Chismville

Well, I was get’n all geared up for the cold season the past week and a half until I woke up this morning! It was 60 degrees outside!!! Last Monday I got to experience my first very cold morning as I got ready for work. It was 26 degrees outside, my truck’s battery was completely dead (my fault) and my other car was layered with ice! I had to use what the easterners call an “ice scraper” on my windshield! It was very cool! The huge blessing was that I got to drive my Acura to work instead of my truck, which has heated seats! I also got to wear a long sleeve shirt and a jacket! Wow! I almost forgot what those things were collecting dust in my closet! All of this past week, it was too cold to wear a short sleeve shirt so I figured the fall and early winter was set’n in! This morning I found myself talking on the phone to my mom outside on my front porch with a short sleeve shirt on again! This Maryland weather is rather confusing!

Besides the crazy weather situation, the kids and all of us are doing just dandy! Joli is off to deliver some delicious white chili to the Hjembo’s house. She’s hav’n to guard it from me (it is amazing stuff). Alyssa and Karl were just blessed with a beautiful baby girl, #3 for them! Joel, Chalice and myself are hang’n at the house await’n our next adventure…hmmm…still trying to be creative this morning. Unfortunately, I have some manly “chores” to take care of first before I can have fun with the kiddies. I have to get an oil change and a flat tire fixed on Joli’s Honda. I am then headed to a few baby shops to look for some more train gear for Mr. Joel. This evening, if it is not raining, which is currently is, I hope to find a cool little town our family can walk through and be tourists. I drove through several beautiful old towns on Thursday on my way up to Hanover, PA for a sales presentation for Christmas lights and just was fall’n in love with the old towns I saw! I could not believe how old and historical things looked to me. I can’t wait to take my family to some of those places!

Work is going well, though I need to start bringing some closure to some of my sales calls. I’ve been working 100% of my time on marketing and selling Christmas lights for Christmas Decor. I had never done it before, but I am really enjoying it. I have had some big accounts this week, the biggest being 9 shopping centers! I was surprised to hear from the property manager, as I just called a listing in a parking lot and got a call back saying, “we are interested in not just one but in 10 other properties! So, I will find out next Tuesday how much the shopping centers want to do for Christmas. We don’t just hang lights but get to help with anything related to decorating for Christmas: banners, signs, wreaths, bows, garland, reindeer, anything! It already feels like Christmas to me! So, things are well but I’m a little frustrated that I have not sold more. I think I need a few more leads to see some fruit as it is still a little slow. It is also October with halloween and a big election coming up! I’ll be glad when those events have passed so we can focus on Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

Drop us a line when you have time. We miss all of our west coast family and friends! Please come and visit us anytime!!!!

How delighted I was when our little Chalice was born! She came so quickly we barely made it into the hospital. While David had announced, “It’s a boy!” when Joel was born, I got to make the declaration at Chalice’s birth. We were excited to use the name we had selected for a little girl–Chalice Joy– a cup of joy. Chalice was a little blessing to me and very familiar as I had much experience with baby girls. It’s so special for us to see the friendship that is evolving between Joel and Chalice. They are often partners in crime, but still the best of friends. Chalice seems to like learning how to communicate these days as she tries out new words. She’s a little mixed up about her animals. The other day she said, “COW!” and waved, “Good bye, Doggie!” at the nonplussed bovine creature. Dog is her universal term for animals. Chalice is most frequently noted for her long eyelashes and her quizzical expressions. :^) Happy 2nd birthday to our little Chalice!

Joli and I went on a date Thursday to see the movie “Fireproof” produced by a Baptist church in Georgia. I was very impressed with this movie! I think it gave a real portrayal of most troubled marriages today. There were theological points I may not have liked completely, but all in all, I do not think it is worth discussing. The Gospel message was proclaimed and I believe God was glorified! I’m grateful for the courage and determination of Sherwood Baptist for making a good movie for the general public to view and hopefully stir the hearts of many to have stronger marriages: both Christians and unbelievers.

