Back again, till the cord dies again...

So Hubby fixed my computer cord AGAIN, and here I am!

But not for long at the moment, because it's time to make supper, and hungry people don't go away, they just keep getting hungrier.

However, I have been busy doing many different things, and NOT doing many different things. After all, it takes time and energy to cook, clean, procrastinate, and shop. And now I have a list about six feet long of things I'd like to write about, such as:

*my latest wardrobe acquisitions, including a pair of Born boots which somebody somewhere must have used my foot for the pattern for.

*our trip to Colorado to play with the One Chord worship team for a weekend conference.

*MB3's new project: a cello!!

*the emotional aftermath of two--TWO--families we are friends with moving away in the SAME WEEK.

*how excited I am to have a reason to practice my four-string guitar again.

And I have a list just as long of things I've been thinking about that don't really deserve blog posts. I think it's middle-age angst. But you don't want to hear all that, so I'll spare you.

And with that, I'm off to make pizza.

What's that big, bright light in the sky....?

Oh, that's the SUN! Gee, it's been so long, I didn't know.... But it's definitely nice!

And now the leaves are falling like rain, and getting crunchy on the ground. I need to take a nice long walk in the crunchies--it cheers me up.

Friday and Saturday Hubby and GuitarGeek and I played with One Chord, a itinerant worship team we play with several times a year. It was fabulous and very enjoyable. We play again with the team in a couple weeks, one night at the prison, and again in November for a whole weekend conference. I'm looking forward to it.

Plus, we have hooked up with another couple who plays music and we already have a "gig" (I hate that word, but it's useful) lined up in December. Now we just need to practice and come up with a name for ourselves!

But that's all for another day. Today? I'm packing a birthday box for DrummerDude who is in Montana at YWAM DTS(Youth With A Mission, Discipleship Training School). His birthday is next Saturday--he turns 21!-- and I want to send him a party in a box!

AWOL

I haven't been around here much because I've discovered the joys of Facebook.

It's funny, because I kinda always figured I'd never get into the Facebook/MySpace/Twitter stuff. But one day I decided to try it out. Not MySpace--I have a blog, after all. And Twitter doesn't make sense to me. I think it's too ADD or something.

Anyway, Facebook has been great. It seems like here in our busy, rural community we rarely cross paths with people we know, and Facebook is a way to keep in touch between times.

It's been good to actually connect with people more often than once a year.

It's also been good to find out how many friends I have. (More than I thought!)

And it's been totally weird to check up on people I graduated from high school with, nearly thirty years ago (ACK! Thirty?! Did I just say that?) When did they get so OLD? LOL.

Sweet, Hot Summer Time

Snippets from my summer thus far:

--Tanking on the Cedar River with friends.

--Exploring Fort Hartsuff, with the same friends

--Eating fresh sweet corn

--Celebrating with MB3 on his new motorcycle license (by eating fancy ice cream).

--Helping LovelyDaughter with her new "fitness program"--lose 12 pounds and tone your abs!--one that no one else wants to try, since it involves an unidentified bacteria, and includes sleeping on the bathroom floor. (I use the word "sleeping" very loosely.) Fortunately, she's fine now, and aside from JD, everyone else escaped.

--Making fried okra for the first time and having it turn out!

--Reading detective novels by Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. It's been refreshing, because I haven't done any "real", i.e., "new", reading for quite a while; that is, I've only done the kind of reading you do to help yourself fall asleep, which is light, familiar stuff I've read many times already. That's the kind for sleeping tonic, because it's warm and friendly and it doesn't matter if you fall asleep in the middle.

--Praying for friends this week over the tragic death of a thirteen-year-old friend of their family. We were shocked at the news; we had just spent a day tanking with our friends and this boy. And that's really all I want to say about that.

----Birthday party/Barbecue/Swim party at which I got to wear my brand new swim suit; and I can report that it does me very well on the water slide, but not so much when I use the diving board... :)

Updates

A few weeks ago I wrote about some things and kind of left y'all hanging, so here's the wrap-up.

1) You may remember that I wrote about buying this:

That's a Doctor's Choice Plush mattress from Denver Mattress Co. At first, we were very disappointed in it, because we were so sore all over from trying to sleep on it. (Notice I said "trying" to sleep!)

We called the store and told them our concerns and they graciously did the research to find out exactly which mattress we had slept on in Colorado. The result was that, yes, we had the right mattress, but mattresses take up to two weeks to break in.

Aha, I said. Maybe the mattress is new and stiff and needs a little help. So, for three days, I spent some time jumping on the bed! I found that all the coils, and whatever innards there were, would creak until I had "loosened" them up a bit, so I jumped until the mattress got quiet!

Believe it or not, it worked! Now the mattress is as comfy as the hotel mattress. (I guess that one had been broke in already by many people sleeping on it.)

