Merry Christmas 2014



December 2014

A Christmas tradition that Susan and I enjoy is to save all of the Christmas cards we get to open and enjoy together on Christmas Day. (Shout out to Joyce - your card is always the first one we receive!) This Christmas, Susan noticed that this year's Christmas letters were all one page messages. I pointed out that we'd be lucky to have enough news to fill half page; after all we do live rather boring lives. Susan cheerfully rebutted: “You old fool, don't you remember our guests, the trip to Boston, the four retreats, the new barn. There's a lot for us to share in our Christmas letter” Like always, Susan was right, so at this point; I'll turn the rest of the letter to her better memory.

January 2015 Well… obviously we did not get out a Christmas letter… nor a New Year's letter… but I guess any is better than none.

We survived last year in good shape. The year did find Paul walking with a cane due to arthritis in his ankle and now looking at 1 ½ years to full retirement. Last I heard he plans on becoming a house frau at that time… course I don't know if I heard him say that or just the voices in my head.

As Paul mentioned earlier, we did have company and I did do quite a bit of traveling last year. I was off for four retreats last year. One knitting and one sewing in the spring and one each in the fall. What a grand time to work on projects and spend time with the girls. I only have three planned for this year. The spring sewing retreat ended up on the same weekend as the knitting retreat … what a bummer. But on the bright side, the two knitting retreats we have been attending for the past four years are now extending the time to four days. We arrive after noon on Thursday and leave about noon on Sunday. But is it better than arriving afternoon on Friday! Have not heard if there will be a fall sewing retreat yet. Can only hope. One of the girls in our knitting club is soon to open a bed and breakfast about an hour away and has invited our guild members there for a spring knit in. That will be fun. We will go Friday after work and come back on Sunday.

In June, my sister Sara and her family came twice. They stayed Saturday and Sunday night on their way to Mount Rushmore and then stayed a night or two on their way back home the following weekend. We had a grand time of playing cards and even went out to one of the parks for hiking and swimming.

In August I joined my other sister, Rose and my nieces Aiko and Willa in Boston at Aunt Dorothy's house for a long weekend. We had such a nice time. I arrived Wednesday night, on Thursday we went to Maine for lunch (I had never been to Maine so off we went). We decided to go out to one of the light houses after lunch and as we drove past a beach on the way, the waves were coming in and splashing over the road. We stopped to watch the surfers and found out that they were having a particularly high tide due to the rain the previous day. While we were watching the girls got high with a big one… soaked them through. Our brother Will (Scott) came out on Saturday to visit and stayed through Sunday afternoon. Rose and the girls too left on Sunday which gave me a wonderful time with Aunt Dorothy. We went and visited with several of her friends on Sunday evening and Monday. I had such a grand time.

September found me moving my horse, Daylte, to a new barn. Tracey, the woman I had boarded with for the past 8 years was having some health issues and was not keeping horses any more. Well it gave me opportunity to move her closer to home. Now, instead of driving 37 miles one way, I only drive 7. The new barn is not fancy, but they seem to take good care of her. There are about 15 horses/ponies there now and I usually have some one to ride with. It seems strange going out getting a nice relaxing ride in and being home in about an hour or so. Used to be I could not get my trips to the barn in less than two hours… usually more.

I am volunteering at the local homeless shelter again this winter. This time I only go one morning a week, Sunday, from 6 am to 8 am. I am the breakfast person. I usually cook eggs, what ever way they want them cooked, with sausage and toast or my other choice is sausage gravy on biscuits. So far we are way down from last year. We are averaging about 10 people… and many times more like five or six. Last winter we were consistently about 20. I must give our director much credit, she was able to place two gentlemen in nursing homes who should not have been on the street. One guy was in his early 80's. Another she got placed in the VA hospital. Praise the Lord, five were able to finally secure apartments of their own and a couple others are working. Only one or two this year were repeats from last year, and one of them has his own place now.



God's blessings to you for the coming year.

Susan and Paul Stomieroski

6310 Setter Road Weston, WI 54476 (715) 355-7769

Susan@Stomieroski.com Paul@Stomieroski.com





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