This week...

Has been pretty quiet. Other than spending time with Sharon & girls, and avoiding getting ready for potluck we haven't had much going on. :)

Although, Sunday night we braved the storm and went to Steak and Shake for milkshakes. And a Frisco melt. After we ate supper. *grin* This is why I must exercise.

Our leaves need raking badly and it's too dark to see when we get home from work. I was hoping the wind would take care of them... no such luck. At least this year they're dry and crumbly and not heavy and wet like last year.

My car is in the shop today getting an oil change and hopefully getting the annoying whine fixed. Hooray for high mileage cars! I'm just thankful my parents taught me to pay cash for old cars... I'll never spend as much repairing it as I would have spent to buy a brand new car (no debt either!). So I'm driving Bob's Dad's truck. Woot. I like trucks. It makes me miss my Dad's green chevy pickup. That thing was amazing.

Blessings.

Whole Egg Country

So I was cleaning out some old files on my lappy... we had a big project in High School to research our family trees and learn about our heritages... this was part of my project. Frederika was my great-great-grandma, and Kari was my great-grandma who raised 14 children and lived on a dairy farm in Lester, Iowa.

Frederika Knoblock woke up to the smell of eggs frying that morning. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then it all began to come back: the months of planning and packing, and the tearful good-byes when the day finally came to board the ship for America. She had been reluctant to leave Germany, even though her husband Wilhelm could hardly keep enough food on the table. She had been an expert at making food stretch as far as possible to keep her seven children fed. They even had to share their breakfast eggs because farming had gotten so bad.

Wilhelm jumped at the chance when her brother, who was already in the United States, offered to sponsor them so they could start over in America. Her brother bought 80 acres and it was waiting for them in Iowa. They had left early in 1889 to start their new life. The thirteen days on the boat had been crowded and cramped and there weren’t enough beds for their entire family. Her darling two-year old Karoline had slept in the top of a trunk on the way over. She looked over to the bed on the floor where little Kari was still sleeping peacefully. She hoped that she would have a better life here.

All too soon it was time to get up for breakfast. She woke her children and they all went down to the table. She couldn’t believe all the fresh food. She began to help her sister-in-law dish out the food. Out of habit she cut several eggs in half for her children. Her brother couldn’t believe what she was doing. He told her to give every one of her children a whole egg, even little Kari, because “America is a whole egg country!” Frederika could hardly believe it. A whole egg for everyone in the family! There would be no need for her food stretching skills here. What a story she would tell to the people back home and to her grandchildren and maybe their grandchildren would hear it too.

Shoe Boxes

Right now we have a little bit of Christmas stacked in a corner at our house. *grin* I like it. And I'm not even that anxious for Christmas to be here.

Our potluck spent Thursday evening wrapping and filling shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. (National collection week is coming up!) It was a lot of fun. We all brought stuff to fill the boxes so we had a whole table full of loot to divide up. Blake and Kris were there- it's always good to see them.

Then after we got done with the Christmas stuff, we bobbed for apples and ate pumpkin bars and fresh salsa and caramel dip. Hooray for fall!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. O. wait. Never mind. :)
Blessings.

Some days...

I have a degree in Chemistry. Today, I moved a refrigerator.

In other news, I finally got to go eat lunch with my little sister Dalaysia. She said she had a good summer. She also said I was "giggly." um... Not sure that's ever been used to describe me before. :) It was fun to be back in a grade school again.... especially since her school is probably about as old as mine was. Old buildings are just awesome in general. She showed me all of her silly bandz... I am so out of the 4th grade loop!

Blessings.

Pumpkins and Mums

I have a confession to make. I don't really like mums. *gasp* I know. I like chrysanthemums of all kinds but "fall mums" just don't do much for me. To orangey and yellowy and well, too Fall. But I bought one anyway because my geranium looked too summery. I don't really like geraniums either, but they're kind of quintessentially summer and they're easy to keep alive so... yeah.

Anyway.

We had another pretty busy weekend. Rustin and Sharon and Grace and Eden were here for the Pork chop fry so we spent Friday evening with them. Saturday I went to quilt club and made jello for the pork chop fry. Bob went to the Pumpkin chucking thing with Rustin and his Dad... I wasn't too sad to miss it to do other things. :) And then we went to the famous Koch pork chop fry in the evening. woot woot. The weather was great and the food was good. And it wasn't very windy so we didn't come home smelling like smoke! hooray! Bob was still really stuffed up from being outside all day. Oh, and we got to bring home a pumpkin! The winner already had pumpkins at home and we were sitting by them. Score. I'm excited.

My cousin Clayton spent the night with us Saturday night. I don't get to see much of him anymore... he came to church with us and then we had to rush to get him back to work on time. It was good to have him here and get caught up... he's um, not exactly putting first things first right now, say a prayer if you think of it.

And then we relaxed and enjoyed the sabbath...
Blessings.

Lovely weekend

This past weekend was great. And nice and long. Hooray for Columbus Day and for other pointless government holidays that everyone else ignores! I love them. Anyway. So Friday evening I had a bad headache and Bob wasn't feeling real great so we stayed home and were total bums.