2)Our new couch came!

It's an even richer color in person. It's not very cushy, seeing as it's actually office/reception lounge furniture, but Hubby and all the boys think that's a definite plus. The boys say it's hard to hold an intelligent conversation when you're sunk into a plushy sofa and it feels like your heels are as high as your head. Well, that definitely is not a problem here. You sit nicely upright. And it's not too bad to stretch out on for a snooze, either.

3) My new yellow shoes are nice.
I had to snip the thread that held the bow flat and loosen the knot a little on the left shoe, and then wear the shoes a couple of times, before they broke in across the top of my foot. But now they're nice. I still have my doubts as to whether bright, attention-grabbing shoes are really my thing, but since I got such good deal on them, I feel like I can afford to experiment.

That's all I have time for today. More later, maybe.

And then I'm going to get some SLEEP

We've been busy enough lately that I can't even remember what we've actually been doing. The next activity blots the memory of the last one!

However, I can tell you that Friday my brother and his two girls arrived for their annual two-week visit (which requires the usual preparation, you know, cleaning, making up beds, planning menus, etc.), and then Saturday four of us left for Holyoke, Colorado. We went to help with two meetings where as a part of a larger worship team we were basically teaching how to worship, sort of (which required the usual preparation of packing up all our instruments, including the drum set, and the amplifiers and cords, plus clothes for the weekend).

Oddly, the highlight of the weekend was the place we spent the night Saturday night. Lovely people, who very hospitably opened their home to SEVEN people with ease and fed us four kinds of fresh fruit and cereal and coffee cake and toast for breakfast, with a side of refreshing conversation.

While we (me, Hubby, GuitarGeek, DrummerDude) were gone, MB3 worked on his room remodeling and made quite bit of progress.

Today? I have been very tired, as I always am after these kinds of events. I always thought God would put me in full-time ministry someday, but I'm beginning to see maybe the reason He hasn't is because I'm not physically or emotionally cut out for that kind of long term stress. It wipes me out, just over a weekend!

Hopefully, my active recuperation today (as in, TWO naps) will set me on the road to being rested and getting rid of my new cold sores. And that's good because there are lots of things I want to do now that my nieces are here. Things like camping out in the yard, going swimming, going to the zoo....

So, I'm off to bed, as soon as I bake these four pans of buns. I know it's bedtime, but the extreme heat today made it just ridiculous to bake anything before now (ten o'clock at night)!

Garage Sale Day Loot

Saturday was the annual Garage Sale Day in our small town. It's usually a big event and lots of people turn out to drive, walk, or bike to all the different sales. A couple of times we've packed up all the kids and their bicycles and driven to town in the truck, and then let everybody off with their bikes to cruise around.

We could ride our bikes into town, yes, rather than carting them there-- it's four and a half miles, not so very unthinkable-- but this is Garage Sale Day which means there must be a means of hauling home the loot!

Anyway, as I was saying.

What was I saying?

So I found a ten dollar bill in the drawer and took that with me, figuring when it was gone, time was up.

One of the garage sales I went to had piles of used clothing in such bad shape I was rather shocked that they were selling it all, much less for a dollar a piece. If anything in my closet was that perspiration stained or stretched out, I'd burn it before I'd do anything so embarrassing as offer it for sale. In public.

However, just to show that you never know, that was that same sale where I picked up my best deals of the day. There was a stack of clothing apparently donated by a different person than the rest of the items. They were all my size, unlike the rest, and were clean and almost new. I ended up with an entire outfit:

*skirt: black and white, large floral print, slinky but comfy fabric, knee-length. It makes me feel like an ad for Ann Taylor.

* shirt: white fitted tee

*jacket: sort of a dressy short-sleeved bolero, black

The gal who took my money looked at the three items and said "It makes an outfit!" and was pretty impressed.

After three hours, my ten bucks was gone, as well as the change in the little coin holders in the car (*sheepish grin*), so I took my pile of stuff--which included two more shirts, a twin-size comforter and pillow sham, a tablecloth, a pair of pants (that fit!), a belt, a bracelet, and two books--and went home. The end.

And then I went to a store and spent ten times that on groceries and came home with an even bigger (thankfully!) pile of loot.

Still here...

I don't have much free time these days, but what time I do have I've been spending on my wardrobe (STILL!) Do I seem obsessed?

I have bought a few new things lately: some tee shirts (black, gray, white) from Old Navy, a pair of black sandals from TJ Maxx, a wonderful black and silver pashmina from Ebay ($9!).

I also ordered several pairs of shoes from Zappos. Actually, I prefer to say that I had them "sent out on approval". I saw that phrase somewhere in a book. It sounds so rich, doesn't it?

