It's a girl!

Life around here is going to be different. The call came at 6:11 this morning. It was the school principal. "Can you come in (to sub) today?" Sure enough...... by just before noon the third grade teacher had a new daughter, and I had a six-week job ahead of me! I'm looking forward to this as a change from never knowing from day to day when and with what group of kids I'll be working.

The principal stopped by the classroom in the afternoon to let us know that Hallie Rose had arrived. Right after he went out of the room, one little boy asked about the teacher, "Will she be back tomorrow?"

: )

A First

I sang at a funeral today. Okay, so technically I've sung at many funerals--with the rest of the congregation. But today, for the first time, I was the soloist at one. A couple of nice hymns-"His Eye Is on the Sparrow" and "Children of the Heavenly Father"-were selected by the family of Don VanDorn, who lived all his life in the Swede settlement here, except the last few years he was in a care home. We're also related, cousins a few generations or so back I think, to the VanDorns.

"I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being." Psalm 104:33

Overheard

While leaving a department store, I heard a man say to his (probably younger than age 10) daughter, "No, you can't." Having missed the first part of the conversation, I didn't know what he was talking about, but that was cleared up when he continued by saying, "If God had meant for you to have holes in your ears he would have put them there!"

This same guy and his family had checked out just ahead of me. When the cashier asked him how he was doing, or something to that effect, he gave her a whole-hearted "Good! Anytime I wake up and can see the green side of the grass it's a good day!"

This wasn't overheard, but I wanted to mention........ we finally got gas for under $2.00 a gallon today! (at Platte City, MO for $1.99 and 9/10 per gallon) Woo-hoo!

A Little (Unwanted) Excitement

Today was the second day of the first "Great U.S. 36 Highway Treasure Hunt"--literally hundreds of miles of garage sales all taking place along Highway 36 across Kansas this Fri.-Sat.-Sun. No, that's not the excitement to which I refer in the title. Yesterday I subbed (for band-now there's excitement, but that's not what I'm talking about either) and T. had to work after school. So, we (B., M., T., and I) headed out this morning to see what we could find, which turned out to be not much. There weren't nearly as many places as we had hoped, and most of the places we did hit seemed to have been pretty well cleaned out (or else they just didn't have much to begin with.) People told us that yesterday was a really good day for them (next year we'll try to go on the First day), plus that the next town over had over 50 locations! We were thinking about heading on over there and giving that town a try, when B. got a call on his cell phone. Ready? Here comes the excitement.

The call was from our brother-in-law, who thought he smelled smoke at his house, and upon investigation found it to be straw bales on fire at the place about a quarter mile south of his place. He called us, because JUST north across the road from his bales is where we have two long rows of hay bales! Did I mention the wind today? VERY windy! The direction? From the south!!

Thank the Lord for volunteer firefighters and for good relatives and neighbors! By the time we could get there, the Axtell fire department was hard at work, and some neighbors were there, or arrived soon. Several brought tractors for moving the burning bales to where they wouldn't catch ours on fire. Fortunately the fire didn't start at the south end of the neighbor's row, so all that was lost were around 6 bales. It Could have been MANY more. The fire department was there for around three hours before they all burned out.

Cause of the fire? Probably lightning last night.

I think I've waited decades for this!

Sunday evening we ended up playing Monopoly. Just regular old Monopoly. Not Star Wars Monopoly. Not Kansas Monopoly. Not Garfield Monopoly. Not Monopoly on the computer where you don't even have to think. Just Monopoly. You know....... the regular old board game with pieces you move around to try to buy various properties, dice to roll, little plastic green houses and red hotels. Anyway, I was iron/horse until the iron wouldn't stay attached to the horse easily, so then I was just horse.
: )
I think B. had the race car, M. the ship , and T. the dog. Anyway, we're starting out, and maybe the second time around or so, I landed on...... Park Place! Then, a few more times around, and I landed on...... you got it!....... BROADWAY!!!!! Both blue properties--mine!

So anyway, long story summed up now..... houses, then hotels, some deals made, and I won! That's right, big brothers who ALWAYS won....... I won! (P.S. Maybe I learned something all those years being on the little sister end of the wheeling and dealing.)