Scattered Thoughts . . .

Y esterday was our family Christmas celebration.  It was delayed due to some COVID-19 quarantining but we managed to get together yesterday for a nice belated celebration.  Although the kids needed to wait a couple of weeks for their Christmas gifts, we had a house full of laughing, happy and excited grandchildren yesterday. Sheila went over to her parents' house earlier in the morning to help her mom get ready for the day then Sheila drove her mom to our house to start the day.  Sheila is showing Sue some photos of the grandchildren in this photo... We have about eight sets of eyeglasses that turn bright Christmas lights into stars, Santas, Christmas trees, snowflakes, etc.  Ellie enjoyed viewing through all of these glasses over and over throughout the day... The older grandkids are now patiently waiting (mostly) for gift-time... Liza opened Ace's gifts while he was on her lap and he seemed to like playing with each gift.  He cried whenever the previous gift was taken away so

It is finally beginning to feel like Christmas!  All the presents are wrapped and under the tree.  The house is decorated inside and out.  We'll soon begin our much anticipated Christmas celebrations at the house.   We had a little setback this morning.  When we got up this morning, both Sheila and I felt that the house seemed colder than usual.  Upon checking the thermostat, I noticed that it was indeed cold in the house compared to the thermostat's settings.  I had noticed some minor issues with the furnace a few days ago but didn't act upon it and now I was regretting putting off investigating further. The first thing I checked was the thermostat but that seemed to be working normally.  The next most likely culprit was a frosty/gelled fuel line coming into the house.  After finding a container to use for catching fuel, I bled the line from the tank...  we got about a pint of frosty, gelled fuel as I had suspected.  The week of sub-zero temperatures was too much and s