Snow in East Tennessee

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!

I'mmmmmm back!!!!! And here is the whole, hole story!!!!

As you know by now, Dennis & Marie and Sandy and I went on vacation over the January 1st weekend..... We left, thank God, on December 29.......... around Noon.... The plan was to leave earlier and this is where the story begins!!!!

The picture above is the hole that Marc doug to find our septic tank lid..... On the 29th shortly after 7 am I met Dennis and Marie at the vet where our dogs were going to be boarded... all went well and we left I came home and they went home to pack and come to our home to pick us up for our excellent adventure to Amelia Island, Florida.

When I got home, Sandy was trying to plunge the upstaies toilet that was clogged-up. She was not having much success and ask if I would try. I flexed my muscles and took over the plunging..... When I plunged, stuff flew out of the upstairs sink and bathtub, but could be rinsed out.... progress we thought......... We I plunged and I plunged and I plunged some more and finally, we decided the clog was not going away so we put a not on the toilet - "Do Not Use." Then we went downstairs to get ready for Dennis and Marie....

When we got down stairs Sandy noticed that the floor in our entry-way and downstairs bathroom was wet...... I looked and we discovered that the downstairs tub and stall shower were being occupied by sewer waste..... the stall shower was actually full and running over.... what luck!! We knew our vacation was ruined..... someone was praying........ (it was not me!!) We called Roto Rooter and got their answer service and we Mr. Rooter and got the answer service and we called Rooter Man and got a person.... and so we decided that whoever called back first would get the job...............because, we figured out that the septic tank had backed-up into our house... It, by the way, did not take a Ph.D., which I have, to figure this out...........

In the meant time Dennis and Marie called telling us they were on the way and we told them what had happend and they came over the give us moral support.... (they also provided us with bathroom shuttle servce to their home as it was needed...........) While Dennis and I were a bathroom run one of the people I called returned the call....It was now 9 am an hour after our departure time............ Marc called from Rooter Man and said he was on the way and got directions from Sandy.... A little while later Marc called from Rotor Rooter - it turned out to me the same person....... the other person called later and we told him we did not need his services after all.... I turns out the Marc from Rooter Man, is starting his own business while working for his brother-in-law who owns Rotor Rooter............. very soap operaish!!!!

He arrived 10 and 10:30......................found the septic tank, doug the hole you saw at the beginning and sucked out all the stuff from our septic tank into his truck.... and was gone before noon....... meantime, Sandy was cleaning up the downstairs bathroom while I watched Marc.............. Thank you Sandy!!!!!!!!!! We left on vacation around noon.....

Today Marc retruned to install a riser.... makes it easier to suck out your septic tank which you should do about every three to five years (not knowing this rather important fact, we had never, in 7 years had it cleaned out.....)

The lid!

The riser! The riser in the ground!
Marc cutting off the excess riser!Marc filling up the hole!

The riser cover at ground level!!Now it will be easier to clean out the septic tank the next time............

and that is the whole, hole story!!! cheers, john

ps: many thanks to Dennis and Marie for hanging in during the shitty times as well as the good times - true friends..............

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas and

the blessings and joys of God's gifts to you

for the New Year...

and..

May the road rise up to meet you;
May the wind be always at your back;
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall softly on your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

God bless you all... John and Sandy

Heeee Haaaa!!!!!!!!!! May you have a blessed and holy Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The semester is over, the grades are in, the college party is behind us, the presents are bought (and wrapped or bagged as the case may be) and now the silent and out loud (shout with JOY) contemplation of the meaning of Christmas begins.................. Oh! Yah! Cooking too!!! But for me, cooking is a time when I can contemplate Christ, his birth, and the beginning of the journey to our salvation.... Yep, cooking gives me that opportunity.....cutting the grass does that too, but the grass is not growing right now and the mower is put up for the winter........
So, cooking........... Here is my new try for this year.........

It is called a Buche de Noel or Yule log..........

It is a jelly roll-style vanilla sponge cake covered with Ultimate French Chocolate Buttercream icing. The object is to try and make it look like a log laying on the forest floor with snow..... It is my first try and there is a way to go to say it is okay... that is my judgment.... next year I will try it again, and it will improve... can't wait to taste it all together, we have tasted the icing and the cake crumbs...... pretty yummy!!!!!

Now I want to share some pictures of our home.... This year I gave Sandy lights (part for her birthday and part for her Christmas)..... Here is a picture of the lights.

Here is our yard art...an angel...Sandy and I made it, there is really only one, I moved the camera with the shutter opened!!!! maybe?????

Here is the most important of all, our nativity scene........... Come Emanuel.........

Now our Christmas Tree....... This year we bought our first artificial tree. Last year when I went to burn our tree, it was so dry that one little book match made it burst into a flaming inferno....without the music... I told Sandy that it worried me that something that was so flamable was in our old, wooden house.......... she agreed and we bought a very nice tree... and here it is............

And here is some more of our Christmas that Sandy shares with me and those who visit!!

Oh yah, Jill is here and we are thankful for her presence.................



