Not a good week so far

The week started with Sherrie's phone call about Jason's accident. Jason was a very lucky man and I sure wish people will move over when they see an officer or DOT worker parked on the side of the road.

Mother had a dr. appt. Monday but Nancy said she could not find anything wrong with her. Mother's biggest complaint was she had no pep. Nancy asked her if being 91 had anything to do with that! Her urinary infection was cleared up; they did take some blood but I haven't heard the results of any of those tests.

Yesterday I was supposed to serve the Committee on Ministry at church but because of the weather the meeting was cancelled. Now I have lots of chili in the freezer and ham and cheese to make oven baked hot ham and cheese sandwiches. I also made a spread to put on the sandwich; butter, horseradish mustard, onion,dill weed and poppy seed. Puts a little more taste in what is a bland sandwich. I got my hair cut yesterday afternoon and stopped to give Pastor Steve tickets for the beef supper and ask him to stop and see Mother. He had already given her a call when I called her later in the afternoon.

I just talked to Mother and she said she felt better than she did yesterday but still doesn't have any pep! She probably worked harder this morning already than I will all day! She sounded fine but was worried about her friend Lillian (100 years old) who fell yesterday and broke her leg. Poor Lillian, it is going to be hard for her to heal, I would think.

Monday night we had Evening Circle meeting with a fun night. Played an interesting game--we had to pop a balloon that had a note inside. The note gave you a question to answer or something to do. Julie had to do the "hokey-pokey"; I had to name the Sunday School teachers. One was name 3 women in the Old Testament and other religious questions. Fun trying to pop the balloon. An idea for a kids party too.

Having cook book committee meeting here tomorrow. Hopefully the rest of the week is better than the first few days!

BB game

We went to our first North Cedar basketball game last night. North Cedar played Tipton and both NC varsity girls and boys won easily. We specifically went to this game to see Ron Elijah's ex-wife's son, Alex, (who lives with Ron) play for Tipton. As a sophomore he was on the starting varsity team (he also quarterbacks the football team for Tipton). They need some leadership and maybe by the time he is a senior he can be a leader and they will win some games. We enjoyed the game and except for the 4 year old sitting beside us who was taken here and there by his mother numerous times it was a fun night. Much better than staying home and watching the Hawkeye's lose.

We are planning our first cookbook committee meeting next Thursday at my house. I would appreicate it if those of you who read this would send me a couple of recipes to publish in the book. The more recipes the better! We plan on having this book ready by October so it can be used as Christmas gifts.

Spent yesterday at the library after taking mother to her chiro appointment. Her neck is hurting her again. I don't believe the chiro was of much help. Vicki and I went to Schneid's for lunch and then took a walk around town before coming back to the library to proof read what I had typed.

bigfoot tracks

On my walk this afternoon I followed Bigfoot tracks up the road to the south and to the north. I know this is Bigfoot but Grandpa is trying to convince me they are horse print tracks. More fun for the tracks to be Bigfoot, don't you think?

Took on another volunteer job; this one typing the complete Clarence Centennial Book; it was published in 1959. It will be on the Iagenweb site when I get it finished. There is a lot of narrative which is fun to type; the not so much fun is a chart of advertisors and one of photographs. I have learned a lot about the history of Clarence. I am still typing obituaries on the site also and am finding out who is related to who, some of which have surprised me. This is in between trying to find time to make some quilt squares, I received a bunch of pretty fat quarters for Christmas so I need to make some time to work with them. While volunteering at the library I am typing up a list of marriages that have been written in a note book by some ambitious person starting in 1903. I have gotten as far as 1925. That will also be on the web site--someday!

Happy New Year

I hope everyone has a blessed and happy New Year. I am sure we will here. Looking forward to our trip to DC for Vanessa & Caleb's wedding. Got my hotel room and plane tickets reserved, and am getting excited.

Christmas was great, with one party yet to go. We met at Sue's Sunday night for a good supper and gift opening. Best part was seeing the grandkids, we don't see them often enough.

Cleaned out my closet where the Christmas items are kept. I found some Christmas wrap I didn't know I had plus ends of wallpaper and brown paper which I used to wrap mailing packages in. Since that isn't done anymore, I will donate the paper to either the library or school. The wallpaper is in the wastebasket, why did I save those small pieces? A lot of "stuff" went in the Goodwill box. Am I starting to sound like my mother?

Wanting a white Christmas

I want a white Christmas, not this dreary, rainy, foggy stuff. Christmas in Iowa should be white!

Christmas gifts bought, check.
Christmas gifts wrapped, check.

Now on to the big day! Church on Saturday night, our Sunday School program is always Christmas Eve. Church on Sunday morning, interested to see what Pastor Steve has for us on Christmas Day. Christmas night at Sue's for a good time with the kids.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Project Can Do

Two weeks ago we went to Moline, via Rock Island, but that's another story. We visited the John Deere Pavilion to see Project Can Do. What an interesting and huge project. John Deere came up with the idea of building a combine out of stacked cans to promote the new S-Series combine. This is a life-size combine, built by volunteers completely of stacked cans of food. The combine was 16 feet tall, 80 feet long and 60 feet wide. There were more than 300,000 cans of food in the 170 ton sculpture. The food was bought by John Deere from Hy-Vee stores, and now all the food has been given to the River Bend Foodbank, which serves 12 counties in the Quad City area.

The combine looked like it was being driven into a corn field; with stalks of corn (made of cans, of course) going thru the 16 row head. On the floor were 3000 bags of popcorn, 5000 bags of beans and peas, 2000 bags of pinto beans and 800 bags of red kidney and black beans. Behind the combine were the tracks, made of the darker bean packages. There were lights on the combine made of yellow cans, the windows were silver cans (1500 cans LeSuere peas), black cans (9000 cans Chiliman Vegetarian) for the tires and of course the green combine (6000 cans of spinach) with the yellow details, simply awesome. What an amazing engineering display. If you are interested you can visit www.deere.com to see a picture.

Monday night was our Circle Christmas party at the 3-30 club where we enjoyed a prime rib/fried chicken dinner and later played Pictionary. Joy and I were on the committee (again) and I think everyone had a good time. The food was very good. Bill stayed home with his cold because I didn't want him getting close to Carma and having her get sick; she is taking chemo and surely wouldn't want his cold. So far I am staying well, spraying the Lysol right behind wherever he has been!

Card Club

Card club was here Saturday night. Everyone was anxious to play again as we hadn't met since September. They sure ate snacks, I was afraid I was going to run out. I had made a batch of Chex Mix and when that was gone opened a bag of another kind of snack mix plus used 2 bags of popcorn and M & Ms. We have a dessert at the end of the night which was Texas dessert from our old blue church cookbook. Everyone stayed to visit after eating dessert and it was 1:00 before I got to bed! Really late for me!

Sunday was the senior dinner sponsored by the Youth Fellowship at church. They had a wonderful meal, roast beef and ham, potatoes and gravy, corn and beans, different salads and a host of desserts. As I had to go early for choir, Bill brought Grandma to church; and since he "couldn't" stay for the Bingo after we ate, I took her home. We didn't win any prizes but had a good time and Grandma enjoyed her day.

Next year I will be heading up a committee to publish a new cookbook from our church. The profit will help with the repainting of our sanctuary. Anybody reading this can help by sending me their favorite recipes.