I trust everyone is having an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend.  From the looks of your posts, there was a great variety in the way different ones are spending it -- some with family and friends, others with only a spouse, but very content.  The important thing is that we remember every day that we have so much to be thankful for.  It's nice the entire country sets aside one day to be thankful (although I have heard some would like a "blame-ful" day, but if they don't believe in God, I'm not sure why they want to blame Him for their problems.)  But that's neither here nor there.  I have so much to be thankful for I don't know where to begin.  The primary things I'm grateful for are a.) an amazing heavenly Father who loved me so much He sent His only son to redeem me from my sins...me!!  Who am I that a King should live and die for??  b.) a husband who loves me, who is faithful to me, and who enjoys working!  c.) a son who was a Prodigal, but now loves the Lord with all his heart, and d.) an "adopted" daughter who also loves the Lord and is growing in His grace every day.  (Kathy isn't a "legally" adopted daughter, but a young lady who became a believer 17 or 18 years ago after she became involved with our family.)

We didn't do anything special on Thursday, but it wasn't a relaxing day.  John did yard work, raking the driveway (leaves were too wet to blow without blowing the gravel as well), then mowing, mulching, and raking the yard.  I baked four pies (two pumpkin, one pecan, and one chocolate banana cream), mixed up gourmet potatoes (it had gotten cold enough that I was able to put them on the attic stairs to keep cool overnight), and tidied up for company.  Before heading for bed I mixed up a batch of overnight dinner rolls and put them on the attic steps to rise overnight as well.

                    John raking in the driveway

 Mist in the back yard Thanksgiving morning

Friday morning I was up early to put the turkey in the oven -- but alas, he didn't want to be cooked and was still frozen rock solid!!  I usually put the birds in my utility sink in cold water overnight, but when I tried that Thursday evening the silly bird kicked the drain open and all the water drained out!  So I put him in a picnic cooler with a bit of ice (so he wouldn't become room temp) and left him there overnight.  So what could I do?  He needed to be in the oven by 7:00 in order to be ready for our 2:00 dinner!!  So I plopped him back into the freezer for another day and scurried into Ashland to Ukrop's for an alternative.  They actually had some "fresh" turkeys that should have worked -- only they were partially frozen, too, and I really didn't have time to thaw them out.  So I bought two 6 lb. hams that needed to be cooked.  John called me while I was determining which one(s) to buy and suggested I get a loaf of bread, too, in case my dinner rolls didn't turn out!  (I'm glad my husband has more faith in the Lord than he does in me!!)  I was pretty sure the white rolls were going to be okay as I had checked them before leaving for town and the dough had risen beautifully.  But I decided I'd better listen to John, just in case!!

 Holly and Emily

Anyway, we had a wonderful time with Gary, Betty, Kim, Kris and Byron and their three.  Jo Ann's youngest, Amber, is two years older than Kris' Libby, but they have become friends at our family reunions, so they enjoyed being together.  Jo's daughter Aimee and her family came for dessert, and her three-year-old Heather enjoyed playing with Kris' two-year-old Sophie.  William (1) didn't have anyone his age, so Libby and Auntie Amber kept him entertained.  Kris' Ava didn't have anyone her age, either, so she sort of entertained herself.

All the girls

Amber and Sophie hugging good-bye

Kris, Sean, and Kim -- they always had great fun together at our biennial family reunions in Indiana.

So...that was our Thanksgiving day.  John will be heading for Ontario tomorrow, Winnipeg (again) during the middle of the week, and then home Saturday for a week.  Jo and I are planning to go to Harrisonburg Tuesday to have lunch with a cousin and our Aunt Catherine.  I've asked for the day off, so will be working Monday instead.

So that was our holiday!   Blessings to all of you.

I haven't posted anything in a month because there just hasn't been anything to post!  I've been busy at the office -- very busy because we're starting up four seasonals, three of which are brand new.  Plus all our fulltime facilities are busy hiring help for the busy season.  That means lots of  New Hire paperwork, making sure the General Managers submit all the paperwork signed or initialed and completely filled out.  Especially the permission to obtain background information and confirmation that applicants have successfully completed Sexual Harassment Training.  (I always think that's such a curious thing to call that -- why do we want to train people to sexually harass others?!!!  I know that's not what we're doing, but that's what we're saying.  Which reminds me, I still need to take the two hour course myself!!)  The fun part -- and I say fun very facetiously -- is that too many of these people will enter their name, but then put the Corporate name rather than the rink where they are applying.  So I have no clue where they want to work, and I have to send an email out to all the General Managers asking them if they want to "claim" "Betty Doe" or "Jack Spratt" as their New Hires!!  Or they will enter the name of the facility but not their own name.  Some have even just put their first name and the Corporate name.  That's really fun!  Amazing that people just can't follow clear instructions!!  But in spite of that, I'm enjoying that part of my job.  Getting all the paperwork in order the first time around, running the background check if the applicant is not a minor, assigning a Corporate HR number and sending a letter of congratulations to the General Manager, preparing two file folders and putting the files to bed in the file cabinets is a very satisfying feeling!  (Can you tell it doesn't take much to make me happy?!!) 

