Catching Up!

Well. I figured I needed a day or two to recover. I was just a little bit off.

And now so much time has passed that I'm not sure how to proceed. So bear with me! Perhaps I'll work backwards...

This afternoon we took a little time off and went for a drive. We had a great time reminiscing.

"Isn't that the street where that pastor lived - where we stayed when we candidated for the church and I squeezed a juice box and squirted purple liquid all over the powder blue carpet of their formal living room at 3am in my attempts to keep my one-year-old from squalling?" (AND all the way down the hall right past their bedroom, spending the next 30 minutes on my hands and knees scrubbing it up. My face was about 3 inches from the bottom of their bedroom door at one point, and if Mike had touched me, I probably would have shot right through the ceiling and out into the starlit sky.)

"There's the cemetery where I went when I had that horrible toothache, and Mike was performing a graveside service, and I was due at the hospital to help a friend deliver her baby, and I really needed a big fat 800mg ibuprofen, which Mike had, so I snuck up to him and he slipped me one and I slipped back to my car and dug through the trash on the floor of the backseat until I found a little fluid in a weeks-old McDonald's cup and swallowed down that pill."

"Hey! There's the spot where we had to pull over to let Grandma throw up." I'll just stop there with that one.

~~~~~

Last night at church we watched "The Pineapple Story." It's been around for a couple of decades, but I had never seen it before and I ROARED when the missionary said, "If it weren't for the people, I would have made a great missionary." Oh boy, if it weren't for the people.... I can SO relate.

~~~~~

Saturday night, after a long day of work, we decided to go out to dinner. It felt like it had been forever since we'd gone out to eat. We picked a cute little Italian place downtown. I have four words for you: Butternut.Squash.Stuffed.Ravioli. And one more word: YUM.

~~~~~

Wednesday through Friday are a blur. Work, work, work. I'm pretty sure I was a zombie the first day. That banquet Tuesday night really took it out of me.

~~~~~

And now, the 4th Annual Victory Home Fundraising and Awareness Banquet.

I made a slide show, but I couldn't just show pictures without at least a little commentary.

Look carefully - we're on the fancy TV monitors in the lobby:

Here we are beginning to set up the auction and the centerpieces:

We added ivy, rosemary and gold embellishments to the pinecones and magnolia leaves. They looked very natural and elegant.




Flutterbug took a panoramic picture of the ballroom:



Come on in:

Mike with Paul, supervisor of our outlet store, and husband of Nancy, the director, and owner of three cats - one of which is a REAL NUTCASE. Thought I'd throw that in there.

Flutterbug with the delightful Mrs. Taffie Starling, who has been mentioned on this blog a time or two, and was once known to lick a good many self-stick stamps before noticing that she didn't need to, and who recently saw a watermelon growing in the swamp near her house, made plans with her neighbor to enjoy it, poked it with a stick to see if it was ripe, and discovered it to be a BALL. She keeps me in stitches!

Nancy, Victory Home's director, laughing with a couple of former clients:

The silent auction was a frenzy of activity:

We made eleven wreaths out of donated items - we've done it every year and they sell well.

I made the backing for the many gift certificates with foam board, duct tape, an exacto knife and textured card stock in several colors. Managed to avoid stabbing myself (again) with the knife, didn't have a problem with the extremely rusty t-square that I used, but I did manage to get a paper cut from the fat foam board, right in the crease of my finger. How on earth, I don't know.

Melissa, who handles the finances and special projects, with Mrs. Taffie:

"Billy" having a ball, cavorting with his dad, who spoke that night:

Flutterbug and her dad:

Former resident Clint, Pastor Jerry, and Jeremy - men's supervisor and one-time resident:

A long-time thrift store customer, thrilled to see Randy, a former resident who spoke that night:

A recent graduate, who returned to speak, chatting with donors:

Eight men gave short testimonies - some clients, some recent graduates, and some who finished 2-3 years ago - it was the best part of the evening!

These three men are in the apprenticeship program, a 3-year commitment:

(Tim, John, Clint)

This is Thomas, who attends a local Bible college now. I posted his testimony several months ago:

Suddenly it was over and all that was left was cleanup and counting and dragging our tired bodies home. God blessed us with $6,000 (over the cost of the banquet) and he blessed those who attended with stirring testimonies of God's grace and mercy.

Isn't God the BEST? Amen.