Rain and a good roof (or not)

Like many of you who are reading this, we had RAIN today! Lots and lots of rain! And I thanked the Lord for a good roof. You do not fully appreciate a good roof until you've had a bad one. We had the lovely experience of a leaking roof when we had our big farmhouse and again at our Lititz house. We ended up needing to put a new roof on each of those houses. I'm very thankful we got a good roof right from the start this time.

But I have to tell you a story about the leaking roof on our farmhouse. We had leaks at a lot of places, so we would put a five gallon bucket underneath each leak up in the attic. One night we had torrential rain, complete with thunder and lightning, for hours. I awoke in the middle of the night and heard a sickening drip, drip, drip. I knew what had happened. The bucket in the attic above our room was full and overflowing. I woke Dick up and together we went up to the attic in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. What do you do with an overflowing five gallon bucket of water in an attic??? I opened the window and Dick very carefully carried that bucket (slopping more water onto the floor as he went) and dumped the water out the window. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only bucket that was full, so we repeated the process several more times. That was NOT FUN!!! I fully expected to be struck by lightining or to have an entire bucket of water spill all over the floor.

Now you know why I appreciate a good roof!

On a happier note, here's a picture of the lovely sunset last evening. Actually, it was much lovlier than this picture portrays.

Today I took a few shots of Austin playing with the doors. He just loves to open and close doors. Don't worry, he can't walk out the front door anymore. Anthony ordered a really nifty extra lock for us, which Dick installed higher on the door. But Austin still tries!

Austin and Joe

Anthony and Lori are getting a number of "noisy" things done to their house's exterior over the next several weeks, so I have been regularly bringing Austin here for lunch and his nap.  

As soon as we get inside the front door he gets a big smile and makes a bee-line for the piano in my office.  Of course he wants to hear one of the songs that are programed into it.  His preference has changed.  Instead of the bluesy, jazzy ones, he now wants Burgmüller's classical piano piece, La Chevaleresque!  He stands by the piano, almost entranced, and listens to every note!!  When it's finished, he says, "Gain, gain!"  (rhymes with again, again)  Maybe he'll be like Mozart and will be able to play compositions after just listening to them, hahahahaha!

Then we have lunch, always a fun time.  He's so full of tricks.

Look, Grandma, no hands!

He's at such a delightful stage right now - learning new things every day, new skills, new words, new tricks.  I'm just crazy over him. So are his mom and dad.  This evening he was echo-singing back and forth with Lori, and Anthony and I were just ready to pop our buttons, hahahaha!

Here's a fun pic of Lori and Austin playing "Ride a, ride a horsie."   Lori got tired long before he did, because he didn't have time for the slow riding.  He needed to go fast the whole time.

Did you know that Vice President Biden came to State College today?  Dick read on the news this morning that the road past State College Airport, which I use to go to Austin's daycare, would be closed for a period of time this morning, and then again this afternoon.  "WHY?"  I asked incredulously.  I mean, how dare they close such an important road??  "Joe Biden is coming to State College," he answered.  Well, alrighty then!!  I would just have to work around his schedule, hahahahaha!!  

No problem, really.  There's another way to get to the daycare, and besides, my trip there was after Joe was safely on Penn State's campus.  Later this afternoon I noticed a helicopter circling in the sky.  I assumed it was keeping an eye on him and keeping him safe. 

Coffee and computer issues

On Friday evening we hit the road again for a weekend in Lancaster County. We stopped, as we usually do, to fill up with gas at the Tom's at the Mifflintown exit of 322, because it's always cheaper there than anywhere else. By that time we had been driving about an hour and I was feeling unusually sleepy. I walked into the store and smelled COFFEE. Oh, it smelled so good, and he assured me it had been recently brewed, so I gave in and got me a cup of coffee at 7 PM and added four chocolate flavored creamers. IT WAS GOOD!!

