Five Minutes of Thanksgiving

I am going to set a timer for five minutes and type things I am thankful for (in no particular order) just to see how many I can type. Ready? Set? Go!

My salvation, God’s unchanging-ness, Mom, Dad, Katey, Daniel, Sally, Grace, Jenny, Abby and Caleb. My adorable nephew Jay! Allyson and Kevin, along with Caleb, Violet, Seth, Silas, Laurel, Marigold and the future little Wilkins due in the spring. My friend Jenny. Ed! My job. A place to live that has heat during this cold weather of winter! Snow! Sweaters. The ability to run, jump, stretch (somewhat). My car. My bike. Sunshine. Rain. My Bible in my own language. Books, books and more books! Creativity. Words. Letters. Ice cream, pizza, French toast, broccoli soup, warm bread, honey, bananas (on the green side), maple syrup, hot chocolate. My chair. Movies. My computer. Pictures. Libraries! Color. Rainbows. Green grass. Colorful leaves. Lilacs, red roses. Ice on the lakes and rivers. Loving dogs. Shoes. Boots. Warm sweatshirts. My quilt from my mom. A cozy bed. Hot bubble baths. Shampoo and soap. Hot water. Plates, utensils, bowls. Recipes. Shiny things. Cookies. Apples, cherries…

And my time is up! I have a feeling if I wasn’t a little OCD about punctuation and somewhat proper grammar, I could have typed more! Anyhow…

HAVE A VERY BLESSED THANKSGIVING!!!!

And Winter Begins...

Okay, so we have had snow in October, but that was like a pre-winter warm-up. Since then we have had cold days....and nights that have fallen to the single digits. But it's look like I changed my blog background just in time to welcome the start of winter!

Yesterday, the temperatures may have gotten into the 20s. Around ten, it started to snow. It was like watching glittering confetti fall from the sky. Since I didn't have to go into work until later, I sat in my cozy chair with a good book and watched it fall. It stopped around 12:30 as I went out to start my car. The wind picked up. I decided to wear my real winter coat. And I'm glad I did! I was tramping around camp for a couple of hours, going from building to building to hang door signs and put out things for the scrapbookers that will arrive today. Even Andrea - Minnesotan born and bred - was dashing about shivering, "It's cold out here!"

It felt like winter.

This morning I awoke to a high of 5 degrees! But the sun was out, so by the time I bundled up and went out for a run, it was about 12 degrees. Yes, it was a little brisk out. When I ran past open fields (and there are quite a few of those), the wind whipped by and made by cheeks freeze. The little creek (or "crick" as the natives say) has frozen edges. I have a feeling the people in town who see me every other day running think I'm nuts. But, I like a sunny, cold morning for a run. Except for the wind pushing against me, there's nothing better than good, fresh, clean, cold air!  But with the sun out, it seems a bit warmer than a high of 20. I put on my soft shell camp jacket instead of my winter coat, although I did still dash out to warm up my car (praise God for a garage!). For the lake is telling me that winter is coming. There was ice around some of it's edges today, causing me to wonder if my guess of December 17 for the "Ice-On" contest is a little late. Tonight, the temperature will drop below zero.

Yes, it feels like winter.

Foxes and Trains

Isn't it funny how you hear a phrase or see some object and for the next several weeks every where you turn you read that phrase or someone says something about that object? It's like deja vu but not exactly. I have had two of those things happen recently.

First is this YouTube hit. Now, I'm not a YouTube watcher. I'm probably not on it but once every couple of months. But Andrea said I had to see this one called "What Does the Fox Say?" All I have to say is, I take my writing too seriously. If I could just write something as silly as that, someone would turn it into a song which would then go viral so I could make a fortune as a bestseller. Since then, I have seen a dead fox along side the road when I was out jogging. Andrea has re-writes of that song going on her computer every other day (such as "What Does the Farmer Say?" and some camp that used it to advertise their winter youth retreats). Even today, Tirzah (our part-time financial assistant) plops down at her desk and mutters, "What does the fox say?" Okay, I'm about done with foxes.

The second is trains. I like trains. One of these days, I'd love to take a long ride on one so I get to sleep on it. And I also hope to purchase a model one to run around my Christmas village someday. But a couple of weeks ago, I saw a children's picture book at the library called "Locomotives". The painting on the front was gorgeous, but I was in a rush so I didn't check it out. (I now have it waiting on hold at the library.) Funny how I would just start writing a book about the Underground Railroad, not that that actually used trains. (I just always relate it to that because the first time I learned what the underground railroad was, thanks to a secret room in our house in New Hampshire that had been used for that, I had a dream about a real train under the ground that slaves ran to to escape north.) Marc recently mentioned I should take a train to Indiana for the holidays instead of flying. And then I had the funniest memory yesterday when I was vacuuming my apartment. I moved my sole two dining chairs (that don't belong to a table) into my kitchen so I could vacuum. As I sat them in a line, I remembered all the times my siblings and I would set up the dining chairs in a line when Mom was cleaning, dragging in our dolls and blankets so we could go on a train adventure somewhere. Maybe I should have grabbed my panda bears and gone on an adventure for old time's sake... :)

Another Weekend...

