152 Wetlands Dock at Sunset HDR

151 Rich & Roxi at the Beach

150 Me Reading

Next to napping, this is the most common thing we do at the beach in winter. 

149 At the Beach

Whenever I tell someone we are heading to the beach in the winter I get very puzzled looks. What we like best about the beach in winter is the solitude. We do take walks down the beach while we're here, but mostly we sit in front of the fireplace reading and napping. 

148 Mia & Phylica

147 Christmas Reflections

146 Christmas Eve Excitement

Sunday School children getting ready to lead the Christmas Eve procession. They were all carrying sticks with ribbons and jingle bells. 

145 Bethlehem Depot

144 Nativity in Bethlehem

143 We Walked to Bethlehem...and part way back

This fall about 40 people from St. John's took up the challenge to combine our steps and walk from Bethlehem Township, PA to Bethlehem, West Bank, Israel by Christmas. Every step counted, whether at work or working out. We planned on 11 weeks and made it with 1500 miles on the return trip. Here are some of the feet that made the trip.

142 After the Snow

After the snow came the sleet, and after the sleet came the rain. It's still cold enough for the bushes and trees to be encased in ice.

141 Jingle Bells

140 Lights in the Neighborhood

139 Quilting

138 Arches

137 The List

Santa makes a list of who's naughty and who's nice. My list is what needs to be done in the next ten days. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and needed some order to the chaos called mid-December that includes, but is not limited to, baking, sermon writing, Christmas shopping, meetings, homebound communion visits, and the ever present laundry. At this time of year I have been known to say, "I have a list. If it's not on the list, it's not going to happen." It usually works and sanity eventually  returns.

136 Sheet Music

135 Red Nose Runner

Last June my colleague Rich Mauthe and I both ended up scheduling surgeries for July. Mine was on my foot.

 His was single bypass.  A long time marathoner, he asked if I wanted to run the Christmas City Classic in December. "By that time," he said, "I should be up to it." I said, "Sure." He said it would be  our "coming out party." But this was no quick 5k run. This was 5 miles. 2 miles longer than a 5k. 2 miles longer than any of my training runs in the past month. I was so excited he wanted to run with me, at my slow, gal-umping pace. He was happy to pace with someone slow to not over do it after being on a bypass pump for 50 minutes 5 months ago. We started at the back of the pack. We stayed at the back of the pack. Our only goal was to finish and we did. He picked up his pace the last half mile. As much as he wanted to have a triumphal finish together he needed to get back to his church for a funeral. My number one fan,husband Rich, saw me off, met me at end and took some pictures of the highlights. I crossed the finish line with a time of 1:02:26. 

One of the features of this race was everyone was encouraged to dress up in red and green and there were prizes for the best costumes. Husband Rich told me about this runner before the race started. "There's someone with a red nose," he said. I commented that I had a red nose since it was 27 degrees and snowing lightly. He said, "This one's blinking."

 Here are pictures Rich took of me at the race.

Crossing the finish line.

Breakfast after the race

I finished!

134 Eat, Sleep, Read

Moravian Bookstore window. 

Sounds about right to me.

133 Agnus Dei

The Lamb of God on the Christmas tree.

132 It Snakes Through the Basement

Snaking through our basement is a 6 inch chimney liner. It is supposed to be in the chimney as the first step in replacing the furnace. It's in the basement because it turns out it doesn't fit and a 5 inch liner is a special order and Jake the plumber thinks he can start again on Friday.

131 Grandma Ruth's Tea Cups

130 The Sort Continues

One of the tasks of the photography class was to capture what happens in the kitchen. In this case the kitchen was used to sort a pile of bills. The space isn't any larger than my desk. The only advantage to sorting the bills in the kitchen was to be in the same room as the cooking dinner.

129 Snowman

Rich says he's scary because it glows from the inside. A snowman with an inner light.  Since he's made of metal he's not melting sitting on the widow sill.

128 Graveside

127 Sam & Estizer

Our photo documentary class received our copies of the book we worked on during December's First Friday at the Banana Factory and our working prints were exhibited around the room. Several shots of the Boor family at dinner were in the book and on the walls and Alison and Sam came to the event while Christian was at a Boy Scout event. Here Sam signs the page his picture is on for Estizer, one of my classmates. Behind Sam are some favorite people; Alison, Sharon Ann and Rich. I don't know who is behind Estizer.

126 Ten Dozen

Shortbread cookies for Christmas

125 It's All About the Chocolate

I'm getting a head started with the holiday baking and most of it is chocolate. Two types of fudge, toffee bars, chocolate peppermint bark, mocha swirls, and mint brownies lead the list followed by shortbread cookies and gingerbread bowls and lastly a small pan of cherry bars.

