Sunday, March 23: Easter Sunday
Happy Easter to All!!!
It was hardly the kind of day that anyone would choose if they were ordering up a day for Easter Sunday; it was cold, breezy, cloudy, and (briefly) drizzly…the kind of morning that would make one think twice about even crawling out of bed. Maybe, just maybe, we got this kind of day today so we could focus on the eternal beauty of the significance of the day, and not just the temporal beauty of the world around us.
Still, it turned out to be a full and wonderful day for us. We decided this morning that we would attend services at Artesia’s First United Methodist Church, where Jerry, Nancy, and Becky Terpening attend. They each had their own part in the service, so we sat in a Baptist pew in the back of the sanctuary and were inspired by the totality of the service, from the friendly welcomes of the ushers, the music, the scripture readings, and the lesson from the sermon; all of it took our minds off the weather outside and reminded us of why we celebrate this very special day.
When the service was over we visited a bit with Nancy and then headed back out to Big V to change clothes and get ready to eat. Jerry and Nancy invited us, along with Mother, Ernie, and Billee, to join their family for a special Easter dinner at their house. Jerry prepared stuffed pork loins, dressing, and gravy; Nancy fixed green beans and a sweet potato casserole, Becky brought her “award winning” deviled eggs, Jean baked a lemon cake, and we slaved for nearly 5 minutes to put together a tossed salad (it wouldn’t have taken quite so long to fix the salad, but I had trouble opening the plastic container of cherry tomatoes).
Everyone arrived at Jerry and Nancy’s house about the same time…just a few minutes before everything was ready…so we had time to visit before the meal. We were also joined by Scott, the youth minister from FUMC, who has done a terrific job of organizing the church youth. Scott is originally from Slade, Texas, a small West Texas community relatively close to Lubbock; he attended South Plains College in Levelland and Texas Tech in Lubbock, places that we know, so we had a lot to talk about.
It didn’t take long before all the food was on the table and we made our way into the formal dining room (boy, does Nancy ever know how to set a table!). After we found our places and Jerry asked the blessing, we began to dig in, each of us offering a bit of conversation between bites. We won’t go into the merits of each of the dishes…will only say that it was all delicious and no one went away hungry!
By shortly after 3:00, we had Jerry and Nancy’s kitchen pretty well put back together and we all left to go back to our own homes for the afternoon
When we got back to Big V we turned on the TV to watch some more of the NCAA tournament action, but found that the Texas game, the one we wanted to see, had been completed and Texas had advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. We started watching the Oklahoma/Louisville game and even cheered for Oklahoma; Barbara, because she had picked OU in her brackets, and me, out of support for the Big XII and in deference to those Okie friends of mine who have still not converted. You know what they say, “Love the person, even if you can’t love what they stand for.” (Or something like that)
We eventually gave up on watching what turned out to be a brutal game for OU. We started to take a little nap, but decided we’d never get to sleep tonight if we did that, so we got up and Barbara worked at the computer while I went over to check on Mother and do some ironing.
Later we went over to see Jean for a few minutes and then returned to Big V to watch some TV before calling it a night.
Monday, March 24
We had every intention of getting some work done around the place this morning. Barbara was going to do some house cleaning and I was going to rake under the rest of the pecan trees, but the wind and dust got up early today so it didn’t make sense to work inside and it would be impossible to do what needed to be done outside.
Instead, I took care of some paperwork that had been piling up. The license on Big V is coming due and we voted that this year it would be much better to pay the extra dollar and renew by mail rather than drive to Lubbock and stand in line all day.
After going to town to get copies made and go by the post office, I ran by Mother’s house to see how things were going there…stuck around to finish some ironing and then returned to Big V to find that Barbara had spent her time cleaning and straightening cabinets, so it didn’t turn out to be a totally wasted morning after all.
We took a break for lunch, watched another episode of M*A*S*H, and decided to read a bit before taking a nap.
This evening we went back into town to drop off some more mail, checked in with Mother and then Ernie and Billee, came back out to visit Jean for a few minutes, and then retired to Big V to eat and watch TV for the rest of the night.
Tuesday, March 25
Happy Birthday today to Becky Terpening in Artesia!
