A Valentine Tradition and News

My first year of college my mom sent a package with her wonderful sugar cookies, heart-shaped and iced in pink. She does a lovely job of icing cookies - much better than I do.

Heart-shaped sugar cookies are a tradition around here, or chocolate cupcakes with white icing and sprinkled with cinnamon red hots. This year, it was cookies. I use my mom's recipe and it always turns out. The cookie dough is just as good as the baked cookies.

We're going away for the weekend, so I passed the cookies out to our children today - except for one package that I'll drop off at our youngest daughter's house tomorrow.

And I have some WONDERFUL news. My husband, who has been out of work since last May (and started a home renovation business in the meantime) has been offered, and accepted a job back in his field. He is excited about the possibilities, and I'm happy for him.

The only downside is that we will be moving two hours north of Victoria. This will be the first move without any of our children. But they will come to visit and I'm thankful that we won't have a ferry ride between us. My head has been whirling with everything that needs doing all of a sudden. I would like to finish these three courses I'm working on before we move, but that will be around the first of April so I'm really going to have study hard. Then there's the packing. I've begun and have four boxes done.

This weekend was planned as a getaway to a friend's cabin. It's an hour north of us, one hour south of where we'll be living, so on Saturday we're going house hunting. We met with a realtor last week and have a list of 7 homes to visit.

We are thankful to God for his grace and faithfulness during these past months. They have been extremely difficult at times. It's a good feeling to be looking ahead with something a little more concrete.