Busy! Busy!

Boy, it's been a busy week here. So busy in fact that I don't even remember all the things I've been busy doing either.

Let's see -Monday, there was the Fourth of July Parade in Osceola Mills to herald the beginning of this year's Fireman's Carnival there. Maya was in the parade and got to ride on a float representing the theatre group -Front and Centre -that she belongs to and the play those kids will be presenting in two weeks now -The Jungle Book Kids!

Tuesday, Kurtis went back to school after having about three weeks of "vacation" time from his pre-school program. He will have classes now thru the 22nd of July and then, there will be about a month's break before regular school starts and for him, that will mean a big, big change. He's going to be going to all-day Kindergarten this year and lucky for him -and for us too -he will have the same teacher, Mrs. Koleno, that Maya had for Kindergarten. I hope he bonds as well with her as Maya did and does as well in class too!

Tuesday night was our monthly meeting of our WELCA group at our church. WELCA stands for Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and our group has a project in the works right now -of which I am supposed to be in charge -and that's to put a cookbook together of favorite recipes contributed by members, former members and friends of our parish. I'm so psyched about this project that you just can't imagine! But I'm thinking by the time the cookbook is completed, you will all probably really be sick and tired of reading about this cookbook and all these recipes, and so on and so forth.

Wednesday and Thursday, I was really busy entering recipes into the database that our publisher provides which makes it quite easy to enter any recipes we acquire and then too, if we enter all the recipes for our book ourselves, we will receive a discount on our publishing price on the first 200 books we order! Hey! Every little bit of savings helps ya know!

Friday, I baked! Boy, did I ever bake!

I made four batches of those lovely Bourbon Brownies and made the Praline Icing for them too, which this time around, I got things squared away and put confectioner's sugar into the icing, not whole wheat flour like I messed up the other day and put in the icing I was making then! What a ditz I can be at times! It's been a long, long time since I screwed up a recipe that much but things like that do happen even to the most experienced cook/bakers among us. Right?

In addition to the Bourbon Brownies, I also made up two loaves of Pineapple-Banana Bread too. The bread and half of the brownies were for a bake sale a young lady is having today up at the grocery store in Kylertown. It's for her senior project (needs a community project before she can graduate) and the proceeds for her project are ear-marked to go to the Autism School over in Clearfield. This young lady's little sister is a student at that school so that, plus the fact, as you know, both my two little grandchildren -Maya and Kurtis -are autistic so you know don't you, that Mandy and I would be very supportive of her goal.

Today is also the Community Yard Sale out in the neighboring village of Lanse too. And every year when they have that yard sale, our WELCA group sets up a tent with a little sort of concession stand where we sell hot dogs, sodas, coffee and cookies or muffins. A couple of small card tables and folding chairs are also set up on the church lawn and folks wandering around town, visiting the various yard sales, can then take a break and get a quick bite to eat and in the process, our WELCA group has a chance to earn a few bucks for our treasury then too!

Kurtis and I had to take the brownies and bread I had made up to the store in Kylertown so Kayla, the girl running the bake sale (and also, Chinese auction at the sale) could get the stuff out on the table, ready to sell.

After we dropped that off, we went by our little concession stand out in Lanse and we each had a hot dog, some cookies and something to drink then.

I don't know what Kurt's issues were -or maybe still are -today but he was not being very sociable, for sure, at the store or as we got hot dogs either. Wouldn't speak to any one there, not even to my neighbor and good friend, Kate, who he knows quite well! He informed me today he doesn't know her name! To that, I say B.S.!

But I did get a couple pictures of our food stand and even of the yard sale going on across the road from our church to share here with you.
Here's the sign out front of our stand that tells everyone what we've got to offer there today!
And here's our bread (or rolls, I should say) and the roasters with the hot dogs as well as one with sauerkraut if folks want that on their dogs too! (That's what I had -a hot dog with kraut -and boy, was it ever good!)
This is Kate -our Treasurer for our group -along with Mary Kaye Gurbal, our President -as they were manning the hot dog and beverage stand from 9 a.m. till 11 a.m. or noonish.
A little view here of about 1/3 of the table holding the cookies, brownies, muffins and goodies along those lines that folks could get to munch on while looking over all the yard sales in town.
These two folks as you can see are hard at work here -holding down the fort of handling the money transactions for the snacks. This is Amy Merritt and Matt Frye, looking super interested too in the task at hand too, aren't they?
Two patrons, sitting at a table, taking a break in the shade from the hot sun to enjoy a little early lunch and maybe discuss their plan of attack at the various sales going on around the village.
They won't have to venture far to get started either because this sale is directly across the street from our stand in front of our church -over at the Hudish home. Kurtis and I looked around there a bit -trying to see if they had anything along the lines Mandy likes to look for -which means mainly clothes for the kids, sometimes a bargain on a particular toy and even clothes for herself too. From what I saw at this sale, someone could definitely haul in some super good buys, including even some gorgeous evening gowns that someone with a teenage girl planning to go to a Prom next spring might be able to corral for a mere $4 or $5! Yes, that cheaply! Can you believe that?

Kurtis and I also made a run back up to the store though to check out the bake sale there and came home with a big, big loaf of Swedish Kaka Bread, a pan of home-baked lovely cinnamon buns, four slices of scrumpdelicious pumpkin roll and two packets of home-made fudge too!

After scarfing down some of the fudge today, plus the hot dog and one of the chocolate chip cookies from Kurtis little bag (with white chocolate chips and nuts) along with all the extra calories I've probably packed on and which has been converted, of course, to fat by now -not energy, I know one thing I'm really gonna need now is probably gonna be some Diet pills that work fast to help me get rid of what I've probably gained in the past 2-3 days alone!

All these goodies, along with reading all the new recipes too as I enter them into the database is gonna wreak havoc for me, I'm sure!