Alaska State Lectureship 2017

"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?

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.  

Spring Is Here! Woo-HOO!

Melting snow!!

Today is the Equinox - the first day of Spring!!

Aren't you excited?

We still have a lot of snow of the ground, and will most likely get more before Spring is over, but that's okay.  Just knowing that it is officially Spring puts a spring in my step.  (boi-oi-oing!)

According to the "day and time" website, the sunrise in Anchorage this morning was at 7:59 am, and the sunset this evening will be 8:15 pm.  Today we gain 5 minutes and 44 seconds of daylight, giving us a total of 12 hours, 16 minutes, and 26 seconds!  We now have more daylight than darkness.  Yay!

So far, our signs of Spring have been almost non-existent, but we've had a few clues to let us know that Spring is on its way.  

For one thing, the cats sense it.

When the sun is shining warmly on the deck, the cats want to go out and feel it.

Unfortunately for Weaners, the snow stops her in her tracks from venturing off the deck.

This is frustrating for a cat who sees birdies out there to play with.

She is one of those kitties that doesn't really fancy the cold too much, so she was having a hard time deciding if she wanted to be in or out.  We got tired of opening the door for her every two minutes, so we just finally left it open a gap.  This made her very happy to get the best of both worlds.

I wanna be out!

No, I wanna be in!

A couple weeks ago, I saw a moose lying in my front yard.

She was just being real lazy.  I have no idea how long she was lying there before I saw her.

After awhile, she finally got up, nibbled on a few of my trees, and rambled off into the neighbor's yard.

Then on the SAME DAY!, I saw these two moose lying in my back yard!

Apparently, my yard was the moose motel that day.

These two moose were hanging around in our neighborhood for a whole week.

I haven't seen them for several days now, so they must've gone off to scope out a different neighborhood.  Maybe they would've stayed longer if I had offered free cable and a continental breakfast.

Another subtle sign that Spring is coming, is all the birds that come around the bird feeder.  You can't see the birds in this picture, but believe me - Bossy surely sees them!

So while I wait for Spring to spring, I've been trying to finish PW's quilt.

Since this picture was taken, I got the border on, got it all sandwiched and pin basted, it's now ready to quilt!

All I need now is a chunk of uninterrupted time.

With the border on, it turned out to be pretty big, about Queen size.

I wasn't too sure about the fabrics she picked, but now that's all together, I guess I like it okay.  It's nicer than it looks in the picture.  The pattern was super super super easy.

While I was sewing, Beanie was helping me keep my garbage strings organized.

She likes that job.

Let's see, what else is there for me to talk about?

Nothing much really.

Oh yeah, I planted my first garden seeds already.

Another sign of spring, yeah?

I wanted to try celery this year, and panicked when I found out it had to be started NOW.

So yesterday I had to go to the store and buy some potting soil.

It's kind of boring to stare at a pot of soil, but I know there's a seed in there and I wanna see it sprout!

Okay, I bid you adieu for now, and does Bossy.

Happy Equinox!

Chilly Willy Day (and some extra stuff)

Last Saturday, we had our annual Chilly Willy Day at church.  It's a fun day for all ages where everyone dresses up like old Western days (if they want to, not everyone dresses for it), and they have a chili cook-off contest, a dessert contest, and games for the kids.  It really is a lot of fun!  

One thing I look forward to is seeing the cute kids dressed up in costume.

And it's fun to see how they creatively decorated.

In case you're wondering, the bank really was in business.  The kids earned coins when they played the games and then they could use their coins to buy stuff at the General Store.

A lot of kids bought these horses.  Someone did a good job making them.

Later, I asked a friend how much she paid for her peanut butter cookie, and she said "three bits".  I wondered at how a cookie could be half the price of a horse! 

We even had a sheriff to make sure all the laws were obeyed.

I enlarged that one to make sure you could read it.

Ignorance is no excuse!

Here is the brave and fearless Sheriff Scott escorting his wife on a romantic stroll around the town square:

For the kids, they had pony rides......

Ya, look at all the snow we got!  Pretty awesome, I say!

They also had a lot of different games set up for them.  I didn't get a picture of all of them, but here are just a few:

Cake Walk

Cattle Drive

Bubble Gum Blowing Contest

Corn on the Cob Eating Contest, no hands allowed!

There was even a bank robbery that took place!  (as usual)

I actually witnessed the bandits running away with the loot, but I didn't recognize what was going on in time for me to take the picture.  However, Sheriff Scott rounded up a posse to hunt them down.

It didn't take very long for the robbers to be found.

They were properly escorted into jail and the town was safe again.

Would you believe our very own preacher was in on it?

For shame!

He even pointed his finger at the little guy and accused him of being the ring leader!

As if.......!!

Anyhoo, after their bail was paid, they finished off with one last contest, well actually four.

Costume Contests for the boys, the girls, the women, and the men.

the boys

the girls, not all them entered the contest

the womenfolk

the menfolk

The way they judged was by introducing them individually, and then whoever got the loudest applause won.  But there was a lot of men in this contest, so they sub-catagorized them into three groups:  The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

(I had to get two pictures of The Good cuz they wouldn't all fit in my camera lens zoomed in. They got to choose which category they wanted to be in, and apparently a lot of them considered themselves "good".)

The Bad

The Ugly

Hey, wait a minute!  Why is Mike in there twice?  That cheater!

Anyhoo, it was a lot of fun.  Donations went to the missionary fund.

So, here is the "extra stuff" that I had on my camera when I downloaded all my pictures.

We had another beautiful moon on the way to church a couple weeks ago.  I don't normally take my camera with me to church, but the reason I took it that day was because I was SUPPOSED to have my own sink installed that day and I wanted to get a picture of it to show you guys, but it wasn't installed, and I was told it will be another few weeks yet.

Also, notice how light the sky is!  We are no longer driving to church in total darkness on Sunday mornings. But you have to remember, we get there an hour before everyone else so we can get the potluck drinks made.  We try to get them done as early as we can cuz when people start showing up and getting in my way, I get very perturbed.  Chuck and I volunteered to be in charge of the drinks during our annual Lectureship this year - oh dear I wonder what that will be like!

Here is a picture of Beanies Weenies with her chest hair stuck in her mouth.

Her chest hair is so long, this happens all the time.  It's funny watching her try to spit it out.

I hope this doesn't gross you out, but this is a picture of a sore that she has on the back of her neck right now.  It was a bald spot with a big sore on it - the vet shaved some of her hair off so it could air out and get some oxygen to it.  He thinks it's a "hot spot" where a warm moist spot on her skin begins to collect bacteria and then gets infected.  He sees it on dogs all the time, but he doesn't know why she would get that in the winter time.  Anyhoo, he gave her an antibiotic shot, and it already looks better.

Here is Bossy drinking water out of the kitchen faucet.

And lastly, here is a picture of my homemade blueberry ice cream!  I added half a banana to it, so it's actually banana-bluberry ice cream.  Yum!

And I will leave you with that.