If the title of this post sounds strange, it's really just a typical week in our home. Around here we talk about typical winters as cold and rainy. We often miss the snow by a few degrees and instead get rain and 35 degrees. This week we got a little closer, though in the form of ice and not snow. I didn't work Tuesday in anticipation of bad weather, and it ended up being a clear day. Tuesday night the rain/sleet set in and gave us a beautiful (if dreary) welcome to Wednesday. From Job 37 we get a reminder not to complain during these dreary days of winter, for Elihu reminds us that "5 God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend. 6 For He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth'; Likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength. . . .9 From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind, And cold from the scattering winds of the north. 10 By the breath of God ice is given, And the broad waters are frozen."
So where does shopping come in? Due to the ice that did come, I didn't work on Wednesday either, so in the morning I went over to Lancaster County to pick up a new kitchen table I bought on ebay. Once I got back with the table, Sharon packed up and headed out for grocery shopping. She is amazing--for the most part she is able to get groceries about once every four weeks, which saves time and fuel (Walmart and the cheaper grocery stores are about 13 miles away). That left me with the kids and dinner and baths. While the kids cleaned up their things around the house, I cooked up some French toast.
Here's Jacob enjoying a month's worth of empty grocery bags.
When I got home from work on Thursday, I had plans for a pleasant evening, but I guess God had other ones. I'm glad I had been reading in James earlier about "counting it all joy when you fall into various trials." Here is where the toilet snake comes in. With little girls and an older plumbing system, we find that too often we are plunging the bowl. Of course tonight heavier armament was necessary. So I find myself with my (gloved) hands in the toilet, up to my elbows. . .snake, snake, snake, twist, twist, twist, still no success. Now I go down to the basement and open up the main waste line so I can stick my (still gloved) hands and snake up the pipe and try to get at it from there. Somewhere along the line something must have worked its way loose and I finally had success (and a dirty, smelly mess). Needless to say, there were many child-sized onlookers throughout the process.
Once I got the toilet working, I thought I might as well clear the line for the shower, since that had been slow lately as well. Here is where the black eye comes in. (I bet you thought the black eye was on one of the kids!) Imagine me standing on a stool in the basement trying to get the trap off the bottom of the tub. . .imagine that it is a tight fit, pulling down and out at the same time. . .imagine that all of the sudden the pipe comes free from about 6" away from my face. Now see me bent over the basement sofa groaning--of course my child-sized onlookers thought it was because the water had gotten in my eyes. Now Lydia runs upstairs for a towel and Jacob runs to get his toy-sized Craftsman safety goggles so no more water will get in Papa's eyes. At the time I thought I had broken my nose, but now as I sit here on Saturday with some residual swelling, I am glad it was only a major bruise. Go figure. I spend all day at work running a wood chipper and chainsaw and maneuvering 150 lb pieces of swinging logs and come home to get beat up by a 2" piece of plastic.
I actually did work some this week (I got about 28 hours in), but when I got home Friday night, I wanted to do something more fun with the kids than snaking toilets, so we made doughnuts from scratch. After burning the first batch of 3, I got the hang of it and we enjoyed a bed-time snack.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment