On the Mondays after our big family Sunday dinners, we often have leftovers for supper. Everyone is usually pleased, since they regularly feel like they don’t get enough of all the yummy food Sunday. But why will anybody hardly eat lettuce salad around here? They say they are not rabbits. They grump and complain that the lettuce makes their throats itch, and so forth… It is true, most of them are afflicted with allergies of one sort of another, but I always wonder: Is it really as bad as all that?
One day after Larry had cut the boys’ hair, we decided to do Kitty a good turn, and clip off some matted fur on her chest. What are those people called, who care for animals’ fur? Wiggers? Furdoers? Coatfloats? Hairballs?
Anyway, I held Kitty while Larry used the clippers on her. She, of course, did not appreciate the good turn for what it was, although she’s too good-tempered to complain much. For the most part, she held very still, though every now and then she uttered a plaintive “Mrrrroowrr,” and looked around forlornly to see if rescue wasn’t imminent. I think she was grateful later, however, because she kept coming around and rubbing against me, purring. Reckon she knows what we did? That fur was bothering her…surely she realizes that, after we performed some sort of modus operandi on her with those cacophonous, vibrating things, the fur is smooth and soft; those awful clippers must’ve done the trick! Does she know that, do you think?
Or perhaps she was merely grateful we had quit, and that she was not yet bald.
One afternoon Victoria was measuring our shoes together.
“My shoes are almost as big as yours!” she announced happily.
“That’s not fair,” I protested; “All my kids are getting bigger than me!”
Victoria looked at me quickly. “Well, but we can’t help it!” said she, holding both hands out, palms up. “I just have to grow!”
Monday evening, Larry’s Uncle Clyde, working in his garage, turned around, tripped over his lawn tractor, and fell flat, breaking his nose quite badly. It was damaged inside, and the doctor had to put something in it so he could breathe. He will have to have surgery on it as soon as some of the swelling goes down.
And then he showed up at the Ready-Mix plant the next day, planning to drive his truck! His boss, the owner instructed him to go straight back home where he belonged.
Tuesday I did the bookwork. I got January’s done--and then I did the year-end bookwork. And it’s all done! It’s ready to be taken to the CPA. Larry still needs to make a list of Year-End Inventory; he’ll probably get that done at 11:30 p.m. April 16th (we have until the 16th this year, because the 15th falls on a Sunday), so our tax man will have exactly half an hour to complete his calculations and fill out our tax forms.
I know what I’ll do to get him movin’! (!!!) I’ll write the list myself. (tee hee) Let’s see…one of the vehicles we had was an Edsel, right? Circa 1936, I’ll bet. Four-wheel-drive and air-conditioned, so it was probably worth about $24,000. And I shan’t forget the Rio… Okay, I’m on a roll here…let us continue:
1) Said Edsel.
2) Said Rio, complete with suicide doors, vintage 1948.
3) Chevy Ranger, 1989.
4) Chrysler Impala, 1976.
5) Mercury Tarsus, 1992.
(Eh? Howzat? You didn’t think Chevy made Ranger? And come again? Chrysler didn’t produce Impala? Huh? Mercury had nothing to do with Tarsus? And you say the Rio had no suicide doors? How silly of you. I’m writing this here list; you hush.)
Haha! Told you I’d get his attention. That list (the real list) should be done in no time.
Hannah is crocheting a dress for Victoria for her birthday. It’s made of fine purple thread, and has ruffles at the shoulders, and a flower design worked into the pattern. It’s so pretty, I think we will save it for Easter. I need to make a dress--a petticoat, of sorts--to go underneath it. Hannah periodically brings it over and tries it on Victoria to see if it is fitting properly.
Finally, after numerous ‘fittings’, Victoria queried, “Is this for me?”
“Yes,” Hannah told her, although she’d wanted it to be a surprise, and had hoped Victoria would just think it was another of the items Hannah was making to sell at a craft show, “it’s for your birthday.”
