December 30th, 2017; just one more day left to this year and 2017 will only be a memory. I hope your 2017 was filled with good memories. Mine certainly was. We had lots of travel and visiting with our girls, We have a wealth of good friends from our church and faith families. Our girls all continue to be successful in their jobs and the grandkids are growing up way too fast. Our health continues to be maintained at a fairly good level and I’m not broke! God has continued to bless me as an individual and us as a family. And, —- while not tops on Ms. Kate’s happy list, I have a prospect of going back to some part time work preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I say it isn’t the top of Ms. Kate’s list it is only because I keep promising retirement but I also keep renigging on it and working. I know it isn’t fair to her, —- but I also know that it is a calling that I must follow. She understands that and supports me in it, but —- that doesn’t mean she has to like it; and I understand that too. So, it is good that we did have this year off and were able to do our traveling.

It is a twenty-three degree windy and cloudy morning. Weather forecasts predict dangerously cold weather for most of the next week. We here in southern Indiana are extremely lucky that we don’t have the blizzards and snow that the upper part of the country has. Many parts of the country are getting snow measured in feet not inches. This is the coldest winter since 2008 and the cold streak is not going to let up any time soon. Brrrrr!

Today Ms. Kate and I are going to sister Karen’ss House to celebrate their family Christmas. It will be a fun afternoon. Karen is a good cook so the food will be good. Then they have their Christmas tradition of unwrapping gifts through a “dirty bingo” type of game. It is so funny to watch them scheme and plan what gifts they are going to steal from one another. They literally plan several moves ahead n how to get what gift they want. Karen comes up with these gift from different places and the game is a hoot. While she was in Las Vegas last week she won a Blu-tooth speaker and I suspect that iss going to be the gift they will be fighting over. I just sit back and watch the antics.

Tomorrow I am preaching the sermon at church and I’m ready for that. Then Ms. Kate and I will come home and just enjoy being home on New Year’s Eve. I hope you can make it to church and I hope you take time to give thanks for the year of blessings God has given you. Peace.