Cold, but fun Mother's Day weekend

Not only is it hard to remember the date or the day of the week, it's also hard to tell what season we are in.  This past Friday and Saturday it seemed like we had returned to winter.  Thankfully we had some fun things going on to keep from being too discouraged by the weather.  

On Friday it was cold and rainy.  Not a good day for standing in a line outside of Wegmans, but at least I had my umbrella.

There was a good thing going on that cold rainy day at GBRV.  A food giveaway!  They took every precaution necessary, and with many people helping, food bags were given to almost 50 families!  

Here is the list of all the ways people helped, as written out by our administrative board chairman.   

Thank you to:

· God for giving people the desire and the ability to donate food and/ or to donate money to buy food for the bags
· The folks who packed the bags of food and helped distribute them
· The 2 men who went home for a canopy when it started pouring rain and set them up to keep the tables with the food bags dry
· Our guys standing in the cold rain directing traffic
· The lady who did the grocery shopping for all that was needed to supplement the food donated for the bags
· The lady who shared her experience with Food Pantry distribution to help things run smoothly
· The grocery store who donated the brown-paper projects for this project
· The grocery store manager who let us order 50 each of bread, milk, and eggs ahead to guarantee availability for distribution
· The couple who picked up all the bread, milk, and eggs
· The lady who sewed for hours making face masks to put in bags
· The people who prayed for this project
· The couple who donated a box of blue gloves to use during packing and distribution
· Benner Township for providing the orange cones used for traffic control
· State Police for being there in case we needed them
· The strangers who drove up and gave a monetary donation
· Those who shared about the project on Facebook
· The secretary who created a flyer distributed to laundromats, grocery stores, etc. for advertising
· The lady who contacted radio stations, etc. to advertise event
· The folks who came for food that are doing such a great job of taking care of their families during these challenging times

Everyone involved was vital to this ministry. May God bless you all!!

I spent Friday evening cooking!   I made hamburger and refried beans for burritos, I made chili, and also cream of tomato soup.  I finished off with peanut butter rice krispie treats.  I hadn't cooked that much at a time in weeks, and it felt exciting - until cleanup time!!  

Friday night was bitterly cold and windy, and it must have snowed a bit during the night.  By the time I got up Saturday morning it was mostly blown away except some on the car.  But throughout the day we had snow squalls.  So sad after the warm weather we had had the weekend before. 

High on my list of necessary things that morning was getting Dick to trim my hair again.  Wouldn't you know, when I tried getting a picture he stuck out his tongue, haha!  He will be very glad when my salon is open again, and so will I!!

We left home around 1:30 and headed toward Duncannon.  We had decided that since our county is considered safe enough to be in the yellow phase of restrictions, and because Duncannon is in a county that has had very low COVID numbers, we were okay to have Sam and the kids here.  I could hardly wait!   

As we drove, we listened to the live stream of Penn State's virtual graduation.  Grandson Bjorn was one of the Penn State Harrisburg graduates.  He is AMAZING!!  Four years of studying in addition to working a lot and even getting married!!  And he graduated Cum Laude in mechanical engineering.  Because he did an internship last summer which resulted in a job offer, he is all set to go!!  We are so very proud of him! 

We were so excited to load Sam and the kids up in the van and head back home!  And they were just as excited to finally be coming here again.  EIGHT WEEKS since the last time!  Of course we did everything possible to be careful.

First thing they wanted was hot chocolate!  We had burritos for dinner.   I had fun painting sea shells with the kids.  Sammy showed me his new electronic drum set.  Dick and Sam had a great time watching the new Michael Jordan docu-series, The Last Dance.   My heart was so happy having them here. 

Sunday was Mother's Day.  I posted this tribute to our birth mothers.  "Remembering and honoring our mothers who birthed and loved and raised us.  We were in our early 30's when cancer took them from us - Ruth Stauffer in 1981 and Mabel Witmer in 1982.  Their smiling faces bring us so many fun memories."