The high ceilings and spacious rooms of this home are so cozy when it is raining. This past week gave us several days of steady rainfall. Mopping my floors from the days of applesauce-making I listened to Mullan Rouge and thought of the sad beauty expressed in some of the songs. Movies are made of such bittersweet drama, but what a horrid sad existence that sort of life would be–much more depressing than romantic. It’s only in fairy tales that such sorrow turns into “happily ever after” and Prince charming rescues Cinderella.  I could never imagine being in such dire straits as some of the sad classics present. “Someday I’ll fly away, leave all this to yesterday…” The music soars to glorious major keys as the singer imagines her dreams, only to abruptly crash back into minor tones, darkly portraying the singer’s inescapable reality. I thought of my simple sweet life. How could I be any happier! This past week was long because my husband was in Ohio training for his new season of selling Christmas light-hanging services. What a happy reunion we experienced when he returned to us yesterday evening! I am so spoiled to enjoy dinner as a family nearly every evening. Today was like a Saturday as we enjoyed a pancake breakfast followed by a 7-mile triangle hike of Liberty Road, Dollyhyde, and Mapleville with our lime green stroller and a backpack for the kidlets. Our lives would make a boring Halmark film, but I much prefer banal happiness to a Hollywood melodrama!

Not long after my college girlfriend informed that her first word was “apple,” Joel came home from a day at Grammy’s house saying “apple” over and over. I had thought it a peculiar word to commence speaking. Today, I peaked in on my two little rascals in the garage where I had let them play and they were both perched on our riding lawn-mower and down to the core eating apples left over from my two day canning spree with my sister. I guess apples and youngsters do get along well together.

Stella’s Dream is a bucolic farm on the outskirts of Sugarloaf Mountain. Mr. Pepe diligently tends his perfectly spaced trees day after day only to give them away to his friends, amongst whom my family is prized to be called.  Grandimary Howard, Mama, Jenny, Kendra, Jesse, Seth, Joseph, Trina, and Karl and Alyssa Hjembo’s family carrivanned to the orchard with my mom’s many 1/2 bushel buckets in tow. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows on the mown lawns around us as we all sampled the sweet yellow apples. Kendra and I agreed to meet the following day to put up our pickings. We were both equally ambitious, wanting roughly 50 quarts each for our little families. Jesse was probably our best asset when it came to getting all the apples down from the trees. He used an apple picker, shook the branches vigorously and the trees dropped their produce. My hands quickly tired from my inferior method of hanging out of the tree middle while trying the shake the branch I was holding. Joel and Chalice were delighted with all the apples around them as long as they could avoid standing under the trees that were being shaken. Before going to bed, I garnered my many supplies from the Howard family menagerie. I was planning on purchasing jars, but Mama told me I cold have as many jars as my heart desired! So the only thing Kendra and I needed to purchase were the dome lids to seal the jars.

The next morning (Wednesday) Kendra arrived before 7:30AM having already changed a flat tire! We worked steadily, scrubbing, quartering and removing bad spots from our many apples. We were quite the domestic young housewives. I periodically charged into the kids room to change a diaper or wipe a bottom and administer marshmallows. The kids took long naps and cooperated nicely with our applesauce canning efforts. Kendra and I experienced the joys of watching caramel colored applesauce stream from the nifty “squeezo” as Kendra cranked and I filled the jars, cleaned the rims and lowered the jars into the Amish 15-jar canner. We let out a little cheer each time a jar lid popped indicating that our work was successful and the jar had sealed. All 75 of the quarts we processed canned successfully. I got an early reprieve the second day because I had company coming at 6 for dinner so Kendra and Jesse whisked away the supplies around 5:30 and David and I enjoyed our evening with friends!

Hours of apples left my fingernails short and my fingers sore and brown! But I still had about a bushel of apples left over. David mentioned to his boss that I’d been canning applesauce. Mr. Hall soon gave us another half bushel of beautiful apples from his orchard in Pennsylvania. There will be no dearth of apple pies, tarts, apple crisp, apples and peanut butter at this house! Amy kindly volunteered to help me finish out the last bushel of apples yesterday, which I froze and refrigerated as applesauce. That will allow me to store my canned quarts for weeks to come.