124 Moonrise

123 The Whole Musical Ensemble

I will grant that we are a bit of a musical family. After all, Rich owns 11 guitars,  Nate is studying at Berklee School of Music, and both boys played in the Liberty High School Band. But there is a whole other side to the whole musical ensemble.  Every Easter Vigil Rich reads the story of the three men and the fiery furnace that repeats the  line,  "When you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up." I don't think this is the same musical ensemble as King Nebuchadnezzar. This one has an accordion.

122 PEACE

A few of our Christmas decorations are actually up, the earliest I've ever up them up. This is mostly due to the fact that the closet under the stairs in the basement where they are stored no longer exists. Eventually the family Christmas stockings will hang from them, but for the time being, they sit in the window.

121 Dave and the Dumpster

Our friend Dave came over to help with the basement demolition. Working all day, Rich and Dave filled the dumpster with the rest of the drywall, all the 2x4's, old insulation,  most of the carpet and a bunch of junk from the coal bin. This part of the the  project is complete and Jake the plumber starts replacing the furnace on December 9. Thanks for all the help, Dave!

120 Construction Site, Philadelphia

119 Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner at our house involves 16 people elbow to elbow at two tables in the dining room. It is relatively easy meal to have since everybody brings a dish. Janet brought the mashed potatoes everybody loves.  Angie brought green beans and the Peanut Butter Chocolate pie Madison requested. Stacey brought spiced squash and apples and a beautiful apple pie. I made the turkey, dressing, cranberries, pumpkin pie and chocolate pecan pie. Frank brought beer and wine. The only person not seen in the picture is Tommy, who at three is just a tad too short and is hidden by me.

118 Thanksgiving Pie

Chocolate Pecan and Pumpkin Pie ready for Thanksgiving.

117 Setting Sun HDR

116 Pen Cup

115 Hygiene Kits

St. John's WELCA group chose to collect items for hygiene kits to send to Church World Service and put the announcement in the bulletin.  The Sunday School took up the challenge and collected enough items for 14 kits.  I missed the assembly line they had set up to put the kits together, but Nick, Luke and Shane proudly show off some of the kits they made.

114 Rubber Band Collection

Everyday we take a rubber band off the newspaper and stick it in a jar.  The jar is now full and I'm not sure what to do with all the rubber bands. This is a macro shot of our rubber band collection.

113 Salad in a Box, Dressing in a Bottle

112 George Garnupful

Growing up, Rich and his best friend Eric created  monsters. From what I understand they did this for their own amusement and to torture Rich's little brother and sister. One of their monsters was a garnupful. I'm not sure what garnupfuls do, or what they look like, but Rich often refers to George Garnupful. I suppose he could look like this. Or maybe this isn't George Garnupful at all, but a dusty, deconstruction monster with bug-eyed goggles I call Rich. Hard to say.  

Dumpster update

It's full and not quite half of the drywall is out of the basement. They're coming tomorrow to take the full one and bring us another. We're hoping to have the basement gutted by Thanksgiving.

111 One of Eleven

Rich has a collection of guitars. This Hagstrom is one of eleven guitars that he owns.

110 Warning Sign

Just so everyone knows, Rich posted this warning sign on the basement door. We'd like to keep the dust downstairs and the door is slightly out of plumb for the nob to work normally.

109 End of the Day, Almost Tomorrow

This is the time I got home from the council meeting. I usually get home from a council meetings by 9:30 at the latest, but the annual budget meeting is always the longest of the year. 

108 Elmer

Elmer has been a fixture at St. John's for as long as anyone can remember. He proudly declares me his daughter and told my dad he would watch out for me. Fortunately for me he approved of Rich when he met him. At 95 he still attends worship every week.

107 Bible Study

The Bible study of Acts at the Synod Council retreat consisted of three questions. What is God doing? What are the people of faith doing, what is driving them and why? What is the purpose of the church? At the end of discussion the groups needed to symbolically show what the passage meant using cups and color pencils, then explain the sculpture to the other groups.  Our group was given Acts 10:34-48. The first part of this passage is a sermon by Peter. The second half says "the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word" and Gentiles who heard the word were baptized. Our sculpture has the cups pointing down, pouring out the Holy Spirit in baptism. The smashed cup is what happens when the Spirit of God falls down on us. Splat!

106 There Used to Be Walls

The Dumpster arrived and our goal is that the walls will be gone by Thanksgiving. After one day of work we realize the Dumpster might be a bit smaller than we need so we carefully stack everything leaving as little vacant space as possible. I'll be happy if all the old drywall fits.