Well, I had my official first jury duty experience this week at the Multomah County Courthouse downtown. I was totally dreading it, but as it turned out, it was the best 3 hours of vacation time I’ve had since I was at Timberline Lodge a couple weeks ago! The chairs in the jury room are super soft and comfy and they have flat screen TV’s, internet access, hot coffee and - the best part - doughnuts! For 3 hours I just totally sat and ate croissants and read my book and watched…wait for it….”Divorce Court.” It was the first time I’d ever sat down and watched that show but it cracked me up! And no, I didn’t miss the irony of the fact that I was sitting in a jury room watching “Divorce Court”!
I’m gonna start taking all my vacations in the jury room! (heck they pay you $10 a day on top of everything else!)

WHOOOO HOOOOO! I want you to know I will be fulfilling a lifelong dream this weekend. Yes, it’s true. I’m taking myself on a ski trip to Timberline Lodge this Sunday-Tuesday!!

I remember one time when I was about - oh I don’t know - maybe 8 or 10 years old and my mom and dad took me and my brother to Timberline for an afternoon, probably in the summertime, and no doubt we were sneaking around in the part of the lodge that has the sign on the door that says “Guests Only,” and I happened to somehow catch a glance into one of the rooms that a maid was cleaning or something and I don’t even really remember anymore exactly what it looked like but I just remember it looked overwhelmingly cozy and intriguing in there with the log beds and the log-cabiny blankets and curtains and I made up my mind right then and there that SOMEDAY I was going to come to Timberline Lodge and spend the night and go skiing (that was before I even knew how to ski - not that I know now either LOL). And this weekend I’m finally doing it!! I’m so excited I can’t stand it. I’m even going to have a mug (or perhaps 2 or 3) of Timberline’s world famous hot chocolate! 

Now to find my skis and try and remember how to put them on…..

OK, so you’ve heard me talking about how I’m on eharmony.com now, right? I’m about 3 weeks into it, and having quite a bit of fun with it. Mostly I like answering all the little questions that your matches send you - they’re fun to answer. (I know, I’m a dork). So far they’ve sent me a TON of matches - I’ve met guys from Salem, Aloha, Vancouver, Portland, and Lincoln City, and even places like Texas and New York!
You know that movie “Love Potion Number 9″ with Sandra Bullock, where she plays the really super geeky scientist girl who has no social life whatsoever and then she takes the “Love Potion” and she goes home and checks her voicemail and it says, “You have 65 new messages”? THAT’S how I feel on eharmony! I checked my personal email today and I had 152 unread messages telling me about my new matches they found for me!!
No dates yet though….I don’t have time. I’m too busy sorting out my email.

So how did you survive the snow storm?! And the ice. And the power outages! What a Christmas!

At our house in the Gorge we were out of power for several days around Christmas, so we had to cook our entire Christmas dinner on our ancient antique wood cookstove, and oddly enough it tasted better than any Christmas dinner I remember having in a while! It must be that native Northwest Doug Fir wood flavor coming through! LOL

We had so much snow - the window in my bedroom looks out over the roof of the porch (normally about 2-3 ft below my window) and at one point the snow was up to about a foot or two ABOVE the bottom of the window pane!

It was a full week before I made it down into Portland, or even Gresham (or for that matter, even CORBETT) again! But I loved it - we played games and watched Christmas movies (with the help of our generator). I did have a stressful moment though, when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it into town to do my “last minute” Christmas shopping. However, I lucked out and was able to raid my “gift drawer” and pull off (fairly decent) gifts for everyone in my family without spending a dime! I think I’m going to start doing that every year, whether I’m snowed in or not. Haha.

I LOVE SNOW!!!!!!!

And I’m sad now that it’s melting, even though, for me, lots of snow usually means hiking up and down my 1/4 mile long driveway in Corbett every day for days, sometimes weeks, on end - usually in the pitch black - hauling groceries and stuff up the hill on sleds or by hand, only to slip about 3/4 of the way up and watching them all slide back down! LOL

It’s worth it though because a snowed-in driveway also means lots of sledding!! (after we’re done using the sled to get the groceries up I mean haha) Our driveway is really steep, with a couple of good turns - great sledding material! It’s taken me years to learn to navigate it though - my brother and I have had some good crashes on that one, let me tell ya!

How did you do through the storm? Did you lose your power at home? We did - we were out almost all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! A big thanks to the PGE linemen though who worked all through the holidays in the Gorge area and got us back up and running ASAP!!

I hope you had an awesome Christmas and got to spend some special time with family and friends in spite of the storms! One thing about having a quieter Christmas - it kind of forces you to take some quiet time to focus on the real meaning of Christmas, doesn’t it?? I know I’m usually so crazy busy that’s hard for me to do some years. 

Give me a call this week while I’m in for John Paul 2PM-7PM and tell me about your Christmas! Ring me up at 503-733-5000 or 1-800-533-kupl.

And I hope you and your family have a wonderful New Year ringing in 2009!

How about this snow?!?!? Are you loving it as much as I am?? You might have heard me say on the radio this week that my truck and I slid into a ditch in Corbett last Sunday, and I have the feeling I’m going to be footin’ it 1/4 mile up my driveway tonight cuz my truck will get stuck, but I still LOVE winter and the snow!!

I’m totally hoping for a white Christmas - there’s just nothing else like looking out your windows past the lights of your Christmas tree at a beautiful blanket of white snow on the front yard!