As we drove to Reading, picked up Destiny at the Albright College football game, and drove to Grandma Mary's house I was just feeling better and better, hahaha! We tried to sneak quietly into her house so as not to awaken her, got ourselves settled for the night, and then you know what happened next. I lay there WIDE AWAKE. For hours. To make things worse, Mary has a chime clock that sings its little ditty every 15 minutes. So no need to check my watch or cell phone to figure out the time! Apparently I slept between 1:00 and 4:00, because I never heard the chimes for 2:00 and 3:00. But after four I could not go back to sleep again, except for a little while when I was dreaming absolutely CRAZY dreams. I think I learned my lesson now. Actually, I thought I had learned it before. I cannot drink coffee after 2 PM if I want to fall asleep when I go to bed. (By the way, Mary unplugged that chime clock in the morning!  You can plug it back in now, Mary!)

We had some of Mary's yummy baked oatmeal for breakfast, then Dick took me to my hair appointment. I took this picture as I sat in the waiting area at my hair dresser's. Isn't it beautiful?

We ate lunch at Subway after my hair appointment, then went to our church, where I gave a piano lesson to one of my good friends who has a strong desire to lead worship and wants to learn chords on the keyboard.

From there we went to watch Frank play football at the Palmyra Net Sports Complex. Frank's biological sister was there too and invited Destiny to spend the night at her house in Lancaster. She has kids near Destiny's age.

Dick and I spent the evening with Mary. I made a pot of my Spanish Country Soup for our Sunday lunch, and Dick tried unsuccessfully to resolve the issue Mary is having with loading pictures from her camera to her computer. There have been so many instances of hacking on Facebook recently that we decided to run the malware scan recommended by one of my church friends. It claimed to have found 400+ malicious/infected files on Mary's computer. Good grief. I think I'd better run the scan on my computer too. Unfortunately, we never did resolve the picure-loading issue. Every time she plugs her camera into her computer, everything, including the mouse, completely freezes, and there is no option but to turn her computer off by hand. Not good.

Of course, no evening with Mary is complete without some of her baking goodness.

Here's what Dick's "ouchy" looks like when he changes the bandage. Mary, who is an expert quilter, decided. after a close examination, that they did an excellent job of stitching him up!

On Sunday morning I led worship at church, an awesome time in the presence of the Lord, and had a great time catching up with some good friends, then we went to Mary's for lunch. My sister Mary Ellen was there too. After lunch Dick took a nap while we ladies fooled around and had fun at the computer. I was teaching them how to do some things on FB, how to comment on my blog, etc, and we had some good laughs. Like when we got a little confused between URL and urinal. Hahahahahahaha!! But I did not take one picture of them. How silly. My camera was right there. I guess I'm just getting too close to 70, right, Mary????

We packed up and went to Lancaster to pick up Destiny and went to Arby's to eat with her.

We took her home to Reading, then headed home to State College, arriving about 10:00. It was a good weekend, but it's always good to be home. I thank the Lord every day, many times a day, for this house, our home sweet home.

Choir practice and stitches

This evening I went to the choir practice of the little church I visited a few times.  They're working on an old John W. Peterson cantata.  It was fun to be there and all the people were so nice to me.  The practice was held at the choir director's very lovely home.  She took me on a tour of it afterward.  I tried not to covet, hahaha!

I stayed till last because she and I seem to be the kind that could talk forever.  Imagine my surprise when I went out to the car and checked my phone and discovered I had missed several phone calls and messages from Dick and his boss.  He had banged his head on a lift at work, cutting his forehead, and had to be taken by ambulance to the ER.  I arrived there just as he was finished.  He now has twelve stitches on his forehead.  Boy, I'd better keep my phone in my pocket on vibrate after this.  You never know what could happen in two hours!

I survived!