We just piddle-paddled around Big V this morning until time to go to town and pick Mother up for her appointment at the rehab center. Barbara stayed at the house to baby-sit the puppies and do a load of laundry while I took Mother to rehab. Mother is doing very well with her physical therapy, going through a pretty strenuous one-hour plus set of exercises two days a week…she is showing much improvement in mobility since her back surgery in December.
The day started as pretty and gradually progressed to absolutely beautiful…a bright sunny sky and almost no wind. After we got home from town and had a little lunch, I decided to go outside and work around Jean’s yard while Barbara stayed inside to do some much-needed work on Big V.
Jean has fourteen large pecan trees surrounding her house. After the pecans fall and are gathered, there is a lot of “trash” left over in the yard…leaves, dead grass, pecan hulls, etc.). I decided that this year I would rake out all of the yard encircled by the trees (the equivalent of about three regular city lots) to get a fresh start on spring and some much-needed and wished for rain. I raked some of the lot south of the house before we left for Puerto Rico and finished it while Jaycie was visiting last week. Today I tackled the area east of the house and had most of it raked and the trash hauled off to the pile by late afternoon.
This evening we joined Jean, Jerry, Nancy, Becky, and Susie for Becky’s birthday dinner at Piccolino’s, a really nice Italian restaurant here in Artesia. After eating our limit, we all went to the AHS Auditorium for a concert presentation by the Artesia Concert Association.
Tonight’s concert was the Jeni Fleming Trio, a wonderful acoustic trio that works out of Bozeman, Montana. I was expecting something along the line of “elevator music with a kick,” but was very pleasantly surprised to find that they were an excellent jazz improvisation ensemble with a repertoire of old standards and new compositions all dressed up in new stylings. They did an arrangement of Amazing Grace that just knocked my socks off. If you ever have a chance to see and hear them, do it. You won’t be disappointed.
After the concert we returned to Jerry and Nancy’s house for dessert and to watch Becky open her birthday presents before we all returned to our own abodes for the night.
Wednesday, March 26
After our late night activities, we just took our time getting around this morning. We had several bits of business that needed our attention…getting our tax return in the mail, catching up on snail mail and email, and generally straightening up the place.
We joined the clan at Chaos for our regular Wednesday luncheon and then went back to Big V for the afternoon where Barbara worked inside and I went out to finish raking and hauling trash around Jean’s yard.
Jerry and Nancy invited us over to their house for a hamburger cookout tonight, so we offered to go to the store to pick up some hamburger buns and chips for our contribution. The meal, as always, was wonderful and we had a great time visiting with everyone and playing a rousing game of Fact or Crap.
Since we all had a busy day scheduled for tomorrow, we shut down the party at a fairly reasonable hour and returned to our respective homes for the night.
Thursday, March 27
Happy Birthday to Jean Terpening in Artesia!!!
Who knows why, but we both woke up at 4:00 this morning…just can’t seem to get our days and nights regulated lately.
We continued the week of birthday celebrations by joining Jean, Jerry, Nancy, Becky, and Susie for a drive up to Ruidoso. It was a beautiful day (a little cool up in the mountains, but not so much that we couldn‘t enjoy being outside for a bit). We played for a bit at the Apache Travel Center just outside Ruidoso and then had a wonderful lunch there (best food in the Ruidoso area at prices that are really amazing for the quantity and quality).
We went up to the Inn of the Mountain Gods for a couple of hours to play and then started the trip back to Artesia, stopping in Roswell to buy some pizzas at Papa Murphy’s to take home for our evening meal.
Back at Artesia we all went to Jerry and Nancy’s house to visit some more, eat pizza and salad, and watch Jean open her presents.
Soon, the celebrations were over and it was time for Susie to return to Hobbs after her three-day visit in Artesia, and for Becky to go home and make final preparations for her drive to Knox City and Benjamin, Texas, to visit with her sister, brother-in-law, and nephews for the weekend. Jean went back to her house and we returned to Big V, leaving Jerry and Nancy to enjoy the peace and quiet of their home for the night.
We stayed up to watch Louisville upset Tennessee and UCLA dispatch Western Kentucky in the night games of the NCAA Sweet Sixteen and then decided that enough was enough and went to bed.
Friday, March 28
Happy Anniversary to daughter Whitney and son-in-law Jim Farnham in Lenexa, Kansas!!!