“Oh!” said Victoria, grinning at her big sister. And then, very quietly, “You will have to wrap it all up in a box, with lots of pretty bows on top, and I would not tell anybody what it is, and you mustn’t, either, and then we will all be soooo surprised when I open it up!” Tuesday afternoon, Hannah slipped and fell on our driveway. She skinned her knee and hand, and in general felt rather sore, but was okay, thankfully.
The children came home from school at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday because it was sleeting and raining and freezing, and the streets were getting slicker and slicker.
“And it really was slick!” said Lydia. “I couldn’t even run as fast as I usually do!”
“Yes!” agreed Caleb. “I was running really fast, and then I decided to stop, so my feet stopped, but the rest of me just went right on, fast as ever!” He giggled. “And my feet came too, ’cause they were sliding.”
Church was canceled that night. Hannah called to tell me that she and Bobby had headed out to the store earlier…she walked out the door, and her foot slipped a bit on the rubber mat.
Bobby said, “Be careful; it’s really slick out here!”
He reached back to help her. They made it down the steps to the bottom of their porch, and then their feet slipped out from under them, and down they went. Bobby landed on his elbows, and Hannah sat down hard.
They were both scrambling to get back up, feet spinning, as Hannah described it, when an old man in an even older pickup drove by, slowed, rolled his window down, and called, “Is anybody all right?” (a funny sort of a question) and Bobby, struggling to get to his feet, called back, “Yes!” and further, “It’s slick out here!”
The man laughed, waved, and drove on.
But they were not exactly all right, for one of Bobby’s elbows is still very sore, and Hannah feels rather as if battering rams hit her on all sides.
Two ladies at the daycare where Dorcas works fell when they walked out to start their vehicles. Remembering Dorcas’ injured knee of last year, her boss and a couple of the other women grabbed a bag of salt and rushed out the door, spreading a liberal coating from the door all the way to Dorcas’ car and around it. They were teasing Dorcas, really; but Dorcas was thankful for that salt, nonetheless.
Larry came home early because they were working on a 14-foot wall, and the boards and scaffolding were slick. They couldn’t walk down the wooden ramp to the ground, it was so slippery, so one of the men, Don, went sliding down it, sitting on it like a teeter-totter. He was only a third of the way down when Matthew, Bobby’s brother, still up on the wall, lifted the board high, so Don could really go whizzing down it. Don war-whooped all the way to the bottom, whether advertently or inadvertently, we cannot say.
Bobby walked on a board over the basement where some men were working, carrying some forms. He slipped and dropped the forms, and one hit a man in the head. The man had to have stitches put in. That happened shortly after my nephew Robert said to Larry that he thought they’d better quit before somebody got hurt. They did quit--just a few minutes too late.
Larry went to Madison, purportedly to get hubs and tires for his pickup; I would later learn that since they had no tires to fit it, he got a topper. He planned to trade in Dorcas’ old gray car on the hubs and topper. That night, he tried putting the new hubs on the pickup, but they were the wrong ones. So much for that.
Something is wrong with my ‘new’ printer. There seems to be a little piece broken off inside the cartridge holder. I took the cover off, turned it upside down, and shook it with all my might and main, but the missing piece didn’t show up. I pounded on it with a large rubber mallet, but nothing rattled. Not the first few times, at least.
(I never exaggerate)
Sooo…I put my document onto a disk and took it to the other computer, in order to use my old Canon printer that is hooked up to it. Unfortunately, we cannot load the Microsoft Word program onto that computer, because we must have a code number, and we don’t know what it is. (Anybody have a spare code number?) So I used Microsoft Works, and the pages didn’t match up … the fonts are different…and you can’t tell it to print only odd or even pages; you have to type in the number of every out-of-order page. Aarrgghh.
I did get it printed, at least.
My printer is now residing at The Connecting Point, where they have yet to connect its malfunctioning connectors.
