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Last week Keith’s boss and coworker went to Arkansas for the week to show a group of engineers how to put together the cement wall and floor forms which they make to build hog confinements. So Keith, having the week off, spent his time at Larry’s shop working on his GMC Sonoma.
This evening Larry made chicken noodle and vegetable soup for supper. He got a wee bit carried away with the spices, and the potency of the garlic powder in the recipe hit an all-time high, percentage-wise. Wheweeee! By the time Bobby came to walk with Hannah to church, he informed us that he’d had the devil’s own time trying to make it up the porch, the garlic breezes blowing out the front door were so stiff. He happily downed an entire bowl full, however. We tease him and say he’s just like Dagwood: tall, thin, and with an insatiable appetite.
Monday, it misted all morning; then it froze; and then it snowed. There was a very long line of vehicles, including several semis, that couldn’t get over the viaduct (‘viadock’, according to some of our police officers, who must be expecting tall ships in the harbor). Keith scooped our driveway and the school parking lot with his new snowblade, practicing up so that when he got a job for somebody, he wouldn’t bury their classic VW Bug or decapitate a fire hydrant or put somebody’s shed on the other side of the lot line or something.
The next morning, he scooped a filling station lot and several residential drives, making $40 in about an hour and a half, which quite pleased him.
Tuesday I worked all day on the bookwork, completing both the month-end and the year-end work. It is now ready to go to the tax man, I think. It took me about thirteen hours, give or take a few milliseconds.
Hester and Lydia brought home their second-quarter report cards; once again, they got all A’s. Lydia’s lowest grade was a 97%--and most are 99%.
Hester said sorrowfully, “I didn’t do so well; I got a 91%.”
All the other grades were 96% or above.
“My goodness!” I exclaimed, “What a dumb little bunny you are. We might have to disown you, we might! A 91%; for shame.”
She made a face at me, giggling. She took a reconsidering look at her card. “Well. . .” And then she grinned at me and confided, “I think I got the highest average in the class.”
Wednesday Penny Golden, our blind history/literature/English/vocabulary teacher, a wonderful singer and musician, and one of my very best friends, had a tumor removed. The doctors had been afraid it was cancer. Everybody was overjoyed to learn that it was not; and she is going to be just fine. Penny, as you may recall, won Wal-Mart’s Teacher of the Year award.
Thursday little Mary Clarice had the operation on her back. The surgery went better than expected, and the doctors were able to get her back straighter than they had thought they could. She is in a body cast which covers her from shoulders to hips. She is now out of intensive care, and, if all continues to go well, she should be able to come home this week. The operation was done in Minneapolis. This has been rather traumatic for all of us; it is so wrenching to see a child suffer, and more so, I think, when it is one so sweet and dear. But I guess we should be thankful there is the technology and medical know-how to accomplish such a feat, for the little girl could not live long otherwise.
Today at church, when Loren thanked the congregation for their prayers (we had a special prayer meeting Wednesday night) and told us how Mary is doing, he just couldn’t keep the tears away.
Part of the family was around the child’s bed when the anesthetic wore off. They hadn’t been saying much, just looking down at little Mary and feeling a bit frightened that she wasn’t breathing deeply enough. (Anesthetic will cause that, you know; and they couldn’t see her chest rising and falling because of the cast.) After some time, she awoke, and started to cry--something she rarely does.
The rest of the family started to cry too, in relief as much as anything.
“Where’s Mama?” wept the child.
But Ruth had gone to care for her baby, Kurt.
Bill leaned down to give his little girl a careful hug. “Will I do?” he asked his small daughter.
Mary Clarice smiled at him. “Yes,” she replied, sniffing, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Saturday she was able to sit up, so they were allowed to push her around the halls in a wheel chair.
One of Hannah’s Easter dresses is now done, and there was just enough material left to make a gathered skirt for Lynette, the little cousin who is so much like Hannah was at that age. Hannah is crocheting a bright pink vest to go with the dress, and will make one for Lynette, too. I took apart a purple corduroy jumper of Hannah’s which was too big, and totally redid it. That’s always a big job, and one of which I am not particularly fond, but the jumper now fits perfectly and looks quite cute.
