Delaware Grammy

So, last night we got together at Loretta Miller’s house for a married ladies slumber-not party.  What a hoot!!!  We had nine ladies and we had time to pray for each other, time to play some games that made us laugh and laugh.  And then each of us brought a snack that started with the same letter as our first name.  What a wonderful spread that made!  And then some of the ladies went home, and some stayed until after one o’clock.  Then four of us that thought that we would spend the night stayed up and talked until almost four o’clock, and then I thought that I might just as well go home.  I needed to get Linda up this morning and so I decided to spend the rest of the night at home.  Then I thought I was running out of gas on the way home (I had been running on fumes for a day or so!) so I was most glad to enter my garage safely at home.  I came upstairs and crawled into bed beside my husband and he never found out that I was home.  I was too keyed up to sleep at first (doesn’t usually happen to me!) but then I got to sleep and didn’t want to wake up! I am just about dragging along at reverse today!  Whew!  Was it worth it?  ABSOLUTELY!!!! Thanks Xanga girl “Gokum”  That was really fun!  And thanks, too, VIRGINIA!  I love your house!  And you are a wonderful hostess.  It was just so comfy being there.  And thanks to all who made the evening such a fun time.  I loved it so very much!!!

It’s been a month since you went to Heaven.  Sometimes it seems like years.
We’re trying hard to run the race, to be people you would be proud of.
They say it won’t always hurt this much, and I do believe it’s true,
But sometimes the need to see your face is overwhelming.
If I didn’t believe that we will see you again, I don’t know if I could stand this.
Thank God for the Hope of Heaven.  Thank God for the faith you showed us.
Thank God for sweet, sweet comfort
On days when it seems like it’s been too long.

I shall see you, soon again, in the land of Life.
I shall hear your voice again, singing praises to King.
No more heartache, no more pain, you are HOME FREE!
And I’ll see you soon again in the land of LIFE.
Where there is peace, peace in His presence,
And Joy, evermore.
We will never more depart, never face one more good-by,
You are HOME. . .
I shall see you, soon again, in the land of Life.
I shall hear your voice again, singing praises to King.
No more heartache, no more pain, you are HOME FREE!
And I’ll see you soon again in the land of LIFE.  (Pelle Karlesson)

       This is a view of the village before we took it down.  (In case you didn’t know, you can click on the picture, and it will make it bigger for you.) The little fellow in the front of it belongs to the “gracegiven” gal.  His name is also Daniel, and he is almost three.  His sister, Sarah, is four, and his Daddy and Mama are expecting a new little one in a few weeks.  In this picture, he was busy waiting for the train to come around again.  He would have been happy to stand there for hours, watching the train go ’round and ’round.  One of the things that Certain Man has always practiced was making the village as “child friendly” as possible.  He didn’t want the children to be destructive, of course, but he always has allowed them to touch if they were careful, and he loved to run the train for them.         But now, that is over for another year.  My family room seems to have expanded greatly!  I can get to my windows again, and we can wind the cukoo clock on the back wall.  These are things to be happy about!

