I’m typing this Sunday night while most of the family is in church. I am home with Lydia and Victoria, who have a bad headache and a cold, respectively. I took Victoria to Sunday School this morning, but brought her home before the church service at 11:00 A.M. because her poor little nose was running constantly, and she didn’t act like she felt well. Tonight I went to church, because I had to sing in the choir [some sing low, ♪ ♫ and some sing higher! ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♪ Some sing out loud on the telephone wire! ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ And some just clap their hands, or paws! ♪ ♫ ♪]
Anyway, after finishing with the choir number, I headed for home, and Lydia came, too, since her headache had not improved after taking a Tylenol. Now Victoria is switching back and forth from playing on the floor beside me, well entertained by Lydia and a large box of toys; and sitting on my lap playing with some toys I’ve put on the slide-out section of my desk just under the desktop.
A minute or two ago, she reached for the keyboard, and I said “Hey!--Don’t!” so abruptly that she gasped, jumped out of her hide, and her arm flew straight up in the air. Now she is warily steering clear of that scary keyboard.
She must be getting tired; she just plopped all her toys down, sighed, gathered up a corner of her dress, rubbed it on her cheek, cuddled up against me, and popped her thumb in her mouth.
* * *
Victoria has now been fed and tucked in bed, opening her eyes just enough to give me a sweet little smile when I pulled her fleece blanket up to her chin.
The Super-Duper Crewcab should be done sometime in December, since that’s when the man who bought the old crewcab needs it. He’s already given us his pickup, a ’90 3/4-ton 4x4 pickup, as a down payment. It’s in very good shape; we hope to get about $8,500 for it. If we get that amount, the man will then owe us another $8,500; we sold the crewcab to him for $17,000. Larry will take out all the hail dents, received last summer, into the bargain. That will probably mean a new hood; that poor thing got peppered.
Guess what Larry is painting now? ? ? Oh, you’ll never guess. He’s painting light fixtures......for Disneyland. Boy, we’re really famous now. We’ll require respect!!
You see, a manufacturing company in town made the fixtures and painted them--the wrong color. They painted them gray, using an exceptionally hard paint which is nearly impossible to remove. Then they learned that the fixtures were supposed to be a shiny, metallic silver. (Seems like that should be a given, if it's for Disneyland.) They enlisted the aid of Casey Paint Company of Omaha, which just happens to be our paint supplier, and they recommended Larry do the repainting. He did half of them yesterday, and will do the other half tomorrow. They must be done by Tuesday morning. There are 50 fixtures, with five pieces to each fixture--250 in all. Appleton did all the original paint removal and masking off of the threads where the pieces are screwed together; all Larry has to do is paint them. He’s charging $7.50 per piece --$1,875. Appleton bought the paint: two gallons @ over $300/gal. (!!) We are glad Larry landed this job, because the electric motor on Larry’s big air compressor just went kaput, and he must have a new one immediately. All his paint guns and nearly all his tools run on air, so we might as well close shop if we don’t have an air compressor. And it has to be a big one, too.
Hannah has now finished the third (and last) doll’s dress for our friend’s little girls for Christmas. I think the only things she has left to do are a bonnet and one more little blanket. She made the cutest little Mary Jane slippers for this last doll. They are for Tim and Malinda's little girls, ages 10 and 7. And I think the smallest doll is for the baby, Melody Joy, who was born prematurely. She now weighs nearly nine pounds.
Early last week Larry finished a burgundy Lincoln Town Car for one of our customers, who rewarded us not only by paying the bill, but also by giving us several pork loins and roasts. I like to fix the boneless loin by baking it until it can be sliced, then sprinkling lemon, pepper, garlic salt, onion chips, parsley, and celery seed on top of it and between each slice. Mmmmmmmmm. We baked the roasts in apple juice. (We would’ve done it in pineapple juice, but one of the urchins guzzled down the juice we were saving just for that purpose.) In any case, they turned out more juicy and tender than any roast I’ve roasted yet.
