Love Is..

When I got a Peanuts-themed Valentine from hubby today, I was reminded of the many little "Love is..." quotes and Snoopy cards I saw as a child. So here are my random thoughts on LOVE today...

Love is... Chocolate! C'mon, you can't deny that! Put these signs up at work, leading to my desk, and sold 40 of the 60 candy bars in the box on the first day!

Love is... Finding out that King Cone is re-opening already on Feb. 28! Be still my beating heart (and taste buds)!

Love is... Putting your love at "steak." Apparently in Texas the Valentine treats don't go straight to the hips, but to the calves instead!

Love is... Live streaming video. While I blog, I can watch one my "daughters" play hoops without traveling all the way to Wausau for the big rivalry game. Go Royals!

Love is... Above zero temperatures! Woke up to non-sub-zero temps for the first time in months. It actually got up to 22 degrees today and started a little melting. Even our driveway is showing the love on Valentine's Day. I just noticed the "heart" when I got out of the car and had to take a picture! I'm wondering if Ol' Man Winter has the HOTS (let's hope) for Mother Nature.

Love is... Date nights. Carter had to work, so Jim and I went to grab some good, greasy bar food for supper. Never had a bad meal at Sportsmen's Bar & Grill. And never had a bad date with Jim, of course. That goes without saying.

Love is... Sweet as candy. I asked Carter this morning if he was giving any valentines today. He said he had some candy but "nothing major." Knew who was getting one of the valentines but as of 7 a.m. when I was off to work, he wasn't sure who was getting the other 3. Lucky girls. I remember when I was his valentine!

Love is... God. And God is LOVE. Feeling so loved today and so very blessed to have an incredibly special group of friends and family in my life. Love and hugs to you all!

XOXO

Hunger Pains

OK, this is a shameless plug for the Saturday event I have been working on for the past few months. Just in case you are a "local" and available to stop by and support it!

The second annual South Wood County Empty Bowls fundraiser will be held from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at First English Lutheran Church. Just because it is held at MY church doesn't mean it's a church event. Last year we held the first one there since my pastor was making a hundred of the bowls. After this year, we hope to outgrow that location!

Empty Bowls is actually an international grassroots movement to fight hunger.  At the event, participants receive a simple meal in exchange for a cash donation that is given to a local organization whose goal is to fight hunger.  Those who donate also receive a handcrafted pottery bowl, made by a local artisan, to take home to remind them of all the empty bowls around the world.

This community event will raise money to support South Wood Emergency Pantry Shelf (SWEPS), as well as other local organizations working to combat hunger. Last year, we gave away more than $2,000 to a handful of programs in our area. I felt blessed to be part of the process!

The cost for our event is $10 (for age 3 and up), which includes a bowl of soup, bread, dessert and beverage. The bowls are being donated by two local potters, Joe Clark and Pastor Josh Fite, as well as being made by Lincoln High School art class students. Many yummy soups are being donated by local restaurants and businesses. Bread is provided by Helen Ponzcoch of the famed Little Pink Restaurant.

After eating, participants will HOPEFULLY stop into our Raffle Basket Room! With some great effort by our subcommittee, we have at least 30 for people to try to win! We just finished assembling and wrapping those up Tuesday night. There are several I hope I win! Please stop by and give it a try, though!

If you want to learn more about it, visit the Empty Bowls website at www.swcemptybowls.com. If you want to be part of the Planning Committee for next year, let ME know. A lot goes into this. It sure helps to have extra hands.

Hope to see you Saturday. If not, please pray for our efforts and those who are feeling real hunger pains every day.

Somebody's bowl is always empty...

Honestly, Abe, I Try...

Some words of wisdom from the birthday boy...

I like this quote (among many others from Honest Abe) because it is so simple. Straight to the point. Easy to follow.

Yet a person like me can complicate the hell out of it.

As he says: When I do good, I feel good. But when I do too much good, I feel bad.

Is there such a thing as "too much"? And how can it be bad?

Well, if I would sit on my hand once in awhile instead of constantly raising it to volunteer, I wouldn't be in the position where I feel bad (a.k.a. stressed) about it. But I can't stand the sound of silence (as the guys who live with me know) so when no one voices a willingness to step forward, I insert foot in mouth and step forward on the other.

So today's moment of stress is of my own making. And the calendar. It just happens that the few things (I really don't do THAT much, honestly) I do help with all fall in the same time period.

That would be NOW.

In the next month, I've got my Empty Bowls anti-hunger fundraiser, my completely organized ahead of time scrapbooking weekend, my completely finished work ahead of time so I can be out of the office a week "vacation" and I agreed to sell the neighbor girl's softball candy bars "because I am so good at it." Throw in a few must-do projects, and I have plenty of GOOD going on to keep me out of trouble.

