I had to zoom over to the farm yesterday to meet the satellite guy. That was what I thought to be the final fix from the tree-falling fiasco of last week. The farm is really rural and there was a county-wide planned power outage yesterday from 7:00am to 1:30pm. This happens fairly frequently as they work on what is often quite old infrastructure. When the satellite guy arrived, the power was still off and didn’t come back on till after he left. He said we were doing this job on faith. Faith that he did the job right and it would work once the box rebooted. Sure enough, the power came on, and the TV worked. However...the internet would not come back on. I called and there was an outage at the main hub. Hopefully it comes back on and we don’t have to have another service call.
I grew up churning butter in Grandma’s kitchen out at the farm. She wouldn’t let us use her good butter churn. She handed each of us a quart jar with some room temperature heavy cream in it and we had to shake and shake and shake till the butter began to separate from the buttermilk. It was hard work I’m telling you, but it was all part of Grandma’s plan to wear us out so we’d go to bed at a decent hour.
I was an absolute a$$ this week to one of my dearest friends in the world. She and I live on pretty opposite ends of the political spectrum and I usually do a decent job of keeping myself in check. But something in me snapped this week and I went way over my line in the sand and I knew I had hurt her. She went quiet. She didn’t open my texts. I realized I had put “being right” over “being smart”. Over “being kind”.
Yesterday was a peaceful day. I made French Toast from my homemade sourdough bread for breakfast. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so divine as that. There is something wonderful about the texture of this bread that is only magnified when it’s coated with a slightly sweetened custard and fried to crispy perfection in one of my magical iron skillets.
I woke up yesterday in one of my favorite places in the whole wide world...TOW-Wanda! Night before last got down into the 60’s and it was perfect sleeping weather in the camper. Mr. FixIt and I went out after supper to watch for meteors and while we were stretched out on the lounge chairs by the pool, we decided it was the perfect night to go “camping”. I gathered what we needed and headed out to the camper and he joined me later when the news was over.
I received a phone call yesterday from my baby cousin. She was the one who lived far away and came to visit us several times when we were growing up. She’s had her hands full...caring for her mom, my favorite auntie. And for her husband, who has been ill for quite some time. They are young...not quite sixty. I remember the first time I got to see her. She couldn’t quite walk and my aunt had her dressed in the sweetest little outfit with a matching coat. Her little curls stuck out from under the edges of the matching bonnet.
When I was growing up, it was a very big deal to get to go to the City Park in my home town. It boasted the “World’s Largest Lily Pond”. I don’t know whether that is true or not, but it did have a massive lily pond that was so gorgeous when the lilies were in bloom. There was a large fountain out in the center of the pond and white swans swimming around. The trees were plentiful and massive...well, they were to a little girl. There were baseball games with lights on the field. There was a small zoo and a museum. There were monuments and cannons and steam machinery. Tennis courts, basketball courts, a covered shuffleboard area. And a swimming pool. There were several covered picnic pavilions and a large activity center called “The Pavilion” where dances were periodically held. At the entryway, there was a large three tiered fountain with a statue of a woman on the top. The water cascaded down and if we were very good, we got to throw a penny in the fountain. We used to go to City Park every year for the Fourth of July Fireworks and Carnival. We had countless picnics there.
We have held church in our living room every Sunday since the lockdown began. Which means we have not attended services with our church family since the middle of February. It’s only been four months, but it seems like a lifetime ago. While I miss my peeps there, I’ve learned that church is not the building we attend. As a matter of fact, those ninety minutes a week we spend there is really such a small piece of who I am as a Christian. I have a supportive group of Christian women in my life. We keep each other in prayer and check in on one another, offering support wherever it is needed. One of my group recently found out she has Covid even though she followed the guidelines. Masks and hand washing are good deterrents, but they are not 100% effective. We know this. But, for now, they are the only bullet in the gun.
Even with everything that’s gone on this year since the initial lockdown, yesterday felt different. Mr. FixIt and I were heading to our great-grandson’s 1st Birthday Party. We needed to make a stop at Walmart to pick some things up to take with us. There is only one entrance open now at the Walmart we shop at.
I finished cleaning the kitchen yesterday and put away the canning paraphernalia for a few days, then headed to the farm. My Uncle “Dudley” was going to be there by 4:00 to cut up the limbs on the tree that came down and fix a few things, so I wanted to be there and have an apple pie baking in the oven when he arrived. I pulled into the drive and...there he was. Well, his truck was there. And the limbs were all cut and moved. I put the cooler in the kitchen and went to look for him.
