Time to Plant Corn

It really is time to plant, but the weather isn't cooperating. I have mowed the lawn one time. I did the yard Sunday afternoon and now water is sitting where I mowed. It will get nice again; it always has and we've always gotten the crops in. It just seems like the time will never come and the weather will never get warm.

I had guests Sunday for lunch; Rick & Deb Sawyer, Larry, Ellen, Caitlin, Grandma Fehling and Sue and Ben. We had a great big meal and I only fixed the ham, potatoes, broccoli & corn casserole, a carrot casserole and rolls. Deb brought a green bean casserole, corn casserole and a strawberry whipped salad, Ellen brought her famous pea salad and Sue brought 4 pies (none of which she made herself!). Mother brought 2 bottles of wine she said she didn't want back, one of which was vinegary and I dumped down the drain. The other one we will drink. We played a few rousing games of Farkel which the women won!

Didn't go to school this week (Easter vacation for the school) and Vicki wasn't having story hour this month so I didn't go to the library. Last night was the night the Maragaret Dallas scholarship committee got together to pick the winners and North Cedar got 2 of the 4. There was only $2000 to divide among 35 applications. Three of us from North Cedar decide on whom we like from our school district, the other members read Tipton, Durant, Wilton and West Branch applications. A short, to-the-point meeting and we were done in less than 2 hours.

Home

We are home from our cruise to Bermuda. What a great time we had! New experiences for all of us. I really hadn't know where Bermuda was, or that it was a chain of islands, really, attached by bridges. The water is a beautiful shade of blue and as we saw on our excursion in the glass bottom boat, full of coral reefs (and even sunken ships!). Of interest on the island are houses with white roofs--they use the roofs to collect rain water as their main source of water. The water collected goes into a tank under the house and is used for everything. The houses are painted in pastel colors, they can be painted any color the owner wishes. Very big mansions there and some not so nice very old (think hundreds of years old) houses. We did a tour around the islands in a boat with a very knowledgeable man who told us many things about the island; a tour in the glass bottom boat; and a 5 hour tour on a bus. There are no straight roads in Bermuda, just narrow winding ones and they drive on the wrong side of the road! Steering wheels are on the wrong side of the vehicles. Only one car per household is allowed, so there are many motorcycles and scooters.

We came home to cold temperatures, the death of another 16 year old North Cedar student and the death of the mother of one of Larry's classmates.

Bill and I went to the races the night before we left and Ben's car won the heat race and the feature. Of course, we realized right away that Ben wasn't driving, Dan was. The races were cancelled last week--still looking forward to??? Ben's first night driving!

April

A sad start for the month of April. We mourn the loss of a North Cedar student, just 17. We are praying for the recovery of his friend also in the accident. Maquoketa lost 2 young people in a car accident. We attended Leona Conrad's funeral yesterday. It was a nice service honoring Leona and celebrating her life.

Since the sun is shining this morning and the wind isn't blowing too hard, I hung out 2 loads of laundry. I love to see and hear the bed sheets flopping on the line. I think they will smell really good on the bed tonight.

Sunday was practice day at the Tipton race track. Ben and Bill went down to try to work some of the bugs out of the car--Ben has a lot to learn and the first race Friday night will be interesting! Ben took us and a friend along to Riverside for a race car show Saturday. I spent the day inside the casino (it was too cold outside)!

Friday night was the Legion fish fry. We served close to 300 people, ran out of fish, coleslaw, rolls, and baked potatoes so all I had to eat was a few almost cold french fries. One more fish fry the first Friday in May, all proceeds will go to the Honor Flight.

Cold----sore

Great, this morning I wake up with a cold sore on my upper lip where I usually get at least one a year. I hate the feeling of everyone looking right at my lip! Hope it goes away quickly. If anyone has a remedy, let me know!

The county came yesterday and took down all the trees along the road along our pasture to the west. I first noticed when I saw Bill dragging a big tree behind the tractor coming down the lane. I couldn't figure out where he got the tree from, it was a pine tree and we just don't have many trees. Finally, I saw the county truck and heard the chain saw. We have a BIG pile of trees now and it looks funny along the road. Where are the birds supposed to go now? Evidently the county wants to keep the road ditches clean and Bill offered to get rid of the trees for them.

