New Jersey Happenings

I finally have some time to blog, so here goes.

Nothing much of interest happened last week, just the usual: work, come home, make & eat dinner, relax a little, water the flowers, go to bed and start over the next day. On Saturday, we went to a wedding - the daughter of a family at our church. We only went to the wedding ceremony and not the reception because Andy had to be at church in the evening for worship team rehearsal.

Sunday was busy with church in the morning. The message was excellent on worship. What is worship? The title was: Idol worship or idle worship. We were challenged that our whole life should be an act of worship, not just something we do on Sundays. One definition that was given was: worship is loving the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength - in every circumstance.

After church Tommy and Dawn came over to eat our usual Sunday brunch of waffles & omelets. They stayed all afternoon; Tommy did some studying and brought along a surfboard to work on, as well. For those of you who don't know, he has a side business of repairing surfboards for a shop in Cherry Hill.

Dawn was involved in organizing a Christian Artists Night at church on Sunday night. It went well, was interesting and enjoyable, and was well attended. I have pictures of her singing, but the lighting was bad and the picture didn't turn out well at all. So you'll have to use your imagination. Most of you have seen and heard her sing, so that shouldn't be too hard.

Yesterday was fun. Amy came down to visit. She brought along her 2 children, 2 adult dogs, and 3 puppies. It was quite an adventure for her, since Joanna is only 3 1/2 weeks old. You can read all about it from her perspective on her blog. We had a good time together. We took the 2 dogs to a young woman in our church who does dog grooming in her home. I always had her do them for me when we had them. She does a very nice job and is cheaper than taking them to the groomer. Then Andy gave the puppies their vaccination shot. They are sure cute at this age, but I'm glad Amy has them now and we don't! She has a much better set-up for keeping them than we did.
We had a good time holding Joanna and playing with Chase (or watching him play - he's so happy pushing his little cars and trucks around) and visiting with Amy.

Say "cheese."

We finally got some rain last night - 1/2 inch - so we won't have to water tonight. That saves us about an hour of time. I think we're going to get a lot more yet. Then the next thing you know, we'll have to cut the grass again! But that's ok; I'd rather have green grass than a brown, crunchy lawn.

The township approved our front porch plans, so Andy will be starting work on that in earnest soon. (Saturday, I hope)

Front Porch, Gardening, Andy's Finger

Andy and I were home today, working around the house. While it was still cool this morning, I trimmed up the weeping cherry tree in the front yard. It was becoming hazardous trying to get out of our driveway because the tree was blocking the view of the street. I much prefer a weeping cherry to weep, but felt it was better to be safe. So I gave the poor tree a "haircut."
Does anyone know the name of this perennial? A friend gave it to me several years ago but didn't know the name of it. It likes the shade.
When it started getting hot, I came into the house and cleaned the bathrooms, dusted the furniture, vacuumed and did laundry. I didn't really feel like doing it, but I did manage to get it done.

Andy started working on the front porch. We received notice from the township that they needed a little more detail on the tops of the columns for the porch, so Andy took care of that this morning. Because of hearing from the township, we figured it wouldn't be too long now that we would be given the go-ahead for the work. So Andy started demolition on the existing landing of the porch. He took off the wrought iron railing, then dug out the bushes.
His little finger is healing quite nicely. If you're not too squeamish, I'm including a picture of it for you. He did not cut it off, thankfully, basically just chewed up the skin and flesh quite a bit. He went to the doctor again yesterday morning for a check up and was told it was progressing as it should. I think it looks a lot better than it did 5 days ago, although I never did see it when it was first injured.

A Little Drama

Today was an exciting day. I was quietly doing my work at the office, when I got a call from Andy. He had run home to cut a piece of wood for someone who was doing a job at the church for him. He told me he needed me to come home right away and drive him to the hospital. He had been working with his table saw and inadvertently allowed his pinky to go with the wood into the saw. He butchered the finger pretty good. I took him to the emergency ward. After examining him, they shot the wound with novacain, then said he needed to go to a hand surgeon. The hand surgeon said the wound would heal better on its own than if he tried to do plastic surgery on it. So he is back home with a prescription for pain medication and a sizeable bandage on his hand.

Andy says he feels really foolish because he's been working with this table saw for over 20 years and never had an accident - until today! Thankfully, it wasn't worse than his little finger.

This evening after supper we walked around our "back 40" and surveyed our "kingdom." I took some pictures along the way.

Andy's dad put in a small garden this spring - 4 tomato plants and some pole limas.


I'm excited about having fresh garden tomatoes soon, but I don't know who's going to eat the limas. Maybe my mother will come visit if I serve her lima beans!

