by 
When li’l r came in out of the blowing cold Friday evening, she allowed how she was “covered in coldness all over.” The fire and some hot soup soon set her right. The forecast Thursday morning indicated the weather might be unsuitable for outside work after lunch so I was scurrying around trying to get the rakings I’d accumulated during the week loaded in the pickup and hauled off to the chipper site. It was a very nice temperature and the air was calm early so I made good progress. I wanted to rake up twigs underneath the junipers in the southwest corner of the 2005 immediate yard and was in the process of doing that when the cold front hit. First there were a few puffs of much cooler air, then a cloud bank loomed and then wham, the front barreled its way through blotting out the sun. It got cold quickly and by the time I got the load to the chipper site it was definitely unpleasant. Fortunately it didn’t take long for me to drop my load and that was the last of the outdoor activity until maybe sometime this coming week.
Except for shoveling snow off the driveways Sunday morning. Saturday after the worst of the wind that we’d had since Thursday was over it was just beginning to sleet a little when Kari, Abigail and I set off for Canyon to watch the volleyball conference championship game. Volleyball games are still played in “the box” instead of the new sports arena I think because WT has had such a successful program they don’t want to jinx it. It’s called the box because it is pretty much just a square building big enough to house a basketball/volleyball court. They played the best of five games and, like the football game we went to at Cowboys stadium in September, it didn’t look like WT was going to win. WT is rated #6 and their opponent Angelo State was #20, I believe. Angelo State was playing lights out, seemingly able to dig any slam out and winning every hotly contested point. Somehow, though, WT stayed in contention and was able to even it up at two wins a piece. For some reason the fifth game only goes to 15 instead of 25 and WT lead the whole way, but only by a point or two. Angelo always seemed to be playing just a little bit better than WT and they got all the calls it seemed. It was definitely not over till it was over.
During the game the sleet changed to snow and the drive home was on snow-covered ice. I 27 was shut down by an accident but luckily I saw the backup in time to bail out at Rockwell road and follow the farm to market roads back to town. We arrived in time to help Joyce wrangle “stupid guinea” into guinea tower, something she’d been trying to do by herself for the last half hour. It was another good night to sit by the fire with our iPads and some eggnog.
Abigail played her first basketball game of the season and Kari and I enjoyed watching. She got to play half the game and showed a lot of hustle. She covered her girl like a blanket and knocked down a bucket to boot. Kari and Chris had shied away from letting her play club volleyball because of the time commitment and travel that is required. However, not playing club puts her at a big disadvantage making the team next year. Almost all those who do, play club volleyball in the off season. Abigail was one of the few to make the team that hadn’t been playing club. Toward the end of Abigail’s volleyball season Kari found a club that did very little travel and tried to get Abigail on one of its teams but they were full by that time. This week they were notified there was an opening on one of the teams, mostly made up of girls from Austin middle school, due to an injury to one of the girls. Now Abigail is practicing volleyball two nights a week and playing basketball games on Wednesday afternoons.
Chris left Friday afternoon for New York to accompany one of the boxers he coaches in a bout at Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately his man suffered at TKO at the 2:59 mark of the first round.