darkness in the daytime...

 

Out on the deck for the cloudy eclipse...when the skies brightened after the darkness, it was Golden Hour.

Miss Char...

We did see some glimpses of the eclipse through the clouds, but it was totally awesome when it got dark.  The birds stopped singing.  It was still.  The edges of the sky looked like sunrise.  

But shh, it was chilly out there, and a bit disappointing that it was so cloudy.  

Our day started with the gym.  Camille and Char worked out, I went to water aerobics.  Then a stop at the pharmacy, then the Dollar General, then to get gas in the car.  Home...but wait, should we go look at washing machines, see if there's a dented or dinged one priced more reasonably?  Good idea, with all the eclipse traffic...on the main road heading north, we noticed car after car with out-of-state plates.  

See, our washing machine died a few days ago.  It was amazing, a Cabrio, all slick and shiny, only one hundred dollars on Marketplace.  It replaced the stacking one we had for years, since the Great Laundry Room Fire.  Well.  The Cabrio was lovely to look at, but it started in.  Yes, it started in.  First an occasional UL, which meant Unbalanced Load, so we would shift things around, push start, and be fiiiine.  Then it started showing it's true colors...it would take all the live-long day to do one load!  This brought back past Laundry Trauma, of the years when our top loader wouldn't spin properly, you would have to start it, then give that agitator a good whirl, then close the top and hope it would keep going...sometimes it also took all the live-long day...while the pile in the doorway got higher, yes we had Laundry Mountain.  

Those days are long past.  But the Cabrio was a dud.  One hundred dollars for like four or five months of use.  I suggested we consider a new washing machine.  I went looking without doing much research.  Lowe's had a few promising candidates, but nothing to pull the credit card out for.  One was discounted 20% for having a HUGE-0 dent in it.  I would think more like 70% for a dent like that!  harrumph.

Home Depot...we found one we liked, seemed to check all the boxes.  I called Paul, he said to buy it.  Well.  I did.  But $29 to deliver it, they don't allow you to pick it up yourself!  I just did it anyway.  Delivery....April 19th...just do it, the girls said.  So I did.  Tax, delivery, almost seven hundred bucks.

She IS a beauty though.  

Can you believe this?  A little pretreat faucet?  

We were so excited, then I got home and read reviews...some were so negative, I was going to call the store and cancel the order.  But then I read the positive ones, and some on other washers, and there are always going to be unhappy customers and dud machines...and at this price point, well, you're not going to get the Rolls Royce, although you certainly SHOULD.  I'm super excited about it, and also feel a little sick...

Anyway.  Yesterday was a lovely day.  Emily, Benjamin, Mariel, Joseph, Molly, Margaret, Kathryn, Evelyn, Suzanne, Sonja, Charlotte Claire, and Camille were here, of our kids.  (Aaron is in Arizona, Sam and Jonathan went to Ohio for the weekend, and Abigail is in Delaware)...plus some spouses and a fiancé, and 12 of the grandchildren were here.  

Anya, with her Aunts, Charlotte Claire, Sonja, Camille

Suzanne's fiancé Zech and Joseph, with his dog Bucky

Aunt Mariel with Denzel, and Rhys

Zech, Joe, Benjamin

Molly, Kathryn, Suzanne, Aunt Evelyn with Denzel

Emily with Blythe, Kathryn with Jamison

Zech, Joe, Ben, Paul

Declan with cousin Blythe

It was glorious outside, an umbrella blue sky with sunshine galore, and the kids ran around the yard bare foot, from the swing set to the swing in the tree to the trampoline.  We had all sorts of snacks, and barbecued chicken, pulled pork, Paul's spicy venison meatloaf, and Emily's chili verde.  I made coconut cupcakes with white coconut buttercream frosting, and some with chocolate butter cream, as well as a small cake.  There was the Easter basket out too, for the kids to share in.  

We sat around the living room, which I had rearranged to fit more people in, and took turns saying something special about Grandma.  She forgot Joe's birthday one year, when he was just a kid, so she bought him a nice Coleman tent AND gave him fifty dollars.  The other kids were all like, "I hope she forgets MY birthday!", but she rarely forgot birthdays.  She said some salty things:  once, when I was 8 months pregnant for my eleventh child (Evelyn), she said to me, "At least you're tan."  Once she was describing how fat someone was, "You think YOU're big, this woman was as big as that tv cabinet!"  

She told Char, "You look like you're tall, but you're actually kind of short."  To Sonja, "Your $$$ is as big as an axe handle."  (it wasn't, and my goodness, she was like 17 years old.). To Camille, "You look just like Emily, only your face is fatter."  No filter, absolutely none.  Then she'd say, "He has more money than God...such and such lives way over in East Jesus...he's odder than Dick's hatband...it's not much, but it's better than a stick in the eye..."  You could know her for twenty or forty years, and bam, a saying you never heard before.  

She had such a good heart though.  She loved us, and was so thoughtful.  All the cards you think of sending and don't, she actually did.  She used to make us dinners, like lasagna with garlic bread, and a huge salad, and a cake, and bring it over.  It was heavenly.  She would buy us like a dozen chicken halves from the chicken barbecue at the church in her town.  She was very perceptive, and wise, and we're all going to miss her so much.  I loved her dearly.  

So we laughed and we cried, and I think it was healing, to honor her, and grieve her passing.  

Yesterday, I was making room for all the food and all the kids, so I put my poor little seedlings out in the sunshine...then this morning, I remembered them!  Oh no! That is frost on the table, goodness it was 32 degrees out, probably colder in the night!

The aloe plant seems okay, but my newborn little plants...wah.  I know, I can plant more.  I actually got more seeds at the D.G., and will plant them this evening...but oh dear.  

Anyway....so much blabbing today!  Raise your hand if you're snoring!  I don't edit my posts, usually, just type and hit "publish", or else I'd parse and parcel and there'd be nothing left of them...so here's my rambling, all of it.  Have a good evening!