Today started out a little earlier than I planned but it was a very welcome wake up call from my wife. She had arrived safely at an intermediate destination and she was tired but okay. The USO had provided each person with a free 15 minute phone call home and it was so nice to hear her voice and she was safe. Currently her living arrangements aren't the best in the world but it could be worse - she's living in a tent with 24 other women - kind of a modern day harem if you will!! I doubt their uniforms are veils and mid-riff baring shirts though.
I took advantage of being the only one up and cleaned up the downstairs while the girls continued to sleep. Made my shopping list for a run to WalMart later in the day, took the dog for a walk and read the newspaper. I called my mother-in-law at a reasonable hour when I knew she would be up getting ready for work to let her know about her daughter and then we had a pleasant talk. She said she was surprised and happy to receive the photos with my wife's address on the back - I used a photo of my wife and mother-in-law from my wife's graduation from the master's program at USUHS. Now she can give them out to her friends at church and from her butcher shop in the grocery store. My mother-in-law is very nervous about her daughter being deployed and that is understandable - but at the same time she wants to be as involved as she can be so this helps her a little bit.
The girls were really tired and slept until well past 8am. I had baked biscuits and fried up some sandwich ham I picked up from the meat market. In theory and sight, it should have been pretty good - very nice cuts of meat and just the right thickness and size to fit on the biscuit. But boy were they ever salty!! Must have been double salt cured or something - I had about half a slice and couldn't take anymore. I had also fixed eggs so I went with that and put jelly on my biscuit. The little one wasn't a fan either but the teenager thought it was good. We all agreed that while it was a nice effort, we probably won't pick those up again!! At the same time, I think we were all smelling lunch that I had put in the crock pot - the smell of bar-b-que was really good and made us all look forward to lunch!
The rest of the morning was spent giving the dog a bath, cleaning bathrooms and then I spent the rest of the morning in the teenager's room - she was fussing she didn't have anything to wear to church so we cleaned out her closet and drawers. Let's just go with a little organization goes a long way - I knew her mom had gotten her plenty of dresses and skirts, we just had to find them and put them together. Sure enough, we found plenty of Sunday clothes as well as Monday through Saturday as well. We did wind up with three large garbage bags full of "donate" clothing. Her closet and drawers look very good now - we'll see how long that lasts!
Lunch finally arrived and we had boneless short ribs soaked in bar-b-que sauce, fried potatoes, baked beans and bread. Just in case we didn't have enough sauce on the ribs, which we did, I took the sauce from the crock pot and put it in a bowl so we could dip our rib into it. The ribs got the thumbs up from everyone and the girls want to have this one again soon - it wasn't very hard so we'll certainly do that! Even better, Phineas & Ferb were on TV as we had lunch!! Afterward, we all resisted the temptation for a nap and did a few more things around the house. The teenager also had a ton of homework to get done so she worked on it. The little one helped me.
In the evening we met a few other folks at the church. We drove to the house of a couple who attended the church but have not been physically able to attend the past couple of months. They are in their mid 80's and he is now really sick. It was a very nice service and the lady has always been so kind to us - was nice getting to see her again.
The day wasn't over just because the sun went down!! We stopped for some chicken on the way home and had a late supper. The girls stayed home and played video games on the TV downstairs while I ran to WalMart. We are having a farewell luncheon after church on Sunday. I decided to make banana pudding and baked mac&cheese plus we needed a few other things. I made the pudding when I got home and it tastes really good so I'm happy with that. At the same time, it does mess up several bowls so I had to do a late night sink full of dishes. Trust me when I say I don't function well at all after 9pm!! I'll have to really re-check all those bowls before I put them away! I'll make the mac&cheese in the morning before we go.
The girls devotion today was "Getting clean" referencing Revelation 21:10, 22-27 and talked about salvation. My devotion was "undaunted radiance" referencing Romans 8:37. It talked about things that can get in the way between you and God.
Day Thirty Four comes to a close. Tomorrow is another Sunday but Dr. Yoho will be speaking at all three services so I don't have to be prepared to lead the Sunday School class - here's looking forward to Day Thirty Five!
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