Our final meeting of the Countryside Homemakers for the 2012-2013 year was held Wednesday, May 1, 2013. We met at the Sadieville Christian Church basement. Janet Preston brought lasagna and taught our lesson.
We didn't have anyone to teach a craft so we utilized that time to make our tri-fold board for the Scott County Extension Homemakers Annual meeting on May 23rd. Over the past year I have taken pictures of the things we have done and saved the crafts we have made. I printed out pictures and brought all the samples of our crafts and we put together the tri-fold board for the Countryside Homemakers Club to be displayed at the county annual meeting.
It has been a good year and we've made some wonderful memories and learned lots of great things to help us be better homemakers. I'm thinking our board will be the best on at the county meeting!!
I have blogged about this before but just to preface...at Church each member is asked to serve in some capacity. We call these callings. Until Sunday, April 28, 2013, I was teaching Institute every Thursday evening to Young Single Adults age 18-30. I also played the organ for Church services. I also cover a four hour shift at the Family History Center every 1st, 3rd & 5th Tuesdays with my hubby. I visit teach 4 sisters. And, finally, I play the organ for Stake Conference twice a year.
Sunday, April 21, 2013 we were told there would be a special meeting at 6pm that evening at the Lexington North Stake Center to tell us about the boundary changes within our Stake. These changes would affect the Georgetown Ward (congregation) which Claude and I reside in as well as the Beaumont Ward and the Pioneer Ward in Lexington.
Sunday, April 21st, I went to my father's apartment after the meetings were finished to pick our songs to sing at the nursing home. While visiting with him I received a call on my cell phone. It was the Executive Secretary. He said the Bishop wanted to visit with Claude and me after the 6pm meeting. Yike!! That could only spell change.
I eMailed Claude so he would be aware since he was in Owingsville. He eMailed back that he would meet me at the Stake Center.
In the meeting we were told that all the members with a Lexington mailing address and currently in the Georgetown Ward would now be in the Beaumont Ward. There was only one family in the Pioneer Ward that would now be in the Beaumont Ward. This was really not a huge surprise to anyone. We have known that the Georgetown congregation was getting way to large for the building. We also knew that when they formed the Georgetown Ward from the Georgetown Branch they did this by adding to the Georgetown Ward those members residing the Masterson Station section of Lexington. It always only seemed logical when a boundary change came that this would be the most likely boundary to move.
After the meeting and after the Bishop met with all other members about their new callings, he met with Claude and me last. Bless his heart he set up the appointments with parents with children being first so they could get kids home and saved those us without children to visit with him last. Claude predicted what it would be about accurately. I was being called to serve as the Primary president. Primary is the auxillary for the children 18 months to 12 years of age. We have about 70 children in our new boundaries. I have not served in Primary for many, many years. This would be a big change for me. I would be released from the callings of teaching Institute and playing the organ for Church and stake conference.
Sunday, April the 28th, the two ladies I requested to serve as my counselors had been called and accepted their callings. They are Amber Marcum as 1st counselor and Amy Coyne as 2nd Counselor. I also asked to retain the secretary, Jamie Lott, who served with the previous presidency. After one is called and accepts that calling, the congregation is given the opportunity to sustain them in Sacrament Meeting. That happened Sunday, April 28th. Then after all Church services were over the Bishopric gave each of us a blessing to help us with our callings. The Bishop gave me my blessing and my husband stood in the circle.
These blessings are a tender part of membership in the Church. As the Bishop was giving me my blessing I was thinking, I so want to remember these words and I wish I had a pen to write them down. Then I just tried to concentrate so I could remember them. I was so very happy when all our blessings were given and we were leaving the room and I was handed a pieces of paper with notes on them. Amber Marcum had quietly written down brief notes about what was said in each of our blessings and gave them to us. I have typed these notes and added them to my journal.
The previous Thursday, April 25th I went to Melanie Danielson's home. She was the previous Primary president. She gave me her materials and told me many of the things she did. This was a huge help.
Monday, April 29th I took Papa to Dr. Slabaugh's office in the morning for a check-up which went very well. After I dropped him back at his apartment, I headed over to the Church to clean the Primary closets. They had been using the chapel for the opening exercises for Junior and Senior Primary since they had way too many children to use the Primary room. They had things in a file cabinet behind the choir seats in the chapel that needed to be put back in the Primary closets in the real Primary room. I set to work cleaning at 11am and finished all I could do at 6:30pm. I didn't expect it to take that long but it did. It felt good to have all things in some type of order for us. I told my presidency we would just use it as it is and after a while, when we know our needs better, we could rearrange to better meet those needs.
That week we wanted to have a presidency meeting but the reality of the situation was Jamie and I were both leaving town for the weekend on separate trips to Michigan and would be gone from Wednesday through Sunday. My direction was to have each of the new counselors meet with each of their counterparts from the previous presidency for an orientation. Then we set Monday, May 6th, for our first presidency meeting.
