For this week I am going to write a diary of November 18, Tuesday.

3:25 a.m. The alarm rings and it’s time to start another day. I pack my husband Joe’s lunch. He doesn’t eat breakfast until his first break so I pack a ham and cheese sandwich for that. For lunch I put in some pizza casserole, peaches, a clementine, cookies, and crackers. Then I fill his water jug with ice cubes and water.

4:00 a.m. Joe leaves for work. I go back to bed.

5:00 a.m. I get up again as daughters Elizabeth, 20, and Susan, 18, are ready for work. Son Benjamin, 15, usually leaves around the same time as they do. Today he doesn’t have to work, as something at the sawmill is broken down. It is 10 degrees this morning with a wind-chill of minus 10 so I think Benjamin is glad to stay home.

5:15 a.m. The girls leave for work at the RV factory.

6:00 a.m. I check the phone for messages and have a message that says school is cancelled for the day. There is a winter storm warning and because the wind-chill is so cold, it is cancelled. The children weren’t awake yet so I let them sleep in.

8:00 a.m. Everyone is awake and we have grilled cheese sandwiches and cereal for breakfast.

9:30 a.m. Dishes are washed and the morning work is done. The boys carry the baskets of clothes up from the basement. We washed clothes yesterday and hung the laundry on the lines in the basement. They were dry and ready to bring up. The girls fold all the clothes and put them away.

11:30 a.m. The boys and Lovina are out in the field sledding down the big hill. There isn’t that much snow but enough ice to make the sled glide down the hill.

1:30 p.m. The children are back in and warming up. We have ham and cheese sandwiches and vegetable soup for lunch.

3:00 p.m. Daughters Elizabeth and Susan are home from work.

4:00 p.m. Loretta, 14, and Lovina, 10, have cleanings at the dentist so I leave with them. After their cleanings we go to get some groceries.

5:45 p.m. Back home. Joe came home from work soon after we had left. Chores are done.

6:30 p.m. The girls have supper ready, which is fried chicken, vegetable soup, cheese and crackers. We are also enjoying some venison summer sausage and jerky Timothy brought us from the deer he shot.

7:30 p.m. Dishes are washed and everyone is getting cleaned up for bed. The wind is still very cold with the temperature never going higher than 19 today.

9:00 p.m. Everyone is in bed so I think I’ll do the same. Until next week, God bless!

This week I’ll share my recipe for vegetable soup. We also can some (see below) so we will have it for a quick meal.

Vegetable Soup

1 pint canned beef chunks
1 medium yellow onion
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced green beans
2 cups corn kernels
2 cups green peas
4 cups tomato juice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground pepper

Brown the beef chunks in a large skillet over medium heat. Put the beef chunks and the whole onion in a large pot and add the remaining ingredients. Add enough water to cover all the vegetables. Cook over medium heat until the vegetables are soft, about 30 minutes.

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply) or at LovinasAmishKitchen@MennoMedia.org.