Laundry and lunch

Today is the last morning that I will drop our laundry basket off in the kitchen. It has been a wonderful blessing to have Maju do it. Everything comes back clean, dry, folded and ironed! Amazingly, she tells me that she enjoys doing laundry! Guess that's a good thing since there are 9 people in the house and she does it all. After today, it's back to doing it myself and forget about the ironing part! Of course, it helps that I have a dryer so jeans come out ready to wear instead of drying on the line and being stiff and wrinkled.

Also, just another day or two of breakfast and lunch ready and on the table at 6:45 and 11:30, respectively. Breakfast is a time to check in with most of the family . . . . Flor eating quickly before she leaves for school, Esther eating even quicker and sometimes taking it with her when she goes to school. This morning we were able to visit a few minutes with Jose during breakfast . . . . it was an interesting conversation about how the family celebrates Holy Week (week before Easter.) Like many of our talks, it was alot about the food! Jose has enjoyed everything I have cooked from the homemade bread (he wanted a lesson on Sunday) to the sweet popcorn to the Snickerdoodle cookies! He told Flor that he had 7 of them because that is the number of perfection in the Bible. He's a hoot! Maria Jose gets up really early, eats and leaves for school by 6:30 a.m. so we rarely see her in the mornings. David and Fernanda usually sleep in.

Maju fixes lunch (and does a great job, by the way) and if she's hungry at 11:30 when we eat she will sit down and eat with us. She's a great example of a women who's always praising the Lord. I often hear her whistling or humming old hymns--"Great is Thy Faithfulness" and "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder" are two of her favorites. She told me the other day when the arthritis in her hips was bothering her that she says "Gracias a Dios" when she feels good and "Gracias a Dios" when she doesn't. I need to emulate her attitude! She made us homemade french fries for lunch today--what a treat!

It's been very special to be a part of this family. Yes, I'm going to miss the laundry service and food, but more than that, I'm going to miss everyone of them!