  It’s now 11:15. 
  The day was full of writing a long overdue letter and an overdue thank you note.  It also held drop in company, some laundry, trying to figure out what to have for dinner tomorrow, some long phone calls, a much needed run to the grocery and drug store and taking down the Christmas Village.
  That last item took terribly long.  For those of you who don’t know, Certain Man has a Christmas village like no other.  It fills two tables that are actually sheets of plywood, and he uses differents sizes and shapes of stryrofoam to build it up into a small mountain with a train running through the mountain so that it looks like a tunnel.  It really is something.  It takes him a long time to put it up, but when it is finished, it is a thing of beauty and artistic arrangement.  It is one of my favorite things about Christmas at our house  But there comes a day when it is time to dismantle the village.  This is the thing I hate most about the village.  It all has to be taken down and put away.  And today was that day!!!
  I hope that when we get it out next year that it doesn’t bring a feeling of sadness.  It was put up the weekend before Thanksgiving, so it was here through small Christmas with Lem and  Daddy and Mama and Nel and Rose — Just before we said good-bye to Lem for what we thought would be a long time.  It was here through the ensuing weeks while Daddy’s health got more and more precarious and over the days of his death and funeral.  It was here when Lem got to come home for Christmas after all, and for the weeks now since, when there has been numerous people in to see it, and while we as a family enjoyed it so much.  But right now, it smacks of the season we have just been through and that season wasn’t the best Christmas ever. . . So, quite frankly, I was more than ready for it to come down. 
Certain Man is amazing when it comes to his village.  It really is his project from start to finish in both setting it up and putting it away, so I just had to help.  I didn’t need to organize.  I think it is safe to say, though, that we are pretty equally tired tonight.  He had to replace a feed line motor this morning and I had to do my shopping tonight after 8:30.  And I am headed for bed — done with my work or not.  It will just have to wait this time.  Tomorrow is Sunday.  Blessed Holy Day!  I am good and ready for a day of rest.  And Monday is a holiday for Certain Man, so maybe he will have more time to rest up.  (Knowing him — NOT!) 
  Have a wonderful Sunday! 

Today I spent the day at my Mama’s house. We had some book work to go through, and there were some papers that needed to be filed at the social security office. Specifically, she had a letter from the Social Security administration asking her to call for an appointment. When I called to make the appointment, we learned that she needed to have both a death certificate and a certified copy of their marriage license.

A little thing like a spur on the heel of a foot.

Good Doctor injects medicine to make it feel better.

Certain Man’s Wife wants instant cure.

Not gonna’ be.

And now the hurt in the heel

And the hurt in the heart

wrap all up together, and who can tell?

Are these tears for the heel?

Or for the heart?

I’m Back!!!!

Thanks, Christy-girl for posting my notice.

Thanks Beloved Son in Law for fixing my computer!

Thanks Caleb, for your good help, too! 

What would I do without people to help me???

Mama wated me to write that her computer is being worked on and she will not be posting for awhile. Jesse is working to try to get it updated and in better working order.It should be a few days at the most.

~Christina (for Mama)

I wonder if a by-product of grief is bone weariness, or if it comes from all the activity that goes along with all the stuff that has to be done.  I really haven’t had trouble sleeping when I get to bed, but I am so tired!  I should go to Dover this afternoon, get my car cleaned and pick up some stuff, but I am afraid I will fall asleep on the way.  I guess I will just go to the local car wash and forget that it needs a good job.

Tomorrow, I plan to go with Mama to Baltimore for a follow up with her thoracic surgeon.  She had a CAT scan with contrast early last month, and needs to have that evaluated and see how she is doing over all with her cancer.  The last scans were totally clear, and we are hoping for more good news.  I am afraid to hope too much, because it seems like most of the news in the medical field here of late has been anything but good.  She seems to be doing okay, though, and even with the devastating last few weeks, has been hanging in there and doing as well as can be expected.

The Yoder Family Calendar is finished.  Finally.  My sisters and I worked the last two days (with some help from Deborah and Christina) and my sister-in-love, Polly, took two pages to her house to do there. And all the pages are done!  Now we need to get it all sent off and printed.  We will be a few weeks late, and I am not happy with that.  Daddy always loved to look through it and see everyone’s birthday and anniversary pictures and he didn’t get to see any of this. 

Because we are so late, the new version will mark the first anniversary of his death.  Where will we be then, I wonder?  Going through the pictures this week to find ones for the calendar has been really difficult for me.  It seemed like everywhere I turned, there was his face.  Usually smiling, almost never talking, just watching the things of life going on around him, contemplating, listening, just there! 

Some days the thought of him in that City of Light is not enough to stay my tears.  How very much I miss him!

So today I butchered the fat roaster that had gotten left behind by the chicken catchers last week.  I was in the middle of Monday morning sorts of things when Certain Man came in and said, “I am going to just wring the neck of that old roaster that got left behind.  I need to set up chicken houses, and I want him out of there.” 