And so we, Sandy and John, wish you a joyful and blessed Christmas........... With the promise of our salvation, God sent his only child to save us...... Thank you God..............

See the - ELF

click the link

http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=fa466832d4948b1769e994aG06121508

you too can elfyourself!!!!

Happy Day!!

Live MISTLETOE

for sale on e-bay!!!

click here or click the picture

REMEMBER.....

a dollar today is worth a kiss tomorrow!!

xxxxxxxxxxooooooooooooo

MERRY CHRISTMAS

http://www.thecompassgroup.biz/merryxmas.swf

CLICK AND ENJOY!!!!

I got a phone call from Matt today to tell me thank you for the Tickle Me Elmo I sent him... He was laughing on the phone.... He said that he and his mom had a thousand laughs in the few days he had it and that he had taken it to church with him so that they could laugh too....

Humor is second to praying and eating to help with cancer treatments...of course the drugs are important too..........and God bless his care team....

Matt had his first treatment Thursday and he sounded a little tired as one would expect...

Please keep praying.........and then pray some more. God bless you all, John

Tickle Me Elmo TMX

for auction on e-bay

http://myworld.ebay.com/vanblog

Wednesday - I am anxiously awaiting 130 final assignments in my Information Systems classes. For this assignment the students have to evaluate Internet access and hardware necessary to create a home wireless network. They have to evaluate cable, DSL, and satellite Internet connections; two wireless routers; two laptops and two desktop computers; two wireless printers; and two 500 gigabyte network disk drives capable of being accessed by all users on the wireless network.... and then select their system and justify it... All assignments are to be turned in either in class at 9:45AM or 12:45PM or left for me in something called the digital drop box by 1:00 pm for the 50 on-line students............... I also have two final papers for my two graduate strategic experience teams and I am on a dissertation committee for a student in the Education Leadership and Policy Analysis Department of the College of Education and I am reading her dissertation. Her final defense of her dissertation is on the 19th. Starting tomorrow at 1:40 PM my students, all of them, will be taking their final exam on-line through our on-line course system called Blackboard.....they have to take the two hour exam sometime in the week starting this Thursday and ending next Thursday... It all seems like a lot of work.....but it is the end of the semester after all.... I am anxious to see if my students can create a reasonable paper evaluating that wireless stuff and make reasonable assumptions when selecting their system......predictably, some will and some will not....

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, HIHO....... He also said that mirrors were leaks into the universe .... and he used the * as a symbol for ass hole......I like to have an * or two in my passwords...... I probably should not have told the world that but I did and that is that..

By comparison, Matt will start chemotherapy tomorrow... I think I have the better deal right now........ please continue to pray for him and his family.

Remember, take good care of yourself so you can take good care of someone else... love, john

I am home for a few hours this morning getting a package ready to send to one of your student workers in my department, the Management and Marketing Department. Matt Fay has cancer. It is a fast growing kind that they will be treating with chemotherapy drugs starting on Thursday. Today he is getting a chest catheter for doing blood tests and taking the chemo drugs. He and his family, mom and dad, need your prayers. They live in Clinton, Tennessee.

Twenty years ago, I had a fast growing cancer in my lung. I had a chest catheter and was treated with chemotherapy drugs.... Because of God's good grace and my doctors and nurses, I survived... I had people all over the country of every faith imaginable praying for me.

Please, have everyone that you know pray for Matt - God listens.......

Thank you, John

THANK YOU GOD!

REST IN PEACE

JACK

Last evening, about 9:30 PM, we received a telephone call from a lady who identified herself as D. J. She told me that on the night of November 11 she and her husband found Jack in the middle of Greenwood having been hit by a car. They put him in their car and drove him the the pet emergency care facility near the Tri-Cities Airport. By the time they got there Jack had died. They left him there, as they should have.

While this is not the news we had been hoping for, it is good to have that closure and not continue to wait for him to come prancing down the street..... I think that if he were going to die, it is wonderful that he did not have to die alone by the side of the road. God bless those people for having the courage to pick up a stray dog in the middle of the night and try to rescue him. So to D.J. and her husband I say, thank you and God bless you.

While I do not know what happens to animals after they die, I do know that they are created by God and that God has a plan for all of his creatures. If there is a heaven for dogs, then Jack is there....my guess is, his spirit is roaming the universe right this very minute in search of the mystery on the other side of the next galaxy.

Yesterday and the day before as I pulled into the driveway in the late morning, there was a deer eating from our garden. The deer did not immediately run off but paused and looked at me on Saturday and us on Sunday. I said at the time that it was Jack stopping by to say "good bye." I suppose that is silly, but from a creator who made heaven and earth and the universe, who's to say?

I have spent today calling around to the people who have helped, or sending e-mails where I could, thanking them for there thoughts and prayers. Frankly, I cannot stop crying and Jill is sad too. I know that Sandy is sad too, but she is holding herself together better than I am. We, Jill and I, are pretty much hanging out together today.

Here are some pictures of Jack (and Jill too) in memory or our time together. Here is their first day here.The early days: Jack has the blue collar.

