Last Monday (was it
only last Monday?? – so much has happened this last week, it seems like a month
ago!), Hannah sent me a video of Joanna playing their electronic piano – while
little brother Levi busily pushed buttons to change the sound. Nathanael can be heard giggling.
I wrote back to
Hannah, “Do you remember how hard you kids used to laugh when, after you’d turn
a page in the hymn book or shut it while I was playing, I’d clobber the song
all up, and act like I couldn’t play if it wasn’t on the right page?” (I usually wasn’t looking at it in the first
place, and sometimes it wasn’t even open to the right song, as I played most
often by ear.)
Hannah does things like this with her own kids. She starts playing a hymn, they’ll turn the
page, so she’ll switch abruptly and play that song instead. hee hee
I sometimes download free quilt patterns from designers
who offer their patterns free for a month.
One lady who has been designing appliquéd bear blocks designed one that
so closely matched the little ironing bear figurine my late sister-in-law
Janice gave me, I had to send her a picture and ask about it. Just as I suspected, she had used that very
figurine for her pattern model. Isn’t it
cute?
Hmmmm... Ѿ Idea! Ѿ I could make little mats to go with figurines,
since I’ve already made several gazillion mug rugs, and everyone is now
thoroughly glutted with them. Like a
friend of mine said recently, “I hear the low rumble of a brainstorm.” hee
hee
Or as my
daughter-in-law Amy wrote the other day, “I had an idea fly into my funnel.” haha She
was quoting from Thomas the Tank Engine. And yes, that’s definitely a hard
clue to the fact that she has lots of little boys. Seven, to be exact. 😃
You know, when
husbands work 50-60+ hours a week, and in their spare time they work on
tractors and pickups, things around the house languish. For instance, the drain lever in the tub
needs to be replaced. But Larry took it
apart and turned it upside down, and at least it works now, though I don’t imagine it will work for long.
Plus, it sticks out oddly, and my hair gets caught on it when I’m shampooing
it.
Then there’s the chain-puller-kafloomp-doohickey
inside the toilet tank downstairs. It
won’t stay attached, so one has to reach into the tank, fish around for the
chain, and pull it in order to flush the toilet. One must also make certain said chain doesn’t
get caught under the kafloomper, or the thing will go on unsuccessfully trying
to fill until doomsday.
This is not fun at
the best of times, but have you ever
tried to stick your arm into a tank of icewater when you have a tight, cuffed
sleeve on, without getting said sleeve
soaked?!
I’m a really good
wife; I give my husband warning about what dastardly deed I might commit before
I do it.
Ergo, after
pleasantly asking (multiple times) for the lever inside the downstairs toilet
tank to be fixed and seeing no discernible results, I sent him the following
note:
“You really should
fix the toilet, ’cuz every time I have to stick my arm into the frigid water, I’m
that much closer to throwing a bucket of icewater on you.”
He fixed it, really
fast (after first pretending to be half scared half to death over my threat).
Andrew
sent a picture of the baby Tuesday morning. Such a tiny, tiny little baby… but so
perfectly formed, so precious… The baby’s name is Keira Brooke, and her exact birth weight was 2 pounds,
2 ounces.
Later that afternoon, he wrote to say that Hester’s
kidneys had started working again. Since
I hadn’t known there was a problem with them, I felt somewhat alarmed. Her condition had been more serious than we’d
realized!
Also, he said, the
doctors were putting a mucose medicine in the baby’s lungs to help keep all the
lung sacs open, because she couldn’t do it herself. He told us that anyone who wanted to see the
baby must have a flu shot, and they must have had it at least seven days in
advance of their visit.
So that evening, Larry
and I went to get flu shots. We’ve never
had them before. Now we’ll be well for months!
We’ve never had the
shots, because it’s a trouble, and it costs money. Not that getting the flu isn’t even more of a trouble, and might cost even more money. But I also didn’t want to bother myself with
something that may or may not work, and may or may not cause more harm than
good.
