Rusty Bedding

Emerson is still not here. Maybe this weekend. The blessed news for today is that her Daddy will NOT miss her entry into the world. He is home for the next full week and a half. If she does not come on her own, then by next Tuesday for sure I will have news!

I woke up early yesterday morning and had a fresh vision for the day. I cleaned the master bathroom, had a load of towels washing and worked in my office before anyone even got up. Once Kyle and Sweetheart went off to work, the little kids got going on their school work. Thursday is Rachel's laundry day here. This is her last week, as their dryer will be running again by next week. It is too heavy for her to carry wet clothes, so she just does it all here. Charlotte has been so good to help carry the baskets to and from the van every week. Anyway, I needed to wash Zach's bedding before Rachel arrived, so I threw it in after the towels were done. Also on the list were the hard floors. I had neglected them for too long and planned for today to be the day, even though they are not on my regular Thursday schedule. I finished up my breakfast (I ate late), and went up to brush my teeth. I loaded my toothbrush with toothpaste and went to put it under the water....EWWWWWWW. RUST. The picture is actually not too bad. It was MUCH darker than that. A dark reddish brown. Awful. It ended up, our town was flushing the hydrants! No warning. They just do it. I ran down to the washer which had already stopped. I pulled Zach's bed pad out and it was orange!Great! Rachel came with her laundry and I told her it would need to wait. My neighbor said her water was clear. Well isn't that special. I was the only one. She did bring me some Oxyclean for the bed pad and sheets. After a couple of hours the water was clear.While running an empty load, just to be certain, I noticed how awfully dirty my washing machine was. Notice the dirt ring near the top. I sprayed it and scrubbed it off. That is why the pic shows only half a dirt ring....it actually went all the way around. Gross. The agitator cup was filthy too. The whole washer got a good cleaning, inside and out. As I was cleaning it, look what happened....Lovely! More rust. Glad I did the test run! I checked, and sure enough, all the sinks and toilets had rust again. 3 more hours, and finally the water ran clean for good. The Oxyclean worked well enough on the pad that I went ahead and dried it and Rachel did most of her laundry. The floors did get cleaned, but not until very late.

It was a good thing we had clean water, as the kids were filthy too. A full day of playing with toads, had them all needing showers!

Not the day I had planned, but as Cheryl says, "Hold your plans loosely"! Excellent advice!

I also wanted to show one more picture from our time spent with George. This is a fig tree from George's hometown of Patras Greece. It actually bears fruit (you can see the green balls) and the figs are getting ripe. It is just to the right of Charlotte.We are going to read the story of how Jesus cursed the fig tree. It was really fun for the kids to see a real one. George is very fond of this tree.

I wanted to share a couple of opportunities in blogland. First is the "Fall Into Reading" hosted by Callipidder Days (I did not misspell that...it is how her little one said caterpillar!) Click on the picture to read about this great reading challenge which begins on September 22nd.Also, my friend Debi is hosting a great giveaway opportunity for quilters! It is the "Fall Into Fall Quilter's Blog Giveaway". If you are a quilter and want to participate, just click on the scarecrow.

I guess that is about it for today. Praying your day is full, prosperous and blessed!!!