Happy another year, Kathy!

Bounty of the week.

My sister is another year older today. I won’t tell you how old, just that she is in between me and my other two sisters. Technically she is between my brother, who is younger than me, and our other sisters, but who gets technical. I could call her my big sister only because she is taller than me. So let’s face it they are all taller than me. I am the shrimp. Anyway it is her birthday, and I wish her many more and much fun and frivolity today.

I would like to report that though it isn’t super hot, the sun has returned and it is a fairly nice day here in the Heartland. We had a rather nice shower yesterday, and the garden was still muddy enough that I used my crocks instead of regular shoes so that I wouldn’t be dragging mud every where. I tried to do a bit of weed pulling, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I really need to start doing some simple exercises as I am losing all of my muscle tone. Yikes.

I did get a little picking done. I am only half way finished with the beans, and since I only took the largest, I will need to do it again tomorrow. The yellow squash are producing quite well, though I almost miss the green zucchini this year. I am still waiting on the tomatoes to start turning red in abundance. Why is it that one only wants what isn’t ready.

Well I posted a photo at the top to show you what I have picked as of late. There are four more yellow squash, but I left them off the picture. See one, you see them all. I accidentally picked a couple of carrots while pulling weeds. I guess that ends the weeding in that area. I should start picking beets and preserving them. Perhaps a pot of vegetable soup would taste good this evening. I may have to consider that.

Here at the bottom I am leaving you a couple of shots of a pheasant rooster. He seems to think that the garden would be a nice place to find some supper. If he comes in to eat some of the bugs in the area, I am all for it. I love listening to his call in the morning. I just hope the fox that Victoria saw on one of her runs to the east of the creek doesn’t get any ideas about a pheasant lunch. Well, that is all for now.

Pheasant on the dike. Taken through the door window.

Pheasant sneaking away after I opened the door.

Again, Happy Birthday tall sister!

Pea thief

Audrey the pea thief

This is all she gets for now.

First tomato

We have a pea thief in our neighborhood. Well let’s be honest. There is a thief living right on our property. It happened the day after we left Jaxon with his parents in Hebron. Paulina stayed there too. James and I went to Mobridge to church where I filled in for the pastor substituting for our pastor, who is on sabbatical. You figure that one out. James went inside to watch tv and I went to pick peas. Audrey was off the chair and she followed me around the garden on the outside while I picked on the inside. Soon I felt a tug on the fence. There she was, reaching for peas on the outside while I was picking on the inside. She decided to eat them right off the vine. Of all things. She ended up back on the leash. Yesterday, James let her off the leash a bit to run free in the yard. He came inside for a drink, and wouldn’t you know, there was Audrey beside the peas munching away. She is back on the leash. I did round up a few of the left over peas from last week that were going bad. She is now allowed to eat what we give her. Pea Thief!!

By the way, I picked the first, nearly ripe tomato yesterday. It is only a cherry tomato, but will be great on a salad today. That is if the stomach allows such a food as a salad. I am having a terrible few days right now. I sort of think it is a bit of exhaustion from the events of the past two months. Maybe I will take a nap and see if that helps. Take care for now.

Lazy Monday

The sky looks like rain.

I feel like this is a lazy Monday. I just feel like I haven’t been doing anything constructive all day. Mostly it is the weather. It has been hinting about rain all day, but nothing has happened. Here is the shot of the sky to the east. The worst seems to have gone over, but it is still hinting. Well, I didn’t believe the hint, so I spot watered the garden for about an hour. But really I haven’t done anything.

I also have two loaves of bread on the counter cooling off. Doing that wasn’t much, what I should do is clean the counter and the mess, but I can’t get motivated. Instead I sat down and burned photos onto some blank CDs. I needed to clean off the digital disk so that I could share more photos with all of you.

