Everyone Needs a Day of Rest

I was determined to read a book that my daughter bought me for Christmas.  I have been running hard since I got back from the graduation of my daughter from the University. We had Christmas, a team, New Years, labor union meetings etc and so I just felt like I needed some down time.  The series is called "The Mitford Series" by Jan Karon.  I have read the book series twice, but had loaned the girls the first book in the series and it went missing.  I asked my daughter to replace my missing book when she asked me what I wanted for Christmas and looked forward to reading it again.  I decided this Saturday was to be my "day off".

I woke up at my normal time at 5 a.m.  Prayed and did my devotions.  Then afterward,  I got out my book and then the night workers came to the door at 6 a.m. to be paid.  So I got on my scurfy white bedroom shoes and my fuzzy white housecoat, checkbook , receipt book, and black ink pen to take care our laborers who had work diligently this week and needed their pay.

I heated up some old coffee from the day before after the workers left, and when back to my bed a now I was freezing, so I put on my heating pad to get warmed back up. I got my book and read a chapter and the girls came to get the breakfast ingredients from my house.  I would love to keep all of the groceries in the kitchen pantry, and not have to go through the ritual of "What do we cook for Breakfast routine" but in the 17 years here we have not been able to do that.  Main ingredients to the next meal go missing and it is hard to keep a hold on what was in the bodega. So I got that attended to.

I got back to my room determined to grab up my book.  Then I got up when the girls came in asking for lasagna and rolls and  so I made showed the girls how to make each item and we made enough for 35 girls along with 2 apple cobblers.  While I had gone into the kitchen to show them how to make rolls and lasagna, I saw a box of apples that a local store where I shop each week needed to be used quickly, so I cut up the apples and showed the girls how to make cobblers.

Then the new worker was refusing to make tortillas because she didn't have any wood for the outside cook stove.  So I got into the flatbed and rounded up the girls who were not cooking in the kitchen, drove to the back of the farm, and loaded up to the very top of the cab a load of limbs and sticks and brought it back to the outside kitchen.  I went back to my room and picked up my book. I told the girls they could come into my house and finish a movie they were watching the night before.  The lights had gone off last night and so they were unable to finish their movie Matilda.  I thought if they were busy, I might could get after reading my book. 

Then a lady who needed a job came up and so I interviewed her for a position of housemom at night.  She left and I went back in to my book.  The girls came in after their movie and said the new day worker, who was pretty young, but I was trying it out because her sister works for us during the week and does a great job, had asked me to give her a chance as a weekend worker. Even after getting the wood she needed she didn't cook the tortillas.  I cooked the lunch with the girls and so really all she did all morning was make a salad and cooked a pot of beans.  She asked if I wanted her to come the next day,  I told them to tell her "I thought not". Then the girls came in and said the Hardware Store Guy was here to deliver cement.  I just grabbed the checkbook on my bed from where I left it from the morning payroll incident and gave them a check and a receipt to get him to sign.  They brought back the receipt.

I went back to my book… Then the girls came and said one of the goats had her babies and they were premature.  So I went out to the back field and checked on the goat and ended up with the girls cleaning up the goat pen and cutting and chopping some more johnson grass and sugar cane for the 12 goats that we now have.  I had a goat earlier in the week, that birthed two baby goats and she lost them because she had no milk or colostrum.  So I have lost 4 baby goats this week. I was going to make cornbread before the goat incident happened.  I was frustrated with the loss of the goats and not getting the cornbread on, but we moved on.   I got back to the kitchen and the girls were eating their tortilla-less soup,  but the silver lining was that the apple cobbler was ready.

  I put a new Shirley Temple movie on and went to my book, then I needed to counsel with one girl who came and sat on my bed.  She had been taking things from the other girls and so we talked about what abuse was and how it can take different forms.  She had been abused one way but her taking personal things from the girls was abuse too.  She cried, we prayed and she went to go watch the movie.  When she left another girl came to my bedside and shared about a serious situation she was going through, and then another comes and talks about her headaches she has been having and then I had to go to another girl who was struggling with so many things, and spent an hour in her room, with tears and hugs we resolved some of the issues she was dealing with.  I confessed my feelings of inadequacy and she later came and brightly said that "I was the best mom ever" as she was telling me good night.  I laid my neglected book to the side, turned out my light, laid my head on my pillow and thank the Lord for my day.  It wasn't to restful but it was blessed.  Blessings the Sporadic Book Reading/Resting Honduran MOM