Acting Lessons?

This is along the lines of a bit of advice for our minister, Pastor Carrie, after the response she got in church Sunday from my Granddaughter, Miss Maya. I rather think she has already figured this out, but just in case -to be on the safe side, ya know -I'll reiterate this to her now to be very careful what questions you pose when giving a children's sermon and asking questions of the kids you are trying to whom you are preaching!

Yesterday, we were having a baptism as well as an affirmation of baptism service at the service and so, Pastor Carrie had decided to teach the children a little bit about the Rite of Baptism then.

That sounded like a good topic to me and one that also should be fairly innocuous too with respect to the kids involved in the children's sermon yesterday as well. There are a few kids in our parish -my two small grandchildren often fall in this number -who do at times make some really off-the-wall commentary during various sermons Pastor Carrie has had for the kids in the crowd. There are also twin brothers who also are known for some of their often pointed remarks too though.

Yesterday, apparently was Maya's day to be the unintentional comedienne though.

Pastor Carrie started to explain a bit about Baptism and how it usually takes place saying that most of the time, Baptisms involve babies but that the service yesterday was going to involve two people who are far from being infants since both of them are in their early twenties.

That being said, she then said that normally there is a baby being presented for baptism but in doing that, normally it is the baby's parents then too who bring the child up to be baptized and since she wanted to show the kids, step-by-step, what takes place she then asked for volunteers to play the role of the babies' parents.

Maya's hand shot up immediately to volunteer to be the Mother and Noah, one of the twin brothers, volunteered to be the Dad. No problem with that scenario thus far.Then another little boy -Logan -who is Kurt's age -offered to play the part of the Minister in this little play and with that, Pastor thought things were ready to proceed then.

So she asked if everyone was ready or if any of the kids had any questions thus far to ask her.

And that's where things went off-course for a few minutes as Maya spoke up, saying that she was ready but she just wanted to make sure of one thing first. That one thing she wanted to know?

"Do we have to kiss?"

Needless to say, it was a few minutes before the congregation stopped howling in laughter over this question from her!

When she came back to the pew to sit down beside me again, she whispered to me then, "Why did everyone laugh when I asked about kissing?" I'm not even sure what kind of answer I gave her to that -if indeed I gave her an answer at all as I may have just motioned for her to sit down and be quiet as I didn't want to get this whole thing back in her mind again!

Kids! Needless to say, Art Linkletter sure was right in that they do sometimes say/do the darndest things, don't they?

Besides that little comedic number at church, the past couple of days have been every bit as hectic as I had said they were going to be in my last post from last Wednesday.

I spent the bulk of the day on Thursday baking bread -three different kinds of breads no less. I made four loaves of Swedish Limpa Rye bread; four loaves of Whole Wheat Challah bread and 6 loaves of Swedish White "Kaka" bread -all of it planned to be donated to the church women's annual Fall Bazaar which we held on Saturday. In addition to baking breads, I also baked cookies for the bazaar too -a batch of bar cookies called Rainbow Blonde brownies (with mini-M&M baking pieces in them), a batch of Gingersnaps and also, a big batch of Snickerdoodles too!

Friday, I was busy making spaghetti meat sauce to use in the two pans of lasagne I had promised to prepare for the dinner at the bazaar on Saturday too! So, yes I was pretty much locked into staying in the kitchen most of the time last Thursday and Friday.

On Saturday, We had all the tables all set up, baked goods, homemade candies, craft items, etc., plus the nice and pretty brand new cookbooks our women's group had compiled this summer were on display and ready to be sold then too!

We had a very good turnout for the bazaar this year and the cookbooks were really almost seeming to be flying off the table where I had them displayed as folks were buying there almost like hot cakes for quite a while! I don't know the exact number of books we sold on Saturday but as of right now, our treasurer, Kate, and I figure we must have sold about 1/2 of all the books we ordered thus far anyway! If that's true, then we've now probably sold about 150 of the 330 cookbooks we received.

Not a bad number of sales is it plus I have orders on my e-mail for at least 30-35 more cookbooks that are just sitting there waiting for those who pledged to purchase a cookbook to hurry and get a check sent to me in the amount of the sale of the cookbook plus shipping fees! Once those checks start arriving, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we then manage to sell at least 60-70 more cookbooks between now and the upcoming weekend!

The hectic pace is going to continue here at least over the next few days too first because tomorrow morning, Mandy is taking little Miss Pearl, our sweet little kitten, to the vet where she will then have surgery that will keep our family count intact at one dog and two cats and no more! Yep! We're having Miss Pearl "fixed" in more ways that one -first a hysterectomy on the cat and then, to have her declawed then too!

I pledged to work at the polls in the next township over from ours tomorrow too from 11 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. as an act of support to my young cousin, Pj, who at the tender age of 18 and who is in his first semester at Penn State's Dubois Campus is also running for election too for the office of County Commissioner!

This is kind of a bit of deja vu within my Dad's family with Pj running for election because about 60 years ago this November, my Dad's younger brother, my uncle, the late Archie Hill, also ran for election as a County Commissioner and won, too! The biggest obstacle I think Pj will have to surpass is probably going to come about his age and what many voters are referring to as being his "lack of experience." I saw where the news crew from Channel 6 in Johnstown, PA interviewed Pj today and I thought he did a great job of answering the question about his age, his youthful status as it were when he responded that age, to his mind, is just a number! So true Pj and I hoe those voters who had not yet made a decision on whether or not to caste their vote in his direction will be swayed then in his direction as he really is a very smart, very knowledgeable youn man and also, very ambitious too!

So, tonight I wish cousin Pj all of the luck in the world for a good clean victory tomorrow and for the surgery on Miss Pearl our sweet little purr ball to go off without a hitch too so that I can go over Wednesday morning and bring her back home then to recuperate!


Then, I can sit and relax and work on the new tablecloth -size 52x70 inches -in a Christmas Wreath design/pattern on it to try to get as much done on that piece as fast as possible so I will then have time to do a little more stitching then of a different type as I want to make a jumper then between now and Christmas for Miss Maya to wear too in the very near future!

Now, I just need to find a light-weight jacket to put on overtop of my sweatshirt to hopefully warm/defrost my fingertips so I can then hold a needle and thread and get a bit more work done on the embroidery project just as soon as possible!

Now say a nice little prayer for my young cousin, Paul "Pj" Monella Jr in his bid for a job as our County Commissioner!