And things have been busy on the database side, too.  I'm entering more email addresses than full names/addresses/birth dates, etc., so that goes quickly.  And then setting them up in Constant Contact and blasting them out on the appropriate days.  That gets done every other week -- and this coming week is blast week!

This past week was a very wet one.  It began raining before Midnight Tuesday and didn't stop raining heavily until Thursday night.  At that point we had five inches of rain.  Then it drizzled and rained lightly all Thursday night and all day Friday.  We got another inch with that.  It finally stopped sometime Friday night.  Saturday was still overcast with an occasional light sprinkle.  

Sean and my nephew, Timothy, came over around 10:30 yesterday morning and cleaned out the gutters for John.  John had asked them last weekend when he was home.  It was unfortunate that they weren't cleaned out before the rains came, but with the winds we had with the rain, they would have been filled again with leaves.  I think John's next major expenditure should be Rain Guard or Gutter Helmet -- and I think he's finally at the point where he's seriously considering it.  It's just getting a bit too much for him to try to handle the heavy ladder -- even when he can get Sean out to help him, the work is getting to be too heavy for him and he's been paying for it.  So anyway, Tim and Sean had a lot of fun doing the work -- and it took them about half the time it takes John.  But Sean admitted they didn't clean them out quite as thoroughly as John does -- they should have gotten the hose out and flushed the downspouts.  I'm sure John will have them do that before winter comes. 

After they left I took care of some bills that needed to be paid, then I headed out with my camera.  I got a few pictures of the high waters, but the places that were really flooded were in places where I couldn't take pictures -- the roads were too busy for me to stand on the bridges, or there was no place to park.  The South Anna  was the most seriously flooded -- so was the James, but I didn't go down to Richmond to try to get pictures of it.  The Little River which flows behind our subdivision is usually little more than a creek, but yesterday actually looked like a small river! 

Today was gorgeous!!!  Sunny, bright, and warm with temperatures in the low 70's.  A lovely day for a drive!   I had been planning all week to do this, so it was a special blessing when the Lord made the day to be so very beautiful.  I left the church facility around 1:00 and headed west on Rt. 33.  Just after I drove through Gordonsville I followed signs to go to James Madison's home, Montpelier.  That route took me along an old, narrow, winding country road past some beautiful old estates.   I want to take my birthday mates to Montpelier this year -- we're going to be celebrating on the 12th this year.  None of us has ever been there, so it should be interesting for all of us.  Two years ago we went to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and his friendship with James Madison was mentioned frequently.  They used to visit each other frequently.  It's about 30 miles between them, a 50 minute drive today, but would have taken the better part of a day on horse, so they didn't just get together for an afternoon tea!  In Monticello we were shown the bedroom Madison used when he visited.  (I have pix of our Monticello visit somewhere in my Xanga albums).  I turned around in the Montpelier entrance as I didn't want to pay the $14.00 admission today.  I'll do that next month when we go! 

From there I headed back along Rt. 20 -- a Virginia Byway, but not as narrow or winding as the previous route -- to Rt. 33, then on west to Rt. 29.  There I went north.  Many years ago Fred and Jo Ann, John and I, out on some afternoon business at Bryce Mountain Ski Resort had stopped at a German restaurant for dinner.  I was pretty sure it was on Rt. 29, and I wanted to see if it's still there as I think it would be a nice place to take the "girls" for our birthday dinner.  I was just about ready to turn around when THERE!!! I saw it up ahead on the left.  The Bavarian Chef.  So I went in and had myself some dinner!  And was it ever yummy!   The entrées are rather pricey -- $30.00 to $35.00 -- but the German Fare is reasonably priced, so that's where I'll plan to take them.  Shhhh!  Don't tell!  I ordered the "Traditional Bavarian Sausage Platter" for $19.95 with Weisswurst, Bauernwurst, and Bratwurst served over homemade sauerkraut, plus two sides (I chose red cabbage and whipped potatoes).  I ate about a third of it and brought the rest home for dinner tomorrow and Tuesday!  I also ordered a slice of Black Forest Cake to go -- it's the size of three ordinary slices of cake -- well, maybe that's an exaggeration!!  But it's huge.

