My Boring Life...NOT!

Hello Friends,
Its me again.  We are in crunch mode before the wedding, and yet, it has actually been a lot of fun.  Monday night we took Warren and Jonathan out to get their clothes for the wedding.  Jonathan is a groomsman so it wasn't like we could just find something nice and be happy.  He needed specifics.  And for someone who is 6'7" it was scary at some points to see how hard those things were to find.  But after hours and a few stores we made it to the second Men's Wearhouse mere minutes before they closed for our final purchases.  Whew!  We would have gotten there a lot earlier but it turns out that when the attention is on these guys in the store they actually like shopping....who knew?  It was adorable (sigh).

Last evening Warren and I kind of went on a date.  It was a business date....in that I had a very large candle order that needed to get to Maryland.  It was a rush since the customer had suffered two bad experiences from other vendors and her shower is on Friday.  While preparing her labels for shipping I noticed that she was only an hour from us and since her boxes were super heavy and fragile I contacted her to see if she would rather meet me at a mall that was close to her and take some of the risk of breakage away.  She did! So Warren and I headed south, met her and enjoyed our first ever dinner at The Greene Turtle.  Yum!  We enjoyed it so much.  Then we visited Macy's and found the perfect skirt for me to wear to the wedding...and thus completed my wedding ensemble.  Yay.  Glad to have that done.  Then it struck me that there was a Dick's Sporting Goods in the area and knowing that Warren had a gift card for the store we headed there and purchased a new cooler.  Ours are ancient and one got broken last weekend in the shuffle to take food to Tommy's memorial service.  When all was said and done we have a new Coleman Cooler..on wheels...for $8.99 out of pocket.  YES!  What a blessing!!

Someone asked me recently if I have a lot of candles to make.  I just laughed a bit hysterically.  Yep!  I have a "few".  And to add insult to injury the jars that I use for the baby shower candles are out of stock....everywhere!!

My favorite jar.

The Substitute.

 I currently click nearly daily on two of my favorite suppliers to see if they are back in stock yet, but no.  So, I have substituted a new shaped jar.  It is cute but I have to hand cut every label to fit. That definitely adds to the process.  Imagine my joy yesterday when I went to pick up more of the substitute jars and my friends at Fillmore Container told me they had found 36 unclaimed jars of the original kind.  They could be mine.  Happy day.  I know 36 may not seem like much...but every one counts when I am trying to fulfill existing orders.  I love those Fillmore people.  They really work hard and take good care of me.  For my local friends who love to can this time of year.  This is a great place to get jars.  Great prices and Fillmore has every jar you need for canning.

The Memorial Service for Tommy was so special.  Of course I led up to it with the busyness and concern of planning the food.  Not knowing how many people might be there it was so hard to know how much to purchase.  However, I think we did pretty well.  There were an estimated 300+ people who came.  It is kind of hard to tell because Calvary Church where we held it is so big.  But all of the men agreed that this was the likely count and they are pretty good at these things, usually.  The service opened with a PowerPoint that I put together on the last day.  Not because I am a procrastinator but because we came up with the idea at the last moment....Susanna and I.  Mostly her because she had been thinking about Chris Rice's song...Come to Jesus (Untitled Hymn).  We put the lyrics over a photo of Tommy and the final slide said, "Tommy flew to Jesus on July 31, 2014".  If you can just imagine that....it was powerful.  What a great way to open his Memorial Service.  Joe and Susanna had invited three friends with special needs children to speak during the service.  Two of the three held a child with severe medical conditions as they spoke.  Amazing.  The hearts of these fathers were precious to behold.  The first man who spoke had gone with Joe and Susanna to get Katie.  He is a nurse and was such a blessing to them when Katie refused to eat and they had to get medical care for her there.  Next up was a video made by a lady in Oregon who Susanna knew was good at such things.  We had an interesting evening attempting to get the video here, from there, electronically....but it finally worked.  It was 13 precious minutes that recaptured Tommy's time from the orphanage to his life (and it was LIFE) here.  Seeing the changes in him was so evident in that recap.  I don't think there was a dry eye in the sanctuary.  I had to miss Pastor Mike's sermon as we went to put the final touches on the food tables but I hear that it was fabulous!!  I can't talk about this service without thanking the folks at Calvary Church for their sweet generosity in allowing us to have the service and refreshments there.  They took such good care of us.  Especially Marge and Glen.  Marge is the coordinator of events and Glen is one of the "sound guys".  We had a lot of contact with both and were so touched by their giving spirits.

 Georgia and Ruth put the final touches on the tables.

 On Friday evening a group of ladies..and Warren...met at the church to 

prepare the food.  Cutting, cubing and slicing. 

There was so much to be done and yet this team worked so hard that 

in was done in just over two hours.

I am so thankful!!

Tommy's favorite color was green.

So we included as much green as we could.

My friend, Deanna, did the general decor with toys and balloons.

I did the centerpieces with simple fruit bowls.

 It was a good day.  One that really meant a lot to the Mussers.  I know that Susanna dreaded it in the worst kind of a way but I also know that in the end she was so touched by the love and concern she felt from her friends and family.  Funny but true story.  As we prepared to leave I got in line with the other ladies who had served the food and we took our turns saying goodbye.  As each one approached her, most having not seen her since Tommy had passed away they cried together.  Good, cleansing tears.  However, when Susanna looked up and saw me as it was finally my turn she just burst out laughing.  Ahhh...my precious friend.  How I love you.  And if I bring you the gift of laughter I am so pleased.  I checked my face and hair and think all was well there.  It was just one of those things...and it brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.  What a precious sister in the Lord.  Please keep her in your prayers.  These next weeks will get hard....as "we" go back to our daily lives and she is more and more on her own with her thoughts.  May the truths she has heard come through louder than the lies of the enemy.

I must get moving.  I have candle orders to work on before I begin making the four cakes that are needed for the wedding.  THE WEDDING!  My son is getting MARRIED on Sunday.  Yikes.   We couldn't be more pleased.  We have seen amazing growth and maturity in him over this past nearly a year.  It was October of last year that he broke his collar bone and their friendship was renewed.  A whirlwind....but a good one.

Have a wonderful day.  I'll at least be back with wedding photos...if not before.