The same man who bought the Lincoln also bought the Suzuki Samurai. Now, isn’t that a curious conjugation.
Wednesday I helped the kids write a couple dozen letters to their penpals. This time, not all of the letters went to the Philippines; one went to Turkey, one to South Wales, two to Trinidad & Tobago, and one to Mauritius. Mauritius is a little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean some ways east of Madagascar. The girl who lives there, Jyotee Khoodeeram, just celebrated her first wedding anniversary last week, and she and her husband are expecting a baby at the end of December. Hannah has already begun crocheting a baby gift for her. Luckily, small crocheted items are lightweight, so it doesn’t cost too awfully much to mail it.
We’ve learned that if we use thin paper, we can type a two-page letter, using front and back, and send three pictures in a small envelope--and still keep it under half an ounce, which costs 60¢. About three weeks from now, we’ll be getting reams of mail from the Philippines, mark my word. Thought we were going to let that connection peter out?
Thursday Hannah made pumpkin cookies for the trick-or-treaters we expected to see Friday night. Word has gotten around that our house doles out homemade cookies, and, each ensuing Halloween, business picks up.
October 31st is my mother’s birthday; she is now 80. About once a day for the last two weeks she’d been informing all the members of her family that she didn’t want any presents, or any party, or any big ‘doin’s’, as she calls it. She called me last Monday. “Friday is my birthday,” she began--and I butted right in and said, “Well, for shame! Calling me up to beg for presents like that!!”
She laughed, of course, knowing I knew good and well exactly what she was going to say.
I told her, “Mama, you are going to have to behave just like you taught your children to behave: when one of your children or grandchildren gives you something, you’ll have to smile nice and say ‘thank you’ politely, whether you need it, want it, like it, or not!”
Friday we trotted several handfuls of presents over to her house. Now, Mama’s kitchen table is quite large, and she always keeps all the extra leaves in it…just in case, you know. Just in case the Jacksons come visiting, as they are periodically wont to do. Or the Walkers. Or the Tuckers. Or the Wrights. Or who knows who. Anyway, there sat Mama at her enormous table, which was absolutely covered with cards, flowers, and presents. Lydia’s class had made cards for her, and those made a sizable stack.
And you know what? My mother, who’d insisted she didn’t want a thing, was just as pleased as punch.
Of course, as soon as we began setting down our numerous packages, she began to say, “Oh, I told you not to!”
I replied, “Well, every time you called and said that, it reminded me that I didn’t have enough presents for you, so I got something else!”
She laughed. “Oh, for pity’s sake.” (That’s one of her pet phrases.)
She had started to feel a little bit better, but somebody gave her a 10-pound bag of bird seed, and she lifted it out of the decorator bag it was in and sprained her shoulder. “Don’t tell them, for goodness’ sake,” she implored me, “They’d feel just awful!”
That afternoon I’d made four pumpkin chiffon pies, reserving enough crust and filling to make Mama a cute little tiny pie in a popover bowl, complete with fluted edges. We also gave her a miniature bell which looks like a birch tree trunk with a rose-crowned finch perched on it; a vanilla candle in a tin imprinted with flowers, butterflies, and birdhouses; a calendar on which I’d written all our friends’ birthdays and anniversaries; a bar of clear blue glycerin soap inside of which is a shiny silver soap shaped like a snowflake; a small wreath pin with dried and silk flowers; a delicate white doily with raised pink petals around the edges (crocheted by Hannah); and a little ceramic magnet shaped like a heart with ‘You’re Special’ printed in the middle. Those last two were in a small bag with pictures of kittens on each side, picked out by Caleb “’specially for Grandma!”
Friday night we went to Lawrence and Norma’s, taking along a pumpkin pie to share with them. (Yes; I have big pie pans.) (Yes; I fill them really full.) Norma had made chocolate chip cookies. Later, Kenny and Annette and their children came. Nathan was dressed like a cowboy, and Annette had made Charlie a cute Robin Hood outfit, hat and all. Rachel was wearing a white leather jacket and skirt with fringes and beads which used to be Annette’s when she was little. In fact, I remembered seeing her wear it! Amanda is such a striking baby with her black hair, eyebrows, and dark brown eyes. She smiled so big at Dorcas, she wiggled all over.
