Another family dinner!

Well,we have one more week until summer break for the Gentle Giant. I think the new plan for the college is to just wait him out and not renew his contract.  That would be in violation of the ADA(Americans with disabilities act) but they have tried everything else, so why not this?  I am still at peace. If Father can bring us this far, who am I to question the future?
It is such a shame to miss your life because  you are anxious about the future. That is something I have been guilty of, but I have truly learned not to do this, and to enjoy each day and recognize my blessings.
Tonight, we had a big family dinner.  Everyone loves my smothered chicken, and the family has been asking for a while for me to a make it.  I told them I would be happy to, but it is hard to provide that much chicken for so  many people. They said no problem, and last night, Aunt Cheryl and Polly brought in 11lbs of chicken breasts. I made all of it, by frying the chicken pieces and simply covering them with mushroom soup and baking in the oven for about an hour. I also made 6 cups of dry rice which equals about 18 cups cooked, a huge pot of vegetables, 40 biscuits and a large peach cobbler.  How I love it when everyone comes over. The kids were noisy, the baby happy, the parents hungry and the house FULL.  These are blessings that count. Simple things that make life so precious, like chicken gravy on a child's chin, or a great big PaPa slurping down a hot buttered biscuit with homemade wild plum jelly. Seeing the dogs waiting for a scrap to fall, or one of my nieces being so helpful are other examples.  We may be having financial difficulties, but seeing the spread on the table, you sure couldn't tell. Everything but the chicken was from my food storage!  My sweet family replaces items that we use, so the food storage seems to never shrink. Smiles, laughter, good natured joking, slurping, burping and giving thank to Heavenly Father for so much bounty makes me realize that we are really doing great.
Other good news, there is a feed store close by, and the lady that owns it calls me each year to help her with homemade jam. She provides the fruit, the jars, the pectin, and I provide the sugar and the labor. It is not really labor to me, as I LOVE to make jelly! In return for my efforts, I get to keep one third of everything, and that also stocks my food storage.  This week, I made wild plum jelly for her. She also has blackberries for me next week and some more plums, and later in the summer it will be peaches, plums, strawberries and apricots. Sometimes she even has cherries, but that is hard for me to do , because I want to eat them all! I will also do salsa and other things. Remember when the sugar was on sale about a month ago?  When I got a four pound bag for a dollar? I bought 40 bags, equally 160 pounds of sugar. At the time I thought it was maybe too much, but I had forgotten that I would get the opportunity to make jellies and jams for her, and now I have all the sugar I need!  I felt really inspired to but that sugar, and when a feeling like that comes to me, I just do it!  Making the plum jelly this week is another reason that I got behind on my writing, but I am catching up.  More tomorrow!