I did go outside and take some garden photos. The cucumbers are starting to grow. I picked two today. The plants are drying up. I was afraid that they were frost-bitten. It has been so cold here, and it is supposed to continue in this cold spell. It has gotten down to 40 degrees on some nights. Heck it is so cold that Audrey doesn’t even want to come out of the shop.

Now, I do want you to check out the pumpkin plants. They have their leaves in the air like they are waiting for the rain to show up. Also the Zinnias and the Echinacea are blooming. I love how the flowers all have their little space of summer. The focus just sort of goes around the yard as the different flowers bloom. So enough for today. The noon whistle just blew. I need to get to the bank then home to wash some dishes. I should be working on the sermon for next week. On Saturday it is James’ birthday, and I shouldn’t be working on it then.

Pumpkins with their leaves looking for rain.

Cucumbers are growing, lots of weeds too.

Tomatoes have lots of fruit, but they aren’t getting ripe.

Zinnias are blooming.

Echinacea

Hosta in bloom

Sophia was asleep until I tried to take her picture.

Prayer

The following sermon was preached on July 28, 2013 at the United, United Church of Christ in Mobridge, SD. The scriptures were: Luke 11:1-13 and Colossians 2:6-19. The children’s message was a story book with pop ups about saying thank you to God in the form of prayer.

Prayer

Prayer: What can we say about prayer? In thinking about this, I couldn’t help but think of one of Garth Brooks’ songs where he has a chorus that starts out: “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers… The song is about a man meeting his high school sweetheart and realizing how blessed he is to have the wife that he has rather than the old girlfriend he wanted so badly back when he was young.

I think of so many times when people have said, “I’ll pray for you.” When I was younger and someone said that to me, I was offended. In fact, I will be more open that I expected to be and share a personal story right now. I remember back to the year I spent after college before I found my first teaching job. I ended college in the middle of the year and couldn’t find a teaching job at that mid-year spot so I took a job working in a restaurant/bar about 20 miles from my home. It was summer and I was working weekend nights usually until 2 a.m. One Sunday after a fairly long night of work, I went to church and must have looked pretty tired. A high school friend was there with her new minister husband, who was doing a guest pulpit supply at our church in Herreid. When the service was over and I was going to congratulate her on her husband’s abilities, they came and tried to put their hands on me to “pray” for me a poor sinner, because obviously I looked tired from my “bad” life style. Unfortunately, or fortunately I am not sure which, I haven’t seen her since to change my attitude about the situation.

See prayer wasn’t something we talked about in the home where I grew up. My mother held the belief that we will talk about more a little later, the belief that prayer is something you do in private by yourself, with just you and God. We didn’t even have the table prayers that I learned to enjoy so much when I became part of James’ family. At large family gatherings his mother would say, “quiet now, Dad is going to pray, and James’ father would recite the Lord’s Prayer for us as a table blessing, then in order all of the children still in school would say Lord bless this food for Jesus sake, Amen, and it would go around the room from oldest to youngest until it was finished. We don’t do that anymore, but it sure is a great memory of that family.

No, for me growing up, prayer was not something that I examined until I hit my confirmation classes. When I grew up in Herreid, the Congregational Church did not stand alone. For a period of years we were a Yoked Parish sharing a minister with the Lutheran and Methodist Churches. It was great for the young people. I think the only thing that we messed up in that union was not participating in the Pilgrim Park camping experience. Neither the Lutherans nor the Methodists had a camp, so we really missed out, but I am getting off track here. We held a joint confirmation and in it learned the polity of all three denominations. I think that I still have some of my paper work from those meetings. When we moved back to Herreid, and I was organizing a few boxes I actually looked through a paper I had to write about prayer when I was in the 9th grade. I think some of those beliefs have probably stayed with me.

