Wednesday, April 9

Wednesday.  Dixie is coming today, so we have to get the house ready (which I thought was above and beyond!).  Lucille laid in bed until 10:00 and still complained of her back, but I told her that sometimes lying in bed for that many hours can also make you have a backache.  I fixed breakfast and then gave her a bath.  Meanwhile, I gave Joe his assignments -- picking up a bag of potatoes on his morning soda run, taking out the trash (his mother thought he should have taken that out about 10:00 last night), and vacuuming.  But he ran into Fred at the gas station/soda shop, and Fred followed him out, so that delayed Joe getting started on his chores.  He did get the trash taken out and burned. 

Strange as it is, I really like the smell of that trash pit burning.  One of our favorite family stories was about Eric's first trip here (Cody was 1).  He was sent to burn the trash with only one match.  He never felt so much pressure in his life as he did when he knew he had to get that fire started with that one and only match.  We have laughed about the story many times over the years.

 I made hair appointments for us for this weekend -- we have Joe's reunion on Friday, and then we are all going to the Alumni on Saturday, so Lucille and I are going to the beauty shop, and Dixie too if she so chooses.

There is a card shower for Lucille's 98th birthday next Wednesday, and cards are beginning to trickle in.  Today she received 6 in the mail.  Even though they have to be read to her, she really enjoys looking at the cards and hearing who they are from.

Apparently we have already been here too long.  Fred just told us a bird had built a nest on the ladder on the back of our motorhome.        


Dixie and Jim arrived about 6:00 p.m., with 34 whitecastle hamburgers from Terre Haute.  And we ate everyone of them (there were 7 of us, Fred left but came back out).  Rachelle stopped by with the kids, then Tommy and his family showed up.  We hadn't gotten to see them yet so we had a good visit.  Trent and William immediately went outside with Clayton to run around the house, so we didn't get pictures of them.  Mallory donated her purple bow to Grandma, so I tried to get that in the picture.We had a housefull (14 I think), but this big, old house handles crowds pretty well.