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    Saturday Morning, 5:30 AM. 
    The rain was dripping off the eaves, and Certain
Man’s Wife, snuggled under the covers to catch a few extra winks of sleep. 
There would be no wood cutting for the few brave men of Laws Mennonite Church,
so Certain Man wouldn’t be down the road for most of the day, working himself
half to death.  In fact, this was the day that Certain Man and Certain Man’s
Wife were to go out hunting for the great Wedding Suit that would be suitable
for the “father of the groom” for not only one son’s wedding, but actually,
two!
    “I refuse to buy separate suits for weddings that will be only eight weeks
apart!” he stated, rather emphatically.  And so, since Youngest Son and Girl With a Beautiful Heart suggested that he wear a black suit for their wedding, and the Eldest Son and His Ohio Heart Throb didn’t really care what he wore as long as he was dressed, the decision was made to go looking for a black suit that would serve a dual purpose.  (Now if only Certain Man’s Wife could do the same with “mother of the groom” dresses.  Ha, Ha!)
    Certain Man had proclaimed that he really didn’t have time to go shopping.  His chickens were going out early Monday morning, there were things to do in the chicken house, and there was a dinner and a play at Youngest Daughter’s school at 5:30 in the evening that Youngest Daughter was a part of.  It was imperative that they attend.      Certain Man decided that, if they got off early, they should be back early, and that would leave plenty of time to do everything at home that he wanted to do.  So the time was set to leave soon after nine o’clock Saturday morning.  CMW thought briefly that the Mall wouldn’t even open until ten, but reasoned that CM is quite often not ready when he thinks he will be, so thought that it would be fine.
    As she lay sleepily listening to the rain and thinking about the day ahead, it suddenly dawned on her fur brain that she was almost out of bread.  And tomorrow, the families of their small group were coming for lunch, as this particular small group are the designated hosts for the first Sunday of every month, and the food had been taken care of except the bread.  Usually there is plenty of bread at the house of Certain Man and Certain Man’s Wife because CMW bakes ten loaves at a time whenever the supply gets low. 
    This actually is not the job that it might appear to be.  Certain Man put a second cookstove in a little alcove in CMW’s laundry room, and it is usual for her to be able to bake those ten loaves from the beginning mixing to finished baking in about three hours.
    Of course, CMW calculated the time between her head on the pillow and 9:00 AM (well, actually, 9:30 or 10:00) and realized that there was enough time to bake bread before she left for the shopping mall.  That way, she wouldn’t get into any complications after she got home, and there would be bread for lunch the next day.  So before she (or Certain Man) could change her mind, she leaped out of bed and started rummaging for day clothes.
    “Where are you going?” questioned Great Sleeping Bear.  I mean, Certain Man.
    “If I get busy right now, I can bake bread before we head out for Dover.  I think I will be glad later tonight that it is done.”  He made some mild objections, but didn’t actually tell her she couldn’t, so she descended down to the kitchen to commence to start.
    Three cups of dry milk powder went into her big Pyrex mixing bowl, then she filled it until it was ready to overflow with hot water.  Ten cups of reconstituted milk.  It went in to her gigantic metal bowl.  Three more cups of warm water went into the same Pyrex mixing bowl, and she added a half cup of active dry yeast.  She measured two cups of sugar, poured a small amount over the yeast and stirred that mixture, then added the rest of the sugar to the hot milk.  Then she added 1/3 cup of salt to the milk and sugar, and went to get 2 cups of Crisco to melt in the microwave.  After the yeast has risen, and she pours it into the milk, salt and sugar mixture, she adds a five pound bag of flour before adding any of the melted shortening.  (It has something to do with the yeast binding to the flour before the shortening is added that makes for a better consistency.)   
    This is where everything went wrong.  There was no plain white Crisco in the entire house.  CMW looked.  And looked.  And looked!  Here and there, up and down, under and over.  And then did it all again.  She was sure there was some white Crisco shortening somewhere in the house, but it was nowhere to be seen.  She finally found a can of Butter flavored Crisco that she looked at dubiously. She just didn’t think it would be okay, but after the third time through the kitchen, she talked herself into using that butter flavored Crisco, even though she was afraid that it wasn’t a good idea.
    Thus begins the saga of another, “I can’t believe I really did that!”  But it is in retrospect.  Nothing would have prepared CMW for the real problem.
    As most yeast bakers know, there is nothing like baking bread on a rainy day.  The atmospheric pressure does something special with the dough, and the bread is often much better than CMW really deserves.  And Saturday looked like it would be no exception.  The bread went together beautifully.  She added the melted yellow Crisco to the original mixture, and worked most of another 5 lb. bag of flower into it.  The dough whistled while CMW kneaded it, ( a sure sign of a good dough)  and it felt and looked like some of the better bread that CMW has made in her time.  It rose beautifully and was perfect in so many ways.  It was a little more yellow than usual, and CMW thought that there just might be a little different smell.  But it looked so nice, she brushed off her anxieties.  She’s been often told that she is like her Lauver ancestors when it comes to cooking.  Something is just never quite right, somehow..
    Certain Man’s wife set the ten beautiful loaves to cool and  got ready in plenty of time to go to Dover, and left everything in the care of others.  It was a perfect day for suit shopping, as JCPenney had 50% off their suits on a six hour sale and CM and CMW were there at the exact right time.  A nice suit was procured in anticipation of the upcoming weddings, and CMW came home early, and looked at her good bread.  It made her feel really good to think she had discovered that, in a pinch, bread made with butter flavored Crisco was just as good as bread made with regular flavored Crisco.
    Until CMW tasted it. Oh, no!  You could taste that butter flavored Crisco, and believe you me, it didn’t make the bread taste buttery.  It had a very strange taste to it.  CMW held her peace.  Maybe no one would notice it.
    The first loaf got sliced and half eaten before it was cool.  Certain Man, the official bread slicer, cut the rest, put eight in the freezer for later use, and left the loaf and a half out for Small Group lunch the next day. 
    The Small Group families came, and everyone that took bread ate it, and nary a complaint was made, but CMW just couldn’t quite put her finger on what there was about it that was just so wrong.  So she took a loaf to the gathering at her Sweet Mama’s house on Sunday night.  Again, though it was discussed at great length in company of all those good cooks, the smell and the flavor were something elusive.  Familiar, but elusive.
    “Hey, Mom,” said Youngest Daughter on Monday (having been absent from the other discussions), “this bread has a funny taste, somehow.  It actually smells like homemade doughnuts!”
    Maybe that was it.   CMW came over to take a sniff, and sure enough, it did smell like a homemade doughnut.  And it did not set right with her.  She still had seven loaves that she needed to get rid of somehow. 
    So she has faithfully packed Eldest Son’s lunch all week with it.  He doesn’t like it much, but since he is on a diet, he says that pretty much anything tastes good to him once he gets used to it.
     CMW cannot “get used to it.”  It actually turns her stomach when she smells it. 
    Middle Daughter optimistically says that it is okay as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 
    Certain Man says to just get rid of it. 
    Eldest Daughter says to take it in to a local “recovery house.”  “They won’t know the difference, ” she says cheerfully.  “And besides, it will be gone by the time they figure it out, so it won’t matter.”
    CMW thinks of those loaves of bread in her freezer and wishes they would disappear.  She doesn’t want to give them away because it might damage her reputation.  (!) Uh-huh.  She especially doesn’t want to give it away to people who “won’t know the difference.”  That is against the way she has been taught.  It seems a little like giving used tea bags to the missionaries.  But neither does she want to give it to someone who would know the difference.  They would probably wish they hadn’t received it.  And even though it is nice that she isn’t tempted to eat that bread, it doesn’t seem fair for it to expect her family to eat it. 
    So.  Is there any advice for this dilemma? 
    What would you do if you were Certain Man’s Wife?
   

