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| Jean is old order Mennonite from New York State.Jean and her husband David and family live on a dairy farm, and travel their community using horse and buggy. She tells her story exclusively on Amish Stories. |
We also got two new hot water heaters. One for the first floor and one for the second. Now we should have enough water if more than one person wants to take a bath or shower. Before if one of us took a shower the rest either had to wait until the heater warmed the water again or use cold water. We don't have that problem anymore. It also gives me freedom to use water in the kitchen and not feel that I am cutting water from the bathrooms.
The electric wasn't as bad but we were told that it was not up to modern code and in a few years if it wasn't taken care of could cause a fire especially seeing we had gas coming into the house for the stove and heat. As long as they were doing all the new wiring we had the new plugs put in. Also, we had a large ceiling light put up in the kitchen. WOW, the kitchen really lights up now. I never realized how dim it was until the new light was put in.
David and I went to Sears to buy the new appliances but found out that on Monday, there is going to be a discount on electric appliances. It's some kind of energy discounts if you buy certain appliances which we are buying. So we are going to wait until Monday to go to Sears to buy them and take the discount. Also, the new stove coming is electric not gas like the last one.
We also decided with the price of gas today and they were re-wiring the house it was time we got electric heat. So we have baseboard heat in our house. It looks better than those big old things we had standing in the rooms. What we didn't know is if we had sold the house, it would not have passed inspection. Now that we are having so much done, we are thinking that we might as well keep it as we are now getting everything we wanted.
We looked all over for kitchen cupboards and I couldn't find any that I liked. David had me draw what I wanted. Now he and Michael are building them in the barn for me. We had been talking about taking down the old cupboards and striping them down to the wood and refinishing them-but the fire ruined them-so now I am getting what I want. They are also building anew counter for the kitchen. Our previous kitchen was all white-like a hospital. I wanted wood showing this time and that is what I am getting.
We thought of central heat and air in our house, but that is going a bit overboard for us Old Order Mennonite's so we didn't put the air in. Fans are going up in the ceilings of the bedrooms and living room. I can't say Old Order Mennonites don't have it-it's just that we aren't suppose to and we don't want to do anything we shouldn't. No one from our meetings (church) is coming over to inspect our house, but we want to be able to sleep at night knowing we are doing the right thing. If our meetings view changes, there is a way we can hook the air up.
So Old Order Mennonite, Amish, Englishers and family have been over putting new walls back up. David and Michael are making the new cupboards. We have to pick up new tile for the kitchen floor and top of the counter. It is coming and should be done in another week or two.
Michael had dreams of the fire, but is past now. News spread fast and some of the students at school were teasing him about being a fire bug-which is not true. During lunch at school one of the students that had been bullying him came up to Michael and rolled up his sleve. There was a terrible scar there. He told Michael that once there was a fire in his house and he thought he could put it out. He couldn't and caught his shirt on fire. His parents found him in the house and put his shirt out, but he had to go to the hospital for two weeks and will always had this scar. He told Michael he did the right thing getting Susan and himself out. David and I feel that was the best coming from a fellow student. We tried to tell him he did the right thing, but hearing it from someone his own age makes it clearer.
Kiddingly David tells Michael that I set him up to have the kitchen fire because I wanted a new kitchen. Now that we know the electric wiring and water pipes needed replacing, we tell Michael that it happened so we would know about the electric and pipes. We would not have known if it weren't for the fire. If the new wiring and new waters pipe weren't put it we could have had a worse fire down the road. I am still going to teach Michael some basic cooking so this doesn't happen again.
Be With God,
Jean
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| Jeans home made Recipe Ham Casserole 4-oz noodles 1 can mushroom soup 1/2 cup milk 1 tsp minced onion 2 tsp prepared mustard 1 cup sour cream 2 cups cooked ham, cubed 1/4 cup Bread crumbs 1 1/2 tsp oleo 1 tsp Parmesan cheese Grease 1 1/2 quart casserole, cook noodles. Combine soup and milk in saucepan and stir until smooth. Add onion, mustard and sour cream. Layer casserole with noodles, ham and sauce, repeat. Toss bread crumbs with melted oleo and cheese. Spread over casserole. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes at 325 degrees. Enjoy. Jean |
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| Next Monday Jeans husband David with a rare solo post from him on the fire. David is a volunteer fireman who shares his thoughts with us. |
