The Rainy Day
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Since my last post I've listened to three funerals (church friend/distant relative, ICC YG acquaintance, great-uncle), and attended the funeral of a dear friend. I should have some comforting bible verse or something, instead Longfellow is rattling around in my brain.
The house keeps getting taller. :) These crazies were brave enough to climb up to the attic floor.
Emmy decided to try speech this year and I went along to her only competition. She was in a skit with two other girls that was really cute.
They earned a division 1 rating, so they each got a medal.
I saw that there was an exhibit about finding the Titanic at the museum... and that the 2nd Sunday of each month are free days. Bob and the older girls were uninterested (booo), so the three littles and I went to check it out. It was underwhelming, and I would have been disappointed if we had paid for it. As much as I enjoy reading all of the words at museums, there were too many words and not enough objects to look at. But! They did have a deck chair. The kids thought it was cool.
And we had fun exploring the rest of the museum.
They started stick framing my attic, which I love, and I have not been up in yet. Too tall, too scary. 😆
Miri lost a tooth at school and was soooo excited to get a tooth necklace. The same day, Perrin went to his first dentist appointment and refused to sit alone. So he got his teeth cleaned on my lap. 🙄
Cecily and I went up to the hospital one afternoon so she and Kenna could play on the switch together. Kids these days. They ran the battery out... ha. Betty was awake and I got to go back and see her, but she was pretty loopy and agitated. It was still really, really good to see her, and apparently her subconscious thinks highly of me. 😏
These guys are fearless. Also, I've been told that I'm making them earn their pay with all the rafter angles. hehe.
These two are also fearless.
Bob gets a day off to volunteer each year and this year he volunteered all of us to rake Mrs. F's leaves. Some of these kids were more helpful than others. 😜
Daniel took Emmy and Cadence up in the lift. And check out those soffits!
We spent part of a Saturday afternoon cleaning up off cuts and sweeping sawdust up on the second floor. It doesn't look like much until you start sweeping and end up with a pretty big pile.
I did climb the ladder just high enough to see into the attic. :)
It's a long way down.
The van has been making a rattling noise so we took it in. They fixed one rattle, then heard a different rattle so it ended up being a week without the van. Sharon graciously let us borrow theirs.
I double booked us one Sunday evening. Max invited us to his graduation party, and I forgot to check the calendar and signed up to take supper to the hospital. So Bob got to take four kids to the party and Cecily and I went to Peoria. Betty has brought us so many meals and they're always so good; I can't manage to keep a casserole hot. *sigh* We stopped at Max's shindig on our way home.
Everyone else has been praying for rain, we're praying it will just. hold. off. until we get the roof on and windows in. 😝Rain=mud.
And rain=puddles inside the house.
We had Kenna one afternoon between school and a band performance so she got a first look at the girls' rooms.
Miri goose decided she wanted to sew. And she wanted to make a shirt.... but, I was working on something else and didn't want to go there and she ended up making a skirt. All by herself. 😂She was so excited to wear it to school so I had to let her. 🤷😀
Apparently one of Cecily's friends used to play 'funeral' with her cousins instead of normal things like 'house' or 'wedding'. My kids thought that sounded like fun, and I have a dark sense of humor sooooo. I did not dissuade them. 😬
They built a coffin and took turns.
They read 1Corinthians 15 three times... and sang out of the children's harp, which has a very limited funeral song selection.
I was waffling between cracking up and hoping and praying they wouldn't actually have to go to a funeral anytime soon...
Oh, and obituaries. Poor Perrin was implicated more than once.
Anyway. One shower got delivered to the woods!
They finished sheeting the roof of the foursquare and started framing the master bathroom!
I love these sorts of papers. hehe.
The Erlenmeyer flask buttons that I ordered arrived so I could finish my periodic table sweater and wear it to sewing club. 🤓 The older girls rolled their eyes at me.
Dad's been able to help out on the house, which we love.
I signed up to take bread to Thanksgiving so I attempted to make Freida buns. Cadence was super excited to punch down the dough. The first batch didn't turn out so well, I think I might have added too much flour. That or I didn't "get real mean with it" enough, like Aunt Freida said. 😏
Apple cider tea party with apple cider donut cake.
Somebody loves cider and was relatively careful with the fancy cup.
Grandma Beutel's tea pot and china cups from a friend.
And a 75 year old table cloth. The ladies who came to Grandma Lydiann's church shower embroidered their names...
This is a great crew.
Second and third attempt at Freida buns was successful! Woot woot. Not as pretty or as uniform as she made them, but a good start.
Sometimes Mr. Perrin is just contrary and I'm never sure how far to push it. He wanted to eat his Thanksgiving dessert in the middle of the room. Whatever.
Some of the girls made up a cheer routine.
Oh hello, Cecily!
A rare back view. :)
I had hopes of appliance shopping on Black Friday, but since we don't have anywhere safe and weathertight to store them, we decorated for Christmas instead.
It snowed! There was great rejoicing, and they insisted on playing in it while it was still coming down.
And then I had to tell them that Betty was no longer with us.
We had Beutel Thankmas that night, and those of us that were emotionally fragile were antisocial and did a puzzle.
Jack turned 10 and the kids were so excited to go to his house for his birthday party.
Presents...
and a baby to hold. "She's sooo cute!"
Emmy left this on the kitchen table and it made me cry.
Matt and the boys went to a train show and I asked him to look for an N scale engine since my original doesn't work anymore. He found one so I had to get all of my train set out. I have a hard time sharing my toys though, especially when they're so fiddly and fragile. 😜
Cadence really wanted to set up a snack shop, and she wanted to bake brownies and so we ate dessert downstairs one evening.
We took the kids out of school early on Wednesday to go to the visitation. So hard.
They were setting garage trusses so we went out to the woods later that afternoon. Cadence was determined to get in a snowball fight with everyone.
She threw multiple snowballs at Asa and Gage... thankfully her aim is terrible. 😂
Emmy brought a sled to slide down the snow covered dirt pile.
...aaaaannnddd we have geothermal wells and a whole bunch of mud!
Today was the funeral. The three older girls came with us and Miri and Perrin stayed home with Mom. (Yes, I did let Miri stay home from school so that I didn't have to get up early, we listen and we don't judge.) We went through an entire purse pack of kleenex, and froze walking to the cemetery. It was hard. Betty was a much better friend to me than I ever was to her. She remembered my birthday, our anniversary, took my kids in church, invited us swimming, came with me to marching band competitions, put up with Cecily...
I'm singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel as a lament this year.
And it can stop metaphorically raining now, I've had about enough catharsis for one month.
Blessings.