Yesterday, Cecilia had a seizure while on an outing with her group from
Easter Seals.  Her nurse/habilitation supervisor called me to inform me, and I
pondered again the way my life is intertwined with this individual who is so
very challenged.
It has been a tough couple of months with her.  Since
the first of the year, there are some medication changes going on, and her
behavior, never what you would call pleasant, has been along the lines of
“irritating, aggravating, agitating, restless, and aggressive.”  Before she got
home last evening, I did the necessary calling to the neurologist, state nurse,
pharmacy, etc. and then headed out to an eye appointment with her.  (Yes, blind
people need to have eye exams).
She was strangely quiet. (maybe because
of lingering effects of her 60 second petit mal seizure) This was a blessing to
me.  I had to take Our Girl Nettie along as she was picking up glasses, and I
had a bone weariness that had nothing to do with physical tiredness.  There are
just lots of things going on right now.
We got into the optometrist’s
office, and had a long, long wait.  When we finally got into an examining room,
it was another long wait.  When Dr. M. came in, I was surprised by his
compassion and understanding for me and his gentleness with her.  I detest eye
appointments with Cecilia.  I try not to look while they are lifting the
lids to those lifeless eyes and checking for problems.  The one eye is partially
covered over by tissue, and the other is a dull blue lifeless thing.  The first
time I watched, and ended up crying.  It hurts me somewhere inside to see those
damaged, lifeless eyes and to think how much she misses.  The interesting thing
is that I find the same response among the eye professionals.  They are always
moved and saddened when they check her.  I’ve had one doctor blink back the
tears as he wrote the required report for the state.
Yesterday, the
doctor told me quietly that he believes that, though her blindness was caused by
the high concentration of oxygen in the incubator when she was born prematurely
nearly 60 years ago, he also believes that there is years old self-inflicted
damage there as well.  That really made me sad.
The strange thing is, I
love this gal.  She has lived with us over eight years, and she still has me
guessing alot of the time.  Sometimes I can predict what will set her off,
sometimes I can’t.  She is non-verbal, autistic and blind.  Sometimes I just
wish I knew what would make her happy.
She sometimes laughs.  A high
pitched silly giggle that makes me think she’s done something to make life
miserable for someone.  The interesting thing is that she sometimes cries.  One
morning, after Old Gertrude died, she was sitting at the table, with tears just
running down her face.  I had never seen her cry before.  I said to her, “Oh,
Cecilia-girl.  What is wrong?”  I think I had been playing some of Gertrude’s
favorite music, but somehow I thought that it was related to Gertrude’s passing,
so I said quietly to her, “Are you missing Gertrude today?'” and she cried
harder.
She has taught me so much about patience and biting my tongue
and loving when it is hard.  I’ve come down in the middle of the night and she
will have messed her bed or thrown up (something she can do at will) and I will
get her out and clean her up, change the bed and get her in clean pajamas and
tuck her back in.  She never says thank you.  She often acts like she resents my
ministrations to her.  And if she has a good chance, she will do it again. She
has no concept of what it might cost me, and neither does she care.   When I am
guiding her somewhere, she often does this little twist, jerk, downward pull,
intended to make me fall.  She wants things done on her time, her terms and if
you mess up, she will let you know.  If the phone rings, or one of Certain Man’s
many clocks strikes with Westminster chimes, she will make a loud, grunting
squealing noise to say that she doesn’t like it.  (I assume that is her
autism).
Can you see, people, how we often are with our Heavenly Father?
Think about it.  We get ourselves into terrible messes, and given a good chance,
we do it again.  We often don’t thank Him, we resent His guidance, we have no
concept what His love to us cost Him and neither do we care.  We want things
done on our terms and on our time schedule and if He “messes up” we are sure
that the rest of the world knows about it.  We protest ungraciously against the
things of our lives that we don’t like or that rub us the wrong way.
How
very much greater is His love for us than mine for Cecilia.  I am so
relieved that I can be quite certain that He does not harbor some of the
feelings against me that I sometimes do against her.  And yet, I cannot help but
be reminded of how it must feel to Him when I act the way I do.  It keeps me
humble, it keeps me focused.
And sometimes when I think of how sin has
darkened my eyes and what He must see when He looks there to help me do the best
I can do, I wonder if it makes Him weep.

