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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Widow's Weekend

It's November in Wisconsin and that means deer hunting.
When I was younger, this meant packing up the warmest and orangest clothes I could find and heading up north. It also meant slogging through the snow in the five-in-the-morning frozen dark to get to my deer stand, where I sat freezing until the five-in-the-evening frozen dark hoping that Bambi would walk past so I could blast him (and stop freezing for a while). Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
Then I got married.
Now, people tell you that marriage changes everything. I don't know if I totally agree with that, but it did change my deer hunting schedule, because I have little kids and can't go. Now I get up at six-thirty-in-the-morning frozen dark and go turn up the thermostat. Then I get in the warm shower. After that things really get warm (as in my temper) as I try and get three little kids out the door by nine. I'm not heading to a tree stand either! I'm heading to my Mom's house for our annual "Deer Hunting Widow's Weekend" get-together.
The cousins play happily (and unhappily) together while we widows eat all the yummy treats we put together when our husbands abandon us (note: My husband wasn't deer hunting this year, but he was still gone for the day, so I still got to participate.)

Ian and Molly - Ian was the only boy, and he did bring his rifle in case we needed "tecting."
Mia and Ellie redecorated the living room.

After all the food was eaten, we widows did do a small service project to justify our fun time while our men were out trying to be the hunter-gatherer types. We cut out fabric and sewed on cords to make parachutes. These parachutes are used to drop radios that are pre-set to Christian radio stations to guerrillas in Central America. (I forgot to get the name of the organization from my Mom. Sorry.)

Jamie sewing on the cords.
Tandis writing "Dios es Amor" (God is love) on the fabric,
Margo melting the ends of the cords,
and Mom sewing.

The finished project.

By the end of the day, we had made several dozen parachutes.

Our men got one deer.

Who had the better season?

5 comments:

~ Tandis ~ said...

:) We had the better season :)

The kids did really well together that morning too. I think we went almost an hour without having to check on them at one point.

Mindy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mindy said...

What a great service project! I would love to hear more about it. I think the widows (real ones, not just during hunting season)from our chapel would be able to do something like this. (We have a ladies group that is mostly widows and a few of us young women.)

They used to do many missionary projects, until the postage went up too much and it wasn't worthwhile. This would be a fun project to do!

Jamie said...

Hmmmm, Tristan didn't hunt and was even sitting at HOME while I went to Widow's Weekend...I probably should have been kicked out! Considering all the yummy food we eat, I'm surprised that we don't manage to do this more often!

Jessica said...

I didn't notice you taking pictures! The parachutes are a "Voice of the Martyrs" project.