I have spent the last hour fiddling around with the ‘appearance settings’ and ‘button sizes’ and ‘background and text colors’ on my computer, just in order to entertain Teddy and Joseph tomorrow when they turn it on. Won’t they be surprised to find the edges all in teal, with borders of aqua or fuchsia, depending on the document; commands in purple or maroon, and little explanative boxes in bright yellow or lime. hee hee hee I started out with the background of this letter yellow, with the text in maroon; but I needed my sunglasses to look at it, and they were way out in the garage in the Suburban’s overhead sunglasses holder, so I changed back to black on white, which is considerably easier on the eyes.
I’ve typed a ‘screen saver’ which comes on after the computer has been left idle for one minute; it has purple text on a bright blue background, and the following words scroll across the screen: “Sing unto him a new song; play skillfully with a loud noise.” Psalms 33:3. Caleb, watching the words traveling along, carefully sounded them out—and got them all right except for that long one, ‘skillfully’, which he rendered as ‘skelly’.
I also accomplished one other important task: I figured out how to send an E-mail.....and proceeded to do just that--twice. And we discovered that our friend, Carey Haddock, had sent us an E-mail just a bit earlier. Tell me, why is sending an E-mail such a novelty, when we’ve been able to pick up the phone and actually hear each other’s voices all these years?? Goofy.
Larry managed to find several wrecked-auto auctions on the Internet, and was able to print out a few pictures of some that he hopes some customers will be interested in. And Teddy, in a frivolous waste of colored printer ink (it isn’t cheap) printed out a stupid Calvin and Hobbes comic.
We received a Valentine ‘card’ from an aunt last week. The littles thought it was quite cute. “But she forgot to write something!” said Caleb.
Lydia tilted her head, considering. “Well,” she explained, “she just means to say that she likes us!”
Caleb nodded, satisfied. “And she’s really busy, too,” he added.
Caleb’s suit is all done now, and Tuesday I cut out five Easter dresses--two each for Hester and Lydia, and one for Victoria. I was glad to discover that a beautiful, ruffly dress crocheted by Amy Haddock (my friend Martha’s second daughter) for Victoria when she was born will finally fit her; so that eliminates one dress I would’ve otherwise had to sew. I’ve finished Lydia’s dress for the main service; it’s a very light blue eyelet with tiny pink and yellow flowers, and the hem of the overskirt curves up to the waist in the back so that the many tiers of wide white eyelet lace show. There is a row of eyelet lace all around the bottom. On the belt I sewed curls of beads, through which are scattered clusters of tiny blue, pink, and yellow ribbon roses. The front of the bodice is covered with small tucks.
Yesterday I started on Hester’s, and it is about half done. The skirt and sleeves are of sheer chiffon with flocked pink daffodils on it, lined with white taffeta, and the bodice and sash are of pink satin.
And, yes, I did get Keith’s britches altered.
One day I spotted the schoolchildren in Helen Tucker’s class in my mother’s yard, diligently building three snowmen. That is, one snowman, a snowbunny, and a snowcat. I snatched up my camera, donned parka and galoshes, and dashed across the street to take pictures. Hopefully, they’ll turn out good enough for the annual.
That evening, Larry said to the littles, “Hey, did you see Grandma Swiney out in her yard making snowmen?”
They burst out laughing. “No, sir, Daddy;” giggled Lydia, “she can’t do that!”
“Well, just look!” And he pointed out the door.
Hester, Lydia, and Caleb all rushed to see. Caleb stared, nonplused. “Maybe she can!” he breathed in amazement.
Lydia grinned.
Hester disabused him of the deception. “No, Caleb; Daddy’s full of baloney. I think probably Mrs. Tucker’s class made those!” And Joseph verified the fact.
Dorcas crocheted a navy sailor vest with white cross-stitching to look like a sailor collar, and a cute little ball cap for a soft white teddy bear, for some friends' new baby.
Tuesday I informed Victoria, “Tomorrow you are going to have a birthday!” to which she responded in excitement, “Ohhh!! Me open it?” With just a little bit of assistance, she can now hold down her two smallest fingers with her thumb while holding up her first two fingers. She worked and worked to get it just right, then held up her small fist triumphantly. “There!” she exclaimed, “Now I’m two!”
We made four loaves of zucchini bread, and Lawrence and Norma brought some ice cream, just the kind Victoria likes--the kind with ‘willy beeeg crunchies’ in it. We gave her a stuffed Curious George and a book to go with it, several other books, including one with real pictures of babies, which she is particularly fond of, and another with flaps to open on every page. Also, we gave her a large set of alphabet magnets for the refrigerator, a big marbleized purple ball, and a package of party whistles (those, because she’d gotten one for Valentine’s Day, and it had promptly bitten the dust, much to her dismay).
We also got a big package of balloons, which Hannah and I inflated Tuesday night after Victoria had gone to bed, making ourselves woozy as woozles in the process. The next morning, I told Victoria, “Go look in the living room!”
She trotted down the hall, rounded the corner--and came to an abrupt stop. Then she started laughing. “Ohhh, balloons and balloons and balloons!” She rushed into the middle of them, sending balloons flying high and low. “Isn’t it a birthday?!” she cried in delight.
