Spread Some Love

The other day - oh, a couple of days ago now - Claudia at Everyday Kindness was generous enough to pass this little award on to me. I wanted to put it on my sidebar in a particular position but, Blogger doesn't apparently want me to put it in the spot I had in mind. Matter of fact, Blogger doesn't want me to add any more people to my blog roll either because the scrollbar for my sidebar only will go down about maybe one quarter of the length of my sidebar. So that eliminates my getting into the page element where my blogroll is located and thus makes adding anyone to it right now not just difficult but downright impossible.

Right now, I'm wondering if maybe something needs to be done to shower the folks at Blogger and Google with some of that "Everyday Kindness" and we maybe best be Spreading Some Love their way to get some reaction from Blogger to get some of the "known issues" corrected. I see on their "Known Issues" area that this problem with the scrollbar is affecting a whole lot of people. It's been a known issue for sometime now and I truly do wish it would become an issue that is corrected and therefore, history! And do it soon too, please!

At first, I was thinking maybe this was something with just my blog but yesterday, I had a lot of problems leaving comments on many blogs - all would be fine till I would hit publish and then I would get this nice big fat error screen from BLogger and when I would return to the comment area, Blogger would already have "eaten" my most wonderful comments too! Last night though, while reading Mimi's post, I see she was having the same problems as I'd been experiencing -along with a few others too. Don't 'cha just hate it when stuff like this happens though?

Mandy and I have been trying to set up our Team Page for our participation in the Autism Walk to be held on April 12th in State College. My kids and I -along with two grandkids, older daughter's fiance and four others - all took part in this event last year. Our Team name last year was "Maya's Team" but this year, Mandy wants a name that will reflect we are doing this for Maya AND Kurtis, too. I'll be putting up more information about this as we go along over the next six weeks so you'll see our progress in trying to raise money for this very important cause. If anyone reading this lives in the central Pennsylvania area and would like to join us on this walk, to be on our team, please let me know as soon as possible. The registration fee, if paid by March 21st is $13.00 per person - after that date, it is $15.00 per person. Anyone who registers before the March 21st deadline will also be guaranteed a tee shirt commemorating the walk and the 5K race that is also held that day too! Last year, we had a really great time walking -and raised over $1,000 through the efforts of our team members but we totaled out at a little over $2,000 in money raised because we received $1,000 in matching funds from Thrivent - a Lutheran Social Welfare Service group! We'd love to have more people walk with us and hopefully have another very successful fund raising effort as well. I'm not putting any url up yet about the walk because I don't want to jeopardize our getting matching funds from Thrivent by getting any money collected until we have their backing and approval this year. We're hoping to get a couple of "corporate sponsors" this year for our team as well as walkers so if anyone reading this is in a position to pledge to support our team as a corporate sponsor, contact me and I'll be more than happy to set you up for that too!

Pictured above are the members of Maya's Team of walkers from last year - left to right -older daughter, Carrie, Amie Mather, Alex Genet, Sierra Wagner and Sharon Rolley. Second row -Robert Brickley, Clate Ertmer, Lois (one of Mandy's co-workers), Mandy Wagner and Kerri Cowfer (the behavior/play therapist for Maya and now, for Kurtis.)

(For those who are relatively new to my blog, my granddaughter Maya -who is 4 1/2 years old now -was diagnosed a year ago this April as autistic. (PDD-NOS, high functioning) Her little brother, who will be two in April, has been diagnosed now with developmental delays but has many of the same markers that are indicative of autism as Maya displayed -plus a few extra markers too. So this event, to try to raise money that will provide more research into the cause of autism as well as methods to help those who have the disorder, is something very near and dear to me as well as to my kids, obviously it is quite important to the future welfare of both Maya and Kurtis too. If you read blogs on my favorites list, you will see there are several blogs there who also have family members who are autistic too so this is a topic of a lot of interest to many besides me.)