I had a phone call from Grandma Arlene telling me she had seen on TV the tributes I had sent to Pleasant View Communities, and she was so surprised.  (If you don't know what that means, check my previous post.)  I also found out that at Richland Christian Home, they had invited families to do a drive-by.  All but one of Grandma Mary's sons were in that parade!  Wow, I wish I could have seen that.  I know they had a lot of fun with it.  

I gotta tell you about our Sunday morning coffee.  Sammy brought this Corningware coffee percolator along to our house.  He had found it in the depths of a cupboard at Jenn's house, obviously left there by the previous owners!  I didn't think I had any coffee grounds since we always use the Keurig and K-cups.  But I stood on the step stool and looked into the depths of my beverage supply cupboard, and was delighted to find a never-opened bag of Swedish coffee that Miki had given me one time!!  So together Sammy and I measured water and coffee grounds, turned the stove burner on, and about 15 minutes later we had amazingly delicious coffee!  I couldn't believe it - I had never used a percolator before!  Sammy took my word for it, he didn't drink any, haha!  

We had our two church services, first of all GBRV on Google Hangouts, for which I play piano, and then Calvary via Facebook.  Pastor Dan preached from the empty sanctuary at Calvary Lewistown. 

A highlight of the service was this video of musicians from our local area doing the song The Blessing.  I'm sure you all have seen the many videos on Facebook of this amazing song.  It seems that the Lord gave this song for this very season that we are in.  I listen to it and sing/pray it over our entire family every day.  Watching this particular video, with a number of musicians that we know personally, was really emotional for me.   

Sammy really wanted to create our own "band."  I was disappointed that Dick's bass guitar is at church, so he couldn't join in, but Sammy and I had fun with piano and drums.  I tried to get Bainca to sing with me, because she had learned this song at pre-school last year, but she wasn't in the mood.  

A really important event was Dick's haircut!  He has naturally curly hair, but because parts of his head are bald, he ends up looking like Einstein if he lets it get too long.  The only thing we have is a beard trimmer, but Sam got to work and did a fine job of giving Dick a clean shaved head, smooth as a baby's behind, haha!

Sammy had shown me a video the evening before of cheese recipes.  There was one he really wanted to try, so he and I got busy.  First we cut the crust off a bunch of pieces of bread, then we put cheese and ham between two pieces and pinched the edges together.  Then we mixed eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and vanilla into which we dipped the sandwiches.  They were supposed to be fried after that, but instead we broiled them in the oven.  (No pictures of any of this because I didn't think of it, and certainly the men didn't either.)  

Meanwhile I heated the cream of tomato soup I had made Friday evening.  And that was our lunch.  The sandwiches were good when dipped into the soup and also with syrup.  But we all agreed that we like regular grilled cheese sandwiches better.  We were having fun watching Parent Trap throughout all this.    

Later Anthony and Lori texted that they were going to drive by!  We sat on the porch waiting for them and we talked with them for a little while, but I didn't get any pictures of that either.  So disappointed!  Lori gave me a planter and a beautiful box of chocolate covered strawberries.  

Later in the afternoon they packed up and loaded their things and we went over to Stauffer Acres to do a little hiking.  These kids were born for the outdoors.  I was walking around in my winter coat, they were without jackets.  

We got gas and some food at Sheetz and then headed down the highway to take them back home.   They have a great back yard with a stream that they love to explore and they wanted to show us everything.   Sometime we want to do a campfire there.  

Monday felt like a major letdown, especially because of more cool, cloudy weather.  I finally was able to go for a walk yesterday.  I guess I'm a fair weather walker.  The forecast says much warmer weather is coming, so that gives me a boost.   I've been working on my filing cabinet, doing lots of shredding, and getting rid of more "stuff" in overfilled dresser drawers.  It does feel good to have time to do these things.  

Well, that's it for this time!  Have a great weekend!