I've been waking up naturally at 6:30 lately. I guess I'm okay with it... it gives me time to get things done before I head out the door and give up my day to watching the children.
I'm a little sore today. A happy kinda sore, though. I have great friends. GREAT friends! They're all gems. Especially the kind who are quick to rescue one in distress. Not that I'm in any REAL distress very often... but in the moment, it kind of seems like distress.
For example, the other day, a friend of mine asked me to come to his house at 6pm to help plant his garden. "SURE! I LOVE PLANTING GARDENS!" I and my roommate showed up at 6:15ish and upon a quick glance over at the garden and not seeing our friend.. or his truck for that matter... we walked towards the front door. Falling behind eachother along the way trying to make the other one arrive to the door first and be the first to go through it. (They don't really knock on doors as much as they open them and go through them in that culture).
I lost the leap-frog game and happened upon the door first. I opened it and entered, like ya do, and was greeted by said friend's mom in the kitchen. She seemed quite enthused to see us and asked if we were looking for said friend. "Why yes, we are! Is he here?"
"I'm afraid not. He doesn't usually get home til 8pm or so"
*Enter internal gasps and slight shocks*
"Oh!... 8??"
"Yep. DId he give you a specific time to be here?"
"Yeah... 6."
We both kind of looked at each other again.. but we both know said friend..obviously... and we weren't that surprised. His mom is probably one of the sweetest, kindest and most beautifullest ladies ya ever did meet. She sweetly welcomed us in and put us to work prepping said friend's potatoes for planting. We took our potato project out to the front porch where we were content to watch the kitties tumble over themselves and Amish buggies and wagons trot on by. My day is made every time I encounter a buggie.
We did the potato thing for 30 minutes or so and then washed up in the house. The kind mom of said friend sat us down with water and juices and placed a freshly made cake in front of us. She left to ready herself for church and said friend's dad came over to tell us about his chicken farming days. And then they left.
And it was my roommate and myself sitting in their kitchen with no one home. While this is far from the cultural norm for both of us, it's not that "odd" for this bunch of friends we have. In fact, it's perfectly normal to be sitting in someone's living room or back yard when the person isn't home. While my roommate and I felt a little odd at first, we rather embraced how truly welcomed and accepted we felt since we weren't told to leave or sit on the porch until someone else came home. These group of people has taught me SO MUCH about hospitality. Because they just are. The whole "my home is your home" is a literal reality for them and I love it. They cook at each others houses and sleep and nap and live...just life together all the time.
Anyways... In our "distress" of hanging out in our friend's kitchen alone, we invited a different friend over. He was slightly preoccupied at the time, but he was quick to offer he would come as fast as legally possible. So in the meantime, Anne and I decided to check up on the "I saw kittens in the out house" phrase that we heard uttered from our friend's mother's mouth.
We wandered out to the garden and found the quaint little structure...just on the otherside of an electric fence that was about 18inches high maybe. Most people would think, "I'll just straddle that
thing and step over it." Not us. We are short and we didn't know if it was on or not and we didn't wanna risk finding out it was on by finding out our short little legs were too short to safely clear the fence. So, being the clever girls that we are, we found a spot in the fence where it appeared to be raised slightly and then army crawled underneath it. Success! We weren't shocked.
Upon arriving at the outhouse, the next trick was opening the door...which we didn't realize was propped up and barely on its hinges. Oops. Oh well. We did find kittens! And a protective mama cat that kept jumping out towards us and then back towards her young. We propped the door back and figured we'd ask a boy to catch one for us later.
Moving on, we decided to try out his trees in his little cow farm. We attempted to climb a few with not much success...as well as me discovering with my foot that there were soft cow
pies. ...rude.
We did eventually find a promising looking tree, but we needed a ladder. So we moved on from the trees and began hunting barns.... All this is normal farm things to do, I know. It just was exciting for us because you don't normally do that at other people's homes when their not home. But we did eventually find a ladder and we returned to the tree and managed to get ourselves stuck in it. Eventually I managed to get myself out..but Anne was struggling and I was laughing way too hard at the situation to be of any use for helping her. Our friend who had come to rescue us from our distress happened upon me laughing at Anne being stuck in the tree and kindly guided her dangling foot to the ladder whilst offering encouraging words as she slowly made her way down.
We then asked him to catch us some kittens and he did. And THEN the friend that actually lived there showed up and asked if we had left him a plot in the garden for more corn. "Yes sir..all we did was prep your potatoes and climb your trees and Explore your barns and cuddle your kittens... And eat your cake and read your Amish history book on how to grow chickens"
He went to work planting whilst we played with the kittens.
Another friend joined us shortly thereafter and we sat in the kitchen and chatted and then moved out to the porch where we observed 5 minutes of silence before returning to conversation as usual.
Last night I was invited along to keep my friend Amanda company whilst she vocally coached a young lady from our friends' church. I get bored sometimes when I'm other people's houses and am not supposed to be making any sounds so I texted ahead to see if my kitten catching friend would be there..since he lives there after all. He was busy and not home, so I resigned myself to try to cleverly come up with a way to entertain myself quietly. I thought about their trees but I'm not as confident to explore other people's yards when it's just me by myself.
But then! My kitten catching friend stopped in to say hello before heading off to a bonfire. How kind! As he was saying goodbye he suggested I take their 4wheeler through the woods to entertain myself. After explaining to him that I didn't know how to operate one he asked if I'd like a ride and of course the answer was yes!
He asked if he should keep it at a slow pace and of course I said no. FAST FAST FAST!! Near death experiences are my favorite. So off we went, ducking under branches, dodging trees, and chasing the neighbor's cattle around the pastures. The mama cows didn't take too kindly to us playing cowboy round up with them and stood their ground..and looked like they might murder us if we got to close to their suckling young. Oh my goodness, I coulda died happy right then and there. It was so fun!
And now today is a work day. Driving children places, feeding them, trying to get them to keep their clothes on, and sticking my fingers into the 1 yr old's mouth to retrieve the soggy play doh he decided to taste test. At the end of the day I will take my first round of "moving out" objects home to my parents and hopefully have a relaxing weekend with my siblings and friends. We'll see how much sleep I end up getting... Probs not much since there's an EPIC METEOR SHOWER TONIGHT OH MY GOODNESS!!! 1000 meteors an hour!!! Oh you know ima be sleeping on the roof. :)
Anyways...that is just a small tiny itty bitty teeny weeny little glimpse of what sorts of adventures pack my days and my nights. Every day is an adventure full of adventures. Every day. I'll try to remember to share the stories every now and again. :)
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