Guess what, guess what? Look what I read on Megavision’s Home Page:
Workers unload fiber optic cable in Columbus to deliver multi-megabyte advanced DSL service through Community Internet / Megavision. Watch this page for further details.
DSL! Why, with that, I could upload 20 pictures onto my Web site so fast, they’d be there before I ever clicked Load! Wonder what it will cost?
There was no school again Thursday, because it was so slick, and freezing rain and snow were still coming down.
Every evening at bedtime, we hear crackle crackle crunch crack clopp clopp clopp. It’s Joseph, getting, according to Dorcas, “his nighttime ice”, cracking it out of the ice cube tray and dropping it into his glass (and onto the floor).
That night, I uploaded my most recent scribblings onto my Web site…but after they arrived, the pictures were missing. Where’d they go, and what code must I write to get them to reappear? I wondered. Impatient as always, I wrote to Pablo, who'd started the Web site for me:
Well... after hoping all this time that you would get home safe and sound just because you are our very best South America friend in the whole wide world, I now have a quite selfish reason to wish you home again:
I am stumped. That is, I am stumped over my Web site.
I have uploaded several chapters, along with two pictures. I uploaded them as htm documents. I am ever so pleased that the chapters and their links are working nicely--but there is a problem: the pictures embedded in the text didn’t stay put when I uploaded... and I see that you have all the other pictures from the other chapters listed in the Images folder... and I know that there is coding in the Chapters to pull the picture from the folder and put it where it belongs amidst the text... but I can’t understand how you figure out how to tell it Height and Width and weight and eye color and hair color and shoe size and what it should eat for breakfast.
And I haven’t the foggiest idea how to put the pictures where they belong... and they need to be renamed, which I do know how to do; but I thought I’d just leave them so that the names would jump out at you like a sore thumb and be easily noticed. I suppose I will have to upload the pictures that are no longer in the chapters... but really, I don’t know WHAT I should do. Maybe I’ll have to delete those chapters and start all over. I saved them as htm documents and then uploaded... was that the problem, I wonder?
Well... I’ve only just done this in the last couple of hours; maybe I will figure it out if I look at the chapters you have done, or if I read the HTML tutorial you sent me. Do you reckon, do you spoze, do you think???
Okay, sorry to interrupt your vacation...just ignore me till you get home and feel like working again. ha
Stay safe!
Your poor ol’ dumb friend--
(but getting smarter every minute),
Sarah Lynn Uploader/Editor de Stumped
And with that, I went to bed. The next morning, although the Easter material in my fabric closet was calling me, my Web site was calling louder, and I just had to see if I could figure it out. First, I uploaded the lost pictures and put them into the right folder; next, I figured out how to write the code in the text to get them back into the document. And it worked!!!
Wheeeeeeeeeee!!! I’m so pleased with myself! So I wrote to Pablo again:
Subject: I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!PABLO!!!!!!!!!
I DID IT, I DID IT, I DID IT!!!!
Yes, I actually DID IT. I uploaded the pictures for the Chapters, I put the right code in, and it WORKED, IT WORKED!!!
The pictures are right where they should be, the world is turning nicely on its axis, and I’m so smart and clever I can hardly stand myself. WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Now... if I can just figure out how to put pictures on the photos pages.
Your excited delighted friend,
Sarah Insert-the-Picture Lynn
OH! and P.S.: STAY SAFE! DON’T LOSE YOUR FILM! and... DON’T FORGET TO COME HOME.
And whatever you do, don’t let the boat leave without you.
Next, I must learn the coding for putting the pictures into their proper folders… How do I tell it whether I want a ‘thumbnail’ size, or a large size? Hmmm… But that must wait till I finish the Easter sewing.
School resumed Friday, since the street crews had been out layering everything with salt and pepper (or is that salt and gravel?), and driving wasn’t so dicey.