And so quilt begins...again. It's like a merry-go-round that never stops! I was never good on those things as a kid. Adulthood hasn't helped. I think Andrea was being hopeful today. She brought some menus over to me so I could put them in the folder behind the desk.

"Um, Andrea, these are for Quilt D and E," I said.

"What? Oh!"

We're only just starting Quilt C...

I determined today that I'm not honestly sure how these quilters get any quilt made since reading and following directions is not their strong suit. Our mailings expressly state that arrival time is at 3:30. But our quilters must think they live somewhere in very far eastern Canada or the Caribbean because they started arriving at 1:30. So, as I'm running around trying to get everything ready two hours early, I hear one quilter tell another:

"Well, now we're here. We can just relax."

Mmh...is that what camp is for? Relaxing? I'm not sure I could ever go to a camp and relax. Ever.

Last evening I saw something I've never seen before, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised out here in the middle of nothing-but-farms. I had stopped to get gas and noticed this guy walk behind me and into the convenient store to get a pizza. (I'll give them credit for that - they do make really good pizzas.) I saw him come back out and walk behind me, but his car wasn't on the other side of the pumps which meant he must be crossing the street. I wondered why, but when I looked, I saw: he had driven his tractor into town to pick up his pizza.

Veteran's Day

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."
              - George Washington

Quilt Begins...Again

We are starting the marathon. 130-some-odd quilters arrive today....most will leave on Sunday...but others will leave on Thursday....just in time for more to arrive on Friday. For eighteen days straight there will be quilters here. We might survive.

So, exactly what do I do as I await for these women to arrive like a plague of grasshoppers? I mean, besides blog. Well, I wait. Quilters are supposed to arrive around 3:30. I grew up with the rule that being early is being on time, but arriving at 2...? Well, so it began.

About a dozen arrived around two. They trickled in until mass chaos broke out about 3:30. This lasted for a good 45 minutes. Now it's back down to a trickle. I'm waiting for about 40 more women to arrive. Seems like a lot, but that's only a third left. Thy won't all arrive by the time I leave around 9:30, but most of them should. When they rush in a like a plague, it's about all I can do to keep up with their names, tell them where their rooms are and where their work space is and answer questions. When they trickle, I socialize with the "bellhops" (teenagers from a local church who help the ladies move in more stuff than you can imagine as a fundraiser) or the few women I know, do things I need to get done online and read a book. Not a bad way to spend several hours.

For quilt, that's about all I do. Next weekend, I'll be here all weekend being a "gofer", helping with odds and ends. Honestly, quilt isn't so bad once I got over the overwhelming amount of women and the stuff they bring. Once they're moved in, they keep to themselves and their projects. Nothing like having to entertain over 200 women like during women's retreats. So, quilt has risen in my estimation of camp events. But I'm not going to become a quilter. No matter how many times they ask.

MN: From the Perspective of a Nomad, Part 8

When they're not fishing...they're hunting.

Scraps and Pieces

• Well, Fall Quilt started yesterday with somewhere around 70 women arriving...followed by 50 or so today. They're all wiling away the hours with their sewing machines. This will go on through the whole month of November (minus the week of Thanksgiving) and then one more week in December. I'm much calmer going into it than I was in the spring....maybe because I have done it once or maybe because 90% of the women were signed-up and fully registered before the middle of September. That made getting ready much easier!

• Last night, Andrea and I went to a family's house to play games with some friends of hers. They had several other people over, too. We played Catch Phrase, which is always fun. And we played a game called Four on a Couch. That took me a little bit to get a hang of and it wasn't until I got home and was lying in bed that I knew what I should have been keeping track of (although I guess I did a pretty good job, according to the people I was playing with).

• I think the funnest part, though, was when one of the girls was telling a story about her recent jogging experience. I do live out in the country, surrounded by corn fields and dairy farms. So, lots of cows. I see the around when I'm out jogging, too, but they're usually within their fences. If they've escaped, they stay in their field and leave me alone. Well, she was jogging down a country road like most runners in the 21st century looking down at her iPod rather than what might be in front of her. When she was brought to an abrupt stop by running right into a cow. A cow who wasn't scared of her at all. She tried to scare it out of the road by yelling and throwing rocks, but that only made the cow mad. It came towards her...she got scared...and then tumbled over the side of the road into the swampy ditch.

         "Can you put running shoes in the wash?" she asked.

• Also last evening, Andrea showed me a video of two of her nephews. The older one found a live mouse caught by the tail in a trap. At first, he was scared of it but eventually he picked it up by the trap, the little house jerking around as it tried to get away. His father was asking what he should do with it, but since he wasn't sure, their dad suggested taking it outside. 

         "Oh, yes," the younger boy had now come to look at the mouse. "It needs to go outside."

         "Does it?" their dad asked.

         "Yes," the boy replied. "We need to take it for a walk outside."

• And today I learned from a teenage boy what a Cricket machine is: "A woman's video game console."