Laboring through Labor Day Weekend

This weekend we took a trip to the in-laws.  The in-laws live in the middle of no-wheresville and have lots of land.  My father-in-law loves to grow stuff on this land and we are recruited to come and visit  provide manual labor when it is time to harvest.  Friday night we drove the 4 hours up to no-wheresville and didn't get in until 11:00.  Saturday morning we were up and working by 8:00.  This weekend's task: picking off peanuts, boiling the peanuts and bagging the peanuts to be frozen.

If you've never seen how peanuts grow, they grow under the ground.  Here is a pile of peanut plants that my darling Hubby pulled up and stacked for me to pick off.

Here are Prince and his cousin, picking off peanuts.

Princess is proud of the peanuts she picked off the vines.

After we picked the peanuts off, they were rinsed in buckets and then put in big pots to be boiled. 

I had a very important job in between picking the peanuts.  My father-in-law assigned me the duty of tasting the peanuts to see if they were done.  So every so often I had to pull myself away from my pile of peanut plants and do the quality taste testing.  This was really a tough job, but somebody had to do it.  After the peanuts were done to my satisfaction, we drained them and I put them in ziploc bags to put up in the freezer.  At the end of the day we had picked, boiled and bagged 71 gallons of boiled peanuts.  We were so exhausted, but the peanuts are so delicious!  In fact, when we got home last night I wanted boiled peanuts for dinner last night. 

This morning Hubby took me to the beach.  We sat out on the beach and relaxed while we watched the kids play in the sand.  I didn't let them in the water for all of the jellyfish that were stinging people left and right.  It was a mostly peaceful time at the beach.

There's nothing like the feeling of sand between my toes.  Ahhhh!

For our family, Labor Day weekend is usually when we celebrate the fact that my mom quite literally was in labor...with me.  36 years ago tomorrow, I made my entrance into this world. 

This afternoon my mom and dad made steak fajitas (my request) for my birthday dinner.  My mom made a delicious homemade carrot cake and we taught my sister and brother-in-law how to play our new favorite game, The Settlers of Catan.  We are addicted and my mom asks probably once a week when we can come over to their house to play Catan.  If you've never played it and you like strategy games, you'll love this one!  Hubby bought me the American History Trails to Rails game but we haven't had a chance to play that one yet.

So it's been a busy, but fun weekend and I am feeling incredibly blessed.  Given all I've been through with my health, I count each candle on my cake as a gift from God.  I serve a great God and I am so thankful for what He has done in my life.  When I was in ICU after the babies were born, my dear friend and prayer partner said that when she was praying for me God gave her a verse for me.  It is from Psalm 91 and while she gave me the whole chapter, she said the part that really struck her was verses 14-16:

"'Because he loves me,' says the Lord, 'I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.  With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.'"

I'm counting on that long life that God has promised me.  I know that God keeps His promises and I hope that when I do go to heaven and bow before Him, God will say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."