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Water
By Marie Craig
Here I sit waiting for the plumber to return my call. Once upon a time, there was a gas water heater in my attic. This has now been replaced by an electric water heater in my garage, but the water pipes are still in the attic. Alas, this arctic weather has caused leaking water from the attic to stain the wall in the garage and in a bathroom. Last night when I found the streaks on the wall, I realized that I should cut the water off.
Hmm. Wonder how you do that? A quick search on the Internet described the possible location and the picture of that cut-off valve. Thankfully, it was in the garage instead of outside. (Do you know where it is in your home and how to turn all the water off? Also, similar switches for gas and electricity?
Since then, I have realized all the things that I cannot do right now: wash clothes and dishes, flush, get a drink of water, wash my hands, water my plants, cook pasta, or shower. We take all these things for granted. Turn a spigot and the water comes out. Not now.
Hopefully this can be repaired easily; cap off the water pipe going to the attic and paint the wall whenit dries.
Water has been in the news for months now as towns, houses, and people were washed away in September. Their repairs will be more extensive than mine. Recently, the California fires have been brutal without sufficient water to help extinguish them.
I’m grateful for indoor plumbing, and this problem will help me be more appreciative and careful.

New Year 2025
By Gaye Hoots
Like all the other 79 of my life, this year will be a mixed bag of tricks. My morning routine consists of perusing the headlines on the internet and balancing that by browsing Facebook to get my equilibrium. The 2 episodes of exploding vehicles and the damage done are sobering and sad. The fact that each, though unrelated, was the sole act of a decorated veteran of the US military, and an active military member of almost 20 years, is most concerning. One appears to be an act of terrorism with an intent to do great harm while the other was not so much to harm as to attract attention. The message was that we were going to hell in a handbasket. There was an article about the large cache of pipe bombs, evidently the work of one man on an isolated farm, that was uncovered, and the man was arrested.
The anger, hate, violence, and damage to innocent people is hard to comprehend. Because I am a psychiatric nurse I tend to want to put a label on these acts, as I cannot imagine anyone who is not mentally disturbed acting in this manner. There were clues that the man in New Orleans was unraveling as his ex-wife’s husband reported they had stopped the visits with him and his children. The other was reported to be receiving mental health treatment.
The most incomprehensible crime reported was the arrest of an RN who broke the bones of 3 infants in a NICU. I cannot imagine this. My great-granddaughter recently spent 7 months in NICU fighting for her life. The babies harmed were all preemies, completely helpless and defenseless…
I know that to force the court to intervene and commit someone you must provide proof to a magistrate that the person is a danger to themselves and others and has the means to act on this. Even if you succeed, they are usually released in a few days if they deny it and you can’t provide proof to the court. The only experience I had was with a patient who told me he considered shooting into a crowd because he was in so much pain and had been all his life, and that he wanted others to feel pain also. He had no weapon and when I questioned if there were specific people, he wanted to harm, he said they were faceless. I told him there were no faceless people, that all of them struggled daily, felt pain, and bled just like him and me. He never acted on this or had a weapon, but medicine did not successfully control his symptoms, and he lived a miserable life.
After reading the news I switch to Facebook where I see posts from friends and family, pictures of their kids, grandkids, and pets. The ones who are sick get supportive comments, as do those suffering losses. I am blessed to have friends who focus only on the positive and when they need help, they ask for prayers. They pray for others and meet physical needs when possible.
I just finished reading 2 books about women who beat impossible odds through their faith in God and with the love of their families. Wild Ride, by Hayley Arceneaux, is the story of a girl who survived the odds with the help of St. Jude’s, her family, and her faith. Her prosthesis, the bone inside her leg, had to be replaced 3 times, each requiring a year of therapy to walk again. She is now a PA at St. Jude’s and was selected to be a crew member on a 4-man spacecraft, as an ambassador of St. Jude’s. None of the 4-man crew had any previous training and 1 was the billionaire who sponsored the ride and donated 125 million to the St. Jude’s project. There is also a version of this written for children.
The Dance, by Joan Aubele, is the story of a woman who was the first adult to survive the type of cancer she had. Her faith in God, her husband’s love, her love for her children, and a strong family of siblings and in-laws including her mother-in-law who moved in and spent almost a year maintaining the family. The raw pain and despair are palpable as is her faith. Both are excellent reads. Joan lives in my neighborhood, and I have plans to meet her this week and purchase her second book. Cami is in a PA group with Hayley and has autographed copies of the adult and children’s versions of her book.

The Perfect Night
By Julie Terry Cartner
“Just calling to see if you wanted to play” The text came through a little after 10:30, Friday night. I’d missed the call and didn’t see the text until after 11p.m. Logic said no, absolutely not. It had been snowing on and off all day, and at that point there was far more icy sleet than there was snow. The roads were hazardous, and the wiser decision would be to stay home, to stay off the road.
But sometimes, sometimes, the heart rules and the brain loses. My mind replayed past snowfalls. With five children, often the memories run together, but when it came to snow play, only two of the five were true snow lovers like their mother. Oh, we all played outside, sledding, snowball fights, building forts, making snow angels and collecting clean snow for snow cream, but the two I could guarantee would outlast the others were Grady and Hannah. And our favorite thing to do, once the hilarity of the day was done, was to walk in the snow, to listen to the whisper of silence as the snow drifted down through the dark night’s sky.
We covered acres of land, across the fields and pastures, through the woods and down to the creek, relying on the muted glow of the moon to guide our path. And we would talk: simple talk of the fun we’d had that day, and of course, our favorite parts, perhaps it was making the perfect snow angel, or that trip down the hill when we’d “catch some air” going over a terrace, or maybe it was the flawless snowball that hit a sibling when he, or she, was looking the other way. Talks would progress through deep discussions of the vastness of the world and all within it. We never knew where these conversations would go. Though we’d start them, they’d take on a life of their own and we’d meekly follow – politics, the environment, stars and constellations, childhood reminiscences, movies, books – it really didn’t matter, we were simply sharing thoughts.
Sometimes they’d ask about my childhood snows, and I’d tell them about snow so high we’d have to climb out of the second floor windows to get out of the house and to the barn to feed the chickens, or times that we’d build tunnels that ran the length of the house. I’d tell them of sledding down our favorite hill, the one that if you hit the path just right, would carry us all the way down to the beach.
Often, we wouldn’t talk at all; we’d just absorb the silence of the winter night, the only sounds being our breath, the crunch of snow under our feet, and occasional chirps and hoots of the nightlife around us. I loved our conversations, but I equally loved sharing the reverence of the cold night, the snow brushing across our faces and disguising familiar landmarks, the deep awe inspired by the rarity of snowfall. Sometimes we’d walk and talk, and then just stop and breathe, absorbing the tranquility of the night. The rural setting, the lack of streetlights, and the absence of cars made the silence profound, and it was easy to believe we were alone, isolated in the vastness of land and sky.
And so, with the memories lingering in my brain the way the scent of the woodstove remains long after it has burned its last fire of the season, though my mama brain said, “No, stay home where it’s safe,” my heart said, “Come on, but be careful.” Thirty minutes later, we were walking through the snowy night, sometimes talking, a mix of reminiscences, conversations about our day, and the sheer joy of once again walking and talking together in the snow. Other times we’d stop just for the pleasure of listening to the whisper of silence as the snow drifted down through the dark night’s sky, across the fields and pastures and down to the creek. We stood immersed in the silence and breathed in that perfect tranquility that comes rarely, only when life’s elements coincide to create a perfect moment: my son, myself, and the snow.
Thanks, Grads, for the call. I’m glad I listened to my heart.