Over the years I have had a hard time opening up and telling people who I would pray for them. I have always been reluctant to over step my boundaries. Yet there was one hot afternoon when I was teaching in Montpelier, ND, that I couldn’t stop myself from praying openly and intensely. Again, I haven’t ever shared this with anyone except that other two staff members who were with me. We had let school out early because of the heat. Three of us were sitting around and visiting. It was early in the school year and we were trying to catch up from the summer. We were in the outer office and could hear the emergency scanner. There had been an accident. At first we ignored it, then as they were calling for more and more assistance, we began to realize it was a car of our students. We went to the scene, yes, you aren’t supposed to do that, but we had to know. They ran under the back of a gravel truck because they were speeding and it was dusty, and I have never prayed so hard in all of my life. Fortunately they all survived. The boy in the back was in a body cast for most of the year, the girl in the front lost most of her teeth, and the driver was banged up a bit, but they survived, and we were so grateful. We were never let out early for heat again.

Today’s gospel text starts with the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, the prayer that we call, The Lord’s Prayer. Some churches call this prayer the Our Father, and with that in mind, we could go into a discussion of the various parts of this prayer, or why some texts or denominations recite the prayer one way while others recite it another way. Though I have strong feelings on that subject, I don’t think that I have a solid enough academic background about it to speak with any authority.

One more side track into a personal story. I am a stance believer in the separation of church and state, and one reason is an example that happened to my middle daughter. One of her volleyball coaches used to insist that they say the Lord’s Prayer together before they left the locker room. Victoria and one other girl said the prayer as we do with the debts words. During one particularly tense evening, he yelled at them about why they couldn’t say it the right way as the others did.
But let’s not do the specifics. Rather, I would like to examine this prayer more in general terms. One of my “expert” texts that I often refer to suggested that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. It was part of a tradition of the era in which disciples were taught how to pray by their leader, and could be distinguished by the manner in which they prayed.

Others suggest that the disciples noted the sincerity, the completeness that could be seen when Jesus prayed. They saw he really meant his prayers. Jesus was real when he prayed. Perhaps it was a direct contrast to the type of prayers they had been so used to seeing from both those who worshiped other Gods and the leaders in the synagogue, who were all about show and drama so people would notice them praying. This is reinforced in the version written by Matthew that suggests we are to offer our prayers in private, since God already knows the longing of our hearts.

The second part of the text of Luke is a parable that is found only here. The story is about a man knocking on the door of a friend asking for bread. It seems to suggest that persistence is all we need to have our prayers answered. A closer look at the text lets us know it is not persistence, but more a word meaning trust, like the trust a child has for a father. A trust that God the Father will give when we ask. I still have trouble looking at this passage, until I get to the end and see that what is being asked is for the Holy Spirit. It isn’t for some useless worldly thing; it is for the spirit that comes to us when we turn our lives to God. It is the same spirit that Christ sends to us as our Comfort and guide because He, Jesus, is not able to be with us in a human presence. This is what the disciples recognized about Jesus when He prayed, this is why they asked to be taught to pray, so they could have that spirit, that connection to God.

I will share one last personal prayer story. Sometime in the last couple of years, I read the book, The Help. I watched the movie, too, but what I am talking about is more prevalent in the book. The main character, Aibileen, keeps a prayer journal. She writes her prayers as a way to be more focused. I liked that idea, and have adopted it. I probably don’t do it as often as I should, but I too find that it really helps me to focus. It helps me be more real, and to tune out all of the other thoughts that crowd around in my mind when I should be focusing on that knocking, that knocking on God’s door.

Focusing on praying and focusing being the trusting child that God expects us to be is what our prayers should be. We need to be focused as we ask for not worldly things, not trivial issues, but for the comfort and the wholeness and the Holy Spirit to enter us and walk with us just the way Jesus promised us it would if we just ask for it. Go ahead and ask, God is just waiting to open the door. Amen.

Jaxon and family moved

Jaxon wasn’t interested in moving this morning.

The moving van backed up to the house.

The creek actually cuts through the property.

View of the house from the back.

From living room looking towards the rest of the house.

Inside the main room looking at the living room.

Kitchen.

Jaxon’s room. Not sure the décor will stay.