It wound up costing
about $55 for each of us. The staff at Urgent Care originally told us
that it would also cost $104 for the office visit, for each of us. The nurse
recommended we go to the nearby Hy-Vee pharmacy.
We gave it a try,
but they didn’t have any of the vaccine left.
The lady there called every pharmacy in town, and none of them had any flu
vaccine left. So we returned to Urgent Care. They didn’t charge us for the office visit after
all, maybe because they were mistaken about office visit charges for flu
vaccines in the first place, or maybe because of our story about our new little
granddaughter. They were so sympathetic and nice to us.
But I’m almost sure
the needle hit the bone in my arm; I felt it.
“Squoooshh-THONK!!!” Like that. Owie,
owie, OWWWIEEE!!!! My arm and shoulder were sore.
By 2:30 a.m., I
could hear ice rain coming down, tink-tink-tinking on the windows and
doors. Snowflakes were starting to fall along with the ice. According to Accu-Weather, snow would
continue to fall for several hours, but wouldn’t accumulate much more than half
an inch.
Wednesday, my arm
hurt enough that I was having a hard time using it. The pain was
localized, though it radiated. I won’t
do that again unless I must!
That afternoon, I
went to Hobby Lobby for batting for the next quilt, and dropped off more stuff
at the Goodwill. Donation receipts mean ‘Refund!’ on next year’s tax
returns.
Home again, I
started loading my customer’s next red, white, and blue quilt. This one
has a lot of HSTs (half-square triangles). So I’ll call it the HST RWB
quilt.
When I began
putting the backing on my frame, I discovered it was a good eight inches
off-grain! I took a picture, sent it to
the lady, and asked, “Did you get gypped, or did they allow for this?”
She soon responded,
“Oh,
wow. I probably got gypped!”
They hadn’t allowed
for it, and she hadn’t known it was so crooked.
I
straightened it, trimmed it, and got it loaded, putting it on sideways to make
sure there would be enough length for the quilt top. I got the pantograph in place, lined
everything up – and then it was time for church. It was a welcome break, as my joints were all
complaining loudly. I have no idea if that
arthritis flare-up happened coincidentally, or if the flu shot brought it on;
but since Larry, too, had a bunch of aches and pains that day, I suspect it was
the flu shot.
After getting back
home, we had a quick supper, and then I started quilting. It was a smallish throw-sized quilt, and the
panto was fairly simple, so it went fast.
Since we’d be going to Omaha the next day, I decided to keep at that
quilt until it was done.
I finished it at
3:30 a.m.
Teensy (below) kept
me company the entire time.
Andrew sent us a
picture of Hester checking the baby’s temperature. Mostly all I could see of the baby was one
tiny foot sticking out with wee toes splayed in a ‘Hey, what are you doing to
me!’ attitude. I wonder if any of them noticed that? Tells me that baby’s little brain is working
just fine.
Thursday, I printed
some documents for Victoria, then packed up the red, white, and blue quilts and
took them to the post office. I took
Victoria her papers, stopped by Hobby Lobby for more batting, and again dropped
off some stuff at the Goodwill. I don’t
often buy more than one roll of batting at a time, because the 40%-off coupon
they post online each day is for one item only.
So... I make my trip to town worthwhile by doing several things at once. If each donation to the Goodwill brings back
three or four times the amount I spent on the gas to get to town and go back
home, then it’s a winning situation!
Oh, my word, there’s
a baby house finch, newly fledged, on our back railing, cheeping away at its
father, up on the feeder, to hurry up and feed it. How on earth did baby
birds survive that blizzard a week ago Saturday? The ice rain a few nights
ago?? 50-mph winds, several times recently?! Wow. Isn’t
that amazing?
Reminds me of the
children’s song with the phrase, ♫ ♪ “For if the Father’s eye is on the
sparrow, ♫ ♪ then surely He will care for thee!” ♫ ♪
I had alllllmost enough time to load the next
quilt before Larry got home. The backing
was on the frame, the batting stitched into place, and I had only a few more inches
of top quilt to roll onto the front bar when he arrived, and I went scurrying
down the stairs to stick feet into shoes and grab purse, laptop, tablet,
camera, and coffee – the vital necessities.
