Life around the Donaldson house has been extremely busy for me. I have been on my own route since January 7th. Six days a week is not bad when you are done by 11:30 everyday. It has enabled me to get lots of little things done that have needed to be done for a long time.
Things have been very busy as far as Cranfest. We are working in conjunction with the village board and two different lawyers on a village ordinance that will give vendors coming to Cranfest rules to abide by. We have had some problems with vendors not associated with Cranfest coming and setting up a booth on private lawns and selling illegal product (knives, drugs etc.) They are a small group of individuals, but it is something that has needed to be dealt with for years.
I also attented the Governor's Conference on Tourism. I met some neat people and had some great meetings. I actually have a few pictures to post at some time. The funniest thing that happened was on Sunday night they had 80's night. We were supposed to dress like we did in the 1980's. There I was running around in my FSU t-shirt, jeans and tennies. Pretty much everyone else dressed like Madonna. Let me tell you 40 and 50 year olds dressed like Madonna and Boy George are very, very scary. Oh well, they had a great time. It just proved that I was a nerd back then too. I didn't dress like that when I was skinny enough to carry it off.
I came home from that to find that my whole family was sick. Not only sick, but very sick. Will has not had a proper voice for two weeks. He is finally feeling better but not great. Jessalyn has finally kicked it, but now Jacob is running a high fever and has been sick for 3 days. Add the new puppy onto that and you have a crazy household for Mom. Thankfully, I have been taking my germ defence and seem to only have gotten a slight cold type thing in all of this. I am so ready for spring when I can air out the whole house and get rid of winter.
My sister Dale gave me her Amish Friendship Bread starter on Friday. She and her hubby Jimmy left for Tennessee Saturday. Well, it was ready to make the bread on Saturday, so it worked out really well. She did all the work over the 10 days and I made the bread. It turned out to be very tasty. I now have 4 bags of starter to do something with. I think that I will get rid of one and keep three. I will then have enough starter to make 6 loaves of bread in 10 days and can freeze a couple. You never know when you will need some.
We are working on Cranfest recipes for the church now. Trying to find some good cranberry bread recipes that will freeze well. We can fit lots more loaves of bread in the freezer than we can pies. We will still make the pies, but not as many. We also want to sell popcorn in the booth this year. Things are starting to shape up though and get fun.
Well, church today. I know the weather will be great, so maybe we can all get some fresh air. I hope that things are great with all of you. Take care!
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sunday, March 19, 2006
New addition to the family!
I have been resisting this for some time now. I have had perfectly logical and well thought out reasons for saying "no" that have withstood many attacks and even ambushes... until now.
In one instant almost all of my well thought out reasons were eliminated and the remaining reasons couldn't withstand the circumstancial as well as the rather substancial "puppy dog eyes" of my wife and children.
In the pictures that follow you can meet the newest addition to our family: Sam.
Sam is a four month old pure-bred black lab. He has already been house trained, neutered and has had all of his shots. He is the victim of a "family split" and the owner found she was unable to keep him. Sam only cost us the adoption fees which are significantly less than the costs of shots and neutering -never mind the cost of a full blood black Lab.
Both of my children have been making such great strides in their personal and scholastic lives that I had been pondering how to reward them when news of Sam reached my ears. So I sat down and did the math:
Adoption fees: $80
pet bed: $22
training book: $15
The look on my kids faces when I said "Yes":
----------------------------------------------------------------
Priceless
We've had Sam now for two days and with the exception of a couple of chewed up boxes and one hard landing on my chest at 5:30am (He was so darned happy to have "found" me I couldn't stay mad for longer than it took to put air back in my body) Sam has proven to be a very "good" dog indeed. I pray that continues. I only have one concern really, his name.
He is 4 months old and has already had at least three homes (the first owner, the vets office and now ours) through them all His name has been "Sam" and I don't want to confuse him any more with a different one, but I never liked a certain news reporter who had the same last name as mine... and now his complete name lives in my house. It's an insult to the dog really...
In one instant almost all of my well thought out reasons were eliminated and the remaining reasons couldn't withstand the circumstancial as well as the rather substancial "puppy dog eyes" of my wife and children.
In the pictures that follow you can meet the newest addition to our family: Sam.
Sam is a four month old pure-bred black lab. He has already been house trained, neutered and has had all of his shots. He is the victim of a "family split" and the owner found she was unable to keep him. Sam only cost us the adoption fees which are significantly less than the costs of shots and neutering -never mind the cost of a full blood black Lab.
