Sunday, June 27, 1999 - Bobby and Hannah Buy a House

Before I forget, I should clarify something from last week’s post: the “Oregon Trail” Dorcas was on is a game on the computer. When you start the game, you can specify any names you want for the people going with you in your covered wagon. I tell you, it’s somewhat disconcerting to be wandering absently down the hallway and then suddenly hear someone say, “Oh, no!--Mama just got bitten by a snake!”

It has a tendency to make one lurch sideways and stare wildly at the floor, it sho‘ ’nuff does.

After finishing Dorcas’ dress, which is white cotton with lavender flowers all over it and has three tiers in the back, I cut out and sewed a western shirt for Joseph. Like Caleb’s, it is of red, white, and blue patterned balloons, but the yokes and the front band, instead of navy, are red. They are both trimmed with red and white striped piping. Also, I sewed a stretchy, dark green ‘scrunch’ belt for Hester, since her dress was a bit large around the middle. And now she’s as pleased with her dress as Lydia is with hers. So the July Fourth sewing is all done.

Tuesday evening I got an email from my blind friend, Penny Golden, in which she told us that she was fixing herself some popcorn. This got us all to drooling over popcorn, and I asked her to email me some, but none was forthcoming, so Joseph trotted off to the kitchen to make some. In the meanwhile, I received an email from a friend. I began typing a reply. About that time, I smelled what I thought was burned popcorn. “Uh-oh,” I wrote, “Joseph has burnt the popcorn!”

And then he broke a saucer.

Larry, from his perch in the recliner, inquired, “What kind of a saucer was it?!”

Joseph answered in all sincerity, “A glass one.”

(“Tee hee”, said the siblings quietly under their breath.)

“Was it a new one?” asked Larry.

I quickly replied, “Of course it was! The old ones were broken long ago!!”

And then Joseph happened to come along and read what I’d written about burned popcorn. “Burnt the popcorn?!” he protested, “I didn’t burn the popcorn!”

“Well, it sure smelt like it,” I responded.

“No, it’s not burned at all!” he told me.

“But I have to make the letter funny!” I replied.

He rushed back into the kitchen, calling over this shoulder, “Okay, I’ll go burn your popcorn.”

Turned out, it wasn’t burned, after all; it was just exactly right.

One afternoon, the little girls were playing with their Li’l Tykes playhouse. Lydia was the ‘baby’; Victoria was the ‘mother’. And the ‘mother’ kept saying such things as, “Me go up here?” and “Me go in this room?’, which got Hester all tickled.

My brother Loren was feeling well enough to preach Wednesday evening, although he left before the prayer meeting began. He’s okay, today. That night after church, Keith and Esther came to visit. Keith was soon playing a race car game on the computer on the east side of the room, while Esther was playing a motorcycle race with Caleb on the west. They were running neck to neck, and then they both pushed the button to make their man kick at the other. At exactly the same time, they both fell down SPLAT, and then both cackled at the same time on the same high-pitched tone. And soon everybody else was laughing, too.

Friday was Lydia’s birthday. We gave her a Scofield Bible in a maroon Bible case with teddy bears done in tapestry on both sides with the verse, “Love beareth all things” under the picture. We also gave her a super-duper yellow super ball, and a Winnie-the-Pooh mug, just like Hester’s. Hester gave her a cuddly ‘new baby’ doll, dressed in white pajamas with pink satin collar and trim, just like the one my sister Lura Kay gave Victoria for her birthday. Victoria was delighted that Lydia’s doll matched hers, and promptly dashed off to find her doll, to compare it with Lydia’s. She held her doll up in front of Lydia’s, the better to ‘show’ it to her. “See, dolly? You’re twins!” she informed her doll. Then, “Come play church, Leedia?” entreated Victoria.

“Okay,” agreed Lydia.

