Grice Journal: Operation October

Ok. Wow. So, October is long since past, along with November, and December is really booking it. What happened? Will someone please throw a bucket of ice water on my head to wake me up? *shakes head with a dazed look*

October started off with a ridiculously busy schedule. The first week was spent cleaning... two houses on Monday, three on Tuesday, one on Wednesday (went to the Orthodontist, helped Abi can, cleaned up the house, then went to church), two houses on Thursday (we usually do three), then our own house on Saturday. In between all of that was lots of babysitting, coffee trips with Gram, sisters' meeting, preparing for Apple Days in Griswold, baking, garage saleing, and a Mary and Martha party. Our busy cleaning weeks generally all look like that. 😅

Sam turned 13 October 10th! *Random Fact* Sam and KK are the last teenagers in our family.

Ben turned 22 on the 17th...

A good friend of ours died... Delbert Rieken. He was one of my favorite old men friends from the elderly coffee crowd that used to gather at the Bakery.

Our water started acting funny on the 17th. We've always kinda had trouble with it drawing silt up in the lines or loosing pressure. We didn't think too much about it until the next day when it quit working altogether. Dad called a well guy, who came and and said our lines needed purged. Dad purged the lines. It seemed to help, but by night, the water stopped again... and never came back. After a bunch of tests, the well guy determined that our well had run dry, or something along those lines. Dad said it didn't actually run dry, so I'm not entirely sure what it did. 😄 I know that there are so many that live without running water, but, when you are living in a modern house, you aren't prepared for contingencies like that. We were immediately thrown into a whirl of boiling water, bucket flushing toilets, showers at church, taking our laundry somewhere to be washed... It was incredibly stressful! Our church body was simply amazing with how they rallied around us, offering buckets, help and a shoulder to cry on. We are so blessed! After the man that lends Abi his bull for Sandy heard about our plight, he came every few days to fill up the stock tanks for the animals. *Bunny trail alert* A few Sundays ago, a couple people left money in our vehicle and our mailbox at church. We don't feel like we deserve all this! You know who you are. Thank you, thank you, thank you! *End of Bunny trail* Anyway, we lived three weeks without water, three weeks of hauling water, showers away from home, and hauling our laundry around. The well digger finally came around the beginning of November. Boy were we excited! Before hooking the water up, the guys decided to dig all new water lines for our property. The original lines were ancient! They put in new hydrants at various places. They worked long hours, before and after work... We all worked hard! By November 8th, the guys were ready to hook the water up. They got it running before they left before work one morning. We were ecstatic! The water was murky, full of sand and silt, but we didn't care! I have never been so thankful for such a simple thing like water. I am still marveling at how wonderful it is to be able to wash my hands, flush the toilet, do laundry, mop the floors, take a shower and fill the stock tanks. You never know what you have until it's gone!

The water situation pretty much took over our lives for those three weeks, making our lives even busier, especially during a busy cleaning week. It took so much longer to do even simple tasks, like washing the dishes. I am so thankful for running water!

I found these glasses outside of church one Sunday.

We think KK looked like Harold Lloyd!

Orthodontist visit...

Preparing for our fundraiser sale during Griswold's Apple Days.

Talk about red neck!

KK cleaned the bathroom for me one day.

We got a lot of rain in October!

Wendy (the owner of Sweet Joy Shoppe in Atlantic), came to give us a Mary and Martha presentation.

Finally sold my vintage 1950s gas stove!

Talk about cow pills! 😳 This was for Sandy, by the way. 😋

Mom got these amazingly easy to set mouse traps. I hate setting mouse traps. Trying to get the trigger just so without it snapping on you. Ugh. I usually come away from a mouse trap setting session all stressed and shaky. It's like playing with an explosive! 😬 These buggers are a breeze to set. You just squeeze them open, and you're done!

Happy birthday, Sam!

Abi made a really yummy breakfast pizza

Sweet Joys with the gang

Five months of braces!

Josh spent a week in WY hunting with friends.

We missed him a lot!

Alaina "helping" me clean the upstairs bathroom

She'd been eating Oreos and had them smeared all over her face. 😂

Happy birthday, Ben!

Katelyn is fascinated by the cows!

Hot chocolate weather 😉

Gus (the black one) loves to lick and chew on you.

Our porch was crowded with buckets and jugs for weeks!

Mom, Aunt Carol, Abi and I cleaned out Gram's storage unit in preparation for her moving. It was so fun to find old pictures like this one of Ry and Nate!

Ben

We were able to get water out at the hydrant by the well for awhile, but that eventually stopped too.

Go Fish is so much fun!

I sold our vintage bathroom set to a couple that wants to revert their house to a vintage/retro look. (Yuck!) They wanted us to deliver the set, so Dad and I took it out to them one Saturday morning.

The well guy pulled up the piping for the old well. It was 175 feet deep.

We went to my cousin, Brooke's baby shower one Sunday afternoon. Brooke isn't married...

It was very sad... She wants to raise the baby with Marxism. The theme for her shower was all dark- bats, halloween, etc. I fear for that baby! Something interesting... We looked up the meaning for the baby's name, Marnie Jane. "Marnie" means, "Rejoice" and Jane means "Jehovah has been gracious". "Rejoice! Jehovah has been gracious!" Isn't that beautiful? I think God has something special planned for that baby. Brooke had her on Thanksgiving day. Just the other day, Marnie stopped breathing. My aunt Shelly suctioned mucus out of her airway after calling 911. She was rushed to the hospital, and is fine now.

What do you think? It seems to me like there's something special going on with little Marnie...

Abi harvested the last of the tomatoes.

Helping Dad make Chinese

Spent the day at church doing tomatoes and peppers with Abi.

We both took showers, then warmed up with some good, strong coffee.

Abi washed a bunch of eggs.

She also deep cleaned her milker. Abi had it the hardest out of any of us while our water was out. She had to boil gallons of water to clean jars and the milker.