Speaking of the Christmas tree - I should tell you (I’m not sure why, but I feel as though I should) that one of my favorite Christmas traditions is, right after the tree comes home and is put up and decorated, to stick my head halfway into the center of the tree and soak in the smell of the Doug Fir needles and look around at all the lights and pretend that I’m one of the chipmunks on that old Mickey Mouse and Pluto cartoon and I can run around up and down the trunk and all the tree branches.  :-) 

How is your Christmas season shaping up? What are doing this week to celebrate? Let me know tonight at 503-733-5000 or 1-800-533-KUPL

So how’s it going? Are you staying ahead of the Christmas Tide? Keeping up with the shopping and the wrapping and the decorating and the baking and the hosting and the pageants and the concerts?

It’s crazy isn’t it? This is the second year in a row that I’ve promised myself an afternoon at the Singing Christmas Tree at the Keller only to miss it almost before I even realize it’s started!! I AM proud to say though that I got my tree up right on time and even managed to make chocolate covered cherries this weekend! My mom and I started a tradition of making them 5 years ago or so and we try to do it every year. The problem is that chocolate covered cherries have to sit in the fridge and “ripen” for like 6 weeks before you can actually eat them, so we almost never get them made in time for that to happen. So we end up eating them with the goo that’s supposed to be in the middle not really gooey, but more like frosting-texture. NOT that there’s anything wrong with that.

Chocolate covered cherries are the bomb.

Merry Christmas!

I know it’s only the 3rd day of December, but I say - get right into the spirit! (The sooner we do, the sooner we get to start eating fudge and Christmas cookies, right?) And eggnog! I tried Darigold eggnog for the first time this year, and I’m really loving it! I’m a HUGE eggnog fan, so much so that I tried to make my own one year. That…. didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped, however. Pretty much I ended up with a jugful of runny raw eggs mixed with sugar and spices. Yeah.

So no homemade eggnog for me this year. I’m having enough trouble with my Christmas tree. I went out in the woods around my house on Larch Mt in Corbett and cut one this week, and it was one of those times when the tree looked pretty good in the woods, but not so much when I got it in the house. It has NO limbs on the bottom third, and really not that many on the top two thirds either, so I ended up having to put alot of the ornaments that I usually put on the tree back in the box cuz the tree wasn’t big enough for them! 

 :-P     HOWEVER, like any other red-blooded American who’s grown up watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” I have learned to see the good way down deep inside of every Christmas tree and accept it for who it is, so my Christmas will be merry in spite of everything.

 Tell me what you’ve got going on for the holidays! Give me a call tonight - 503-733-5000 or 800-533-kupl! I’ll be waiting for your call!

Can you believe the holidays are here already? Thanksgiving’s just over a week away! What are your plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year? What are some of your yearly traditions? Let me know tonight - 503-733-5000 or 1-800-533-kupl!

My family almost always has a big dinner for both Thanksgiving and Christmas Day at our house, when we have some family over. My mom has a huge china set and we break (NOT literally!) it all out and fill just about every little pot and jar and dish and plate with SOMETHING. My favorite parts of the dinner are the sweet pickles (I always get the little midget sweet pickles), the black olives, the Stovetop stuffing, and my grandma’s/mom’s famous “orange salad.” What about you?

After dinner, we all get together in the kitchen and help out with the clean-up and washing and drying the dishes, which is all part of the fun too! Then it’s back in the dining room for coffee, pie, and ice cream.

At my house, though, the day AFTER Thanksgiving is almost as big of a deal as the day itself - and it’s not because of the shopping!  :-) Starting the morning after Thanksgiving, and usually lasting thru most of the weekend, we decorate our entire house, from top to bottom, inside and outside, and even our barns and outbuildings, for CHRISTMAS! You’ve never seen boxes until you’ve seen our house on the day after Thanksgiving!! We’re all dead at the end of the weekend, but it’s worth it!

WOW - what an election year, huh? I keep finding myself not quite believing that it’s really over! What do you think about how things turned out? I’d love you to call me and let me know while I fill in for Leela 2-7 this week! If you listen to NW Nights, you might have guessed that I’m a McCain supporter, and to be totally honest this election night was a difficult one for me.

HOWEVER I believe God has complete control over our world, our country, and the lives of those who know Him, and He has given me an incredible peace the last couple days. I am a big fan of Beth Moore (she writes Bible studies and leads seminars and stuff for women), and no matter what your political views or your feelings about this election, I thought you might also find peace and hope in these exerpts from Beth’s blog (http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/). My pastor’s wife in Corbett passed this along to me this week: 

A few things I’m so thankful for on this election day, regardless of the outcome:

*We live in a democracy where we have the right to a vote and a voice. We have the God-given responsibility to use both wisely and in the way that best reflects what God conveys through Scripture.

*God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will” and “according to the plan.” Ephesians 1:11

*Not only does God work out everything in conformity with His will, He has promised to work out everything for the GOOD of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

*God sets up kings and deposes them and gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. Daniel 2:21

*We, the beautifully diverse family of God, are never - not at any time - powerless. Nor are we ever victims of a system. Believing prayer takes us through doors we’ll never be invited to enter and into judges chambers we’ll never grace. Take a look back at Genesis 18 once again with astonishment over the dialogue between God and His servant and friend, Abraham. Rejoice that God is ever mindful of a faithful remnant. The Judge of the Earth will always do right.

*Even if persecution should await believers in Christ or harrowing circumstances hound us, God will use hardship to bring unity and purity to a people who need it desperately. The best of circumstances do not always produce the best in the Bride of Christ.

*The living God is firmly established upon His Throne and there at His holy feet we can always find grace and mercy in our time of need.

*No matter what happens today, we are GOD’S elect. He has elected us to show His heart and to walk in His ways in the culture that surrounds us. We are called to walk in the challenging balance of grace and truth.

May we be filled with Christ’s Spirit today and our mouths given to praise and to believing, receiving prayer. God IS faithful and He has us firmly in His hand. We will not fear. We will not doubt. We will not hate.

“Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him, for He shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders.” Deuteronomy 33:12