See, if I link to him, I get an extra entry. Cool? Yes, cool!
Click here to enter the Cul-de-Sac Shack Pick Your Prize Giveway. Only don't pick Lot #4. Because, you know, that one's mine. Mine. MINE!!!! BWAAHAHAHA!
*ahem*
Sorry about that. Old aprons and vintage rickrack still on cardsmake me just a little bit crazy. But I'm better now. As long as everybody keeps their hands off my prize.
We attended the wedding of the son of friends yesterday. Kieffer is good friends with both the bride and the groom. They are expecting a baby before long, so I got them a useful setting-up-household kind of gift, but then I wrapped the box in this soft, cuddly yellow flannel receiving blanket hand embroidered with a Papa Critter and Mama Critter taking Baby Critter (what are they, anyway? not bears - maybe badgers? they have a Frances vibe) on a walk in his stroller. I picked it up at the one and only garage sale I allowed myself to stop at on my way home from the Twin Cities last weekend. I had no specific use in mind; it just was too adorable to leave behind. And then it turned out to be exactly the right size to go around the box that the wedding gift went in. How perfect was that?
I had also gotten a wonderful blog prize from Christine Hoffman of Pies and Aprons (it's one of the two Saturday's Aprons waiting in the wings), and she sent it all wrapped in tissue paper with a yellow gingham band around the bundle, and I took the yellow gingham idea and ran with it. I used her band as a ribbon on the package and made a wedding card with the yellow gingham theme. Fun!
At the church building next door, red lights flash and bulky men rush around with hoses. The urgency of their steps intensifies at the sound of children's voices pleading for help in the darkness. One little body after another is carried tenderly out under the stars, and the search goes on.
It's an exercise of the New Albin Fire and Rescue service, and my children and a bunch of the neighborhood kids are playing the victims of an explosion and fire scenario. Even though I know exactly what's going on and who's involved, even though I know that a bunch of little girls are down there in the church basement probably giggling over the firemen's efforts to find them, even though they can get up and walk away at any time, I still find my guts tied up in knots at their voices.
And I'm not even a fireman.
This exercise was to give our fire and rescue people practice in triage, in learning not to let their emotions take over, not to forget their training and move toward the child who seems in the most distress, but to look at the situation calmly and make good choices about who really is in the greatest need of help. Most of the people on our rescue service are parents. Besides, we are hardwired to respond to the cries of children.
This has got to be quite a test of their skills and judgment.
Just thought you'd like to see how gorgeous my mom is. This was taken a few years ago (that's me in her lap) but she is still gorgeous. I'm so thankful I still have my parents.
Kieffer put in a low bid on this vintage stove at an estate sale in La Crescent, Minnesota, yesterday, and by the time we got home there was a phone message that his bid had been accepted. Then came the fun part. The thing weighs a TON, and it was in the basement of the house. Barry was so sweet about putting in heavy manual labor to manhandle the stove up the stairs, out the house, into the Jeep, home, then out of the Jeep again onto the back porch.
Kieffer would like to keep it for his home someday but may choose to sell it. Right now I'm just happy it doesn't need to move anymore, at least for awhile.
I'm seriously very proud of him. I finally raised one that likes antiques!
My mother had her knee replaced on Friday the 3rd. Everything went really well despite her numerous complicating medical issues, and they sent her home on Labor Day, feeling pretty good. It didn't last. Tuesday, she went back into the hospital with complications mostly centered around her blood thinners and how they affected all kinds of other stuff. I drove up there Wednesday night (thank you Dina for letting me just take off like that!) and I just came home this afternoon. So did she! She's back to feeling well and ready to take back up with learning to walk all over again. We feel we watched a miracle happen, as she was very sick (too sick for surgery), then okay for surgery but it was delayed, then doing quite a bit better and might not need the surgery after all, then doing even better and definitely didn't need the surgery, and then doing great, and then sent home. We are giving thanks.
Barry and Kieffer had to put on Lil Miss A's birthday party on Wednesday in my place, but it sounds like a good time was had by all, and the house was still standing when I got home. I really appreciate that they made it possible for me to go be with my parents like that. I didn't actually do all that much up there, just spent time with them - both of them at the hospital, and then with my father in the evenings and mornings so he didn't have to go home to an empty house.
We are blessed.
Oh, and a funny story: My parents, as I have mentioned about 40 times, are members of a Messianic Christian church in Hudson, Wisconsin. Thursday was the high holyday of Rosh Hoshanah, which of course they were missing because they were stuck in the World's Funnest Place, the hospital. So a contingent of folks from their church came to the hospital room that afternoon bringing shofarot (my new word of the day - plural of shofar is shofarot). That's ram's horn trumpets, in case you didn't know. Yes, I'm serious. They blew the shofarot (quietly) (with the door shut) in my mother's hospital room. It meant so much to my parents that the festivities were brought to them, and it was a sweet, if unconventional, thing to do. They also brought lots of food.
Want to hear what a shofar sounds like? (This is just a clip off YouTube, has nothing to do with Beth Immanuel's celebration. Also it's a lot louder than it was in the hospital.)
Okay, I'm reblogging this for blatantly mercenary reasons as I want to win one of the journals, BUT this really IS a pretty cool idea. I stumbled on to Ex Libris Anonymous, and from thence to Bookjournals.com. This man takes old books and deconstructs them to make journals. And he finds cool stuff in the pages and preserves it on his blog for posterity: Doodles, dedications, love notes, mysteries that will never be solved.
Go check out both sites, the blog and the webstore.
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