I’m almost done Christmas shopping! And wrapping, too. I ordered a beautiful little watch pin/pendant, which is antique silver, shaped like a cuckoo clock, about 1 ½” long, complete with little pull chains and a pendulum with a sparkling crystal at the bottom. I ordered it for my sister. But I no sooner opened the little box, when it suddenly made an agile leap straight into my jewelry box, and from there onto one of my best sweaters! No help for it, I guess; I’ll just have to keep it.
The school children, grades one through three, were given the assignment of writing letters to their pastor. My brother read a few to the congregation. One read as follows:
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, I have a dog. He catches frisbees real good, I really like to play with him, and he bites.”
By the end of that spiel, you can be sure everybody was laughing uproariously.
Joseph got new glasses. The Helpful Hattie there at the Optimetric Center busily adjusted them with all her might and main, using everything but her feet and a crow bar. We watched, cringing. We had only just gotten home when the nose pad (yes, the very one Hattietta adjusted) fell right off, ker-plunk. Back to the Op Center we went, to be confronted by close-set beady-eyed Helpfulness Herself, who peered at Joseph over the top of her specs accusingly and announced knowledgeably, “He bumped them on something.” And in her delicate way, she pounded a new nose pad onto the hapless eyeglasses, while we obligingly cringed again. I didn’t know they used sledge hammers at the optician’s, did you?
We went out to Lake Babcock one day to see the Canada geese and the mallards. The geese, with a great deal of honking, departed quickly to a more remote area of the lake.
Lydia, watching the ducks diving for food, giggled. “Hee hee hee! Bottoms up, kids!”
The kids--children, that is--got their report cards. Hannah and Joseph got all A’s (and several A+’s) as usual; Keith got four A’s and three B’s; Dorcas, three A’s and four B’s; Teddy, five A’s and two B+’s. Hester got her kindergarten report card marked clear full of ‘Excellent’s. Then Larry and I had the quadra-yearly argument over which one of us our children inherited all those smarts from, arriving eventually at the usual impasse.
Lydia’s Favorite-Word-For-The-Week was ‘forever-and-ever’: “Are you going to wrap presents forever-and-ever?” “I really like my dolly forever-and-ever.” “Caleb likes me to play with him forever-and-ever.” And various other winsome statements made with no grammatical care: “Is it going to snow pretty soon forever-and-ever?”
Answers to questions: “Yes.” “That’s nice.” “That’s because he likes you.” and “I hope so.”
I dyed some satin and lace shoes for Hannah to match her blue satin and lace suit. Now the blue suit looks teal, and the blue shoes look purple. Bah, humbug.
I once dyed some satin shoes for myself. I wanted them to be peach, to match a beautiful peach satin suit I was going to wear. Now, most satin shoes sell in the vicinity of $35. To have them dyed is $10. So, imagine my delight when I found a lovely pair of satin shoes at Payless for only $20! I snapped them up quick and scurried home to order a dye kit--$6--from J. C. Penney.
Two days later the dye arrived, and the Great Artistic Endeavor ensued.
(Before I continue, I should tell you one additional small detail: the shoes had already been dyed mint green. Thinking this should pose no problem, I happily set to work.)
One coat of peach on. . .and the shoes turned a sick pink. Hmmm. Another coat of peach. Sicker pink. Another coat. Ghastly pink. Coat after coat, until finally I ran out of dye. Well, nothing else for it, but to head for the professional shoe dyers.
I marched in, holding those sopping shoes gingerly in separate boxes. “I need these shoes dyed peach,” I announced nonchalantly.
The bored Femme Fatale behind the counter snapped her gum and reached for her ticket book.
“We’ll have to bleach them first,” she said, eyeing my poor sick slippers with distaste, “and that’ll be an extra $6.”
“Okay,” I said unconcernedly.
She filled out the ticket and reached over to pick up those abominable clodhoppers with her manicured, blood-red talons.
“EEEYOOOO!” she shouted unsophisticatedly, having come into actual contact with the twin drowned rats. Her gum disappeared entirely. “These are all wet!” she explained loudly, looking at me like Einstein would’ve looked at Mortimer Schnerd.
“Hmmm,” I answered intelligently, staring wonderingly at the shoes.
“Well,” snapped The Fashion Plate, “these will have to dry before we begin on them. Can you pick them up in about three weeks?”
“Oh, no,” I exclaimed, “these are for Easter!” (It was Thursday, the day before Good Friday.)
She bugged her eyes out unflatteringly and batted them, looking remarkably like a frog in a hailstorm.
Well, the end of the story is, the shoes got done, and I wore them on Easter, although I did feel just a wee bit damp around the toes. One thing for sure, though: I certainly brought that Disinterested Doll at the shoe shop out of her doldrums in one quick hurry.
Today we all went for a long ride out through the Nebraska countryside. We saw several orange-clad hunters, but no deer anywhere, even at dusk. They are all well-hidden, this time of the year. We saw a flock of eleven wild turkeys. One was a big old tom in full display, his wattles all a-bobble as he proudly strutted before his harem. That was the first time I ever saw a tom do that.
Hester said in amazement, “Is that what we’re going to eat Thursday?!”
Caleb is walking a little more bravely every day. Aren’t babies adorable when they’re learning to walk?--arms held high for balance; cute little smile of delighted accomplishment on their faces.
Lydia is tickled pink over her little brother’s new feat. “Now he can really play with me!”
This morning Hannah put Hester and Lydia’s hair up in ponytails pulled to the side of their heads and fastened with a big ruffly barrette. Lydia came skipping into the kitchen to show me, ponytail swinging merrily. “Two of us little girls have our heads on crooked!” she told me gleefully.
That girl at the shoe shop ought to have eight kids; then she wouldn’t be so bored.
Life is fun; life is interesting; it’s just a happy house, when the children are all each other’s best friends.
I took some pictures with one of those panoramic cameras, a cheapie I thought I just had to have. My big expensive Minolta was so insulted over my betrayal, it ruined half of one of my rolls of film that day!
The quality is inferior to my good camera; but it’s rather novel, don’t you think?
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