Honk, Honk, Honk!

Honk, honk, honk! The noise of a blaring horn outside the house caused me to sit up in bed and try to collect my bearings.

Apparently it had jolted LV out of his sleep as well because he was frantically trying to get his clothes. He sensed that I was awake and said, "Please hold the alarm clock for me, so I can see."

I got the alarm clock and held the snooze button which makes plenty of light to see what time it is, but surprisingly little when you need to see what you're doing.

Honk, honk, honk! The horn kept on blaring.

"Who is here?" I asked.

"Nobody," LV answered pawing even more frantically at his clothes. I happened to step on the truck keys in my pant pockets when I got up and now I can't find them.

I pressed the snooze button again and set the alarm clock on the floor and reached to help him find his keys quickly before the feeble little light goes out. LV moved a little and the alarm clock went flying across the room, leaving us in total darkness.

The fan was going but reaching up to find the little chain to turn on the light can be extremely challenging when it's pitch dark. Instead LV groped his way across the room and located the one flashlight we have in case of power outages and finally had enough light to find his keys.

He got the dreadful honking stopped, and I collapsed back into bed in gales of laughter. He wasn't quite ready to see the humor in all of it. "Just think, the entire neighborhood was wondering what was going on, and all the traffic that passed could see the lights blinking in the garage."

Somehow in my sleep addled state I found this to make the whole thing even funnier.

We went back to sleep and  when morning arrived LV was ready to laugh about it too.

A Surprise for Lily

A little less than a year ago I was celebrating the release of my first book. This morning I'm pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming that it's already time to celebrate the release of A Surprise for Lily, book four in the Adventures of Lily Lapp series.

 

 

I'm inviting you to join the celebrating. I will be giving away a signed copy of A Surprise for Lily, a cute Lily coloring book, and a few other surprises will be included in the giveaway package.

 

For your chance to win all you have to do is leave a comment telling me about something that surprised you.

 

For a second entry post a link to this giveaway on your blog or Facebook and then come back and leave another comment telling me you did.

 

Giveaway ends on  Saturday September 7th at which time I will be consulting Random Generator to choose the winner.

 

Giveaway is now closed and a winner has been chosen.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Labor Day weekend (in the US of A) is approaching...what's something you've labored over this year?

Algebra. Having attended an Amish school and graduating in eighth grade, I never felt I had an inadequate education, but I went ahead and got my GED. I had to brush up on algebra before the official test, I'm not sharing my score, except to say I was very happy with it.

2. What is one word to describe your 'job' or career?

Blessed.

3. What was your worst or least favorite job ever? Why?

My worst job ever was when I had to work for a family doing their canning and cleaning. My Dad rescued me from that place before I was done. Thankfully. I still shudder to think what may have happened, had my parents not been on guard and followed their intuition.

4. How do you measure contentment?

Can contentment be measured?

I'm content with my life. I have always had dreams and goals in my life, but I don't allow them to rob me of the pleasure of living in the presnt.

A quote on contentment I heard often while growing up:

He who isn't content with little, will never be content with much.

5. Pickles-like or dislike? What is something you eat that requires a pickle? Dill, bread and butter, sweet gherkins...what's your favorite kind of pickle?

Breaded and fried spicy dill pickles are delicious! We have them frequently. My all time favorite pickle is the cinnamon pickles we used to make. I think I still have a few pints in the basement that I've been hoarding to use on some special occasion.

6. In your current house-town-state, what is it you like living close to?

In our current house, I love that we have a waterfall I can see when ever I look out the window.

7. What is one thing on your 'want-to-do' list before summer draws to an official close?

I'm not that much of a summer person. Winter has never come too early for me. There is a beach outing planned before it gets too cold and I'm wondering, is it wrong of me to be praying for rain? As you can tell, I'm not a fan of the whole beach thing.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I have bread dough rising on the kitchen counter and as soon as I'm finished here I need to make a double batch of dough for cheese bread. While it is rising I'll tackle several chocolate cakes and some apple dumplings.

I agreed to cook for a church dinner tonight. Looks like a busy, busy day ahead of me.

