What a Weekend

It really has been quite a weekend. We didn’t have any big plans as such, but I don’t think I’ve stopped moving all weekend except for the hours I’ve actually been sleeping.

Paul worked on Saturday, but came home and immediately packed up the boys and some food and took them off to a new fishin’ hole in Coshocton County.

One of the guys Paul works with has a cabin down there and invited them all down. No fish were caught that day, but the boys didn’t much care. They had a grand time running up and down the path beside the dam, and getting their feet wet in the lake.

I stayed home and cleaned the house, did laundry, and went after all those projects that I’ve been putting off since I don’t even know when. I didn’t get through the list, but I did make a pretty big dent.

On the way home, the boys stopped in at the local tractor pull to see their cousin, who was pulling later that night. The tractor pull means two things: 1) Summer is really here. 2) Supervision under the sole eye of Papa, whose threshold for good behavior is somewhere in the vicinity of “don’t make your brother bleed, and don’t sass grownups.” In comparison to the regime under Mama, it’s quite relaxing.

Sunday was church followed by a next-door fishing trip, followed by company for dinner. Company included a six-year-old boy who can outrun both Levi and Elias. He let them catch up occasionally so the game of tag didn’t get too monotonous.

I kept after the house projects on Monday, and a great deal of gardening was done by everyone else. They planted brussel sprouts, which I’m pretty excited about. I’m on a huge brussel sprout kick lately – words my ten-year-old self would have found entirely unbelievable. What did I know then anyway?

We had pancakes on the porch this morning after Mary Lou and the boys got back from the Memorial Day ceremony at the graveyard. (There were no really interesting stories from that jaunt this year, which is nice for Mary Lou, but sad for us. One year the public prayer was interrupted by heartbroken sobbing about a lost worm. Mary Lou was pretty embarrassed. She really liked that worm, I guess.)

Mom and Elias continued their shameful track record regarding public displays of affection.

Mom is continuing to have major lapses in memory and logic. Today she was trying to copy family information from one Bible to another. She couldn’t figure out how to list her children in birth order, even though the original list was organized that way. In a more entertaining turn, she could NOT figure out why she didn’t have Mary Lou’s wedding date written down. She was bemused to learn that it was probably because Mary Lou has – so far – never been married.

She’s definitely slipping more, and maybe a little faster. It continues to be sad and hilarious in turn, and sometimes simultaneously. I’m glad that she can still enjoy her grandchildren so much. Even if she can’t always remember their names.

I know that this isn’t what the remembering of Memorial Day is really about, but I am grateful for the memories we made this weekend – funny, upsetting, and ridiculous as they may be. I hope your weekend was as good.