Today was the day we all knew would come. It was the day that Jaxon and his mom and dad actually got to move into their new house in Hebron. I thought that I would cry, but I didn’t. I don’t even feel super sad. I guess it is because I am so tired. Actually the truth is that I feel bad that I wasn’t more attentive. Last night I finally got it. I made James stop washing dishes so he could just sit and be with Jaxon. Let this be a lesson to all the grandparents out there. Take the time when you get it. Heck, let this be a lesson to all the parents. You will never get the time back. The dishes can be washed, the floors can be swept, and the computer games can be played anytime. Those little ones are only little for a while. Enjoy them now.

Jaxon in love

In the sandbox with “that girl.”

Jaxon with two girls on their swings.

As is usually the case, the day that someone is leaving a place, they find a friend or a favorite past time. This morning Jaxon woke up talking about a girl. He wanted to see “that girl.” Tonight when we finally got home from Bismarck where Nate and Victoria signed the final papers, he threw a complete fit about “that girl.” As is turns out, he wanted to play with the middle daughter of the minister who lives next door.

Victoria made the comment this morning about dad and the minister next door both having the name James with a last initial of H. I also noted that they both have three daughters. Vic thought it would be confusing for the people in the area. I think it is hilarious.

Well as luck would have it the four black chickens owned by the minister came into our yard and Jaxon chased them back. The girls looked out the window and he said hi. Pretty soon they came outside and well, the rest is history. Check out the photos above. I tried not to show the faces of the girls since I don’t have permission to post them, but hopefully you get the drift. I pretty much think it is total infatuation!!

Jaxon time

Jaxon in the sandbox.

Eating S’mores.

Chocolate face.

I thought today would be the day to work on the next sermon. I preach three Sundays in a row. Yikes, can’t imagine doing this every Sunday, though maybe I could. Hmmm. Went to my room, did a little reading, lots of computer games then some dozing.

What I really enjoyed about this day was the time spent with Jaxon. We played together in the sand box then I had to clean him up into a new outfit because he wanted to spend the majority of the time burying his feet and hands. He was sand from head to toe.

Later this evening when Victoria went along to Eureka to play softball, we had more alone time. We watched tv and played some computer games until he got mad and said that I didn’t let him play. I thought he was telling me to help him. Next he wanted a S’more. I wasn’t sure at first what he was asking, but when I figured it out we got to work. We made a microwave S’more the way Paulina does it. Jaxon loves how the marshmallow grows in the microwave. Anyway, it was bathtime when he finished with that. Another outfit messed up for the day.

Now we are sitting in the living room and he is playing with his cars on his carpet full of roads. What a day. This will be one I will treasure in the weeks and months to come. On Friday his parents sign papers, and on Saturday they move all their belongings from Jamestown to Hebron. A new phase in the life of a Dakota family on the fringe of the oil fields. At least with this phase they will be together every night and on days off.

Garden update photos

Who makes someone get up this early? By 7 a.m. I was already home from taking James to Linton to catch a van load of coaches to the coaches clinic. Well if you want the real story it was me. I wouldn’t let him leave a car on the street for four days. The main thing is that on Friday Victoria needs to go to Bismarck, and James needs to come back. I wasn’t sure how he would get two cars back here since she is going to Jamestown with Nate after they sign papers on the Hebron house.

I am sitting on the porch and no one can see me as they walk by. I love it. It is fun to watch them check out the view and make comments, and they don’t know I am here because of the trees. Actually, I don’t hear many of the comments either, so the joke might just be on me. I will show you what they saw of my mom’s place today. There are patches of red on the ground because we had Steve spray down the weeds. The drive way doesn’t get enough action to keep them out without a bit of spray. The little, old-looking “barn” you see in the distance is the car shed that needs a paint job. I was thinking of getting at it this week, but I have decided to enjoy these few days left with Jaxon instead of driving myself crazy working on some project that could wait another month or two.

Mom’s house view from my back door.

