Wrung Out and Rested

I'm not sure what I'd do without Sundays.  It's true that Sundays do not always allow for long naps, but they're almost always refreshing in other ways.  When the combination of worship, fellowship, and rest are just right, Sundays are truly rejuvenating.

The past week was crammed full of feverish work, painful goodbyes, and good family times.  The weather was hot and humid till this morning, when it was cool and humid instead.  We had several little rain showers overnight and today, and tried to rejoice with others in the area who got really significant rain (more than an inch) instead of the dust dampeners we got.

Two of my brothers who live elsewhere brought their families "home" this past week--from Pennsylvania and from southeastern Kansas.  From PA, Caleb's son-in-law, Jeff Beck, visited here for the first time.  His wife, Joelle, and daughter Katherine (8) were here also.  Sterling, a year out of college, and Brady and Luisa, heading off to Messiah College and Eastern Mennonite University in the fall were able to come also.  At this stage of family life, pulling off a whole-family trip must be quite a feat.

Ronald's family is still all at home--a cheerful and grateful bunch of six hard-working or busily recreating children and young adults.  

Caleb's family purposely arrived in time to see Joel's family before they left very early on Friday morning.  Ronald's family came to be with everyone else.  Brenda recently told Ronald that she's homesick for our family, and they resolved to make plans to visit soon.  We're glad they did.

On Friday, everyone in the family who could, gathered at the farm to re-paint the inside of the house.  By the end of the day, the place looked transformed.  Shane had done a tremendous amount of prep work, with occasional help from others, especially with taping, so Friday was the day for adding color.  And oh, such colors.  Havana Cream in the dining room.  (That's the only color name I recall.)  Soft gray in the living room, kitchen, hallway, and two walls of the master bedroom--green on the other two walls.  Lavender-blue in the study/office, aqua blue in the baby room, paprika (or something like that) in one bathroom and lime green in the other.  All the trim, doors, and cabinets are now white.  That house has never shone so brightly.  

I'm pleased that my "chicken-wire" wallpaper in the hall survived the great purge of all the prep work.  The actual chicken wire got ripped off the back of the window-turned-display-space, in preparation for painting.  If that goes back up, Shane may yet have to eat his derisive comments years ago about my "hick Arkansas chicken house" decorating style.  Louisa showed up on Friday to survey the progress, and she was a help in reminding Shane of his indiscreet earlier decorating pronouncements.

For lunch on Friday, we uncovered a draped table temporarily and spread out sandwich materials, veggies, chips and salsa, and cookies.  Then we all got something to eat.  The boys headed for the porch, and the rest of us found upended buckets to sit on or sat on the floor.

Kara, who came from PA minus painting clothes, donned an old dress of mine that was still hanging in the dressing room of the farm house.  She was quite happy to find a way to help, but she reported later that her son was mortified by how "ridiculous" she looked.   (Leave it to a teenage son to keep his mother humble.)  I had forgotten that there was some added ventilation at the back of one sleeve--one of the sources of embarrassment for the teenage son, although he had trouble articulating whether what he saw was worse or what he might have seen instead would have been worse.  Clothing or skin--which is worse, when a tiny area on the back down-slope of the shoulder is in question?    Life is full of perplexities.

It was quite a jolly day.

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In the evening we had a family housewarming for Anthony.  First, Marvin furnished pizza for everyone at King Street Center.  Then we trooped catty-corner across the street to Anthony's house to check it out and present our gifts.  The boys were all camped out there on the main floor and in the basement, so it looked quite occupied, but still fresh and new from its recent updating.

After Anthony opened his gifts, we sang a few songs together.  One of them was "Send the Light."   After we sang the first verse, someone suggested that we dedicate that song to Joel and his family.  I had nearly choked up on the words in the first verse because of thinking about them and having had to tell them goodbye in the early hours of that same day, and I barely got through the rest of the song.  The words and music echoed and bounced all over the inside of that little house, and it was a lovely time.

My brother Marcus slipped out during that last song.  I doubt that he could help sing--not because he doesn't know the words or because his voice doesn't work.  He has a beautiful singing voice.  When he can sing with us again, I'll know that his spirit is free and at rest.

