Two week's worth of news

 Life has been BUSY these past two weeks! Blame it on too many irons in the fire, too many balls in the air, whatever metaphor you want. I have just gotten myself committed to too many things and, as I turn seventy next week, I have decided I do not want to be that busy going forward. I am in the process of determining what I am going to cut back on...

My involvement with Afghan women is something I will not cut out - although, sometime early next year, Steve and I will be released from our Church service mission and I don't plan to continue teaching the Thursday night English class. I will also not be responsible for opening up the meetinghouse on Monday mornings and staying the whole time to be the Church representative that needs to be present from start to finish. I will continue to drive people to and from classes, though. And, I will continue to help with sewing endeavors. However, I have recently learned of the sewing program sponsored by Christian Friends of New Americans (a Lutheran charity) and that program is awesome!  It has been going on for over twenty years and it is a well oiled machine! I had no idea it existed when, nine or so months ago, I was approached by the Afghan women that I teach who wanted to sew to make money. Basically, I reinvented the wheel! In addition to the CFNA program, and the Kindness program, there is a woman who has created a non-profit to have Afghan women sew and sell coffee cozies at coffee shops around town. She does not sew so I have been her "advisor" and "demonstrator" for these cozies. Two Thursdays ago, I helped demonstrate at the Afghan International Center. Here we are:

(I cropped out the two Afghan women beside us because they are not allowed to have their photos up on the internet. I believe it is for a religious reason)

That afternoon, I delivered a repaired machine to Masoma, one of the women in my class. She was very grateful. She is quite talented with a sewing machine but also with a crochet needle. Here are some things she has recently made....

Cute, aren't they? But, I have learned that they don't sell well at craft fairs. People just don't want or need more "things" to collect dust. In preparation for the two craft fair events that Kindness had signed up for - both on the same day: Saturday, November 15th - two women approached me each with a bag full of crocheted items - mostly doilies.  And, we sold nary a one. I have advised them to deconstruct their cotton doilies and crochet them into square dish cloths (people LOVE those) and the acrylic yarn doilies into squares and make lap blankets like this one.  Because, someone paid $55 for it!

So, Saturday, the 15th was an insane day! Craft booth during the day for three hours but tack on two more hours for set-up and take down AND a craft booth at the Kindness Trivia Night fundraiser that lasted for five hours. I was SO exhausted at the end of last Saturday! But, between the two events, the women earned almost $1,000 so that was nice. Below are photos of the during-the-day craft booth.  The embroidered dish towels sold very well as did the plastic shopping bag bags. The totes and aprons not so well. And, we already know about the doilies. Sara, the Afghan woman I brought with me to help with the booth, sewed up about a dozen pillows which you can see in one of the photos. She didn't sell a single one. I was so disappointed for her. 

There is one more craft market on December 13th which I will supervise. And, then, I am not sure how the Kindness sewing program will look going forward now that I know what else exists. 

This past week found me putting together a concert program for the December 6th civic orchestra concert - which I won't even be playing in! Steve and I will be in Utah on our re-scheduled trip. By the way, the gas bubble in Steve's eye is GONE!  Hooray! As for doing programs, this is my last one. I will be passing that baton to someone else going forward. Check that off my cutting back list...

Last Friday, Steve and I made a trip to Columbia for the day. A co-worker of Steve's was retiring so we went for the event. SO glad we did. Steve got to reconnect with good friends and we got to have a short visit with Steven and Biscuit and to have dinner with Elise at Culvers. Plus, it was nice to be on MU campus again. Below is Steve with John (who was NOT the retiree - he is already retired) and Steve and me with John and Cindy - the retiree.

Remember the concert that Steve and I ushered at the Basilica last month? The Vienna Boy's Choir that sounded like mush? Well, the usher coordinator convinced me to give it one more try with the singing group, Stile Antiqa. They are a 12-person vocal group that specializes in Renaissance music and they performed this past Monday evening. They know how to work with the seven second sound decay and they were absolutely amazing! Such gorgeous music. I am glad we ushered. BUT, no more ushering concerts. 

Wednesday noon, I was given a birthday lunch at Wendy's by four of my church friends. The fifth had just had knee replacement surgery so she couldn't attend. I felt very loved. 

We got a knock late in the evening a couple of days ago - James, our neighbor, delivered these Krispy Kreme donuts. Pam, his wife works there and she often brings home donuts to share. Wish I could have some...😒

Last Sunday was the first rehearsal for the stake Christmas orchestra. I spent quite a bit of time beforehand getting music ready to distribute and it was still a chaotic hour of rehearsal. That being said, the ensemble sounded pretty darn good for sight-reading and I am encouraged that we will sound great for the Christmas concert on the 14th of December. But, going forward, that is another responsibility I am going to bow out of. 

Currently, Steve and I are in Greenwood visiting Julina and Alex. We left at 6:30 p.m. because I had my family of three piano lessons from 4:30 - 6:00. It was misting or drizzling the whole way so we didn't drive as fast meaning we didn't get to Julina's until after midnight, their time. Yawn! Julina has been at a early childhood conference all day today- she gave a presentation - so Steve has been hanging out with Alex and I have been catching up on things that have been on hold for too long. Here is Juli getting in her car this morning...

We plan to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters tonight. I will give you my review next week. The only other movie Steve and I watched in the past two weeks was Episode 8 - the Last Jedi. We liked it - especially since we really couldn't remember much from the first time we saw it when it first came out.  