(I should mention here that the reason I even tried this crazy idea was because I recently received some unexpected money, and I decided the money could be used to invest in some of the pricier aspects of my new wardrobe--like quality shoes.)

So since Zappos offers such a great return policy, with free shipping both ways, I figured it was like having a department store come directly to my living room. I picked six likely candidates, figuring that, all said and done, I'd keep one, or maybe two, of them. Sadly, none of them really pass muster, so they're all going back. My favorite ones turned out to be made of silk and have a sticker on them saying to not get them wet. Since I wanted them for run-around-in-the-summer shoes, that won't work. I can just imagine having to worry about getting my shoes wet when I run out to the clothesline on a dewy summer morning. Sorry, not happening.

Last week I cleared my closet of all my heavy winter items so I could better see what I have left for warm weather options. I should really say warmER, since it's not really been very warm here lately aside from an occasional summer-y afternoon.

What I have left, I laid out all over the bed yesterday to examine my options, and then tried everything on. It's tiring to try on every item in your wardrobe in one afternoon! But it was a helpful exercise, and I ended up deciding to ditch a few things, and keep some others, and wear some other things in different ways than I have before.

And then I made a list of what my wardrobe wants. Not what I myself think I need, but what I need to make my wardrobe work better. That would include a pair of white or metallic comfy sandals (operative word being comfy), to wear with all my summer skirts (since I switched from shorts to skirts this year); two or three fitted comfy tee-shirts; a lightweight cardigan in either gray or black (or both!); and possibly a pair of cute athletic mary janes or ballet flats for wearing with capris.

Of course, this list will probably get edited before I actually go shopping. After all, I have brand new black comfy sandals, which will look all right with my comfy skirts, but even though they're flat they look a little dressy, and I'd like something fun and very, very comfortable. And I probably really have enough tee-shirts, but they're all rather snug except one, and I'm thinking when it gets really hot, I'll want something a little looser for the breeze factor. And the cardigan is possibly not necessary, really, it's just that right now I keep having to wear extra layers because the weather stays so chilly. And the flats-- well, I have a pair I just bought, but they're not that comfy for all day wear, so we'll see.

Other items, possibly of interest:

My family had the opportunity to be the worship team for a meeting last weekend, which was a blast, and we are going to be part of a larger team next weekend going to Colorado to do two meetings. Fun stuff.

The garden is up, but slow. That cold weather again.

MB3 is remodeling a bedroom for us, and spent yesterday (it was raining so the guys were home) tearing all the wallpaper and plaster off the walls and ceiling. Can you say DUST?

What I Did Saturday

I've been so very busy over the last few days. The highlight of last week was when the very pleasant Ornery's Wife, along with Ornery himself, came for a visit.


Aren't they sweet? We've known each other for maybe a year via our blogs, but never met-- till now. It was a wonderful visit, and the exciting thing is that we don't live so very far apart that we can't sometimes do it again. It's something to look forward to.

Also this week JD's mother was here for a few days, which is always a joy, and that brings me to what I did Saturday:













That is a small carry bag, and inside of it is:













Four cloth shopping bags.

JD's mom had ordered a set of bags from me and pre-paid quite some time ago and I hadn't gotten them done yet. But now that she was here, I invited her to help pick out her own fabric, with LovelyDaughter's help, and that worked very well. And then I spent much of the day Saturday cutting and sewing, and had the set ready for her Sunday before she left to drive six hours home!

I also have another set exactly like it that is about two thirds finished--each length of fabric makes two bags, and it's almost as fast to sew up both at once as to make just one--and today I received a call from someone who would like to buy that set. Now I've gotta get busy and finish!

A Time to Plant

We planted our garden Saturday!

Some of it was already in, like the spinach, peas, lettuce and onions. And the broccoli. And some of the tomatoes. But we got the rest of it in Saturday: peppers, okra, beets, carrots, beans, zucchini, summer squash, watermelon, cucumbers, more tomatoes... and one garlic plant.

As we were planting the sky clouded up, the breeze cooled down, and about the time we were done it started raining. Which I think is a best case scenario, because then we didn't have to water the garden, God did it for us.

And then we celebrated by going out to Pizza Hut. Great day!

It's Spring!

This morning I woke up early-- 5:42 by the clock-- to the sound of a guinea outside our window.

Ba-GAHK! Ba-GAHK!

Ba-GAHK! Ba-GAHK!

BA-GAHK! BA-GAHK!

(And so on and so forth.)

And we don't even HAVE guineas this year. I think it was a renegade from Hubby's folks' place over yonder. At any rate, there was no sleeping with that alarm going off, so I got up and tried to herd it back toward home.

That done, I noticed that everything outside this morning was AWAKE! The birds were singing! The breeze was blowing! The bushes and trees and flowers are blooming! The sun was coming up! It's morning! It's SPRING!