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Also on Friday evening, Joelle got a call from Andrea.  Everyone hushed up enough to listen to her message to us all on speaker phone.  She announced that she's joining the club of Miller grandchildren who are hoping to present my parents with great grandchildren--about a week after Joelle--in February.

Kara observed while they were here that if all goes according to expectations, five of my parents' first six great grandchildren will be part Asian--the four in the Iwashige family, and Jeff and Joelle's baby.  (Jeff is ethnically Laotian, although he is American by birth.)  In addition, there's the step grandaughter, Katherine, who is fully Asian.  Andrea's baby has some Hispanic and African American ancestry, so babies of the vanilla variety will be latecomers to the family of great grandchildren.

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On Saturday, a family crew helped Myron and Rhoda and their family put 52 quarts of corn in their freezer, and then we gathered at King Street again for brunch.  In the afternoon, there was swimming for the younger boys, watching the volleyball tournament underway for some of the young adults, naps for the old folks and Tristan, and corralling several headed-for-the-packer steers for Shane and Grant.

Dorcas gave us all a scare when she developed some really strange symptoms (blurred vision, numbness, confusion, etc.) which haven't been fully explained, but she is well again.  The consultations with medical professionals didn't reveal a medical emergency, and rest and hydration helped a lot.  None of us begrudged her the timeout from the hectic pace their family has been maintaining the past number of weeks, and there was certainly no shortage of people willing to look after Tristan while she was absent.

In the evening we had Adobo Chicken provided and prepared by Caleb and Kara, rice, grilled zucchini and other squash from Lowell's garden, cucumber salads from Shane's garden, and watermelon.  Later, after the place was cleaned up, some of crew gathered at Marvins for ice cream.

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We ate at church for lunch today.  Roast beef and pork, with new potatoes, carrots, and onions added, cantaloupe, and tossed salad, with ice cream for dessert made a fairly simple meal.  Judy prepared the main dish, with others contributing also.

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We weren't always super organized with our planning and our meals, but it all worked out just fine.

A number of years ago, when one of us puzzled out loud over how long it took to prepare a meal, even when we tried to keep it simple, my mom said what we've often thought of since:  "Nothing is simple when you're doing it for 40 people."  Case in point:  For the brunch on Saturday, I volunteered to make the main dish.  From 6:30 on, I was cooking, with plans to help join in on the corn project as soon as it was ready.  The brunch was scheduled for 10:30, and I barely made it to our gathering place by that time.  Four hours.  That's how long the cooking took.  People liked the food and the amount was right, so it was rewarding, but it was a humbling lesson in the realities of how much time should be allowed for such projects.

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Last week one day, Doris, Alicia, and Holly came to help me with some of the moving tasks we have not finished yet.  Their presence and help were real day-brighteners--true acts of Christian neighborliness and kindness.

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We got word this morning that Joel's family arrived safely in B---, their destination country.  They loved flying the Emirates airline, and all eight of their checked bags arrived with them.  Several smaller items were missing--a stroller and an electronic device--one lost and one accidentally left behind in an airport.  Getting from the airport to the home of the people who met them--about ten miles--took about four and one-half hours, about half of that time waiting at the airport for luggage, rental vehicle, etc.

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 I have an opinion about day-long sports events for church groups.

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I also have an opinion about the invasion of sowbugs, pillbugs, roly polies, fill-in-the-blank uncomplimentary terms that come to mind--whatever you want to call those hard-shelled little  creatures that immediately roll into a ball when they're disturbed.  I never anticipated having to add "sweep up roly-polies" to my morning schedule, but I've done that every morning recently, usually harvesting around 30 to flush down the toilet.

I hear from others that their homes are invaded also, and they're crawling everywhere outdoors too.  It certainly can't be because the weather has been overly damp, and I don't understand this development.  It never happened when Grant and Clare lived here, but they've got them in their new place too.

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We're without water this evening.  Hiromi's preliminary investigation made him decide to wait to pursue things further till tomorrow morning.

Yesterday we were without water too--until the power company repaired a broken line down the road from us.

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I wonder if anyone else saw the amazing formation in the northwestern sky last evening.  In a small window of clear sky, the setting sun set off a "mountain range" of clouds across the window with a bright but soft background of peachy-pink, and lighting a flaring, molten border around the tops of the "mountains."