Last Week's Activities

Potato Shooter, Brandon's Birthday, Academy Awards, Gourmet Dinner Group, Oscar Party, Lunch with Lauren, Newcomers Club, Hot Stone Massage

Last week was a wonderful mixture of family, friends, pampering and a potato shooter!!! Yes, I do lead an interesting life...

Last week was the newcomers club monthly meeting at a nearby golf course and our speaker was Sue McGinty, a mystery writer. I was asked to talk about the changes to the newsletter (they loved the changes I made! I can't do anything half way!!!) and the president and I even put out a 'teaser' about an upcoming contest we came up with. Me, being the organizer person that I am, recruited four ladies at my table to join my Tuesday / Thursday exercise class.

Thursday was a day of Me Time - Exercise class and a walk with my friend on the beach - she'd been gone for a week, so it was nice to catch up on her activities. The relaxation from a hot stone massage sent me to bed early that night.

Friday was the Gourmet Group dinner - yummy!!! My friend's beautiful home has a great view of the ocean and bay and was the perfect setting for what she called the family "Sunday Dinner" - tri-tip, beans, bread, salad. Gulp! Now, I'm up next month for hosting dinner. Being the creative type, dinner HAS to involve creativity, so I'm planning some fun activities for my guests while I prepare dinner - they don't know yet, but it's going to be Creativity Night - no experience necessary. The picture is of the 'beadable' spreaders, pickle forks and wine stoppers I got from Oriental Trading Company. The balls screw off, so they will thread on beads while I fix dinner. There was mention of us starting a cookbook with the recipes from our get togethers, so my mind was swirling thinking about having them transform a binder into a cookbook to hold our treasured recipes. Well, see how that unfolds.

Saturday morning, my sister, nephew and I went to my hometown of Lemoore for my nephew's birthday party - he's seven now and I can't imagine how that happened. I went over to their house early to help Nicki, my sister-in-law, with preparations. She's working as a full-time sub right now while a teacher is out on maternity leave, so life is hectic for the family. Great party!!! The highlight was when one of my brother's friends brought out The Potato Shooter - it was a science project for his son's seventh grade class. Oh my gosh!!! It's made from PVC pipe (not your little stuff!), has an ignitor inside the tube and then they found the best propellant was hair spray. So, the Potato Shooter was loaded with 10 seconds of hair spray and a full-on russet potato - that thing shot the potato out like it was a cannon! As the party progressed and it got dark, my brother, in his 10 year old wisdom (he's really 40) got egged on by his friend to put on his motorcycle helmet and be 'hunted'. Needless to say, my brother now has a welt on his beeeeee-hind from where the potato hit him...Might I say, I don't encourage this and it was done under safe conditions...it was hilarious!!!

Last night was Oscar Party Night! Loved it! The party was my suggestion to the head of our Chick Flicks group - it's fun to come up with the ideas and then have someone execute them. Shary was dressed to the hilt with a beautiful blouse and long skirt. The food was excellent and I took popcorn since it was all about movies! I got the popcorn boxes from Michaels - it made a quick, inexpensive, yet impactful snack. I loved the format of the show and found it interesting that there wasn't a lot of 'bling' so far as diamonds and necklaces and the colors of the dresses were very muted.

I had lunch with Lauren Johnston, from the old Aleene's days, at a restaurant I'd never heard of - evos - feel great fast food. We even had some airbaked fries and topped it off with some Karma Ketchup. It was great to get together with her - there's never enough time to get totally caught up!

This week is in full swing already with dinners out, a COPE meeting on Friday and I have two sets of friends that I get to see on Saturday - I can't wait! One I haven't seen in four years. I was asked last night to be a sub for a Bunco party on Wednesday - I HAVE TO GET WORK DONE somewhere in there too. Yikes!

A friend and I just took a walk on the beach - the weather has been so gray and rainy, we took advantage of some sunshine and I'm thankful to get some oxygen to my brain, so I can get some writing done.

Make it a tremendous week!

Joan