I almost wasn't able to go back to bed.

But with a heroic effort, I managed.

Later, at a more sane hour, I did get up, and I packed lunches for the guys, and sent them all off to slay the dragon. I had an extra sandwich, so I ate that for breakfast, and I tell you what-- I think I should do that any morning I expect to do a lot. I think a sandwich does me better than cereal and toast.

I've got the garden weeded, the part of it we have planted, and I have a load of laundry on the line, and another in the washer, and I'm ready now to plant the tomatoes and peppers. If I have time and/or energy I want to weed the flower beds.

On the other hand, LovelyDaughter just called, and we may zip out (after I've planed the tomatoes) and take a little errand trip and buy cat food, and flowers to plant in my planters. I guess I can't do everything in one day-- but sometimes I'd sure like to try!

Speaking of getting laundry done, BIG NEWS: we got a new washing machine Saturday! I'm so thrilled. Our former machine was a Maytag Neptune-- you know, the one that (as the sales gal told us) celebrates its second anniversary with a $200 motherboard replacement. Yep. That happened to us. About ten days before the warranty expired. And not long after that, the other control board went out, but we jimmy-rigged it so we wouldn't have to lay out $300. And now another part blew and the thing groans like a jungle animal either on the prowl or in pain, and the diagnosis was that a new machine was in order.

This time, we bought a Bosch, just like our dishwasher. We've been very happy with the dishwasher over the past three years, so we figured that would be the way to go for the clothes washer. It's a front loader, works great, it's quiet, we love it!

Completely opposite of the guinea under our window...

Sunday Jaunt

I think we've been hanging around our friend Swede too long. Why? We're starting to do crazy things like what we did Sunday for Mother's Day.

We drove four and some hours to Kansas City, and then turned around and came right back.

Well. Not right back. We hung around for about four hours first.

What did we do?

We packed up a picnic-- which included what I thought was a great inspiration: hot sloppy joe meat in a thermos bottle-- and met my family at Wyandotte County Lake for a picnic. My mom and dad and brother and nieces were there and it was a very nice, mild day: cloudy with a very light breeze, and it was the perfect temp for a jacket.

After we ate, we drove closer to the lake and fed a little bread to the geese. And then spent some time near the playground equipment for the girls.

And then my dad was tired, and my brother needed to go, so we took off. Hubby and I had vague notions of visiting some other people in the city, but decided instead to just head on home. We never even saw the city itself, since we drove straight to and from the lake, which was sort of cool. Even though I grew up in KC I think I've always been a country girl at heart, so it doesn't hurt my feelings at all to not have to drive around in a big city!

When we got home, Hubby gave me the best Mother's Day gift ever: an all-over body massage. It was a good day.

The End-- Or is it?

We spent the afternoon today playing a music program for a Volunteer Appreciation Tea. And since Hubby had said this would very likely be the last time we would play a program as a family, we decided to do all of our favorites. We didn't spend any time thinking about pleasing our audience, only ourselves.

So we played "Hannah's Song," a song GuitarGeek wrote, and "It's Good to be Home," a song LovelyDaughter wrote. And "There is a Peace," a song they wrote together. Altogether we played five songs our kids wrote, a couple of which we've only done in public a handful of times, because they were rather special, only appropriate for certain audiences. The other five songs were songs that were favorites of one or the other of us, and all had some sort of story connected to them.

In other words, these songs represented US, as our family music band. All these songs were from our hearts, and inspired us in some way, which is why we did them in the first place.

We played our best, because we were enjoying our songs, and enjoying sharing them with the ones listening. And the strangest thing happened.

Everyone loved us. I mean, really loved us. We haven't had so many people come thank us, or ask for CDs, since we first started playing together. We were all shocked and gratified and blown away.

All the way home we were asking ourselves, What happened? We were ready to throw in the towel, figuring our time for family music was over. Family practicing was a pain, getting ready for a program was difficult. There were tensions because of differing tastes in music style. But as we talked it over, we figured it out.

As best I can see, it's like this: Somewhere along the line we lost our passion for who we are as a musical group. We became torn between our own individual preferences, and what we thought our audiences wanted to hear. Our music became uninspiring to us, and in consequence, uninspiring to our listeners.

When we first started playing about eight years ago, we got quite a few calls for programs, and we were playing two or three times a month, sometimes more often, which I think is a lot for a young family with many other responsibilities, and not getting paid more than perhaps gas money. (A family we knew who made their living with a travelling music show was playing about once or twice a week.) But in the last couple of years, we've played maybe six times TOTAL.

In light of that, I think my assessment is correct. We had lost our passion, our vision, and were trying to please people, and therefore we were no longer pleasing.

