Dancin' the night away

One of our favorite bands was in Seward on Saturday night: Tuna Fish Jones. They played at the Seward Fall Festival, which due to the snow fall on Saturday was not very well attended. It was too bad because they had really great food, and, of course the music was good. Dave and I got up and danced and sometimes we were the only couple on the floor. We had fun, although I sometimes think we might have looked a little foolish. I always think of Elaine on the old Seinfeld show and wonder if thats how I look while I am dancing!

Seward County Chapter American Red Cross

I spent most of yesterday selling sloppy joes and hot dogs at an auction. Dave and I volunteer with the Seward Chapter of the American Red Cross and the chapter held a fund raiser over the weekend. Joyce was our fearless leader and she did a great job preparing mountains of sloppy joe slop, buying and organizing every thing. I couldn't believe it was the first time she did this. Her recipe for sloppy joes was great and she ordered the buns from the bakery and the Pac 'N Save deli, so the bread was good too. Pies were donated, and I think we came out pretty good as far as making money goes.

Serious Painting

The grandchildren visited last Saturday and the four older ones wanted to paint. We moved this project outside from the get go and got down to some serious painting. You won't see a smile on any of those faces. They are using brushes and water colors from their great great aunt Marge's collection of painting supplies.

Heroes

It has happened again: I am addicted to a television show. I am almost over NCIS--I just watch the new ones, not spend hours watching the USA Network NCIS re-runs. And, David is also hooked.

A few months ago, our daughter mentioned how much she enjoyed the NBC series, Heroes. We order the DVDs on Netflix and see 3 or 4 episodes at a time. We are now almost done with season 3, and then we will have to switch to watching the first episodes of the current season on our computer at NBC.com or Hulu.

But tonight I will watch Grey's Anatomy and get some knitting done.

Where have I been?

Well, well, well. The blog. Here it is, just waiting for me to write something after a two month hiatus. Guess I'll hit a few highlights:

A lot has happened. The most dramatic was the death of my aunt Marge, who died at age 93, congestive heart failure listed as the cause of death. You know how these things are: you expect an elderly person to die, but then when they do, it is still a shock and a surprise. The funeral was in Minnesota and went well. I think she would have liked it very much.

We had a great camping trip and got see many cousins in August in Minnesota, as well as attend the Almelund Threshing Show, and go to Wisconsin and spend a lovely evening with the Corcorans.

This past weekend I had an amazing time relaxing with 9 other women at a Bed and Breakfast, the Waterfjord House at Johnson Lake, near Lexington, NE. We are all members of the Blue Valley Quilt Guild, so it was about quilting, but it was also about relaxing and getting to develop some friendships. I had an absolutely great time, and am looking forward to Sept. 17-20, 2010.

Mahoney State Park

Dan, Jill, Maggie, Shelby and Natalie went camping at Mahoney State Park this week. They invited us to join them for an evening, and so we did on Monday night. They borrowed Jill's parent's camper and were all set up in the Lakeside Camping Area. What a great park! I would like to rent a cabin there sometime, or stay in the lodge.

Some of the activites include a water park, paddle boats, horseback riding, miniature golf, hiking and biking trails, and I am sure there are some more things that I don't know about yet. Children have to be six years old to go on a trail ride, so Maggie was not able to do that this summer. She and Shelby went on pony rides instead.

Knitting all around

It has been a good week for knitting. Last week my friend Cheryl (aka Dodie from Dodies Crafts and Gifts) and I went to visit KW Fiber Farm in York, Nebraska. We tried to do this in June, but the owner, Karen Wahlmeier, was out of town. When I called to make sure she would be there she told me that we were welcome to come and see what she had in her yarn shop, but that we would not be able to take the tour because of the heat--too hard on us and too hard on the animals. That was fine with us and we went. When we arrived she said since the day was cool, we would take the tour and off we went.

She and her husband own four acres on the outskirts of York, and they have five alpacas, several baby doll sheep, a miniature donkey, ducks, rabbits and chickens. It is attractively arranged and not crowded, as well as being very clean. We were introduced to all of the animals and then she served us banana cake and iced tea under a big shade tree in her back yard! Her yarn shop is on the front porch of her home and her spinning wheel is in the front hall. All of her yarn is from the animals on the fiber farm and she does all of the work except for cleaning the raw fiber. About half the yarn was space dyed and half left its natural color. She had quite a few knit up items like mittens, socks, scarves, hats and purses. It was so much fun!

Cheryl and I have been trying to get a knitting group started for quite a while, and Karen loves to knit, so she is coming to Seward next week to knit with us at the library.

Later the same day I presented a knitting program to the women's club at Ridgewood West. Five ladies showed up and we talked about knitting and had supper together. Two of them would like to learn to knit, so that may be my knitting group. Cheryl and I have been meeting for two years, sometimes inviting another knitter to join us, but usually we are the only ones who come. The activities director said there is a box of knitting supplies at Ridgewood East, so I think our next meeting will be investigating what is in that box and getting started.