Mother had another rehab session this morning, so we didn’t start any projects before we went to town to pick her up.
Barbara stayed at the house to take care of the puppies and do a couple of loads of laundry while I took Mother to her workout. She had another good session and is continuing to show improvement in her mobility and leg strength.
After getting back to the house, Barbara and I took Mother’s grocery list to Fenn’s Supermarket and got the things she needed as well as a few things we wanted to try. It’s taking some shopping around for us, but we’re about to get everything we need to try one of Margarita and Maria’s recipes from Puerto Rico.
The laundry was completed by the time we got back to the house, so we folded Mother’s things and put them away, fed the puppies and her, and gathered our clean clothes and took them back to Big V where we had lunch and watched another episode of M*A*S*H.
It was a pretty nice afternoon out, so I tackled some chores around Jean’s place…put up a new windsock that we gave her for her birthday yesterday and patched a leaky water hose around one of the pecan trees…Also took care of some necessary plumbing chores around Big V. Meanwhile, Nancy and Benjy came over while I was working outside and visited with Barbara.
I decided to fire up the motorcycle and ride into town to check on Mother and the puppies. Ernie came over and we got to visit for a few minutes…still no word on his job application in Shreveport, but they had told him during his interview that it might take several weeks for the HR people to complete their part of the job.
When I got back to Big V, I found Barbara playing Susie Homemaker in the kitchen; she had some cake layers baking in the convection oven. It’s been a while since she baked a round cake, and she was just in the mood to give it a try.
We settled in for a night of NCAA basketball to see who would advance to the Elite Eight on Sunday. Luckily, we had favorite teams in tonight’s games and enjoyed watching Davidson upset Wisconsin, Texas thrash Stanford, and Kansas destroy Villanova…just couldn’t get interested in the Memphis / Michigan State game…one of those “who cares” games as far as we were concerned. In any case, it makes for a couple of really interesting match-ups to see who advances to the Final Four.
Saturday, March 29
There’s not a whole lot to be said for this day. We slept in until about 8:00, something unusual for us. We caught up on our internet reading and email and then Barbara fixed breakfast. Around noon we took some cake over to Mother’s house to share with her and Ernie and Billee, and then returned to Big V.
While Barbara worked on our lunch, I went out to do some more raking and trash hauling…finally finished everything around Jean’s house and started in on the area between the fence line and Eastwind Road. The wind started getting up, but luckily it was from the southwest and I was raking toward the northeast, so I got a bit of a break from that.
After breaking for lunch, I went back outside to try to finish the section I had started. Nancy and Benjy came by for a few minutes and visited with Barbara. Jean got home around 4:00, so I helped unload bag of birdseed for her and then put Little Red and the tools away and called it an official day.
Barbara: Tonight…Watched a couple of basketball games. I needed Xavier to beat UCLA (didn’t happen) and Louisville to beat North Carolina (also didn’t happen) so I could move up in the standings in the bracket contest I’m in. (Right now I’m 9th out of 25…not so bad for someone who doesn’t watch much basketball…I didn’t pick either UCLA or North Carolina…just want them to lose so some of the others will drop in the bracket…not very nice of me, I suppose. I want Kansas and Texas (go, Big 12) to meet in the finals, though Davidson is a pretty neat team.)
On the really bright side for today, we received pictures of Alexander and Abby from Andy and Heather today. Utilizing a grandparents’ prerogative, we decided have decided to share a couple of them with you here.
Top left (bottom collage): Alexander and Aunt Heather (Andy’s sister) dyeing Eater eggs
Barbara: Another blessing that we've had this week is that my brother-in-law, Cal, is doing well at home. It's just going to take time for him to have more strength. Also, sister Nancy reported that so far all tests have come back negative; so it appears her blood pressure is the only thing acting goofy and it can be regulated. More tests will be done on Monday, but we're praying that they too come out well. Again, thanks to all who have remembered them in prayer.
I know that today is Sunday, the 30th, and we aren't writing about Sunday; but as I work on the blog, I have to ask...what happened to Texas?????? The one time I root for them they don't do well... how sad. :(
“Any American boy can become a basketball star if he grows up, up, up.” – Bill Vaughn
Windblown in Artesia,
Jim & Barbara