As I told our kids when we got home: We were just US, and people like US. People LIKE the sum of what we all become when we play together what we are really good at, and when we like what we play. They really do! I am breathless with wonder.

And now we have a question in front of us. Was this just a wonderful bang to end our family music "career"? Or have we been given vision to take up the baton and move forward once again? It's rather coincidental that I have lost all of our program music. We had to do all of it from memory. I thought to myself that that could be a sign; a sign that either we are done, or that it's time for a new direction.

One thing is sure. We definitely need to record what we did today before these songs that our kids wrote-- that are not actually written down, but are only in memory-- disappear into the busy-ness of life.

I Did It!

I did it I did it!

The party last night was a smashing success. I made a huge batch of dough and put big balls of it on pizza pans-- eight of them-- and let everyone make their own pizza. I had tomato paste and salsa and all kinds of toppings, like peppers and olives and anchovies. I had mozzarella and American cheese (in case someone wanted to make cheeseburger pizza). There was cooked hamburger and pepperoni.

Hubby's mother offered the use of her two ovens, and since she lives pretty much next door (as next door as you can be in the country) we took her up on it. Two pizzas went into our oven as soon as they were ready, two more went over to Granny's house, and we kept it up till we used up all the dough, which amounted to eleven large pizzas. (We ate eight of them!)

There was just one little incident. One girl asked where her pizza had gone. She had made a fancy stuffed crust on it, and I didn't see it anywhere so I told her it must have gotten eaten before we realized it. I figured it was one of the ones that went to Granny's and I just hadn't seen it come back. Well, an hour later we called Hubby's folks to tell them we were ready for the musical concert, which they were invited to, and Granny was all apologetic. Somehow one pizza had been forgotten in her downstairs oven and she had just discovered it, burned to an absolute crisp. (At least the goats will be happy. They like that sort of thing.) It could have been a tragedy, but I've decided to remember it as a funny story, the kind you laugh at much later when you drag up old memories.

When no one could eat any more pizza, we all moved out to our "barn" (really Hubby's workshop/garage, but it looks kind of like a barn) for the music, which was great.

After the music, I brought out the ice cream and bananas and peanuts and chocolate syrup and Reddi-wip and Boston Cream Pie, upon which there were fearful inroads made.

The last guests left at about one o'clock in the morning.

I'm still amazed. We did it. And it was fun!

I'm NOT going to have a nervous breakdown; repeat, NOT!

It's been a busy week. Last Thursday Hubby and I went with Swede to a conference in Topeka, and since we were going to be gone for about four days I had a lot to do to leave the house and pantry in good shape for the boys. The two or three times before that Hubby and I have been gone for a few days, LovelyDaughter was here to cook and manage, but not this time. I had some worrisome moments, thinking about it.

However, I at last figured out a plan. I came up with some easy ideas for menus, like sloppy joes and taco salad, and bought all the necessary ingredients for them. Then I wrote the meal suggestions on a list on the fridge. I also bought a spiral cut ham and baked an extra batch of buns and a big batch of cookies, and hoped for the best.

When we returned on Sunday, the boys were in fine shape, and the kitchen looked reasonable, so all's well that ends well.

Which is a nice ending for my four-day break from cooking. Although I'm still pretty tired. We went to bed at midnight, one, and two the three nights we were gone, and I was still waking up before seven, according to habit. But it was worth it.

I've been trying to plow into the week. This Friday is our wingding for MB3 and we will have thirty people here, including ourselves. For some reason this is freaking me out. Never mind that each family on its own would not be scary. I like all the people I've invited. But somehow, so many at once is shaking up my poor introverted soul.

And also-- it feels as if the house never could be clean enough for 30 (thirty!) people. Why is that?

I am planning to put out all things necessary for pizza and have a grand pizza-making party, as well as a make-your-own banana split/ice cream sundae gala. And in the middle, the Baker family is giving us a little musical entertainment. It all sounds like fun-- and like a lot of stress. I'm not used to this big of a gathering. However, we did it once for GuitarGeek and once for LovelyDaughter, for their graduations, so I'm sure I will survive. (In case you're wondering, no we did not do a big splash for DrummerDude's graduation because, bless his poor introverted soul, he insisted he did not want one.)

So that's my week, and here's hoping I pull it off!

The Shopping Bag Project

Now that you are on the edge of your seat wondering where are the shopping bag pictures? I will put you out of your misery, and end the (unintentional) suspense.

I had it all planned to post those pictures yesterday, but I ran out of time and had to go do something else, so I quit right where I was on writing my post. That means all you got were the neeyosh kooka pictures.

But now, today!-- here are the promised pictures of my shopping bags.



















These are not all of them, just samples of the different fabrics. Each one takes 40 inches-- 1 1/8 yards-- but then you get two bags because the fabric is folded. So each of these bags you see represents two that I've made.




















