Wednesday, July 27, 2011

My new job

I took on another volunteer job this past week and it is fun. I am typing from a book called History of Cedar County. I type the pages and email them to a gal from Muscatine who is a volunteer for http://iagenweb.org. It is a web based place for geneology searches or just for fun; every county is in on this. In Cedar county you can search cemeteries, land owners etc. I am typing biographies and it is interesting because some of the names are familiar. The stories tell about pioneers coming to Iowa--I just typed one in which the ship he was coming to America on caught on fire; another where the ship was in a storm and the masts broke. Many people came to Iowa by way of Pennyslvania on horseback or in wagons. I don't think we realize how hard it was for people to really settle in Iowa. One man broke the prairie with oxen, not just his own land but for other people. Hard work? They lived in sod houses or log cabins. Some made lots of money (I think those in the book were the "rich" ones) by buying and selling land, some had purebred livestock. Almost all had at least 5 - 10 children but at least one would die at a young age.

If this interests you at all, check it out and read some of the biographies. The ones I have typed aren't on yet; but I just finished page 150 of over 800 pages so I have a way to go. Good job for this hot weather! Anything than do housework!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Hot & Steamy

The weather, that is! Still can't stand to be outside for more than a few minutes! It will get better!

News from Bill: he got hearing aids. Of course right now they are not in his ears. I don't know what to do, I am NOT going to remind him every day. The choice is his, hear or don't.

Worked at church serving a lunch to a committee having a day meeting there. We served maidrites, chips, 2 salads, jello and brownies. At least it was cool. Today I am at the library, another cool place. Tomorrow I am meeting Donna & Georgie at Lisbon to do final, final plans for the class reunion. Might have to go to CR and get a new outfit to wear to the wedding we have to go to Saturday night. Friday Bill has an appointment with the hearing aid people again and Friday night is the races.

The races are much more enjoyable knowing that Ben can really drive the car quite well for a first year rookie. He won his heat Friday night and Thursday night got 2nd in the feature. Fun stuff, but glad he is paying the bills!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Mother Nature good to us

We lucked out with the weather earlier this week. The poor people in Vinton and surrouning areas have so much damage. Heard that Mike Wiedenhoff had damage at his new home. We took a drive north of here and a lot of corn is down; maybe will come back up but on Monday night looked terrible. Larry scouted his fields and didn't find any damage except for a small area here and we are very lucky. This morning I opened the house up again. What a nice dry cool breeze from the east! Better enjoy it when we can.

Friday night the races were fun, not too hot. Ben did a good job finishing 6th in his feature race. Cedar County fair starts today and they are having a special sprint car race tomorrow night with the B-mods racing also. I don't know if I can take 2 nights of racing in a row as the fair will have the regular Friday night races. Still makes me nervous!

Seeing Kathy & Dave Koch's daughters at the Horman reunion was great! Haven't seen them for a long time and now they are all grown up. The reunion was held at the park; very hot there, but we had a good time. I spent some time sitting outside visiting with Linda Horman, Linda Charlot, Ashley, Aunt Erna, Aunt Darlene and Aunt Irene. Patricia brought Uncle Elmer. He looked great. Linda C. said she was having the picnic at her house next year. Hope you all can come. She has a fabulous old house and they say her yard is beautiful.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Visitation

Yesterday afternoon we went to the church for the visitation for Scott Dierks, who died of his injuries in an ATV accident. Visitation was held in the church instead of the funeral home because of the big expected crowd. We got there around 4:15, visitation started at 3:00 and 300 had been there already. Flowers, flowers and plants. So many. I bet at least 150. Why? He has 2 young sons and a young wife. Why wouldn't you just give a memorial? I know both families have plenty of money but still. Why so many plants and flowers and how does the family take care of all of them? I don't understand.

Took the Edsel in the 4th of July parade in Tipton. Lots of spectators lined the streets to watch. Of course, I never get to see the parade, just whatever is in front of us. Ron & Kathy's Charger had to leave the parade after a couple of blocks because of overheating and a pink Thunderbird pulled out too. I guess that extra fan Bill put on the Edsel is a good thing. Spent the evening at Bob and Donna's; sitting outside visiting (can you tell we are old people?), having supper and playing cards. Didn't even go to fireworks.

Last night we had search committee meeting again to see what we all thought of the 3 prospective pastors we interviewed. These were face-to-face interviews at our church. We are not all satisfied that one of them is "the one" yet. We don't want to settle, but we do want to get a pastor. Hard work.