After I got back home this morning, I fertilized the vegetable garden. It really needs a good weeding, but in some places, it is too late to pull the weeds because the plants will come with, namely the carrots. I also need to get some powder on the cabbage. I found a worm crawling on one today, and I have noticed that something is eating it. I am not interested in the extra insect protein in my salad down the road. I think that I will try the plain flour thing that I did last year on the tomatoes. It worked like a charm on them because the grasshoppers couldn’t get a foot hold because of the flour. Also their was no poison transferring into the plant.

Whole garden view. I had my coffee cup on the fence post while I watered.

You can see the lettuce is out of control and the beets need weeding and the cabbage is…

Sadly while I was fertilizing and watering, I broke off a part of the only pepper plant that is producing at this time. I put some root hormone on it and stuck it in a pot. I don’t expect it to grow, but we will see what happens. I have also given you an update on Jaxon’s “Magic” bean plants. I may just have to send those with him to his new house. Other photos explained in their captions. I hear people in the house, so I will go now and see what they are up to. Happy gardening to you all!!

Broken piece of pepper plant.

Northeast corner of the house. This is the garden I was going to fix first this year, and again it is last on the list. At least the new and transplanted hostas are still alive.

Jaxon’s “Magic” beans.

Mary and Martha: Mystery of God

The following sermon was presented at the United, United Church of Christ in Mobridge, SD on Sunday, July 21, 2013. The scriptures followed the common lectionary and were: Amos 8: 1-12, Colossians 1:15-28, and Luke: 10:38-42