Amish Wedding Cake

I have read plenty of books and articles that mentioned the importance of having celery at an Amish wedding, but in reality most Amish communities don't. Interestingly enough something that I never read was the significance of a wedding cake that means much more to a lot of Amish weddings than celery does.

When we were getting ready for our wedding LV and I baked our wedding cake. Grandma Mast owned several huge round cake pans that brides used to borrow to make their wedding cakes. On the morning we were to bake our cake I ran over to their house and got the pans. I was looking forward to making the biggest cake I ever had. Each pan was big enough to hold enough batter for one and a half regular cakes and we were planning to have four layers.

LV and I worked together. Each layer was going to be a different. We were both getting two layers with our favorite flavor. I measured, he stirred, and we both enjoyed working together to create this cake.

Once it was done and frosted with a pure white frosting it was ready to tower above everything else on our wedding table. A symbol of two different lives coming together to build a new and better one. And somewhat a picture of marriage, of working together, a mixing and blending, still two different people, but now having a common goal.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What's your worst food memory?  How about one of your best?

My worst food memory happened only a few weeks after we got married and were living in three rooms in the upstairs of LV's parents' big farm house. They were supposed to be moving to Missouri the next week, but until then I felt as if I was coming across as a scatter brained ninny and was making more stupid little mistakes than any other time in my life.

I had decided to make beef and cheese stuffed pastry pockets for our supper. I happily rolled out the dough, filled it with the beef mixture, and lined a dozen perfect half moon shaped pockets on my brand new Teflon coated cookie sheet before popping them into the cute little oven I had to use.

LV came in from finishing up the chores, and I proudly presented a platter filled with golden brown pockets. We sat down to eat, and what a disappointment! They tasted absolutely awful, exactly like I would imagine Teflon would taste if I tried to eat it. There was no way we were going to be able to eat them.

LV came up with a bright idea. Teddy, our dog, was lying under a tree. He opened a window, whistled for him and dumped the entire platter of pockets outside for the dog to eat. He assured me with his parents visiting friends that it would be dark by the time they got home so even if Teddy hadn't eaten all of them that they wouldn't be able to see anything, and by morning they would surely all have disappeared.

The next morning on my way into the house after getting done with the milking I was horrified to see every last one of those pockets piled right outside his parents bedroom window. I got down on my hands and knees and quickly gathered them all up and took them out to the barn and tossed them on the manure spreader where they belonged. Traumatized enough to vow never to make those beef pockets again.

My favorite food memory was the day our wedding cake was created. I'll tell you all about it later this week.

2. Do you appreciate people telling it like it is, or would you rather a speaker temper his/her words and maybe beat around the bush a little?  How about when you're the one communicating...which type are you?

There is a difference between constructive criticism and simply being mean. I always like to know how to do things better however I really don't like telling someone else things that I'm afraid they could take the wrong way.

3. What's your favorite place to hang out?

That's simple. Home! My favorite place in the world.

4. When do you most feel like you're a slave to time?

Somehow Monday always feels as if there simply wasn't enough time. The house is always needs to be cleaned since its at its very messiest after a lazy Sunday, there is a weeks worth of laundry to be done, Buddy is always a little crankier, and even though there doen't seem to be enough time, it's the one day bedtime can't come fast enough.

5. What was the last concert you attended?  Who'd you go with? Was it any good?

I've never been to an actual concert. There have been groups that came to our church to sing. The Downings were probably our favorite, but I can only take so much bluegrass before I don't want to hear it for a while.

6. Reality TV...harmful or harmless?  What's your guilty pleasure when it comes to reality TV?

Some reality shows are more harmful than others. We enjoy Duck Dynasty, something I never thought possible because of all those long beards, but after actually watching an episode we were officially hooked.

I really like cooking shows too. Chopped and Master Chef being my favorite.

7. What's something you think is overrated?

One little word. Sports. I'll leave it at that.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

 

Last year some insects got into my flowers and most of them didn't make it. This year we have baby kittens and the amount of destruction they have caused to my gladolius bed is frustrating. I did manage to salvage one little bouquet.