Correction:

The guinea pig's name is "Guinea."
The collie's name is "Bucky"
The fish's name is "Stanley".

My venture

Here I am, finally getting the time to post while sitting next to a fat guinea pig in the laundry room. The guinea pig's name is Bucky, and I am going to stay away from him as much as possible in the next two months! I don't much like pets. This family also has a energetic collie and a fish.

I have been here at Ft. Bragg for four days and am still learning the rhythm of the family routine and what I can do to help. I caught a cold yesterday so that slowed me down a bit. I have not seen much of Ft. Bragg or met many other military families so far. Mostly I've been taking over some of the housework and distracting the younger kids so Mom can do school with the older ones.

I have read two books:
Reforming Marriage by Douglas Wilson, which was very thoughtful and good, except it made me want to get married right away,
And:
Operation Homecoming edited by Andrew Carroll, which was also good but I don't think I'll put it on my list of favorite books, simply because the stories can be so depressing, foul, and strange when not written from a Christian viewpoint. Most of the stories were fine as far as content , though. I don't mean to give this book a harsh review.

Here I am

Guests and hosts

As I mentioned, we had twenty-five people over for lunch yesterday. Twenty of those were students, three were American guides, and two were just guests. These students were from France, England, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands. We had lunch and dinner with them.

These students were arrogant, self-centered, demanding, spoiled, and not open to discussion.

Granted, not all of them were so rude; some of them were friendly and nicer than the others. And I know that all humans are selfish and sinful. We are not used to such a high concentration of obvious arrogance, I think. So after spending more than five hours with these students, we were all a bit frustrated. And Dad puts up with them every day! If these are the future leaders of Europe, we are in trouble.

Sorry to be so negative! That's the way it was. I really hope we were good witnesses.

Students visit

We had twenty-six people over for lunch today. I know you are all passionately interested in domestic things, so here's the menu of our meal which we spent several hours slaving over:

• 6 pounds of Spaghetti noodles
• I'm guessing somewhere around two gallons of spaghetti sauce(That's just a rough guess), divided into two crock-pots, one pot being meatless and the other with hamburger.
• eleven loaves of garlic bread, no we did not make the bread, we just bought frozen garlic bread.
• Four packages of store-bought cookies, eighteen homemade cupcakes, and one cake that didn't bake in the middle and I don't know why so we didn't eat it. I feel ashamed that with all my years experience in baking that this cake didn't turn out, but we all need to be humbled now and then, right?
• Several ice cream buckets of lettuce salad and two jars of home-made ranch dressing
• A gallon of lemonade and a gallon of mint tea

Everything went well, the toilet didn't overflow, and we had some good discussions. Now we need to rest up and get ready for the potluck tonight!

I'm still here

My trip to Ft. Bragg is rapidly approaching. I am getting nervous about leaving my family; I know I will really miss them all. Here's a happy thought for you: to make my airplane flight, I will have to leave home at 3:30 in the morning.

We are having twenty-six people over for lunch this weekend. Most of them are University students from Europe who are in the U.S. for five weeks, studying English and having fun sightseeing. It should be interesting to talk with people from so many different countries, such as England, France, the Netherlands, etc. Many of these students parents immigrated to Europe from muslim countries such as Morocco, and even Iran. Muslims want to benefit from western technology and opportunities that they can't have in their own oppressed lands. The students in the group that are muslims are not strict muslims, and the only religious rule that they seem to follow is the one about not eating pork. We aren't too fond of pork ourselves, just now. The last group of muslims we had over for lunch were also very worldly, but they were very touchy about "discrimination" and "prejudice", towards a religion that they hardly understand. Anyway, it will be interesting.

You will never guess what we girls saw last night: a praying mantis. It was big, about as long as my hand, and it looked mean. All I remember about praying mantis's from elementary grade science is that the females eat their husbands. And I've never seen a praying mantis in Nebraska before. We were out late last night because we went to Iowa to hear Presidential Candidate Ron Paul speak. I've posted a little about him before, and if I have time before I leave I'll post my thoughts about his speech. It seems like every sentence I say nowadays ends with the words "before I leave". Scary!

Another. Hog. Update.

Are you guys getting tired of these updates?
I sure am.

Anyway, I said I would try to post after the last meeting and I didn't. Sorry.
The board of Supervisors, after having a public hearing where we all said our thing, went into executive session so they could privately discuss the matter. This time at the public hearing the cattleman's association, the chamber of commerce, the zoning commission, the county lawyers, a spokesman for Harry Kenobe, and a privately hired lawyer all spoke on behalf of Mr. -------. Those are the big guns here in NE. They are richer than we'll ever be. They are worried that if the board votes against this one hog barn that it will set a precedent against agriculture here in NE. Which is really quite extreme, and not true.

The board voted to basically erase the last decision they made to deny the hog barn, and to table the discussion for two weeks so the lawyers could issue statements. At this point they are, to my understanding, just trying to avoid a lawsuit. The farmers from all over NE are supporting Mr. ------- , and they have money; they are really pressuring the board to approve the barn.

So, it seems like we are going to lose, but that isn't a done deal. Our options appear to be:

• Sue
  
• Move
• or just put up with it.

Our four year old thinks we should take the house apart, put it and the pool in the truck, drive to Africa, and live there. None of the options before us are particularly desirable. I will not be here for the next meeting(s?) since I am leaving in about two weeks for Ft. Bragg. There is no way to know how long this will go on or what will happen next. I probably won't be posting much about it while gone since I won't have access to the information, but I'll let you know if anything big happens.