David and Robin, Taylor and Baylee

And then there was a little bit of excitement this afternoon when things were winding down.  I had lit some candles on my washer and dryer before the company came.  It made some great light in a darkish corner, and it was springish looking.

Along about 5:30, the smoke alarm at the top of the basement stairs began to go off, and Certain Man went to investigate.  I heard a great exclamation, looked across two rooms to the laundry room in time to see him dump a bucket upside down on my one candle.

It wasn’t really unattended, and if it hadn’t been for the doily, it would have been on a fire proof surface — but I got a good reminder again of how fast things can go wrong.  I am so thankful for Certain Man’s quick thinking.  I am a teeny bit sorry about my silk candle ring.  I just got this particular one on Thursday!

Around Midnight, last evening, the luggage came — and with it a notice that it had been searched.

The good thing is, that we cannot find anything missing.  Not even the fruit that Middle Daughter had packed.

She loves passion fruit.  Does anyone else think it is positively disgusting?  It really looks like boogers!  I don’t care how good it tastes, I am not about to put that stuff into my mouth.

“Mom, it tastes so good!” she says while slurping it down in front of my affronted face.  She told me later that it took her three weeks to even try it.  I’m determined not to develop the taste for it.

Other than that,  how very glad I am to have my girlie home.  She had to work last night, so she is sleeping today.

Our Nettie Girl is home with “aches in her legs” and general teary problems.  And I am so far behind that it is sheer foolishness for me to even look at this computer.

Tonight, our small group is coming to pack Hope Totes for the homeless men at the Helping Up Mission in Baltimore.  We are hoping to pack 30 bags.  If you want to help, or want to know more, call me or message me.

Deborah is home, safe and sound.

We are long on stories — which are so
wonderful to hear.

But short on sleep — as her plane was delayed, and
luggage was lost and we didn’t get home until 2 o’clock this
morning.

Lupé’s Mama went along to the airport with us.  She spent most
of the trip home going through Deborah’s camera with her, soaking in the news of
her daughter, looking at the pictures of the beautiful house that Ervin has been
building these last six years, looking at the contrasts of beauty and poverty in
the country to which her daughter went, and wiping tears, while trying to smile.

One of the things that the News Reports almost never talk about is how
much illegal immigration costs the families who choose this life.  I honestly do
not think it would be worth it for me.  Even when everything works out “okay.” the cost is
exorbitant. 

There are too many broken hearts, broken
homes, broken people.

Yesterday, I talked to Deborah.   She said that when they got to the airport, Lupé’s father-in-law was there to meet them with some brothers in law and some nephews.  (Her mother-in-law was sick, so she couldn’t come to the airport. )

Deborah said, “Mom, you would love Ervin’s family.  They are really special people.  And when I saw Ervin’s father, I had such a sense of relief.  He looks like Grandpa Yoder.  He is built almost exactly like him, and he has the smiley wrinkles around his eyes.    And he smiles alot.  I just felt so comfortable with him.”

That, along with other things she told me, comforts me.  It also makes me cry.