New Year's

I'm not really into football and not an Iowa State Cyclone fan - I lean more Iowa Hawkeye if I lean.  But Friday I watched both bowl games that the Cyclones and Hawkeyes were in......and that both the Cyclones and Hawkeyes lost (big sigh).  The Hawkeye game started at 9:00 p.m. Iowa time and ended after midnight.  Toward the end of the game they had to have a delay of game for ESPN because their sky cam fell from the sky.  It almost landed on some Hawkeyes and one of the players (McNutt) appeared to get tangled in some of the wire the sky cam went back and forth on.  It was kind of sad watching them s-l-o-w-l-y pull that big, expensive sky cam across the field.

Saturday morning I went to an estate sale with a friend with this sale being in the actual house.  The house was in the neighborhood south of Grand Avenue where there are some really big, neat houses.  The house the sale was in was really interesting - not a house I would want to live in - but interesting and it had quite the view.  It even had a swimming pool with a big deck around it.  There was a sign on the main window you would look out to view the swimming pool and deck that said, "Pool and deck make best offer."  I had two thoughts, "Why in the world would they move that big, in-ground pool and deck?  And if they did move them, I'd sure like to watch them do it."  I can't remember what I said to the lady working the sale but she told me, "Anything on the deck or by the pool, make best offer."  Oooohhhh - gotcha.  I made a comment about the sign to my friend and she said how she had wondered what they meant by it.  I told her to not ask - I'd already voiced what I thought the sign meant and was set straight :)

My last errand yesterday was to buy cheese bread/pizza from Papa Murphy for Butler's and my dinner last night - a little splurge since it was New Year's Eve.  I watched "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve 40th Anniversary" and enjoyed watching some of the Top 40 videos from the past 40 New Year's Eve shows.  I especially smiled when K.C. and the Sunshine Band and Rick Springfield were in the top 15.  Mike and I saw K.C. and the Sunshine Band in an outdoor concert on 5th Street in Valley Junction (one street over from where I live) one summer.  And I can't remember if it was the same summer - I don't think it was - but we saw Rick Springfield at the ValAir Ballroom (which is like four blocks from my house) and Mike caught one of Rick's guitar picks.  Both K.C. and Rick were in their prime when I was in college and if someone would have told me that I'd see both of them in concert within blocks of my house in 20 years I would have laughed them to shame.

Well, we saw the ball drop at 11:00 p.m. our time for New York.  I then turned the tv off to spend some time reading the Bible, taking personal communion and praying.  Mike and I had done New Year's Eve communion for the past couple of years and I've done it the past two years on my own - to start the new year off right.  I turned the tv back on to watch the ball drop at midnight for us - told Butler "Happy New Year", kissed him on the head and went to bed.

This morning church started an hour later than normal - and I was glad because staying up after midnight the last two nights was a little much for me :)  Today the new church plant that the pastor and family is from our church - their core group worshipped with us this morning.  A friend and I had the craft for the WAVES! group (K-2nd) and we were making name tags for the kids to wear each week.  They were shrinky dink - remember that?  The kicker was the kids had to write their name on the back side of the shrinky dink - backwards.  And those that needed help writing their name, we helped them - which was most of the kids.  The only letters that would throw me for a loop for a second were "d", "s", and "y".  I had to remember to make a "b" for "d" and draw the "s" and "y" in the air to make sure I wrote them correctly backwards before doing it on the shrinky dink.  My friend was amazed at how quickly I could write names backwards.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that my junior year in college during my psych class (which I detested) I spent part of the lecture time teaching myself how to write backwards with my right hand and also how to write in cursive with my left hand.  Evidently my brain and hand just kicked in after all those years this morning :)  After the service we had a potluck in the gym.  The two pix at the end of the blog show the big group of all of us eating.

Still no real snow - which means no using the snow blower so far - which is fine with me.  But I've had to deal with leaves in the driveway, especially the last two days with the wind really picking up.  I want to keep the leaves cleared up in case we get snow so when I run the snow blower it doesn't get clogged up with the leaves.  I swept up leaves yesterday and put them in the trash.  I swept up a lot of leaves when I got home from church today and put them in the trash.  And then when I took the trash out - I swept up more leaves to put in the trash.  But again - I'd rather do that than deal with snow.............