Learning the Ropes

 Esther and Elijah learned a new task tonight...their first time to get behind the mower!  Graham (the usual mower) told Esther that it was like drawing in the grass!  Definitely the thing to tell a budding little artist...a good "Tom Sawyer come-on!"  Both she and Elijah were excited to try their hand at this new task.  It was definitely a tough job as the grass was quite thick due to all the rain that we have been having.  They made a great effort at the job with help every so often from another in the family...Kathy, Nathan, and even Graham.  For a while Joy supervised from the hammock, but in the end decided that she wanted to take a few passes with the mower. Good on the job training and Graham seemed like he thought that it was a good idea to pass the job on...time will tell!

Woody returned from his walk to and from the Prayer Room at church while I was outside watching the mowers and ended up locking me out...he didn't know that I was outside.

I have done a little cleaning today and then "made" a pie.
Now I really don't consider that I made the pie since I used a bought graham cracker crust and a Jello pudding and pie mix for the lemon filling.  I did make the meringue.  I'm used to doing things more from scratch than I did with this pie so it seemed a little like cheating!  But it was good.  A week or so ago, I was making a salad with what I thought was lemon jello and when I opened the box, it ended up being lemon Jello pudding.  So I made the pudding and I realized that it reminded me a lot of my mother's lemon meringue pie...though she did NOT use a Jello mix.  Since I made that comment, Woody bought another box and a graham cracker crust (his choice for a merenge pie) and so today I made us a pie.  It really does taste good...not quite like Mother's since she used a regular pie crust rather than graham cracker crust. Anyway, we had dessert for a change.

Here is a picture to show that Joy didn't just lie back and watch all the work going on around her! Everyone is dressed to avoid mosquitoes.  I got nibbled on several times while I was outside and now am rather itchy.

Oh, and, I did get an email from my Cottey roommate this morning and it looks like she is going to start making plans to attend the reunion, too.  Looking forward to seeing her after many years.  We have talked every so often on the phone and have seen each other several times over the years since graduation but it has been quite a few years now. I think that perhaps the last time we saw each other was at our 20th Cottey reunion...oh, my...30 years ago!  She and her family have been to Tullahoma and we have been to visit with them in Kansas, but I guess both those visits were while our children were young and before our 20th reunion. Time has a habit of slipping away.