My drive home was peaceful and uneventful. 

John has been in Ontario the past three weeks and will be there another week.  He flew home last weekend; I met him at RIC Friday evening after work and took him back Monday morning at 9:00.  He's been busy at work, plus other things happening.  On the 1st of November he flew to Winnipeg for the day, coming home the same day.  The terminal manager there, whom John has known for 20 or 25 years, was diagnosed with cancer late last summer.  The prognosis was not good, so John flew out to see Byron and his wife, had lunch with them, and spent several hours visiting.   Then Friday morning (the 6th) the company received word from Byron's wife that he had passed away during the night.  So John flew back to Toronto from here Monday morning, then to Winnipeg Monday evening for the funeral, flying back to Toronto again Tuesday evening.  Quite a few from Erb Transport flew out for the funeral.

Autumn is basically over and I didn't get any pictures this year.  It was a wet autumn, so the rains caused most of the leaves to fall rather quickly.  There was still some color when I went to Madison County today, but they were mostly sienna and rust colors from the oaks.  And lots of already bare, winter trees.  Jo Ann and I rode up to Harrisonburg one day.  We were going to meet an aunt and a cousin for lunch, but then Julia wasn't feeling well and Aunt Catherine didn't want to have lunch with us if Julia couldn't join us.  But Jo and I had already planned to go up there, so we went even though it rained all day.  We had lunch at "Bowl of Good" where we had originally planned to meet Aunt Catherine and Julia, then browsed in the adjoining 10,000 Villages shop.  The MCC Thrift Shop is next door, so we browsed there, too, before going to the Shenandoah Heritage Village (or whatever the place is called!) and found some things there we wanted to bring home with us.  Then November 1st we all got together at Jo Ann's son's mobile home to celebrate little Jonathan's first birthday. 

So that's the past month.  As usual it took me a long time to say a lot of nothing!  But hey, I'm mostly writing this for my own records -- and I know some of John's nieces like to read about what we've been up to.  (Thanks for your email Brenda!) If anyone else wants to be bored...!  I could go into all the scary things Karen and I have been reading about the Pneumonic Plague in Western Europe and how the media isn't saying anything about it -- just Google "Pneumonic Plague" and you'll see what I mean.  And about the side effects of Swine Flu vaccinations.  And about the horrors taking place in Congress (Jo Ann and Carolyn drove to DC for the anti-health care rally on the 5th!  Had a blast!)....but I'll leave all that for another post.  Things are happening fast, folks.  Get ready!!!  Get informed!!!  I believe it's all about to wrap up (and I don't just mean this post!)

  The annual Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale wa s held Friday and Saturday, October 2nd and 3rd, 2009.  I went alone this year.  Kathy often likes to go with me, but she was busy this weekend.  Weather reports earlier in the week were making it sound as though it was going to rain, but it turned into a perfect day for the event.  

I left home at 7:10 -- about 20 minutes later than I'd intended.  Stopped in Montpelier for a coffee, then at the transfer station to throw a bag of garbage in the dumpster, then on to I-64.  I didn't want to get caught up behind slow-bound traffic on US 33 -- it's a two-lane country road for much of the way and I invariably get behind the drivers who are afraid to go the speed limit (she says with a slight frown.) I-64 was a breeze.  It got foggy just before I got to Charlottesville, so I was expecting Afton Mountain to be a nightmare, but it all cleared off before I got to the point of ascent.  The mountains were clear and gorgeous, and the sun was right for a terrific photo, but alas, I was on the west-bound side of the highway and the lookout turnoff is on the east-bound side.

I stopped in Mt. Crawford for a pit stop before going on to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds, arriving there around 9:20 -- so I saved almost half an hour by going the Interstate, even though it's about 25 miles farther. 

I was able to park fairly close to the main building.  The first thing I did was check out Wenger's grape tent.  Spoke with Mim (Showalter) Wenger a bit -- she and Dave both graduated a year ahead of me -- and bought a quart of Concord grapes and a quart of white grapes.  Mmmmm!  So yummy!  Close my eyes and I'm a child again, picking grapes off our vines and sucking them down.  We had Concords, white, and red.  I immediately took my purchase to the car, then checked out the quilts and a few other things they were going to be putting up for auction, meandered around the 10,000 Villages tables hoping to see Elva (Showalter) Rhodes, but she was off doing something else at the moment.                                      

The 10,000 Villages tables

Garland and Phyllis Martin are from the "home" church of my childhood.

