Side of Beef

When I buy beef from a local farmer, I pay a certain amount for the hanging weight, and a certain amount to the butcher for processing. I have wondered in the past how that cost ends up comparing to the price I see at the grocery store or in the butcher's case.

Today I picked up half a cow from a butcher I haven't patronized before. The meat was neatly packed in flat boxes, making it easy to put in the car and into the freezer. So I weighed it, just to find out how much of the cow's hanging weight actually makes it into the freezer. It ended up to be about 2/3. With the butcher's fee, the price per pound ended up about twice as much as I pay the farmer for hanging weight. That's helpful to know when I compare to grocery-store prices, and makes the grocery-store prices look less shocking.

Remission

The new hymnal has changed some references that were in TLH. "Remission of sins" is a phrase that we are no longer very fond of: "forgiveness of sins" is the preferred way to say it. The reason given was that "remission" is a word that people associate with cancer, a word that indicates the disease is gone, beaten back, but may return. We want to talk about forgiveness of sins so that we know the sins are defeated and fully paid for.

Okay, I see that point. I agree.

But isn't there a place for talking about remission of sins too?

In this life, we are weighed down by the Old Adam. The sinful nature continues with us until we assume room temperature. Sins do go into remission. They are beaten back. But sometimes they return. Sometimes they return overwhelmingly. Sometimes the doctor (the Seelsorger) must apply massive doses of medicine (the word and sacraments) to heal us again.

The word "remission" has fallen into disfavor because of the recognition that sin is not fully defeated. Maybe it's the distinction between justification and sanctification? We dare not think that keeping the sin in remission is something we do, something to which we contribute. But yet it seems very real that "remission" is a picture of how we struggle with the sinful nature until he is fully defeated in our death.

Boy, I think we need both words: forgiveness and remission.

Plundering the Egyptians

Recently I was conversing with an acquaintance who was explaining to me how God wants His Christians to have physical health and material wealth and every other bounty while we are yet here on earth.

Our story today is from Exodus 12. Prior to the Angel of Death passing over the land, the children of Israel went to their Egyptians neighbors and asked for gold, silver, and clothing. And God gave His children favor in the sight of the Egyptians. The Egyptians just handed over the wealth.

Why? So that God's people could be rich rich rich?

About 10 chapters later in the book, we find out why. Those riches would be brought to Moses so that the artisans who made the ark and the altar and the tapestries could build the tabernacle according to God's plans.

So in gratitude and faith, the people turned all that wealth back over to the Lord who had delivered them and given them the wealth. And what did God do with it? He appointed that tabernacle as the place where His people would receive the true wealth. In that place -- made of the gold and silver and cloth that they'd plundered from the Egyptians -- in that place God forgave their sins, He covered them with the blood of atonement, He heard their prayers, He put His name upon them, He gave them all the wealth of heaven instead of the measly wealth of earth.

Books

The bookshelves are up. The books are unpacked. There's still a lot of putting-in-order that will need to be done with the books. But at least we can now walk through the room that will be the library/dining room, and pass through that room to the laundry room and workshop.

The kitchen is covered with post-it notes on the cupboards and drawers so that we can spend a little less time hunting for things. "What's behind Door #1? Oh, maybe we'll try Door #3 instead."

Setting up some new bank accounts today took two hours. And here I originally thought it would be about 10 minutes. Oh well.

I think (???) I now know my new phone number AND new address and new email addresses.

Today's mail brought an awesome surprise. A bunch of homeschooling friends went together to purchase a house-warming gift of a gift-card to Home Depot. Won't that be helpful!! Wow, I keep getting blown away by how God provides for us just when I suspect He may have forgotten.

Dishes Fairy

With the dish-drainer still back at the old house, I've been having problems washing dishes. Then I discovered that I could use the dishwasher to stack wet clean dishes so as to let them dry. But today we did something wild and crazy. We put the dinner dishes in the dishwasher still dirty [gasp!] and then later put the supper dishes in there too. We put in the soap, closed the door, pushed the magic button, and headed to church for Lenten service. And when we came home....
the dishes fairy had come and made everything clean.
Pretty nifty!

