February 21, 2009

Our princess is ready for church Mark Hochstetler preached the message Sunday on "Love" in honor of Valentine's Day.  We were invited to Don Heatwole's for a scrumptious meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, lima beans, deviled eggs, & cake rolled up with ice cream.  Quite a treat!  Uncle Howards, Myron Brubakers, and Floyd Kauffmans were also there.  We came home and got our naps then I got up and made ham biscuit rollups and cheese sauce for our supper.  Morris Yoder from Montezuma, Ga got here right at 6:30 so we had to very quickly rush through supper then he and I went to the church to get things setup for his presentation tonight.  My wife called me soon after 7:00 and said that she was having a terrible time with Landon and that he was uncontrollable.  She was able to get him in the van and drive to church then he and I had a little prayer meeting in the van before I brought him in.... God give us wisdom...!
Our pecan operation Morris Yoder presented a slide show program on the universe entitled "The Heavens Declare"  He has an extremely well put together presentation showing how the Bible fits in with what we know of the wonder of the universe.  He also shared his personal testimony during the presentation.  We were thrilled that it worked out for him to be here and thoroughly enjoyed the service.  He had to be back in Montezuma the next morning so he left right after the service to head home.
Arranging the centerpiece I was fasting again on Monday.  Ina Sue had a bigger than normal batch of laundry to do.  It was pretty cold today with the morning being around freezing.  I came home from work around 6:30 and spent an hour at home then went over to Carl's to work on his computer for a while.  Pretty late before we got to bed.

I was still fasting on Tuesday.  Still haven't gotten to my target for this week...  I had a very normal day at work. Ina Sue did some baking and finished up the ironing.  After supper we worked for a while picking out pecans.
Grandpapa reads the children their Bible story. Wednesday was a pretty dreary day weather-wise.  It drizzled for quite a bit of the day.  I spent most of the day working in the shop.  Ina Sue did some cleaning and sewing.  We had to really scramble around to get to prayer meeting in time.  Delmar talked about the Carolina Chaplaincy program for our mission emphasis then Uncle Enos spoke on the Old vs. New Covenants.   We were nearly out of gas so we drove on in to Barnwell from church to get gas.
Pressure washing the house Thursday was not such a great day.  I got a call from one of my employees around 8:00 saying that he thought the store had been broken into during the night.  I quickly got ready and left for work.  When I looked at my phone I saw that I had missed several calls from the store and from the police last evening between 9:00 and 9:30.   There were three of them this time that beat the back door knob apart until it disengaged then came in and did there thing.  The burglar alarm called the police and my cell phone but since I do not take my cell phone with me to church and we didn't get home until about 10:00, I never knew anything had happened.  The police responded to the call but when they didn't see any front windows broken and couldn't reach me they chalked it up for a false alarm.  They evidently never thought to check the back doors because the busted doorknob should have been pretty obvious.... 
Mother washed the plants. Anyway, we cleaned up the mess and tried to inventory everything that was taken.  It could have been worse but I am getting pretty tired of this happening.  This makes the 7'th time in about 3 years.  Had a full day of work at the shop but was able to come home just a little early.  Papa & Mother Showalter got here in time for supper.  Ina Sue fixed a new recipe for supper.  German lasagna uses sourkraut and a white sauce instead of hamburger and tomato sauce.  It was quite good actually.   The children were pretty excited that Grandpa and Grandmother had come to our house.  That doesn't happen very often...
The children watch as Papa paints the tin roof. I took the day off on Friday to be with the in-laws.  It was very cold when we got up.  We took the time for a delicious breakfast of breadfast burritos then Papa & I drove over to Carls for a bit.  I did a little work on his computer then we borrowed his power washer.  We mixed up a solution of bleach, soap & hot water then sprayed it on our cornice & siding to dissolve the mildew.  After letting it sit for a couple minutes we would use the power washer to rinse it off.  I really didn't think our house was dirty enough to need a washing but the wife insisted.  After we got done I had to admit that it looked much better.  Sparkly clean & white!  Ina Sue and Mother worked inside touching up paint on the cabinets, washing off plants, and washing windows.  In the afternoon Papa & I cleaned and painted the tin roof over our screen porch while Mother worked on making supper.
Mother helps me transplant vegetables. We had Don & Betty & their family over for supper.  Actually Mother Showalter had brought almost all the food along with her to make this "Birthday" supper for me.  It was quite a spread with Dilly rolls, turkey, mashed potatoes, lima beans, baked asparagus, spinach salad, and a trifle with chocolate cake and thickened cherries.  What a feast!  Unfortunately, I did not feel very well through most of the afternoon and by the time supper was done I really felt chilled and a bit nauseous.  I ended up going to bed while the rest visited.
Burning the brush pile. Saturday was another good day with our company.  Papa & I had to wait until the sun thawed out our garden hoses before we lit up our brush pile in the back.  Papa drove over to Carls and borrowed his skidloader to do some cleaning up and to bury the remains of the burn pile.  While he was doing that, Mother helped me transplant some of my small plants into the greenhouse.  We also finished up our pressure washing job and Papa returned the skidloader and pressure washer.  We rested a bit in the afternoon and picked out more pecans.  Mother and I made up a couple batches of candied ones.  Ina Sue trimmed up our liriope and I took Prince in for a haircut.  Had a restful evening at home.