The cats love to dash around and under and between the children’s feet when they are having recess. Hester says they should be named “Get-In-The-Way I” and “Get-In-The-Way II”. But the children all love the cats, and games often come to a stop while children pick them up and cuddle them. Kitty and Tad accept this as their just dues.
Friday night, I cut out five dresses. Four are for Easter--two for Hester, one for Lydia, and one for Victoria; and one is for Valentine’s Day--an early birthday present for Victoria. Yesterday I sewed the three-tier skirt for Victoria’s dress; when I complete that dress, I will cut out several more before I launch into sewing the Easter clothes.
Some friends of ours discovered what was wrong with Dorcas’ old gray car. They bought the parts and got it running, so Larry decided to keep it and sell the pickup he recently got, along with the topper.
Because of the weather, work for David has been rather slow, so Larry has been working on a Dodge pickup he had not completed when he sold the business. He hopes to get it done it before it warms up and he has to start working longer.
Dorcas is now sporting a fresh permanent, given her by a cousin of Bobby’s who lives down the street from us a block or so. When she came home, her hair was in the usual extra-curly mop-top affair that permanent waves are wont to bestow. Victoria stared in amazement.
Then she said in her low voice, “Dorcas! Your hair looks like--” Here she paused a bit and just looked at that hairdo. “--somebody’s,” she finished, one eyebrow quirking upwards.
Last night, I was sewing, but my sewing machine booted me (well, really, I leaned too close to it, and the shuttle zoomed up and whopped my nose), so I came marching out to the living room in high dudgeon to see what my ’puter had to say about it. And I washed clothes. (We do that, around here.) (Sometimes.)
This morning I stayed home from church with Lydia, who had a stomachache and a headache.
This was Larry’s day to fix dinner---the married kids would be going elsewhere to eat, so we always have our “treat”---Larry’s waffles, or pancakes, or French toast. He makes lip-smackin’ waffles, etc., let me tell you. He likes to surprise us with his concoctions, but I knew last night that it would be French toast today. I knew this, because I personally witnessed him buying half a gross of bread loaves at the store.
Sometimes on Sunday afternoons, when church is over, I am sleepy enough that I wish everyone would just take a food pill, and not require me to cook dinner. And they think I am joking when I say that. Ha!
Hester and Lydia like to stay after church as long as possible, chatting with their friends, reading school reports hung on the classroom walls, and looking at books in the library. They finally wandered in tonight, a good while after the rest of the family had come home.
I turned and gave Hester my best disbelieving look as she sauntered into the kitchen. “Home already??” I queried in an amazed tone. “What happened, did the fat lady sing?”
She looked at me blankly--the poor child didn’t even know what I meant. Her siblings knew, though…and they all guffawed quite satisfactorily. “Huh?” said Hester.
“It ain’t over till the fat lady sings!” sang Joseph lustily, making us laugh all over again.
* * *
And now: I have saved the best news for last:
Today, we voted my nephew Robert Walker in as pastor. It was nearly unanimous; there were only two ‘nay’ votes amongst all those of voting age--perhaps 220.
Robert’s sermon tonight was from Numbers 13, about the story of the twelve spies sent from Kadesh-barnea into the land of Canaan. This was not God’s idea, for His plan was for them to enter the land trusting in Him to provide their every need and lead them wherever they should go. He had led them all the way, He had protected them; if they had’ve only obeyed Him, they could have gone straight into the land right then and there.
But it is explained in the first chapter of Deuteronomy how the people insisted that they wanted to scout out the land, so the Lord told Moses to choose a man from each of the twelve tribes to do the job. Moses told them what to look for: “See the land, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strong holds; and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not.” He mentioned the Canaanites, too, but did not put the emphasis on them that he’d put on the land. After all, the land was what had been promised them, while the people of the land were wicked, and had been cursed.
The spies entered the land and discovered that, just as the Lord had said, “it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it:” --and they brought a cluster of grapes so large that two men had to carry it suspended on a pole between them.