One of Those Days

Started off at the laundromat, and the machine did NOT want to take my quarters. Good grief, when I can't even manage to operate a vending machine (how hard can it be to shove quarters into a slot???), the omens do not portend a good day.

I skipped the board meeting for the state homeschool organization. A lot of important things on the agenda today. But I just couldn't handle the trip in the midst of all the necessities of changing homes after 17 years.

Brought the clothes home from the laundromat, intending to throw them into the dryer. But it took THREE trips to the hardware store before it finally would work. I couldn't manage it, no matter how hard I tried, but Paul hooked up the exhaust vent, as well as changed the outlet.

Made a good dent in cleaning the basement. Pretty soon those cupboards downstairs will be clean enough so that we can begin unpacking the things that need to be stored in the basement. The boys put together three more sets of bookshelves today, so the books can be unpacked as soon as we get a few other tasks accomplished.

Also got a lot of hooks hung up on walls so that some stuff can get off the floors and counters. I love these hooks that don't mar the wall!

The cats have begun to explore outside. They don't go too far (yet) and they come back. But Maggie is stressed whenever the kitties are out gallavanting.

Paul got the baseboards varnished so that Gary can install them in the one bedroom tomorrow evening. He also varnished and attached legs to the legless table for the breakfast nook. Hey, tomorrow we'll no longer need to sit on the floor for all meals!

Worked on some more address changes. Made several phone calls. Andrew had unpacked my computer and set it up for me this afternoon. After phoning APT, I wanted to get online and invite homeschoolers to the annual Shakespeare outing in September. But there were password problems and other glitches with the ISP: it took over two hours (and great frustration on my part, and a whole lot of Gary's assistance, and a long time on the phone with the provider) before I could use the email. That seems to be fixed, but a few things still are not working right. Oy!

Anagrams

Oh, this is too fun! Jeff's blog directed us to a site that makes anagrams out of words. When I put in my name, I got nearly 5000 anagrams, including:
Beach Gals Shun
Chasubles Hang
Bagels Can Hush

Lent in 3-Year

My father-confessor's congregation began using the 3-year lectionary this past Advent. The congregation I'm a member of is on the historic 1-year series. It seemed to me in December that Advent had more of a "pre-Christmas" feel in the 3-year series, and more a call to repentance in the 1-year series. But my Stuckwischy friend disagreed with me, so I questioned my perspective.

During Lent I have again noticed a difference between the 3-year and 1-year series. The 3-year lectionary for Lent this year seems to have a lot about light. I've been feeling like I'm still in Epiphany. I love the readings. I love the sermons. I love the hymns. But it hadn't seemed very Lentish. Then today, the OT reading was Ezekiel 37. It was hard for me to pay attention because I kept thinking, "That's for Thomas Sunday" (also known as the first Sunday after Easter) and "Why are we reading Easter stories already?"

So here's the perspective of someone who's in the midst of Series A and the 1-year series at the same time:
Series A treats Lent more like a transition from Epiphany to Easter.
One-year series uses it more as a time of penitence.

Black Stove

Bread crumbs and spilled salt and cotton lint show up a whole lot more on a black stovetop than on a white stovetop.

Cats don't much appreciate being moved to a new home.

When a family is moving into a house, there are more things to fix, more projects to tackle, and more decisions to make than I dreamed possible.

With much help from friends, we have transferred the beds, the dressers, the piano, most of the appliances, and much of the cookware to the new house. But there's still a lot to be done at the old house. I wonder where the motivation to DO it will come from, when things are getting kinda nicely settled here? And when my body is sore and aching from 1) a fall on the ice last week, and then 2) all that physical labor of lifting and hauling?

Katie's News

Since Katie and Nathan have made all the personal phone calls and she is now announcing it on her blog, I guess it is okay for me to tell the joyful news too.

Maggie and I are going to be keeping an eye on Baby Center's fetal development website so that she can learn about the growth of the new family member. By Thanksgiving my first grandbaby should arrive.

Really Good Rice

Our standard and boring rice recipe is to cook the brown basmati in double the amount of water, throw in a little chicken Better-Than-Bouillon (or better yet, use real home-made stock), some onion and celery and garlic and grated carrot, spiced with salt, pepper, and parsley. If we're feeling like Wisconsinny cheeseheads, we will put in several slices of American cheese after the rice is done cooking, let it melt, stir, and have a dish quite like some of the expensive boxed-rice side-dishes sold in the grocery store (ahhh, but ours is made of real ingredients).

