Sunday in Texarkana

Today...no church. We have a mission of mercy!

We picked up the sister duo at Miss Janice's early. Miss Janice grabbed all her moving blankets... and Jennifer grabbed the drinks. (It was going to be a long day!) A quick stop in Greenville for breakfast and then lunch in Texarkana before the big move!

In reality - this trip has been planned for awhile...but has also been postponed a couple of times. The last postponement was earlier this month due to Hurricane Ike. We were to travel with Miss Janice to Texarkana, meet up with her brother and sister, and clean out the last of the items in their childhood home that belonged to them.

Their father died this last July and this was a long anticipated trip to bring home the last of their mother and father's belongings that had been promised to them so long ago. The difficulty of this undertaking, of course, was her father's second wife. (Miss Janice, her sister and brother, previously lost their mother to cancer more than 20 years ago.) This has been a hard process for all involved!

The sister duo rode from McKinney with us and we met up with brother Jed and his entourage from Tyler. Jed brought his wife and son (pictured with the gloves below) to help load up the designated items. I'm not sure why he brought any gloves...he didn't do ANYTHING! Unless he was led by the hand to the item he was to move or help with...he basically did NOTHING! (Later he complained he had a blister??? I think he must have gotten it from taking the gloves on and off...no other explanation in my book!)
Not to worry - he ditched the gloves very shortly (and all pretense of work). The rest of our time in Texarkana he "supervised" our moving of the furniture outside. I'm sure he didn't want to get in the way!The sister duo and brother knew which items they were to packed up and load on the trailer. These items had been clearly spelled out by their dad prior to his death. However...that seemed to be now open to interpretation by his "current wife." The new Mrs. had already made up her mind about several of the items... she needed to keep them until she was dead! They could have them when she was good and gone. The Mrs. said she'd sign a paper stating the stuff belonged to the children, but basically she was telling them (in a very passive-aggressive way) it's MINE! Everyone kept their cool, but it was an uncomfortable situation. The Mrs. had her daughter-in-law stop by with her children in tow (more useless helpers that were just in the way) I think as back up for whatever the Mrs. was going to push as her agenda for the day!
We were able to load up the things pretty quickly...filling brother Jed's new trailer with a bedroom suite, kitchen hutch, lamps, tables, and chairs. We filled the back of our truck with boxes of books and dishes.

The trip back to McKinney was uneventful. It took us very little time to unload the trailer and the back of the truck into Miss Janice's garage. (No...Mr. Gloves did not get out of work on this end! He could not so easily hide in another room - since we were all together in the garage, and Miss Janice made him climb up in the truck and hand out boxes of books. Hope he didn't break that blister open! I'm sure he had to sleep the whole way home - just totally worn out!)
We ended our evening together with great pizza and conversations concerning the day. The only dark cloud hanging over them was the thought there would be another trip to Texarkana in the near future to pick up the very last of the items...no matter what the Mrs. has decided!