Guess what
I found while loading this backing: a slice in it, at the fold! Somebody started cutting it at the wrong
place, a little short... then just pretended that never happened, and moved
their scissors over to cut it in the right
place.
I’m sure
glad I noticed before loading the top and starting to quilt. I moved the top a bit to the side, and there
was just enough room to avoid that cut.
This quilt is 97” x 102”.
I could’ve started
on the quilting when I got home... but usually by the time we get back after a
several-hour excursion, I’m too tired, and I don’t have the slightest desire to
plod my way up the stairs, turn everything on (it’s a major excursion, trekking
all around the room and turning on all the lights, coffee mug warmer, space
heater, quilting machine, and plugging in the computer), get the pantograph
into place, and actually quilt.
We had a
very nice visit with Andrew and Hester, though we couldn’t see the baby
yet. Lydia came while we were there. She knocked on the door, and I
opened it, then announced, “It’s a friend!”
(as opposed to a ‘foe’, you know.)
Hester was
still not doing so well, though she was sweet and cheerful as ever. Her blood pressure was too high despite
medication, and her kidneys weren’t doing the best job yet, either, so her arms
and hands, legs and feet, were quite swollen.
Andrew
showed us a video of the baby as the nurses were doing something with her, and
she was crying – a surprisingly strong cry from such a tiny little baby. He and Hester love that little baby so very
much. They’ve wanted a baby for a long
time. We’re praying with all our might
and main that she’ll be all right, and grow and thrive, and that Hester will
recover okay, and be able to care for her little family. We love them so much!
When we got back out
to the hospital parking lot, we saw Jeremy and the children waiting in their SUV
for Lydia. Baby Malinda was in the driver’s seat, pretending to
drive. We pulled over beside them, and I worked up a good game with
Malinda, patting the side of the car just below the rolled-down window, she on
her car, I on mine. We’d’ve made good drummers in a band, let me tell
you!
Lydia came along
and scooped up her baby through the window, much to Malinda’s delight.
I remarked, “Doesn’t
it make you thankful, when you pick up your plump, healthy baby?”
Lydia nodded and
said, “I cried every time I picked her up, for a couple of days.”
Lydia is two years
younger than Hester. They’ve been best friends since, oh, ... since Lydia
was six months old, maybe. Hester was 5 pounds, 2 ounces, when she was
born. Lydia was 9 pounds, 9 ounces.
I have no idea why; they were both born right on time, and the funny thing is,
I gained exactly the same number of pounds each time – about 23 pounds.
One time Lydia was
sitting in her rolling walker in the kitchen beside me, and most of us were
sitting at the table. Hester had finished eating, and I’d lifted her down
from her high chair. Lydia was about 9
months old, and Hester was about 2 years and 8 months. On the corner of
the table were a bunch of baby toys. Hester walked over to Lydia and
greeted her in the high-pitched voice she used especially for her baby sister, “Hi,
Leedya!”
Lydia looked at her
in that solemn way of hers (a lot like her own baby Malinda does). In my
mind’s eye, I can perfectly picture that plump, oval little face, big gray-blue
eyes. Without making a peep, she pointed up at her toys on the table.
Hester, always
helpful, said, “Oh, did you want a toy?”
Lydia nodded.
Hester chose a toy,
held it out to the baby. Lydia didn’t take it. Her plump little
hands, almost as big as Hester’s even at that young age, remained firmly
affixed to the tray of her walker. She looked up at Hester, wide-eyed and
serious, and shook her head.
“Not that one?”
asked Hester. She picked up another one. “This one?” She held
it out.
Lydia gave it a
good once-over. Shook her head.
Hester put it back,
offered another. “How about this one?”
Lydia gazed at it,
shook her head.
Hester went through
a dozen toys with the same result.
And then that wee Hester
girl put her hands on her hips, pursed her lips at her little sister, and
exclaimed, “Well, you little Miss Bossy Boots!”
