Down the Gravel and Beyond

A last Mayberry update before I head down to Mexico
with several of my family and church members. We are
going down to Cuernavaca to work on a church building
project at Torre Fuerte church. Last year we poured a
concrete floor and helped with VBS. We also worked on
the Mission Retreat center, Chula Vista, that we were
staying in.

This year will be much the same. The ladies will
concentrate on VBS and the men will be working with concrete.
They are adding some Sunday School rooms to the church
and the guys will be working on the walls and roof. I
am going to try and update on the Mission Trip as we go.
I'll have a new title...Laurie the Live-blogger.

But back to Mayberry...G'ma Opal and Uncle Jim came over
Monday for lunch. We also had my folks and a few of Hattie's
girlfriends. She, Hattie, was having a combo birthday
party. 'Twas fun. The Princess turned 10; Kent BBQed his
famous chicken; I had ribs in the crockpot and G'ma Opal
brought fried squash and cantaloupe. Of course there were
other side dishes and the cake and ice cream.

G'ma said, "I can't remember anything anymore."

Kent replied, "At least you remember that you can't remember."

Then G'ma smirked and said, "I always heard you couldn't lose
your mind unless you had a good one." She also bragged on my
cooking and said, "I've not had a meal that good in a while."

High praise indeed from the daughter of Hattie Simon.

We take turns going to the nursing/boarding homes in Mayberry
on Sundays. (The churches in town take turns.) We usually are
assigned to one of the three facilities about once a month.
This month we go twice. Hattie said, "It's a Blue Nursing Home
Month." See, she listens Pa and Jim to your talk. She has
Blue Moon down pat and can even expand on the idea.

We've been ballgaming for the last two nights. It seems that
all of Mayberry shows up at the park. Smile and wave...wave and
smile. Chitchat. Feel connected. Find out the latest gossip.
Realize that Hattie has reached the stage in her ball career
where a snowcone after the game does not quite make up for a big
loss. I cherish that as a step in maturity. It does not hurt
her to deal with disappointment. God in His mercy sends the hard
as well as the easy. He knows we need growing up and He is the
one who will accomplish it in our lives.

Oh, one last note. We have guppies. We have lots of guppies.
Kent, bless him, takes the job of disposing of extra guppies
once or twice a week. (They multiply really fast.) Before
leaving for Mexico we wanted to depopulate the tank so they'd
have more breathing room. Catching them in a net is hard.
So, in our brilliance, we put a towel in the tank and were
waiting for lots of them to be above the towel and then we
were going to scoop up a load all at once. We left the
towel in overnight, and unfortunately, we eliminated a few
more fish than we expected. The leftover soapsuds in the
towel from when it last went through the washer and dryer
have poisoned our guppies. There are still loads of them,
but they seem to be dropping off one by one. Stand by
for a guppy update at a later time.