June 28, 2008

Beginning the deconstruction...	Sunday was a wonderful day of rest.  Well almost rest...  I had to get up early and study for Sunday school.  Mark brought a really good message from the book of Jude on "Contending for the Faith".  We had not prepared anything for dinner so we had to fix it on the spot.  I made up a batch of biscuits and we had ham, cheese, tomato & lettuce sandwiches.  Pretty good for a spur of the moment meal.  We took our afternoon naps then I made up a batch of fresh salsa for our supper.  We ate the whole bowl full then when we got home from church I made up another batch and we ate all of it too.  The service tonight was a song service taken completely from the book of Psalms.
Brian puts up new headers.	I had what looked like a terribly full week of work waiting for me Monday morning.  I went in at 6:15 and started to tear down the back wall of the store (just slatwall fixtures, not the actual wall)  I worked pretty much solid until 11:30 in the evening tearing down the old headers from our slatwall and redoing things.  By 11:30 we had most everything ready for our painters to get started in the morning.  Ina did the normal Monday laundry, straightened up the house, and picked the tomatoes.  In the evening Naomi called and invited us over to their house to visit with Daryl & Rosetta Gingerich.  Unfortunately, I was stuck at the shop for Ina Sue and the children enjoyed the evening there along with Andys and Gordons.
Our diligent RS district manager worked very hard to help us get set up.	I went in to work at 8:00 on Tuesday and worked feverishly to get some carpentry work done in time.  I had to build panels to go from our slatwall fixtures up to the ceiling so that the painters could paint them and line it up with the rest of the store.  The painters started painting the walls Radioshack red right after 9:00am.  By 3:00 I had things all ready for them to finish up and rushed home to change clothes.  I met Royal Barnhart in Columbia to drive up to Virginia together for my PRMC meeting tomorrow.  We got to Mt. Crawford around 10:30.  Ina Sue meanwhile was finishing up the ironing and picked the produce from the garden.  In the evening she took the children in to Barnwell to our new McDonalds for a treat and playtime in their new playground.  The children loved it!
The end result.	Royal and I went to the PRMC meeting at Pike church at 8:00 Wednesday morning.  We had a fairly good meeting and met with the SMC finance committee after lunch.  Adjourned around 2:30 and went by Mole Hill Bikes to pick up a unicycle for Carl.  We also stopped in at Oren Jr.'s new house and checked out his house and a poultry litter machine he is testing.  We got left for SC around 3:30 and got home around 11:00.  Ina Sue and the children made a big batch of salsa.  She ended up with 13 pints.  When I got home I was thrilled to see that she had also mowed our front yard.  It really needed it but I was having a hard time finding the time to do it.  Carolina Sue had a fever and a sore throat so they opted out of our small group meeting this week.
At Edisto Gardens in Orangeburg	Thursday marks the 1 month date until the expected arrival of model #3.  I got up and picked over our bean patch while Ina Sue made us baked oatmeal and fresh peaches for supper.  I went in to work and Ina Sue got ready for her weekly baby doctor appointment.  Carolyn Heatwole came over and stayed with the children.  Our Radioshack district manager had volunteered to help us setup our shop if we got their new fixtures.  He was there first thing in the morning and within a half an hour had already succeeded in slitting his wrist.  It was actually a very nasty cut that he accidentally hacked across his wrist with a box cutter.  Thankfully it didn't seem to hit any arteries.  I asked him if our store really looked so bad that this was his only way out...?  :)
Watching the ducks.	He worked really hard for us and came up with some really nice new suggestions for us.  We weren't done by the end of the day but were starting to see progress.  He came home with me and shared a delicious supper with us that Ina Sue had prepared.  Garlic bread, stuffed taco shells, green beans & hollandaise sauce, herbed carrots, fresh tomatoes, and homemade ice cream & pecan pie for dessert.  Ina Sue very kindly volunteered to clean up while I took Hunter back in to his motel and went by the shop to do some more work.
Garden work.	We made yet more progress on Friday.  It is really good to see the remodel work making a big difference.  We worked hard and got most of the major sections of the store in place.  Hunter made some last minute suggestions to keep up the progress then headed out around 5:30.  We really appreciated all the work he did for us.  Ina Sue spent the day cleaning house.  She made up a batch of purple PlayDoh at Carolina's request.  In the evening I picked up the rest of the family around 6:30 and we drove up to Orangeburg for the evening.  Picked up subs from Substation II and went to the Edisto Gardens to eat them.  Spent a while walking their beautiful boardwalks until it got dark on us.  I picked up two signs that Plain or Fancy Signs had made for us then we drove over to Walmart.  I stayed in the van with Landon and we rested while the ladies did their shopping.  Landon seems to be coming down with a fever.
Digging the potatoes	We had a big day planned for Saturday.  I got stared early on the mowing and finished it up by 11:00.  Then Carolina Sue and Landon helped me dig the potato patch.  We were very happy with our harvest.  A few of the potatoes were starting to sprout already but they were easy to break off.  There were very few bad spots and a lot of great big potatoes.  We got plenty of potatoes to keep for eating fresh and also to can a bunch.  Ina Sue sorted the potatoes and cleaned them up.  We both spent time in the afternoon scrubbing the skin off of the small and damaged potatoes to prepare them for canning.  Ina Sue canned 8 quarts before we went to bed.  I had to go in to the shop for a little while in the late afternoon but didn't stay too long.  In bed by decent time.