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Come...Warm ya' bones....

Good evening everyone,

Just wanted to give an update:

The coal stove has been installed, beautifully i might add, and is crackling away as we speak. A nice warm home and happy inhabitants to show for it. Currently the temperature in the stove room is reading 80F with our outdoor temp reading at 32.0F, I'll take that any old day.

Taking care of the daily duties with the coal stove, is considerably more than the oil furnace, but it is considerably less expensive and warmer than the oil as well. And the duties are suitably reminiscent of the 1800's when our home was built, so in i way i feel we have revived this old home a bit by bringing it back.

For anyone who is interested, our home was built in 1882 as a one room, one floor, stone school house.  It was the 3rd school house in Ephrata, referred to as the "East Ephrata School". In 1884 a second floor of brick was built for secondary school classrooms, and the school remained in function until the 1890's.

My family moved into it in 1976 when my parents purchased half of it. We lived there until 1993, when we moved to a newer home a few blocks away. Afterwards, my parents rented it out until my wife and were engaged in 2009 and asked to purchase it from them, and my wife moved in, in 2009, and then I moved in after we were married in 2010.

Its an old building that needs lots of care, but its home and we love it :)

Manna-Fest - The Bethlehem Factor

A great Perry Stone message from Israel concerning Bethlehem and Jesus' birth!

ALL ELSE IS FOOL'S GOLD:

Matthew 2:1-12

New International Version (NIV)

Matthew 2

The Magi Visit the Messiah

 ¹ After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  ³ When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
 ⁶ “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.”
 ⁷ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
 ⁹ After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹ On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Smoking is bad

This is pretty much my Jeep's way of getting back at me for deciding not to blog about it yesterday when i was too tired and deemed it not worth my time....

This all started yesterday..follow me....

.,~*`*~,.~Traveling through time (watch out for the sparkles)~*`*~,.~

Ok, so actually now that i think about it this really started about 9 years ago when I was a smoker and I had fist bought my Jeep. When I used to smoke, I would sometimes sit out in my jeep late in the evening and prop my door open with my foot. Well i got tired of the switch on my door beeping because my accesories were turned on so i could use the lighter, so i located the fuse to the door switch and removed it so it would no longer beep constantly while the door was open. One little problem with that is that the car would no longer beep to warn you if you left your lights on, it would just sit there content as all get out until your batteries died. That being said, for the last 9 years I have always been careful to check that my headlights were off when i was walking away from my car, and there have been many times were i have left them on for maybe a half hour or so and didn't realize it. Yesterday however was a different story. I worked until 4pm after which I got out to my car with glee to start my three day weekend ...YAY! Click...nothing...no noise...just me turning a key and my jeep not starting. Then what to my marvelous eyes should appear, as I glance over and notice my lights are turned on, or were for that matter, and now my battery is dead. Back inside to ask my manager for a jump, and fortunately the old Jeep started right up, no problem....or so it seemed :) This morning I started out alone to the bank to do some of my own business, and curiously the radio wouldn't start, no beeps, no lights, no nothing..."you've gotta be kidding me"... I finally just took a deep breath and was like "OK...I'm over it.." That radio was on its last leg anyway, because about a year ago it decided to shirk its cd playing duties by billowing smoke at me... (apparently it doesn't have the taste for disco music that i do) ....

Long story short....I know...too late :)

Don't smoke, its deadly to you, your car battery, and your radio....

~Brian

PS- I quit smoking about 6 years ago....and it was one of the best decisions i ever made.

Operation: Coal Bin

So..... We're having a coal stove installed in our home in the next week or so, which we cannot wait for :) Coal heats super nice and is quite cheap compared to that black gold they call heating oil.

That being said, a coal stove runs on coal, and coal takes up space, and so I must build a coal bin.

Okey dokey.....hmmm... where to start.... well, the stove says it burns about 3 tons a winter, and the instructions say that 3 tons of pea sized coal (which isn't even close to the size of a pea, more like a walnut) should be able to be housed in a 4x4x8 bin. No problem :) , i will borrow my father and his van and we will head over to the lumber store to pickup some 3/4" plywood and other miscellaneous pieces that we'll need. Now I work at a bank, so you will probably figure quickly that I'm not like Tim the tool-man, so we shall see how this turns out...

I will post a picture when things are taking form :)

Have a great Saturday morning everyone.....brrrrr.....its chilly

~Brian

A Christmas Carol (1984)

I love "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens
(and this is probably my favorite serious rendition)

I