Her siblings, who’d
been silently watching this interaction, all burst into such raucous laughter,
they made both little girls jump. Hester laughed. And then Lydia,
who’d been solemnly grave through the entire episode, laughed, too.
Hester chose a toy,
plopped it on Lydia’s tray. “You were just teasing me!”
Lydia picked up the
once-refused toy, grinned up at her big sister, and said, “You-you.” (her way
of saying ‘thank-you’.)
They were such fun,
those two! The big kids called them, collectively, ‘The little girls.’
They still do, sometimes. 😊
We ate supper at
Applebee’s after leaving the hospital, using the last gift certificate from our
neighbors – a gift for caring for their animals while they were gone.
Upon getting home
late that night, Larry went to bed and slept as fast as possible, then got back
up shortly after 4:00 a.m. and rushed off to Jeremy’s house. Jeremy then took Larry to the airport in
Omaha so he could fly to Ohio to pick up and drive home a boom truck with a
Palfinger crane that Jeremy had purchased for his Precision Tree Cutting and
Woodworking business. Since it was Jeremy’s 31st birthday, I sent
the elk panel quilt with Larry to give him. I’d had a hard time waiting
until his birthday to give it to him!
(And yes, he likes it.)
News flash, news flash!!!
When I
called my brother Loren for our afternoon chat Friday afternoon, I learned
this:
Loren,
who lost his wife to cancer four years ago, and my mother-in-law Norma, who
lost her husband to cancer a year and a half ago, are going to get
married! The date was not yet set, but it would be soon.
“But not
tomorrow,” Loren told me.
I
answered, “Whyyyyy???”
He was
laughing... and I could hear Norma laughing in the background.
He
wondered if I’d guessed.
I said, “Well,
of course I did! What else
was I supposed to think, when you were going around all googly-eyed like that??”
He made a
funny noise and said, “Well, but I wasn’t googly-eyed until yesterday!”
So I
replied, “OhHHHHHhhhhhh,” in a totally disbelieving tone. (Though truthfully, I didn’t really
think it was happening until the last few days.)
And, for
the record, I’m very, very glad. For both of them.
They’ve both been lonely
– and in need of a mate, truly. We’re really happy about it.
I
promptly began texting my offspring, starting with the oldest and working my
way down to the youngest. I was copying
and pasting, working fast.
Before I
could get Dorcas’ name into the ‘To’ area, my phone rang. It was Hannah. I picked it up and said, “I knew I’d never get to the next kid in
line before you called, after that news!”
Hannah had already
guessed. She’d driven by Loren’s house the
other day, saw Norma’s van there, and remarked to Joanna, “Shall we stop and go
in and ask if they need a chaperone?” haha
While I
talked with Hannah, I finished sending notes to the others.
Lydia immediately
responded, “I KNEW IT!! Lol”
“Yeah, well, you
with the snoopy Cupid radar,” I returned.
Victoria wrote, “😯 I’m
astonished!!!! And so happy!!!!” (She must’ve been so preoccupied with baby in
arms and baby on the way {did I tell you that??}, she totally missed it.)
Caleb soon texted, “Whoa, that’s great – and quite
surprising.”
(He doesn’t have
the radar his older sisters do.)
A friend asked me,
“How are you going to explain how your mother-in-law turns out to be your sister-in-law
all in one breath????”
Yeah, what a
dilemma!
♫ ♪ Ah’m mah own
grrrandpa; ♫ ♪ Ohhh-hhh, Ah’m mah own grrrandpa; ♫ ♪ It sounds funny, I
know; ♫ ♪ But it really is so!! – ♫ ♪ Oh, ah’m mah own grrrrandpaaaaa! ♫
♪
(I should mention,
my mother-in-law and my brother are the same age – 79 years old. Larry and I are 22 years younger. Just
so y’all aren’t scratching your respective heads over the matter.)
The kids were soon
debating what they would now call these two:
Dorcas: So
I have a funny question... what do we call them after they marry? Lol Same
as we have always done?”
 |
Methodist Women’s Hospital, where
Hester and Keira are.
|
Victoria
said, “I thought about that and decided they’re still Uncle Loren and Grandma Fricke.
