A Decaturiffic Snow Day

Yesterday around 2:00, it started to snow. And kept snowing. And snowing. When it finally stopped around noon today, we were left with over 10 inches of the beautiful but messy white stuff. For those of you not living in Central Illinois, its pretty much shut down around here. It takes a lot to get them to shut down the State Farm corporate offices, but thousands of SF'ers got to go back to bed this morning.

Anyway, not the point of the story. While I don't work on Fridays and have been lucky enough to get to cuddle with my kittens while i curl up on the couch in my sweats, Ryan went to work. As we live on a non-essential roadway, we've yet to see a plow. And even with the sandbags in the F150, Ryan had trouble getting out of the driveway and up the street. I heard his tires spinning and peeked outside to check on him and saw our next door neighbor walking out to the truck. Without saying a word, he started pushing, and I watched as he pushed the truck up the worst part of the hill. Once Ryan got going and I settled back inside, I couldn't help but dwell for a little while on how lucky we are to live in such a friendly and wonderful neighborhood. Little did I know...

I confess, my morning included an indulgent little nap. When I woke up, I was still thinking about how great it was for our neighbor to do something nice for someone else, and I decided that it might be nice to shovel the driveway so that Ryan wouldn't have to do it when he got home. I bundled up in my adorable little cherry boots, winter coat and gloves and headed out to shovel. I watched car after car make their way along our snow covered street, each person waving a cheery hello. The snow was heavy and deep, but I was making progress. About half an hour into the shoveling, I saw a tan truck, one of the first that had driven by, pull up and park in front of the neighbor's house. I knew it wasnt the neighbor, but I had no clue who it was. Out of the truck emerged a tall man in tan coveralls. He grabbed a shovel out of his truck, walked over, and asked if he could help. Without waiting for an answer, he started to shovel. We talked as we worked - his name is John, he's currently unemployed, his mother lives in Waukegan and his sister lives down the street from us. She's a schoolteacher with two grown children. John had driven over to take his sister out to buy some salt, as his truck could handle the snow better than her car. He said that the first time he drove by, Jesus said to him of me "she might need some help". When he drove by the second time and I was still out working, he decided to listen and stop. When we had finished, I offered him a warm drink, to buy him lunch, anything I could think of. He refused. I begged him to let me do something for him, and he told me if I would have a wonderful day, that would be enough for him. When I thanked him for his help, he thanked me for letting him help, smiled, shook my hand, and was gone almost as fast as he had appeared.

I came back in the house to warm up and just haven't been able to stop thinking about the kindness of strangers in this town. True, Decatur lacks a lot. A decent mall and bookstore for example. But what it does have is wonderful people, generous and kind. The kind of people you can't find just anywhere. Sometimes I spend so much time wishing for the things that this part of Illinois doesn't have that I overlook the things it does. Maybe when Jesus told John that I "might need some help" he wasn't talking about the snow. Maybe he was talking about my perspective.

Decatur - it isn't all bad. :)



(Won't be so serious on the next one, I promise!)

Of Basements and Basketball

Another weekend, another bunch of work done. And again, I can't take much credit. This past weekend Mama and Papa Morge, and Liz, Luke and Annabelle came down for a visit, and Don came over to help with the house. Saturday morning was spent attacking the basement, dissasembling the pool table and cleaning away. In the afternoon, we all took a break and went to Michael Aaron's basketball game - what a blast!! Michael shows as much hustle in b-ball as he did in soccer, he's such a great athlete. Here are some pics from the game:

Michael knows how important it is to stay hydrated :)

The best looking cheering section ever.

Uncle Ryan cuddles his Annabelle.

Once the game was over, and the supplies were purchased, it was back to work. The rest of Saturday night (with the exception of a dinner break) and Sunday was spent working on the cabinets/wall. When all was said and done, we had beautiful cabinets installed, including the gorgeous blue tile top. Check it out:

Checking for level on the cabinets.

Installing the countertop.

Pibblet surveys the action to make sure things are looking how HE wants them to.

Tiles are in and grouted - beautiful!

Thanks again to Mom and Dad P, Mom and Dad M, Liz, Luke, Annabelle and especially Don for all their hard work!!! You guys are doing more for us and this house than you could ever imagine. We love you all so much!!!

What a week...

Hey, Meghan here. Last week started off with a bang, literally. That was the noise that the following jar of salsa made when it fell off the shelf in the pantry from about 5 feet up, landing on my toe, resulting in my first ever broken bone. (I can practically hear the sigh of relief from all the Morge kids, seeing that it wasnt a jar of Papa's salsa!)

Hey, I never claimed I wasn't clumsy! Anyway, despite the freezing temperatures, I spent most of last week without a shoe on my right foot. I was unable to stay on my feet for too long without the toe really starting to hurt, but thankfully it has improved, and I can finally put a shoe back on and walk without looking too gimpy.

Things improved greatly when over the weekend Mom and Big Poppa P came down for a visit to celebrate Mom's birthday. Mom and I did as much shopping as one can do with a broken toe, while the boys worked around the house. Thanks to the hard work of Poppa P, Ryan, and Don, the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad wallpaper is FINALLY gone from the bedroom. Here are the boys hard at work:

Ok, so maybe it wasn't ALL work - Ryan and Dad took a little Wii Lego Star Wars Break (nice hair, pops!):