A Few Items to Remember...

This year's Senior Center Chili Cook-off was Wednesday, October 15th.  We returned from Utah about 12:30am that morning and Claude had to have his chili entry to the Scott County Extension office by 10:30am.  Knowing this timing would be short, Claude prepared his chili before we left for Utah and froze it.  However, he froze it in the big pot he cooked it in.  When we got home from the airport, the first thing we did was turn the oven on to its lowest setting, put the pot in the oven, and then go to bed.  Fortunately, the pot of chili thawed easily this way.  Claude did not win with his entry this year but several of the ladies working the kitchen said his should have won.  He was happy with their comments.  Judge Lusby won this year.  This picture is of Jared, Claude and Judge Lusby chatting it up before the judging. They do have fun with this event.

Saturday, October 18th found Claude and I both outside doing yard work.  It was cloudy and very cool.  I wore an extra layer of clothing.  My job was finishing up the final weeding before winter sets in.  Claude was removing a tree that fell while we were in Utah.  It landed on his retaining wall and knocked a few blocks out of it.  Claude was very pleased it fell.  He was not looking forward to taking it out with his chain saw.  He was able to lift it over the retaining wall, put a chain on it and, with the aid of his trusty Jeep, pull it to the wooded area on the empty lot we own next to our home.  Then Claude set to trimming some of the trees on our hill.  I finally told him we had done enough and we needed to go inside.  I was chilled to the bone and only a very hot shower set my body temperature right again.  It was such a good day to have two old people still able to work hard in their yard for many hours.  I liked that a lot.

Sunday I taught the sharing time lesson in Primary.  The lesson plan suggested showing a picture of a family.  I determined to show a picture of my family when my kids were Primary age.  Since we have only lived here 10 years and all my kids are grown, the kids in Primary really don't know my children or have any idea what I was like younger that 64.  So I held up the picture and asked, "Do you know who this is a picture of?"  In senior Primary, one of the kids said, "That's your family."  I asked how she knew.  She said, "I recognized your husband."  Cracked me up.  My hubby has a full beard and mustache which he has worn since getting out of the Air Force.  So that is pretty clear.  Me, they didn't recognize at all.  I had long brown hair with no gray hairs at all.  Plus I was a lot thinner.  I just found it very amusing.

Claude invited me to speak with him at the Camino Branch sacrament meeting Sunday afternoon.  I chose a talk I loved that complimented the talk Claude was assigned.  The talk I worked from was given by Elder David A. Bednar in 2013 at a CES Devotional.  It is titled "That We May Not Shrink".  I pared it down so I would give it in about 7 minutes.  Claude and I each had 15 minutes to speak but we don't speak Spanish so another person would translate for us.  We get him a copy of our talks several days ahead, he reads them and then notes in the margin the words that he needs help changing from English to Spanish. When we  give our talks, we read a portion of the talk in English, then he says it in Spanish.  Therefore, I only need 7 minutes of talk to fill the 15 minutes time slot.  Just before the meeting he came to Claude and me to be sure which talk each of us was giving.  He showed us my talk and said, "I'm guessing this is her talk and the other is yours."  I responded with, "Does it sound a little girly to you?"  We chuckled and he said, "No, your talk uses the $5 words."  I assured him those were Elder Bednar's $5 words and we both laughed.  It was good to sit and listen to Spanish again.  Doing that makes you pay much closer attention as you try to understand and then feel the Spirit of the talk more.  Good experience.

Today I am sitting at the Family History Center covering our shift.  I'm using my time to catch up on my Blogging.  There is only one patron here today.  She is working on Swedish records.  She is not a member of the Church.  But she comes every now and then to do research in the Family History Center.  She turned to me and said, "Why would a Parish Priest put six exclamation marks at the end of an entry on a Church record?"  I asked if it was a record of baptism or marriage or something like that.  She said she didn't know because it was in Swedish and she can't read that but she can recognize the exclamation marks.  She said, "He must be a happy priest!"  We were silent for a while.  Then I asked her if their letters were like English letters so we might type them in a document and ask for a different language to translate it.  She said the letters are formed differently so we couldn't do that.  Then she said a funny comment.  She said, "It is sort of like the old tale of the lady who lost her glasses.  The lady said, 'I lost them in the garage, but I'll look for them in the kitchen because the light is better there!'"  I thought that was a very fun comment.

Now I'm caught up...again...May see the Mini's this week and then there will be more to Blog about I am sure.