I read all my blogs last night and realized I left you in the middle of a story!

Remember the fort and the "Fabulous" on the door? Well, I had decided that to show my gratitude for those "tender mercies" in my life I would bake some bread and take it to both those neighbors and express my appreciation to them. It took a couple of weeks to get everything in order so that I could do it--like one day I was ready and realized when I went to the freezer to get yeast that it was in the freezer at home! Then I thought perhaps I had better not make it straight whole wheat, I had better get some white flour to put in it! Finally I was ready!

I mixed up a beautiful batch of bread, let it raise and then opened the cupboard to get the bread pans.......whoops! No bread pans! I had already punched the bread down twice and I was afraid to do it again and then still have to let it raise in the pans! Bruce generously offered to make a  mad dash to the store with me yelling, "Hurry! Hurry!" and I called Laura to share my dilemma! She had the perfect answer! "If Dad doesn't get back in time just make slits across the top like they do in French bread and bake it on a cookie sheet."

Well, Bruce hurried, but so did the bread on its third rising! Before he got home I felt I had to put it in the oven. It turned out very nicely! Attractive, kind of crusty, but really good! I took it out of the oven, wrapped tinfoil up around three of the loaves, put one loaf on a towel and headed out to meet and thank the neighbor with "Fabulous!" on her door. I rang the door bell in the front and no one came, but soon a lady peeked around the corner from the back of the house. "Do you need something?" I introduced myself and told her how much that word on her back door had cheered me, and how I wanted to meet the positive neighbor who had put it there. She laughed and said, "OH! That's my salon. I do nails! The name of my business is "Fabulous Nails!" She took the bread into her salon and had me take a peek. There was a lady sitting up on a raised platform soaking her feet so I didn't stay. I felt a little silly for some reason.

Then I decided to take two loaves to the neighbors with the fort. I knew someone was home because they had just let the 2 big dogs back in the house. I got the big gate open with a loaf of bread in each hand, and rang the doorbell. The dogs barked ferociously on the other side of the door, but no one came to answer. After I tried a couple of times I gave up and went home. It was very disappointing.

I watched for several days trying to catch the two high school boys who lived there when they came home from school to no avail, but one day I saw one of the boys come home with his girl friend. I ran out of the house and across the street calling to them. "Excuse me! Excuse me!" (I didn't know exactly what to say to get their attention.) They finally turned around and I told them I was  new neighbor and I had come a few days before to thank them for building that fort in their yard, but no one had answered the door. The boy said his parents had been sick with the flu. I asked if I could bring some bread over at 5 pm and meet their parents. He said, "Sure!" I asked him if he would watch for me because I didn't want the dogs to eat it before I could get it to the door. He and his girl friend laughed and agreed, so that evening I took two big loaves of hot fresh bread (made in my new bread pans) over to them and met Lisa, the mom. She even hugged me so I felt appreciated, and a little worried about getting the flu-- but I didn't.