😄”
“That’s what I told Todd I would do 😀,” answered
Dorcas.
Victoria added, “He’s always been like a grandpa to us! It’s not going to change much that he will
have the official title now. 😄”
Dorcas
told us, “I just let Todd’s sons call me whatever they want. They call me Dory, but I don’t know what my
grandbaby will call me. I told Timmy
whatever he wants is fine by me.”
It sure is a lot more peaceable, when one
doesn’t try to force someone to call you Mom, Dad, Grammaw, or Grampaw when
they don’t wanna!
“The good thing is,” I told our kids, “they’re
not the kind of people who’ll come barging in demanding to be called one thing
or another. People who do that just make
you wanna call them ‘Ol’ Dunderhead’ or something.”
Loren, upon being
apprised of this problem, laughed, “Doesn’t matter to me what anyone calls me,
so long as they call me for supper!”
(But he was
pleased when Lydia’s boys got a bit mixled a couple of years ago and called him
‘Grandpa Unca Lorn’.)
Soon it was
Hannah’s turn: “I’m going to have
another Grandpa and Grandma Swiney. We’re
debating on the right names for them. ‘Grandpa Uncle?’ ‘Grandma Norma?’ Others already call her that.”
“So...” I asked, “do
y’all call her ‘Grandma Swiney’? Or ... ‘Aunt Swiney’. ‘Aunt
Grandma?’
And then I wrote to
Dorcas and Victoria, “Hey!! Hannah just wrote me a note about this, and it occurs to me
-------- you CAN’T call her Grandma ‘Fricke’!!! ’Cuz she won’t
be ‘Grandma Fricke’, she’ll be Grandma Swiney! Or ... Aunt Swiney.
Aunt Grandma? ((scritch-scratching
head))”
Victoria: “I
decided her name is Aunt Grandma Fricke Swiney and I’d like to shorten that to
Grandma Fricke. 😃”
Dorcas: “😂😂😂😂 She could be still be Grandma Jackson, too. This is too funny, but as long as they are
both happy and not lonely that’s good. Todd
said he can’t wait for Uncle Loren to meet her family. 😂😂”
“Yes, and won’t he
be surprised to discover he already knows them??” I put in.
“😂 That’s so funny,” wrote Dorcas. “We are having fun with it, even though it
seems odd. We love it and are happy for
them because we love them both!”
“Daddy is going to
introduce me to Grandma and Uncle Loren when next we see them as his ‘step-aunt’,”
I informed the girls, which further tickled their funnybones.
You know, there’s
something about texting several of my girls at the same time (without them
knowing I’m doing this) that makes me laugh.
You’d think they
were identical twins (or triplets or quadruplets or quintuplets), the way they
make such similar remarks, never mind what the subject might be.
A friend wrote, “Wonderful
news!! Does that mean you will be making
meals for two… or not making any meals-to-go? LOL!”
Hee hee Actually, Loren’s been trying to cook for
himself for over a year now, refusing my offers of food. He hates to be a
burden! I worried, because I knew good and well he wasn’t really getting
a very balanced meal. His best specialty is eggs and toast (he used to
make them for me, when I was little), and he generally cooked a roast,
potatoes, carrots, and onions in his slow cooker on Sundays. He doesn’t
get enough vegetables, I don’t imagine.
Thus, one of the
first things I thought of, upon hearing the news, was, Now he’ll get good
meals! Norma is a cook, baker, and chef, par excellence. 😊
I asked Loren, “Why
aren’t you getting married tomorrow?”
“Well, I have to
give Norma time to get the curlers out of her hair!” he responded.
Norma laughed.
Andrew wrote to say
that Keira finished her jaundice treatment, and has been sleeping a lot. She could have been very badly affected by
Hester’s condition, but it seems that the doctors worked quickly enough that
she was not. At least, they don’t see
signs of it, so far.
We
learned when we visited them that Hester has HELLP Syndrome. I had never heard of it before. The name HELLP stands for Hemolysis
(breakdown of red blood cells), Elevated Liver enzymes (liver function), Low Platelets
counts (platelets help the blood clot).