I slept till I woke up on Saturday, which was amazing and I felt ten times better. We went and dropped part of Bob's new computer (it came broken) at the UPS store and did some other stuff and ate breakfast for lunch at Bob Evan's... I think we were the youngest people in there... fun times. :)

When we got home I cleaned and stuff.... woot... and then since I missed going to Apple River and stopping at Tanners for Apple Cider Donuts, I made some. I found a pretty easy recipe here. I had some problems flipping them in the oil so I ended up with a lot of pieces of donuts and a few whole donuts. And donut holes! They tasted really good. Of course, what doesn't taste good dredged in sugar and cinnamon?



Merrily frying away...


They were sooooo good warm. *sigh* I think I'm going to need to get more exercise....


So then Sunday we went to Champaign for Alan and Natalie's wedding. It was such a great day. Good to see people, and be in Champaign again, and the wedding was very sweet. I'm just so excited for her! And she looked adorable, and the reception was really cute, and they served IBC Root Beer (which we love). *grin*

Dave and June had a family wiener roast that night. The weather was beautiful. We didn't stay very late because Bob had to get up super early (4:30ish) for work. And I had to get up super early (8ish) to go shopping. It's a rough life, I know.

Mom and Shelly and I drove up to Woodfield Mall for the day... well, I drove, it's generally less stressful for all of us that way. :) We took their new pretty blue van, which was really fun to drive in city traffic. Anyway, it was lots of fun. They've got pretty much all of my favorite stores and then some. We were all practically drooling over the cool stuff at Anthropology. If anybody is wondering what I want for my birthday/Christmas... they have the coolest aprons ever. But then we had to come home... and we got stuck in construction traffic and Shelly had the hiccups.

There were roses waiting for me... for no particular reason. Bob's pretty much the best. He's even letting me help him build his new computer. I got to install the CPU last night. I feel very nerdy. :D

Blessings.

whirlwind

Last night I went down to Champaign... it has been a very very long time since I've had a chance to go just to hang out. It was a little bit of a whirlwind- I think I'm getting old. Good times.

My first stop was at Mark and Ashley's... it was good to see them and Reuben... then I quick stopped at Susan's apartment because I hadn't been there before. They live upstairs in a cool old house in the middle of all of the lush Urbana foliage. I liked it a lot.

I ate supper at the Saltshaker... Jakey was cooking. ERN had invited himself over, but he didn't show. (bummer- haha) They made bbq... woot. It was fun to be there again, although I am slightly disappointed in Jake that he hasn't skipped a class yet. I mean, seriously, what is he doing with his time?

Then I headed over to the Dojo to see Amber and Sarah. We chilled for a while and then we went to Cocomero for frozen yogurt. It's self serve so I tried chocolate, raspberry, and strawberry- so good. After that, we headed back to Urbana to Rachel's apartment to hang out with the UIYG. (Yes, I was all over town last night) I just love that group, most of the faces are different, but somehow it's still very much the same. Definitely a blessing to get to hang out with them again.

So then I had to go home... after driving past 709 and stopping for a polar pop. hehe. Old habits die hard. It was late and I was tired. And I have a bit of a headache today. It was worth it though!

Blessings.

The best laid plans

I was expecting to have a very quiet week this week, literally. Bob had training scheduled on second shift... so I would have been all by my lonesome... woe is me. Anyway, so I had it all planned out so I wouldn't get too bored or freaked out in our quiet house; Monday night I kept myself busy with canning apple pie filling and laundry and facebook. And Tuesday I was in the middle of browning sausage for the freezer and making a casserole when Bob called to say he was done with training and coming home with a pizza. A very large pizza. A stuffed take-and-bake pizza. At 8 o'clock at night. We didn't eat all of it. :)

Wednesday Carol had invited me for supper, and she graciously let Bob come too since he wasn't at work. :) It was fun to see her house, and she made us a really good supper.

So yeah, my grand plans for getting all kinds of things done got a little derailed... but... I don't really mind that much.
Blessings.

Fall

I'm so not ready for cold weather. mur. But, it does make me hungry for apple cider donuts and hot apples over ice cream. None of this pumpkin stuff. :)

Last Thursday we went to rotating potluck at Jim and Rachel's. It was great fun.

Friday night we went to my parents for supper since it's been ages. Bob and my siblings climbed the new grain leg. I did not, I prefer solid ground to ladders and small platforms on 110ft towers. It was probably good I was on the ground because I found a sick opossum and raised the alarm... Dad and Troy speedily dispatched it. Grandpa gave us a short combine ride... short because the tank was almost overflowing and he was quitting for the night. *sigh* And then we had milkshakes.

We had to get up early Saturday morning to go sing for a funeral. It's been awhile, since I'm usually at work during the day. I tried especially hard to blend with my fellow sopranos.... my Grandma wanted men to sing lead at her funeral because she wasn't fond of how the sopranos sounded. *grin* I miss her. And then we were bums for the rest of the day... well, kind of. I cleaned and stuff.

Sunday was really nice and quiet too... hooray!
Blessings.