Way too much honesty, again

I discovered something when we went to Kenya five years ago, and that is that your marriage can be all fine and dandy but then you go into a new situation and whoa! you find out all kinds of things about your relationship that you would just as soon not have known, and that you have to painstakingly sort through and salvage.

So the other night we went on a new venture--planning our new kitchen at Jerry's Home Improvement Center.

The lady helping us was nice. Paul was doing his best to be nice.

But I was almost in tears.

This is the deal--too many choices are paralyzing. I need time to think. And by thinking, I mean, looking things over without talking, kneading them in my mind, in silence. You know, THINKING.

To Paul, thinking means talking.

And the harder the decision, the more you talk.

And the harder time your wife has making up her mind, the more, louder, and faster you talk, to help her, you know.

And when she says, "Ummm," which is her way of saying, "I need to think in silence," you don't hear her because you're deaf in one ear.

And when you are sitting in front of the nice helpful lady, a wife cannot turn and say in a loud voice, WOULD YOU PLEASE! STOP TALKING???" because she was raised Amish and doesn't know how to just Say Things Out Loud. Especially in front of a helpful lady who is looking like she feels sorry for you, the husband, for having such a wife.

Yes, well.

Of course I tried to hint and LOOK at him pointedly, which is about as far as you go with an Amish upbringing, and it does not work with a Smucker, for sure and certain, which I should know by now.

Sigh.

Finally the ordeal was over.

Paul marched out to the car, smiling and happy with all we had accomplished, and hadn't it gone well?

We got in the car and I cut loose, letting him know in vivid detail what was ACTUALLY going on and would he MIND and ooooooh, it was HORRIBLE.

Would you believe he still took me out to Olive Garden after that?

Toward the end of the 4-cheese ravioli I squeaked a meek apology for chewing him out.

He smiled and said he hadn't felt chewed out.

I think he actually thought my rant was just finally learning how to think out loud like he does.

Now, the big question, if the planning was this hard, will our marriage survive the actual renovation???

You can vote on this if you like. Yay, nay, or only with weekly counselling.

WNF Facts vs. Truth

Emily is trying to finish up her schoolwork, including a research paper for her health class. She decided to write one on West Nile Fever, but she is discovering the same thing I found while researching WNF when she was first diagnosed: The medical literature is very different from people's experiences.

There's not much out there about WNF, but what's there will say, essentially, "WNF is primarily a mild illness and most people recover in a few weeks with no long-term effects."

Then there are people's stories.

Brenda M. from Arkansas told me her mom was sick for about a year and still has occasional "spells" of illness and weakness.

Yesterday Mrs. Fischer, who teaches the 3rd graders I spoke to, told me her uncle in South Dakota was sick in bed for a year with WNF and has been several years slowly recovering and is now ok, sort of.

"Jay" emailed us about his experiences. He has continued to have devastating daily side effects for years, (8, as I recall)--headaches and "crackling" in his neck and other symptoms.

So what's with that few weeks and a mild illness??

Quote of the Day:
"May your seed be as the sand of the sea."
--Bible verse Jenny chose to put on a bookmark for a woman in church, complementing a lovely beach scene illustration. The woman said, laughing,
"I'm 50 years old; it's a bit late."

Safe, Generic News

Looks like it'll be another nice day.

The geraniums are growing nicely.

Amy baked some cinnamon rolls and they are delicious.

Quote of the Day:
"I'm headed to the warehouse."
--Paul

Today

Today I attended a lovely salad luncheon with about 20 homeschool moms from the Harrisburg/Junction City/Monroe area, including several e-friends such as Kathy and KaraBeagle. The whole group was just plain fun--very welcoming and funny and interesting and affirming. Part of the levity may have been due to the fact that they aren't used to getting together without their 50-some children.

These ladies also prayed for me, my writing, and my family. What a boost.

And once again I was reminded that there are people out there who actually read everything I write, and remember all the details. Once again this has completely freaked me out. Please don't tell me how stupid this is--somehow I get the idea that, yeah, I write but nobody really reads it, or maybe a few people like my in-laws and such. Oh so wrong. Gaaaah! So for the next day or so I will stick to generic information about my life such as, "We had a nice day today and my geraniums are growing nicely."

And then when I am lulled back into thinking Oh well, people probably don't really read this stuff, then I'll describe what it was like to go to the home improvement store last evening, me and Paul, and spend 3 hours planning our new kitchen. Or maybe not.

