Pig delivery complete, shopping, Rosie and Mama, Chase

Grandpa and Grandma made it to the butcher with the pigs yesterday and as Grandma tells it, the people there unloading the pigs were quite impressed with the modifications made to the trailer. Turns out, the pigs spent all day Monday and Monday night on the trailer. Grandpa loaded them at the morning feeding time on Monday morning. They were parked in the shade, fed well and wet down when it got hot. They thought they were at a traveling spa. Ignorance is bliss.


I still have not heard about the job I applied for that would move us to Decatur. I am confident I should hear this week but I have no idea if I am still a candidate for the job. During my mid-year review I was told that the entire scope of the job had changed and much of that change would shift the job away from what made it attractive to me in the initial offering. We will see what happens as the final decision comes down.

Last night was another short evening for me but Mama and I went to an oriental grocery store to see if we could find the noodles to make our favorite Korean dish: japchae. The main ingredient is a noodle made from sweet potatoes. We were successful. The dried noodle isle had about two hundred types of noodles – mostly made from rice. We found what we were looking for in the last section of the isle. What was exciting is that they were very inexpensive. We also bought ingredients for several other dishes. Mama took the Korean cookbook she had been given by Andrew’s mom and grandmas so we played “show and tell” with the employees as we hunted fro the ingredients. It was fun.

We took Rosie for a walk after we got back. She has been recovering from a bad back injury the whole time we have been away. She is doing well but is still very overweight from what Mama normally keeps her. She started the mile walk with us in her normal fashion; barking at everything and everyone she saw, pulling against the restraint and running as far ahead of us as the leash would allow.

We were not quite half way through and all that stopped. She still stopped at every enticing smell she came across but the pulling stopped, the straining stopped. She struggled to keep up. It worked out pretty well for Mama. She was struggling to keep up too. Her left knee has been bothering her for several weeks now. Last night was no exception. When we got home Rosie flopped onto her pallet of blankets and did not move the remainder of the evening. Mama pretty well stopped too.

Chase asked to go to Makaila’s house last night and Mama said no. She thinks he is spending too much time with her. I am less concerned but I do not see it from Mama’s perspective. When I did not jump in to defend her position I guess she assumed as much. Mind you, Chase was complying with the decision but during dinner he thought of something he had left at Makail’s house that Mama had wanted brought back home – some Pensacola Beach sand.

Soon after supper she relented and let him go with the express mandate that he come home by 9 p.m. Chase protested playfully to the early curfew but I explained that the family there, like our family, will not participate in certain activities while there is a guest in the house. So, in order to allow them to get settled down (they have a two year old in the home) and ready for the night, it would be best to be out of their way at an earlier hour than curfew.

I just hope he remembered the sand.