Cookie Party Number 2!

How lucky can one girl get?  Today is the second cookie party I've been invited to.  The first one I made Spritz cookies, this one Fifi asked me to make Oatmeal Cookies.  My favorite recipe is the one on the Quaker Oats box.

Slacker!

Haven't been on here in quite some time.  Last Tuesday was my last church council meeting.  Kind of bittersweet.  It was not an easy 3 years but in the end, especially now that we are growing again, it feels like there's so much more to do!  The have a good bunch I think in the end it'll all be good. 

And...I'll try to post here a bit more.

Out With The Old

Church Council elections were today, and Dad was elected.  I am glad that he was elected, it's something I think he wanted.  He wouldn't run while I was still on, so this being the end to my term, it worked out well.  It's kind of bittersweet leaving.  When you take on a 3 year term, you think, what have I done?  Then when things are going good, it's not so bad, and when things are crap, you want to scream.  I left many a meeting screaming.  This last year though has been a joy, and it almost feels like I could go for another year - lol!  Wishing my Dad good luck and God's Blessings on this new undertaking!

Old Recipe New Twist

Never thought I'd put this in the crockpot -

Observations From The Kettle

People are interesting.  I stood in front of the Walmart tonight for three hours.  My bell broke, I guess I rang it to hard and the clanging thingy went flying, so I text my Dad and brought me an awesome one from Mom's collection.  Before he showed up, I rang the one without it's clanger.  When people made fun of me, I told them I put it on mute.  Anyway, for three hours I watched people come and go, many of them walked by, some put money in the kettle.  A few people tried to figure out who I was.  "I know you from somewhere."  It was always the store.  Some people put in pennies, some put in fives.  Parents almost always gave their kids the money to put in.  Girls wanted to ring my bell, a few boys did too, but most of them declined.  I saw one person from church, she gave :) 2 teachers from the boys school, one didn't look up, and the other was on her phone.  It was great fun to see former customers - I miss that the most, it was also great to see the little faces beam as the dropped their change in, and then rang the bell.  It was rewarding, and an evening well spent.

Filling Space

"So...what were you doing in the x amount of time between jobs?"  It's a question that can be filled with many answers.  I was sick, I moved, I had a baby, I took the time off.  Thanks to severance I actually did take the whole summer off, but now, I'm looking and what have I done with the months gone by?   I've interviewed, but haven't found the right fit....I've taken classes at the community college to develop my computer skills, and improve my employability....I leave my self open to anything the boy's school might need, and now, after tomorrow night- I can add bell ringer.  Next week, church secretary.  Are they new adventures?  Bell ringing, I've done with Tim, and the boys.  Every year we pull an hour or two for Tim's work, I've never been alone, never in front door one at Walmart.  I will probably see people I know, can you network at the kettle?  I have never been a church secretary.  It's really not full blown, I don't have to do much beyond folding bulletins, and answering phones, and it's only one day - and it's new to me.  At my age I should have more life experiences, and I don't.  I don't like to leave my box, but you can't fill my resume time line with "waited in my box for the perfect fit", it's time to seek new adventures.  Even if you're not getting paid for a job in money, consider the other benefits - spiritual, the feeling of self worth, the thanks from those you help out, and of course it's all good to have space filled in on your resume :)

Presentations

Today in class we did presentations on what we learned so far in this class.  I thought I would talk about how I used Excel to create a spread sheet for the churches t-shirt sales, but then we had a presentation on the use of Excel.  So, I thought I would talk about how to creat a bit of stationary in Word, with a picture of something pretty.  In the end that's not what I did.  I showed how to use Blind Carbon Copy, something I had never done before, and always wondered how to do that.  I also used the link button and the picked a website to email to my BCC.   I was so excited - now I can use the link button to share things on Blogger!
Here's what I passed on to my class.  Yum!

This is a great site for finding job listings locally - click here

Class

Today in class we worked on email, and our contact list, as well as using search engines.  Our teacher snapped a photo of all of us to add to our contact listings.  Oh yeah - we had really yummy carmel apple cake too, courtesy of one of the girls in class, and her web searching on Monday.

A Simple Smile

On Sunday my Dad was supposed to give a presentation at church.  Unfortunately he came down with a touch of something that ended him up in bed.  So...he asked me to read it for him.  Now, after a bit of hemming and hawing, I gave in, and said yes.  I read through it, a part of it choked me up, my stomach was in knots - I don't do well with presentations, and I just didn't think I could do it.  A prospective member of our church gave me this advice:  close your eyes, take 3 deep breaths and look for one person you can tell your presentation to.  So I did.  There's a young man who I knew would listen to what I had to say, he wouldn't be judgemental, and he probably wouldn't show any kind of emotion, I felt he was a safe bet to talk to.  I got up, put my paper on the podium, looked at the young man, and caught something out of the corner of my eye.  It was a friend who smiled at me, as I took my place.  A smile, that made me feel at home, reassuring me that I could speak to everyone, and not just the young man in the front pews.  I got through my Dad's speech, got the laughs he was looking for, and actually got a few compliments in the end - which of course made me smile.

Testing

As part of our class today we are setting up blogs.