A Rainy Weekend Away

Ernie & I were looking forward to our Church Family Weekend. It was held at Toddhall Retreat & Conference Center in Columbia, IL. http://www.toddhallrc.org/ from Friday night - Sunday mid-morning. We arrived at Toddhall around 7:30pm Friday evening. The weekend started with a presentation about Haiti-the power point presentation wouldn't work but Bill Scoopmire read what he could to us. This activity was followed by a bonfire where we roasted marshmallows,made somemores, told ghost stories and enjoyed the evening. We closed out the evening with a service of Compline read by Lucy Krieg. Being tired out from a long week-most of us headed off to our rooms for the night.



Saturday morning started with breakfast of pancakes, sausage, coffee, fruit or juice. The morning was spent making crafts that had something to do with Haiti. Our choices were tat-tat fans, anglican prayer beads, bandanas, culture crosses, make a fruit salad or make a map of Haiti. I made anglican prayer beads and a bandana, and tasted the fruit salad.



Next was lunch which was sandwiches,salad, drinks and dessert. After lunch we spent an hour or so working in groups on plans for our Sunday Morning service. My group wrote our version of the Prayers of the People-incorporating prayers for Haiti. Since noone was volunteering to read, I took on that task.



Once our plans for worship were completed, the rest of the day was free time. Ernie was supposed to lead a Nature Walk, but that wasn't possible with all the rain. People spent their free time watching a movie (The Chronicles of Narnia), reading, talking, sleeping, etc.



Dinner was chicken,green beans, rice, drinks and apple pie !! Everything was delicious. After dinner we had a bit more free time than headed back to Wilson for a game of pictionary which lasted about 2 hours. We broke into 3 teams to play, each team took turns drawing and guessing. The most fun I had was watching the looks on peoples faces when they found out what they were supposed to draw. The children of Holy Communion are very ecology minded. We tried to use up most of the paper for pictionary. If someone tried to change the paper when there was still a blank space left to draw on-the kids called them a treewaster. We all got a laugh out of that. Later, the kids found it had stopped raining and insisted on going outside for a game of flashlight tag. Once again the evening ended with Compline and then free time- off to bed for some of us, more flashlight tag for others.

Sunday morning I woke up early and made enough noise (not intentionally) to wake Ernie up. I had thought it would be nice to take a walk before breakfast, but once again it started to rain. We got dressed and packed up as much as we could. Then we headed up to Ginny's for breakfast. After breakfast I decided to make some purchases at the Gift Shop. Then back to our room to finish packing and load the car so that we could leave for home right after church. Next we headed back to Wilson to turn in our keys and hang out until it was time for church. The church service was less formal than usual. It included dramatic presentations of the lessons, a poem psalm , guitar and violin music and the prayers of the people that our group wrote. Great service !!

After our worship service everybody headed for home. We got in our car to go home and found it wouldn't start. This freaked Ernie out, but thank goodness for Mark Willingham who knew just what to do. Eventually the car started and we were on our way.

We made a quick stop at home to grab Honey's collar and leash and make a pit stop-then it was off to Rock Road Animal Hospital to retrieve Honey. When we got to Rock Road AH I stayed in the car since Ernie was afraid to turn off the engine thinking it might not start again. After about 5 minutes, here comes Ernie telling me that he doesn't have his debit card and he doesn't know where it is. Once again Ernie is freaking out. I go in and pay with my card, we get Honey and are on our way home. Once home Ernie has me check the bank account for any fraudulent transactions (there are none-thank you God !)
We think about where he last used his card and he thinks it was at the ATM machine-not a normal use for us-but the mother's day holiday left him unable to get to the bank during it's open hours. He is calmer now that he knows where his debit card probably is. He decides he will call the bank tomorrow (Monday).

It's great to have a chance to get away and out of your normal routine, but its even greater to come back to familiar territory and one's own schedule.

---Joy------

CPAP Nightmare

Saturday, May 1, 2010

I am seriously thinking about renaming this blog CPAP Nightmares !! I just started CPAP therapy in the middle of April. It has not been an easy adjustment. I'm convinced that these machines and accessories were made by men-for men. Round 3 will take place on Monday afternoon as I will have a 3rd visit from Provider Plus. Hope this one is successful. More to come later-