If there was an Olympic event for multi-tasking, though, I'd be in the running for a medal. Tonight I was trying to look up some family tree information while watching both the Olympics and American Idol -- and selling candy bars. I found what I was looking for on the "tree," got the highlights of both shows and sold 7 bars already.

I better sign off.

I am pretty sure they are about to play the national anthem for me now.

Royal Finish

As the high school basketball seasons are winding down, we spent another evening court side. This time to watch the defending state champion lady Royals at work against Stratford.

And listen to the awesome Pep Band, of course.

Going into tonight's matchup, we shared the Conference lead with Marathon, who gave us our first conference loss last week. Their only loss had been to our girls back in December. Tonight, while our girls soundly defeated the Tigers by some 20 points, the Auburndale girls triumphed over Marathon, giving us the sole lead in the Conference.

Now that's a Royal finish!

We only have a few days to ride the high as we head up Friday to play Wausau Newman, normally our big arch rival. So we'll see what happens. It's challenging after winning state last year not to expect our team to get there again since we only lost one senior. But that's unrealistic since the composition of our opponents' teams has changed, too. Even we fans just gotta take it one game at a time!

It sure is fun, though. Gotta love the February Frenzy and March Madness that brings our little school community together as a family.

A Royal family, at that!

Sochi or So Close?

Tonight we opted for some live action rather than pre-recorded highlights from Russia.

So we found ourselves in the Assumption gym watching boys hoops versus a vertically gifted Abbotsford team. Yes, we're talking several players 6'3" and taller. No, we don't have any like that on OUR team.

After the JV game ended in a 2-point loss in overtime, Carter and the pep band entertained between games while hubby and I made the social rounds. By halftime of the varsity game, we were so far behind that I secretly considered playing the "homework" card for an early exit.

Good thing I didn't voice that out loud.

In the second half, we erased that 15-plus point deficit and came back and tied it. It was a pretty exciting 3rd quarter. And most of the 4th quarter was, too, while the Royals valiantly tried to keep the lead within their grasp.

In the end, we did lose 57-51, but that margin is mainly for all the purposeful fouls in the last minute of play in our attempts to get the ball back. Good effort, boys!

We got home in time for Carter to get going on homework and for me to check in with Bob Costas to see which was more exciting today: Sochi or our so-close game?

Always go local.

Lucky 13 ... Degrees, That Is

It's deceiving when the sun is shining so brightly and reflecting off the snow, almost blinding you. You think it's going to be beautiful day to step outside and smell the fresh air. Until you inhale and your lungs freeze up!

We did get up to a sunny 13 degrees today.

We're not the only ones tired of winter. Sylvester is reaching for every ray of sunshine possible in this photo! Can't blame her. She was quite disoriented and depressed when it was cloudy yesterday.

Now I hear Polar Vortex IV or V or VI (lost count) is on its way with minus 20 tonight and windchills 25 to 35 below zero tomorrow.

I suppose this is all the perfect setting to watch the Olympics, right? I did catch some action after I got home from church, but vowed I was not going to do that ALL day. I took a few hours "off" to get on the treadmill, lose to hubby in cards and to organize photos, etc., for scrap camp. I actually got quite a bit done, but have a long way to go. It's better to be over-prepared with a lot of potential pages to work on than run out of things to do.

For the record, that only happened once and it was a good thing since it forced me to organize my colored paper. (There's always a rainbow of some sort at the end of a scrapping weekend!)

Now that I've actually been more than productive, it's time to pop some popcorn and find an empty couch for today's highlights!

Pardon Our Mess

We interrupt this housecleaning to bring you the Olympics...

I might as well hang a sign like this outside our front door. Try as I might to be productive on a Saturday, I didn't get very far. For example, I was attempting to vacuum while figure skating was on. For some reason, even though I was just "watching" it, I had to shut off the vacuum cleaner and sit down so I could both see AND hear each routine.

So that took awhile.

I did sit down and watch a bit more but then had to run several errands in town. By the time we got back home, the figure skating was done and they'd moved on to downhill skiing practice runs. I didn't need to see that so I parked myself at the computer and uploaded hundreds of photos I need prints of before Camp Crop-A-Lot in 2 weeks.

Honestly, that took the better part of the afternoon, bringing us to dinner time, then the nightly Olympic recap show. This isn't live due to the time zone difference, but it recaps the important stuff. Some of it I did see LIVE today, but this will be most helpful on week nights when I am unable to watch during the day.

But still keep an eye online for spoiler alerts.

Some people hate those but I don't mind them. It lets me know I better not miss that night's recap program! And it doesn't always matter if you know ahead of time who won. It's HOW they achieved it that is interesting!

I better get to bed. It's been a long day and I still have read up on how this Team Ice Skating business works out. All I know is that I should be an ice dancer. Every time they said "twizzle" I was craving Twizzlers!

Red, if you please.