Swiper, no swiping!

Bill came home on Thursday after work to find our house in some upheaval: dresser draw overturned, back door open, crow bar on the office floor and the smell of smoke. (We later found the cigarette butt which had been extinguished on our rug.) Everything pointed to the strong possibility that the burglary was interrupted by Bill's arrival. The girls and I were coming home from dinner with my parents and arrived about 20 minutes after Bill. We started trying to figure out what had been taken because it wasn't immediately obvious. There are advantages to being firmly entrenched in the technology of earlier decades. Our stereo is old, our TV and its antennae is old, etc. But our year-old digital camera is gone. All of my jewelry. Our checkbooks.

I'd spent the entire day painting our bedroom with my friend, Lisa. (Pictured below on my side of the table.) She has now helped me paint three rooms in our house. So let me pause here to say, Thank you, Lisa! As always, thank you. She had to leave at 2:30 and I left at 4:30 and we met up at the Salpointe vs. Mountain View freshman b-ball game where my niece and her stepdaughter were playing against each other. Anyway, the point is, there was just two hours between my being gone and Bill arriving home at 6:30. The police officer arrived three hours later but I was so thankful he took his time because we were able to get the girls in bed and they were asleep by the time he arrived. (Before bed, Hannah seemed busy with something so I asked her what she was doing and she said she was hiding her jewelry in case the guy came back. Heartbreaking!) The officer couldn't lift any prints...gloves, perhaps? He was super nice and fun to talk to and sympathetic with our situation. I was pretty upbeat throughout our time with him because then, and now, I'm deeply grateful that the outcome wasn't worse. The guy had a crow bar, after all, and could have chosen to meet Bill at the door instead of fleeing out the back.

I took "Before" pictures of the bedroom but the camera was gone by the time I came home to take the "After pictures. The former weren't downloaded and the latter will have to wait until we get another camera. Which was not in the budget, so the next post will be that 2008 recap I've mentioned. I will say that the "Sagey" green was a perfect choice and the red curtains combine to match our duvet making the room beautiful! I'm now, finally, getting pictures on the wall and it's getting cozier and cozier in there.



Michelle, Lisa and I at Millie's for our December breakfast...what a comfort it is to have these two women in my life. I'm old enough now to know that it's rare to have what we have: to be known fully and loved all the same. This is one of the last pictures taken with that camera...actually, there were a bunch of candids of the girls, too, and not having them is disheartening. And, of course, I'm daily wishing I could grab it to document their various antics. Like Abigail putting on four hats, one on top of the other, yesterday. Or today, Hannah's little hand in my big oven mitt holding on to the cookie sheet while using her other hand to grip the spatula to pick up the cookies. Sigh.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19 (NIV)