It’s Always Good to Get Home

I packed and cleaned up at The Farm before I could fritter away too much time. Mr. FixIt had an appointment in town at 1:00 and he needed the truck. We’re kinda down to one vehicle at the moment. There are a few things we have to do to his before we can use it again. I got home about 20 minutes before he had to leave. He looks even better than he did when I left on Tuesday, which did my heart good. He has his sparkle back in his eyes. He still gets tired pretty easy, but he’s SO much better!

The Former Mrs. FixIt, our daughter, and our great granddaughter dropped in on Mr. FixIt on Thursday. They had been out in the country to the burial service for one of Little Bit’s great grandmothers on the paternal side. They didn’t come in a sit because they were in a hurry to get back to town, but Little Bit needed to use the potty so they stopped in. When they came back out, she looked up and studied Mr. FIxIt.

“Papaw,” she said. “Your house is a wreck!!!”

Mr. FixIt laughed and said, “Well, that’s all the stuff we took out of the camper when we were done camping for the year.”

“Well, you’d better go put that stuff back in the camper!”

She’s not wrong. She has never been in this house when it was in disarray. I can’t stand it when it gets like this. It doesn’t happen often, but we just haven’t had the time to stop and clean everything up. We hit the ground running as soon as we got back from the beach. Then Mr. FixIt got Covid. And things came to a standstill. I took a before photo, because I rarely do that. I don’t like to admit I’m not a neat and tidy internet superstar with nothing left out of place, because I’m not. I’m just gal who loves the outdoors more than cleaning the house. And sometimes that shows!

As soon as he left for his appointment in town, I got to work. I went through both big trunks of camping stuff. I took the food items and put them away in the pantry. I wiped down and tidied up the rest of it getting all of the utensils, kitchen tools, and trailer goods in one trunk to wait for next camping season. The other trunk is ready for food goods.

My next project was to tackle the huge tote of yarn that my friend Steve brought out to me a couple of months ago. It was all of his late wife’s yarn and crochet projects and, if I didn’t have two other tubs of yarn, I might have kept it. All of her yarn was acrylic and I usually just knit with natural fibers. I went through it, untangling a mess of yarn and winding the different colors in balls. I picked out what I thought I would use, and now I have two big bags of yarn to take over to the Former Mrs. FixIt’s next week for her to browse. What she doesn’t want will go on over to our daughter’s house. And if she doesn’t want it, she can pay it forward someplace else like a senior center. I can guarantee it’s not going to be wasted.

When Mr. FixIt got home, he was starving so I made Chicken Parmesan again. I tried moving it from the iron skillet to a covered baking dish and I didn’t like it nearly as well. The coating was not crispy at all like it had been in the iron skillet. To keep the sauce from picking up a bitter metallic taste, I’ll bake it in the iron skillet and heat the sauce up separately. Then I can serve the chicken on a bed of pasta and pour the sauce over all. It was still good. It’s just the texture that didn’t cut it for me.

I’ll hit the family room this morning and see if I can get it in good shape. I want to put up the tree next week. I did hang up one decoration. When my new friend Lonnie closed her little antique mall in East Palestine this fall, she was so distraught. Her home is unlivable because it’s so close to where the train derailed. They ended up buying another house some distance away where they will feel safer… away from the trains. I went into her shop on a nudge. I met her before and I just loved talking to her. But this day, the Holy. Spirit moved me to go in and check on her. We ended up sitting on small stools behind the counter… our knees touching, clapping hands together and I prayed fervently for her to find her way through this and for the Lord to bring her peace with this decision. We prayed for quite some time and eventually her tears lessoned and she breathed a big sigh.

Another customer came in so I browsed around the shop and bought a boatload of things that I love. I admired a wreath she had made. She said when things come into her shop that are special, but not necessarily sellable, she sticks them in a box for inspirations later. Then when the box is full, she makes something with them. She made a gorgeous wreath for her Mom with the best of the trinkets. Then she made this one. She decided not to take it with her when she moves, so she put a price on it and put it in the shop.

I already had so many things by the time I saw the wreath, I just decided it wasn’t going to come home with me because I just couldn’t justify spending that much more and I really didn’t want to put the treasures back that I had picked out. When it was time to pay for my purchases, I had to take several trips to the truck. When I came in the last time, she handed me a big Christmas wrapped package.

“Here. I really want you to have this. Your visit today has helped me so much, you have no idea. I want you to decorate with this and think of me every year when you hang it up. I hugged her again, thanked her profusely, and walked out with this stunning Christmas wreath that I will treasure for the rest of my born days. I was Lonnie’s God Appointment that day, and it turns out… she was mine.

💙