Different subject: Why was the non-Martha-Stewart Mrs. Smucker vigorously dusting the tops of her green bean and applesauce jars with a feather duster this evening?

Answer: because someone from the Register-Guard is coming out tomorrow to take pictures of them. Not of me. Of my canning jars. For a story on canning and freezing.

You know how media people have their standard people they go to for information? Like Don Kraybill (Graybill?) who is the expert on all things Amish? Well, somehow I have fallen into this strange role with the RG where I am the Expert on all things homey and old-fashioned. Yes, family members, you're allowed to snort in disbelief here.

I thought about sending the photographer to Bonnie's house but Amy said she doesn't can that much any more and freezes most of her stuff.

Quote of the Day:
"At least your life ain't boring."
--Steven, when the home phone and my cell phone kept ringing, one taking off as soon as I hung up the other

Challenges

You know, the Bible says, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."

I am trying to teach my two teenage boys this amazing concept, that there is a connection between working and eating.

Especially the Carnivore, he who will, given the chance, eat meat--just meat--by itself, with no fillers like bread or rice--great slabs and piles of it, bacon and Little Smokies tossed into a frying pan, plain bunless hamburgers at a picnic, and so on. Of course, on some occasions he eats piles of tortillas and bread and such as well, but whenever he can get by with it he fills up on just meat.

Which is an expensive source of calories.

He will also eat half a dozen eggs a day.

And then he also mopes around at 9:30 a.m. muttering dark things under his breath, such as "Why do we have to get up so early?" and "How come we have to work so hard when it's vacation?" "Work so hard," we should clarify, is stuff like putting 25 dishes away and feeding the dog and gathering laundry, not exactly slaving in the salt mines.

So one of my many challenges this summer will be to get my boys to see a connection between that slab of ham on their plate and weeding the hedge.

Another challenge today is locating the source of that horrible smell in the vacuum cleaner. I am 95% convinced there's a dead mouse down in the bowels of the motor.

Quote of the Day:
Matt (setting down the boxes of food and stuff he's carrying for me): Wait, there's a really strong moment here I need to correct.
Me: Huh?
Matt: A moment is force times distance. It causes a rotation. It's like torque, basically.
Me: Ah.

That Nice Lady

Remember when I posted last month about the charming lady in the Chicago-Midway airport who was reading one of my books? Here she is.

I had taken the picture with Paul's phone, but then neither he nor I knew how to get it from there to here. So Paul sent the picture to Matt, who sent it to my gmail address, and in a great triumph of age over confusing technology, I put it here.

Quote of the Day:
"I wish I had a horse to ride, not just a lamb."
--Jenny

Paul's Party Pics

Amy shot the photos at Paul's party. You can see them here.

Column/Email

Our family Juno account swallowed all of our addresses, so I am trying to salvage them so I can send out my May column to everyone on my list. If you normally receive the Letter from Harrisburg via email, and haven't received it yet, please let me know in a comment or at dorcassmucker@gmail.com

Also, if you have family/friends who normally get it but got missed, or if you aren't on the list and would like to be, you can email me about that also.

Thanks.

Laura's Post

My SIL Laura from Poland wasn't able to make it to Neil's funeral last month but she wrote an interesting post about it from her and John's perspectives. It's here at BubblingTeapot.

P.S. : G.S.

I forgot to tell you about the Route 50 garage sales. Well, for me it turned out to be "all signs and no garage sale" (a new metaphor I thought up) mostly because I simply didn't have time. On Friday I could only find two sales and didn't see/buy much except for a pair of men's size 13 black Crocs [real ones, hardly worn, with velcro on the strap, worth $50 or so new] for one of the boys. And then I saw, of all things, green Oregon t-shirts at the same sale. Of course I asked Mrs. Garage Sale what the story was with that. Her niece had attended the U of O and one year they all got Oregon t-shirts for Christmas. I got two, for Ben and Steven.

The next day I had only half an hour at most to spare, so I headed out mostly to look for a microwave for Em's "new" house. I went to a park that was full of tantalizing sales, and at the second booth I saw before me a new, in the box, never opened microwave. How much? $30. I rummaged in my purse and came up with $25 plus change. $25 will do, said the nice lady, and I put it in the car and went back to Em's to pack some more, since there was no point in shopping any more since my money was gone.

I heard other people got truckfuls of bargains. I am happy for them.