Smucker Letter

Since I just wrote my contribution to the monthly Smucker circle letter I will get a little more mileage out of it and use it for a blog post as well:

Yesterday we had our Sunday dinner with special guests Grandma, Conrad,
and Jenny's friend Kaelin Gerig. About mid-afternoon the wind began to
blow like crazy. It reminded me of that out-of-the-blue storm we had in
February of '02 the night we had Phil and Rosie over and we met Phil for
the first time and Rosie was obviously In Love and Paul and I thought it
was a bit alarmingly quick to be that head-over-heels but Phil seemed
very nice and as we can see it all worked out. Anyway, back then as I
recall we visited by the light of a cake pan full of candles as the
house got colder and colder. This time it thankfully wasn't that cold
so even when the power went out it wasn't that chilly. We could also
see just fine, it being daylight and all, but Jenny and Kaelin ransacked
the laundry room cupboard and found dozens of candles that they set all
around the house, and lit, and I got up from my nap and thought it was a
wonder the house hadn't gone up in flames.

Meanwhile the wind blew all our Kenyan wicker porch furniture to the
north end of the porch, except for one piece that ended up on the road.
It also blew the box of cat litter and a few plants pretty far afield,
and put the garbage can out by the road, and dropped a few big limbs off
the oak trees north of here. I have a feeling that if our big old oak
tree hadn't already fallen when it did, this wind would have taken it out.

We got lambs again this year, from the OSU sheep barn rather than a
local farmer as we did two years ago when we got four or five of the
sorriest soggiest specimens you ever saw and two of them died the first
night right after Jenny had fallen head-over-heels for them worse than
Rosie over Phil, and we decided not to repeat that mistake and got five
fluffy, clean, happy little things who already had their shots and a
day's worth of good meals. Well. One quit eating soon after and we all
thought we should worry, but Paul didn't think so, and finally he agreed
that things didn't look good, and I went to Kenneth's and got a syringe
full of penicillin, but it was too late and it passed away peacefully in
a basket in the laundry room. Thankfully it was Paul's lamb and not
Jenny's and he doesn't get too emotional about these things.

I think the cat is pregnant. I made the mistake of thinking Oh, she's
just a kitty, she's too young to have babies, she doesn't have a
boyfriend, etc etc, and then suddenly there was this big cat prowling
around here and for about two days Cleo would have nothing to do with
Jenny and wouldn't even come when she called and would instead run
around the corner of the house with her new boyfriend, which broke
Jenny's heart, and then the other cat left and Cleo was herself again
and now she looks strangely plump and has a few other significant
anatomical differences.

Aunt Susie has had a vision for doing something for and with the
pre-teen girls at church for years and now it's finally happening. We
started meeting once a month and doing projects that are fun and teach
the girls various skills. Last time I taught them a few basics about
cake decorating and a few other ladies helped them make patchwork hot
pads. Lots of enthusiasm so far about all this.

Ever since our trip to Kenya and Poland Paul and I have been feeling a
renewed pull toward foreign missions. At this point we have no specific
leading and it would be quite some time before we could actually cut
loose and go. So it will be interesting to see if this is actually the
Lord's leading or just a whim.

Jenny, Ben, and Steven are all in Rosie's choir which is a blessing all
around.

Jenny has been memorizing Paul Revere's Ride to recite at the ACE junior
convention next month. She has a few of those dramatic genes and is
doing well at it, but I just hope we don't all go stark raving crazy at
the endless repetitions of "the Somerset, British man-of-war" and "the
lonely belfry and the dead" and about a hundred other lines that are
fine if you read them once every couple of years but Way Too Much in
daily doses.

Steven has his license and my nerves are slowly thawing on that subject
and it's getting handy having another driver around. Except we keep
running out of vehicles and the unlucky last person has to take the
van. Steven has been going to Justin Doutrich's after school to do a
strenuous workout called P90X. He comes home exhausted and then vacuums
up any food that isn't nailed down because he's hungry and because
Justin says you need protein after you work out.

Ben took this term of college off to go on our trip and since then he's
been working a lot at the warehouse which I'm told is great motivation
to do well in college so you can do something with your life besides
sack seed. Ben is also singing in a choir conducted by a Louis Lehman
from Fairview, and he just started playing church league basketball. He
is trying to map out his next few years so he can get in all the
required classes at Linn-Benton and also go to Bible school, either at EBI or SMBI.

Emily is also planning to go to LB for spring term and just took her
placement tests today and was very disappointed that she didn't do
better in the math. I said, Dear me, you can't expect to do as well as
Ben did! She hasn't been able to find much of a job but she helps Paul
a lot at school and is hoping to drive combine this summer.

Amy just made the big decision to go into voluntary service in Jamaica
for at least a year. The paperwork takes a few months so meanwhile
she'll be a nanny for Gospel Echoes' next few trips and a few other such
jobs. Jamaica is a long way away which makes me sad but I'm very happy
to see her investing her life in worthwhile pursuits. There's a small
mission in Jamaica that she'll be helping at--teaching a couple of staff
children, doing bookwork, and probably filling in for girls doing foster
care and orphanage work.

And Matt finishes up college this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Lord
willing. There was a miscalculation with their senior project that has
potential for disastrous results but it looks like they've worked it out
and he is on track to be a bona fide engineer and we are all very happy
about that. He has a few possibilities for jobs but is still sorting
that out. Meanwhile he still has his job with the electric company east
of Sweet Home.

With two adult daughters in the house cooking and cleaning I've been
doing some other things like attacking the neglected corners of the
office. It is terrible how papers can accumulate if you don't move
every couple of years. We moved the computer to a different desk and
cleaned out a small file cabinet [and in the process found the social
security cards that have been missing for about four years, next to a
file that said, "Geometry"] and weeded out a bunch of books and tossed a
bunch of old CD's and anyway, it was definitely time for such a
going-through.

I'm also getting ready for a trip to Oklahoma to speak at a ladies'
retreat on April 2nd. It's at Prague, OK, at a small BMA church
composed mostly of ex-Kleinegemeinde/Mexican Mennonites. After the
retreat I want to spend a few days with Fred and Loraine.

Paul has as always had lots of meetings to attend, tempers to soothe,
rice bran to haul, students to help, bills to pay, phones and computers
to fix, sermons to prepare, young adult children to advise, and warring
factions to pacify. He also bought me a bouquet of tulips, just for
anyhow, the other day. He is an amazing man.

Quote of the Day:
[while I was listening in rapt amusement to the newest John Schmid cd]
Emily: Hey, Ben, I have a joke for you--"De voshy katze essa!!"
Emily and Ben: HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!!!!
Me: [Sigh]