Mystery of God

I didn’t give Lana a title for the sermon to be put in the bulletin, though ironically, I wrote one before I started the sermon. Interestingly if I had looked at it, really looked at the title, I might have spent less time trying to write the sermon. See, I have been trying to write this sermon all week. I would sit at the table or hide in my room, and it just didn’t happen. I couldn’t get it to work. I had some sketches written out from my thoughts after I read through the scriptures about a week ago, I was excited, it should have all fallen into place, but it just wouldn’t go.
I personally think that God has quite a sense of humor. Last winter we skipped a few Sundays of attending church. Yesterday we were in Wishek in the morning for a funeral and in Lisbon in the later afternoon for a wedding and now we are here this morning. I guess we are making up for lost time. So it seems that God was pulling a joke on us just like with my title.
My title is “Mystery of God” which comes from the lesson in Colossians. Well, God sure was making a mystery of the ‘oh so’ common gospel lesson we have today. This lesson in Luke is about Mary and Martha. The Mary and Martha who are sisters to Lazarus showed up on this very same Sunday three years ago when I filled in for Pastor Keith. On that particular day we talked all about Martha and her attention to detail and her fussing and cooking and working to be a great hostess for Jesus and his followers, and in the end we found out it was Mary who was doing what Jesus really wanted.
I realized early this week that we weren’t going down that same road today. I knew the wise thing to do would be to talk about Mary, but Martha just kept coming back. I was making myself Martha all week. I was making lists of what to do and leaving them for my daughters and James to “help out.” I was concerned about the unpacking (We are still trying to assimilate all of the items from the house we lived in when we were in Linton the past two years. Add to that the fact that Victoria has been with us during a house sale and purchase, which is why she is gone today, they finally sold one and are doing the final walk through on the house in Hebron, which they close on this Friday.). I was also concerned about weeding the garden and picking whatever has ripened. And on top of that, I was in a dither about getting the cable hooked up in the houses that I own with my sisters, and the list goes on.
I even went so far in my sermon writing efforts as to pick out a favorite book of mine to use as a comparison of what was happening with Martha. I was convinced that this passage worked with the original version of the book, Cheaper by the Dozen. That book was written about the Gilbreth family who had 12 children and lived in the 1920’s. The father was an efficiency expert, and he used his family to test out his theories. He also felt that time should never be wasted. A point he really got across to me. He was such a fanatic that he figured out tasks to be done while brushing teeth or bathing, etc… It seemed to me like the perfect correlation to go with Martha and all her work, her details of being a hostess. But that sermon just wouldn’t work. It wasn’t there. I was stuck. I finally had to let it go. I had to erase what was written, walk away, do my many tasks and hope some inspiration would hit me.
And wouldn’t you know, God in the infinite mystery of the way God operates, did hit me. It happened after I spent the afternoon working in the garden then moving furniture for the cable people and finally when I was through organizing supper, and I took some time to wash up. It was there in the quiet of being alone, that I realized the book of correlation wasn’t the Cheaper by the Dozen, which I thought went with the actions of Martha. No, it was a little tiny book called, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. The actual title is Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff. It was published in 1997 and written by Richard Carlson. It was a book that fits with Mary.
I don’t know when I bought this book, though I have had it for many years, and I am sad to say I have never read it. I must admit that I have lots of books like that at my house. One of these days I will have to start reading them. Anyway going through the list of chapters, I couldn’t believe what was there. Ex: 1. Learn to live in the present moment, 2. Repeat to yourself, “Life isn’t an emergency,” 3. Choose your battles wisely, 4. Give up the idea that more is better, 5. Choose being kind over being right,( Now I know that I have to read this book!) and finally 6. Become a better listener. Yes, now I finally get it, this book is really about Mary.
As much as I might want to go back to that old sermon and talk about Martha, today this story is about Mary. Mary, when you look up that name in my Everybody in the Bible book, you find seven entries, including Mary the mother of Jesus. The Mary of today’s story should not be confused with Mary Magdalene who finds Jesus in the garden after he rises on Easter, but according to the gospel of John, she is the Mary who anoints the feet of Jesus with ointment, an act which upsets Judas for its wastefulness.
Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived in the village of Bethany. Bethany was just outside of Jerusalem, a suburb sort of. It is a good place for Jesus and the disciples to stop and rest. Imagine having someone of Jesus’ popularity stop at your home. It was a big deal for Martha to host someone of his status. And perhaps it was even a bigger deal for Mary to spend the time sitting near him and listening to his teachings.
What Jesus was offering wasn’t just a new product. It wasn’t like the traveling salesmen of my younger days. I think of the people who traveled around selling vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias. He wasn’t just offering up some new thing or a new fad to follow. This was Jesus, the Son of God. Because of him and the fact that he died on the cross, the rest of us have the opportunity to become God’s children, sort of like adoption as Paul states in Colossians, though we can inherit the kingdom because of Jesus, we do not have that same exact birth right. Jesus is the first-born; Jesus is the only begotten son of the Father. It is only through him that we have an opportunity to know the Father.
We don’t live in the age when Jesus walked on this earth. We didn’t have the fortune of Mary or Martha. We didn’t get to invite the physical human Jesus into our homes for lunch or supper or even over night. What we have is the stories about Jesus and the teachings of Jesus and the opportunity to share what we have learned about the man Jesus, the man who was the physical form of God.
In the Old Testament scripture that Ann read for us today, we heard a whole lot about gloom and doom. The text of Amos was actually the alternative scripture today. The Amos reading, too, goes along with the idea of looking at Mary. The other scripture is the story of when God came and talked to Abram and was entertained by Abram and Sarah and told they would be the parents of a great nation. But not so with the Amos passage. In Amos we hear about how that great nation has fallen away from following God.
In the passage just before what we read, Amos the prophet points out how far King Jeroboam and the people of Israel have strayed from following God. When he is told to get out and leave the king alone, Amos says that he didn’t set out to be a prophet, he was just a plain herdsman when God pointed him into prophecy. Amos simply did as God told him to do. In the end, Amos warns the people of Israel that if they do not repent they will face a great famine, but it won’t be a famine of food or drink; it will be a famine of the word of God. They would hunger for God’s plan, but would never be told what it is.
Mary wasn’t worried about the physical food or drinks or details of the gathering. Mary was concerned with learning at the feet of the Master. Mary’s hunger was for the word, the plan. Mary was taking advantage of learning all she could from Jesus while he was there in her community, in her time, in her house.
I know that I have used this same thought, perhaps this same phrase in the past. We may not have the human, physical Jesus with us here in Mobridge, South Dakota in 2013. But, we have his words. We have his stories, his parables, and his teachings as recorded by the disciples and others who knew him. We have the Bible, and we are free to read it in our own language on our own time and listen to what he teaches us through his words. We don’t face the famine that Amos warned us about.
One of the themes of our denomination, The United Church of Christ is that God is Still Speaking. Yes, I do believe that God is still speaking through his word. Every day in every place that we take the time to read His words, or pause for prayer, he is speaking to us, and telling us what he needs us to do. Just as Jesus upheld Mary when Martha was complaining about her sitting around while there was so much to do, so too Jesus up holds us as we read and study His word and take the time to listen for what it is we need to do in His name. All we have to do is give God some time and an ear or two so we can get the message. Let’s take some time this week to sit at his feet and feast on his words. Amen!

