Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Almost December

Nov. 30 and it feels like winter! I don't mind the cold, just hope we can have good weather for the weekend. Saturday Lowden is having it's Christmas Kickoff at the Legion. They serve a free continental breakfast and there is a mini bazaar with venders and the Lowden library is having a cookie sale. Santa and Mrs Santa will be there too for the kids. It usually is a good money maker for the library. I finished my cookie donation yesterday; my thumbprint cookies turned out well--then I tried some "big molasses cookies", a new recipe I wanted to try. Only had 1/4 cup of molasses instead of the 1/2 cup called for so I subbed in white corn syrup. The cookies were supposed to be rolled in "coarse" sugar, of which I had none so used regular sugar. It all would have been alright, except Dan Sander came to put in Bill's new Ti-Vo and in the midst I forgot if I had added the spices. Just added more cinnamon, can't go wrong on that I thought. Then as I had my first pan in the oven--the recipe said 15-18 minutes at 400 degrees--Dan started my lesson on how to use the remote. I guess I didn't hear the timer go off and really burnt that pan full. It's a wonder we didn't smell it, that sugar burns easily! Did finish the batch of dough, but didn't bake them near as long as the recipe said. They didn't taste bad at all and am taking the good ones to the cookie sale.

Bill had had a lesson on using his new tv toy; so he could tape his soap opera. Only thing is he forgot how to do it and used a few naughty words trying to figure it out last night. Finally gave up. He has a new tv coming from F & B in Wheatland and might have to have Dan out again to set it up and give another lesson!

Hosting card club here Saturday night. Have to get ingrediants for the dessert this afternoon while I take Grandma to WalMart. Thursday afternoon we are going with Klahns to the John Deere Pavilion in Moline where they have a combine made of canned goods. After it is taken down the canned goods go to the food pantry. The picture in the paper looks pretty awesome, a full sized combine by the looks of it. Marilyn has a coupon for Texas Roadhouse so will go there for supper!

Friday, November 25, 2011

One month till Christmas

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. My guests were Sue, Ben, Thelma, Jim, Betty, Jerry, Ron and his girlfriend Denise. Everyone was here by noon, left by 4:00. So many leftovers--I have to learn not to cook so much. Dishes put away, I still need to sweep the floor and then get started taking down Thanksgiving decorations and putting up some Christmas. I have card club here next Saturday. Need to think of a dessert to serve and put some prizes together.

Tomorrow the search committee members are taking a road trip to Fon Du Lac, WI to go to Pastor Stepp's ordination. Sue Boedeker Monson and I are going with Donna & Leroy Leupker. Need to be in Lowden by 7:00 tomorrow morning, ordination is at 1:00 and we probably won't get home till late evening. Then Sunday will be his first church service. Bill and I helped carry furniture etc into the house from the moving van this past Sunday afternoon. Many hands made the work go fast, but I'd say that was the easy part. Pastor Steve and Jean had to put everything away and figure out what they wanted in each room.

At Circle Monday night we trimmed and counted Campbells labels, Boxtops for Education and milk jug caps. It took awhile but we had over 2000 caps and that many Boxtops for Education plus 1000 or so Campbell labels. I took them all to the school Tuesday before I took mother to her chiro appt.

Bill has been busy working--either driving liquid fertilizer truck for Liqui-Grow or hauling lime for JJJ. He enjoys the work although he misses playing cards!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Parsonage cleaned and ready

Monday was a fun day at school. I was correcting 3rd grade math papers. One of the questions was those "hard for me" questions, like Dan followed Keith, Keith was 3rd etc etc. Then the question was what line were they standing in? One of the kids answered with "strait"! I just cracked up. What thinking that took! Some of the teachers didn't have much for me to do as last week was conferences and there was no school on Friday. I did get to have 1st graders read to me and had kindergarteners read number flash cards (from 1 to 25). Some of them couldn't get past the single digits and others just zipped thru.

Sunday afternoon Donna L., Janis K., Phyllis B., Connie M. and I washed windows and cleaned blinds at the parsonage. Pastor Stepp will be moving in this Sunday afternoon. The carpet has been cleaned; the kitchen cleaned top to bottom (the counters have been sprayed with a marble looking finish, looks wonderful--the same was done in the upstairs bathroom. Wes G. was still working on putting in a new floating floor in the downstairs bathroom, hall and fireplace room. I didn't realize until Sunday how many windows and closets are in that house. Every room has at least one very roomy closet! I hope the Stepps are happy with the house.

Time to plan Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know how many are coming. Jerry's wife, Betty is having some health problems and didn't know what they would be doing. Oh well, I'll fix a turkey and those who can come will.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Lowden city election

We had a lot of voters yesterday at the Lowden city election. Write-ins won the mayoral election and a seat on the city council. The four of us that work have done so for many years, we each have our jobs and we get along well. Yesterday brought us some things we had never run into before. Many same day registrations and a lot of address changes. All our registration is done on computer and with this we have issues as it takes more time to process a new registration than a regular voter especially when: a young lady comes in to vote, is not registered so we go through the whole process, she has to show us her drivers license which we find is expired and the computer said the license must be valid. You must show proof of idenitity with a pictures ID unless someone in the voting place knows you and can vouch for you. This was the case here, first time we had run into that. A young man came in to register; the computer said he had the same name as a felon. That made me uncomfortable as I had to tell him he couldn't register or vote if he was a felon. He said he had had a felony charge against him but it was dismissed and his voting rights were restored. Not what the computer said. I gave him phone numbers to check to make sure the state/county got the record correct. We had never run into that before either. It was a busy afternoon and we counted write-in votes for 30 minutes and I finally got home about 9:45 after taking all the equipment back to Tipton.

We had a white dog here yesterday, it wouldn't leave if we yelled at it to "go home" and it was very friendly. Ben and Zach were here and the dog "helped" them work on the stock car in the barn. I left for Lowden and Ben said the dog had left before he did, but when I got home last night the dog was sitting down by the barn waiting, I am sure, for Ben to let him in. When I went to bed the dog was sitting on the west side of the house. Don't know if he was dumped or just couldn't find his way home again. I haven't seen him at our neighbors, so hopefully he found a warm dry place to spend the night.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

One of the highlights of the week was going to the Nursing Home with the little ones from school. The teachers had asked that I come along as they weren't sure the kids would be heard. Wrong. The students sang very loudly, stood still and were so cute! No costumes this year, the thinking was the patients could see their faces and without masks they could be heard more clearly. The patients were smiling and clapping, so neat. Every class had made some construction paper pumpkins and each child handed one to a patient and the Nursing Home sent a box of candy and cookies for the kids. Only one problem--the bus driver forgot he was to take us and went to the field to work, only to be reminded and was about 20 minutes late picking us up at school! The substitute kindergarten teacher had her class standing at the door waiting to get picked up by the bus and had them doing a neat quiet activity, she would do a motion and they were to copy it. After ten minutes she was running out of things to do, but the kids were quiet and patient!

Chisel plowing has begun. Corn harvest was finished Saturday noon. One combine needs to be fixed--Ben and I had a little problem Friday night and now Larry needs a new unload auger and tube. He wasn't too mad!

Working at the library twice this week as Vicki has a new granddaughter in Chicago that she is visiting. Friday night is the fish fry. Tomorrow I take mother and Pearl and Bethel to the foot dr. How did I ever have time to work full time?