Good things and bad things happened this week.

DO makes the best cookies in the world - her iced cut-outs. MMMMM! Unfortunately, I only had a week this past Christmas. I "had" to share them in the airport; and when I got home with my goodie-box from DO, there weren't any cut-outs in the box. But DO is tooooo good to me. Here in the middle of January, she whipped up a half batch of these yummy treats.

Ah, that was the good news, now for the bad - my basement flooded!! At first I thought my washer had just backed up the basement drain a little bit; but after three days, I realized the situation was much worse. After 2 plumbers, and three city crews they decided the problem was actually three blocks away. I'm so used to all the construction vehicles around here (from the school being built next door) that I didn't even notice the crew out front. I just happened to be checking on the level of the water in the basement when I saw the last of it swirling down the drain. WooHoo! I spent the next three days down there, scrubbing and scrubbing. That goodness it's been below freezing for so long. If it had been summer, it would have been a very smelly problem.

It was cold in the basement and the towels fresh out of the conveniently located dryer was sooooo warm. Oh! I need to say a special "Thank You" here to Jim. Thanks for helping with another crisis. I like our "projects" much better than these sort of thing. And another Thanks for letting me take another picture of you looking, how shall I say it, looking goofy.

Another cold week, so another indoor activity. This time we built the Taj Mahal. I've had several 3D puzzles (Notre Dame, a Bavarian Mansion, and the Millennium Falcon (which thankfully the puppies chewed enough pieces that I could just throw away instead of finishing. LOL)). DO has had the Taj for a while but was sidetracked into doing Kincaid puzzles all this past year. Although I say this about all her puzzles at some point - "this puzzle is broke!" - this time everyone would agree with me. We never got the dome put together right; but it looked good enough to declare it finished.

As you can see, we started getting a little silly by the time we finished this damned puzzle!
	DO admiring our handiwork and wondering where she was going to put this thing! LOL

	Even with the snow, the construction has been ongoing next door. They've brought in several big cranes now. However the plastic wrapped around the building is very loud as the wind has been whipping it around. I've gotten to used to it though. We have some construction at work as they build a connection between two of our buildings. At home I see tall scaffolding wrapped in fluttering plastic, and at work I see tall scaffolding wrapped in fluttering plastic.
Remember this picture! This corner is involved in a story next month!