I read about it at these websites:
No wonder
they got her into an ambulance and went tearing off to the Omaha hospital. Hester doesn’t fit the general type that get
this.
Just look at this: “HELLP Syndrome can be fatal for the mother. According to the Preeclampsia Foundation,
maternal deaths from HELLP may be as high as 25 percent, because the condition
can lead to multiple organ failure.”
I guess
we’d better be awfully thankful Hester and the baby are still alive! It was a close call.
Friday I started
quilting my customer’s 100-Patch quilt (so called because each interior block
has 100 little square patches).
I got about a third
of it done that day. Each double row takes me 20 minutes, not counting
the time it takes to roll it forward.
Saturday, Andrew
wrote to tell us that Hester would be discharged that day, “with a short leash and a ton of
meds,” as he put it. They upped her
blood pressure medication again. She would
stay there in Omaha, and do her tests and doctor visits there, partly so they
can monitor her, and partly so she can stay close to the baby.
When I called Loren
that afternoon, he told me they had set the date for Friday, May 11th.
There will also be
a wedding the previous week, Friday, May 4th . Remember Jeremy’s younger sister Dorothy,
whose husband Craig (age 26) was killed in a construction accident three years
ago? They had three little boys, and the baby was only two months old.
Well, one of my
great-nephews, Daniel, son of my late nephew David Walker (the one who was
killed as he slept when a drunk driver rammed into their home), has asked her
to marry him, and she has accepted. It’s a big responsibility for a young
man, taking on a ready-made family! He is building them a brand-new home,
and it will be finished soon.
That afternoon, a
young friend, daughter of one of the missionaries we support, posted a verse of
a beautiful old song, Come, Ye
Disconsolate, on Instagram. It brought back a memory that always
makes me laugh:
We were at practice
one Saturday night, way back when I was our church pianist. I was trying
to think of that very song.
I said vaguely, “What’s
that song that’s in B flat and has the word ‘discourage’ in it?”
And Leanne, one of
our altoists, without missing a beat, quick as a wink, said with absolute
confidence, conviction, and certainty, “It’s ‘Come, Ye Disconsolate’, and it’s
in the key of D flat, and it’s page 201 in the Favorite Hymns.”
And it was.
It was all of that.
But how on earth
did she come up with that, with only two clues, and both of them
false??? I couldn’t quit laughing.
I sent a
text to Larry, who was on his way home from Ohio in Jeremy’s boom truck, asking
if the truck was working okay.
He’d had
to stop and put on a new fuel filter, but after that it was running perfectly.
Shortly,
he sent me another text: “I’m really
getting confused. My mother is going to
be my sister-in-law!”
“Haha!” I
wrote back. “And my brother is going to
be my step-father-in-law!”
Awwww... Tiger just
did something he’s never done before. He laid down in front of me (I’m
standing at the table as I type)... and he has laid his head on my foot, and
wrapped a paw around my ankle.
Well, I sure can’t
move now, can I? 😃 He’s such a
sweet ol’ thang.
A friend who keeps
our church birthday calendar updated sent me the most recent version, and then shortly
thereafter wrote to say that she had forgotten to change Norma’s and Dorothy’s
last names. “I’ll have to change the
directory, too,” she said, “and Melody (another of Jeremy’s sisters) will soon
have her baby – another change! It never
ends!”
That’s
the truth, it never ends. But that’s God’s
grace, isn’t it! “The sun also
ariseth... and the sun goeth down,” King Solomon wrote. I remember Daddy reading that verse, then
looking up at the congregation, gazing around with a somewhat blank look on his
face, and then exclaiming, “Glory be!” as if he’d never considered that fact
before.
Everyone
was a bit startled, and then they all burst out laughing.
Daddy
sure had a way of making us remember his sermons. Over the space of two or three sermons, we were
working our way through Ecclesiastes chapters one and two, and it all seemed so
forlorn and sad, with nothing but travail, grief, and vanity... and then we got
to Chapter 2, verse 26: “For God giveth
to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy.”