‘Church’ is conducted in Victoria’s room, and several small wooden benches are lined up, one in front of the other, to serve as ‘pews’. So there they sat, each girl holding her doll and her Bible. And then Victoria, face blank, said in quite a high-pitched voice, “Jeep jeep jeep jeep jeep!”

She leaped to her feet and fled for the ‘baby room’, which was established in my bedroom. Once there, she bent her head down close to her baby’s head and admonished the unwitting thing, “Don’t jeep!” She then went back to the ‘church sanctuary’, where the doll behaved nicely, obviously not desiring another such reprimand.

Tuesday, our piano tuner came to the church to tune the piano and refurbish the hammers. This gives it a very mellow sound--so mellow, in fact, that I don’t particularly like it. I felt like I needed to scoot the bench back and go at it with hammer and tongs, in order to get any sound out! Anybody I asked, however, assured me that the volume was fine. By today, the hammers were already getting beat into subjection by all my playing, and the sound was sharper and more to my liking. I like music that blows you out of your seat, that’s what I like!

Larry stayed home from church with Caleb Wednesday night, and tonight he took him home early, because Caleb couldn’t keep from coughing. He does have a cold; but I am getting more sure every day that the child has asthma. That makes me feel bad.....two children with asthma was two too many already!

Here is a poem I wrote for the school annual:

A Tribute to Our Teachers

With thankful hearts we remember those

Who have faithfully laboured each day

Instructing and guiding their students,

And teaching them to walk in God’s way.

In scholastic academics

We are encouraged to excel;

And if we’re obedient and industrious,

We shall certainly do well.

For the work they have done for us,

We esteem them highly in love;

Our fervent request for our teachers

Is God’s wisdom, and strength from above.

Now I’ve learned that the space the poem needs to fill in the annual is larger than was first expected, so I am going to add three more verses to it.

Friday evening, we went to Lawrence and Norma’s to celebrate Lydia’s birthday. Norma made a cherry cheesecake for the occasion, and they gave Lydia a tape player with headphones and Winnie-the-Pooh wallet and coin purse--and the latter two even had ‘filler’ in them! From my mother she received $$$ and a Marguarite Henry book, Misty of Chincoteague. {Mama had given Hester Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague.} They are horse stories, and the girls really like them.

While we were birthday partying, Hannah, Bobby, Bobby’s parents, my sister’s husband John, my sister’s son Robert (who is also one of Bobby’s bosses), and several others, went to look at the House of Interest again. A couple of friends of ours who are in the construction business assured us that the crack in the ceiling and basement wall were not caused by the porch; the cracks were considerably older than the porch. The porch has not compromised the integrity of the house at all. Good news. Afterwards, Bobby made an offer, and put down some money as a retainer. We will learn Monday if the offer was accepted.

John Wright, Bobby’s father, was apprehensive about the price--$73,500, which would make the payments somewhere around $500 a month. “When I bought my house,” he had earlier said to his son, “I only paid $200 a month!” Bethany, his wife, informed him that he was living some twenty years in the past. She then proceeded to tell him what the price is of a similar home, but brand new, these days.

After poor John was finally able to pick up all his respective parts that had fallen to the floor in astonishment, he collected his wits and allowed as how, perhaps, that house was a good deal after all.

One of our friends, while looking at the house, remarked that he’d purchased his home for $2,500. That’s not a typing error; I mean twenty-five hundred dollars. The real estate agent poked her head around the corner in amazement. “When were you born??!!” she breathed in awe.

After spending a good part of the afternoon on Saturday writing bass and tenor notes on a ‘new’ song--actually, it was written about 50 years ago, and my sister just discovered it in an old song book--we called our choir members to come practice the song that evening. Next Sunday, they will sing it for the congregation, and then the congregation will learn it, too.

And now it is getting late, and I still have to do some packing, because we are going to go to Colorado tomorrow. The real object is to deliver and retrieve vehicles, but we are planning to make a vacation, of sorts, out of it.

“And don’t forget the camera!”