My son called me this afternoon inquiring about the weather forecast for the rest of today and tonight for western and central Pennsylvania. My first response to him was "Crappy!" He said at the time he called he was just on the other side of Youngstown, Ohio making his way east towards Hagerstown and the roads there were really bad then. He said the visibility factor was terrible with the snow blowing it was cutting the visibility down to 100 to 200 yards at most. That was about 1:30 p.m. and he was supposed to get into Hagerstown by 7 p.m. I called him about 8:30 tonight to see how he was progressing and at that time, he was just past Breezewood on the PA turnpike so for those who are aware of the distance between Youngstown and Breezewood, you can see he and his partner weren't making the best time due to the weather and road conditions. To put them even further behind, he said he had made a stop at a rest area, intending it to be a quick stop but the truck got stuck there and it took him about an hour to get it unstuck! At the rate he's going now, he probably won't get to Hagerstown till around 11 p.m., possibly later - then the drive from there to home is about a three hour trip under normal circumstances so he's gonna have a long, long night of rough travel ahead of him.

Reading blogs tonight, there's one in particular I'd like to call your attention to though. Many of you I know read David McMahanon's blog - Authorblog - and probably are aware by now that he has a feature every Saturday night-Sunday on his blog called the Sunday Roast in which he selects a blogger to interview. This weekend, his blogger choice is Terry Fletcher, of Terry's Playpen. Terry resides in Portugal and is one of the nicest, most helpful bloggers too you could ever hope to meet. Pop over to David's blog and read the great interview there. The banner at the top of my blog is Terry's work, selected from a few photos I had provided to him and he fixed it to fit in my banner. Isn't it just a beautiful photo and an excellent job he did of adapting the photo -taken by my good friend Jeff Feldmeier from Allen Park, Michigan? The scene in that picture is of the Red Moshannon Creek which wends its way through the area where I live before it finally empties into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River - just "Down River" from here. (Hence the name of my blog - Down River Drivel, you see.)

While I think of it, the Red Moshannon Creek in my banner photo will be coming to life the end of this month when, on the last Saturday in March - the 29th, that is -there will be a big canoe/kayak white water race held there. Sponsored by the Tussy Mountain Outfitter's from State College, it has been taking place for well over 40 years now and draws a very large crowd from near and far of canoers and kayakers trying to make the seven-mile run down the "Red Mo" to win the trophies. My neighbor up the street -and very good friend, Shirley Pillot and her husband, Bo's oldest son - Howie - is one of the long-time racers in this event. The morning of the race, the road in front of my house will see vehicle after vehicle, laden with canoes or kayaks on the roof or towing them as they head down to the Peale Bridge where they put in to start the race. The race ends then at the foot of Cooper Mountain at the bridge where the Red Moshannon and the Black Moshannon creeks converge. It's quite the exciting event in these old hills! If you'd like to learn a bit more about the area around where I live, click into the website I have listed on my favorites - Peale -a Ghost Coal Mining Town -and you can learn all about the ghost town a little over a mile down the road from my home -as well as a bit more information that is posted there about the Red Mo White Water Race! The photo below here is of the Red Mo -taken from the bridge in Peale where the race begins. Usually, on race day, the water is much higher than it is in this photo -and the temperatures are often pretty low too! The race has even taken place a few times while a snowstorm raged about the folks in their canoes and kayaks too - making for an even more "interesting" to say the least, ride down the river!


Time now for me to head to the kitchen, get the supper dishes taken care of and start getting things sort of in order for dinner tomorrow too. Older daughter, Carrie, her fiance, Robert and my older grandson, the Prince -Alex - will be coming up for the afternoon and for dinner. I've got a nice big beef roast thawing now and Mandy doesn't know this yet but she's going to be fixing it in the style my Aunt Mike always fixed a nice beef roast -with lots of kluski noodles cooked in the gravy alongside the meat! Great fixings that is! If you're in the area, stop by and join us - always room for one more ya know!