To make these, I started with a plastic bag from Menards that I cut open and used for a pattern. And then I sewed the corners to make a defined bottom, sort of like a grocery sack. I was trying to design something not only sturdy and useful for me, but also usable for the person sacking my groceries. The squared bottom on these helps them stand a little. Not a lot, obviously, since they're fabric and not paper, but still.

If you look, you can see the cereal boxes in the bag on the right. That should give you an idea how big the bags are. (The other bag is full of fabric to make more bags.)

I also included one rolled up in it's elastic holder (a plain hair elastic) so you can see how small they get.





















The smaller bag is my carry bag. It holds eight rolled-up full-size bags. I'm training myself to grab it every time I leave the house, even if I'm not planning to shop (like to church), because it never fails that when I'm out I end up stopping to get something. Besides, I love the feel of that cute little tote. It's fun to carry around.

Something else interesting: If I'm not buying much, like yesterday at Walmart when I needed a few small things like hair conditioner and such, I used one of my bags to carry my stuff around till I got to the checkout. It was much nicer than pushing around a huge cart or lugging an awkward hand basket. I don't know how long that convenience will last. I'm half waiting for some store employee to accuse me of shoplifting when I do that. But I'll enjoy it while I can!

Here's a photo of another bag:


















I made one of these for my dear friend, Ornery's Wife, and of course, the fabric made two bags, and I intended to keep one for myself. But LovelyDaughter saw it and fell in love, so this is hers.

But do you see what else is in the picture?












LovelyDaughter begged my scraps and made herself a pair of matching ballet flats. Pretty cool, I think.


(Oh-- and do you see the tablecloth and dishes on the table in the background? I must brag a little on myself and say that was set for breakfast this morning. I, of the bran flakes-and-toast persuasion, actually cooked a hot breakfast this morning because today is MB3's 18th birthday. Happy Birthday, MB3!)

There you go. I'm pretty happy with my shopping bag project. The bags have turned out pretty, and extremely practical, and very useful. The other day I went to buy groceries and noticed I only had five bags in my little tote because three of them were in use somewhere else. They're so handy!

I've got an "order" already from someone who wants a full set of eight in a carry bag, so I'm wondering if I'm on to something here. This could be fun!

This is really weird, but, at least I Can Eat Again!

The strangest thing happened to me this weekend.  I noticed Sunday at noon when we were eating that a gland under my right ear starting swelling up and hurting like crazy. It felt like when you eat something really, really sour and your saliva glands cramp up. I couldn't eat much because it felt like something was going to explode. 

About an hour later, the swelling was completely gone, and there was no  pain. I figured I must have had a lymph node or something that was being irritated by  my chewing, somehow related to the colds and flus that are going around lately. 

In the evening, at the square dance party, I couldn't eat more than a few bites of my plate of finger food because that gland, or whatever it was, immediately swelled up into a huge knot, noticeably visible to anyone looking at me. Plus it hurt like crazy.

When I got home I consulted Dr. Google and discovered a few things I never knew. One, the gland I could feel under my ear is a salivary gland, one of several in the ear/jaw/neck area, and it is actually pretty large. See that "parotid gland"? That's the culprit.

Two,  I learned that it is possible to get a stone in your salivary gland, sort of like a kidney stone.  This means that saliva can't drain properly because something is plugged up by the stone, so when you eat, and the gland goes into high gear dispensing saliva, the saliva backs up, causing swelling and pain. Treatment requires a scan or x-ray of some sort to pinpoint the exact location of the stone, and then a doctor inserts a needle to aspirate the stone. Or a surgeon cuts your face open. Neither option sounded very fun, or cheap.

Three, I learned that mumps is actually a viral infection of the salivary glands. Did you know that? I didn't. Had no idea. But related to that was some better news, which is that the salivary glands can be affected by a viral infection in your body, and exhibit the same symptoms as a stone: swelling and pain when you eat.  The assumption is that when your body has fought off the virus, your gland will go back to normal.

I decided I liked this diagnosis better than the other one, and decided to run with it till further events merited a different one. Plus, as I mentioned, a nasty cold has been going around our house, and the flu is in evidence as well. Obviously I have been exposed to a virus of some sort.

So. I have spent three days treating myself like I have a bad cold or the flu. Plenty of rest. Plenty of liquids. Vitamin C, Cold&Flu Drops, etc, etc.  Each meal time I would eat until the swelling and pain stopped me. Sometimes only a few bites, especially on  Monday.

By Tuesday, I had sort of gotten the hang of it, and found I could eat a few bites every half hour or so without causing too much agony.  It was not ideal, and I was hoping my theory was correct, because if it didn't get better I was going to lose weight pretty fast, not to mention facing the prospect of an expensive and probably painful medical procedure.

