Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Summer Social

On Sunday after I got home from church, Bill announced there was a car show in Muscatine. We weren't going to enter the car in the show, we would just go for a little while and look at the cars. When will I remember that that means we will enter the car in the show and will be there a few hours? When we got to Arnolds, where the show was held, there was one place left to park in the parking lot, we got registered, had a free lunch, looked at the cars, sat in lawn chairs in the full sun (no shade there), and talked to people who had never seen an Edsel before, or who said my grandfather/dad/uncle had one. At 2:00 the show was over and we headed to the Muscatine Farm & Fleet Store. I got a new rug to put on the porch and Bill got some sanding disc things he wanted. We wanted to go to Delmar so we took the scenic route which took us through Davenport! Not exactly what we planned but interesting.

Sherrie's church was having a lawn social and it was so nice. They served many kinds of sandwiches, potato salad or chips, a very nice fruit cup (Ashley helped cut up the fruit) and a vast array of pies. The social was held between the church and parsonage on a shady lawn area. Very, very nice. For such a little church, they put on a good spread.

Friday night races didn't turn out the best for the Chapman gang. Ben spun out in the feature, had a car get stuck underneath his (she really had nowhere to go) and he has been working every night on getting his car ready to run again. Even Grandpa and Uncle Larry have been involved. Dan's car was in worse shape as he ran into a spun out car in front of him and then was rammed in the back. Better luck this Friday!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Another Tragedy

Another ATV accident in Cedar County, leaving Scott on life support with head injuries (as of this writing I do not know if he is still alive). Scott is 30, is married with 2 little kids. His parents lost their only daughter 15 years ago the day before Father's Day in a car accident. Then this happens the day after Father's Day. Their dad had said he hated Father's Day before this---. My friend Vicki's (the Lowden librarian) son was with Scott but walked away with just road rash.

On a better note, I washed a red shop rag with Bill's underwear yesterday and the underwear turned a beautiful pink. I really could't see him wearing pink socks so I used bleach and washed them again, hung them on the clothesline hoping the sun would shine and help bleach them. Any other ideas? They are still pink, just not the bright pretty color of pink they were.

Last night we had another interview with a prospective pastor. All but one of us on the search committee were impressed. Another meeting in a week to see what we want to do. Sue Boedeker Monson and I took the couple for their tour of Lowden and the church and parsonage. Luckily Sue took over the narrative and I didn't have to say much. Our committee is gets along so well, we will miss each other once we hire a pastor and we don't meet every week.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Wild flowers

I noticed on my walk yesterday that nearly all the wild roses in the road ditches are in bloom. What a pretty pale pink color they are. They do not last if you pick them so the best thing is just to admire their beauty in their wild state. Also, I noticed that bull thistles have the most pretty purple flower. A bad thing, because the flowers will turn to seed and we have enough thistles already! A lot of other flowers abound in the road ditches but I don't know their names.

Another unusual sight was Sunday while mowing the little place I like to mow along the road. A turtle came from the west side of the road, walking (pretty fast, really) towards me on the lawn mower. I backed up, the turtle changed course and came towards me again. He wasn't a really big turtle, maybe 6-7 inches long. I picked him up but he wanted down so I put him in the grass, hoping he won't come out and be squashed by a car on the road. Wished I had my camera or phone with me but of course didn't.

Tonight is our second face-to-face interview with a prospective pastor. Last week's interview went really well. Pray for our search committee's wisdom. This is a hard job!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Day trips

I got to go to 2 places yesterday. First I took Mother to her chiro appointment in Walcott. Not very interesting although I tried an experiment. Last week when I took her to WalMart for her pills, she said she wanted a cane as she could hardly walk from room to room. I DID NOT notice this to be a problem as she walked into the store and back without difficulty. So yesterday I parked down a few spaces so she had to walk a little farther into the dr. office. She did fine. I haven't heard again about wanting a cane. She walks very good for a 91 year old I think. What have you noticed?

Then in the afternoon I got to ride along with Bill to Monmouth to get tractor parts. We took the scenic route over gravels. Some pretty area up there, lots of hills. And to think that is the highlight of my day!

Saturday we took the Edsel to the Iowa Mennonite Sale at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. They have the best food there--by 10:00 I had eaten a piece of fresh homemade bread spread with homemade apple butter; an apple fritter and a piece of rhubarb pie with homemade ice cream! We sat in our lawn chairs by the car and talked to/listened to people discuss the car. Most liked the aqua interior. Then we made a quick trip to the new WalMart, said Hi to Caitlin who was working at Cost Cutters, got groceries, and started home. It was very hot in the car--finally convinced Bill to pull over and turn off the heater (something he has to do under the hood)! Sunday we went to Delmar to help Sherrie's church by eating at their food stand.

Today will be different; story hour starts for the summer at the library so I get to be there from 10:00 until afternoon story hour is over. At 5:00 I need to be at church for our first face-to-face interview with a prospective pastor. I need to grill chicken breasts before I go to town for our supper. Hopefully I have everything ready to go so I can get to the church on time!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Prayers for our Servicemen

I just read Vanessa's post about Caleb's friend being killed in Afghanastan. I got up early this morning and was laying on the couch with the tv on when I saw the newsclip about the Marines fighting and the episode of his friend being shot and calling in air reinforcement. It seems the houses they shelled were full of women and children who were being used as human shields. Now the US is in trouble for killing innocents. We need to get our servicemen back in the USA. In the meantime, please pray for all of our servicemen.