Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Stiff Polly

When Dr John and i first married we got a parrot called Polly. I think Dr John did blog about Polly. When Pete was born we had to sell Polly. Dr John continued to want a parrot. Christmas a few years ago Walmart was selling these talking dancing parrots. I thought perfect parrot for Dr John. no clean-up. Polly's leg broke when we took it out of the box, but I taped it up, and Polly sat on the perch in the bedroom.
One of the rotations at Sunday School this year was Treasures in Heaven and it had a station in it that needed a parrot. We took Polly off the perch and she went to church and sat in the Palm tree the church has for decoration, and was used in the station that needed the parrot. Kids and adults would be startled when Polly would squawk hello. After the rotation was done Polly was placed in a box with the other items used in the rotation and was forgotten about.
There is a lady in the church who volunteers to clean-up the bathrooms after their use, and she takes care of the food pantry. While she was working last week she heard a voice saying hello. She looked around for who was in the church, because she thought it was empty. She could not find anyone. She went back to work. Again she heard hello. She did a search and after many hellos she found the box with the parrot. She took the parrot to her car to silence it. On Sunday she was telling another person about the parrot just as I came in the church after the sack race. I told her that was my parrot so she gladly went to her car and brought him to me. I turned off the button and silenced him and brought him home. Some gifts in up with many uses, and in places they were not intented to be.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Busy Weekend

The end of Sunday School had come for the year. My daughter, the Sunday School superintendent, had great plans for honoring the students , and the teachers. The students, and teachers were to get certificates, which a member of the Christian Ed. committee created and gave to my daughter to sign. My daughter also wanted to give a plastic red apple filled with candy to the teachers and a box filled with candy for the shepherds. My job, if I chose to take it, was to fill the apples and boxes with candy. Filling the boxes and apples was not hard, but tying small ribbons on them, not easy. My old fingers had difficulty with the bows. My daughter also wanted to give each teacher, shepherd, and the piano player a slide show of the year. Dr John had taken pictures during the Sunday School hour, and during the services. Pictures became fewer after his death, because you forget to take pictures while you are teaching. Pennie began the week before last Sunday collecting pictures, making sure each child had their picture and name on the slide show. Background music music came next. The close of the year was to be a family event with games and snacks to follow the the awards. My daughter found a shoe cookie cutter{explain later the significance of shoe}, she planned for cookies to be made.
The problem with her plan is that everything did not go smoothly. Her slide show kept crashing even though she bought a program that was to make the process easier. She had difficulty putting the music exactly where she wanted it. On Saturday evening I made the cookies, but I do not do decorations well. My idea is to frost then throw on sprinkles, not what she wanted. I went to bed at 1:00 AM Sunday morning. Pennie was not able to get a separate show for the pianist,or the students First Communion. She did get the the cookies decorated cutely.
Part of the last six week rotation was a shoe drive. The rotation before was a toy drive for the shelter. We got two boxes of toys. We did not expect too much for this drive although we advertised each week.
Sunday came. We were at the church at 7:00 AM to set up. I was in charge of the sack race. I brought out the games for the other teachers. Teachers , parents, and students arrive. Pennie began showing the slide show, using wall as a screen, as they arrived. Awards were given. The cookies, jello feet, cut out cheese of shoes, licorice shoe laces, and juice were eaten. The sack race, bean bag toss, hula- hoop contest, Pennie toss, and relay race were played. Questions were asked covering the year's learning, before the game was played making a review.
The children sang in church. They had two pieces. One was "God is so Great" and the other the Beatitudes. During the Beatitude song the children had duets, even the kindergarten children. Because of a Baptism, the children got to sit in the choir seats.
After the service ,Pennie had a meeting where they planned fund raisers for the next youth gathering. I had fellowship and ate cake.
Pennie took me home and she went to a Tupperware party. She bought, I stayed away so I would not buy.
We went to Olive Garden for supper. We went back to the church after supper to take care of the shoes brought in. There were bags and boxes to go through. We were ready to call it a day when we counted 225 shoes but as we were locking up the office I found two more boxes. We left them.
Story of the church parrot to follow.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Mother's Day

I had a very nice Mother's day. My class at church was fun. It was the fourth grade, and they knew the Beatitudes. They did a great job in making their Kingdom Cups. I had time to fellowship after the church service, because the students helped me in cleaning up after class.

My daughter took me out to lunch but where we wanted to go changed. At fellowship a lady recomended Oslo's for it's food and being quiet and peaceful. They were full, so we could not go there. Then we went to Olive Garden, and they had an hour wait. I looked over at Red Lopster and they had a line out side, so we went to Noodles. No line and very good food.