Well, I survived!  Without a doubt, the days leading up to my colonoscopy were by far harder than the actual procedure this morning, which I remember nothing of.  I was pronounced healthy right afterward, and Dick and I were out of there and on our way to the nearby McDonald's.  I could hardly wait for a good cup of coffee and some food and a pain pill.  I was feeling better in no time.  

I wasn't allowed to drive today due to the anesthesia used, but Dick had off work, so he drove me to pick up Austin at daycare.  We brought him home to our house for lunch and his nap.  (Anthony and Lori are getting new siding put on their house, so it's too noisy for him to sleep there.)  I put Austin down in his pack-and-play in our darkened bedroom, turned the air purifier on high to drown out any noises, then I crawled into our bed and I slept like a baby for an hour-and-a-half.    I had had to get up at 3:30 this morning to start the last half of the prep stuff, so I was completely exhausted.  When Austin woke up after an hour-and-a-half, I just put him in my bed and started sleepily singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and he went back to sleep for another hour.  He didn't even wake up when I took this picture of him!

When he finally woke up we went to Anthony and Lori's house.  Here are some pictures of the work in progress.

Lori's brother recently took a job in State College and has moved here from NYC with his wife and son.  Today his son William was at Anthony and Lori's house after school.  Here are the two cousins playing together, wearing funny hats.

Because Anthony's birthday was yesterday, I had some fun early this morning finding pictures of him on previous birthdays.  I decided that the gifts he received on his third and fourth birthdays - a guitar and a cash register with play money - probably set the course for his future!

This evening I decided to look for a picture of Anthony at 20 months, the age Austin is now.  Here's one of Anthony and Dick at my sister Barb's wedding.  Don't you just love Dick's bushy hair and beard????? That's was back in the 70's, you know!

Church, children, and colonoscopy prep

This morning Dick and I went to church together! What's so unusual about that? Because every other weekend, when we stay up here at State College, he works and can't go to church. But we discovered that a little United Methodist church nearby has an 8:15 AM service. I visited there four weeks ago and enjoyed the friendliness of the people and the way they sang enthusiastically. It's a very traditional service compared to what I'm used to, but I really felt like we could make some good friends there. So this morning we both went. Dick had to leave before the service was over in order to get to work on time, but they had a time to greet each other before he left, and many people came to talk to us. I might even practice with their little choir that is planning to do a cantata for Christmas.

When that service was over I went to Anthony and Lori's church. Nothing traditional about their service, hahahaha!! The campus gospel choir, United Soul Ensemble, which Anthony used to play guitar with in his single days, performed two songs this morning. Oh. My. Word!!! They were AMAZING!!!

This evening Dick and I babysat Austin while Anthony and Lori went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday tomorrow. I thought they looked so nice before they left and insisted on a family picture. Austin wasn't as dressed up as Lori would have liked and he wasn't in the mood for a picture either, but he's still cute, right? Just like his mom and dad.

We had so much fun with Austin while they were gone. He is just getting to be more fun all the time and makes us laugh so much.

So, like I told Lisa on Facebook this evening, thirty-four years ago today she was our only child for the last time. Anthony was born the next morning at 9:20 on 9/20! Almost every detail of our activities of the evening before and the day of his birth are vivid in my memory. Not only vivid, but precious. I felt nothing but pure joy at having a daughter and a son.

I probably will not be experiencing pure joy tomorrow on his birthday, however. On Tuesday morning I will be having a regularly scheduled colonoscopy, so I have already been off my anti-inflammatory meds a couple of days, I will be on a liquid diet tomorrow, and after 3 PM I will most likely become quite familiar with the bathroom. I do not look forward to any of it. I do praise the Lord that I have been surprised I'm doing okay two days now without the pain med I've been taking for arthritis for at least seven years. I thought my lower back would be screaming by now, but it's actually my fingers, toes, and ankles that are complaining the most. And I can handle that.

