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| "No soup for you!" |
So this weekend our congregation had the honor and privilege of hosting the annual state lectureship. It was a TON of work, but I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.
We worked non-stop, from Friday noon to Sunday at 2:00 with very little sleep cuz we had to get there so early in the morning to prepare breakfast. There's always the frustrations and uncertainties to get anxious about, but in the end, everything went pretty well.
Me and Chuck volunteered to keep the drinks going. I thought this would be a breeze, since we do it every Sunday anyway. Well, here is where my nightmare began.
Bonnie supplied me with the tea that I was supposed to make, and (bless her heart), I know she was just trying to make things easy for me. But I have found that doing the easy way, really does not work for some things. It sometimes only makes things worse. Instead of getting me normal tea that I'm used to making, she got me COLD BREW tea. Even though the box says it only needs to steep for 3-5 minutes, it really needs to steep for 12-24 hours in order to get the full flavor out of it, and making it in bulk batches really changes things too. First, I followed the directions on the box like Bonnie told me to do, and then I panicked when I realized the tea was NOT turning out!!! It had pretty much NO FLAVOR! So I doubled up the tea bags, but that only made it taste like disgusting pond water. By this time I was already running out of the tea bags that she supplied, so I ended brewing some of my own tea that I normally use on Sundays in order to try and fix it.
Then some of the tea bags broke and the tea had grounds in it!
Well, we can't have that! So we had to filter it all out.
It still tasted like pond water, but I was running out of time, so I had to serve it like it was.
Bonnie thought it was fine, but she doesn't like sweetened tea, and therefore doesn't drink it, so she's not a good judge for that. Diane told me that she tried some and threw it out cuz it tasted so bad.
I was mad and frustrated and embarrassed, and didn't want anyone to know who made that tea.
Of course there was still a lot left after the meal, so we saved it for the next day's dinner. So on Saturday, I spent the whole entire afternoon trying to fix that tea, using my own hot brew kind of tea that I normally use on Sundays. But since I was mixing it with leftover Friday's tea, the damage was done and I only got it up to 90% of my satisfaction, but at least it was better than it was. Next time, I am going to absolutely insist on doing it MY way from the beginning.
So that was the worst part of it (for me).
Now that it's all over, I keep imagining what people must still be thinking while they're on their drive back home: "did you taste the tea? that was nasty........"
Anyhoo, the hot chocolate turned out really good!
So here is how full our auditorium was on Friday night.
I think Rocky said he counted about 240 people.
On Saturday morning, we had to be back at the building by 6:00 am in order to serve breakfast at 8:00. After taste testing my pond water tea all Friday afternoon, I had consumed enough caffeine to keep me awake half the night, plus I kept thinking about that stupid tea and what I needed to do to fix it. I spontaneously woke up at 2:45 and couldn't get back to sleep - just laid there thinking about that tea, and waited for the alarm to go off at 4:30. So frustrating.
While we were preparing food for breakfast, Robert came in and grabbed my camera and took some pictures for me:
While we were working, we were able to sorta watch and listen to the speakers a little bit from this little TV that they had in the kitchen for us. I tried to watch what I could, but I only got a few snippets here and there. From what I could tell, I knew I was missing out on some good speakers.
Here is how we had the fellowship hall set up. The line was supposed to come to the table and split to both sides and move on out.
I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it seemed to work very well to have two server lanes.
Lots of people showed up for breakfast.
One mistake that Chuck and I kept making was underestimating how many people drink coffee.
We ran out of coffee a few times and felt bad when we had to tell people we were brewing some more and they would have to wait.
We did NOT serve lunch on Saturday, so that really helped us out a lot. I used that lull time to try and fix that pond water tea, and believe me that took ALL afternoon. Finally I realized I was hungry, so a few of us went outside to enjoy a sandwich. It was a warm sunny day, and it felt so good just to sit down and feel the warm sun! Even if it was short lived.
That big guy on the left - Gary - what a goofball!
Diane wanted me to pound my fists on her back so I obliged:
Sunday at last! It was only one meal, but holy cow! what a crowd!
The auditorium was so full, some people had to sit and watch the TV screen in the fellowship hall.
Rocky said he counted 430-something. We knew there was a lot of people cuz when we were serving breakfast, the line seemed to go on forever. We thought we were gonna run out of food, but we had just enough.
After breakfast while we were busy cleaning up, we did get to take a little break when we stopped for the Lord's Supper. I was so tired physically, and from lack of sleep, I felt like I had to keep moving in order to stay awake, so it was hard for me to be still during that time. And then while our cleaning was starting to wind down, we watched part of the last sermon done by Tony C. from Soldotna. A very awesome speaker.
And of course, you can't have a lectureship without having some songs led by John T. He is well-known state-wide for his dynamic song leading. Every time he visits a congregation, he gets asked to lead singing. I wonder why!!!!!!!
So, that was the lectureship from the point of view of a kitchen worker. I did have a few moments of visiting with some friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, so that was fun.
Oh yeah, here is something weird.
A Korean lady brought this cake in, and we had no idea what we were supposed to do with it.
"My Barber Shop"???????
So anyhoo, that was my weekend. Crazy busy, but fun.
Did I mention that I now have my own sink at the church building to make my drinks with?
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| Yee-HAW! |
It's a little messy in this picture but that's because of the Lectureship.
I must say it is so NICE to finally have my own sink!! It really does help a lot!
Now, if we could only do something about that traffic that keeps going through my area!
I am tempted to put up a big sign saying "GO AROUND! STAY OUT!! DO NOT ENTER!!"
But I suppose that wouldn't go over too well with some folks. But hey, if they end up with a tea bath or a lemonade shower, it ain't gonna be my fault.
We had some fresh snow last week, and Beanie went outside to explore.
She got excessively coddled when she came back in to warm up.
But the temps have gone up and it really does feel like spring now. Each day we are seeing more and more of the green grass, and my garden beds are now all exposed.
Here Weaners tries to help me work on PW's quilt again.
I don't know what her fascination is with it, but when she hears my sewing machine humming, she's gotta be right there!!
Here is a little "shower cap" cover that I made for my mixing bowl. It helps keep kitty tongues out of the butter when I'm waiting for it to soften up to room temperature.
So that's about it.