After altering a beautiful suit my sister gave me for Christmas, I sewed a pocket back on one of Joseph’s shirts. Shirt and pocket had a parting of the ways when the boys were playing football: Teddy made a wild high-dive for the ball, missed, tripped, flung out a hand to catch himself, and came up with Joseph’s pocket. Joseph kept getting all tickled over the expression on his brother’s face when he looked down at his hand and discovered he was holding a pocket, sans shirt. A neat little well-turned pocket.
Hester’s sea-mist satin and silk jacquard and lace dress is done except for connecting skirt to top and putting in the zipper. But that had to be put on hold because . . . . Valentine’s Day is coming. And Hester and Lydia needed Valentine boxes or baskets or bags. So Saturday we rounded up a couple of pretty baskets, and decorated them with red velour lining, pink flowered ruffles, ribbons and bows, silk flowers, and decorative pins. Really getting into the spirit of things, I offered to make stuffed hearts (polyfil for the girls; beans for the boys) with embroidered sayings for their classmates. They took me up on it with great enthusiasm, and were soon, with Caleb’s help, poking stuffing or beans into hearts. We made 25 hearts.
Wednesday night after the prayer meeting, we were having a treat of ice cream with all sorts of toppings, including honey-roasted peanuts, Oreo cookie crumbs, Hershey’s syrup, caramel fudge, etc. I picked up the butterscotch jar.
“Yuck!” I exclaimed. “Who got this jar so sticky?!”
Larry immediately replied, “Bobby.”
Bobby was momentarily nonplussed, but of course everybody else was soon laughing. Used to be, it was always assumed that Joseph was the culprit. Now-a-days, it is more likely to be Hester. Goodness, she’s a slapdash little messy!
Last week Ohio got a foot and a half of snow. They don’t want it. Why can’t we have it?? I like snow!! It’s supposed to snow tonight. But it’ll probably be like the snow that fell once in the Peanuts comic strip:
Linus stood looking skyward, watching a lone snowflake drift down. It landed on the sidewalk and melted. Linus looked amazed.
“I declare!” he exclaimed. “It went right through the cement!”
Victoria can identify eyes, ears, nose, mouth, toes, hands, hair, etc. Pointing to her dolly’s eyes, she said very quietly, “Be cayco!” (‘Careful’--that’s what I tell her when she points to anybody’s eyes.)
Tonight she was crawling along pell-mell, then suddenly she was up on her hands and feet going lickety-split, then back down to knees and hands. Still going flank speed emergency, she popped back up on feet and hands, bottom up. Now that looked funny! We laughed so hard at her, we had tears running down our faces. Once she put her head down suddenly just as she lurched forward, and she very nearly did a somersault.
Today she had a 102° temperature, so I didn’t take her to church. Caleb, Hester, and Lydia had such bad colds that I kept them home, too; but the little girls were able to go tonight.
Friday afternoon Hannah and Dorcas made oatmeal cookies with chocolate-covered raisins. Hannah made a big heart-shaped one for Bobby. That evening, Bobby, Hannah, and Dorcas went to the Fremont hospital to visit Penny. Hannah heard the nurses tell somebody that they’d never had a patient have so many visitors.
Now here’s Caleb, hunting around for an attachment to his kooshball slingshot. “Hmmmmm..... now where’d it go?” He looked around. “There’s a shot that goes with this sling,” he told me.
In CountRy magazine there’s a story about a four-year-old who’d broken out their front window with his new slingshot, where, he’d been given explicit instructions, he was not to shoot it.
“It went off accidentally when I wasn’t ready,” he explained.
A little while ago, Hester, Lydia, and Caleb were ensconced in my bed, electric blanket on. I was in Victoria’s room. The little girls, feeling cold, kept turning their respective blanket controls higher, and higher, and higher…never realizing that the reason they needed it up so high was because Aleutia had burst in the back door (the latch is faulty) and neglected to shut it behind herself. When I came out of the baby’s room, an Arctic gale was whistling down the hallway.
* * *
Monday, February 9, 1998
My nephew, David Walker, just bought the school a new computer. Teddy and Joseph have been at the school this evening watching as he set it up and explained how to use it. There are certain programs which are voice-activated, and its bubble printer is far superior to the printers on the old computers. There is even a Britannica Encyclopedia on it.
Now, back to the sewing!
HAPPY
VALENTINE’S
DAY!!!
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