All the quilts are on display and are in the order in which they will be auctioned.  Each has been given a number based on the estimated time of its sale.

 I got an auction number and an auction listing, then found the seat I had reserved via the Internet -- right on the front row so I could see the action without having to use binoculars!  I watched the guys auction off several quilts, then I went wandering around to get my usual food purchases and get a look at some of the activities.  

Bags of freshly ground corn meal and whole wheat provided by the Powhatan Mennonite Church.

Freshly made Brunswick Stew is always a favorite.

Stirring the apple butter

And the finished product, ready for sale.  They also sold slices of bread with fresh, hot apple butter spread on top!!

I get one funnel cake a year -- if I go to the fair the week before the Relief Sale, I get a funnel cake there.  If I don't go to the fair I get a funnel cake at the Sale instead of fresh donuts.  I ate that while wandering around, then bought a barbecue chicken -- again, the Relief Sale is the only time I get that because we don't have barbecues down here like they do in the Valley.  I also bought a bottle of water, then I went back to the auction pavilion to watch the sale there.

There were lots of beautiful quilts, comforters, wall hangings, and crib quilts, but there were also lots of other items as well.  I'll let photos tell the rest of the story...

Aqua pitcher and six glasses made by the Imperial Glass, 1970. 

Cactus Star Table Runner pieced and quilted by Barbara Cline.  Sold for $410.00.

Cedar Chest hand crafted by Alvin Miller

This quilt was made in 1976 by the ladies of Greenmonte Mennonite Church (where I grew up) in celebration of the Bicentennial.  Phyllis Martin was telling me she has a picture of the ladies working on it -- my mother, her mother, and others, some of whom were at the auction yesterday to see it sold again.  The family who had purchased it in 1976 donated it to this year's auction in memory of Grace Weaver.  It went for $1,000!!

This is a crib quilt made from vintage feed sacks from the 1930's-40's and quilted by Carmen Wyse and Grace Mumaw

Country Love Quilt

Cross-stitched and quilted crib quilt

Diamond Star Quilt ($1,000.00)

Point of Grace Quilt

This is one of many paintings donated by artist P. Graham Dunn.  This one titled "Long Shadow" went for $450.00

Jack Bowman (graduated the year behind me) auctioning a Log Cabin quilt. 

John Deer Clock which is 28"x20"by9" was made by Eugene Miller.  It sold for $275.00

This is a marble roller, designed and made by Dan Bowman sold for $1,000.

This is called "Printed Blocks" and is in shades of blue and off-white.  It was quilted by the Lindale Mennonite Women.

This is called "Stars All Around" quilt.  I think it's exceptionally beautiful.

And my "this year's favorite" were the "Spin Star" quilts.  There were a couple of these.

These ladies were working on this year's demo wall hanging.  It will be sold at next year's Relief Sale.

In addition to all these lovely items, a red 1973 MGB convertible, several hand crafted tables of various sizes and uses, hand crafted benches and foot stools, rocking horses, a display spinning wheel, several Winross model trucks, and other items were auctioned.  One big seller was an aluminum toy car made by Sharon Manufacturing Company, 1932-34.  This company was started by Eastern Mennonite School to give work to students.  The little car sold for $2,100.00.

After I left the Sale, I drove down the road a piece to the Antique Market to purchase some cheese and lebanon bologna.  I went to my favorite kitchen tool shop and saw a book for sale..."Vera's Journey" by Judy Yoder.  I had read about it on a fellow blogger's site recently.  Vera's great-granddaughter Hannah was happy to sell me the book.  I'm looking forward to getting into it.

I left there around 4:00 and headed home via US 33 -- and from the time I left Harrisonburg until I got home, every driver I got behind was totally incapable of going the speed limit!  I stopped at Aimee's before coming home and closed the Pampered Chef party which I had Thursday night.  I had a good show -- seven neighbors came for it and each placed an order, plus I had seven outside orders.  I also got two potential bookings for Aimee, which will help her get her business going.

So that's it for this evening.  I have been intending to post pictures of one of our stitching club meetings.  They started out as "learn to knit" classes but have developed into more than that as some who know how to knit or aren't interested in learning, join us to work on cross-stitch or crocheting projects.  But that will be a post for another time!

Shalom y'all!