Thanksgiving

Have a wonderful day! Take time to look back on the blessings that God has given you, and don't eat too much! :)

Another Fun thing about being in a small town...

Tonight it seems as if Clear Lake will be shut down. It's one of the fun and slightly amusing things about being in a small town. Our high school football team is playing their semi-final game tonight. It seems as if the whole town is going to the game--even us. It is over an hour and a half away. We are going with a few families from the church. Kirsten is going to another friend's house whose mom is being gracious enough to keep a few 10-11 year old girls for the evening. What I do enjoy is that at the game, the Clear Lake Lions will have a huge amount of people there cheering them on. It is such a fun part of living here. The amusing part is that the elders meeting had to be moved and even a meeting of city officials had to be changed due to the game. I love this town! The whole town will be gone on Saturday if they win tonight.

Little Blessings

When it is cool and rainy like today, I am so thankful for little blessings to make the day more cheerful......lunch with my husband, Christmas lights on my back porch which look so pretty, (I know that it is not time to have them on yet, but I just hung them today, and they looked so pretty.) and a quiet evening with my kids. Last week we put a fire in the fireplace. I can't wait to use that some more this winter. There are so many more blessings. I just wanted to get your brain thinking too.

Honor Choir

Monday night we went to our local Community College to watch our Central Iowa Honor's choir perform. Peirce was performing with around 150 other 9th graders. There were over 150 10-12th graders and about the same amount of 7th&8th graders. It was a neat opportunity. They had guest musical professors spend the afternoon with the kids and then direct them. The songs were all well done. A large percentage of the musical selections were sacred. All of the 9th grade music was sacred. A few of the arrangements I was familiar with. The high schools selections were very difficult. Most of them foreign. We knew that while at our school, Peirce is under the direction of a Christian man who chooses quality pieces, but it was nice to see that there are other people in this area that have the same values.

9th Grade Honors Choir

Birthday Blessings

Since Kirsten's birthday is the week after mine, I always look forward to hers more. Between two November birthdays, Thanksgiving and then Christmas; I'd rather make a bigger deal of hers. It is much more fun to be older when you are 10 almost 11. Since my birthday is on a Wednesday, which is a fairly busy day in our household, most of it was celebrated yesterday. I went to lunch with a friend, and I had cake with the family in the evening. I bought a camera a few months ago that was my gift, so I didn't expect anything. Dan went and got me some flowers---even remembering that with my allergies a mess, mums were a no-no. Aren't they beautiful? Mom and dad got me the WiiFit for Birthday/Christmas. We've already had a great time with that.

I also had a surprise muffins and crafting punch from the two ladies who have Wednesday morning Bible Study with me. Life is so much better when we don't expect things. What a treat!

Get rid of the junk!

I have not been on in a few weeks. I do have a little bit of an excuse for part of the time. Two weeks ago (the 24th of Oct.), Kirsten and I drove back to South Bend for a week in order to help my mom and dad get rid of stuff. They are probably going to be moving in the beginning of 2009---which is not that far away. I looked at my schedule and realized that it was now or never, so the trip was made. It was a lot of hard work. I don't know if I can say that it was FUN! But it was very profitable. We were able to clean out a few areas that have been forgotten. They have been in that house over 20 years. Those of you that know them know that the house is fairly large.. There is a lot of storage. Why do we tend to think that we must fill storage areas?

There were some "treasure" days when we found things that had been stored when my grandparents moved out of their house 18 years ago. I brought quite a few things home in our van. My grandmother's china was split between all of the children. We found some old dolls that had been inherited. This one is mine.

There is a wonderful chain called 1-800-got-junk. (I think that is the name.) These guys come cart anything away. They were great. They carried things out of the basement that had been down there for years. Anybody else have one of those huge old console televisions in their basement?

I am a sentimental person, so some of the things were hard to not take, but we did just move twice in the last year and a half. That will cure anyone of wanting too much stuff.

I do value the "old" pieces. I love the family history of some of the pieces.

I brought home a toy dish cupboard that my mom's uncle made her when she was young. It is beautiful. I do want to get rid of the red on the shelves, but it didn't happen this week. Another thing that I brought home was a mantle clock from my dad's side. It is so different.

How thankful I am to have the family that I came from. I think that is why these pieces mean so much. There is something so "warm and cozy" about having memories in these pieces. Another "treasure" from the week was finding grandma's hand stitched linens that she made before she and grandpa were married in 1937. There were only a few stains on any of them. I'll put a better picture in later. I have mine at church right now to "advertise" our tea in a few weeks. I left it in Dan's office.

I have so much more to write, but this will have to be it for tonight.