But guess what? Today I can eat a whole meal normally. Rejoice and Sing! After the meal, I can feel a tiny bit of swelling in my gland and a sensation of something, as if the gland is working hard. Otherwise, nothing. 

I am SO glad. After three days of involuntary sort-of fasting, I was getting pretty hungry.  And today I found I was exhausted and irritable, although large helpings of LovelyDaughter's Boston Cream Pie was a definite help, as was a quiet, lazy afternoon.  Tomorrow?  Bake bread. Plan MB3's birthday party. Go to the bank. Pay bills.  Make shopping bags, if time and energy permit.  Gotta make up for lost time. But in the meantime I think I'll have another piece of cake and go to bed early!<

"To the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Court"

That's how the invitation began. It went on, in fancy script, like this:

"On this festive occasion, celebrating the births of the fair ladies {Name} and {Name}, we humbly beseech ye as a family to partake with us in a joyous evening of fellowship with ballroom and square dancing. We asketh thy presence between five and nine at the {Place} on the Eleventh of January.

Resist thou the urge to bring gifts, instead a small remittance of three to five dollars per family will be graciously accepted to defray the cost of the square dance caller. We asketh ye to honor an old tradition of bringing a platter of finger food. Come thou in regal modest attire, fitting for an elegant evening.

Worry thou not if dancing is not your forte, guidance will be provided. If in your soul thou desireth a special guest to attendeth the event with ye, please useth the futuristic telephonothingy and call {Number} or {Number} to let your hosts take part in the knowledge of how many plan to bless our presence that night."

As you can see, the stage was set for an evening of formal dress but casual attitude.

And that's exactly what it was. Our family arrived to find, as best I could estimate, about a hundred people, mostly homeschool families, all prepared to have a great time. The girls had all dressed in their fancy best, prom dresses and wedding outfits. Even the guys(mostly) were in nice clothes-- some even in ties!

(Interesting note: We had a busy day yesterday and didn't get home from church and a reception till late afternoon. At that time, I changed my jeans, that I wore to church, for a skirt, to attend the party. How ironic is that?)

There is nothing like being in a group of people that are bent on enjoying themselves and each other. Most of us knew either nothing or very little about square dancing, but we all jumped in anyway, doing our best, laughing at our mistakes, applauding ourselves when we did it right.

The square dance caller did an excellent job of walking us through, teaching us how to do the steps. One dance had us all in a circle around the entire perimeter of the room (which was basically a basketball court with a stage at one end). Later, we divided up into groups of four couples to do square dancing. In the middle of the evening we had a break and stopped for water and the aforementioned finger food.


It was a blast. Even DrummerDude, who had brought his camera to hide behind, allowed himself to be prevailed upon to set aside the picture-taking and augment the number of guys, and ended up thoroughly enjoying himself.

I could almost imagine myself in a different era, at a village dance, where somewhat isolated farm families come together, taking a break from their hard work of making a living, to have fun and fellowship, and to give the young people a chance to get to know each other. In a way, this event was just that, because homeschool families can feel a little isolated, in that we are all so busy with schooling, and family, and work (often a family business), and church, that we don't have time to get to know each other, outside of an occasional field trip.

I talked to the mother of one of the birthday girls about the party, and she said the girls (who are homeschool seniors) did it all: they planned it, rented the building, hired the dance caller, sent the invitations (and I can imagine the fun they had writing those invitations!)-- everything. She said it was an exercise in making dreams come true. If you have a dream, she told the girls, let's not just talk about it, let's make it happen. And they did. The girls had a dream of a big family event where people of all ages come together to have a good time. And it happened.

Makes me want to try it myself.

My Blog Year, Part 2: Or, Maybe this is more interesting?

Yesterday I posted a list of the first sentence of the first post of every month of 2008. That was fun, but also very random and a little cringe-worthy, a little like hearing a recording of yourself for the first time: Do I really sound like that?!

To remedy that, I decided to go through my blog and choose sentences that better reflect who I was and what I was doing this year. The following are not-so-random sentences, one from each month of blog posts.


Jan.-- I've been inspired to create an atmosphere in our home, an atmosphere of sunny cheerfulness.

I painted the living room, kitchen, and dining area; and we put up new trim. It really has seemed to make our home more cheerful and sunny this year.

Feb.-- I've been spending all my time thinking about, and learning about, and starting to practice, "fixed hour prayer."

This has become a habit for me.

Mar.-- I can begin to flavor the atmosphere around me, as I soak up scripture, and, hopefully, the fragrance of God himself.

I'm still working on this. I want to exude God's love and acceptance and joy everywhere I go. Can an introvert do this? I'm going to find out.

April-- All I'm managing to do is the bare minimum, which is keeping everyone fed and the laundry done.

This was the story of way too much of my year.

