More Events!!!

Lots of things on my mind these days but at least, one is nearing an end and that's the Cookbook stuff. Last Friday, I got an e-mail from our customer service rep that included a proof of our recipes and instructions as to how to go about getting all those recipes -all 586 of 'em -proofed and returned to her by -YESTERDAY!

Now if that wasn't a job and a half, I don't know what is!

First off, I had to go down the list of women who are actual members -active, I should say, would be the key word here -of our Women's Group and from that, find someone who has a computer, internet access and would be willing to help out with the proofing process. That's not an easy thing to do, let me tell you, as although, technically, all the women of our church are considered to be members of this group, very few of them ever attend our meetings and of those who do, the overwhelming majority of us are over 60! And only a tiny handful of that group have computers and internet access too, so it took a bit of searching but eventually, I located two women who said that they would help out.

One is my good friend, down the street from me, who I really hated to ask because although I know they have a computer and have internet access too, I also know she hates to mess with the computer! But, being the loyal member she is of our group and also, the good friend she's been to me for all of our lives, she said she would help out. And the other lady I located is a retired school teacher who said, sure, she'd do that for us because -get this -she loves to edit and proofread things!  (My good friend and neighbor is a retired R.N. too so I figured both of these people would do a great job on proofing these files because they are both accustomed -from their career work -to being very detail oriented and boy, they really had their hands full with this task!

I started working on the corrections, alternating between the two proofreaders via the phone, about 11 a.m. yesterday and FINALLY, at 11:30 p.m. last night -just as Jay Leno was coming on the air -I finished up making all the corrections to our recipe files! Definitely, this was far from a walk-in-the-park, easy task! Other than taking a bit of time away from the computer to cook and then, eat, supper and a short break too around 8 p.m. to do a quick scan of the daily newspaper, I was at the computer all the rest of the time, working my bony fingers down to nubbies, ya know!

But anyway, the task is done and the corrections have been uploaded to the publisher so now, just sit back and wait to learn how much extra those darned corrections are going to add on to our publisher's bill! They give you 10 corrections for free, plus any corrections needed to the names of the recipes because they were bleeding over to the contributor's name or incorrectly listed or whatever, are also freebies too. But even so, with 9 pages of corrections that I had to send, and with roughly about 20 recipes per page, at the cost of $4.00 per correction, our bill for this project is going to rise drastically with those corrections!

Oh well, water under the bridge now ya know and what's done is done. Not much we can do about it but suck it up and deal with it -and hope to heck that we get the kind of response I think we'll get once we receive our cookbooks and are able to start selling 'em.

Right now, I'm in a bit of a funk -nothing drastic, but a bit of weather-related issues I have -like the gray days, rain and such, that frequently wreaks havoc with my body causing all kinds of aches and pains and the other age-old problem I've always had, always will too, by the looks of things and that's having way more month all the time than I do funds in the checking account! No way to get that fixed so again, suck it up and work with it the best way possible.

This weekend coming up now -two things going on then! One is a birthday party for my son's girlfriend's younger son -Ryan -who will be three years old and she's having a birthday party for him over at Burger King -or is it MickyD's -will have to double check the invitation on that. And the other is that there will be a Rabies Clinic here on Saturday too at our Firehall where I can take Sammy up there, get him the vaccine for a mere $10 instead of otherwise having to take him to the Vet and paying out the old yazoo ya know. Before I do that though, I also have to remember to get his license renewed too but thankfully, I can get that done up at the local grocery store in Kylertown so that won't require a whole lot of extra running around then.

