Life in Our World - Five for Friday

1.

The homemade cheese press with Calvin studying the cheese book in the background.

a block of Colby cheese

Calvin has been making cheese.  One of the things that I love and appreciate about Calvin is he gets an idea and runs with it.  When he finds something that interests him, he reads books and watches u-tube videos until he figures it out, then he does it.  If you dissected Calvin's brain you'd find a file for making black powder guns and another one for making long-bows.  You'd find others filled with butchering, curing meats, and stuffing sausages, knife-making, making cedar chests, tanning hides, growing grapes, and raising quail.  The infamous whizz-bang chicken plucker took up two files.  There's a whole file called how-to-make-your-wife-happy with a remember-to-clean-the-kitchen-when-you're-done paper in it that is stained and dog-eared.  Once in a while that paper gets misfiled, but then I find it for him and he works on that for awhile.

This week Calvin made four batches of cheese.  Two of the cheeses are still curing, but the other two are really good.  


TWO.

The strawberry plants have turned their last color.

The trees are almost bare.  

The lawnmower died.

Sad.


three.

Yesterday this bird hopped into the corner on the patio.  It just happened to be under the dryer vent.  We turned it on to help him warm up.  That's all he seemed to need.  After a little while, he flew away. Sometimes an unexpected boost of encouragement is just what you didn't know you needed.

This past week or two I got some good mail and each package and letter warmed me through and made me smile real big.  One was a several-paged letter from a former student telling me of some big changes he'd made in his attitude and thanking me for being his mentor and friend.  Another was some lipstick from Ande.  Melanie sent some Book of Mormon flannel-board stories along with some colored straws and a shiny treat.  Jill sent me a happy "Happy Fall" card with 16 cute treat bags that I can't wait to use.  Nesha ordered me an amaryllis bulb in a ceramic pot with a red cardinal on it.  What fun each piece of mail was.  They all came on different days so I smiled all week long.  It was a mother-load of mail.      


4. 

For Family Home Evening on Monday night we took some frosted banana bars to a veteran to thank him for his service.  We also canned sugar for our food storage.  (We have a husband and wife in our Stake who keep a one-gallon canning machine in their garage.  Every month they encourage people to come and use it. They pick up the cans and have everything ready, plus help you can it.  It's an incredible and unheralded act of service they consistently do.)  We ended the evening by going out to supper to celebrate Veteran's Day and to thank Calvin for being a veteran.


FIVE.  

It's been a routine week and I like routine.  Sometimes I feel a change in the air, figuratively, and it makes me more grateful than ever that I have Calvin, our family, grandkids, a warm home with cheese curing on the cupboard and cans of sugar on the shelf . . . and the Gospel of Jesus Christ that gives purpose to it all and holds everything together for me.

Speaking of change and perspective, I went to the eye doctor this week and ordered new glasses.  Ahhhh, to see clearly again.  I've never worn a pair quite like these will be.  I'm excited for them to come in.



How about you?  Did you have a routine week, too?