Heat, glorious heat. The heater is in and working and even David's room is warm and toasty. Funny how you take things like personal comfort for granted until you go through a period without your home heating system. Even with our fireplace and space heater, it was downright cold in the house. I don't know how the homeless cope in areas like Boston and Green Bay and I give thanks for the homeless shelters throughout the country who take in the homeless and give them a warm bed and a hot meal during the Winter months. Our church participates in a program called The Gathering Inn where the area churches take in the homeless and house them for a few nights and try to give them not only shelter, but also hope for the future. You'd think there weren't many homeless in Roseville, but it is a railroad city and the homeless still ride the rails in the empty boxcars and stop in Roseville.

My heating and air contractor had to cut a hole in my laundry room to fit the new heater up into the attic. I have attic stairs in the garage, but the new heater wouldn't fit..it was too wide for the opening. They cut an extra four inches in the former opening for the attic access that was in the utility room. I went out to Lowes this week and bought a 4'x8' length of wall board to patch the small 3' x 26" opening that needed to be repaired. I closed off the old opening and put a floor over the joists so that no one would take a fall through that opening back into the laundry room from above. I had never done any wallboard and could have used Dad's help in the project, but I muddled through it. My father-in-law, Earl, was a big help in walking me through the process. The thing that seemed to take the most time was cutting out the old wall board along the center of the joists above so that I could tack the replacement board in place. I used a wall board knife and hacked away at the old wallboard and made a Godawful mess on the floor and on the coats hanging in the utility room and all over myself as well. It looked like I was tearing down the room rather than just repairing a small piece of wallboard. I was lucky to catch Earl after I finished preparing the repair with joint mud. I had planned to let the mud dry and then put the wall board tape on. Earl set me straight that the tape was to be applied at the same time as the mud. It is dry now and I will wet sand the finish, add one more coat of mud and then wet sand it again and then texture the final product prior to painting the ceiling next weekend. I don't know how it will turn out, but it will undoubtably let less cold air into the house than the prior configuration. I added some insulation in the attic and, as I said, it is nice and warm in the house now. Unfortunately, I now have a small blood blister on the point of my right index finger that is a bit painful today.

I also had DirecTV come out last Friday and install TiVo in the house. It is the state of the art way to watch television and it seemed that our VCRs were forever having problems recording programs. We went to David's basketball game on Friday night and I Tivo'd the Kings game. We got home just after halftime and I turned on the recorded portion of the show and watched the whole game in about an hour and twenty minutes. Somehow you watch the program from the beginning and it contines to record the game through to completion and you just continue to watch it. Nice.

David is playing Power Forward on his Varsity basketball team and he has been voted a captain on the team by his teammates. He started the last game, but got into early foul trouble and watched most of the game from the bench. We have a chance to do some damage in the section this year as we have a 6'8" senior center who is dominant. He had a slam dunk in the last game that brought the house down. It will be a fun year.

I played golf on Saturday and then we had the Roseville Golf Club Christmas party that night. My golf game was not in high gear as I shot 43-47=90 out at Woodcreek Golf Course. It was in the 40's when we teed off and I hate to play golf in a coat. It was COLD. I played with Mel, Harry Wharff and Mark Konrad. Mark is the guy who always wants to bet me. Well, he made a nice haul this weekend, winning our $5 stroke play match and taking another $3 from each of the golfers on our group bet. He also won $13 in skin money. Mel shot 93, Harry shot 77 and Mark shot 86.

The dinner and party that night were great and I am now officially off the board of the Roseville Golf Club. We had a really fun night with dancing and some adult beverages and a lot of fellowship. Darla and I finally left at 11:30 and took Mark and Pam home with us. Mark had arranged for a limo to take them to the party and asked if we'd drive them home. Strangely, the limo was there waiting for them at the end of the party. The driver had no other fares and was available if they wanted a ride home. The problem was he'd sat in the parking lot watching tv and listening to music and his battery was dead. I had to give him a jump and then Mark and Pamela blew him off anyway. As Mark said, "I didn't ASK him to come and pick us up. I only arranged for travel TO the event."

I haven't heard from Jennifer since she got to Germany, but she did call and talk to her Mom and let her know she made it to Germany and was having a ball. She will be there until December 18th, when she will return to Kuwait. I hope to hear from her soon and I'll fill you in on her comings and goings when I do. I notice she hasn't added to her blog since she left.

By the way, I notice that the blog will surpass 1000 visits this week and although it is the same 3 or 4 readers and some who come in under a search engine, it is still gratifying to see that there are some folks who care to keep up with the Lyons here in California. For that, I am humbled. As I've said before, the blog allows me to purge some creativity from my soul and although I don't have the interactive juice of a pen pal as I did with my Gramp Lyon, who passed away in 1999, I still enjoy the blog and the chance to share my life with you. Take care and know that Christ IS in Christ-mas.