Eye Surgery:

Later:

Couch potatoes:

And finally, his last picture before the great escape:

Good bye my friend. Come visit me in my thoughts whenever you want. We will always have a favorite place in our memories for you. God Speed. With my love, john

I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about our outing with Dennis and Marie last Saturday. We went to dinner and a play....... Specifically, we went to dinner at the Bistro 105 in Jonesborough and to the Wyrd Sisters at the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre.

It was the day before Marie's birthday so we celebrated her day!! The food at the Bistro 105 was excellent and we saw Kim and Eric from church............ Here is the birthday girl!!!

Here is the birthday girl and Dennis her husband..........

They are happy.......

We had a great dinner........Marie had a dessert with lighted candle....no singing...... and then we were off to the theatre...

We wanted to go to this play, not because it was a blockbuster, but because five people from our church were in the play... Chalmer, Merideth, Gareth, Griffin, and Shelley....plus the director is Steve from Cokesbury...... The play was a lot of fun........... The evening was extraordinary...

Tomorrow we are going to Dennis and Marie's for a birthday dinner for Sandy....here birthday is soon........ I have one of the most exiting presents for her................. you will have to wait, she is.........

There have been no Jack sightings since last Saturday.... I thought is was Sunday, but I was wrong... It was last Saturday............... We found Jill on Sunday..........

Remember, take good care of yourself because there is someone needing your close attention... cheers, John

I am sorry to be one dimensional, but another day is done and no JACK........ I went to vets offices, left a flier at One Stop. Actually, One Stop acted more interested than my vets office... drove around, graded papers, drove around some more.............. needle/haystack......... Met some people who definitely saw them on Saturday. They(the dogs) were running up and down Greenwood about a mile and half west of here..........playing in the street, cars were having to stop......... I have to admit, I sunk deeper into depression upon hearing that news..... However, if I think I am depressed, you should see Jill.......... she just came in and ran to the gate where she and Jack would check for cats.....then she started whining..... Heartbreak Hotel....

Jill says Hi - and remember, take good care of yourself so you can take good care of me!!

PS: Saturday Dennis and Marie and Sandy and I went to dinner and a play... I will blog some pictures soon..................

Sunday past and we did not find Jack. Marie and Dennis helped looked in the morning. My neighbor called with a possible sighting and I drove around looking and looking for him to no avail. We live in the county and there are so many miles and places where he could be roaming it seems like I am looking for a needle in a haystack. I have already notified the animal shelter - they have a picture... today I will call vet offices.... and of course drive around some more. Thanks for all the prayers................ Jill slept all day yesterday and is still sleeping (of course she is, it is 4:50am..)... she seems to be okay, eating, etc. She is getting lots and lots of loving....

Ruth wanted to know what happened so here goes....... This was supposed to be a blog about burning leaves...that is what we can do in Washington County Tennessee.... In Johnson City and Jonesborough, where I have lived in the past, you can pile them up by the street and this humongus vacuum cleaner comes by and sucks up the leaves.... out here we can burn them... what fun burning leaves.... Now you have to get a permit and I did for Friday and Saturday. In fact I did burn some leaves on Friday without loosing any dogs in the process. On Saturday, it was a completely differenty story...

See that gate to the right of the burn piles? That is the gate from which Jack and Jill escaped. I was raking those leaves out of the gate and had been playing with the dogs while raking and turned my back for just a minute to rake some more and they apparently snuck off behind my back and were gone. By the time I realized they were gone it was way too late - for a while I thought Sandy had put them in the house.............. So then I had this dilemma, I am very cautious with fires during the fall. I did not want to leave the burning leaves for long to look for the dogs and so I made short trips up and down our road trying to find them.. but they apparently were having a great time playing in the woods.... at least that is where I found Jill the next morning............. I lost the dogs, it is 100% my fault, and I too pray for Jack's safety and return to home..........

Here he is right before he hit the road.............. is that not a roguish face?

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers......

And remember, take good care of yourself so you can take good care of someone else, God bless you, john

LOST

JACK (we found JILL )

Jill is on the left……………………………………………………….Jack is on the right.

LAB MIX

BLACK WITH WHITE ON CHEST AND PAWS
CURLLY TAIL

REWARD FOR RETURN
CALL 423-232-1223

PLEASE RETURN, WE MISS HIM!

FUTURES PAST

While in Dillsboro I did some shopping too.... the most precious of the things I purchased was from a pottery shop and it is a...........

Crooked Cross

It is hanging near my desk at home so that I can see it every day. According to the little attachment it is "Inspired by God. Handcrafted and signed by Bruce Carey of Ingram, TX. It is made of Texas Mesquite.

"The Crooked Cross is purposely imperfect; handcrafted without use of measures or patterns to remind us how unique, individual and beautiful we all are. As our creator, God in Heaven made each one of us in His image, we are His children and perfect in His eyes, as He does not make mistakes."

Remember, take good care of the precious person you are; made in God's image and likeness. And love your neighbor as you love yourself and as you love your God. Be thankful daily for being you and share yourself with others freely. God bless you, john