Last fall we decided to move the butterfly bush to a different spot. We chopped up the roots pretty bad and were afraid it might not make it. So I have been babying it along and am happy to report that it is doing well. Here is one of its blooms:
Here is a hydrangea that Andy gave me several years ago. It has such a pretty flower and don't the leaves look healthy?A final note: we are still battling the chipmunks. Andy thought that he was seeing less of them since he put out the rat poison. However, this morning I happened to look out onto our deck and saw one sitting up looking all around so cute-like. Grrr! Maybe there are a few less, but there were so many to begin with. They are still digging their holes and letting us know they're alive and well. Stay tuned for our next line of attack.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

I'm home again after spending a couple more days with Amy and her family. I forgot to take the camera with me this time so there will be no pictures. I went up Sunday afternoon and stayed till this afternoon. On Monday we did laundry all day long. I also helped Amy do some errands and cleaned her bathroom. The rest of the time I held Joanna and played with Chase. Rough life!

Chase is starting to talk. His favorite words are train, car, backhoe, tractor and truck. He can say almost anything, I think, but he has a funny habit of repeating the last word of the sentence you say to him. And if you ask him a question, he doesn't answer, he just repeats the last word you said. For instance, if you ask him: "Chase, do you have a dirty diaper?" He'll say: "diaper." If you say: "Chase, where is your car?" He'll say: "car." You get the idea. It's pretty funny. And if you tell him he's funny, he'll say: "funny."

This morning Amy and I went to Maternity Motherhood and Babies R Us. I had bought a little outfit for Joanna on my way up on Sunday, but we decided it was too big. So we went to Babies R Us to find a newborn outfit so she can wear it right now. We found a very cute one. Maybe Amy will take a picture of Joanna in it and post it on her blog. While there, I also had Amy pick out some shorts outfits for Chase, because he seemed to be getting them dirty faster than we washed them. (We just did the wash yesterday and this morning there was only 1 more clean pair of shorts for him to put on!) Oh, it's such fun to buy things for the grandkids, and I'm so glad their mothers don't mind that I do that.

There is nothing as precious as a newborn baby. I think I could hold Joanna all day long. Every little stretch and whimper is so dear. I'm very grateful for the privilege of being alive and young enough to enjoy the grandchildren God is giving us.

Fun with Family on the Fourth

Andy and I left the house this morning, July 4th, at 8:30, driving an hour and a half to Lancaster County to see Amy, Ricky, Chase & Joanna. We stayed a little over an hour with them before driving to our next stop.We got to my brother Sam's house a little after 12:00 noon for the 4th of July Yoder picnic. None of our daughters and families could be there this year, but here is a list of who was there:
- my Mother
- my Aunt Sis, daughters Edna & Jenny, and Edna's husband, Don and Jenny's husband Miles and 2 sons, Daane & Colton
- my Aunt Anna Margaret
- my mother's life long friend, Sally and her son Victor (my 2nd cousin)
- my brother Sam, his wife Julie and 2 of their sons and their families (Nathan, Krista & Ethan & Erik, Deb & Aubrey and Mindy)
- my brother Wendell, his wife, Rita, and 2 of their children (John with Andrea - recently engaged, and Annaliese)
- my sister Judy and her husband Kerby

My sister, Toot and her husband, Rod, could not be there because of waiting for two of their sons to return home from serving with the military in Iraq. They weren't sure of the time they would be returning but wanted to be home so they could be available for them when they arrived.

We celebrated my Mother's 80th birthday which isn't till August 15th, but this was the best time to treat her since we were all together.
After eating together and visiting for several hours, we left and drove over to see Christy and Christian and their 5 kids. It was good to see them again and spend some time with them. Andy, Christian and all the kids except Patrick and Asher went on a bike ride. Andy is really into biking right now, but what a workout that was. He is used to the flat roads of NJ, not the ups and downs of Pa hills. He and Christian came back drenched in sweat. Of course, they were both pulling / carrying kids.

All in all it was a good holiday. What better way to spend it than with family! We are so blessed.

More on Chipmunks

In case anyone is worrying that we might be doing something illegal in trapping chipmunks, I researched it and discovered that it is NOT a federal offense to do so. I think chipmunks are in the same category as rats, mice and moles: rodents, pests, nuisances. On the site I checked there were even suggestions as to how to be successful in capturing them. Then the site also said it is perfectly acceptable to "humanely euthanize" them.

Success at last

I got home from Amy's last night and went back to work today. My desk had about 4 days mail on it and it took a long time to open it all and take care of it. I love being at work, though, so it was ok. This evening I'm trying to get caught up on laundry and get my menu and shopping list ready for the rest of this week. I think I'll have to do some work on Saturday this week, since Friday is a holiday. I don't know how I'll get everything done tomorrow.

Andy has been having fun riding his bike. He found this program online that maps out routes for you to take. He and 3 guys went on a 45 mile ride on Saturday. Tomorrow morning, he and a friend are going out at 6:00 am for another long ride before work.

We bought a bike for me, too, last winter, but I feel too unsteady on it. And because of my osteoporosis, I'm a little nervous about the possibility of a fall. I would not be a happy camper if I fell and really hurt myself. At this stage of my life, I'd better be safe than sorry. So I'll stick to my "safe" exercise routines in the house.

We finally caught one little Mr. Chippy. But there are a lot more of his relatives still around. Yeah! One for us!