Shifting Back to Normal--Whatever That Is

Our granddogs, Lucky and Leah, are probably back in Freeport by now. Jeannie took them away from Woodsong last night in preparation for her leave taking today. Jeannie has been sleeping over at Mary Ellen and Brian’s place while she cleaned up after the wedding. She has been busy sorting dishes, washing and ironing borrowed napkins, cleaning stuff out of The Barn, and returning items to the church house. Gerald has helped with the heavy stuff; and though I offered to help, I haven’t been called on.

I could tell Jeannie was becoming homesick for her family, and I am sure they are for her. Yet she has tried to work in bike rides every day, which she couldn’t do the last few days before the wedding, She is in training for her post-wedding adventure that she has been dreaming about for a year. She plans to start at Wisconsin and ride the length of Illinois down to Cairo. She had started shopping for a new bike up in her home territory, but still had not made the purchase before she came down. So the last couple days she was making phone calls and looking at bikes here in this part of the state.

Knowing how Gerald loves anything with wheels and that he was one one who gave her the first bike she really started riding distances back in her college days, Jeannie invited him yesterday to go shopping with her. (Come to think of it, he was the one who taught her to ride her first bike as a little girl. She was having trouble getting the hang of it and was distraught. In a family scrapbook, I have her little note asking her daddy for help. Of course, he helped.) I knew they would have fun on this shopping trip.

Gerald also made some phone calls, and they ended up going to Paducah to a bike shop there and found the light weight bike she really wanted. Looking brand new with almost no miles on it, the bike had been traded in by previous owner for a mountain bike. Jeannie was delighted to find what she liked for considerably less than she and Rick had budgeted for. She was all smiles when they came home.

We now are storing her older bike along with other residue from the wedding that would not fit into Rick’s pickup that she ended up with to haul the borrowed water tank back to their friend. I inherited the left-over flavored cans of soda from the wedding, so I have a huge supply here now for the grandkids, who will be back in a couple of weeks to help out with Vacation Bible School.

Gerry, Vickie, and Geri Ann had to leave immediately after the wedding because they were catching a plane out of Atlanta on Sunday to go to the annual exposure softball tourney in the Boulder area. Since this is Geri Ann’s last time to play in this tournament, Gerry was waxing sentimental since their family has been involved with playing and coaching there for several years. (This was Tara’s first time to not go in five years. She and Bryan and the three boys left here to visit his family in the Chicago area and should be back through here tomorrow afternoon.) Gerry was there the last few years as a recruiter for Georgia, and this year Erin joined him and Vickie out there. She was a recruiter for Southern Illinois University Carbondale, of course, and she had been recruiting the previous weekend at an Indiana tourney and was not even able to come to the wedding.

Knowing their family was there when a lightning strike near Boulder erupted into the huge fire just one mountain ridge away made me even more concerned about the Colorado wild fires. I had already been torn up at the larger fire at Colorado Springs. They saw the strike during one of Geri Ann’s pool play games, which consequently had to be postponed. Gerry sent a photo on Facebook, and I was ready for them to get out of there. But Gerry had phoned me later that it looked as if the fire would stay that ridge away and for me not to worry. (Ha. Fat chance.) My Oregon cousin’s grandson Ian is there now fighting these fires as he does during each summer, so I have even more to be concerned about.

Last Saturday I had actually mentally planned a light lunch for whoever was to be at Woodsong before the wedding, but I intended to also have cold cuts in the fridge in case the hair appointments in town took too long. They did. I failed to get by Small’s to buy the cold cuts; and just when I was wondering what people back on the farm would eat for lunch, our son-in-law David spoke up when we dropped Katherine back home. He explained that he had bought a smoked pork shoulder along with a rack of ribs from the fund raiser at Boynton Center that morning. He said he thought with extra people at the farm that maybe I could use the shoulder. (The ribs were for Sam.) He handed me a warm foil-wrapped wonderful smelling piece of pork, which we were able to let people eat for sandwiches at the farm.

There wasn’t time for me to eat lunch that day, but Gerald and I have been eating on that delicious hunk of meat all week. Jeannie had given us some left-over chicken and dumplings, so I haven’t cooked much with just Gerald and me here at Woodsong this week. Today Jeannie unloaded left-over sweets on us, so my freezer is getting full again.

A couple days ago Gerald brought over all the colorful petunias and other potted plants used to decorate The Barn. Some are for Leslie and Mike the next time someone goes to Nashville after they are home from their honeymoon. Most are for Jeannie when someone headed to Freeport has room for them. In the meantime, I have a gorgeous display of petunias and a few other plants on the picnic table on the deck just outside our kitchen doors, and I am enjoying them along with all the wedding memories.