A wonderfully "normal" day

I had the most wonderful day, a day that is probably considered to be normal for many women, but one that I haven't experienced in over a year. I stayed home all day long, I cleaned my whole house, I organized my desk, I cooked supper and baked a cake for "company." And I felt very, very happy doing it all.

Who were my guests? My very favorite people in State College - Anthony, Lori, and Austin of course! I made Mexican Pile-up, which is chili with all the fixin's - tortilla chips, rice, shedded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sour cream, salsa, black olives, French and Ranch dressing. I also made a chocolate chip zuchinni cake for the first time in about 20 years. But to my dismay, when I went to add the 6 oz. of chocolate chips I discoverd that I had only about 6 chocolate chips left! Someone's been eating them!!! Lori also brought gourmet mini cupcakes from a little shop in town owned by a lady from church. So now I am all chocolated out!

Austin tried and tried and tried to buckle his own seat belt on the booster seat.

Of course he couldn't sit too long. There was so much to explore at MeMe's house. He's saying, "Don't worry, Dad, I'm just gonna smell this candle."

"Do you have a belly button too, Dad?"

"Higher, Mommy, higher!"

I just loved having them here. Unfortunately, Dick had several jobs at work he had to finish and just arrived here about the time they were ready to leave. Oh, but Austin LOVES his Pawpaw! He was so happy to see him.

My heart is half in Lancaster County this weekend too. Ray and Thyda are there from Norfolk. I want to see them so bad! How I would love to be down there and get our "boys" together. Hopefully another weekend it will work out for them all to come up here or for us to be in Lancaster County at the same time Ray and Thyda have a weekend there.

Beauty

Since we've moved six miles away from Anthony and Lori's house, I am amazed every single day, as I drive, at the beauty of this area.  The mountain ranges on every horizon as far as the eye can see, the trees, the creek, the overpasses of major highways.  Today I want to share some of that beauty with you. (These pictures are clickable.)

I am also amazed every single day at the beauty of Austin's face.  I never get tired of looking at him.  We have so much fun together.   And guess what????  He's starting to SING!!

Ten years ago

Ten years ago today we welcomed Destiny into our family. I was Enid's birth coach, so I saw Destiny enter the world along with Frank and Enid's mother. Her eyes were big and wide open - that's the first thing I noticed! I think she was less than a week old on this Sears picture - cool from the very beginning, haha!!

She came to church when she was three days old, visited Anthony at Penn State along with our family when she was a week-and-a-half old, visited Lisa and George in Charlotte along with our family when she was seven months old, went to Sweden with me when she was 20 months old, has been to every annual family weekend and church camping weekend since she was born, to Florida too many times to count.

Happy Birthday, Destiny! God loves you and so do we and many, many others.

A full, fun Sunday

Now, let me try posting about our Sunday again.  For some reason blogger did not automatically save the last part of my post this morning, and when I clicked "publish" it said, "Service Unavailable."  Times like that get me about as close to swearing as anything, hahahahaha!

My Sunday morning started out with a pretty funny event.  At Dick's parents' house we sleep in the basement, but need to go up to the main floor to use the bathroom.  Early Sunday morning I went upstairs for that purpose and discovered that it was raining.  I also noticed that the front door was open (there was a screen door there, of course.)   I was surprised they would have let their front door open overnight, and since it was raining I decided to close it.  There were no lights on as I walked through the living room to the foyer.  Just as I reached for the door I heard,  "Good morning, Jeanie" right in my ear!  There in the dark was Dick's dad, and I had not seen him.  He had been looking out at the rain as he waited for me to come out of the bathroom.  Well, needless to say, it scared me like crazy and I managed to keep my scream muffled.  And then we laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed as quietly as we could to keep from waking everyone else! 

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one morning, I also set off their smoke alarm with our too-dark toast!  They apparently have never done that, because they did not even recognize the sound of their own smoke alarm!  I guess I just like to keep things exciting!

During Sunday School, I treated the kids to birthday cake.  It was fun for them all, and very special for Destiny.  She has grown up in Sunday School with these kids.  