 “Please don’t do that,” says I.  “I will put water on right now and come out there and get him.”  Certain Man looked dubious, but I grabbed my biggest kettle, and filled it to the brim and put it on the burner.  I finished straightening my kitchen while it started to cook. 

When it came to a boil, I said to Blind Linda, “I am going outside to catch a chicken.  I will be in really soon.” Blind Linda didn’t say anything.  I sharpened my biggest butcher knife and headed out to the chicken house.  When I got out there, Certain Man was in the Manure Shed working on his tractor. 

 “Did you catch that Chicken?”  I ask him brightly. 

“Oh, no.  I forgot all about it.”  He stopped whatever it was that he was doing and came through the mud to where I was standing. 

 “Which house is it in?” I ask him. 

“It’s in house two, I think,” he says, “Unless the fox got it.  Could’ve gotten it.  I didn’t see it this morning, I don’t think.”  We enter the darkness of the empty chicken house and Certain Man flips on the lights.  There was the object of my intentions, fluttering about down near the end of the house.  Certain Man turns off the lights, and we edge our way down towards our hapless victim.  I wasn’t much help at this juncture, I tell you, because I do not go running about in chicken litter chasing an 8-lb ball of feathers that has those spurry things on the sides of its legs.  I will “herd” but I usually do not chase.  Certain Man had some ideas up his sleeves, and he shortly had the roaster in a big bucket with the lid on. 

“Are there any others?” I question hopefully. 

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I’ll go look.”  At this point, our Australian Cattle dog, Shepherd, who has proven trustworthy enough to run about the place comes eagerly up, hoping to partake of a chicken dinner.  I remember that he is not easily controlled when he sees a flopping chicken.  So I carried the bucket with the chicken in it up to the dog pen.  Shepherd follows, panting happily.  Whenever I go to his pen with a sort of container, it usually means that he is getting fed.  He ran quickly to his dog pen and got inside.  Oh, disappointment.  The gate got locked and there was no chicken for the doggy.  He looked reproachfully at me as I walked away.

By this time, Certain Man was back with the news that there were no other chickens.  So he helped me rig up the baler twine to hold the roaster in an upside down position, and we got him properly restrained. 

Then I asked Certain Man if he would take the bucket into the house and bring out the boiling water that was on the stove.  The execution of the chicken is always my department because Certain Man cannot bear to take a butcher knife and cut their throats.  I don’t particularly like it, but I realized a long time ago that if we were ever going to eat chicken from our own flock, I was going to have to do it.  So he went after the water, while I removed the head from the body of the unfortunate chicken. 

 When he got back, the atrocity was over, and I plunked the body up and down and up and down in the boiling water until the feathers were loose, then I hung it up and plucked the feathers off with the help of Certain Man and a pair of latex gloves that he had procured for me from the house. 

When the Roaster was sufficiently naked, I cut off the feet and brought him into the house where I could scrape off the pin feathers and butcher him.  He was a fat old bugger, and I had some trouble getting him properly ready for my pan.  But tonight he sits in a tub of salt water, and tomorrow I will put him in the freezer until Saturday night, then we will take him out, and I will stuff him with some stove top dressing and plunk him into the oven before we go to church and we shall have him for lunch, if the Lord so wills. 

This gray day has held many good things. . . That old roaster is butchered, I made the party mix that usually is a “before Christmas” thing.  I baked bread and I am planning to still sort the laundry for tomorrow.  Certain Man and Eldest Son are on their way home from the airport, and I have already gotten a run-down on his happy weekend, so once Certain Man gets here, we should all be able to get some sleep.  If the Lord tarries, and the plan carries, we will work on the Yoder Calendar for this present year.  The Yutzy side of the family has been long done. 

Oh, well.  Some things are out of my control.  Which is a good thing, really! Blessings for a wonderful new year.