October Weekend in Oregon

Several weeks ago I agreed to cook breakfast for our monthly men's breakfast...knowing, full well that "the" cook in the house would be there for me. Shortly after I made that commitment I was asked to be liturgist for the month of October...not realizing there were 5 Sundays.

The confluence of events on Saturday had us walking to soccer to watch Tru at 9:00, then home for "the" cook to begin to weave her magic. Almond puff pastry roll, cinnamon rolls with icing, egg casserole, and potatoes...were prepared...it took all day.

I got up at 5:00 on Sunday to head into the church with the food. My partner (from the men's group) showed up at 6:00 and the rest fell into place. There were 17 of us...and not much food survived. Aleene was given the credit, of course, and her cooking was a hit. One of the wives, later in the day, said we had set a dangerous example. Yikes, we rocked the boat. This was supposed to be an all male project. Next time.

I gunned the empty dishes home and Aleene where was preparing the meal for noon when the family would be over. But I was able to pry her away and got her back to church and in her choir robe. We sang, and I did my liturgy thing...then we stayed for a while to see some slides of a work group that went to Scotland in June to our pastor's home church when she was a child.

The family came for dinner (I grilled), Truman stayed for an hour or so after lunch until his mom picked him up to be whisked off to another appointment. We crashed.

We went to our alternative service at 7:00. We have this once a month. It is usually creative and it gives us a chance to interact with a smaller group. The pastor's daughter and her husband are moving this week to Boulder, CO...she is a singer and does the vocals at the alternative service. Her hubby is a pharmacist...just out of school so he has a lucrative career in front of him. Sarah is a dietitian/food inventor for a sub of She will continue to work from her home with a trip or two to Portland a month. The parish family will miss their kids...both are now gone from the area. The pastor's hubby was my captain on last weekend's rafting trip, so I got to know much about their two. We wanted to be sure to get to hear Sarah one more time. They move this week.

Today the UPS man brought us our closing papers to be signed and notarized...an hour's worth of that...and back to the UPS store to get the documents overnighted in time for formal closing on Wednesday. At last... Aleene called Jeff and then another call to Mary to get the latest on the new grandson. (Jeff was upstairs of their new house installing a closet system while Mary was down stairs putting things away and waiting on the word that Trish and Ethan would be coming home today.)

After lunch Aleene got her hair done, while I ran some errands related to all the document stuff we had going on...now she is at Yoga while I am enjoying Monday night football...AT 5:30 IN THE AFTERNOON. Yes.

Tomorrow we take the family dog, Frodo, to the groomer...and pick up Tru for the afternoon here...and so it goes in Oregon in October.