After church we ate a packed lunch along with many others.  There was a drama practice immediately following, which we stayed to watch.  We will not be able to be there for the production, but at least we got to watch part of the rehearsal.

From there we went back to Dick's parents' house where Dick took a good nap and Destiny played with the wonderful variety of toys and dishes they have.

I, however, was off to another event.  I, along with my sisters Doris and Mary Ellen, were invited to a 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  This was no ordinary celebration, let me tell you.  Grace and Sam are a conservative Mennonite couple who were originally from our childhood church.  They were farmers and eventually had 12 children!  Over the years they had many hired girls which they invited to this anniversary celebration.  That's how we got invited.  Their family now numbers 109, with several more on the way! 

The summer I was 13 I was Grace's hired girl.  At that time they had four children, a 3-year-old, a 2-year-old, and 9-month-old twins.  I stayed in very close contact with the family over many years.  I had some of the older children as students, and then as a young mother I was a co-leader of the Manheim LaLeche League with Grace.  Without a doubt, Grace was my mothering mentor.  All of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were there yesterday, and it was so very interesting to get to talk to each of her children.  We could have stayed hours longer, but I really did need to leave.

Below is a picture of some of the women in the family busily working in the kitchen.

Grace would probably hate this picture, but it's the only one I have of her.  She's talking and laughing with another former hired girl, Elsie.  

We had a light supper with Dick's parents, then packed up and left for Reading to take Destiny home, then went the rest of the way home, and were in bed by our regular time.

Celebrating Destiny's 10th birthday

We had another packed, but good, weekend in Lancaster County.  First of all I want to share a beautiful sky picture I took on Friday afternoon.

Dick and I made the trip Friday evening, picking Destiny up in Reading first, then on to Dick's parents' house for the night.  They were already sleeping when we got there, but we "sneaked" in quietly and were in our beds by 10:30.

We hung out at their house Saturday morning, then headed out for a day of special activities to celebrate Destiny's 10th birthday (which will be tomorrow, the 14th).  

First we picked up her brother, Frank's son J'von, in Lancaster and took them roller skating.

I'm not sure if J'von had ever roller skated before, so he was falling a lot.  Soon they opted for game.

He did keep working at it and was doing a lot better before we left.  Destiny had fun doing the Limbo.  Here's a really short video of her last round.

When we left the roller rink we told them we would go somewhere to eat.  Where would they like to go?  Can you guess?  Without any consideration it was a unanimous "McDonalds!!"  So we went to the one near the mall that has a great indoor playground.  

 

J'von enjoyed this basketball challenge and did quite well.  Do we have a future basketball player here?

Our evening activity was really special.  Frank's football team, Lancaster Lightnings, had the rare opportunity to play a game at the Clipper Stadium in Lancaster.  Their games are usually held at high school football fields.  Because it was 9/11 there was a special military ceremony during the National Anthem.  It was very emotional to listen and watch and remember.

As if that wasn't emotional enough, I then noticed that Frank and some of his teammates were wearing pink stockings in honor of Cancer Awareness Night.  I knew Frank did that because of Dick's ongoing fight against lymphoma for the past 14 years, and it touched my heart. 

The team's fight against the Pittsburgh Colts seemed like a losing battle for most of three quarters, but then their luck turned, and they ended up winning by one point!  I was hoping to show the score, but my camera did not pick it up from that distance.  (Notice Destiny in the foreground pointing to the end scoreboard!)

Destiny remembers the last time his team played in the Clipper Stadium five years ago, and they won.  She's sure her presence brings his team good luck, hahahaha!   

Here the kids are with Frank after the game, sporting the Lancaster Lightning caps I got for them.

Unfortunately, I also just spent a long time writing about our very interesting Sunday, but blogger has failed me big time and lost it into cyberspace.  I do not have time to rewrite it this morning, so later.....