napkin thief:: Emma funny

I've been absent.  Four kids in a new school and taking on a volunteer role in Love Without Boundaries where I help coordinate the school that is run in the orphanage, has taken up all my time.  And I miss sharing updates.  So here is a quick, funny story!

We use cloth napkins for dinner, most of the time.  After Emma had been home for awhile, I noticed her throwing a cloth napkin out into the garbage after dinner.  This makes sense because we throw out paper napkins when we use them, right?

Right.

Around that time, I also noticed that I was missing a number of my napkins.  And I just chalked it up to not noticing Emma throwing out cloth ones for some time.  But that also took us down to just a set or two of matching cloth napkins.

No tragedy, we mix and match!

Well...

We are having dinner guests tonight.  An awesome young couple from church.  Steve also is Cooper's small group leader in youth group, and we could not be happier Cooper is being shepherded in his growing faith by such a grounded, strong man of God.  Steve is amazing.   He is courting an exually lovely young lady, Lindsay.  And they are coming for dinner.  Steve has taken Luke under his wing, also.  And Luke and Steve connect over sports...big time!  Coop is also having a new friend from school join us for dinner.

It'll be yummy.  Simple fall meal of chicken chili, homemade cornbread, apple/pear salad and for dessert, two tarts.  One I made for Jim, a maple pumpkin tart with fall apples.  The other, a traditional almond tart with lemon curd.  I made up the pumpkin tart, and was a little concerned that it would bake well.  I just ran to take it out of the over, and oh, my word!  YUM.  It looks delicious.  Fingers crossed!

I've been reorganizing my weeks, and figuring out what life with all my kids in school looks like.  I am loving the time, and learning how to run  my days at a calmer, steady pace.  I made Chicken Little look serene that first month of school.  Tuning in to a slower pace and more time at home is such a gift to me.  Every stage cannot be this way, and I am truly savoring being right here where I am now.

I think about my Aunt Kay almost every day and her saying that one day I will long with all my heart for the peanut butter smears on the windows and yearn for a mess of jackets on the mudroom floor.  And I remember my Grandma DeBoer who made time for a coffee break in her mornings.  She knew friendship. My Grandma Taylor left us with a huge legacy of hospitality, too.  And organization.  From her I take my morning habits: a prepared kitchen makes for a smooth day.

But back to napkins.

Were you wondering?

I wander.

I went to set the dining room table.  Placemats were being pulled out of their place in the buffet, and suddenly at the bottom of the stack of placemats I was choosing, what do my eyes behold?

A jumble of...yes, you are guessing...NAPKINS!

Cloth napkins of assorted designs and colors.  All folded; and all jammed into the buffet bottom!

Methinks a kitchen helper put them away so nicely.  Probably in a great spot in relation to my vague directions of "put them in the hutch, honey"!  Ha ha on me!  We have a hutch in the kitchen that holds linens and the dining room buffet is right next door in the other room.  Easy mistake.

I mean, my kids still are flummoxed that the family room isn't called the "living room".  Because we live there after all, right?  Right.  Makes perfect sense.

So there you have it!  My silly story of the day!

How fun it will be to breeze through sets of napkins that will surely match to perfection, gracing our kitchen table with my glorious find!  A treasure hunt at home.  I had no idea!

Happy Friday.  May the Lord bless your day richly.