More Birthday Party

If you recall, Bob and I were to attend a birthday party yesterday afternoon for Marilyn, the Methodist minister in Independence. Well, we did attend and had a very nice time and visited with a lot of their parishioners.

The funny thing was, though, that Jack had asked me to delete Marilyn's name when I sent out the e-mail invitation to the Independence ministers. I did that.

Yesterday I asked Marilyn if it was a surprise for her and she said, "no". She said Jack had e-mailed someone to tell them why he could
not do something with them from 3 - 5 that afternoon, and he forgot
to delete her name from the list and she read the e-mail.

I thought it was so funny that he did exactly what he warned me
not to do. That first picture is Marilyn in the blue dress with her arm around a friend.

The second picture is Marilyn's cake table. her daughters who
live in Iowa sent the yellow roses with cards expressing their
love for their mom.

The third picture is a table Jack had had done for her with all her
pictures, their wedding pictures, and even high school diploma
and her college graduation. All kinds of great mementos were
there on display.

What a great gesture. Jack must have really worked on getting this surprise arranged. The church secretary, Chris, helped a lot and many of her friends as well.

Old Friends

I was reading a blog of a friend of mine and he was reminiscing about old friends. That brought to mind an old friend of mine. Gay and I met when I was 17 and she was 14. I am 72 now so you can see how many years we have been acquainted and been good friends. I have lost track of her several times over the years but somehow we have always met up again.

We first met up again when we were both young mothers and living in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In days when young motherhood was very hard for me, she managed to get me through the hardest part. Keith was three and Leslie was one at that time. Bob was working nights and going to school days and I was losing my mind trying to do everything alone. As far as motherhood was concerned, Gay had it together much better. We were both "stay at home" mothers in those days. We spent a lot of time together while the men were gone. We would get together and set one another's hair, go to Y-Wives together where we did exercising, and we both bought a family swim ticket for the Sana pool there in Bartlesville and took our children swimming in the afternoons in summertime. It was a great pool with grass along the edges and we would lay out on our towels and visit.

Finally, she divorced and remarried and then moved away. I lost track of her then for a few years. but found her again when I began attending World Conference of my church in the 70's. She was living in Kansas City and my conference was in Independence. I called her and we met. Later, she divorced again and moved to Colorado. We wrote some and called occasionally over the years and she came to visit us in the '80's briefly. She came again and looked us up in the late nineties.

But everything changed when we moved here in this house in 2003. One day she called and wanted to come visit. She and her husband were moving to Kansas from Colorado and they wanted to park their RV here while they hunted for property. They found the piece of property they wanted and bought it and she has been living 50 miles away ever since. We get together about once a month and have lunch or dinner. I have really enjoyed our long term friendship. This picture is of Gay and Tony nowadays.

Surprise Birthday Party

This should be a neat day. After lunch we will go to Independence to a surprise birthday party for the Methodist minister there. She will be 60 and her husband has arranged this for her celebration.

This morning, as usual, I got up and fed and watered the dog and cat, watered the tomato plants and hanging baskets, and fixed a pot of coffee so I could sit out on the patio and watch the birds.
Bob and I sat out on the patio for an hour and visited and then I came in and fixed his breakfast.

Every morning I fix a piece of cinnamon toast for Scott's dog, Slinky. He loves cinnamon toast and sits down for each bite without being told to do so. It's really cute how well he minds.

After that, I made a fresh pot of ice tea. We usually use a pot a day. Then I blew out the garage and blew off the patio before coming in. It's already been a busy day and it's barely started. I have been updating the computers and their programs. Computers make work, as anyone who has one knows.

Montgomery County Health Clinic

I spent all morning in board training for the Montgomery County Health Clinic. This was the last of nine training sessions we have had to prepare us as a board to plan for the clinic. Right now we are state funded but there is no guarantee that funding will be available from the state if the government here changes after the election. So we are considering applying to be a federally qualified health clinic or FQHC. If we can once get funded as that, we will be assured of continued funding of $625,000 per year. But there are some drawbacks to doing that too. For one thing, we now serve anyone who walks through the door regardless of their ability to pay. If we are a FQHC, we will also have to take Medicade and Medicare patients as well as those with insurance. That could make us as a felt threat to the doctors.

So before the first of the year, we will need to decide which direction we want to move. Our training is finished now but the real work is just beginning. Right now we are only open Thursday evenings from 3:00 until 9:00 and only in Independence. Our plan is to also open in Coffeyville and Neodesha. The first move is to also open Mondays and Fridays in Independence. After the first of the year, we want to open in Coffeyville. In 2010, we want to open in Neodesha.

We have a lot of planning to do before we go any further.

A Wonderful Day

I was right about yesterday being a wonderful day. Everything went off as planned. I made my dessert, we went to church, then our daughter asked us out to lunch with her and our grandson, Jeromy. We ate a light lunch and then came home where I did my notes for church and sent out the excess bulletins to those who did not attend.

Following that, we picked up Karan and Bobby and went to the reunion grounds. It was worse then I had imagined. The only real work that has been done there is cleanup. Greg is still negotiating with the insurance company about the way to rebuild. They are wanting to put everything back just the way it was and he is wanting it all done correctly. He is a lawyer and has represented insurance companies in his corporate past so he knows exactly what he can expect from them and is very intelligent, intelligent enough to know how to get them to do it the way he wants.

For example, when they wanted to build the cabins back the way they were...on concrete blocks instead of stem walls and slabs, he asked them if they intended to use lead based paint and asbestos too. Of course, they said "no" so he said we want it rebuilt with current technology and materials then too.

They wanted to chip and bury all the tree debris since there is no code out there in the country against doing that and that would be the cheap way to handle it. He said, "No way! If it costs you $425,000 to do it right and haul it off, that's the way it will be done."

The food was good and the worship service was also very good but the best part of the afternoon was getting to see all our friends from the Mission Center again. We had no camps there this year because of the May 10th tornado and all the damage so we missed seeing all our friends.

The top picture is the scene is looking out toward the little office building where they use to give patriarchal blessings.

The center one is the dining hall. Notice the blue tarp over the roof.

The bottom one is the men's restroom at the bottom of rattlesnake ridge. You can see the total devastation of rattlesnake ridge.

We got home about 9:00, just as I thought we would.

All in all, it was a very good day.

A Big Sunday

Today will be a big day so I will write before the day begins. First, this morning, I will make a dessert to take to the reunion grounds for supper. Our church maintains campgrounds over south of Racine, Missouri. We use them for the camping season. We had to cancel the camping season this year because in May the grounds were hit by a tornado.

Last Sunday they began holding supper and services there. We weren't able to attend then because we had our "Living the Questions" small group meeting. But I was told that two hundred people showed up.

So we will take another couple and go this evening. We will leave about 2:30 this afternoon...after church. It's an hour and a half drive from here to there. The fellowship starts at 4:00 and supper is at 5:00. The services will start at 6:30 and be over by 7:30 so we can get home before it gets too dark and the deer are out on the highways.

We will have church school and church services here this morning and then have a light lunch before we leave for Missouri this afternoon.

I will be interested to see how much progress has been made rebuilding the grounds. I will try to remember to take my digital camera and take some pictures. I posted some in May of the damage to the grounds.