With
that, Daddy switched to verses about joy and rejoicing, and spoke of how we
should delight in the Lord and be thrilled with His blessings, and not worry
about vexations and troubles in this life, because we have an eternity with the
Lord to look forward to. Everything we
do here is leading us to that eternity. Knowing
that, we can enjoy our labors and the works of our hands here, and do things
with all our might.
Now, I
was pretty little, still in grade school, but I remember thinking how much I
loved that sermon! It was right down my
alley, because doing things with all my might was exactly the way I liked to do
them.
I had
good parents, and I surely do appreciate that!
Larry got
home Saturday night. Jeremy is tickled
pink over his truck – and those are his exact words, as he typed them on
Instagram today when he posted a picture of his truck, with the boom working
away, lifting a big heavy stump and effortlessly swinging it into another
place.
I had just a couple
more rows to go on the 100-Patch quilt, but my back announced that it was quitting
for the night and heading for the recliner and the heating pad, and the rest of
me went with it. More pictures here.
Sunday, Andrew sent
this update on their tiny baby: Keira
has some things they are closely watching, but this hospital seems ready for
almost anything that occurs.
It’s a beautiful
hospital, almost like a five-star hotel, and Hester and Andrew say the staff
there have treated them wonderfully.
The sun shined that
afternoon, and it got up to 66°. More baby birds have fledged... the
red-winged blackbirds were trilling their tail-feathers off... and the mourning
doves and the Eurasian collared doves were having a coo-off. (Yes,
Virginia, there is such a thing as a coo-off. I heard one myself!)
My nephew, Kelvin,
who was treated for colon cancer most all of last year and early this year,
helped served communion last night! That’s the first time since he got
sick, over a year ago.
After church last
night, Larry and I came walking through the front vestibule... and there was a
whole gob of our offspring, with Loren and Norma right in the middle. So
I poked my head between them and said, “Hey!!! What are you two doing,
horning in on my family?!!!” (Of course,
it’s their family, too, you know.) Both offspring’ns and
horners-in laughed.
Loren wrote on his
calendar one day last week, “Happy Days are Here Again!” And we all
agree.
Early this
afternoon, I wrote and asked Hester how she and baby Keira are doing. She answered, “We’re doing good so far.
We’re staying at an extended-stay hotel close to the hospital. I
just finished holding Keira for an hour or so. She was back to her birth
weight yesterday and they are starting to give her a little more food now that
her stomach can take that. The doctors say she’s doing well.”
Isn’t that good
news? She’s still awfully tiny, though.
Amy remarked today,
“So, Emma was the last granddaughter for well over 10 years!!!!! Now you have 4(!!!) In a little under 18 months! 😉❤️😍😊”
I have thought of
that, too. The little girl cousins will enjoy each other, I’m a-thinkin’.
😍
Today it occurred
to me to see if I might possibly be able to download an app on my laptop
whereby I might see the messages I get on my phone. I can see them on my tablet, after all; why
not the laptop? I really dislike
answering messages on my stupid little dumbphone. If someone sends me a photo, I forward it to
my laptop or look at it on my tablet, where I can actually see the thing. If they send
me a very big video, the phone discards of it.
Sure enough, there
was an app! I downloaded it, ran it, signed
in, and presto bingo, there were my messages, right on my laptop screen. Now, why
didn’t I do that, long ago??
Okay, I really, really want to
know why, directly after the Buckingham Palace crier announces the birth of the
newest baby boy to Prince William and Duchess Kate, he finishes by bellowing, “God Save the Queen!” Is the infant expected to be a terror, or
what?
I’m
kidding, I’m kidding. I enjoy watching
video clips of all the pomp and circumst----- uh, ceremony. But I’m mighty glad my status in life is not
so complex as theirs is.
Please continue to
pray for our daughter Hester and their precious little baby Keira. And thank God for the many blessings He
bestows, too.
A dear old Russian
minister who was persecuted terribly for his faith once said, “God gives us
enough triumphs to keep us victorious, and enough calamities to keep us humble.”
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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