It was a busy morning at Shady Acres.

My Sweet Mama had eleven or more teeth extracted on Monday, and she has spent the week at our house. 

Certain Man and I were away over night on Friday night.  We were up to see Joseph at Sight and Sound, had a delightful stay at the Teakettle Inn Bed and Breakfast, and spent a leisurely day looking at clocks and furniture and even bought one chocolate and one pumpkin Whoopie Pie at an Amish market.  We ate early supper at an old inn turned into a restaurant in Historic Delaware City and came home to our own cheery home and house dwellers a great deal more rested that I could have hoped for, and with wonderful memories.

This morning was the usual hustle and bustle to get ready for church.  Sweet Mama stayed home because she is still experiencing considerable discomfort from her teeth. so I left Cecilia at home with her.  Our Sunday School lesson was the Last Supper, and there were more than the usual amounts of getting ready that needed doing.  I baked a small batch of unleavened bread and brought grape juice up from the cellar.  I got some copying done and got everything ready to go.   Early this morning, I had gotten my hair combed and gotten all dressed except for my Sunday frock.  As the time got closer and closer for us to leave, Sweet Mama was getting worried.

“Mary Ann,” she said with that concerned edge to her voice.  “You’d better get your clothes on.  You can’t go like THAT!”

“I know, Mama,” I said. “I have it down here in the closet and I’ll grab it just before I go out the door.” 

Time has a way of marching on, as we all know, and suddenly, Certain Man was loading the car and saying over his shoulder, “You need to get dressed NOW!!!”

“Alright, already!” I said, and grabbed my dress with its jacket off the hanger and ducked into Nettie’s room to change.

“Boy!” Said my Sweet Mama as I reappeared.  “You really do change quick!”  Ever the encourager, she said, “You look nice!”

“Thank you, Mama,” I said as I gathered up the last of the things for my class.  “It’s easy to slip this on and be ready to go.”  Which I was and so we went.

Once at church, I discovered that I had left both my Bible and my notebook at home, but decided to take one of the extras that are in the church library, and hoped that I hadn’t forgotten anything more important.  We actually got to church on time, and I got things set up in the classroom for the morning lesson.  The children were attentive, participant and engaging.  They even tasted parsley dipped in horseradish as part of the recreation of the Passover meal’s “bitter herbs.”  They ate the entire stack of unleavened bread that I had baked for them this morning and swished everything down with the grape juice.  After Sunday School, Boy Daniel reported to the congregation that “We learned about the Last Supper.  We had grape juice and lemon bread.”  But.  He reported without written props and he spoke clearly and confidently and I was just so proud of him.

Then we had worship time.  Love Bug came to sit briefly with Pea-bawl and Gammy, but returned to her seat when her Pappy (James Bontrager) began the sermon.  I had borrowed some paper from Certain Man so I could take notes on the sermon, and was engrossed in the the sermon and thoughts of the Kingdom of Heaven and how that is expressed in our world today (sometimes wrongly and then sometimes, gloriously accurately!).  I was looking down over my skirt when I noticed that there was a seam straight down the middle of the front. 

Oh, No!  Not again!

Yepper.  That pretty dress was on backwards.  Zipper slide right at the top of the seam as plain as day!  I leaned over and told Certain Man that I had my dress on backwards.  He looked puzzled.  I grabbed the neckline and tilted it out.  He didn’t even bother to hide his amusement. 

Oh, well.  It really was a busy morning.  And manufacturers should NOT make dresses that slide on without opening the zippers.  It confuses Christian Women on Sunday mornings when they are in a hurry.

Okay, Ya’ll.  I should probably not tell you this.  But there is a “rest of the story . . .”

I decided to wear the dress backwards until this afternoon.  We were having company tonight, and I just figured that I could turn it around when it was about time for my company to get here, and the front would be clean and who cares about the back?

So a little before my company was due to arrive, I ducked back into the Nettie’s bathroom and tried to turn my dress around without too much ado, but there was complications.  Something got all bunched up around my arms, and great was the bunching of it.  So I betook myself to the mirror and checked what was going on.

For crying out loud!  All bunched up was my pink nightie.  So not only was my dress on backwards, but I had my nightie on underneath it.  All day long.  I can’t blame that on the manufacturers.  Someone want to help me find a good excuse?