Caleb and Joshua said, “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.”
But the other men said, “‘We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.’ And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, ‘The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.’”
And the whole congregation, listening to the other ten men rather than to Caleb and Joshua, “lifted up their voice, and cried, and the people wept all night.” The next day, they wanted to make themselves a captain and return to Egypt. When Caleb and Joshua protested, the people wanted to stone them!
Did you ever notice, and did you ever wonder why, those people didn’t even taste those wonderful grapes… The Bible says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good
!” Their rebellion and unbelief made them unwilling even to taste.
!” Their rebellion and unbelief made them unwilling even to taste. They wound up wandering in the wilderness for many more years--a total of 40 years. They were sorry shortly thereafter, and tried going to Canaanland anyway; but God was angry, and He caused the Amalekites and the Canaanites that dwelt nearby to “smite them, and discomfit them”, chasing them back toward the wilderness again. They’d missed their opportunity, and they would not find it again. Their children would be the only ones to go into the land…their children, and Joshua and Caleb.
Then Robert told us that he believed that God was calling him to minister full-time, and he was afraid that if he did not do so, we would find ourselves in all sorts of troubles, just as the Israelites did when they did not obey. We must look at God’s promises, and not at problems and circumstances. Think how often the Lord said to His people, “Take courage!” and “Fear not!”
He read the verses in Deuteronomy 8:
8:6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
8:7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
8:8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;
8:9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
8:10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
8:11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:
8:12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;
8:13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;
8:14 Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
8:15 Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
8:16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
8:17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
The brooks of water, fountains, and depths that are spoken of in verse seven are like the Word of God. His Word is Living Water, and only with that water can the Christian be fruitful. The bread (verse 9), too, speaks of the Bread of Life--God’s Word. “A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness.” This is what we need: teaching and instruction from the Bible.
All across this old world, there is a terrible lack of just that. Preachers stand before their congregations on Sundays and give pleasant little speeches with no real instruction, no teaching their people how to apply the things in the Bible to their everyday lives, no admonitions against evil…just small agreeable spiels of peace and comfort. They are not only dull and lifeless themselves, they are the cause of lifelessness in others. They actually turn people away from God. Jesus said, “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.” (Luke 11:52)
Look what Jeremiah says:
6:13 For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to
covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.
6:14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
Those ‘shepherds’ who are, as the Lord said, “…no shepherds unto Me,” will have much to account for someday.
Whave a wonderful God who loves us, and His watch-care over us is alive and well, for just this last week we have seen a couple of our dear friends--one, a little boy of seven; the other, a middle-aged man--recover much quicker than was expected--and that, almost from the brink of death.
Even the doctors say it must be because of prayer; they know no other explanation. Delmar was able to attend church yesterday, although he is limping; and little Timothy can actually throw a ball with his left hand!
We should always remember that there are those who are so horribly persecuted for their faith that it makes us look like pampered personages by comparison.
Now that Robert has been voted in, the next order of business is to give him a minister’s license, valid for one year in the state of Nebraska, so that he may officiate over such things as funerals and weddings. At the end of that time, and perhaps before, he will be ordained.
Robert’s preaching is inspiring to listen to. He reminds me of my father, the way he explains things, simply enough for the children to understand. He has a fine family, and his three little girls and baby boy are sweet as they can be. His wife, Margaret, is charming and attractive, and if anybody doesn’t like her, there is something wrong with them.
It was not long before he died that my father asked Robert if he would consider being the next minister; and Robert said he would. But Robert was quite young when Daddy died in ’92; he just turned 30 last September. He wanted to be very sure it was the right thing.
Yesterday, he decided it was, and we are so happy that he did.
And that’s the news for this week; how was your week?
P.S.: Groomer! He/she is called a groomer, who does grooming on an animal. I knew I’d figure it out, sooner or later.
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