I didn't have American cheese. Or cheddar. (Trying to deplete the grocery stash prior to moving day, doncha know.) So I thought I'd try adding feta. For 2 cups of rice, 1 onion, 2 ribs of celery, and no carrots (still tryin' to run down those grocery supplies), I added about 1/3 cup of feta.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It was unbelievable. Andrew declared it was the best rice he'd ever eaten in his life. Then he found out there was feta in it. Andrew does not like feta. But he pulled together his good sense and his well-favored taste buds, and decided he wanted to eat this again!

The Work of Moving

We have the usual: cleaning and packing and making decisions. What caught me off-guard was the amount of cleaning. I thought the new house looked well taken care of and clean. But the previous owners smoked, and the bucketfuls of wash-water come out a whole lot dirtier than anticipated. So the cleaning is taking longer than expected. We also have a lot of laundry to do this week. Not only are there piles of cleaning cloths, but there's also loads and loads of blankets and jackets and other non-weekly (not even monthly) laundry to be freshened. The septic system at the new house needs to be replaced, so it's important that we not overload it and cause it to fail. That means a laundromat will become a major feature in my life for the next 7-12 weeks. That means I want to get all the wash done NOW, while I still can run a machine without putting quarters into it.

It was nice to have some extra hands come and help with the cleaning today. Of course, there has to be visiting amidst the scrubbing. Mouths can work at the same time as hands. Thank you, Laura and Mary and Rachel!

Otoscope

Andrew had another ear infection early this year. At that point, I wanted to write this post but didn't get around to it. A friend took her son to the doctor today to check for an ear infection. When she said, "If only I had an otoscope, I could look at his ears myself," I decided I really wanted to get this posted publicly.

Two of my children have problems with outer ear infections due to wax build-up (due to oddly shaped ear canals). After a couple of ER visits, I learned how to deal with the wax problem the way the doctors do. But one of the important tools is the otoscope: you have know when to keep flushing the ear and when it's clean enough to stop, and looking through an otoscope tells you what you need to know.

So I investigated otoscopes. The Dr Mom otoscope is the friend of any bright mother. When the child goes to the doctor with an ear infection, ask to see through the doctor's otoscope. Begin to learn what an ear infection looks like. (The Dr Mom website also gives some illustrations.) The otoscope can tell you when a child's ears are clear as can be. It can tell you when there's an outer ear infection. It can show when the ear drums are getting stuffy with allergies. It can show when there's infection that might spur you to make an appointment with the doctor posthaste. These things are, like, 25 bucks, and that includes shipping. If you can avoid even one co-pay for the doctor, you've paid for the otoscope. Mine is about five years old and still works just great. This is something I wish I'd known about much earlier in my mommy-days. It saves time and it saves money, and sometimes it allows a sick child stay home in comfort instead of sitting in a doctor's office getting exposed to more germs "just in case" he might need the amoxicillin.

Better Late than Early

Although it's the name of an education book (the philosophy of which I quite agree with!), that's not what I'm writing about here.

When you have an appointment with the cable guy at your new house, it would be better if he showed up late rather than early. We have been waiting for installation of the phone and internet at the new house. I made the appointment for the phone hook-up. A few days later I added the order for the internet. Both times the appointment was confirmed for 1:00-3:00. We arrived at the new house at 11:30, just to make sure. And he had already arrived, found us not there, and left.

Now we have to wait until Thursday before they can come back. I've heard this company has lousy customer service, and they can get by with it because they're the only cable-game in town. But still, it would be better if they were late rather than early. Then I would've been frustrated by the long wait, but at least I wouldn't have had to wait five days.

It makes me disgusted with myself how these little glitches can totally turn me into a basket case these days.

House

We gave them a whole bunch o' money. We signed the contract to give them a whole bunch more money. They gave us the keys. And the house is now ours. Well, ours and the bank's. Moving day is scheduled for next Saturday, assuming the weather doesn't thwart our plans. It's a very very very nice house. (Hey, the rest of the song fits too: with two cats [soon to be] in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Let's hope the "now everything is easy" comes to pass too.)

