuff didn't go your way or maybe you had some difficult news to deal with, but God walked with you through every moment of this week and the promise is that God will continue to do so. Take a moment or a minute or an hour today and give thanks for that.