Ups and downs

Jaxon enjoying jelly bread and Scooby Doo on the iPad.

So today was one of ups and downs. It started this morning when I was packing up to participate in the Farmers Market in town. I have never been successful at doing this, but I just had to try again. I did end up selling two small bags of sugar peas, and took home $1.oo. It was really a bust, but I am pretty sure that I will be back again if not next week then the one after that.

I will start with the down. I was late to the Farmers Market because I couldn’t find the envelope that contained my $1.oo bills. The big issue is that the envelope also contained all of the cash that I own. I know I should put that money in the bank, but I don’t want it to disappear as it would there. Anyway, when I was cleaning out the place I normally keep it, I stashed it in another spot, but who knows where that was/is whatever.

All I kept telling myself as James and I were tearing through place after place is that I am not losing it. There was a report on TV the other night that said misplacing your keys (in my case money) or forgetting where you parked your car (in my place envelope) is not a sign of losing it, but not knowing what they are when you find them, that is a sign.

Anyway, I went to the Farmers Market, sat through a bunch of people either saying hello then gushing over the other people’s items, or worse, they would walk past me as if I wasn’t even there. Oh well, I brought a magazine and did some reading. Maybe next time.

The short version of the story is that the girls and Jaxon and James came to visit while I was at the Farmers Market. I found the cash and all the photos and such that were stashed with it when I got home. I was so excited that I decided to do some tree and grass trimming while James push mowed and Victoria mowed at Patsy’s house. Paulina washed her car and Jaxon helped out Grandma and Grandpa right after he showed Mama (Vic) the sticker that he got at the bank. Fortunately we got all the trim work finished and most of the weeds loaded on the pickup about the time the technician from Valley Telco called. It was time to get the cable installed at the two houses.

While I was busy with the cable business, the girls and Jaxon spent some time in the pool. It didn’t take long for Jaxon to tire of the whole thing, and they let him have a seat on the couch with the iPad watching Scooby Doo. The photo of him is what you see at the top of the post. The other excitement of the day came when Nate called Victoria to tell her they would be signing on the house in Hebron on Friday.

When it rains it pours. This is the week that James goes to the Coaches Clinic from Tuesday through Friday. On Friday he has a Dr. appointment to set the plan for his sore knee. Before that they need to do a “walk through” on the house to make sure that it is all up to snuff. Add to that, Nate’s company picnic on Thursday and I preach again on Sunday of next week. I suspect I won’t have to sit through another Farmers Market next week. Yipee.

Oh ya, we will be out of town tomorrow. We are going to Wishek in the morning for a funeral of a friend of mine from Church Conference. After that we are going to Lisbon to the wedding of James’ nephew, Loren. I believe he was the sponsor for Loren’s confirmation. We aren’t staying because I preach in Mobridge on Sunday. Oh well, catch you later.