My sons and family gave me a call. Hope you had a great day too.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Comments on Storm

Many were brave or foolish and photographed the storm, we got to see the photos. I was glad to see their work.

I did have some of my siding come off, but it came off today. We had high wind gust today also. I am not sure what to do with a two foot piece. I wiped it down and stuck it back up on the house. I had comments from the different people who gave bids on the roof how badly the siding job was. One person showed me how there should be nails and there were none.

If you do not like to have consistent weather, Wisconsin is the place to be. We had 70 to 80 temperatures the end of last week and sunny, then it rained but was warm, followed by storms with tornado, clear and cool with gusting winds of 50mph came next. We are expecting snow next. They advertise to buy plants for Mother's Day to plant. Not for me I am waiting for June before anything is planted.

I am going to wish to all mothers a Happy Mother's Day. It is early but I may not get back.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Scary Evening

It all happened so fast. We were watching The Biggest Loser, when the news broke in and said there is a tornado warning. I said "that means they saw a tornado." Pennie said "Yes." The news begins to explain where it was sighted. Then the siren goes off. Pennie and I said together" That is where we are." The night before we had a tornado watch and we decided to go to Pennie's basement if we got a warning. We went out our back patio door, and ran over to Pennie's. I looked to my left and there was the angry cloud. I felt I was in the Wizard of Oz. We had a bit of a problem with the dog who did not want to go to the basement. When we were down in the basement Maggie wanted to explore. The basement had a TV and we continued watching the weather news. My basement has a battery run radio, in case we had to go down there. I forgot that. The electricity does not go out. We were in the basement for an hour. The tornado was moving away from us not toward us. There was damage to buildings, but no injury to people.
The scare made us forget that today was garbage pick up day. We missed the pick up, but we only had one bag this week.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Luke's Birthday

My grandson Luke will be 9 tomorrow. After church Pennie and I drove to Luke's house to celebrate his birthday. Before we went out to eat we went to Hazelwood one of the first large homes in the area. My granddaughter was giving the tour of the home. She volunteers, but had not been in the home for five weeks. She had not also given the tour on her own. This was the day she got to give the tour solo. She did a good job and we gave her a hard time with questions she did not have the answers for. There were no other visitors at this time, so it was a good practice. She got to discover items she had not noticed before. After our tour my granddaughter got to join us because she was through for the day. We went to Perkins, Luke's choice. We went back to the house for cake, and Luke opened his gifts from his sister and parents. Pennie and I will celebrate again on mother's day because it will also my son in Madison birthday.
We had an active morning at church, because the children in the kindergarten, and fourth grades got their bibles. Pennie because she is superintendent had to sign all the bibles and put the child's name in them. We did this on Saturday but as she was doing that she put the wrong name on one of the bibles. There was a white out pen but that did not work. She then wanted to put in a new dedication label. She had to get one more bible for a child who had not attended Sunday school all year, but because he got a letter he might show up. Pennie also thought that it would be nice to bring him the bible even if he did not show up. We had the bibles from before stored, and we wanted to get a bible that would be alike, but they are now out of print and had to get a new version. We then asked for a label, and the store did not have them, but would engrave the bible. Not what she wanted. She tried all Saturday night and Sunday Morning to get a nice dedication label made, she had one made, but it was too large . She had left the bible at church so it would not be forgotten. We went to church at 7:00 AM. I also had to set up to teach and I could not do that on Saturday because the Chippers were using the room I teach in. The chippers are wood workers. They do beautiful work. She could not sleep because she was disturbed about the name in the bible. Sunday morning she found a bottle of white out and it worked. Problem solved. Starting at seven it took me until the children were to enter my class to get the room prepared.
The Bishop was at the service. He gave the children's sermon with a puppet. He gave the adult sermon not in the pulpit, and he did a short prayer with the child and family as they received their bible. It was a very nice service. Each of the children who got a bible also got a backpack to carry the bible in.
I will explain why I had to take so long to set up. I have the art workshop[class}. We are making Kingdom Cups a symbol of their lives open to the Spirit's working in them. We are using Crayola Magic clay. A template of a rectangle is taped down covered by wax paper taped down. Each child gets a larger ball of brown or white clay and three small balls of red, blue and yellow clay. They also get gems, and a plastic knife, and a small rolling pen, and a paper cup. The time comes from taping down the papers, and making the balls of clay. I put the clay in small baggies. We are studying the Beatitudes. The art workshops covers the first and third. On Sunday I had the Kindergarten & first grade. Every class I have had loved making their cups.