Too Cold to Stick

We've spent the last few days boxing up books at a fast-n-furious rate. And toys. And books. And games. And more books. When I went downstairs today to fill some more boxes, I found tape coming loose from some of the boxes. This is name-brand, "high quality" packaging tape. And it's so cold in the basement that it's not sticking well. Yikes! I don't want bottoms falling out of book boxes. But what can you do to make tape stick in the cold??? I'm inclined to turn up the heat, but it's been cold in the basement the last two years regardless of how warm it is upstairs. (And that's weird, because for many a year, it seemed that the basement was warmer in winter and cooler in summer, which fits better with what science says.)

Baking

Thanks to recommendations from several homeschooling friends, we found a place to order appliance parts online with advice on installing them. Gary took apart the stove on Saturday so that we made sure we were ordering the correct part. I had it next-day-aired, so it arrived today. Paul installed it this morning and put the stove back together. And now we have a fully operative oven, at less than half the price we were quoted by our favorite local repairman.

We ate cornbread for lunch.
We'll eat pizza for supper.
I like having appliances that work!

I am impressed with my manly guys who can fix things for me!

Coping

My friend Elephant's Child has been writing recently about her experiences fleeing leaving Africa and coming back to live in the States. In one of her posts this week on the topic, she stated: Gradually it dawned on us that we hadn't even truly been aware of the intensity of strain we'd been under until now, now that it was gone. Still, it was almost harder now. Tears came at strange times.

It reminded me of a much smaller experience many moms have had. One of the kids is injured. Mom does all the right things: pressure on the bleeding cut, ice-pack to reduce swelling, getting the kid to ER, telling the story repeatedly to nurses and doctors, comforting the frightened child, going home with the instructions to watch for signs of infection. Mom does what needs doing. She holds up. She manages to do what needs to be done for those who depend on her.

And then, the next day, she accidentally breaks a glass, or one of the kids spills a quart of milk, and Mom loses it. She falls to pieces. Somebody tries to comfort her that it's just a little accident, that it's easily mended, that it's gonna be okay. And that only makes it worse, because she knows it just a little accident and that she shouldn't be crying or losing her temper or whatever. But it's not the broken glass or spilled milk, it's the incident of the previous day that's getting to her.

I suppose it's good to be able to hold up during the crisis, even if a person falls apart later. But it's pretty unexplainable when it appears that such little difficulties can take somebody down when they've managed to make it through so many bigger problems.

Dry Roads

Gary has been working for four weeks. Last night, during his commute home, was the first time I wasn't worried about the drive. Such a nice relief!

Up until yesterday I think I'd jogged three times in 2008. Between weather, being out of town, weather, illness, weather, busyness with appointments due to the upcoming move, and a little bad weather [What? Like, you see a theme here???] it's been nearly impossible to get my daily sunbath and exercise. But yesterday I forced myself, and today I'm going out there again. Maybe it will become a habit again. I have to jog on the county highway now; the parking lot (where I usually jog in circles) is still an ice rink, and the town roads aren't exactly cleared either. But -- wooohooo! -- a weekend of above-freezing temperatures is predicted!

Mixed Feelings

While I was in town this afternoon, somebody came and put up a sign at church. There's a fund-raising breakfast at the fire department this Sunday morning.

Now, on the one hand, people could come to church, see the sign, and go to the Fire & Rescue fund-raiser after church instead of going to one of the restaurant buffets. And yet, it seems wrong somehow that there's a sign at the church entrance, advertising something else to do on Sunday morning, somewhere else to be.

It reminds me of the annual AAL baseball outings, always on a Sunday morning, always gathering to get on the bus to head off to the big city for the major league game at the same time Service is scheduled to start. It boggles the mind that we're asked to advertise "church activities" that conflict with the Divine Service.

At least this Sunday's benefit is not as bad as when the local Methodist church runs their fund-raisers on Sunday mornings. It always shocks me to hear that they're serving breakfast on Palm Sunday. It's Holy Week! And these church-folks can't find anything better to do at 9:00 on Palm Sunday morning than to flip pancakes? At least the benefit for the Fire Dept is a secular event that is being run (presumably) by non-Christians, and the Christians are gobbling the yummies before or after church.