I did a Laura yesterday, well just a tiny bit. I did clean out the storage room and now you can actually walk in there. I have a pile of stuff to be burnt and two big boxes of things to go to Goodwill. I gave Sue the old kitchen chair that mother left here those almost 50 years ago. It was a nice sturdy wooden chair and I hated to throw it away (maybe Sue will and I won't even know). I also still have the old baby basket we all used. Who wants it? It has been here forever and I really don't want to throw it away. If you want it, let me know.

We also took recycling down to transfer station south of Tipton yesterday; for us and Thelma. Thelma won't recycle her newspapers, instead lining the garage with them so some day Larry can burn them for her. She says she doesn't want the address label in the recycling! But we did take her cans and glass. In Cedar County the glass isn't recycled. I don't understand that.

Dreary Day

It's foggy and yucky out! Need sun! And then it is supposed to be cold again? I thought it was spring...

We had a fun time at Sherrie's Saturday night. Good to see Jason again. Too bad he had to drive home, Moline airport is not good to him. Hopefully the next time I want to fly I have better luck.

Good to hear that Vanessa is getting phone calls from Caleb. It sounds like they are both doing well. Now if he just receives the packages we've mailed.

We learned about Volunteer Services at Evening Circle Monday night. Elda gave a great presentation and they are trying to get money to pay for the van they ordered. The wheelchair lift in the van is about half the cost of the van.

Off to the library this morning, tomorrow a hair cut and then work at the funeral luncheon. Saturday night is our last card club night for the season.

Walking outside

Yesterday I took my longest walk of the year outside. It was so nice out. A coat was good but didn't have to wear a hood or anything on my head. Matt came last night with the semi to get a load of corn and they stood outside (it was even dark by then)and visited a long time. I don't know if Matt came to get corn or cookies. He came to the door and said "where is my bag of cookies?" so I got rid of the bag I had just put in freezer. Good thing I made two double batches of cookies yesterday morning! He even said his wife said he should get my recipe. Little does he know it is an old one from a Better Crocker cookbook that I've had since we got married.

Monday was a different day at school. They were doing testing except for Pre-K, K and 1st grade. I spent at least an hour cutting laminated objects for Pre-K, had kindergarten kids read to me, and had 1st graders count: by 1's to 100, and by 2's to 20, first starting with 2 and then with 3. Starting with 3 and using odd numbers is a hard concept. I corrected papers for 2nd grade and spent time helping the secretary with report cards. Report cards aren't ABCD&F anymore--and I didn't spend much time trying to figure how they were graded. I had to put plain white stickers on a part of the report card that was printed incorrectly and that took awhile. I could hear music and then found out a brass quartet was playing in the gym. I went in to listen and the four "old men" as the janitor told me, were playing and explaining their instruments. Very interesting and I enjoyed it very much.

Today I go to the library. Last week we weeded the video section, removing almost all of the adult VHS movies and some of the kids'. We don't have a lot of DVD's but will be getting more. Vicki found that there are only a few who take out VHS movies. I then arranged the video section, putting the children's movies on one side and the adults on the other. I'll see if it remained that way today!

Have a box for Caleb to mail this morning. Prayers for him and his unit please!

NC wins 1st game at State

It rained and rained. From the time we left Wells Fargo Arena and all the way home. After watching our boys win big over Cascade we drove to a mall in Des Moines and shopped for an hour, ate supper and came home in the rain. I was thankful not to be driving in the rain in the dark. I got home about 8:30 after a fun day. A big North Cedar crowd was at the game, there was no school and I heard there would be no school on Thursday either. There were 2 busses of kids and 2 charter buses of adults. Go Knights!

Sunday was a full day. Choir sang at church so I had to be there at 9:00. After church we had search committee meeting until 1:30. Came home and got Bill and went back to town to play cards with Harlan and Florence. That was fun. They live in such a neat place and she has things so pretty. This was after card club on Saturday night when we didn't get home until 1:00. Monday was a busy day at school. I (not a math person) helped a 3rd grader with subtracting double digits because on the paper I corrected she had them all wrong. Hopefully she remembers what we practiced and will do better next time. Am off to the library this morning (in the rain I might add!).