So, here I am after MUCH too long a hiatus from posting here. My apologies. As you may remember (or maybe not, no matter) I was co-chairing a 5K race and that has taken up a huge portion of my time, along with playing with granddaughters and just living life.
The 5K was a great success, despite crappy drizzly cold weather the morning of the race. By the time the race actually started, the rain had stopped. By the time we were doing awards, the sun was peeking out.
We had a total of 453 runners, an increase of about 120 over last year's field and grossed about $16,000, also higher than last year. We had been hoping to get to $25,000 this year but "in this economy" (I really hate those words) and because we didn't brow beat prospective sponsors early enough or thoroughly enough (I really ***really*** hate the sponsor schmoozing and contacting stuff, which I was in charge of) we didn't make it. Better luck next year, especially since there must be one or two fundraising/sponsor armtwisting people out there somewhere who will hop on the task and do it up better than I did.
In among all the 5K details, my creative juices were inspired by the cool fallish weather and I returned to painting a chair I want to make into a planter. It's been in the works for several years. Progress was made and I'm hoping it will be ready by next spring to put outside.
I also decided in mid-September that I wanted to make Halloween costumes for Emily and Lucy this year. Lucy's monkey costume is finished and Emily's Cinderella dress just needs hemming and a hook & eye put in the back. The great unveiling of the costumes is tomorrow evening and I can't wait to see the little girls all dressed up in their costumes. (Their Halloween party is this Friday.) We showed the monkey costume to Lucy yesterday and she correctly identified it as "mah neee," her word for monkey. We'll take pictures and I'll post them here.
I'm also thinking that I might make some Christmas gifts but with our Christmas with our daughters, sons-in-law and granddaughters happening over Thanksgiving weekend rather than a month later like normal people, I may get too squeezed for time. Who knows. John's two brothers and their wives will be here for Christmas over the traditional dates in December so we don't slide completely -- just get to have two celebrations and house-fulls of company.
Along with all that, we (Johnnie and I) took Emily with us to Cleveland this past weekend so she could play with her four-year-old cousin Elizabeth. The little girls had a blast together and slept as little as possible. Next time we'll do the trip with Lucy and Emily since there is a comparably aged cousin for Lucy to play with too, Marley.
We also made a quick one day there and back trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts last week to pay our respects at my elderly cousin's (89) wake on Columbus Day. We weren't close but I just have so little family that I felt I would regret not going. So we drove on Sunday and back on Monday after spending a full 20 minutes at the funeral home. Lovely drive and fun to get away, even for that purpose.
And there have been a few sporadic writing assignments and I'm busily looking for others so that I don't feel so idle and make some money to pay for all my expensive habits.
We finally received the new microwave and the stove was fixed last Friday (not thanks to any real helpfulness from our friends at Sears -- we are not likely to EVER buy another appliance from Sears as their customer service on the stove problems sucked big time). So now I can cook again without boiling water for spaghetti on the side burner of the outdoor grill. Good times.
Annnnnywaaaaay...that's the news from here. I plan to re-emerge from my posting exile and get back to reading posts too (currently 988 in my reader, yeow). There have been days (gasp! seriously) when I never get upstairs to the computer at all. Hard to believe.
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