The next wrinkle came on Sunday, May 5th, during Stake Conference. Our Stake President took a position as Dean at Utah Valley University. He was released and our Bishop, James Jenkins was called as the new Stake President. This was a major change. It meant that while trying to restaff lots of positions in our newly reboundaried (I made that word up) ward, we would be working with a Bishop that was also the Stake President and he would be working on getting a new bishopric in place. So many things to work with and around.
This last Monday, May 6th, we had our first presidency meeting. We began the process of restaffing and combining a few classes. We determined what areas each of us would cover in the Primary program. eMail's have flown.
Tomorrow will be the first Sunday to have Primary all on our own. It should be an interesting day. We're moving back into the Primary room. I'm full of angst about how it will go. I'm trying to stay calm and prepare myself to be flexible and look for positive solutions. Lots of prayers and thought so that I'm receptive to the Spirit as it directs us how to handle and deal with each little thing that comes up tomorrow.
So we have a Primary change in place and lots to learn for an old girl!!
After our lunch and competition for the Georgetown-Scott County Senior Center, we headed to LaGrange. We enjoyed playing with the Mini Marx's at their home and at the local park on Saturday.
We had a lot of fun with the Mini's.
They were given the Nook that Katelyn gave me to give to Papa. Papa tried twice to use it but he just got frustrated. So the Nook was given to Andie to use and to allow the Mini's to use as she saw fit. Hayden asked about having the Wizard of Oz put on the Nook. I checked just before we left and found it for $2.00. It was a complete set of 14 books. I didn't know there was more than one book. I asked Hayden if he wanted that and told him I would pay the $2.00. He was one very, very happy boy. So nice that he is that excited about reading.
Last year it was 'Beans & Cornbread' and the winner was Mayor Claude Christensen. It was the first annual cook-off to raise funds for the Georgetown-Scott County Senior Center.
This year it was 'Vegetable Soup'. The players were the same. Claude returned the kettle he won last year and clearly everyone wanted the coveted kettle.
From left to right we have Mayor Billy Swartz of Stamping Ground, County Judge Executive George Lusby of the Scott County Fiscal Court, Mayor Claude Christensen of Sadieville and Mayor Everitt Varney of Georgetown.
Mayor Varney showed up this year with a special Pillsbury Dough-boy Tie for good luck.
There was a bigger turn out this year. Senior Center buses came from other counties in our area. More local citizens attended. We were entertained by a lady who sings two weekends each month at Renfro Valley. We enjoyed soup while she sang and the soup judges plied their trade in the kitchen at the Scott County Extension Office.
Then...the judges made their decision and the contestants made their way to the front of the room for the announcement of the winner.
Yep, the coveted kettle award will reside this year with Judge George Lusby.
It was a good time for a worthy cause. A very nice way to start a Friday morning. Now we were off to LaGrange to play with the Mini's.
This is what happens when you get the Kentucky Monthly Magazine and your hubby reads it regularly and he finds something that interests him and he asks you if it interests you and you remember doing that when you were a kid and that means it interests you and you both decide to experience what you read in the Kentucky Monthly Magazine.
Claude read the April 2013 issue of Kentucky Monthly and found the article titled Springtime Aglow. Filled with amazing pictures of Dogwood blossoms in white and pink it tells of the annual event in Paducah, Kentucky along their Dogwood Trail. It seems almost every home in Paducah has at least one dogwood tree and many have lots of dogwood trees. Every year Paducah produces a map of the homes participating in the Dogwood Trail Celebration. At sunset the home owners turn on the flood lights they have placed beneath their dogwood trees and other ornamental bushes and flowers. You just pick up the trail and follow the arrows on the little signs or the map and enjoy viewing these beautiful floral displays as you drive through the residential areas of Paducah.
As a child we had a Dogwood Trail through the woods in Louisiana not far from Shreveport. Every spring, around Easter time when the dogwoods bloomed, my parents would pack us girls in the family mobile and head out to Dogwood Trail for a nice Sunday afternoon drive. I loved these outings and this is what piqued my curiosity about Claude's desire.
We checked our calendars and found two days we could escape from obligations and duties. I booked a hotel in Paducah. And Monday, April 22nd, we found ourselves hitting the open road on a beautiful spring day.
We would drive past the exit to Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. We always wanted to visit that but never planned it into a trip. We left early enough to make that side trip.
Our first stop would be at the Knob Creek Place. This is not where Abraham Lincoln was born. Lincoln was born in 1809 and his parents moved to Knob Creek Place in 1811. This is the place Lincoln remembered from his early childhood. A Knob is a hill or mountain.