Time to winterize the yard

Brrrrr - it is cold and blustery today and a hard freeze warning has been issued for tonight but up until today, we have had unseasonably warm weather all week. I have had some extra free time (because I had cleared my calendar for a trip to Utah) so I spent time each day getting the yard ready for winter. I put in five chrysanthemum plants into my behind-the-garage bed. You can see a couple of them amidst the established mums. 

I dug up the elephant ears and dahlias, cut off the leaves and washed the roots for storage in our basement.

The hoses are drained and rolled up and stored downstairs. I dug up a lantana plant and it is now in a pot by the window in the kitchen. I hope I can keep it alive until spring when I will put it outside again. These cold temperatures are only supposed to last a couple days and it will be back in the 60's by mid-week so I can trim back the iris and pull up the dead zinnias and cosmos.  THEN I think I can stop worrying about yardwork for a couple of months...

I have my dad's biography all finished and spell-checked and ready for the Blurb 50% off Black Friday sale. Steve is about half done with his mom's biography. Being home this week allowed us to move forward on these projects. I was able to help someone who reached out to me through Billion Graves. They had an ancestor buried in St. Peter and Paul Cemetery which we pass by every time we go to church. I was able to locate the area where they are buried. Sadly, no tomb markers but the foreground is where they are laid to rest. It was a gorgeous autumn day and the cemetery is quite lovely.

Yesterday - Saturday - Steve and I had an outing with Noah. First, we took him to Sax Quest on Cherokee Blvd.  Although Noah is not a saxophone player, he IS a musician and can appreciate cool things related to music. Sax Quest is a working music store specializing in saxophone accessories and repairs but upstairs there is a small museum full of antique saxophones - some built by Adolph Sax himself in the 1800's. 

Cherokee Street is full of antique shops and other quirky shops..

Noah is taking a History of St. Louis class this year and, as we drove through old St. Louis, he mentioned that the Osage tribe were mound builders. The Cahokia Mounds across the river in Illinois are remnants. St. Louis used to have many mounds but, one by one, they were flattened except for a final one called Sugarloaf Mound. I had read about it and I knew that it was not far from our house and so we made a visit to see it. Sadly, this is how it looks - like some plain old hill of dirt. No plaque or anything to commemorate it. I thought it was funny how Noah got his photo of it. 

We ended our time together with lunch at the Stellar Hog. Yummy barbeque...

Steve and I finished the three-part documentary on Ulysses S. Grant. It was so interesting and it gave me a huge appreciation for the man. He married a woman from St. Louis and his homestead is just down the road from us about five miles so we will visit it soon. We also watched Mission Impossible - Final Reckoning. Whoa - that was an intense movie but it was also very satisfying and even touching. I must close as we have invited a young couple new to our ward over for cookies. 

 

Well, Never Mind....

We are supposed to be in Utah but we are not. Wednesday morning, Steve had an appointment with his retina doctor. I stayed home to start packing for our trip to Utah the next day. Steve came home and reported that his doctor advised him to NOT fly because there was still a smidge of the gas bubble lingering in his eye. He was given about a 50/50 chance that it would cause permanent blindness if he changed altitude and the bubble expanded.  Whoa! Neither of us was expecting THAT kind of news. Usually, gas bubbles dissipate within six weeks. Steve's didn't. So, on went the brakes to a multi-day preparation for this trip and we were looking at what do to do for the next ten days???  Well, you know me, I started texting people left and right to say "we're still here".  All my music students are now scheduled again. English class and women's Monday meetings are back on the calendar. We have rebooked our flight for December 3-10. Alice will be baptized on December 6th at 11:30 which is a much better day and time than the day after Halloween at 9:30! All in all, though, it still feels like a much lighter week coming up and I am very grateful. It was INTENSE leading up to this planned trip. 

We were here for Halloween but no one comes down our street to trick or treat. Instead, we built a fire in our backyard pit and invited Fred Olver down for hamburgers, baked beans and s'mores. It was the perfect night for such an activity. 

this is from my Feathersnap bird feeder camera...

Just to add to the craziness of pre-trip preparations, I had Women's group obligations on both Monday and Tuesday mornings this past week. Plus, I took all the machines to the repair place Monday afternoon. Tuesday, while the volunteering group cleaned children's toys and made Halloween decorations for the Thursday night party with all the English classes, I took photos of more handmade items. Here are some of them (the first is a dish towel). Nice work that these ladies do...

 

On my way home at noon on Tuesday, I had to get air in my tires at a gas station and I was rear-ended in the station parking lot. I had just pulled out to leave, a white car was trying to back out into me and as I stopped to avoid the collision, a black car that had just pulled into the air pump spot decided to back out, for some reason, (maybe to reposition himself closer to the air hose?) and he backed into me. He was not going fast so the damage was minimal (no air bag deployment). I know there was some verbal altercation between the black and the white car as to who was next in line for the pump so brains were not thinking clearly and calmly. I need to take it to a collision repair shop and the earliest date I could get for an estimate was November 18th!!!!  Happily, the car is drivable.  

Another "fun" thing Steve and I got to deal with last week was deciding which Medicare Advantage plan we were going to go with. UGH! 

Late last week, prompted, I'm sure, by a Marco Polo family discussion on Halloween costumes, Steven asked if I could go through all the family photo albums and scan Halloween costumes through the years. Whoa, that is a lot of albums to go through but I made time for it during our regular phone calls with Elise, Kirsti and Sarah last Sunday evening. Hooray for scan apps on cell phones. I will close with a few of the cutest photos I uncovered...

1978.  We were visiting Uncle Jeff who was working that night at Baskin Robbins....

1979  BYU clowns!!!

1984 - a very unhappy Beckie and, yes, Emily is a flagpole!

1988 - Steven is Pee Wee Herman!!!

1991

1994