Olivia opened a box of dominoes--upside down. With a loud clatter, they fell out.
“Ze dumb sings,” she remarked, trying to gather them up again.
Along came Caleb.
Olivia looked up at him in relief. “Cawub! You tan hep me!”
She placed the box in his hands, smiled sweetly, and trotted off, dusting her hands vigorously.
A great portion of this week has been taken up in preparing the Christmas Program. I have the songs all picked out and in order (I think), and most of the scriptures chosen, along with several poems. I wrote Christmas words for one of my favorite songs, leaving the fourth verse and final chorus the same; it was written by Fanny Crosby. She was blind and wrote over 8,000 hymns. Ira Sankey was a world-famous gospel singer and writer who traveled with just-as-famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody, who established the great Moody Bible Institute of Chicago and also the Moody Press.
Following is a poem I wrote last night:
Heir Of All Things(Hebrews 1 & 2)
God spake by His prophets
In days long ago
His Word to His people,
That Truth they might know.
But now in these days
He speaks by His Son,
Chosen Heir of all things,
The Most Holy One.
Express Image of God,
He’s the Brightness of glory;
He purged all our sins;
Oh, tell the old story!
Now at the right hand
Of the Majesty above,
Better than angels,
This Jesus I love.
No angel hath
A more excellent Name;
For He is God’s Son--
In perfection He came.
For ever and ever
Shall be His throne;
A sceptre of righteousness
Is His alone.
The oil of gladness
Anointed His head;
The heavens and earth
His mighty hands spread.
Though they shall perish,
He shalt remain;
They shall wax old,
But He is the same.
Made lower than angels,
Suffering death for us all;
Bringing many to glory
Who were ruined by the fall.
He was made like His brethren,
Our comforter to be;
He was tempted and tested,
Like unto thee.
If we hold fast the confidence,
The hope, and the joy,
Then praises of glory
Our tongues will employ!
Perhaps Hannah will say the poem; we’ll see.
Nebraskans are sad. You see, yesterday Nebraska played Oklahoma--and Oklahoma made a touchdown. They even got the extra point.
All right; I know Nebraska got 69 points; but we were hoping for the third shutout in a row.
Greedy, huh? Tom Osborne, our coach and a real prince of a man, won his 250th game yesterday. A big fireworks display was put on after the game, in spite of a torrential downpour earlier during the last quarter. A beautiful rainbow came out and arched over the stadium. They’ve already made a poster of a picture of it!
Tom Osborne is called “The Winningest Coach In History”. He’s the kind of a person who never takes the credit for anything, is always thankful to everyone else, and always talks about the other teams’ good points. The newscasters and reporters never can get him to brag, no matter how hard they try. He calls his players “my boys”, and insists that good morals are part of the agenda.
Today it has been terribly windy (rather detrimental to Sunday hairdos), knocking down several large trees around town. One fell on a major power line, leaving a number of houses without electricity. Power lines keep knocking into one another, making lights flicker continuously all over town. The main computer at the police station has been down so many times I’ve lost count (we hear about it on our scanner). Joseph has broken his own speed record for resetting the time on all our electric digital clocks, having gotten well practiced at it. At the moment, the wind is whistling mournfully down our chimney, rattling the flue, and disturbing last year’s ashes.
As we were eating dinner this afternoon, the back door suddenly blew wide open, while the front door simultaneously flew shut with a jarring crash. Esther, who was eating with us, jumped out of her skin and uttered a small shriek, sending those bratty littles of ours into peals of laughter.
Even Aleutia wagged and looked twinkly-eyed. I really like dogs; they’re my favorite pet, I think, although cats have a splendid habit that dogs never do: they make bread on your lap.
And that’s all, she wrote!
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