May-- My cool new violin came last week, which is exciting.

It's still exciting, every time I get it out to play.

June-- He (JD) is LovelyDaughter's soon-to-be-husband, and we are all terribly happy and excited about it.

Big news. Big changes.

July-- Today my Brother, and K and A, left to go home after their annual two-week visit.

Whew. We did it, even though the timing wasn't the best.

Aug.-- JD and LovelyDaughter were married at just about sunset in a park next to a small lake, surrounded by pine trees, and friends, and family.

Whew. We did it!

Sept.-- In my few off moments lately I have been doing some research, and I have found out something helpful, and here it is: (drum roll please) My body is exhibiting 60% percent of the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

Constant undercurrent for the whole year. Sigh.

Oct.-- No, some days, in spite of all common sense, even though I am very happy and excited for her, I miss my unmarried, live-at-home daughter, who is gone forever.

Another undercurrent for the year. Sigh again.

Nov.-- I've been doing much better these days, aside from that headache. I've been taking something called "Malic Acid with magnesium" which also has B vitamins, 5HTP, St. John's Wort, and some other herbs.

YES! Some progress at last-- I LOVE feeling better. I'm more able to deal with the other currents in my life now.

Dec.--We are never too lost, too dark, too hopeless for God to find us, to see us, to love us.

I have a hard time remembering and believing that, but I hang on to this psalm, that, appropriately enough, was the evening psalm for the last night of the old year:

For you, O God, have proved us;*
you have tried us just as silver is tried.
You brought us into the snare;*
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water;*
but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

This has been a roller coaster of a year for us: great highs (LovelyDaughter's wedding, adding JD to the family), and great lows (fibromyalgia, depression, tight finances) but I take comfort in this psalm that everything that has happened has been to purify us and now we are being brought into a place of refreshment. I begin the new year with thankfulness.

My Blog Year, Part 1; or, Was it really that mundane?

I borrowed the idea for today's post from Slouching Mom at Slouching Past 40 who borrowed it from someone else, who borrowed it from someone else. She wrote out the first sentence of the first post of every month in 2008. I wasn't going to do it myself, but then, out of curiosity-- just for myself-- I just had to go see how inspirational or inane my blog year has been. And then it seemed a shame to waste all that work. So here you go:

Jan.-- Hubby's parents grew squash in their garden this year, and the squash grew to enormous proportions.

This is what I was thinking about the first day of the year? Squash?

Feb.-- Sunday we invited some friends over, and had a great time doing just about everything you can do with Christian friends: sharing, praying, worshiping, hanging out, eating, telling stories, joking, laughing, staying up late.

Nice. We did a lot of this in 2008.

Mar.-- Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since last Wednesday, and here it is Monday.

I did a lot of this too, I just didn't always mention it.

Apr.-- Today's list: Thirteen Books in my Amazon wish list.

May-- So, today is thirteen things about me that start with a letter of the alphabet.

Those last two were when I was still participating in Thursday Thirteen. I had to let that drop, because I just didn't have time to play along by reading all the other 200 lists.

June-- Last Thursday evening we had some excitement here.

In case you're wondering, it was a tornado.

July-- My title pretty much says it all.

The title was "Still Busy, Still Cooking, Still Waiting My Turn In the Bathroom." We had houseguests for two weeks.

Aug.-- I've been using the Book of Common Prayer, which uses its own translation of the Psalms.

I'm still using daily prayers, but not from the BCP. Instead, I'm using the Divine Hours, online (see link in my sidebar.) However, I really like the psalms in the BCP. It's tough to find a stand alone copy of that particular psalter, but I found one for my PDA, so now I can read it any time I like.

Sept.-- I wrote last time that I was taking one day to look back at memories, and then-- "forward and onward."

This was right after LovelyDaughter's wedding. I'm having a little trouble with the "forward and onward" thing. Just living right now is plenty. Or is that what that really means? Hm.

Oct.-- I've been trying to be a good Mennonite housewife this week.

I think I gave up on that....

Nov.-- Well, it was fun to run this bloggy giveaway drawing and to showcase LovelyDaughter's great handmade jewelry.

It really was fun. And, by the way, please take a look in my sidebar at the samples from LovelyDaughter's Etsy shop, and, pretty please, go buy something. It would make her so happy.

Dec.-- I totally stole this meme from It's Almost Naptime!! because it looked like fun, and also, she could have been writing about me when she said it was a sickness, but she loves filling in forms.

Another month, another meme.

Good heavens. I think if my blog were to be judged by these excerpts, I rate pretty high on the "Inane and Just Barely Interesting" scale.

Maybe I should find some different, more representative excerpts, in place of these very arbitrary ones.

Come back tomorrow for another list, this time sentences carefully chosen from each month, to best summarize my year.