Both of my children have been making such great strides in their personal and scholastic lives that I had been pondering how to reward them when news of Sam reached my ears. So I sat down and did the math:
Adoption fees: $80
pet bed: $22
training book: $15
The look on my kids faces when I said "Yes":
----------------------------------------------------------------
Priceless
We've had Sam now for two days and with the exception of a couple of chewed up boxes and one hard landing on my chest at 5:30am (He was so darned happy to have "found" me I couldn't stay mad for longer than it took to put air back in my body) Sam has proven to be a very "good" dog indeed. I pray that continues. I only have one concern really, his name.
He is 4 months old and has already had at least three homes (the first owner, the vets office and now ours) through them all His name has been "Sam" and I don't want to confuse him any more with a different one, but I never liked a certain news reporter who had the same last name as mine... and now his complete name lives in my house. It's an insult to the dog really...
Friday, March 17, 2006
New posting on our other blog!
There is a new posting on our other blog "The Bible in Context 101". you will find a link for it on the right. It's kind of long and I apologize for that but the good news is: at the rate I make postings you should have plenty of time to read it all before I "post" again! ;-p If you would rather copy and paste the web address:
http://holybible101.blogspot.com/
Don't forget your comments here and there are always welcome!
Will.
http://holybible101.blogspot.com/
Don't forget your comments here and there are always welcome!
Will.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
There S'no business like snow business
It's snowing again. It looks like we're going to get another 4 to 6 inches. This is the kind of snow I really like too. The temp is about 27 degrees and the snow flakes are huge.
Everything had been melting and there were patches of ground showing up here and there with the old snow hard and crunchy from the previous "freezing rain" we've had. Early Spring can get kind of ugly around here. The snow that is left is usually dirty from the mud that it's turned the ground into. The grass can't make up it's mind what color it wants to be and neither can the sky. It looked like we were getting ready to enter into that phase but now everything is all pretty and white again.
You can't even tell just how much help my landscaping really needs. Even the old rusted out dodge truck in my driveway is starting to look like there may be hope for it yet...Okay, maybe that's going to far but you get the idea.
Usually when I write in this space about winter or any of the seasons for that matter, I am thinking of those friends and family that live to the south of us or occasionally east. ( A friend of mine who writes a blog in Michigan took exception to my descriptions of the Wisconsin Fall season stating that fall in Michigan is" far superior" no pun intended. He is entitled to his opinion -he's wrong but he is entitled to his opinion ;-P)
Anyway, I have a cousin who lives in Alaska that I am so glad to be getting to know again (another unexpected benefit of the internet!). She was kind enough to send me some pictures and she gave me permission to post them here.
Her family was on a basket ball trip and she snapped some shots for us. I posted part of the captions she sent with the pictures. I love the beauty of Wisconsin but the pics she sent...WOW! If only all the "basket ball" trips of the world had this kind of scenery!
Enjoy!
Will
(p.s. Thanks again "Cuz"!)
Everything had been melting and there were patches of ground showing up here and there with the old snow hard and crunchy from the previous "freezing rain" we've had. Early Spring can get kind of ugly around here. The snow that is left is usually dirty from the mud that it's turned the ground into. The grass can't make up it's mind what color it wants to be and neither can the sky. It looked like we were getting ready to enter into that phase but now everything is all pretty and white again.
You can't even tell just how much help my landscaping really needs. Even the old rusted out dodge truck in my driveway is starting to look like there may be hope for it yet...Okay, maybe that's going to far but you get the idea.
Usually when I write in this space about winter or any of the seasons for that matter, I am thinking of those friends and family that live to the south of us or occasionally east. ( A friend of mine who writes a blog in Michigan took exception to my descriptions of the Wisconsin Fall season stating that fall in Michigan is" far superior" no pun intended. He is entitled to his opinion -he's wrong but he is entitled to his opinion ;-P)
Anyway, I have a cousin who lives in Alaska that I am so glad to be getting to know again (another unexpected benefit of the internet!). She was kind enough to send me some pictures and she gave me permission to post them here.
Her family was on a basket ball trip and she snapped some shots for us. I posted part of the captions she sent with the pictures. I love the beauty of Wisconsin but the pics she sent...WOW! If only all the "basket ball" trips of the world had this kind of scenery!
Enjoy!
Will
(p.s. Thanks again "Cuz"!)
This was taken on the drive up to Nenana, Alaska about 2:00 PM (for a basketball tournament...)The location is about 20 miles south of Cantwell.....Denali National Park. It snowed pretty much the whole drive up, but was really unusually clear on our return. That's the sun peeking through the snowy skies! Temp was around Minus 25 degrees!!!!!
Mt. McKinley is on the far right in this shot. The highway is at least 90 miles east of the base of the mountain so you're only seeing about the top 1/4. It is very rare to have such beautifully clear skies! Can you tell we were traveling about 60 mph....LOL the picture doesn't do the scenery justice though! Wish you could all see it the way we did!
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