Now, on a not-so-great-note, the lady who is currently the President of our Women's group at church informed me last week that she has to step down now as President because a week from today, she has to report to the big hospital down in Danville to have heart surgery! Sheesh! What news that is to have someone tell you that and then too, inform you that effective now, I am being elevated from Vice-President of the group to President! A post I definitely did not want -still don't want it -but am now being forced into taking over those reins. And frankly, I don't have the knowledge/talent/ability -whatever -to perform in that capacity! Trust me, I don't! I have no clue what all other side programs we are running at the moment, don't really have the knowledge to take over the task of seeing to their being taken care of and I don't have enough brain cells left to use my imagination these days to think up new and interesting projects that the group can take on too! I think I'm still operating with a lot of the braindead cells leftover from the chemo last year! My memory is crapola for openers and I am way too disorganized to be trusted with this much responsibility! Plus, my embroidery is way behind my own schedule there thanks to the two months of time spent working on getting recipes and entering them and also, running around the area trying to sell a bit of advertising to help pay for our publishing costs too! I've been working for the past week now on embroidering a pair of kitchen towels -two of 'em -and so far, I haven't completed one towel yet whereas normally, I would have had both towels finished up in about 3 days time! Some days, when I do find a few minutes of free time to sit down and embroider, I find I can't get much accomplished then simply because I can't stay awake in my chair! And that's bad for me since I normally am up until all hours of the night, messing with either needle crafts or computer stuff! Both have now been very neglected of late!

And also, among the upcoming things I have to work into my lovely schedule is another birthday celebration next month for the granddaughter, Miss Maya, who will be 8-years-old on October 18th!

Mandy has begun working on the preparations for that and last night, she and I tried to present our plan for Maya's birthday party to her and explain what we want to do for this event.

We're going to have her party at the church social room so that way, we will have lots and lots of room and can then invite ALL the kids in Maya's class from school, as well as the kids from Sunday School too. And then too, there are also the adults who get added into this configuration -Aunt Carrie, cousin Alex, Aunt Kathy and cousin Carlea, Uncle Clayton and Elizabeth AND of course, little Ryan, plus Maya's "other parents (well, she spends enough time with them, may as well call 'em that) -Jenn-Jenn and Nick-Nick and their three teenagers too! And who else? Who knows!! But I'm sure I'm overlooking someone in that mix!

Last week, Jenn-Jenn informed us that on her last visit to their house, Maya had given Jenn a list of things she wants for her birthday. Get this now. The first thing on her list is rather strange for a kid her age to want but, this is Maya, and yes, Maya can at some times be more than a little bit strange ya know. But anyway, she wants a "sleep mask!"  Like this one!

Yes, that is the little princess sleeping away, wearing an extra sleep mask that Jenn-Jenn has at her house and which she insists she absolutely needs now, to have one here at home to wear when she goes to bed!

But then too, considering I think buying her one of these sleep masks may prove to be the ideal gift, one that won't break the piggy bank, ya know, unlike the rest of her requests sure as hell will do! Her second item on that list is an IPod and after that, a Wii and who knows now what else she has on that lovely list! The child definitely has strong opinions as to what she wants and it better be in he right color, size, etc., too!

But the other thing about her birthday and how Mandy wants to get this thing set up, is she is planning to have an "Ice Cream Fest" -with lots of ice cream and bunches of different toppings that each kid can pick and choose -and then make -their very own sundae! That, plus with the amount of space available in our social room, we can set up for lots of great fun games too -Musical Chairs, Limbo -to name two that went over really well at our Rally Day two weeks ago to mark the beginning of a new Sunday School year. Kids and adults too, really seemed to enjoy those things and especially the younger kids, who loved the musical chairs and the Limbo!

But the big thing about our plans for Maya's party concerns gifts from her friends. Because she really has tons and tons of stuff -clothes galore and also, more toys than she really knows what to do with -and Mandy and I really dislike the idea of other kids parents having to go find some little gift for a kid, just because the parents are having a birthday party, etc., and taking into consideration all too often that can really put a big strain on other people's budgets then as well, that we told Maya this year, on her party invitations, there will be instructions for each child attending (and adults too) to each one bring a canned good from their cupboard at home -a canned vegetable or fruit or a dry staple product -whatever -and all those items accumulated then will be given by Maya to the local Food Bank. Mandy and I both like the idea of trying to instill a bit more understanding in Maya (and Kurt too in the process) of giving instead of just expecting to receive all the time!

At supper last night, Mandy tried to explain all this to Maya and we will continue to talk it up too between now and her birthday so hopefully, she will be really excited at the prospect of doing something very helpful to a other people for a change!

I'm sure you'll be hearing more about these plans in the future from me! Just wish us luck that she stays accepting of the idea and finds she likes the feelings that giving does give to most people!