She received no less than five dolls, three large and two small, and a little stroller exactly the right size for a petite two-year-old. With the doll from Bobby and Hannah came shampoo, soap in a lidded dish, powder, wash cloth and sponge, two rubber bath toys, and a bath robe and change of clothes. Victoria has been regularly shampooing everybody’s hair (it’s just pretend, of course) ever since. Lawrence and Norma gave her a soft white polar bear holding its cub, and a shape sorter--a cube with all different shapes of cutouts, through which all different shapes of blocks can be inserted. She got quite a few items of clothing, too, including a red plaid nightgown with a fuzzy stuffed bear head sewn on. My mother gave her, in addition to a doll in a little fabric ‘bed’, a wind-up clock into which one must put the shaped numbers before it suddenly pops up and scatters numbers everywhere. The first few times this happened, both Victoria and Caleb jumped clear out of their skins.
Friday evening, Bobby took Hannah and Joseph to a surprise birthday party at his aunt’s house.
Bobby’s thirteen-year-old brother, Stephen, won the Platte County Spelling Bee yesterday, and his sister Esther, who is eleven, won third place. Stephen didn’t compete last year, because the family had gotten tired of spending their vacation time in Washington, D.C., every year, on account of the boys winning all those spelling bees. I tell you, those kids can spell!
I spent a good long while last night cooking up a storm, because Lawrence and Norma, and Bobby and Esther (Seadschlag, that is) were all coming for dinner today. And you see, this would be the very last Sunday dinner Keith and Esther would spend with us as an unmarried couple. Also, it was Hannah’s eighteenth birthday! Why, these were such important events, I actually used my fine crystal goblets. They are the thinnest crystal you can imagine, sheer cobalt blue, smooth bowl resting on fluted pedestals. They were wedding presents from my sister, Lura Kay, Helen Tucker, and perhaps a couple of others; I don’t remember. In the champagne goblets, I placed a peach half, then poured raspberry jello over it. After it set, I put a layer of cream cheese/sour cream topping; and on top of that I positioned five mandarin orange pieces in a pinwheel shape, then put a marchino cherry in the middle. Now, that looked impressive.
I made a couple of Dairy State apple pies (the crust has extra-sharp cheddar cheese in it, the filling has cream cheese and sour cream and eggs and sugar, and the topping is made of butter, sugar, flour, and walnuts), and started baking a frozen turkey. When the turkey was done, we peeled him (well, that’s what Joseph once thought we were doing, when we were removing skin and bones from a chicken), covered it with cream of celery soup, and stuck it into the refrigerator to await its final stint in the oven today.
The rest of the menu included broccoli/cauliflower/carrot/cheese soup, mashed potatoes and gravy, cornmeal muffins, and lettuce salad with a new type of ‘grape’ tomatoes (they’re smaller than cherry tomatoes). And vanilla ice cream to go with the pie.
Yesterday Hannah went to the grocery store for me, since I was elbow deep in pie crust. Her cart was brimful, so I suppose it was no surprise when a little girl, perhaps four years of age, stared first into it, then at Hannah, and asked in apparent awe, “Do you have kids?!”
Today Bobby gave Hannah a wonderful Canon camera, on a par with the one Esther gave Keith just last week. She is thrilled. Good cameras eclipse almost any other presents, you know!
This morning, neither Hester nor Lydia felt well, so I stayed home from church with them. Victoria was sound asleep, so I didn’t waken her. She finally awoke some time around eleven o’clock. I pushed her door open and walked in. There she was, sitting in her crib, holding one of her new dolls, both little bed socks off, one pulled onto her hand and clear up to her elbow. haha Silly little thing. “Hi, Mama!” she greeted me happily. “Goin’ to chooch?” (Now, how did she know it was Sunday?!
“Well, the little girls were sick, so we stayed home, and I just let you sleep. Daddy and the other kids have already gone,” I told her.
She looked disappointed. “Oh, dear; me not sing songs!” she said sadly, shaking her head.
“It’s okay,” I consoled her, “we’ll turn on the cassette player, and you can sing songs with the Morning Chapel Hour.”
“Okay!” she responded in her cheery way, and trotted to her closet to get her dress. Anyway, the little girls recovered enough to go to church tonight, so Victoria got to ‘sing songs at chooch,’ and she took her new boy doll, so he could ‘sing songs, too!’
Only one more week, and Larry and I will be the parents of a married son. Can you believe it?! And what a blessing it is, that his wife-to-be is such a dear girl. She’s talented and hard-working, merry and kind-hearted; and, to top it all off, she’s pretty as can be. She’s slender and delicate, and we tease her at dinner time, telling her such things as, “How can you expect to get big and tough like the rest of us, if you don’t eat more than that?” or “Here, eat this extra piece of pie; you’re making me look fat again.” Of course, she just laughs. Yes, we all love Esther.
You know, there are many jokes about the troubles between a son-in-law and a mother-in-law; but any psychologist or counselor will tell you that the majority of troubles is between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law. Many times, this is because the mother-in-law, who of course knows just about everything there is to know, tries to teach her poor, dimwitted daughter-in-law a thing or two--and the daughter-in-law doesn’t care to learn. The mother-in-law, of course, knows exactly how to take care of her son (after all!--she’s been doing it for years!), and the way that young whippersnapper of a daughter-in-law is trying to do it is enough to irk a saint! And she doesn’t know much about keeping house, either.
Dear me, I don’t want to be like that. I want Esther to feel as though we love her just the same as we love our very own daughters. A well-loved person has a tendency to live up to expectations! And a person who feels unloved often has a difficult time doing anything right.
Yes, we love Esther. Bring on the in-laws!!