Today there is a building to the right of this picture. It looks like a nice log home. It is actually the Lincoln Tavern. In 1886 Hattie Howard was born 10 miles from this sight. Her brother built the Nancy Lincoln Inn by Lincoln's birthplace. Hattie looked for her own opportunity to honor President Lincoln. In 1928 Hattie and her husband, Chester, purchased the Knob Creek Farm. They built The Tavern and it opened in 1933. The Tavern continued to be owned and operated by the Howard family until April 2001 when the LaRue County Fiscal Court purchased the property and donated it to the National Park Service. Currently the Tavern is an exterior only exhibit as they determined how to best use it.
We next drove down the road to Sinking Springs Farm in LaRue County where Abraham Lincoln was actually born. There is a very nice visitor's center with a film about this area and the Memorial built over the log cabin that was Abraham Lincoln's birth place. From the visitor's center and museum we walked a nice boardwalk path to the back of the Memorial where you enter to visit the log cabin.
Claude, who is always ahead of me on a tour of any kind, was already outside of the Memorial and around to the front of the Memorial before me. I found him standing behind a tall bush when I got to the front. There were people trying to get a picture of the Memorial and he didn't want to be in their picture. I hid behind the tall bush on the side of the Memorial where I was standing.
After the people were finished taking their pictures I made my way across the front of the Memorial to Claude. He just said something like, "What to see me be Samson?" I did not make the shift to whatever he was trying to say. I gave him a questioning look and he said, "Watch this." He walked over to the Memorial and did this...
Then I understood...'Samson', of course!! Wish you could see his facial expression as he acted the part of Samson.
We walked to the spring that gives Sinking Spring Farm its name. It is a moss and fern covered place with a good stream of water running in it to this day. This spring is located to the bottom left of the steps as you face the Memorial.
On we journeyed to Paducah to find our hotel and dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
All during the drive to Paducah we kept hearing a clicking sound that seemed to come from outside on the passenger side of the car. When we walked out of the restaurant and Claude unlocked my door he said, "I see what our noise is." The front of my car is long and rides low to the ground. Every time I park at a curb and then back out the under side of the bumper area scrapes. Every time I back down a steep drive the under side of my bumper area scrapes. This happened earlier in our trip and that must have been the final straw. The under side of my bumper was hanging down and clicking when we drove. So Claude drove across the street to an auto parts place, purchased a package of four tie-downs of some sort and laid down in the parking lot and attached the under side of the bumper so it didn't click. Such a handy fella he is!!!
We had time before sunset to enjoy something. Claude had been to Paducah for a Kentucky League of Cities meeting and some training. He proposed a drive to the river area. What a beautiful area. Paducah must be complimented for this wonderful spot for residents and visitors to enjoy.
They have built a flood wall that is very high all along this part of the river where downtown Paducah is located. Between the wall and the river the land slopes. A roadway has been built so cars can actually drive along the river for about a block. Between the road and the wall is a grassy area with trees for shade, picnic tables and concrete steps that can also be used for seating. There are planters full of spring flowers like tulips, pansies and poppies. Between the road and the river you can set up a chair and fish or walk out on a nice platform area. There are also lots of concrete steps that can also serve as seating.
We walked through the opening in the flood wall and enjoyed the scenery and an absolutely beautiful spring evening.
The crane stood still for me for the longest time. Then it gracefully flew over the river and away. Claude sat patiently while I roamed this area and took pictures of the beautiful scenery and flowers. The bikers came in on their bikes and enjoyed a rest at water's edge on the landing. The tow boats seemed to need to just race their engines for a bit and hurried out, turned around in the river and headed back up the river from which they came. The moon was out early and delightful in many of the pictures. It was a most pleasant way to pass the time.
We left this area between the flood wall and river and walked back up the block on the other side of the flood wall to the car. Again, the city of Paducah should be congratulated for another delight for residents and tourists. Each panel of the flood wall is painted with a mural depicting Paducah's history. There are murals for buildings being built, plants being built, history from the founding to the present day. I took pictures of just about all of them. Here is one of my favorites. I left the grass in front and the tree behind because, to me, it looks like the boat is actually on the river. This would be inside the steering part of one of the tow boats.
Then it was late enough we looked for a place to start the Dogwood Trail drive. It is not easy with my little camera to get a good picture as it gets dark. I will post one of a home that won an award. There were several who got this award. I really liked the look of the porch on this old home. It has obviously been added long after the home was built but it is a great blending of old architecture with newer architecture.
As darkness came the dogwood trees stood out more and more with the flood lamps shining on them. It was pleasant enough we did the ride with the windows rolled down.
Claude and I would both recommend this delightful experience. We happened to be there the same time as the American Quilter's Society QuiltWeek. There were quilting ladies all over the place. Our hotel was full of these ladies. If you are into quilting, this would be a must-do on your bucket list. You could get a two for the price of one out of this little trip.
We ended our evening with a stop at the Dairy Queen for an orange julius for Claude and a pina colada smoothie for me. Tuesday morning we slept until we woke up on our own and then headed back across Kentucky to Sadieville.
